Annev looked down at his arm and flexed his fingers again, afraid to look back up at Crag. He picked a bit at the bandages, wondering if the merchant suspected the truth of his prosthetic limb.
‘Leave those alone,’ Crag said from his perch. ‘It’s not healed yet.’ Annev nodded, replacing the loose bandage he had begun to unwind. ‘Give it a day,’ Crag added. ‘A week maybe. Probably won’t even scar.’
Annev looked up at Crag, thinking over the last half-day. ‘You seem to know an awful lot for a pedlar.’
‘And how would you know?’ Crag asked, putting his hands on his hips in mock offence. ‘Seen many pedlars afore? In your secret village?’
‘Well … no. Not exactly.’
‘Well, there you go. Might be they’re all knowledgeable like me. Might be they’re worse.’ He grinned, showing a mouthful of crooked, mossy teeth.
Annev smiled. ‘Somehow I doubt that.’
‘Well, then,’ Crag said, bowing dramatically. ‘You’re wise beyond your years, Avatar Annev.’
The smile faded a bit from Annev’s face. ‘I’m not really an avatar,’ he said, trying not to frown. ‘I mean, I should be, but—’ He stopped.
‘But what?’
But I won’t be one unless I kill you … and I don’t think I can do that now.
Annev shrugged. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Try me.’
‘Well,’ Annev said slowly, ‘right now I’m just a … deacon. I want to be more, but … I failed this test. Actually, I didn’t fail it, but the headmaster has it in for me and my friends, so instead of advancing me, I was demoted. I can still turn it around, but only if I finish a specific task.’
‘So what’s the problem? What’s the task?’
‘Hmm?’
‘What do you have to do for this title of theirs?’ Crag asked, hopping down from his branch. When Annev hesitated, Crag tapped his nose and said, ‘Let me guess. That’s the complicated part.’
Annev nodded. ‘I don’t know if I can do it – but if I don’t, my whole life is ruined. I won’t be an avatar. I probably won’t even be a deacon. Just a steward … or something worse. I’m not sure they even have a name for what they would make me. Servant?’ He sighed.
Crag shook the contents of his pipe out into the fire, walked over to his cart, and threw back the blanket. Annev watched, curious, as Crag shoved both his hands inside and rummaged about, bringing out a small knife and a round, hand-carved block of wood. He walked back to the fire, plopped himself on the ground, and began to whittle. After a minute the pedlar looked up at Annev. ‘What?’ He lifted the block of wood and blew along the edge, scattering wood shavings across the ground. ‘Wasn’t that the end of your story?’
‘… yes,’ Annev said, frowning.
‘You left out the part about feeling sorry for yourself.’ He shimmied the knife point along the face of the carving, making small, slow chips in the wood.
‘Huh?’
Crag continued to chip away and blew again at the loose shavings. ‘What does it matter what they call you if you’re as good as everyone else? Avatar. Steward. Deacon. Servant? They’re just names. They don’t change who you are.’
‘But they’re not the same,’ Annev protested. ‘The privileges are different. The duties, the responsibilities, the respect … they’re oceans apart.’
Crag snorted. ‘So young. Thought havin’ Sodar as your mentor might’ve opened your eyes a bit, but I s’pose livin’ in a village your whole life has kept them shut pretty tight.’
‘So you do know Sodar. How?’
Crag chuckled. ‘That story is too long to tell, even if I had a mind to tell it – and it’s beside the point, which is this: no one decides your future or your fate but you. Your ancients want to call you a steward or a servant? Fine. You can serve and make it true, or you can leave and be free.’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’
‘I doubt it is,’ Crag said, resuming his carving, ‘but for the sake of argument, I’ll agree with you.’
Annev smiled in spite of himself and decided to drop the subject. He also decided he had made his decision: he wasn’t like Tosan, and he wouldn’t try to be; he was, as Tosan had suspected, like Sodar; mercy was in his blood, and while he might have an affinity for magic, he did not use it for evil ends as the witch did – nor would he.
The ramifying consequences of that choice would exact their price later, though. Annev would be made a steward, and Crag would go free. Worst of all, Crag would go with an intimate knowledge of the village, its purpose and its location. By letting him leave, Annev was betraying the Academy and all of Chaenbalu. Annev doubted it would come to that – Crag did not seem malign, and Annev felt the man would keep his secrets if asked – but the risk was still there. Knowing that Crag and Sodar knew each other eased the difficulty of his choice; if Annev couldn’t kill Crag as a lost pedlar, he certainly couldn’t kill him knowing he was an acquaintance of Sodar.
Annev sighed. He would return to the village as a failure, with all that entailed, but Crag’s words made his fate less burdensome: maybe things weren’t so complicated – maybe he really could decide his own destiny. Annev doubted it, but he also had hope again.
He looked around, trying to see the details of the forest with only the firelight to aid him. ‘Where are we? This isn’t where we found Cenif.’
‘No,’ Crag said, still carving. ‘I was hopin’ you could help with that. After I got back to me cart, I threw you over the back and tried to trundle out of the Brake, stickin’ to the path. Only it turns out you were right. These paths play tricks in the dark.’
‘It’s not so much the dark as the shadows.’ Annev rubbed his bandages. ‘If it’s full light or full dark, you can find your way well enough.’
Crag stopped carving. ‘You mean if we left now, we could find our way out of here?’ Annev nodded and Crag jumped to his feet. ‘Well, let’s move then! We’re wastin’ time, and I’ve got wares to sell in Hentingsfort.’ He snatched up his carving and tossed it to Annev, who caught it, perplexed. Crag was over by his cart.
‘What’s this?’ Annev asked, holding up the half-carved block of wood.
‘It’s a block of wood,’ Crag said, tossing the knife into the back of the cart and unstrapping a small spade.
‘Right,’ Annev said, turning the object over in his hands. ‘But what are you carving it into?’ The cylindrical block was about four inches in diameter and eight inches in length. Annev’s fingers traced the delicate scrollwork lining its curving side. In the centre of the spidery detailing was a bird in flight, its long, wide tail feathers fanning out below its body, its beak and crest pointed upward as if it were soaring higher.
‘Am I that poor an artist?’ Crag said, shovelling a spadeful of earth onto the fire. ‘I thought it’d be obvious.’
Annev looked at the carving more closely. The scrollwork surrounding the bird ran right up to the edge of its body, merging with the tail. As Annev turned the block of wood, he saw that the spiralling ornamentation tapered off into long feathers, each one wreathed in fire.