I willingly followed Toc Anaster, even as I resented it. I have my very own addiction and it is called dissatisfaction. And each time it returns, everyone pays. Cafal, I let you down. I cried out my own failure of faith-I forced you to flee me. Where are you now, my soft-eyed priest?
Baaljagg’s dead eyes fixed on her again and again as they walked. She lagged behind the twins. The boy’s weight was making the muscles of her arms burn. She would have to set him down again, and so their pace would suddenly slow to a crawl. Everyone was hungry-even an undead wolf could find little to chase down out here. The withered grasses of the plains were long behind them now. Soil had given way to stones and hard-packed clay. Thorny shrubs clung here and there, their ancient trunks emerging from beds of cacti. Worn watercourses revealed desiccated pieces of driftwood, mostly no more substantial than the bones of her forearm; but occasionally they came upon something far larger, long and thick as a leg, and though she could not be certain she thought that they showed signs of having been worked. Boreholes large enough to insert a thumb-though of course to do so would invite a spider’s bite or a scorpion’s sting-and the faint scaly signs of adze marks. But none of these ancient streams could have borne a boat of any kind, not even a skiff or raft. She could make no sense of any of it.
The north horizon hinted at high towers of stone, like mountains gnawed through from every side, leaving the peaks tottering on narrow spires. They made her uneasy, as if warning her of something. You are in a land that gives nothing. It will devour you, and there is no end to its vast hunger.
They had made a terrible mistake. No, she’d made it. He was leading us east, so we will go east. Why was he leading us in that direction? Stavi, I have no idea.
But here is a truth I have found inside myself. All that dissatisfaction? It’s not at Toc. It’s not at anyone. It’s with me. My inability to find peace, to trust it when I do find it, and to hold on to it.
This addiction feeds itself. It may be incurable.
Another rutted watercourse ahead-no… Setoc’s eyes narrowed. Two ruts, churned up by horse hoofs. A track. The twins had seen the same, for they suddenly ran ahead, halting and looking down. Setoc didn’t catch their words but both turned as she arrived, and in their faces they saw a hardening determination.
Storii pointed. ‘It goes that way. It goes that way, Setoc.’
‘So will we,’ Stavi added.
Southeast, but curving ahead, she saw. Eastward. What is out there? What are we supposed to find?
‘Blablablabla!’ cried the boy, his loud voice-so close to one ear-making her flinch.
Baaljagg trotted out to sniff the trail. Probably just instinct. The damned thing hasn’t even got a working nose… has it? Maybe it smells different things. Life, or something else.
When the twins set out on the path, the huge beast followed. The boy twisted in Setoc’s arms and she lowered him to the ground. He ran to join his sisters.
Some leader I am.
At the turn she saw skid marks, where the wagon’s wheels had spun and juddered out to the side, tearing at the ground. Here, the horse hoofs had gouged deep. But she could see no obstacle that would have forced such a manoeuvre. The way ahead ran straight for a hundred paces before jagging south again, only to twist east and then northeast.
At this Setoc snorted. ‘They were out of control,’ she said. ‘They went where the horses dragged them. This is pointless-’
Stavi spun. ‘We don’t care where they’re going!’ she shouted. ‘It doesn’t matter!’
‘But how can they help us if they can’t even help themselves?’ Setoc asked.
‘What’s so different about that?’
The bitchy little runt has a point. ‘Look at those marks-they were riding wild, crazy fast. How do you expect we’ll ever catch them?’
‘Because horses get tired.’
They resumed their journey. Tracking the aimless with purpose. Just like growing up.
Stones crunched underfoot, the bridling heat making the gnarled stalks of the shrubs tick and creak. They were low on water. The meat of the lizards they’d eaten this morning felt dry and sour in Setoc’s stomach. Not a single cloud in the sky to give them a moment’s respite. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen a bird.
Noon passed, the afternoon stretching as listless as the wasteland spreading out on all sides. The track had finally straightened out on an easterly setting. Even the twins were slowing down. All of their shadows had pitched round and were lengthening when Storii cried out and pointed.
A lone horse. South of the trail by two hundred or so paces. Remnants of traces dangled down from its head. It stood on weak legs, nuzzling the lifeless ground, and its ebon flanks were white with crusted lather.