Final Passage (The Prisoner and the Sun #3) Page 4

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “That was the extent of my feeling,” she said, taking his hand. “I admit, I may have pushed a little too hard, but do not worry for me. It is coming slowly, but my strength is returning.”

  “I felt no wall,” Iliff said.

  “No, neither did I.”

  They walked in silence for a time, the forest litter rustling beneath their footfalls. Behind them, the horses nickered softly and shook their manes.

  “My mother knew many of the old legends,” Skye said at length. “But she spoke of the Sun most often. Though maybe this was because it was the story I most enjoyed, the one I always made her tell me.” Her smile was thin and faraway. “I was still young, Iliff, but I can remember her sitting on my bedside those nights when all seemed safe and assured in my world. Stype would already be asleep beside me. But I would not consent to fall asleep myself until Mother had told me the legend of the Sun. And so she would. She would tell me of the great Mountain that was guarded by something large and fearsome, the Mountain whose peak rose above the clouds. She would tell me of seeing the Sun and remembering. And as my mother spoke, I would imagine myself journeying there and getting past this fearsome thing, whatever it was, and climbing the Mountain to its very top.”

  “What did the Sun look like to you?” Iliff asked.

  “I could see the Mountain, see the clouds. I could even imagine emerging through them. But I could never see what lay beyond,” Skye said. “Perhaps that is what has sustained my fascination these years. Wanting to behold the Sun at last, to see what it is, to remember.”

  Iliff nodded. But how to see what we cannot get to? he thought. And how to get to what we cannot yet see?

  “My mother would smile when I told her my plans to journey there. She would say nothing, but she would smile. Then on one of the last nights before the attack—and perhaps it was on the eve of the attack itself, I do not recall—she did say something. She said simply, ‘Yes, my daughter, you will make the journey for all of us who cannot. You will remember for all of us who have forgotten.’ Then she kissed me and turned out the lantern on the night stand.”

  Iliff turned to Skye, whose gaze remained in the trees before her. She had never shared this memory.

  “The more I think about it,” she went on, “the more I believe this is what she truly wanted for me. That in telling these stories, she was preparing me for this journey. Mother used to spend mornings in her drawing room. It was a small room beside her bed chamber. I never thought much of her being there. But one morning I snuck away from my governess and went wandering throughout the Keep. It seemed so large to me at the time, and there were many rooms I’d yet to see. I opened pantry doors and closets and all of the doors in the servants’ quarters.”

  Iliff remembered his time in Adramina’s dwelling and his own yearning to enter the forbidden rooms.

  “At last I entered my parents’ bed chamber and pushed open the door to my mother’s drawing room. There she sat, her back to me, looking out of the window. I was going to call to her when I felt her presence all around me. And in the next moment, it was as if I was being swept off like a leaf. I became aware of a faraway place that I had never seen. A place of fine and endless snowfall, it seemed. But it was only a glimpse because suddenly I sensed that Mother had become aware of me. The image disappeared. I closed the door before she could turn and retreated from my parents’ chambers.”

  “Did she ever speak of this?”

  “No.” Skye shook her head. “And for a long time I did not understand what had happened. I did not understand what she could have been doing. But now, Iliff, I believe I do understand.”

  She turned to him with a kind of sadness. “I believe she was seeking the Mountain.”

  For the rest of their homeward journey, they reflected on Skye’s remembrances, sometimes in their talk, but more often in the long silences when the terrain was too wooded or steep and they had to ride one in front of the other. Iliff did not need to feel Skye’s thoughts in those moments to know that the question that most occupied his mind occupied hers as well.

  What had her mother found?

  One late afternoon, when they were still a day’s ride from the township, the sky turned dark and groaned with approaching thunder. They urged their horses down a slope to where large slabs of stone erupted from the earth. After tethering the horses beneath an outcropping, Iliff and Skye crawled into the mossy cool where two slabs leaned and met overhead.

