The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [83]
“Nothing except some more hungry people…”
“Good for us, at least,” rumbles the driver. “Never got so much for cabbages and potatoes.”
She grips her staff and tries not to think about either ships or the gnawing pains in the minds and bellies of the vacant-eyed men and women and children stumbling along the road toward the sunlight of Hydlen.
XXV
“SERS! THE DOORWAY, please!” The pleading voice came from what I first took to be a pile of rags and blankets. The stableboy had heaped a worn saddle blanket over a pile of rags and burrowed his own tattered leathers underneath. He was huddled in a nook where he could watch the big sliding door. Beyond him loomed Antonin’s coach, not quite lit by an internal flame.
“Of course,” I found myself saying as I quickly slid the heavy slab back into place and plunged the stable back into gloom.
Whhhhh…thip, thub, thip, thub… The doorway creaked and rattled in the wind.
The darkness didn’t bother me, since I didn’t seem to need much light to see by any more. Turning toward Justen, I found he had left and walked toward the stalls in the rear.
Gairloch was still double-stalled with the other mountain pony, dark gray with a creamy mane.
Wheeeee…nun…
“Good girl…”
I should have guessed. “Yours?”
Justen nodded.
“Gairloch’s male.”
“That won’t matter for now. Rosefoot’s pretty tolerant. She likes company. Where did you get him?”
“Freetown.”
Justen nodded again. “I thought so. It would be odd for them to have a mountain pony, though.”
“The liveryman led me to believe that was why I could afford him. Mean-tempered. I rescued him from the gluepots.” I shrugged. “That was what they told me, anyway.” I shivered. The stable was cold. Not so bad as outside, but not a whole lot warmer than an icehouse.
Justen climbed onto the half-wall that separated the stalls. To our right was a tall mare who turned her head in our direction, skittishly. A white blaze covered her forehead.
The gray wizard crouched on the stall half-wall and eased toward the outside wall. Just above him was a squarish opening partly framed with hay wisps. He stood up in the opening, his head out of sight. With a sudden jump, he pulled himself up into the space above the stalls. “Come on, youngster, and bring that staff you hid next to your pony. They’ll rest better, and so will you.” He disappeared, and I could hear the rustle of straw or hay.
“How…?”
“Can’t you sense it?” His voice was muffled.
He was right, though. When I tried to reach out and feel for the staff, like farseeing, it almost burned into my brain. I grabbed the half-wall for support. After a moment, I reached down and reclaimed the dark staff. To my hand, the wood held only a faintly reassuring warmth.
Wheeeee…Gairloch tossed his head, more like a nod. It had to be coincidence.
“Are you coming, young man?”
With a second thought, I reached down and grabbed my pack as well, brushing off the straw and slinging it half over my right shoulder. I clambered up on the wall, then scrambled, far less gracefully than the gray wizard, up through the square opening.
“Ac…chew WWW!”
“The dust will settle shortly.” Justen had pulled off his boots and his belt and was piling more of the loose hay into a bed.
“We’re staying here?”
“You can stay where you want. I prefer not to stay under the same roof as Antonin. I sleep better.”
I sighed. There it was again. More assumptions, more statements, and no explanations. “Could you explain a few things to me?”
Justen stretched out on a cloak that suddenly was more than twice it original size, and looked to be twice as thick. “A few. If it doesn’t take too long. I’m tired, and I intend to leave early tomorrow. I’m headed toward a little hamlet called Weevett, and then to Jellico. Jellico’s the town where the Viscount of Certis reigns. Once upon a time, Howlett belonged to Certis, but nobody remembers. Back then all it had was sheep, and no one really cared, even before the deadlands. Now Howlett