The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier Page B

glumly.
    “And I?” asked Galef.
    “You . . . listen to the City, and tell me what you hear. Every dream and every thought and every word spoken, whether in public or in confidence . . . Will you?”
    The guard captain, who had stood at the Bastard’s back through the last few days and watched him gather into his hands all his father’s power, said noncommittally, “I will listen. And you?”
    “I will think,” said the Bastard. “And wait for the pattern, whatever it may be, to reveal itself to me.” He glanced at Marcos sidelong. “Is that not what the mages say?”

C HAPTER 5
    he forest was enchanted, of course. All great forests are, in one way or another. But this forest was special. Despite the season, there were no hints of autumn in its deep green. The shadows the ancient trees cast were darker and more secretive than ordinary shadows under ordinary trees. This forest had depths no one had ever seen, mysteries no mage had ever encompassed. To pass through it safely, a traveler must keep to the road. Even then the journey through the forest’s dim reaches might take days or weeks, or even sometimes months, for the forest was not always the same size.
    The road passed into the forest between two great trees that stood to either side of the road like gateposts. They were so large that it would have taken half a dozen men to wrap their arms about the trunk of either one; they had heavy knurled trunks and broad branches and dark green leaves that were silver underneath. They looked a thousand years old, and might have been older.
    Timou made her evening fire by the side of the road just outside the entrance to the forest. She boiled water for tea and put sausages over the fire to cook. Then she sat cross-legged by the small homey light of her fire with her hands folded on her plain traveling skirt and gazed at the dim shade of the great forest. After a while she began to feel that there might be eyes looking back at her, although she saw nothing, even when she cleared her mind and let her own eyes go wide and dreaming.
    Later, as the sun set, she sat on her folded blanket, sipping her tea and thinking of nothing in particular. When it seemed to her the right time to do so, she gathered a palmful of dust from the road and mixed it with a little water, forming it into a ball. This she set by the fire and left to harden. Then, taking her small mirror out of her pack, she angled it to catch the last molten rays of the sun and murmured over it the words of a charm so that it would remember light.
    At last, spreading out her blanket, she lay down upon it and listened to the sounds the wind made: one sound as it whispered through the grasses in the open; another, more secretive, as it slipped through the leaves of the forest. It would be easy to hear voices in that sound: slow murmuring voices that spoke endlessly of dim green places that never felt the sun. Timou finally fell asleep still listening to the voices of the wind.
    In the morning, after a breakfast of bread and cheese and more tea, Timou carefully smothered her fire with a thought and slung her knapsack over her shoulder. Then, at last, she walked into the shade.
    The road narrowed at once to a mere path. There would not have been room on it for a cart. Great roots crossed and recrossed the path and great rocks lay tumbled and half buried everywhere among the roots, which made for uncomfortable footing. Timou wondered how wheeled traffic got through this forest. Perhaps if one came with carts or wagons, the road one found was wider and smoother? She thought she would someday find a carter who came this way and ask.
    At the moment she had enough to do to keep her eyes on her own path. Even the light was chancy, for the branches wove together far overhead and no sunlight reached down to dapple the surface of the path. There was always the feeling that there might be something—the tumbled ruin of a forgotten castle or a long graceful dragon coiled around a