Deliverer

Did the boy know, did he possibly know, that there was no way out from where he had gone except the north road? That there was no beach to let him around to safety, only sheer cliffs? Could the boy even have any idea that it was Malguri land, just beyond that sheer wall?

He hurt. But he ran, all the same. He dared not trust the immediate-area function on the pocket com. What he had just reasoned out, he was well sure Banichi and Jago damned well knew, and everybody else in the world knew. They were coming to the bag-end of the course, the place where everything stopped.

16

The shore itself, a flat, treacherous strand, lumpy with rocks, offered no sure ground under the snow. Water lapped up against the icy edge, ice in the shallows along shore, in some places under a film of newly-fallen snow, that gave warning it was water only where the slight surge lapped up through the ice like lacework.

Bren stayed away from that, skirted it at the fastest pace he could make—had to stop now and again to double over and catch his breath, and then reprised the effort, run and run and run, with no idea how far ahead of him Banichi and Jago might be, or whether the dowager and Cenedi had made contact with Malguri, or asked for help, or what.

He passed signs of habitation—the regular geometries of an orchard situated in the blowout gap, and that might be the reason for the box on the map, the indication of structure. That might be all it was. And hope so. Hope that the boy had not gone to any definite Place that would give his pursuers any help finding him.

Hope that surprise would give them a marginal advantage over Murini’s lot, at least until help could get to them—and they had taken the mecheiti Malguri had in stable, mecheiti which might have carried help to the dowager by now, and help might be coming overland toward them, maybe down the north road itself, to try to catch Murini’s lot before they laid hands on a young hostage.

It was impossible to run fast, shod in oversized boots. Impossible to make any speed. Cajeiri kept walking, just trying to get far enough through the orchard that the branches might screen him off from anyone following him, and hoping they might mistake the boots for one of their own. He walked wide-striding, trying to keep a man’s gait through the snow.

Then something different hove up through the veil of snow and branches, something solid, like a building, a rustic kind of building.

No lights showed. Nothing gave any sign of life. He walked on, and as he walked, saw a snow-covered roof, a native stone foundation, stone wallsc It was a house, was what. A house out here. Maybe there was an orchard-keeper, but it was winter, and maybe nobody lived here in the winter.

At the edge of the orchard stood a second thing, a great big hulk of a thing that he thought might be a wrecked storage shed, but it was a very odd-looking shed, if that was what it had beenc it was all smooth-sided, and nested among folded-up girders, and it looked as if it had stood taller and then just collapsed down on one side.

Maybe it was a bin for the fruit or something, just toppled by age or weather, if nobody used this orchardc the orchard looked like a working orchard—there was no overgrowth sticking up through the snow—but who knew what it looked like without the snow? Maybe the trees were all dead. The house looked completely deserted. And in winter, the orchard-keeper could have gone to live in town.

Maybe—maybe there was stuff left in the house, stuff he could use.

Maybe there was even a door open—mani said country people rarely locked doors, in her district, and if people locked doors it was odd, because sometimes a neighbor just wanted to borrow something, and did, and would hike over and pay it back when the owner came back. That was a country tradition. Only the fortresses and the lordly houses kept their gates locked, mani had said, and whoever came there could not just walk in, and that was just the way things had always been, because there were historic things and firearms and, besides, always staff—but any country person who had business with the lord could still turn up at the gates and ask for help, and know he had a right to go in and talk to the lord. That was the way a proper lord’s house had to bec always ready to open, the same as any farmer’s or herder’s.

Mani had said—mani had said that, after her, he had to know these things, because he would be lord of Malguri.

And he would be neighbor to these people who had locked him in the basement.

He had a score to settle with them now. He knew mani would do it. But he had his own, once he came into his own. His staff, the same as mani-ma’s, his heritage, and if the neighbors had gotten together to treat him the way they had, they were the ones who had to be worried when he got to Malguri.

This orchard might even be a Malguri orchard. He had no idea how far toward Malguri land he had come—not because he had not paid attention, but because he had no idea of distances in this place.

That pale grayness between the trees to the left might even be the lake itself—but he was not sure. The whole scale was more than he had ever thought.

But if the lake was coming closer and on his left on this trek, that meant it was Caiti’s summer house where he had just been, and that meant he had turned the way he ought and was skirting the shore, at a distance.

And that meant, in turn, that he was sooner going to come up around to the other cliffs, those on which Malguri sat and still have to skirt around a long, long way before he could get to Malguri’s boat dock—because those cliffs were as good as a defensive wall.

The slot in which the boat dock set was the only way up to Malguri from the lake shore. Malguri had held out in the wars because there was no real way for a lot of people to come at it except from the south, or way up over the mountains, or fighting their way through that gap in the cliffs.

And he was going to be forever getting there, a very cold forever.

He had food in his pockets, and he had eaten a little of it, just to try to stay warm. But he was so tired, and his feet were still so cold, and he had nothing but the oversized coat and the stupid boots— And this place might have stuff in it. It might have coats, and blankets, and dry socks, for that matter, if whoever was the gardener had not packed everything, and set everything ready to come back in the spring.

But it was a scary-looking and neglected place, with that broken thing out in the yard, sitting in the middle of broken trees, and others all tilted. It looked as if something had blown it up, because there had been a stone wall, and part of that was down. It looked as if there had been a battle here— So maybe it was Malguri land. And Caiti had attacked it.

No light, no light at all, and one of the windows was broken. All of them were dead and dark.

The window beside the door was broken, too. And he got up on the porch, which was mostly clear of snow, and looked in, and there was furniture—he could make that out. There were things lying all over the floor, maybe because of the wind, or maybe because of people searching here.

He tried the door latch. It gave, and he pushed the door inward, very quietly. There might be a kitchen. There might be a knife or something. A weapon.

There was much better than that. There was a phone on the wall.

He went straight to it and lifted the receiver. It was dirty, old, it had no buttons inside the handle—he was scared it might be an intercom with somewhere he might not want to talk to, but in a moment more he heard a man’s voice ask: “What number, nadi?”

He hung up, he was so startled. He had no authorizations.

But it had not challenged him. He decided—maybe it was authority, some sort of security station. He picked it up again and listened.