Page 40 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

It spoke like thunder, it spoke right into my bones and joints, it spoke to be heard in the dreams of my parents, and theirs, and one generation more.

“ONE GOES ON.”

PART 2Into the Giantlands

12Birds and Flowers

I became aware of the chirping of birds, and not just a few of them. A great mob of the cheerful things sang and twittered in the distance, though these songs were new to me. Before I even opened my eyes, some part of me that’s older than maps knew I was in a different and unfamiliar land. I delayed the eye-opening for a moment. While I lay in darkness on some cool, gritty stone surface, I could listen to the birds and be at something like peace. Then it occurred to me that some geezer with a knife could be just about to cut a second smile under my chin—that’s Guild training for you—and I sprang my eyes open and slipped my feet under me, coming to a crouch.

The Spanth lay nearby, curled up, just waking. Clothes and gear lay about us like litter—our packs had harfed their contents all about us. Our clothes and armor were likewise in disarray—the side buckles of my leather jack had come undone, and one of my heavy hiking boots was off me. Where the fuck was my fur hat? Off me, and that was a good thing. The air was warm and, I noticed, also smelled of flowers. That the air was warm and the stone cool told me it was morning.

But morning where?

“Where…” Galva started.

“Fuck if I know,” I said, filling my nostrils again with perfume, “but I think I like it.”

Now that my eyes were adjusting to the light, and to being open, they focused on our larger surroundings. We were in the courtyard of a temple. Ancient walls of sandy-colored stone surrounded us, some of it tumble-down, some of it still standing. Beautiful flowers of white and purple hung like defeated trumpets from vines that grew on the walls here and there, except where the sun touched them, and there they stood raised and proud. I had never seen the like of them.

I walked up to one of the fallen building-stones and put my hand to it. The size of it drew a gasp from me—it was nearly as tall as I was, and twice as long. How would you even begin to move such a thing? And yet here they were in the thousands.

I looked at the temple proper, and another gasp escaped me. In a sort of nook or cave in a cliff face sat a worn stone figure, its features smoothed by time. It held up the nub of one hand while the other nub sat in its lap. It seemed to have three heads. So, this was like to be another version of the same goddie that sent us on from the cave in the Thralls. Just bigger, much bigger, and older. You could almost feel the thing groaning with the dozens of centuries it carried. I had the idea that some ancient people, probably giants, had built up the temple around the unimaginably ancient worn-down statue to try to save it from the elements.

Still the birds sang.

I could hear them, but I didn’t see a one. Also, sound carried strangely here. It seemed to me they could be just past a span of wall or half a mile away.

Galva found her shield first, then began gathering articles of clothes and other kit to put back in her pack. Her mouth was set in a hard, angry line, and when she flicked a look at me, it almost burned my skin.

“What?” I said, now picking up the arrows from my quiver, which had been scattered in a sort of puzzle, the points and nocks facing random directions, but with an odd and pleasing symmetry.

“You destroyed the book,” she said.

“Yes.”

I was confused for a moment, wondering if I had indeed been the one to do that. I almost remembered being consumed by fire. I almost felt the cold my third self had returned to. Those other two Kinches were as truly and legitimately myself as I was. I had not been copied. I had been split. I can’t explain how I know this.

“I didn’t think it through. I just did it.”

“That is what I will write on your grave,” she said, trying to unwind smallclothes from a section of rope they had gotten tangled in.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “That book was evil. And … there was a girl.”

“Fuck your girl. There is a woman and a queen across those mountains and she needs me. She commanded me to protect you while you make that book tell you how to hurt your chodadu Guild, and that was a worthy task. It is the Guild that supports Kalith the Usurper and keeps powerful magickers like Fulvir, Deadlegs, and my Mireya in hiding or exile. But now you have gotten rid of the thing we came here to use. I know which side of the Thralls we are on, and if it was the right side with the book, it is the wrong one without it. If you were going to do this fucked-stupid thing, you should have done it while I could still get back to Manreach. Where is Queen Mireya now? For that matter, where is your little pruxilta?”

My witch.

Norrigal.

“Home, I think. In the Snowless Wood. But I don’t know where your queen is.”

“No, you do not. And now you cannot find the secret to destroy the Guild.”

I felt anger rising up in me. I tried to step on it, but it wouldn’t be stepped on.

I yelled at her.

“There is no secret!”