Seeklight

“Here,” said one of the mechanics, handing Daenek a rag with only a few grease spots. “Wrap your hands in this until you get to the infirmary.” He turned back to the others. “Come on, let’s get going. We’ve got more work now than before.”

The orderly who bandaged his hands was the one who had been the first person Daenek had ever seen aboard the caravan.

When he was done, Daenek headed back to his sleeping quarters.

Can’t do any work like this, anyway, he reasoned, examining the wrappings on his fingers.

Rennie was waiting for him inside the room. She still looked irritated as she sat on the edge of the bed. “That was a dumb thing to do,” she snapped.

“What was?” asked Daenek, closing the door behind himself.

“Rescuing me. Like you were some big hero. If you’d played it smart and done nothing, you’d have been rid of the only person who knew you weren’t really what you said.”

Daenek laid down on his bed. “Sorry,” he said, feeling increasingly tired. “Just lost my head, I guess.”

“Well, don’t do it again,” she said, her voice tight with anger.

“God, I hate it when people do stuff like that without any good reasons. It gives me the creeps. I just can’t figure it out.”

“If you’d get knocked off,” said Daenek drowsily, “I’d have never found out what it is you’re planning to do for me. Going to the busker village and all.”

“That’s not smart enough.” She reached behind herself to the switch on the wall and flicked off the room light.

He held his bandaged hands up to his face in the darkness.

Sometimes, he told himself, I’ve just got to laugh at all this.—

Chapter XII

It felt good to be walking on the land again, after the weeks on board the caravan. The mertzer village was far behind Daenek and Rennie. The men had been too busy greeting their wives and children, including the babies born during their absence, to take much notice of their two newest members heading out into the open countryside beyond the village.

The sun was just setting when the two of them came within view of the busker village. Daenek could see a few dim lights come on in the windows of the buildings clustered near a sluggish river. He and Rennie hitched their packs higher upon their shoulders and hurried their footsteps along the river’s sandy bank.

“Are you glad to see it again?” said Daenek.

“This dump?” A corner of Rennie’s mouth curled. “Naw, I never cared very much for it.” She lowered her head and trudged on in stony silence.

When they reached the outskirts of the village, Rennie stopped in front of one of the squat wooden buildings. The windows were unlit. “Wait up,” she told Daenek, then stepped to the door and pounded on it. She waited a few seconds, then struck it again with her fist, but no answer came.

“Come on,” she said, rejoining Daenek, “well go ask at the inn.”

Daenek followed her to the village’s central building, an inn two stories high with its windows spilling yellow lamplight into the darkness. Inside, Rennie pushed through the knots of buskers, men and women, with Daenek trailing in her wake. She turned once and saw him studying the drinking, gossipping crowd—he had learned their language from her while on board the caravan. “Yeah,” she said over her shoulder with a thin smile, “just like real people.”

She stopped at the side of a table near one of the side walls. A fat man wearing an apron splotched with grease and beer, looked up at her from his conversation.

“Gerd,” said Rennie, “how’s it going? What’s the news around here?”

“Right bad,” wheezed the fat innkeeper. “The bad priests creeping about everywhere. Seems like a new one near every week.”

“So what are you doing about ’em? Don’t tell me anybody’s grown brave enough to hunt one down.”

“Huh.” The man’s jowls mottled in indignation. “Right cowardly maybe, but not stupid at least. We just don’t go wandering about in the hills when there’s one about, and after a while it goes away like its others. As though they had just been passing through all along.”

Rennie smiled and leaned down closer to the innkeeper.

“Hey,” she said, “where can I find Uncle Goforth?”

The fat man grunted. “Cost you.”

“Bull.” But she rolled a small coin across the table to his waiting hand.

“He moved out of his shack.” The fat man dropped the coin into an apron pocket. “I gave him a room upstairs. End of the hall.”

Without saying anything more, Rennie turned away from the table and headed for a sagging stairway in the back of the inn.

Daenek followed her through the crowd.

Upstairs, a low-ceilinged hallway was lit only by a candle guttering in a bracket on the wall. The bare planks of the floor creaked under their steps. Most of the doors they passed were silent but from behind a few came voices or the sound of laughter. Rennie pushed open the last door without knocking.

“Uncle Goforth?” she called.

Daenek stepped behind her into the small room, lit only by the candlelight from the hallway. The room’s windows were shuttered tight.