It had been eleven times now that the sky had begun to grow light before Chessie hid the two of them away in isolated homes else twice in caves. Eleven days had passed Able by then, working his ever-number legs through ever-longer blackness. The cloudy skies, often bringing rain and mist, had left him as rudderless as he'd been in that cell. But tonight, half a moon hung at their backs, the air clear enough that its beams scattered along the forest floor.
Chessie was wary of all the light. She never glanced back to admire their celestial companion instead hesitating every so often in her steps forward. She held up a hand for Able to stop before taking one more step and adopting her channeling posture. Able stepped to the side to peer past her shoulder. Through the fog of his own breath and between the naked branches ahead loomed a grassy clearing with stars winking above it.
Across the field, a herd of ponies were grazing or dozing. Hints of smoke rode in on a gust of wind that pulled at Able's hood. There must be a town below this hill. Chessie was likely to take her time with this. Able took a deep breath too quickly, but even in the wash of dizziness, he was too excited to sit and wait. But wait he must for time to once again become meaningful.
Finally, she decided it was safe to proceed into the field. Once the sky spread out overhead, Able left her back in search of a clear view of the North Star. There, humble little thing more identified by the brighter arrangements around it. He stopped and pulled his astrolabe from his pocket. Only four strides from their path, but enough to concern Chessie.
"What are you doing?"
"Finally figuring out where I am." He carefully aligned his instrument with the star.
"The Pin Star will tell you that?" Chessie said to his shoulder.
"Yes." Able brought the tool down and spun the rete to make the necessary calculations. ...could that be right? He lifted the astrolabe again to double-check the star's altitude, but now his hands were shaking.
"So, where are you?" she asked gently.
"I am...roughly fourteen hundred miles from home." Able took a steadying breath. "Not—not accounting for our easterly route. So...nearly three hundred miles more?"
"Oh, you've done better than that," she offered with an amused smile.
That hardly seemed possible. And yet...what had he done but follow this woman with her relentless strides through the hinterlands? She was the one who got them from shelter to shelter acquiring and carrying only what they would need throughout the night with them, while his grand contribution to their survival had been refusing to complain. She would know.
She was also quiet. Her face was stone-like and stark white, as though the cold moonlight had washed her freckles away. She was not channeling though, no, she was looking down at—at the astrolabe where Able was fidgeting with it. He shoved it back into his pocket and stared down at the grass.
"Livingkind," she began, "wears regular the trails about its burrows, taught these places by parents and grandparents. This is true even of the roamers who travel south of the winter; it's always the trail they know. They only venture from these little worlds into a wider one when they become either too hungry or too bored. I wonder at our kind...is it hunger or boredom that we have cultivated to this breadth?"
Able couldn't help but smile. "What we had was the boredom to cultivate more orders of hunger than other creatures can even imagine."
"That is so." She smiled in return then minutely jutted her chin towards him."How does it work, your little disk?"
"Ah." Able pulled the astrolabe again from his pocket so he could show her. "This is the plate, a chart of the night sky for 38.2 N degrees latitude—my home. The disk here is divided into degrees—we divide circles into degrees. With it, I can make all sorts of calculations. If I know the date, I can anticipate a star's altitude. And reverse, if I can catch a star's altitude, I can find the date and even the hour. I can make any number of calculations, even ones that aren't astronomical. Algebra in my palm. Dagobar may have given the world the printing press, the knitting frame, and the flush toilet, but they didn't invent this. Their universities adopted our mathematics." Was he boasting or pleading?
"Interesting." The thoughtful manner of Chessie's frown suggested she meant that word honestly. "I never had the patience for those sorts of numbers. I didn't understand their use."
"I like mathematics." Able ran his thumb around the smooth mater of the device, needing the mild resistance from the alidade as he pushed it round its circle. "It's the most consistent kind of knowledge there is."
"Why are you not a mathematician, then?"
"I...I suppose that's also what makes it boring," Able quipped and rubbed his neck. He did not know if he could explain his slow expulsion from the Circle of scientists had he even wanted to. He looked over at the distant ponies, who were paying them no mind if they'd even noticed them. "Are we near a town?"
Chessie nodded. "We're getting close to Pearlshore. If we keep up a good pace, we might reach it by dawn." Oh, good grief!
"Don't let me keep us here like that, then!" He marched back to the path, tuning out the complaining of his knees and hips.
"You don't need to be so hard on yourself," Chessie clucked as she caught up. "The past two weeks have not been gentle on your body, and one day won't make a difference."
"You don't know the seas like I do," Able replied, though it would not convince her more than any of the impressions she was experiencing would. "It's the wet season, where we're headed. Storms. I'll rest when we're underway."
