Upland Outlaws Read online

“It will be a pleasure and an honor,” Mist agreed. Thaile Felt sincerity and an alarming eagerness in that statement.

  “I shall leave you to it,” said the sorcerer. “Welcome again, Thaile. We’ll meet often in future, I’m sure. Soon you must come to my Place and meet my wife and our, er, … and try her cooking. Well, I’ll see you around. ” With a flourish of green cloak, Jain turned and headed down the slope to the path.

  Novice Mist slid into the place the sorcerer had vacated, but he twisted around to look at Thaile, leaning a bulgy arm on the back of the bench for her to notice. He gazed at her solemnly with his butter-yellow eyes. He had a very plain face, and his ears neither especially pointy nor especially round. He reminded her a little of her father-solid. It would take a strong wind to ruffle Mist, she thought.

  “Been here long?” he demanded. “Er … no. You?”

  “Ten days. Very dull, mostly. It’ll be better from now on, though.”

  “Oh?”

  He grinned. “You’re here. You’re Novice Number Five at the moment. The other three are pimple-faced brats. One more and we start lessons. Need at least six for a class, the old bag says. Have a good journey?”

  Thaile did not want to talk about her journey. “Fine,” she said quickly. “You?”

  “I was this much taller when I arrived,” Mist said solemnly, gesturing with his fingers.

  “Taller?”

  “Blisters! “

  She was startled, then laughed as she realized that his blank expression was intended as humor. She Felt his satisfaction. Mist was not quite as simple as he looked.

  “Which Gated you come to?” he asked.

  Gate? Why did everyone keep asking her about her journey? She did not want even to think of it. She was here, wasn’t that good enough? “Oh, let’s not talk about that! Tell me what happens next, and what did you say about lessons, and what you’re going to show me.”

  “Where do you want to start?” he asked.

  Man-interest …

  “I don’t know. What am I supposed to see?”

  He shrugged those big bare shoulders, making the sequined shirt twinkle in the sunlight. “I can only show you the bits I’ve seen, and that’s only a small part of the College, I’m sure. Your Place, of course. And this is the Meeting Place. The Market, the Commons, the School. I can show you my Place, or where the three spotted warblers nest, but I am absolutely positive you don’t want to meet them. “

  “You decide.”

  “Market first, then your Place. You like canoeing?”

  “Er … I’ve never been in a boat. ” Why did that feel wrong? “At least, I don’t think I have.”

  “I love canoeing,” Mist said, closing his eyes dreamily. Then he opened them and regarded her appraisingly. “There’s a lake at my Place-a little lake, but a lake. I’ll take you canoeing.”

  “Market first,” Thaile said firmly, and jumped to her feet. She staggered, almost falling to the grass. Mist sprang up and caught her, and held.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Alarm.

  “I-I don’t know! I feel sort of off-balance. “

  “Blisters?”

  “No, no blisters.” She pushed away his hands, feeling very annoyed at being so stupid. She tried a step, then another, and decided she had a mysterious compulsion to lean over backward. Mist’s arm hovered nearby. “Let me help?”

  Hope.

  “No, I’m fine.” Placing bare feet carefully on the grass, she marched down the gentle slope to the path. Mist strolled at her side, still eager to provide support.

  He stopped at the path. “This is the Way,” he said, waving a hand. He had big hands-useful for wielding paddles, no doubt. “You’ll see it everywhere in the College.”

  The Way was wide enough for two people to walk abreast, paved in very fine, sparkly white gravel, smooth and level. Thaile didn’t like the look of it. Why so wide? She mourned for all the grass that could have grown there, or flowers. Paths should be one narrow strip of moss or pine needles, just wide enough for feet, squeezing in and out between trees and bushes. A few deadfalls and gullies always made a walk more interesting. The Way went racing off over the grass, up and down the hillocks, so smooth you could roll a melon along it. Oh, it had some curves and slopes, but it seemed nastily artificial to her.

  “Left or right?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mist said, watching her as if waiting for her to see a joke. “You choose.”

