Thaile was not worried by Novice Mist, or what he was thinking. “Maggot and Worm and whoever the other one is—they were blindfolded also?”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve talked about it with them?” She Felt his uneasiness and did not wait for an answer. “I was just wondering if you and I came in by the same Gate. There must be several, mustn’t there?”
He bent over to lean his elbows on the chair back; he regarded her warily. ”So I’m told.”
“How big is the College, Mist?”
“You think it’s all over the place?”
“I think it’s all over Thume—hill country for me, river bottom for you. Hot lands, cool lands . . . That’s why the weather changes along the Way.”
“Evil take it!” He smiled sheepishly. “It took me a week to work that out! Something Maggot said about the seashore to the south tipped me off. I just thought you were gorgeous, I didn’t know you were clever, as well.”
Compliments were nice, but an offer to wash up would have been nicer. Sensing trouble ahead, Thaile decided it was time to move Novice Mist out into the cool night air.
Stars were appearing in the darkening sky, the waxing moon was bright enough to cast shadows. As they set off along the Way together, Mist reached for her hand and she moved it to safety.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” he grumbled. “Romantic!” It was. He wasn’t.
“But we have all our lives ahead of us here in the College,” she said. “Don’t we?”
The implications silenced him. Mist, she suspected, did not think very far ahead. About twenty minutes would be his limit. The forest grew deeper, and dark, but the Way glimmered pale before them. Leaves whispered busily all around. Soon she smelled rain and heard a faint patter on the canopy high above. An owl hooted in the distance.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“The Commons. That’s where you eat if you don’t want to cook. Great food! I don’t mean better than yours, of course. After that, maybe the Library?”
“Fine.” What was a library?
A few minutes went by. Thaile sniffed suspiciously. The air was warmer, muggier, bearing a strangely familiar scent. River? Yes, it might be a river. Not one of the mountain torrents she knew from her childhood, but one of the slow, sinuous floods of the lowlands, muddy and weedy. And that chirruping sound? “Is the Commons near a river, Mist?”
“River? No. Why?”
“Just wondered. What’s that noise?”
“Frogs.”
Of course frogs—she knew that now. Not a river, but a swamp, perhaps? Or a lake.
She Felt no guile in her companion—he was genuinely puzzled by her questions, still foggy from the wine. But then he must have detected the change in the air, also, for his puzzlement rose to worry, and confusion.
The trees thinned out to reveal a moonlit glade and wide water beyond. And a cottage, with a canoe inverted on trestles beside it. She winced at the explosion of embarrassment from Mist.
“This is your Place!” she said wryly. “On a lake, you said, right?”
“Thaile! I’m sorry! I truly didn’t mean . . . I didn’t mean to bring you here. Not now. I was hoping maybe later. I don’t understand!”
No one could lie to her, and he wasn’t trying. She laughed uneasily. “I think you weren’t thinking hard enough about where we were going, Mist. You took the wrong Way by accident!”
“That must be it.” He was genuinely upset at seeming foolish and worried that she would think evil of him. All talk, Jain had called him.
“Well, we’re here now. You want to show me?” The surest road to a pixie’s heart was to praise his Place, her mother had taught her. It was only good manners to ask to be shown around.
Eagerly Mist led her over to the little house. He pushed open the door and called light from magic lanterns, then bowed in mock formality. “I am Mist and welcome you to the Mist Place.”
Before she could invoke the Gods’ blessings in response, he rushed on: ”It isn’t very tidy, I’m afraid.”
As an understatement, that remark would be hard to equal. The floor was muddy and every scrap of furniture was littered with clothes. She saw dirty dishes, banana skins, orange peels, leftover scraps that would be certain to bring vermin—already a legion of bugs whirled around the lantern. An open door showed a rumpled, unmade bed. He had managed all this in only ten days?
“It isn’t, is it?” she said sadly. It would be a pleasant cottage otherwise. She could hardly scold a man so much older and larger than herself—indeed, his woebegone expression made her more inclined to demand a broom and start a cleanup. She resisted that temptation, for she recognized his talent at work. She had guessed what the second recorder had recognized in Mistan occult ability to make other people want to tend him. Cook his meals, for example, wash his dishes. For all his size and muscle, he just stood there looking likable and helpless as an oversize puppy.
Then her eyes wandered to the cottage itself. walls of tightwoven basketwork, roof thatched with banana leaves, rafters of bamboo. A pulse in her throat began beating uncontrollably. A terrible sense of familiarity engulfed her. Somewhere she had known a house like this, impossibly like this. She backed away, taut with a growing horror, feeling unknown wraiths rise to gibber in the dark corners of her mind.
Even the unperceptive Mist had registered her alarm. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Nothing. Just very tired . It’s lovely, I’ll see it better in daylight, excuse me.”
She turned and fled out the door—ignoring his shouts, ignoring the rain, racing off across the clearing and along the Way, awkward in her unfamiliar shoes, with her cloak streaming behind her. As she rounded the second bend, his fear and distress cut off abruptly and she was alone again. A few more panting steps, and the warm mugginess of the lowland air faded also. Moonlight began to filter down through the trees. The spectral path glittered pale before her.
Bamboo and wicker. Somewhere she had known a house like that. Somewhere, sometime, it must have mattered greatly to her.
The Thaile Place, she thought. She must concentrate on her destination. If she worried too much about Mist’s cottage, the Way might take her back there. The Thaile Place, home . . . Except that the shiny dream cottage she had been given did not feel like home. Thaile of the Thaile Place—it sounded wrong!
Thaile of Who’s Place?
She slowed to a walk, conscious of the painful pounding of her heart. She forced herself to breathe more slowly and unclench her fists. Fool! What was there to be afraid of? Jain had said she could be in no danger in the College. Forest never troubled her, even at night. Open grassland would be much more scary.
Soon she smelled the air of the high country, the familiar tree scents. The moonlight grew brighter. She came around a bend and saw the Thaile Place ahead . . . dark, deserted. Not home, true, but a familiar refuge. She stumbled up the porch steps and went in, closing the door on the terrors of the world.
Life’s young day:
I’ve wandered east,
I’ve wandered west,
Through mony a weary way;
But never, never can forget
The luve of life’s young day!
— William Motherwell, Jeanie Morrison
SEVEN
Come by moonlight
1
Thaile was still tidying away the dirty dishes and the remains of supper when she Felt anxiety approaching. Mist’s distinctive emotions were familiar to her by now, and so was the sudden starting and ending of Feeling caused by the sorcery of the Way—had he been coming by any mundane road, she would have detected him hours ago. Peeking around a corner of a drape, she saw a lantern flicker in the trees.
Then came hesitation. He had followed her to make sure she was all right, that she had reached home safely. Now he could see the light in her window. She did not want to talk with Mist any more that night; she needed time to think before she talked with anyone. She marched across the room, letting her shadow traverse the curtain. She Felt his relief . . . regret . . . resignation. A few minutes’ indecision, and then he turned for home. His emotions were abruptly cut off by the Way. When she looked again, his light had gone. Poor Mist! He meant well, even if a hailstorm was more considerate.
But the day would not end. She washed the dishes; she washed herself. She turned out the lights, shed the last of her garments. She sank into that cloud-soft featherbed. And the day would not end.
Yesterday? She had no yesterday. She had no memory of her journey, or her arrival at the College. She could remember going to the Wide Place, to visit Sheep. She could not recall returning home. Had she just run away? By herself ? That seemed very unlikely.