Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [87]
The woman cut him another slice.
“Definitely the best,” said Nightshade, wiping his mouth with his napkin and accidentally stuffing the napkin and the spoon in his pocket.
Mina had fallen asleep with her gingerbread half-eaten. She lay with her head pillowed on her arms on the table. The woman gazed down at her, smoothing the auburn hair with a gentle hand. Nightshade was feeling sleepy himself. One of the first rules of traveling was that you didn’t fall asleep in a strange house in the middle of a dark forest, no matter how good the gingerbread. His eyes kept trying to close, and so he propped the eyelids open with his fingers and began to talk, hoping the sound of his own voice would help keep him awake.
“Do you live here by yourself, ma’am?” he asked.
“I do,” she replied. She walked over to a rocking chair that stood near the fire and sat down.
“Isn’t it kind of scary?” Nightshade asked. “Living in the middle of a dark forest? Why do you do it?”
“I give shelter to those who are lost in the night,” said the woman. She reached down to pet Atta, who lay beside the chair. Atta licked her hand and rested her nose on the woman’s foot.
“Do many people find their way here?” Nightshade asked.
“Many do,” the woman said, “though I wish more would find me.”
She began to rock back and forth in her chair, humming a soft song.
Nightshade felt warm and safe and peaceful. He couldn’t hold up his head any longer, and he lay it down on the table. His eyelids seemed determined to close no matter what. He realized that he didn’t know the woman’s name, but that didn’t seem important now. Not important enough to wake out of his warm comfort to ask her.
He was dimly aware of the woman standing up from the chair and walking over to Mina. He was dimly aware of the woman gathering the slumbering child up in her arms and holding her close and kissing her.
As sleep stole over Nightshade, he thought he heard the woman whisper lovingly, “Mina … My child … My own …”
hys walked the highway leading north out of Solace, confident he was on the trail of his friends. Not only had the matron seen the kender and the child and the dog, he’d met others along the route who had also seen them. The three were together and well and they were traveling north.
He was cheered to learn that although the three had been on the road several hours before he had started in pursuit, they were not far ahead of him. He had been afraid that Mina might take it into her head to walk to Godshome at a god’s pace, but apparently she and the kender and the dog were ambling along, moving slowly. He half-expected to find them sitting somewhere alongside the road, footsore and tired of arguing.
Time passed, and he did not run into them. He began to wonder if they were still ahead of him. He had no way to know for sure. He no longer ran into many travelers. Night was coming on and he’d seen no sign of them. Thinking he might have to search for them after dark, he had borrowed a lantern from Laura, and now he lit the candle inside and flashed it about as he went along. He knew from past experience with lost sheep that searching done by night was tedious and difficult and often fruitless. He might walk right past them in the dark and never know.
The search would have been easier if he’d had Atta with him. Without his dog, he wondered if it wouldn’t be safest to stop and wait to resume his search in the morning. Then he thought of the three of them alone and benighted in the wilderness, and he pressed on.
He came to the place where the road split. The stacked-up rocks were clearly visible in the lantern light, and Rhys breathed easier. He could reasonably assume that they had been left by the kender to indicate the direction they were traveling, an assumption born out by the fact that Rhys saw Atta’s paw prints at one point and a smallish boot print at another.
He took the road east and entered the forest and soon came to the house, although he did not immediately know it was a house. He was walking slowly, keeping watch on