  The Way seemed to circle the pond, all around the clearing. To the left were the mooning lovers, who had adjourned their mutual adoration to a bench. Thaile turned right, looking up at Mist’s smile distrustfully as he fell into step alongside her. The sun slid behind a cloud, shadowing the world.

  “The way out is exactly at the far side? I mean, the path goes all the way around?”

  He smirked. “You’ll see. Sure you don’t want my cloak?” Clearly there was something about this mysterious Way that he expected to surprise her. She did not want to be surprised by this overlarge, fancies-himself canoeist. His obvious man-interest was flattering, and not entirely unwelcome, but somehow it felt like trespass, usurpation … like wrong man. Tugging at her hair in confusion, she refused the offer of his cloak and just strode along in silence. Puzzled and a little hurt, Mist paced at her side, taking two steps to her three.

  Apparently the Way did not go all around the Meeting Place as she had thought. Soon it abandoned the parkland, and led them off into the forest. Mist continued to carry his cloak over one shoulder, although the air was much cooler here in the woods. Obviously if Thaile was warm enough, then he must show that he was. He had enough tact to remain silent, and the half-tasted memory at the back of her mind began to niggle at her again. So it was she who spoke first.

  “Three other novices, you said?”

  “Grub, Maggot, and Worm.”

  She laughed. Just when Mist’s placidity was most reminding her of her father, he would make a genuinely funny remark. Had Gaib possessed a sense of humor at Mist’s age? “What’s wrong with them?”

  Mist shrugged. “They may be bearable in four or five years. Two of them, anyway. “

  “How old are you, Mist?”

  He glanced down at her thoughtfully. “Nineteen. You?”

  “Er-Sixteen.” She meant she would be sixteen at the beginning of the rainy season, but obviously this was late in the rainy season, because the leaves were green and all those flowers … Yet she was sure she was sixteen already. Birthday? Winterfest? God of Madness, why was she so confused today? She shook her head, half expecting to feel hair swinging against her neck. “I’m old for a novice, of course,” Mist said, and she Felt his embarrassment. “I was late getting my word, because there weren’t many Gifted families around Dad’s Place. I was scouting out Places of my own already. Then a recorder came by and said I mustn’t, not yet. Sent me on a three-day trip up the Fastwater Valley. I had to hang around for months before the old relic finally got around to dying. After all that, he decided I didn’t have Faculty-the recorder did, I mean. So I started exploring again. Took my time, though. Don’t rush into things, usually. “

  Thaile thought Novice Mist would never rush into anything. He had a large sense of inertia about him.

  “Why are you here, if you haven’t got Faculty?”

  “Another recorder came by. Decided maybe I did. ” He shrugged again-more embarrassment. “So now I suppose I get told another word, and then they decide for certain.”

  “Do you want to stay here or go home?”

  The pale yellow eyes looked down at her again. “Might be nice to be a sorcerer. Easier than picking cotton. “

  She agreed doubtfully. She wanted to know what his talent was, but he would ask her the same question. Talents were dangerous topics for conversation.

  “I can’t decide,” he said. “I thought I d found my Place, see? Was trying to choose between three girls. One of them was very like you. ” He fell silent, lost in reverie. In a few m
oments his lust became deafening. She wondered why it did not disturb her more than it did. But she knew it was just young man’s dreaming; in a way, she could almost feel sorry for him. The curse of Faculty had disrupted his life just as much as hers. The forest was deep and dim, smelling woodsy, full of trees that were strange to her, towering like giants. Here and there were more flowers, also strange. Shafts of light struck down from the high roof to throw swathes of brilliance on ferns and bushes. A curious nostalgia chilled her spirits.

  Mist, to his credit, noticed her shiver. “Here, take my cloak!” He tried to drape it over her and contrive a mild hug at the same time.

  She refused. It would trail on the ground, she pointed out. “Well, it’s not far now,” he said. He sniffed loudly. “I love the smell of the air here! There’s all sorts of forest in the College, but this is my favorite. It’s like home.”

  “Not my home.”

  “No, I know. You’re a hill-country girl.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Mist smirked. “Because I was shown the Place I have to take you to, and the woods there aren’t like this! ” He began naming trees for her-monkeypod and ebony and hydrangea and breadfruit. Some of them seemed vaguely familiar, although she was sure that they had not grown near the Gaib Place. Maybe she’d seen them on that journey she didn’t want to think about?

