Cricket was charged with provisioning me for my journey. She took me to a passage hidden behind a tapestry on the first floor, with a staircase that led us into the rocky bowels of the cliff. At the bottom, a tiny kitchen, no larger than a ship’s galley, sat dark and cavernous with only a clay chimney pipe to relieve the smoke. Why this place was hidden, and why it had to be here under the rock, Cricket did not say. Perhaps this was the only kitchen she had ever known. It certainly was her domain; a selection of copper pots and iron pans hung well within her reach, and I had to duck to avoid another rack of herbs hanging from the ceiling.
“Has Deinaros told you anything of my journey?” I asked her.
She rolled a selection of dried fish in a thin cloth and handed it to me. “No. If you return, you can tell me of it.”
“If I return?” I echoed. I could not help but smile at her utter lack of faith in me. “You think I won’t?”
She shrugged, and the trinkets still around her neck clattered softly. “We’ll see.”
I opened my pack and placed the parcel of fish inside. A stack of dry bread followed. “Do you know anything about the lands to the south? Deinaros speaks of a forest so thick that the sun does not reach the ground.”
“I’ve never seen it,” said Cricket. “And I told you, I’m not permitted to read my master’s books.” She handed me a small sack of bright yellow fruit, dried into brittle rounds. Its smell reminded me of the isle of the priestesses, and of the food I received in return for my labors there. In that moment, I missed that island so terribly that my chest ached. I wished I could have their guidance, and not this strange sorcerer’s; I wished they could have shown me the way to the world beyond the world, and that I’d had no need to leave them. I would have never found the book, nor spent long weeks crossing the river country or the vast sea of dust. For the space of a breath, I was angry with them, and with their great goddess who swam alone in the abyss. The power to cross through the gate of bone was there, and I had seen it, but for reasons beyond my understanding it had been kept from me.
I pushed that anger aside. Here I was, in the benighted kitchen of the sorcerer’s tower, accompanied only by his strange, small apprentice. Wishing that my circumstances were other than they were would not make them so. I would travel to the forests of the south, and I would retrieve the mirror Deinaros wanted. He had promised to aid me more than anyone else had yet done. Upon my return, I would demand he answer my questions. If he refused, I could take the book back and leave. He had an air of mystery and power about him, but I did not fear his magics—nor did I fear the creatures that Cricket claimed emerged from the books in his library. I had my wits and my harpoon, and I had Bran for a swift escape, should it become necessary.
“I was hoping to ask you how long my journey might take,” I told Cricket. “Deinaros was less than forthcoming.”
She handed me another wrapped bundle. This one smelled of spice. “How should I know?”
“You’re his apprentice. I’m just a traveler,” I said. “I assumed he shared more of his mysteries with you.”
Cricket wrinkled her nose. “He says he will, someday, when I’m older. But he’s been saying that for years.”
“I see. It seems you’re more of a house servant than a student, then.” I placed the bundle in my pack. Without the weight of the book, I could carry more provisions—a fortunate turn of events, as no one seemed to have any idea how long I would be at sea or in the strange wilderness of the south.
“I am a student,” Cricket insisted. “I’m Deinaros’ only student. None of his other ones lasted as long as I have.”
“Very impressive,” I said.
She stopped her collection of preserved foodstuffs to cross her arms over her chest and fix me with a withering glare. “What do you know about magic?”
“In truth, not much,” I said. “Though I have met shamans from the far reaches of the world, mages who could summon beings of fire and ice, and priests who could summon gods beyond your imagination. I’ve met necromancers and healers. I’m willing to give your teacher a chance to prove himself equal to them.”
“Well, I know which of these herbs will quell a fever or help a wound to heal, and which will kill you with a single bite,” Cricket said with a haughty scowl.
I held up my open pack. “The healing ones, then, if you please. My life is in your hands, my esteemed and learned lady.”
This appeased her, and she turned to the hanging herbs, selecting several bundles and cutting the twine that held them to the ceiling. “This one is for a fever,” she said, handing me several strips of bark, “and this is for wounds. This one will slow a poison, if you take it quickly enough.”
I studied each one before tucking it away. “Do you think I’ll have to worry about poison?”
“Poisons grow in the great forest,” she explained. “Some of the mushrooms that grow under the trees are safe to eat. Others are not.”
“So you do know something of the land,” I said. “How can I tell the difference?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the people who live there can tell you.”
Cricket gave me one more packet of fish and a pouch of silver coins from her pocket, and she declared that I had been provisioned for my journey. I was to go down to the harbor and seek a ship headed for the port of Djedah. She assured me that I would find such a ship, as this city and the far port traded in textiles and liquor, and most would accept an extra hand at the oars, a payment in coin, or both.
So I bade farewell to Cricket, and to the tower of Deinaros the All-knowing, and I prepared Bran for another sea voyage. He could sense my intent as we neared the harbor, and his demeanor grew immediately somber and dejected. He wished to feel solid ground beneath his hooves and eat fresh green grass from the earth, and I imagined that he thought he had arrived at last to a safe place after such a long time in the shifting sands.
“I am sorry, my friend,” I said. “We’ll be on dry land again soon.”
Cricket had not thought to provide me with fodder for my horse, so I used some of my coin to purchase some before I boarded the ship. I would be as little of a burden as I could be on this journey.
The ship I found was called the Sun’s Flame, and her captain was a tall, broad-shouldered man with his hair in countless tiny braids that glinted with golden ornaments. He had been born, he said, in a city outside the great forest, amongst the ancient tombs of his forefathers’ forefathers. His name was Ramla son of Tau, and he had left his home, where the living and the dead mingled in ritual solemnity, when the sea had called his name.
He did not explain whether he was speaking figuratively, or if one of the gods of his people had summoned him to a life of sailing, and I did not ask him to. After giving my account yet again to Deinaros, I tired of answering questions, and tired even more of asking them. The call of the sea is a terrible, wonderful thing. It had summoned me in my youth, and as much renown and adventure that it had given me, it took much more in payment. I would not rudely demand that Ramla give me an accounting of all that he had gained and lost.
South, then, across the summer sea—no mountains of ice floated among these sapphire waves. I might have called them gentle, in comparison to the sea in the north, but I knew better than to trust their appearance. On the first evening, a bank of low, violet clouds promised that a storm would soon come to disturb the water.
But Ramla steered us ahead of it, and by the time it reached us, it had become only a little rain on the deck and enough wind to fill our sails. We crossed the last miles with the gods’ own swiftness, and soon a green-black mass arose in the south, cut through with the pale shapes of towering obelisks. Here was the great forest, emerging from the waves. Before it lay the land of Ramla’s people, and their city of the dead.
Somewhere in this vast country, the Sage’s Mirror remained hidden from the rest of the world, safe in a sorcerer’s vault or a forgotten hollow. I could only hope that whatever and whoever guarded it would not do so too jealously.
Back to Chapter XLIV: Beside the Water
Forward to Chapter XLVI: Ksadaja, the City of the Dead
I’m slowly building up a backlog of chapters! I hope to finish the draft by the end of March. Then comes the real work of trying to make it good.
In the meantime, thanks for reading! I appreciate you coming along this journey with me.
Space Whales Press 
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