The wind was rising, stirring the trees, and she hugged her cloak tight against the chill. Her feet were frozen. The moon was low behind her, throwing her shadow far ahead along the Way, amid the many writhing shadows of branches.
Was there any escape from the College? If she and Mist were correct, then the College was no single place at all. There were bits of it scattered all over Thume. Her own cottage stood in woods familiar to her, among trees like the trees that grew near her birthplace. The Mist Place was familiar to Mist. It made sense. It was very convenient. Nice magic.
What would happen, then, if she just left her cottage in the morning and headed west, say, or south—or any direction except along the Way? Would she emerge from the sorcery of the College and find herself in the foothills of the Progiste Mountains, close to her parents’ Place? That seemed very unlikely. There must be sorcery to stop strangers blundering in. There would be sorcery to keep the inmates from blundering out.
It might be worth a try, though.
But even if she could escape from the College, it was certain that Jain and his friends could find her again before she ever discovered Leeb. She did not know where to look.
She did not even know what he looked like.
His memories of her might have been destroyed as utterly as her memories of him. And perhaps he did not exist at all. Leeb. Leeb? The name meant nothing except her own romantic delusion.
The trees were wrong! She stopped, feeling a jolt of childish alarm before she could remind herself that she was safe in the care of the Keeper. The College would certainly not go to all the trouble of bringing her here and then let her be hurt.
The Way ran on ahead along a hillside, a faint glimmer in the dark. The ground sloped down to her right and in that direction she could see dark branches waving against dark sky and a few silvery shreds of cloud. A distant ridge marked the far side of the valley, dark, also, and anonymous. To her left the forest rose steeply, scrubby grass and trunks cutting off her view. Moonlight danced through waving pines behind her. The air smelled of pine, not of the familiar woods around her cabin.
She listened, hearing only the wind in the trees and a hint of water far below. And the beating of her heart.
Gods preserve me!
She had been walking far too long anyway, she realized, and this was certainly not the Way she wanted to go. It was new to her. It was not the Way to anywhere she had been taken in the College. Shivering, she tried to work it out. Could this be the Way to the Gate? Perhaps her desire to escape from the College had unconsciously led her the wrong Way, just as Mist’s romantic hopes had caused him to take her to his Place when he had not deliberately planned to. Sometimes, obviously, the Way heard the heart and not the head.
But Mist had said you could only follow the Way to somewhere you knew already, so her chances of arriving at the Gate must be slim. Yet if she did not keep moving, she would freeze. She was wearing nothing under her cloak except a triple layer of goose bumps. Sternly repeating to herself Jain’s statement that she could be in no danger within the College, she decided to carry on and see where this Way led.
As she limped along, weary muscles stiffening in the cold, some other, nastier, possibilities came to mind. She had gone to Mist’s Place and accepted his seed. In the ways of the pixies, she had bound herself to him for life. True, neither of them had made any promises. She had intended none and was quite certain he had not, either, but it was the acceptance that counted. By strict reckoning she was now Thaile of the Mist Place, forever. So perhaps this Way led nowhere at all, and the Thaile Place no longer existed. She would have to turn back and go home to that big parasitic canoeist.
Which might be what the foul scheming Jain had intended. He had deliberately thrown her into Mist’s company. How strong was Mist’s talent? If her suspicions were correct, friend Mist inspired other people to care for him. She had cooked his supper and very nearly volunteered to clean out his filthy den. She had gone to his bed of her own free will, she had thought. Believing that she was using him for her own purposes, she might have been serving his. God of Mercy!
Thaile of the Mist Place? Now there was a revolting prospect! The valley was narrowing, and the trees thinning out. She could hear a mountain torrent below quite clearly now and discern the bare ridge across the valley—silver grass in the moon light, with only a few stunted trees casting long shadows. The moon was near to setting and dawn was hours away.
She must be very high, up near the timberline. She would not be at all surprised to see snow soon, and the wind felt fresh from mountain crags. Wandering unknown hills in the middle of a winter’s night? This was madness!
She spun around and headed back, with the moon in her eyes. “The Thaile Place!” she said aloud. “Take me to the Thaile Place!” She called up a clear mental picture, and hurried. She would accept the Mist Place, of course, if that was to be her only choice. To climb into bed beside that big lunk and lay her icy feet against his back would be purest bliss.
Don’t think about the Mist Place! Thaile Place!
The Way was curving more than she expected. She did not remember so many bends. She was not back into the forest yet—in fact, trees seemed to be even scarcer.
With the valley on her left now, and the moon temporarily slid around to her right, she came to deep shadow, where the Way’s pale trace skirted a high buttress of rock. She had not seen this before!
Nor had she crossed a bridge, and yet the Way ahead quite clearly swung away from the vertical face and crossed to the far side by a narrow stone bridge. It was old, its parapets half fallen away, and it glimmered with the same spooky pallor as the Way itself. She had most certainly not seen it, or crossed it, earlier.
Whimpering with cold and fear, she sat down on the path and chafed her feet while she considered the prospect.
Obviously the sorcerous Way changed all the time; it just had not changed quite so blatantly before. Also obviously, if she crossed that bridge, she would again have the valley on her right and the hill on her left. And the valley itself bent out of sightto the left, of course—so she would then have the moon behind her again. Obviously.
The Way was taking her somewhere, whether she wanted to go there or not. Her retreat had been cut off, and both directions led to the same place. She had two choices—go where the Way led, or stay where she was and freeze.
She could not even be sure of the second alternative. If she shut her eyes for a minute, the landscape might start changing on its own.
Evil take it! “Can’t fight the weather,” Gaib would sayusually under his breath when her mother was laying down the law. Here was an excellent example of weather not to be fought. Groaning with stiffness and weariness, Thaile clambered to her feet and hobbled across the bridge.
As she had expected, she soon found herself going the same Way as before, trudging along a hillside with the gorge to her right and the moon behind her. The wind was really whistling along the valley now, the noise of the stream much louder. She must just hope that wherever she was being taken had a roaring fire and something steaming hot to drink. And a bed. With no men in it.
She had sinned, of course. Virtuous women did not go to strange men’s Places and seduce them; but the Gods rarely dispensed punishment so candidly. Her brother-in-law, Wide, was a libertine, but his philandering did not attract divine retribution, so far as she knew. A couple of her childhood friends had told her stories they would never have told their parents.
Perhaps . . . Just maybe . . .
Could the Gods have taken pity on her? Could it be that this so-willful Way was taking her to Leeb, whoever he was?
She did not dare to hope for that, but she decided she had better do some praying. Not to the Keeper, though, just to the Gods. She began muttering prayers, making them up as she went along.