  The Way continued ahead, white and smooth, winding out of sight. It felt gritty below her feet, but not unpleasant. She walked in silence for a while, trying very hard to shake off the aftertasteof-nightmare feeling.

  The Way tipped down a hill. She heard voices, low at first, soon becoming louder. Cheerful, laughing voices. Brightness showed ahead, the trees thinned out and then stepped aside altogether to reveal a small valley. And people! Thaile stopped. “I don’t like crowds,” she said.

  There were many, many people ahead-twenty or more, perhaps-as many as she had ever met all at once, at a wedding or a funeral. Men and women both, they milled like starlings among the colorful stalls and tables. She could Feel none of them.

  “No pixie likes crowds!” Mist said cheerfully, an expression of certainty on his so-ordinary face.

  “Does anyone?”

  “Imps do, I’m told. That’s one of the things we get taught, apparently-all about other peoples, Outside. Can’t see why they matter, since they’re not allowed in Thume. But this is the Market. You get clothes here, and food if you want it. I mean, we can cook for ourselves at home if we prefer. I’m not much of a cook, so I eat the ready-made meals at the Commons. Much easier. “

  Screwing up her courage, she went on at his side, letting the crowd swallow her up. She discovered that it was not like a funeral. Nobody spoke to her, she did not have to meet people’s eyes, and soon she was caught up in the wonder of all the things displayed on the stalls: fruits and vegetables, mysterious tools, and clothing-explosions of colors and fabrics like she had never seen.

  “Sorcery?” she whispered.

  Mist nodded, displaying much more confidence on the outside than she knew he was feeling inside. “Yes, it’s sorcery. Take whatever you want. You could work all day and never empty one of those tables. They fill up as fast as you clear them. Now, what color do you fancy?”

  For the first time, Thaile began to feel properly excited. Here were riches such as her parents had never known in their lives. The women wore long skirts of amber or green or brown, and frilly blouses of lighter shades. They were picking over the wares and helping themselves, trading nothing in return that she could see. There was no one in attendance to trade to. She caught a few surprised, appraising glances in her direction and suddenly felt awkward in her dreary rough-spun frock.

  “Try that one!” Mist suggested, pointing to a rich auburn fabric.

  She held it up to admire it. It was a full-length dress. “That’s nice,” he said.

  “It’s too big for me.”

  “No, it isn’t. You chose it, so it’ll fit perfectly. Look!” He tossed his cloak on the table and pulled off another, in royal blue and silver. He held it against himself. “See? It’s the right length, and there can’t be many men here tall as me.”

  She must be plumper than she had thought, then. She must have filled out lately … on the journey, perhaps? The journey was very vague in her mind. Glancing over the other women, she saw no one wearing anything as bright as that auburn. And none of the men was as dazzling as Mist. She replaced the dress. “Start with shoes,” Mist said, “over here.”

  She rarely wore shoes, but everyone else was wearing shoes. He made a few suggestions and soon she was clutching three pairs, shiny leather beauties. One pair had shiny metal buckles that must be worth a fortune.

  He took them from her and led her back to the garments. Once started, she couldn’t stop; he encouraged her. In a few minutes her arms were loaded with skirts and blouses and a couple of heavy capes-after all, this was the rainy season, Mist remarked.

  “And a hat,” he said firmly. “You never know what sort of weather you’re going to run into here. There! That’s enough to carry, isn’t it?”

  “Oh!” she said, with sudden dismay. “Is it far?”

  He shook his head, grinning. “No, but you can come right back again if you want, now you know the Way. Let’s go. ” Reluctantly she tore herself away from all the wonderful things. Mist led her back along the path, retracing their steps up the hill. The silence of the forest returned, and the sandy surface was cool under her feet. He continued to carry her shoes for her, while she labored under the weighty burden of skirts and cloaks and blouses. She thought he might offer those bulgy arms to assist her, but evidently such thoughts did not occur to Novice Mist.

