CHAPTER 16 #3
Brenner let go of the dagger hilt and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her off balance, just a little, just enough so that she had to either grab at him or step back.
And then, for no particular reason, she remembered Caliban holding her up in the streambed, until she could get her feet under her.
Slate stepped back.
“What was that all about?”
Brenner grinned down at her. “Just sayin’ thank you, darlin’.”
“You could just say it, like normal people.”
“Ah, where’s the fun in that?” He wiped his mouth. “And you were right there for it, too. For a moment, anyway.”
“Yeah, well…” She glanced away. “Old habits die hard.”
“Can’t blame a man for trying. Still dreaming about tall, blond, and guilty? It’s a bad idea. Never date a man prettier than you, it never ends well.”
Slate snorted loudly. “Are you daft? I never come between a man and his self-loathing.”
“You’re a poor liar, darlin’. I’d say stick to figures, but that was a pretty sweet rescue the other night, even if you should look before you leap.”
She dug an elbow into his ribs. “I looked for a good twenty minutes! It’s not my fault that they were all tucked around the edge of the building like that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not complaining.” He slung an arm around her shoulders as they walked back down the hillside. “Just want you to know, you ever find yourself getting cold at night…”
“With Grimehug sleeping over my legs like that? I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.”
They were halfway back to camp, where Learned Edmund was trying to do the dishes without Grimehug helping, and Caliban was doing something obscure to the horses’ tack. Brenner began rolling a cigarette. “One other thing…”
“Hmmm?”
“Our paladin.”
“What abou—gaah!” Slate sneezed several times in rapid succession. “About him?”
“You okay, darlin’?”
Slate rubbed at her nose. “Dunno. Allergies, probably. But what about the paladin?”
Brenner shrugged. “Probably nothing. But that demon-rune was awfully interested in him. She was muttering into his ear in god-knows-what kinda language for a good few minutes before she started strangling him.”
“Yeah, I saw some of that. Well, and so?”
He put the cigarette in his mouth. “Like I said, probably nothing.” A match hissed, and he lit the end quickly, then shook it out. “But he didn’t talk in his sleep last night.”
Slate had her sleeve over her nose, but looked up startled.
“You think something happened to his demon?”
Brenner shrugged and flicked the match away. “What do I know about demons? Just thought I’d mention it, darlin’.”
More unsettled than she wanted to admit, Slate kept an eye on Caliban’s distant figure all the way back to camp.
“Well,” said Learned Edmund, their second night in the wonder-engine’s valley, “I have the proverbial good news and bad news.”
They were sitting around the fire. Grimehug was stretched out full-length on his back, looking like a hearthrug designed by incompetent weavers.
Brenner was sharpening his knives. Caliban was oiling his scabbard.
Slate was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with all the small deadly noises going on to either side of her, and was wishing she had a harmonica just to drown them out.
She seized on Edmund’s pronouncement instead. “So what’s the good news?”
“I’ve figured out more or less where we are in relation to the rest of the world,” said Learned Edmund.
“And the bad news?”
“There’s a lot of the Vagrant Hills in the way.”
“How did we get that far off track?”
The scholar sat back, rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well… we should never assign to malice what we can assign to our incompetence…”
“Hear, hear,” muttered Brenner.
“But near as I can tell, the Vagrant Hills reached out and grabbed us.”
“Can they do that?”
“Apparently so.”
“There’s another possibility,” said Caliban. His voice was still hoarse, but had most of its timbre back. He had been staring into the fire, but he looked up now. The flames left his face backlit with orange, and woke unpleasant highlights in his eyes.
“Yes?” said Slate.
“The rune demon. I don’t know how much power it had, but it’s possible that it might have warped the landscape. It felt my demon as soon as we entered the Hills. Perhaps it wanted to bring it closer.”
“Might be right, big man,” said Grimehug. “Don’t know where your smuggler’s road is, but clocktaurs went in maybe twenty miles from Anuket City. Only cut a little through the hills when a gnole fell off and rune caught me.”
“And we were nearly sixty miles away from Anuket City,” said Slate. “So—what, the rune-demon managed to make the horses run forty miles in five minutes? Or she pulled the landscape out from under us like a rug? That can’t be possible.”
Caliban shook his head. “I don’t know. Some demons are supposed to be able to twist the world around them. It’s how they levitate and do some of the other tricks. And she was incredibly strong, and for her kind, very subtle.”
“Couldn’t do much about a slit throat, though,” muttered Brenner.
“I don’t know if that’s what happened. I’m just saying that it’s possible she was behind it.”
“The Vagrant Hills are notoriously malleable,” Learned Edmund said.
“A demon might not need as much power here, in order to change things. It may even account for why we did not encounter any great oddities once we entered. She may have wanted to bring us as quickly as possible, and smoothed the way.”
They all stared into the fire in silence for a while.
“Still,” said Slate finally, “the demon’s gone, right?”
She was looking at Caliban when she spoke. He nodded, slowly, the fire painting shadows under his skin.
Brenner caught her gaze and jerked his chin a quarter-inch toward the paladin.
Yes. I know.
Slate gnawed on the edge of a fingernail. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Might even work as a shortcut, if we’re only twenty miles from Anuket City now. Learned Edmund, can you get us to the road?”
He met her eyes. Despite everything, Slate was pleased.
If I can get a scholar of the Many-Armed God to at least make eye contact with me, surely the rest of the world can’t help but fall into place.
“Probably,” he said. “I don’t promise it won’t get, um, strange.”
“Stranger than it already has?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, I think the wonder-engine is…hmm…. grounding some of the oddities, like a lightning rod. Once we leave here, some very odd things might start to happen. Or nothing at all might happen. There’s no way to tell.”
“Okay. Good to know, I guess.” Slate sneezed, started to dig in her pockets for a handkerchief, and took the one the knight handed her instead. “Okay. We’ll move out tomorrow, and we’ll follow your best guess.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to travel?” asked Caliban, glancing at the rag tied around her shoulder.
“I’ll be fine.”
“We could wait another day—”
“I’ll be fine, Mother. I’ll wear a sweater and I won’t go home with any strange boys.”
Brenner snickered. The paladin’s lips twitched, and he turned back to the fire. “Very well.”
Slate woke up in the middle of the night, at some small sound. She lay awake listening to the people sleeping around her.
The fire popped and crackled. Learned Edmund snored. Grimehug made faint doggy noises where he lay draped across her legs, scuffling at the blankets occasionally with his feet.
From Caliban’s bedroll came no sound at all.
Bad enough when he’s gibbering, but when he’s not…now I really am worried.
Slate stared up at the stars. They crept slowly by overhead, and had no voices either. It was a long time before she got to sleep.