Chessie sidled past him into the lead and carried on without trying to convince him further. She turned them off the path and back into the woods when it became a road. The moon set and the darkness claimed them again. But the winds were carrying more than smoke now; Able could smell the sea. Tears ran freely down his face before he'd even placed the scent. Grateful for the dark for once, he brushed them back with the corner of his sleeve.
As the sky grayed, it became clearer that the "woods" were narrow strips of trees between farmlands. Chestnut wavered ever more with choosing their approach. Fewer trees to hide in also meant fewer trees for the ocean to hide behind. Able could not pull his gaze from the thin line where anything beyond ocean and sky became invisible as he followed Chessie on her zig-zag path. Strange that seeing next to forever felt so much more comforting than seeing no further than a wall of trees.
"Cradle," Chessie hissed.
Able obediently dropped to his knees and looked about for a mound. Best he saw was a bush, so he crawled halfway under it and hoped that was good enough. Chessie was huddling beside a similar one, so it might be. He mouthed, "What is it?"
She pointed to her ear, so Able listened. The bird chatter mingled with the trees rustling from the landward breeze, but Able didn't—oh, was that an owl cry? Chessie was shaking her head at the sound.
"I have no idea what bird that's supposed to be," she whispered, "but Larbant scouts all seem to think they're quite clever using it as a signal."
"It sort of sounds like a burrow owl. There was a mating pair nesting somewhere on the campus grounds for a few years. They were always snatching the lizards that were sunning themselves on the walkways. The naturalist professor was quite pleased about it, and was out there watching for them as often as he could get away from his other work."
"Well, these are not owls, and therefore will complicate our approach to the town," she said, but not dismissively. Her receptivity really was one of her nicest qualities.
"Why? We could just leave our coveralls here and walk into the city like anyone else getting up and about their business. And if they still stop us, I have this letter."
"That's assuming they're loyal to Reeve instead of Constance," she replied before raising a wry eyebrow, "and you don't even trust Reeve."
Able swallowed that point down. He couldn't reasonably rule out Reeve having an agent track them all this way. Chessie, as she peered into the dawn-lit brush with her unsettling green gaze, no doubt figured she had ways of telling who these scouts were loyal to. In fact, she silently lifted her spear from the forest floor.
Able grabbed the shaft of it just behind the head. "Don't!" His body shuddered after the staggering pace his heart had taken.
Those witching eyes turned on him now, the spirit of them resembling a bird of prey in every way. He felt pinned down like a mouse, and just as significant, but he held on.
"So we—we don't show them the letter, fine. We can invent a reason to be out here." Of course, the first idea he had was one he would be reluctant to stage, let alone how she might feel about it.
And he must have blushed, because she now smirked and murmured, "Ah yes, even the midnight frost could not cool our passions."
Able groaned and shut his own eyes to clear his mind. Okay...was it too late in the season to be out foraging for something? Perhaps, but then Able was perhaps too obviously Larbant. Maybe one in search of some rare specimen? He could pretend to be a naturalist himself easily enough—
"Able, you need to trust me. One more time."
He braced himself before once again meeting the gaze that seemed to go right through him. Well, if she could see through him, then she knew what she was asking him to do. He swallowed at his dry mouth and let go.
Chessie shifted her grip up the shaft until she reached the head herself. She placed the glimmering point on the ground beneath her, then curled herself around her knees until she was a mud-splattered gray lump on top of it. Oh. Able was flat on his belly already, but he glanced back to make sure his boots weren't sticking out into the sunlight before he put his face in his hands on the ground.
And they waited. Every distant rustle and skitter had Able's heart beating faster. Unfortunate, as the squirrels were up and about, and thinking that wasn't making him any calmer. He'd fought through over a dozen impulses to look and instead stayed still when he heard voices.
Two voices off towards the road, carried on the wind but still too distant to make out words. If they'd been seen, those men would be coming this way. Able opened his mouth to breathe further from his ears. "That" might have been said. "For," as well. ..."out?" No, now was the time to be grateful they were far away, not frustrated he couldn't eavesdrop.
The voices got louder, though not any clearer. Then they faded. Or maybe stopped? Was the wind playing tricks?
"I got it."
Able just about jumped out of his skin, even though he knew Chessie's voice. He peeked her way to see that she was up in a crouch, spear in hand.
"This way." Staying low, she started back the way they had come.
Able scrambled out of the bush and after her. He did his best to mimic her low posture too as they skirted the tree line between two fields. And then she sprinted downhill across the open ground.
Able's heart stopped, but he couldn't afford to lose her. Or perhaps he could, given that the city was right here, but it was too late to consider the complexities of that as he too was racing at break-neck speed across a mowed field that could provide no cover. He looked back along the treeline, hoping against hope to spot any skulking archer before they spotted him.