  The rains roared down and blackened the bowl of the forest beneath them. When the heaviest rain passed, there followed a steady gray drumming that chilled both air and spirit. Iliff took Skye inside his cloak.

  “My mother’s ability to feel was very powerful,” Skye said, her voice resonating quietly in the stone, her eyes staring past the dripping eves. “More so than my father’s. More so even than Stype’s and my own. If she had not found the Mountain, I believe she was close. I believe she knew the way.”

  Iliff heard the same current of sorrow in her voice that sounded every time she spoke of her parents, except now it felt more pained. He held her closer.

  “You know well my feelings toward the Garott,” she said.

  “Yes,” Iliff answered, recalling the tree with the vines Skye had shown him years before.

  “I do not blame them for my mother’s death. The Garott were deceived, and they reacted to the deception in the only way they knew. This I can understand and forgive.” Iliff watched the trails of steam that followed her words. “But what of those who did the deceiving? I wonder. How am I to understand them? How am I to forgive them their deeds?”

  “Depar,” Iliff said, almost to himself. My predecessor.

  “Yes, Depar.” Skye looked over. “He and father were very close. I often went with them when they walked along the walls together. Depar would lift me onto his shoulders and say teasing things like, ‘How’s the sky up there, Skye?’ I did not know his brothers well, for they were merchants and often away, but I knew and loved him as family. Even at that young age.”

  Iliff pictured Depar slipping out at night to weaken the walls.

  “In the end, his act may have unwittingly brought our races to reconciliation,” she said. “But he may also have denied our people the knowledge of the Sun. And for what purpose? So that his brothers might profit a little more from their trade?”

  Iliff felt Skye’s arms grow rigid, and he rubbed them. “Not even your father knew the reasons,” he said.

  “For if my mother had found the Mountain,” she continued, “then one or many of us might have journeyed there. We might have ascended through the clouds and emerged, at last, to see the Sun and remember. To dispel once and for all the myth of our mortality, the myth that we are given but four seasons and that at winter’s end we must surrender to the Far Place and eternal sleep.”

  “Yes, but if you do not believe the myth of your mortality…” Iliff said, hope lifting his voice.

  Skye shook her head. “I know what you are thinking, but ours is a communal race, Iliff. Our beliefs hold one and all. And they have. Generation upon generation, through all the ages. What we once created in thought, we are now subject to. It would take more than one person’s convictions to dispel such a myth, even for oneself.”

  “But for one person’s convictions, I would still be in my prison,” Iliff said.

  Skye nodded as the rain around them tapered. But upon climbing from the stone shelter and guiding their horses back uphill, Iliff noticed that his wife’s eyes had fallen faint again.

  Chapter 6

  Spring warmed to summer, which soon began its slow wane into autumn. All around the township, fields turned golden and orchards sagged with fruit and ripened figs. With trade between the township and Garott settlements flowing well, and Iliff’s work as ambassador completed, he joined Tradd and the other farmers to help with the reaping. He hoped the long days of physical effort would relieve his mind of its worries. But each evening,
his arms aching from swinging the scythe, his tunic soaked and chaff-coated, he found himself even more anxious for Skye than when he had set out in the morning.

  The township held three funerals that fall, the last for the lead farmer whom Iliff had met upon arriving among the Fythe so long ago. As members of the community spoke the farmer’s eulogy, Iliff felt a large hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Tradd grasping Skye’s shoulder in his other hand. His dark, yellow-rimmed eyes remained on the skiff beneath them, and Iliff saw in his stare the weight of fear and uncertainty. Tradd blinked and pulled Iliff and Skye nearer, as though wanting to shelter them from whatever had befallen the lead farmer, but not knowing how. Iliff reached up and rubbed the thick skin of his hand.

  Long after the skiff had been delivered into the lake and the crowd had dispersed, Iliff remained with Tradd on the lonely shore. The two stood looking at the point where the skiff had disappeared beyond the bluff.

  “Is he there now?” Tradd asked.

