Out of the Darkness

His father’s fingers twisted in an evil-averting gesture that went back to the days of the Kaunian Empire. “That’s the kind of luck I could do without. That’s the kind of luck the whole kingdom could do without.”

“Oh, aye,” Talsu agreed. “But how do we change it?” He answered his own question: “We don’t, not as long as Donalitu’s our king. He’s the worst of the lot.” He sighed. “They don’t have hardly any nobles in Unkerlant, people say.”

“No, but that’s on account of King Swemmel killed most of ‘em,” Traku said. “What the Unkerlanters have instead is, they have King Swemmel. Is he a better bargain?” Talsu didn’t answer; by everything he’d heard, Swemmel was about as bad a bargain as anybody could make. His father rammed the point home: “Do you want to live in Unkerlant?”

“Powers above, no!” Talsu used that same ancient gesture. “But it’s getting so I hardly want to live here anymore, either.”

“Where, then?” his father asked.

“I don’t know.” Talsu hadn’t been altogether serious. After some thought, though, he said, “Kuusamo, maybe. The slanteyes are … looser than we are, if you know what I mean. I had some dealings with them when I was with the irregulars. They don’t make a big fuss about rank and blood. They just do what needs doing. I liked that.”

“How would you like a Kuusaman winter?” Traku asked with a sly smile.

Talsu shivered at the mere idea. “I don’t suppose I would, not very much.” He bent over the tunic he’d been working on when the major came in. If he and his father were going to get the rain cape done along with everything else, they could afford only so much chatter. And what was Kuusamo but moonshine, anyhow?

This time, the sleigh carrying Fernao and Pekka glided west, not east. Every stride of the harnessed reindeer took Fernao farther not only from the blockhouse but also from the hostel in the Naantali district. The hostel had deliberately been built a long way from a ley line. That made getting to it difficult and leaving inconvenient.

As if picking the thought-and some of the things behind it-from his mind, Pekka leaned toward him and said, “This feels very strange.”

Fernao nodded. “For me, too,” he said. “Going to see Kajaani will be … interesting.”

Her laugh was nervous. “Bringing you there will be … interesting, too.”

Seeing her home town wasn’t what mattered, though. Meeting her sister, meeting her son-those were what counted. “I wonder what they’ll think of me,” he said.

He waited for Pekka to say something like, Of course they’ll think you’re wonderful. A Lagoan woman would have. Pekka just answered, “That’s why we’re doing this: to find out, I mean.”

“I know,” Fernao said. As a moderately resolute bachelor, he hadn’t gone through the ritual of meeting a woman’s family before. And, in his younger days, he hadn’t expected family to include a son.

Again halfway thinking along with him, Pekka said, “Uto will look up to you, I think.” She smiled. “How can he help it, when you’re so tall?” But the smile slipped. “I don’t know about Elimaki. I’m sorry.”

“It would be simpler if her husband hadn’t run off with somebody else, wouldn’t it?” Fernao said.

Pekka nodded. “It’s too bad, too. I always liked Olavin,” she said. “But these things do happen.” We ought to know, Fernao thought. He kept that to himself; he didn’t want to remind Pekka that she’d been carrying on with him before her husband got killed. And her thoughts hadn’t gone in that direction, for she added a one-word parenthesis: “Men.” Again, Fernao found it wiser to keep quiet.

The driver took them right up to the caravan depot at Joensuu, the little town closest to the hostel. As far as Fernao could see, Joensuu had no reason for existing except lying on a ley line. When the ley-line caravan glided into the depot, he was briefly startled to note it was northbound. Then Pekka said, “Remember? I warned you about this. We have to go around three sides of a rectangle to get to Kajaani.”

He snapped his fingers in annoyance, no happier than any other mage at forgetting something. “Aye, you did tell me that, and it went clean out of my head.” He put his arm around her. “Must be love.”

From a Lagoan, that was an ordinary sort of compliment. As Fernao had seen, though, Kuusamans were more restrained in how they praised one another. Pekka still seemed flustered as they climbed up into the caravan car.

They had to switch caravans twice, once to a westbound line and then to the southbound one that would finally take them to Kajaani. Fernao hoped his baggage made the switches, too. Pekka was going home. She would have more clothes there. If his things didn’t arrive, he’d wear what he had on his back till he could buy more-and he wasn’t sure Kuusaman shops would have many garments for a man of his inches.