The lights came down the slope in the wrong order.
Ysabet saw one above the thorn bushes, another below it, and a third moving sideways through solid rock. She stopped with her boot over the edge of the track. Behind her, Ashaun made a noise through her broken teeth.
“Something carrying lamps,” Chaska said.
Then the nearest lamp turned its head.
The elk stepped clear of the thorn. Pale globes hung within its antlers, nested among the points like fruit. They gave no smoke. One swung against another with a soft wooden knock. Its broad hooves found the path by touch, testing before each shift of weight. An old woman sat in a shallow saddle almost hidden beneath her cloak.
Flowers grew on the cloak. Ysabet first mistook them for embroidery. Then a small yellow head turned toward the light.
Pip ran out from beneath Chaska’s grounded frame.
“Wait.” Ysabet’s voice came too sharply.
It stopped. The thin new leg folded, uncertain under the sudden halt, and it sat down hard. The elk lowered its head. Pip backed two steps, clicked, advanced one, and finally stretched its neck until its sideways mouth almost touched a boot.
The old woman waited.
Her boots were blackened with mud, the left heel patched with bark. A beetle crawled across the toe Pip was inspecting. It lifted a middle foot in the beetle’s direction, reconsidered, and put the foot down.
“That’s his road,” the woman said. “You’ll need to go around.”
The beetle continued over her sole.
“Mother Suth?” Ysabet asked.
“I’ve been called worse by people who wanted directions.” She looked beyond Ysabet to the broken country behind them. “You crossed the swift bridge.”
“What remains of it.”
“That explains the birds.”
Chaska straightened. “They were nesting there before we arrived.”
“Yes. Now the colony is arguing with three other colonies about where the edge of its territory has gone. I was following a migrating herd, and the herd was following its own good judgment until the birds interfered. Everything has become rather loud.” Suth examined Pip. “And here you are.”
Ysabet crouched, offering her right hand without moving it toward the creature. Pip tapped the bent fingers once, withdrew, and tucked its thinner leg beneath its body. No pictures came. Only a small pressure like a belt loosened after a long walk.
“You followed it?” Ashaun asked.
“I followed what was changing around it. Easier, generally.”
The survivor stood clear of the elk’s antlers. Her stone-ended arm caught a little of their light. Suth’s attention rested on it for a moment and moved on.
“Are you being followed by anyone with boots?”
“Probably,” Chaska said.
“How many?”
“We don’t know.”
“Those are the most troublesome numbers.”
The elk began cropping a thorn bush. Suth unhooked one leg and slid down slowly, catching herself against its shoulder before taking her full weight. Ysabet offered a forearm. The woman accepted, her fingers dry and surprisingly light.
“Thank you. My knees have declared themselves a separate traveling party.”
Pip went after her boot again. Suth sat on a low rock, leaving it room to investigate. The mouse poked its nose from the warm pouch, whiskers trembling. Suth leaned forward.
“Now that,” she said, “is an excellent reason to need breakfast.”
It was almost midday. Ysabet realized she had forgotten to eat the piece of bread tucked inside her coat. She had checked the mouse, tested Pip’s leg, checked the road, checked the mouse again. Chaska had eaten while walking and had said something Ysabet had answered without hearing.
“I have food,” she said.
“For you?”
“Yes.”
“Then we might begin by proving it.”
They shared the shelter of the thorn. Chaska led Lilt around to the broad leeward shelf, where the sandray spread her body flat over sun-warmed stone. The elk turned an enormous ear toward her and resumed eating. It did not require an introduction.
Suth unwrapped a hard cheese, sniffed it, and held it farther from her face.
“Older than I intended.”
“That makes two of you,” Ashaun said.
The woman grinned. “Good. I was afraid this would be a solemn expedition.”
Ysabet tore bread with her left hand and held it steady against her knee. Pip watched the crumbs but made no attempt to eat them. She offered clean clay from the wrapping in her pack. It took three pieces, then brought one back and set it on Suth’s patched boot.
“An advance payment?” Suth asked.
“We don’t know what it means when it gives things back,” Ysabet said. “Sometimes it seems to mean the piece is wrong.”
“Perhaps it thinks I’m wrong.”
Ashaun was still standing.
“You know what it is.”
The humor left Suth’s face without becoming alarm. She looked at Pip’s forked white mark and at the place where its new leg rested against the stone.
“I know something of what it carries,” she said. “That isn’t quite the same question.”
“Answer the one you can.”
“Eat first.”
Ashaun’s jaw shifted.
Suth cut the cheese with a small, blunt knife. “I will still be here when you’re finished. So will the frightening answer. But if we frighten ourselves hungry, we’ll have to do the whole thing again after lunch.”
At last Ashaun lowered herself onto the far end of the rock.
Pip retrieved its clay from the old woman’s boot and ate it. The elk reached over Suth’s shoulder and stole the thorn sprig caught in her hood.