“No, I mean, shouldn’t we be looking for a river now?” she persisted.
“Maybe,” the cat-man replied, shrugging. “This is the Between. A river might not always look like a river to you. I can smell your world, and I feel the barriers. But I cannot get us through, nor will I even be able to see the gate. That’s part of the protection on your realm. Only one from the inside can lead folk of the Wood in. Otherwise, none of us will get past the rivers. Quite the effective deadbolt, when you think about it.”
“But . . . shouldn’t we be looking for a river, then?”
Eanrin bit down hard on his tongue. He wasn’t generally one to restrain his words. After all, he was a poet. But he drew a long breath and reminded himself that she was, after all, young, scarcely alive yet by immortal standards. “Look closely,” he said between his teeth. “Maybe you’ll see your river.”
Mouse turned, as did the other two, searching the solemn gloom of the trees. Nearby was a place where green bracken grew knee-high. Anything could hide there, anything at all. Even . . .
Mouse darted forward. “Wait!” Alistair cried and started after her, but Eanrin put out a restraining hand. “No, let her be. She’s safe enough, and it’s up to her.”
Mouse waded into the ferns, stepping through the lacy green fronds. And suddenly she said, “I’ve found it. I’ve found the river!”
The others hastened to her side and looked where she parted the ferns, pointing. A small rivulet passed this way, dampening the ground as it flowed, silent as a stalking snake.
“Well done,” said Eanrin. “Quickly now. Lead the way.”
Mouse hastened along against the flow of the little stream, pushing aside ferns. The others followed, noticing how it seemed that the ferns moved with a gentle, flowing rhythm, though there was no breeze. Then they thought how remarkably the ferns, flowing together in indecipherable patterns along the forest floor, resembled water.
The next moment, without any apparent change taking place, they walked along the edge of a wide river. There was a break in the trees up ahead.
“Typical,” Eanrin said dismissively, though the others stared in surprise. “Rivers are all such crafty creatures; you never quite know where you stand with them.” He backed away from the water, keeping close behind Mouse.
Then they stood at the edge of the Wood, gazing out into the gorge but keeping to the shadows. For though the Wood was the stuff of other worlds, it felt familiar by comparison. Both Alistair and the Chronicler, come from a North Country winter, were struck with a wave of sultry heat, and the light of the sun overhead was dazzling after the gloom of the Between.
“There!” Mouse cried, pointing up the wall. “There is the path I followed down! It’s narrow but not impossible, and I’m sure we can make our way up again.”
Alistair and the Chronicler exchanged glances, then turned to Eanrin, who was once more in cat form. “What did she say?” Alistair asked.
They had stepped from the Between into the Near World. Once more the barrier of language separated them as effectively as any wall.
“She says you have the ears of a monkey,” the cat said, and trotted after the girl, who was scrambling over river-splashed rocks in glad haste. “Hurry up, lads!”
So they climbed from the gorge. The heat of midday beat down upon them, and both Alistair and the Chronicler found the going hard. The Chronicler perhaps made better time, however, for the narrow path was better suited to his short stature than to Alistair’s long limbs. The cat sped ahead of all of them, slinking between their feet and hastening to the top, where he sat like a sentinel, looking out across the tablelands.
He remembered this country over which Amarok, the Wolf Lord, had pursued him. He recognized the line of mountains, hazy in the distance, which he knew ringed this land, trapping those within like so many rabbits in a snare. A mortal land, yet the sort of place that would draw malicious Faerie kind with irrepressible attraction. Fortunate for the mortals that the rivers had been set in place, cutting them off from the Far World as effectively as the mountains cut them off from their own kind.
But the Flame at Night had gotten through, and Eanrin could already see the scars of her work. The land on which he sat was dry as bone.
Mouse scrambled the last few feet out of the gorge and stood panting beside the cat, covered from head to toe in dust. “Look!” she said, pointing. “Do you see the Citadel Spire? Do you see the glow of the Flame?”
Like a lighthouse in the distance, a red fire burned above the horizon.
“Tell me, little Mouse,” Eanrin said quietly, “what has your goddess done to this land?”
Mouse swallowed with difficulty, for dust clogged her throat. “She has purified it,” she said at last, her voice full of conviction.