Laurie Marks - Elemental Logic 03 by Water Logic

Author:Water Logic
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Chapter 19

The roads were firm, the sky clear, the air cool but not cold, the inclines gradual. Zanja's winter fat had sloughed off like the skin from a snake. Though her load of gear was not light, she jogged easily past other early-season travelers. Even a rich man on horseback with nothing better to do could not keep up as he attempted to engage Zanja in conversation. She ran most of the distance to Shimasal, where she left the highway and trotted along eastbound wagon tracks, waving to farmers in orchards and in fields, where the spring plowing and planting had begun. After she reached the Kisha highway her pace slowed somewhat as she climbed into the highlands, down into the Aerin River Valley, across the river and up into highlands again. She had outrun spring: Some few flowers had begun to bloom behind her, but here in apple and nut country the trees had scarcely awakened, and nearly the entire populace had turned out to repair the highway.

When Zanja told a friendly innkeeper that she intended to leave the road to go west, the innkeeper protested, "There's nothing west of here. Nothing but rocks." He was wrong, for there were more cultivated lands, but after one last night in a bed and one final generous breakfast, Zanja trotted right past the edge of Shaftali civilization. Now, far ahead of her, she could sometimes spot the hazy jumble of foothills that marked the meeting of western and northern mountains. Trees became sparse and stunted, and she had to slow to a walk so she could hunt for meat and collect firewood as she traveled. The pathless last leg of her journey was by far the slowest. Yet by the time Zanja was wading through the heather that in her time still would cover the rockscape of the northwestern borderlands, only fourteen days had passed.

Alone in the desolate landscape, she was the only thing moving between the horizons. Shaftal's walls had been built to make the world smaller, she supposed, so that within those narrow horizons people could feel like gods. Now, especially at night when she lay in the open without even the symbolic comfort of a fire, there was no escaping her own unimportance. She could believe it was possible to literally die of loneliness.

At last she reached the edge of the canyon, that vast earthwork with which the Otter River guarded Shaftal's northern border. She had not been to this place since she and Emil and Medric had brought Karis here, after rescuing her from Mabin.

There Karis had been helped by water magic as she fought her way out of addiction. There Karis had begun to remake all her old decisions. There she and Zanja, on the verge of clasping hold of each other, had nearly lost each other. And then it had begun.

The wind made a hollow cry as it moved through the canyon. The sun lay low on the horizon, and to the east and the west the canyon seemed a black wound in the ruddy flesh of the earth.

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