By morning Chaska had discovered that the map was a terrible conversationalist.
It answered questions about migrating animals by moving marks across its waxed surface. Questions about inns, bridges, or the price of oats produced nothing. When she put her finger on a black cluster and asked what lived there, the cluster shifted beneath her finger and reappeared beside a little drawing of a blunt-headed lizard.
“That drawing wasn’t there last night.”
“It was folded under,” Suth said.
“How long do the marks remain?”
“As long as the animals keep the route.”
“And if they change it?”
“The map changes its opinion.”
Chaska made a small, affronted noise and copied the cluster into her own book. “Roads do that too. They simply leave people to discover it at the broken part.”
Suth had offered to guide them as far as the moving forest. Beyond that she would decide when she knew what the forest required. Ysabet had accepted the limit because arguing it would not improve the old woman’s knees.
They had not yet agreed what the journey would cost.
At the charcoal pit’s abandoned washing trough, Ysabet laid out their food. Chaska added her own stores and kept the flight rations separate. Ashaun contributed a packet of dried meat that smelled of smoke and strong pepper. Suth had cheese, roots, and an alarming number of seeds wrapped in separate scraps of paper.
“Are those food?” Chaska asked.
“Not this year.”
“Then they go in the other pile.”
The human provisions could be stretched to the next cultivated valley. Pip’s clean minerals were the more immediate problem. Roadside stone might hold salt or sharp grit; it rejected some and swallowed others too quickly for Ysabet’s comfort. Lilt needed food suitable for her, not whatever the people could boil. The elk grazed widely but could not turn a barren cut into a pasture.
“We’ll pass Gevren’s orchard,” Suth said. “He often has work.”
“Paid work?”
“He has an excellent understanding of what he would like done. His understanding of payment sometimes needs encouragement.”
Ysabet wrapped the clay. “I’ve met that family.”
Ashaun did not put her meat into the common bag. She handed Ysabet enough for the morning and retained the rest.
Ysabet felt a sting of resentment and then recognized its unfairness. Ashaun had promised to travel with them for a time. She had not promised to surrender her ability to leave.
“Are you coming to the orchard?” she asked.
“I am.”
“And after?”
“I’ll tell you when I know.”
Pip sat between the food piles, waiting for a misunderstanding to become edible.
They made a traveling arrangement for the mouse. Its box fitted into a sling under Ysabet’s coat when the track was rough. The sling kept it upright and sheltered from wind, but Pip objected to the distance. Twice it climbed Ysabet’s boot and twice its thin leg failed to hold.
She knelt and set the box on the ground. The mouse came to the opening, took a seed from the threshold, and retreated.
“I can’t put it inside you every time you want it,” Ysabet said.
Pip pushed the box with its nose.
She waited for the familiar sensation to arrive through their bond. It did not. Her bent hand rested in the dirt, an ordinary awkward hand.
Chaska crouched beside them. “Could we carry the box until the flatter stretch, then stop?”
“That is what I meant to do.”
“Perhaps tell your feet. They have already decided to hurry.”
Ysabet sat down properly. She let Pip inspect the sling and the box inside it. When they finally set out, the creature walked beneath her elbow, looking up at every squeak. It would be a slow morning.
Suth kept an equally slow pace. The elk followed, browsing as it went. Her staff made a hollow knock against the harder stones. In daylight it looked unremarkable except for the carved joint near the grip, shaped like folded insect legs.
The path rose through dry grass into a gap between low hills. Beyond lay a cultivated valley, red dots scattered among dark branches.
“Fruit?” Chaska asked.
“In a manner of speaking.”
A pale moth lifted from the nearest bough. It was larger than Ysabet’s hand. Its wings were veined like silk stretched over wire, and the narrow body underneath ended in a hooked tail.
Suth stopped.
Three more moths rose behind it.
“Not this early,” she said.
The elk swung its head toward the orchard. Pip’s folds tightened against its body, hiding the pouch opening. Ysabet moved her arm so that the mouse box rested farther from the moths.
On the nearest tree, a red shell hung split halfway down its side. Something inside made a single dry tap.
Nothing answered from the branches.