Only the awesome thing that led them, delicate for all its bulk, through the tall, silent trees for a measureless time until they came to a clearing and into it, one by one, and without a word spoken or a sound Crispin knew that this was the place of sacrifice. Archilochus of Arethae, he thought, had not been born when men and women were dying for Ludan in this grove.
The bison turned.
They stood facing him in a row, Kasia between the two men. Crispin drew a breath. He looked across the girl at Vargos. Their eyes met. The mist had lifted. It was grey and cold, but one could see clearly here. He saw the fear in the other man’s eyes and also saw that Vargos was fighting it. He admired him then, very much.
‘I am sorry,’ he said, words in the wood. It seemed important to say this. Something-an acknowledgement-from the world beyond this glade, these encircling trees where the wet leaves fell silently on the wet cold grass. Vargos nodded.
The girl sank to her knees. She seemed very small, a child almost, lost inside his second cloak. Pity twisted in Crispin. He looked at the creature before them, into the dark, huge, ancient eyes, and he said, quietly, ‘You have claimed blood and a life already on the road. Need you take hers as well? Ours?’
He had not known he was going to say that. He heard Vargos suck in his breath. Crispin prepared himself for death. The earth rumbling as before. The ripping of those horns through his flesh. He continued to look into the bison’s eyes, an act as courageous as anything he’d ever done in his life. And what he saw there, unmistakably, was not anger or menace but loss. And it was in that moment that Linon finally spoke. ‘He doesn’t want the girl,’ the bird said very gently, almost tenderly, in his mind. ‘He came for me. Lay me on the ground, Crispin.’ ‘What?’ He said it aloud, in bewildered astonishment. The bison remained motionless, gazing at him. Or not, in fact, at him. At the small bird about his throat on the worn leather thong.
‘Do it, my dear. This was written long ago, it seems. You are not the first man from the west to try to take a sacrifice from Ludan.’ ‘What? Zoticus? What did-‘
His mind spinning, Crispin remembered something and clutched it like a spar. That long conversation in the alchemist’s home, holding a cup of herbal tea, hearing the old man’s voice: ‘I have the only access to certain kinds of power. Found in my travels, in a guarded place . . . and at some risk.’
Something began-only just began-to come clear for him. A different kind of mist beginning to rise. He felt the beating of his own heart, his life.
‘Of course, Zoticus, ‘Linon said, still gently. ‘Think, my dear. How else would I have known the rites? There is no time, Crispin. This is in doubt, still. He is waiting, but it is a place of blood. Take me from your neck. Lay me down. Go. Take the others. You have brought me back. 1 believe you will be permitted to leave.’
Crispin’s mouth was dry again. A taste like ashes. No one had moved since the girl sank to her knees. There was no wind in the clearing, he realized. Mist hung suspended about the branches of the trees. When the leaves fell, it was as if they descended from clouds. He saw puffs of white where the bison breathed in the cold.
‘And you?’ he asked silently. ‘Do I save her and leave you behind?’ He heard, within, a ripple of laughter. Amazingly. ‘Oh, my dear, thank you for that. Crispin, my body ended here when you were still a child in the world. He thought the released soul might be freely taken when the sacrifice was made. In the moment of that power. He was right and wrong, it seems. Do not pity me. But tell Zoticus. And tell him, also, for me . . .’
An inward silence, to match the one in the grey, still glade. And then: ‘There is no need. He will know what I would have said. Tell him goodbye. Put me down now, dear. You must leave, or never leave.’