Mouse, dressed as a boy, slipped unseen from the Citadel of the Living Fire into the night. She scarcely believed it. It must all be a dream, a nightmare even. She was not one to run away, unless it was to hide. She was not one to step beyond the rules of life, to risk the anger of the Flame.
But here she was, clad in the rags of a slave boy, disgraceful attire for one of the Citadel’s own. She dared not venture beyond the temple grounds as herself, however. She must be secret; she must be unseen; she must attract no watching eye.
So she passed between the guards at the gate and fled across the plain, and above her shone the blue star. She followed it as she had been told. The way was straight across the empty plain. She ran without turning until she reached a place where a deep gorge cut the dry plain.
Mouse stood upon the brink of that sharp drop, looking down at the rushing river below, and at the forest into which that river flowed and disappeared.
There could be no going around. The gorge stretched for miles in both directions, and the star led right over it.
To do as the Silent Lady asked, Mouse would have to climb down that rocky way, and she would have to cross not only the river, but also the forest.
Dawn was approaching. The blue star, having run its course across the sky all night, was fading away. In the half-lit gloom that was neither night nor day, Mouse scurried down the gorge. The river churned dark and swift, and she thought at first it was hungry for her, the white crests of rapids like a salivating mouth. But as she drew near, she thought instead that it was merely wary of her approach.
When she reached the bottom of the gorge, she found her feet on slick stone dampened by the river, which, this close, seemed more than ever to be a living entity, watching her as it flowed. Though she wanted to wash her gritty hands in the running water, she did not dare. Instead, she picked her way along the bank, keeping close to the gorge wall. The sun was rising. When she looked up, she could scarcely see the blue star.
The forest loomed large. The trees grew right down to the edge of the river, some plunging great, twisting roots into its rapids and clinging defiantly. Mouse trembled as she drew near. She did not like the looks of this forest, so different from the mountain jungles in which she had herded goats as a child. There, she’d had only to worry about wolves and panthers stalking in the shadows.
Here, she felt she must fear the shadows themselves.
“Follow the blue star,” the Silent Lady had said, “without turning to the right or left.”
Mouse looked up at the gorge wall and thought there was no way she would ever climb out again in any case. The river could not be crossed. There was no option left to her. She must do as she was told. She must deliver her message to Etanun, or she must perish in the attempt.
“Fire burn,” she whispered. “Fire purify.”
She stepped into the shadows of the trees.
Immediately she knew, without knowing how she knew, that she had stepped outside of her world. The river still ran close by, but she sensed that if she turned, she would not see the open gorge behind her. She felt the forest surrounding her, extending forever, unimpeded by gorge walls, overshadowing the river, wherever it flowed.
She was beyond her own world. And in this place of thick-woven tree branches, she could not see the blue star.
Mouse stood like a statue, not daring even to breathe. If she breathed, she would scream; and if she screamed, she would panic; and if she panicked, she would run and run and run and never stop.
She peered up, trying to see between the branches and leaves, and she couldn’t help wondering if there even was a sky beyond them, much less any stars.
Should she go? Should she start walking, following the flow of the river, hoping the star, wherever it was, still led this way? “Without turning to the right or left,” the Silent Lady had said. But what about when the star was no longer visible? What hope or help was there for her then? Was she to sit here in the world beyond her own and . . . wait?
Mouse, standing undecided, suddenly saw a light, far away, almost hidden by the trees, so faint it might have been no more than a flickering candle. It grew steadily brighter and, she thought, drew nearer.
A whirring and shushing filled the air, as of trees speaking to one another in voices of leaves and bark and branches. Roots lifted from the soil and, grasping and coiling, pulled the trees away, parting them to create a path, and even the river itself seemed to rise up and alter its course. The ground beneath Mouse’s feet shifted, though she herself remained where she stood, staring at that approach of light that was more than light, for it did not merely strike her eyes but penetrated down to places in her being that she had not known existed, perhaps that never had existed until now.