  “Hm?” Iliff said. “Oh, no. He has to cross the sea yet. The journey to the Far Place will take many days.”

  “Will he be safe?”

  Iliff looked up to find Tradd biting his lower lip. Tradd had become close to the lead farmer in their seasons laboring together. Their friendship reminded Iliff of his own friendship with Gilpin years before, and he ached for Tradd’s loss.

  “Yes,” Iliff assured him. “He will be safe.”

  “How do we know?”

  “All Fythe are afforded safe passage.”

  “What does the Far Place look like?”

  Iliff began strolling along the shore. Tradd took a couple of large steps to catch up, then plodded along beside him. Tradd was still growing, Iliff saw. He stood more than two heads taller than himself, and his arms looked as though they were ready to burst from the seams of a coat that had been tailored only a few months before.

  “They say it is a land unlike any other,” Iliff replied. “A gentle land of silent trees and rolling fields where neither rain falls, nor thunder calls. Where all who go there sleep and are at peace.”

  “Who takes care of them?”

  “A god called Dyothe rules there. He watches over them.”

  Tradd stopped, and when Iliff turned, he saw the concern on Tradd’s face. The short brow beneath his dark, curly hair bent along several deep creases, just as Troll’s brow used to do.

  “Will he watch over Skye, too?” Tradd asked. “When… when she goes there?”

  Iliff smiled tightly and looked off over the waters. A sudden wind whipped his hair and billowed his dark coat. Tradd could see the same thing as he could, he thought. He saw that Skye was paler these days, that she slept longer and went out only seldom. Such had been the lead farmer’s state shortly before his own passing.

  “Skye is fine,” Iliff said, resting his hand on Tradd’s back. “Though she may be starting to worry, we being away so long. Come.”

  And when Iliff turned toward the township, he did so swiftly so that Tradd could not see his crumbling composure.

  * * *

  But though Skye faded with the autumn, she did not remain idle. She continued to heal the ill and injured, especially the graver cases. And on the late mornings she stayed home, Iliff sensed her reaching out with her awareness, feeling along the boundaries of her perceptions. She was doing as her mother had done. She was searching for the Mountain that her mother had spoken of, that, indeed, she may well have found. At times he joined her. But every time he came to the wavering filaments that were the verges of her awareness and felt no Mountain, he withdrew his focus from hers and despaired a little more.

  “I cannot understand,” Iliff said one night. “Why would Adramina tell me we were close?”

  He shut the stove door on a fresh log and joined Skye at the kitchen table. The night had grown cold. Skye held her cup of steaming lenk with one hand and the throat of her nightgown closed with the other.

  “Perhaps we are close,” she said, “and we do not know it.”

  “But we should have felt something. We should be feeling something.”

  Skye reached across the table and lay her warm hand over his. “Adramina told you this final wall was beyond sight,” she said. “I am beginning to wonder whether it is not beyond feeling, as well. I have reached far these past months, Iliff.”

  Iliff nodded and squeezed her hand. He could see the toll beneath her eyes and hear it in her voice. He feared her efforts were draining whatever strength remained in her, but he did not comment on this.

  “What if we were to set out?” he said suddenly. “Choose a direction and go forth.” He looked toward Tradd’s bedroom door where rich snores rumbled forth. “Tradd is old enough now.”

  “Yes, but to set forth on our fears would only get us lost. You know this.”

  “I am worried for you.”

  Skye smiled sadly and looked down.

  “Is it wrong of me to worry for my wife?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not. But I will ask you to promise me something.” When she looked up, her gaze appeared almost stern.

  “Yes, anything.”

  “Promise that no matter what happens, you will not give up your quest for the Sun. That you will continue to seek, even if it is in my absence. I admit that I do not entirely understand Adramina’s words, but I trust them. I trust her. She has guided you well in the past.”

  “The quest would mean nothing to me,” Iliff said, his heart suddenly bitter with grief.

  Skye’s pale eyes glimmered blue as she took his hand in both of hers.

  “But it means everything to me.”