"No, this way!"
Able whirled to see Chessie now behind him, crouched beside a burrow in the hillside. No time to wonder how she did that. Likewise, no time to examine the carved stones on either side of the tunnel before he crouched down and scurried inside after her.
Instead of more darkness, a row of low-burning candles sat along an altar at the back of the chamber, which was large enough that a dozen people might stand comfortably in it. They lit a beautifully lifelike carving of a fox on the back wall above them.
"A fox hole?" Able said with half a relieved smile that he quickly dropped. It might be inappropriate to be joking in a shrine like this.
Chessie didn't seem to notice. "Yes." She reached up and ran her fingers along the exposed roots on the ceiling. Her face was not reverent, exactly, but it was respectful and thoughtful.
Able turned back to the carving. It was clay, maybe, or plaster, or perhaps some other material that lent itself to the fur-like quality in the details. A pearl was set into the eye of the fox, as well as its ear and nose and heart... Able stepped back and searched out the glistening pearls until he saw the constellation of the Soldier.
"You might as well eat and get some rest." Chessie was working her way out of her coveralls. "The Servant will help us whenever she gets here."
"It's not disrespectful? Or I should be asking what should I not do that would be disrespectful?"
"Don't relieve yourself." Chessie chuckled and plopped down to rummage through what was left of their provisions. "She's not a fussy Spirit, the Fox. All you need to remember is that others use this space too and be respectful of that. Is your god so particular?"
"Is my—uh." Able turned his back and fumbled with the buttons on his gray, actually more of a brown now, coveralls as if that would hide how the question hit him. "Well, there are some pretty exact rituals. So, I suppose comparatively, yes."
"Not your god?" So yes, he'd hidden his discomfort as well as a gull hides in a tar vat.
He sighed and finished taking off the coveralls. Freed of the layer, he stretched and his back popped several times. The warm air helped him stand straighter, despite his fatigue.
He turned to see Chessie was holding out a biscuit for him. "Oh, thanks." He took it from her and sank to the floor beside her. Those green eyes were staring through him again, so he sighed and tried to answer. "It's—it's different. The Prophets hear the voice of God and the Priests carry out the laws they write down. Many of their—their rituals, I suppose, are secret, and someone like me is unfit to know about them."
"What sort of people are allowed to train and pass rites for your god?" she asked.
"I, uh...no actually, I suppose it is something like that, isn't it? Men who give up their claims to property and family and most anything else that counts towards a normal life. They can still visit their families, I think, but they must keep themselves sacred in order to carry out the law of the Prophets. I was never interested in doing any of that, so..." and he shrugged. Please, don't catch the understatement, Chessie...
"So you don't know what their duties are?"
"Well..." Able frowned thoughtfully. "They take the dead away, and they deliver edicts from the Crown, and they stand witness to legal matters, be it marriage or business agreements or overseeing criminal punishments. In fact, they have a legal court of their own, so in addition to standing witness to civil law, they judge those who have broken sacred law. But that's all I know." He stuffed the biscuit into his mouth and hoped she wouldn't ask more.
"I see." She stared at the opposite wall instead of eating.
Able followed her gaze. "Lark told me the Fox oversees the harvest?"
"Oversees?" Chessie chuckled. "The Fox ran from the sky into the earth itself. She hears the whispers of the roots, knows what the trees know, how the plants fare, and She can tell these things to those who are quiet enough to listen."
There were only candles on the altar instead of little offerings like the Bear shrine in the branded camp had. "Will she keep away pests in exchange for offerings?"
"Maybe. Offerings are no guarantee of a Spirit's favor, but we figure it can't hurt."
"I see." Although he probably didn't.
"You can ask the Fox-Servant more when she comes. I have done no Fox rites myself, after all."
They finished their meal in silence and then dozed until the Fox Servant indeed came, an older women bearing a basket of candles. If the Fox could whisper things, she had not bothered to warn her servant about Chessie and Able. Still, the servant listened to Chessie explaining the situation while she replaced the dying candles with her fresh ones.
Able nearly asked why there were no offerings on the altar before it occurred to him the fields they'd just passed were already harvested. The Borealunders likely saw no point in asking for help now, same as how they didn't bother to pray for food already on their plate.
The servant promised to fetch a pair of cloaks and scarves, as that was unlikely to seem suspicious with the wind as chilly as it was, then left.
Able waited a minute longer to ask Chessie, "Do all the Servants have some kind of code so you can always trust each other?" Able asked once she'd left.
"Hell no!" She laughed. "Oh, no, even within our own cults, let alone between them. I can recount many instances of betrayal throughout history if you like. But we're all of one mind when it comes to Larbantry."
"Why—oh. We...threaten your very existence."