Out of the Darkness

What with the delays in changing caravans, they traveled all through the night. Their seats reclined, as was true in most caravan cars, but still made only poor substitutes for real beds. Fernao dozed and woke, dozed and woke, the whole night long. When he was awake, he peered out the window at the snow-covered countryside. The night was moonless, but the southern lights glowed in shifting, curtainlike patterns of green and yellow. He’d seen them brighter on the austral continent, but the display here was far more impressive than it ever got up in Setubal.

The sun was just coming up over the horizon when the ley-line caravan topped the last forested rise north of Kajaani and glided down toward the port city. Even with the bright sun of early spring on it, the sea ahead looked cold. Maybe that was Fernao’s imagination working overtime, and maybe it wasn’t. That sea led southwest to the land of the Ice People.

Pekka yawned and stretched. She’d had a better night than Fernao. Seeing familiar landscape and then familiar buildings slide past the window, she smiled. “Oh, good! We’re here.”

“So we are.” What Fernao saw didn’t impress him. Kajaani, to him, looked like a Kuusaman provincial town, and nothing more. He knew he was spoiled; to him, any city save Setubal was likely to seem just a provincial town. He asked, “Can we see Kajaani City College from here?”

Shaking her head, Pekka pointed across the car, to the right. “It’s on the western edge of town. If we get a chance, I’ll take you over there. Having an illustrious Lagoan theoretical sorcerer along with me will make Professor Heikki unhappy, and I do what I can to keep her that way.”

“Aye, you’ve told me about some of your squabbles,” Fernao said. “What’s your chairman’s specialty? Veterinary magic? Is that what you said?”

“That’s right,” Pekka said. “And she’s nobody of any consequence there. She’d make a splendid clerk, though. That’s why she’s been chairman so long,

I suppose. But she inflicts herself on people who do real work, so nobody in the department can stand her.”

“Kajaani!” the conductor called as the caravan, nearing the depot, slowed. “Everybody out for Kajaani, on account of this is the end of the line.”

End of the world, Fernao thought. The ley-line caravan eased to a halt. The conductor opened the door at the front of the car. Pekka got to her feet. So did Fernao, leaning on his cane to help himself up. His leg and shoulder both complained. He’d known they would. I’m lucky to have both legs, he thought, and then, if this is luck.

Pekka got down ahead of him. She watched anxiously as he came down the little portable stairway. She was, he saw, ready to catch him if he stumbled. Being somewhere close to twice her size, he made sure he didn’t, and reached the ground safely.

Someone-a woman on the platform-called Pekka’s name. She turned. “Elimaki!” she exclaimed. A moment later, she added, “Uto!”

“Mother!” The boy swarmed toward her. He was, Fernao saw, nine or ten, with a good deal of Pekka in his face. When he sprang into her arms for a hug, the top of his head came past her shoulder. The woman who followed him also looked a good deal like Pekka. Of course she does, you idiot, Fernao thought. She’s her sister, by the powers above. Elimaki was a couple of years younger, and a little stockier. She too hugged Pekka, but even as she did it she was eyeing Fernao with curiosity both undisguised and, he thought, more than a little hostile.

“I’m so glad to see both of you again,” Pekka said, kissing first Uto and then Elimaki. She took a deep breath. “And I want you both to meet my. . friend, Fernao of Lagoas.”

Uto held out his hand. “Hello, sir,” he said gravely. Sure enough, he added, “I didn’t think you would be so tall.” He was curiously studying Fernao, too.

Not a lot of Lagoans or other Algarvic folk got down here, Fernao suspected. He clasped Uto’s hand, not his wrist, as he would have with one of his own countrymen. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about you from your mother.”

Pekka rolled her eyes. Even Elimaki had trouble holding her face straight. Uto looked more innocent than he had any hope of being. “I don’t do that so much anymore,” he said, leaving that carefully unspecified.

“You do too, you scamp,” Elimaki said. She nodded to Fernao. “And I have heard a lot about you.”

“I probably don’t do that so much anymore, either,” he answered, deadpan.

Pekka’s sister gave him a sharp look, then smiled. “You’ll have a carpetbag, won’t you?” she said, looking back toward the caravan’s baggage car.

“I do hope so,” Fernao said. “I’d better find out.”

“Why do you have that cane?” Uto asked as he limped toward the baggage car.

“Because I got hurt in the war, down in the land of the Ice People,” he said.