  * * *

  Within weeks, the harvest was ended. A celebration commenced, replete with singing, dancing, and days of feasting. It was the first gathering since the lead farmer’s funeral, and the festivities helped dispel what shadows still lingered over the township. Even Skye seemed to draw color and strength from the celebration, and this cheered Iliff greatly.

  On the final night of the celebration, Skye and Iliff, as well as Tradd, who had always been too abashed to attempt the Trotalog, danced with the townspeople until late. Tradd’s laughter rumbled past the parchment lanterns, out into the night.

  After many rounds, Iliff and Skye slipped from the circle of dancers and went to sit on the low wall that bordered the market square. As they caught their breath, they watched the Trotalog continue without them, around and around. Every so often one of the revelers would raise an arm and call for them to join in again. But though the two declined with polite waves, the merry atmosphere continued to infect them nonetheless.

  “Do you remember the first celebration of the township?” Skye asked.

  “Yes, I do.” Even in the dimness, Iliff could see the rosy bloom of her cheeks.

  “You crowned my father on the final night,” she said. “That is one of my most cherished memories. Never had I seen him happier. He wore a crown again, yes, his reign had been reaffirmed. But more than this, he felt redeemed. He felt that by appointing you his Master of Walls, he had atoned for what he always believed was his greatest failing. He talked about you so much, Iliff.”

  “I remember your father fondly and well,” Iliff said, smiling at the images. “And the young woman at his side. The one who always looked so serious in her gown and headdress.”

  Skye laughed. “She was probably trying to hide her feelings for the strange man who fascinated her so.”

  “Strange, you say?”

  “In his heart of hearts, he sought the Sun,” she said. “And yet he continued to build walls.”

  It was true, Iliff thought. His life had been a series of walls. The prison walls, of course. The walls of the mines, with their jubilant promises of gold and riches. In the swamp, there had been the mud that coated his body, walling him from the world, from his despair. And, at last, the walls of the township—first wood, then towering stone—walls meant to separate all he perceived as good in himself and the world from all that h
e determined should be bad.

  “Do you believe that’s what’s happening now?” he asked her.

  “No. If the wall were of your making, I would feel it.”

  Iliff pressed his lips to the warm crown of her head. He looked again to the marketplace, where another round of dancing had begun. Beneath the colored lanterns, the dancers appeared as lively as ever. Tomorrow, the festival would be over, he thought. Work in the township would resume. With the harvest complete, Tradd would begin his second season of apprenticeship with the boat builders. Tradd loved handling wood and wood-working tools almost as much as he loved laboring in the earth. And a good thing, thought Iliff. Though they had enough barges for trade, there was always the need for more funeral skiffs, it seemed.

  He sighed, suddenly weary. He was about to suggest that he and Skye retire for the night when he noticed someone coming down one of the lanes on horseback. The man was darkly cloaked and swayed as he rode, as if too tired, or perhaps sodden with drink, to remain upright. Iliff pointed the man out to Skye.

  “Looks like someone wandered into the stables,” he said with a tired laugh. “I better get him down before he spurs the horse in his sleep and launches them both into the market.”

  The music and laughter diminished at Iliff’s back. He sensed the rider was a foreigner. Perhaps a trader from one of the settlements? The dark rider tilted his head at Iliff’s approach, but his face remained hidden inside the hood of his cloak. The horse was Garott, Iliff saw. But it was lean, and he did not recognize it. The horse huffed foam around its bit, and Iliff saw that it was not the rider who was exhausted, but the mount. It was too tired even to shy when he reached for the bridle.

  “Hello there,” Iliff called up to the rider. “Can I help you somewhere?”

  The man raised his head, the void of his face opening toward Iliff, but the words that issued forth were dry, like footfalls through a withered field. Iliff could not make them out. He moved the bridle to his other hand and reached up to assist the man from his horse. The hand that received Iliff’s was fragile and familiar, though Iliff could not say exactly how. When he had helped the man to the ground, he saw how small he was.