sapling she leaned against, behind her back, to still their trembling. “Say on.”
“I prayed. I drew us to Casilchas so that I might consult my superiors. You . . . spoke to me. The dreams ceased. My superiors suggested I bestir myself to really be your spiritual conductor, since I had gone so far already, and lady, I have tried.”
She opened a hand to assuage his concern, though she was not sure he could see it in the failing light. So, his peculiar convictions about her spiritual gifts, back in Casilchas, had come from a more direct source than old gossip. Through the sparse trees, the firelight was starting up from two pits dug in the sandy stream bank, in cheery defiance of the gathering night. The fires looked . . . small, at the feet of these great hills. The Bastard’s Teeth, the range was called, for in the high passes they bit travelers.
“But then the dreams started up again, a few nights past. New ones. Or a new one, three times. A road, much like this. Country much like this.” His white sleeve waved in the shadows. “I am overtaken by a column of men, Roknari soldiers, Quadrene heretics. They pull me from my mule. They—” He stopped abruptly.
“Not all prophetic dreams come true. Or come true as first seen,” said Ista cautiously. His distress was very real, it seemed to her, and very deep.
“No, they could not be.” He grew almost eager. “For they slew me in a different cruel way each night.” His voice slowed in doubt. “They always started with the thumbs, though.”
And she and Liss had laughed at his wine-sickness . . . drowning dreams, was he? That didn’t work. She’d tried it herself, long ago in Ias’s court. “You should have told me this! Much earlier!”
“There cannot be Roknari here, now. They would have to cross two provinces to reach this place. The whole country would be aroused.” His voice seemed to be trying to push back the darkness with reason. “That dream must belong to some other, later future.”
You cannot push back the darkness with reason. You have to use fire. Where had that thought come from? “Or no future. Some dreams are but warnings. Heed them, and their menace empties out.”
His voice went very small, in the darkness. “I fear I have failed the gods, and this is to be my punishment.”
“No,” said Ista coldly. “The gods are more ruthless than that. If they use you up in their works, they have no more interest in you than a painter in a crusted and broken brush, to be cast aside and replaced.” She hesitated. “If they still lash and drive you, you may be sure it means they still want something from you. Something they haven’t got yet.”
“Oh,” he said, no louder.
She gripped the tree. She wanted to pace. Could they get off this road? It was farther back to Vinyasca, now, than it was to go forward. Could they strike down this streambed to the plains? She imagined waterfalls, thorn tangles, sudden rock faces over which it was impossible either to ride or lead their mounts. They would think her mad to insist upon such a wild course. She shivered.
“You are right about the Roknari, though,” she said. “Single spies, or small groups in disguise, might penetrate this far south unseen. But nothing strong enough to overcome our well-armed company, in any case. Even Foix is not out of the muster.”
“True,” he allowed.
Ista bit her lip, looking around to be quite sure the young man had gone out of earshot back to the camp. “What about Foix, Learned? For a moment, I saw—it was as if I saw the bear’s spirit. It was more riddled and decayed than its body, writhing in an agony of putrefaction. Will Foix . . . ?”
“His danger is real, but not imminent.” Dy Cabon’s voice firmed on this surer ground, and his white-clad bulk straightened. “What he has gained by accident, some sinful or shortsighted or desperate men actually seek by design. To capture a demon, and feed it slowly on themselves in exchange for its aid—so men turn sorcerers. For a time. Quite a long time, some of them, if they are clever or careful.”
“Who ends up in charge, then?”
He cleared his throat. “Almost always the demon. Eventually. But with this young elemental, Foix would be master at first, if he made the attempt. I do not mean to discuss this