  Still, the Market had made her feel better. She was going to enjoy trying on all these wonderful things.

  “Sorcerers?” she said cautiously. “Some of those people were sorcerers?”

  He smiled down at her with his pale yellow eyes. There was something almost appealing in the sleepy way he did that. “I expect so. ‘Most everyone here. seems to be either a mage or a sorcerer. There’s novices and recorders and archivists and analysts and archons-and the Keeper, of course. And a few oddball specialists, like Mistress Mearn. We’ll get all that explained to us when lessons start. Something to do with the moon and needing a sixth novice. Right now, we just wait, and enjoy ourselves.”

  The sky must have clouded over very quickly, for rain had begun to fall. She could hear it on the leaves, high above. Very little was getting through, so it wasn’t heavy. In the distance she heard wind, as if a storm were coming. The air had more of a piney smell to it now.

  The path was steeper than she had remembered, winding up a hillside. Strange that she did not recall noticing the great mossy rocks scattered around the forest floor. Big as cottages, some of them. And now she was seeing trees more familiar to hercedars and cottonwoods. And even conifers.

  “This isn’t the way we came!” she said, with sudden alarm. She had seen no branchings, or side roads.

  Mist chuckled. “Yes, it is. It’s the Way we came, but the Way is not a usual sort of path, Thaile. We’re going to your Place. ” Inexplicably, her heart leaped. “My Place? The … the…” Her confusion flustered her. “The Gaib Place?” That sounded wrong, somehow.

  “No. The Thaile Place. Of course you’re Thaile of the College now, to anyone outside, but here you can talk of the Thaile Place if you want. Almost there.”

  Thaile Place sounded horribly wrong, somehow. Thaile of the … Gaib Place? What Place? That thought at the back of her mind …

  Then the Way swung around a massive cedar and came to an end at the edge of a rain-soaked clearing, carpeted with grass of brilliant green, speckled with tiny white flowers. At the far side stood a cottage.

  “Oh! Oh, my! ” She stared. She looked up disbelievingly at Mist’s triumphant smile.

  “Mine? Really for me?”

  “Yours. All yours. Unless you want to invite some young man to come and share it w
ith you, of course. That’s entirely up to you. “

  She did not need Feeling to know what thought lay behind that smirk. Her happiness faltered. Young man? Live with her? The elusive shadow at the back of her mind …

  “I’ll show you the Mist Place,” he said. “Quite different! It’s on a lake, and I have a canoe. Take you canoeing. “

  “One Place at a time!” she said. “Let’s run.”

  They ran over the grass, although the rain was not too heavy. The cottage became ever more wonderful as she approacheda porch for sitting on in warm evenings and windows with some sort of shiny stuff in them and a tall chimney so the fire wouldn’t smoke. Gaib had tried to make one of those several times, but it had always fallen down in the next storm.

  When she drew near, she saw that the walls were made of flat wood with tight, straight edges. Disloyal as it seemed even to think so, the Gaib Place had been very drafty, because the chinking between the logs kept falling out. This sorcerous place did not seem to have any chinking, it fit so well.

  Probably Mist’s cottage would be woven basketwork, as that was how houses were made down in the warm lowlands. How did she know that? Could she have learned it on the journey? She really did not have any clear memories at all of a journey …

  There was no chicken coop, not that she could see, and no vegetable patch. No goats or pigs, either, but Mist had said she could help herself to food at the Market, and that would certainly be easier than growing and digging and weeding. What on earth was she going to do with herself all day? Apart from fighting off Mist in a canoe, of course.

  5

  Even had Thaile believed all the marvels Jain had promised her, she could still never have imagined the glory of the cottage. She would not have believed that one person would be expected to need so much space: a room for sitting, a room for sleeping, a room for cooking, a room for washing. Floors and walls and furniture were all made of the flat, shiny wood, smooth and gleaming, and she had never seen a smooth wall in her life before. There were thick cloths to walk on, and soft chairs to sit on, all prettily patterned. More cloths hung by the windows, instead of shutters, and magical stuff like clear ice kept out the rain. Even the lanterns were sorcerous, needing no oil or candles.