Page 93 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

Then the clouds thinned, and the air grew colder still. He remembered more of the attack by dragons than he wanted to—it kicked up a sick feeling. He couldn’t manage much more height than he’d achieved so far. Still, with a quick flip of his head left, right, he could make out the southernmost cove of Kellswater and the bay where the Vinkus River debouched into Restwater. From this vantage both lakes looked hard and dead as slate.

He crossed the dark line drawn by the Vinkus River. Now he was halfway to Kumbricia’s Pass, which meant that Apple Press Farm was somewhere below. How was Candle faring? He thought of pulling down and seeing.

You could, he said to himself. Now you needn’t worry about scaring her, for if you show up in the middle of the night, she’ll be ready: she’ll have divined the present and sensed your approach, and prepared the tea for your arrival. And the blankets, and the fire, and the bed, though you’re not ready yet to go to her bed again, even chastely.

But no, no, he continued—no. What if she was with someone else? Or what if she’d left? Or what if Commander Cherrystone recognized Trism and arrested him, and tortured him into revealing Liir’s hiding place—and thence discovered Candle? And kidnapped her—as he had done Nor all those years ago!—as a kind of reprisal against the slaughter of the dragon contingent, the ruin of the basilica?

Liir was learning to think in terms of consequence. He gave due credit to the strategies and devices of the Emperor. In any case, though, concern for Candle would distract Liir from completing his mission, as he had promised her to do. Let Trism get there safely and see to her needs, if he could, if he would. Time enough for me to show my sorry face and find out what’s going to happen next.

For now, he would finish what he’d started: at least this much.

He might have caught sight of the farmhouse roof winking, or he might be miles and miles off. He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. He kept his eyes trained on the foothills of the Great Kells, which from this height were already beginning to swell, less an actual shape than a shift in the grade of shadow.

The wind strengthened as it rushed down the eastern slopes of Oz’s mountainy spine. He lost speed, and it took more effort to keep the broom on course. Like riding a horse in a raging river, he imagined, now that he had some experience of horseback riding under his belt, as it were. Finally he had to come down to earth entirely, from exhaustion. He found a shepherd’s summer lean-to, abandoned for the season, and stretched out underneath the cape and fell promptly asleep, the broom between his arms and along his chin like the boniest of lovers.

2

AT DAWN, THE WINDS RELENTED, and the mountains burned in pinkish light. He finished the small meal provided by Sister Apothecaire and pressed on.

Kumbricia’s Pass was defined by a color of evergreen specific to the suspended gorge that widened apronlike as it dropped toward the Vinkus River plain. How foreboding the uprights of the cliffs on either side—how much more fortress the landscape provided than Liir had been aware. No wonder the Yunamata, the Scrow, and the Arjiki had never knuckled under to the industrial strength of Gillikin or the military might of the Emerald City. And no wonder the dragons had been an important development—they would have had to work to flap their way along this wind-chased passage, but they would have managed. If the dragon population had expanded, and a whole fleet of them had become available for maneuvers, they could have rained destruction even upon the distant populations of the widespread Vinkus.

And might yet, Liir knew. The strategic knowledge that had developed those dragons into weapons wouldn’t have been lost because Trism defected or the basilica collapsed. If nothing else happened, it was only a matter of time before another Trism came along to do the bidding of his superiors and raise up perhaps an even mightier army.

Yet today had dawned, and tomorrow could not be foreseen. No magician in the world had yet mastered the art of prophecy, so far as Liir knew. Not a single venerable bishop with his channels to the divine, nor any tiktok mechanism of subtle apprehension, nor even the best-taught sorcerer with the keenest of inner eyes, had ever accurately foretold so much as whether the rain would hold off for the picnic. It was Time Yet to Come that possessed the strongest force of all, a magic mightier than the Kells themselves, a magic greener than all of green Oz. Inscrutable, terrifying, and exhilarating at once.

HE FOUND HE COULD NOT FLY above Kumbricia’s Pass. His broom bucked to one side or another, as he’d heard a horse instructed to cross a risky bridge might do. He didn’t know whether this was mere exhaustion, a flagging of his will, or some sort of wizardic or magnetic obstruction he didn’t understand. He allowed himself to drop, by a series of long, scalloped declines, till at last he found landfall in a clearing, and continued his voyage by foot.

It took time to locate the spot where he had been interviewed by General Kynot, the crusty old Cliff Eagle—the island in the hanging tarn. The place seemed deserted. He could see nothing but random feathers and the inevitable mess

of droppings. Maybe they’d moved on to a cleaner lobby somewhere.

On foot he continued west, losing track of time. One of the drawbacks of flying on the broom was that his nose became frozen, and the air at a certain height, while clean of grit, was also curiously scentless. Kumbricia’s Pass, by contrast, was a festival of odors.

In the nest of the cape, he settled for an afternoon nap and didn’t wake up until dawn…and he wasn’t even sure it was dawn of the next day, or some day further on.

Nonetheless, he was rested at last, rested in a deep way, and better able to spy winter berries in the thickets, and chichonga pods, and the occasional scatter of walnuts on the ground. Dozens of streams leapt from either side of the great gorge and crisscrossed, occasionally islanding the floor of the pass into hillocks. He didn’t go thirsty. He felt that the longer he pressed on, the stronger he became.

At last Kumbricia’s Pass made its final abrupt turn before opening out above the beautiful bleak expanse, as far as the eye could see, of the rolling prairie known as the Thousand Year Grasslands. In the shallow caves and along the ledges of the westward face of the Kells, nearly deafened by the constant wind, Liir met up with what remained of the Conference of the Birds.

Their numbers had dwindled in the short time since Liir had left Kumbricia’s Pass. When General Kynot spied Liir standing there—so much for the vigilance of their sentries!—he lop-winged over and indicated, with a strict jerk of his head, that they should retreat into the gorge for a bit of a chin-wag.

A few Birds saw the General’s intentions, and braved the buffeting winds to join the colloquy. Several dozen gathered, including the Wren named Dosey, who cued in the blind, hobbledy Heron.

“We see you’ve reclaimed your broom,” began the General without formality. “I’m to understand it is not functioning as a vehicle for flight anymore, or you wouldn’t have come on foot. And you would have come sooner.”

“I came as quickly as I could,” said Liir. “What’s happened?”

“We’ve lost half our number,” said the General, “or near to it. The Yunamata rushed us, and since we were scared to take high wing, we were caught in a series of nets and traps they’d erected across a narrow part of the Pass. Scarcely a one of us hasn’t lost companion or kin.”

“That’s not like them,” said Liir. “Or not like their reputation. They’re a peaceable people.”

The General glared at Liir. “We’ve had to leave the Pass, lest it happen again. We’re cornered against the sky up here, on display to preying dragons, and without adequate supply of grubs and worms.”

Liir said, “I’m sorry about the Yunamata attack. That’s the Emperor’s strategy—to keep his foes busy nipping at one another. That has to stop. There’s no way to survive without our making peace among ourselves.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” shrilled the Wren to Liir, and the General was too dispirited to bother correcting her terminology. “One population can’t make peace with another by force.”

“There are possibilities,” said Liir. “The time of the dragons is done, at least for now. You can fly again. We can fly again. And before the next threat might come, we have to maneuver ourselves into…a coalition. No, not that: a nation.”

---