River Heart

Chapter Ten - Slow

Lyris woke just a few hours later. Staring at the wooden ceiling she scowled, disorientated. The room was swaying like a ship, but there was no crash of waves or smell of salt; only dry wood and straw. There was also the rough rise of someone else’s snores. She twisted and recognised Arn, face down on the mattress with an arm and foot over hanging the edge of the bed. They weren’t on a ship, they were in a traveling caravan. Her memory of the morning returned in trickles of color, like salt water washing into a fresh water stream. Along with a warm feeling that started in her chest and spread throughout her body. There was something far too intimate about sleeping beside Arn like this.

Careful not to wake her companion the young woman moved to her knees, then her feet. Balancing against once of the walls she stepped over Arnit, off the bed and onto one of the empty crates. From there she could open the drivers’ door without waking the sleeping Prince. He sucked in a breath like a bull about to charge and she wondered what was shaking the walls more? His laboured breathing or the natural rattle of a wagon rolling on a bumpy road. With arms outstretched she shuffled back to the door and was relieved to find it opened easily to her touch.

Lyris ducked out, holding onto the door, then the railing as she closed the wooden panel behind herself. A brilliant sun shone down a narrow mountain pass. The young man who drove the wagon patted the padded cloth seat that he perched on, without looking back. His gaze fixed on the horizon as it curved between the V of two peaks.

‘Your friend was up earlier,’ he smiled as she accepted the seat and crawled up. He was resting his feet on a rail and she copied him, leaning against the back of the padded seat. He wasn’t unattractive, she couldn’t help but notice. Before reminding herself that there was her Quest to focus on. And Arn. Thinking about the Prince saw her insides perform a flip.

‘I’m amazed he woke up,’ Lyris risked a glance at the door, ‘he sleeps like the dead.’

‘The dead are quieter,’ the boy grinned at glanced at her, ‘I’m Kit. He said you were called Lyris and that you’re a Myst. Is that right? Are you?’

‘No,’ she frowned and wished he’d stop telling people. He didn’t want the world to know who he really was, yet was willing to deflect attention onto her. As far as she knew, people hated Princes’ less than they were inclined to hate the secretive Myst.

‘Well,’ she conceded, ‘I am called Lyris, but I’m not a Myst. Not yet, not for years...and only then if I’m lucky.’

‘But you can control the weather, breathe fire and turn plants to diamonds?’

She laughed and lent forward with her elbows on her knees. Her long black hair tangled in the breeze that whipped between the steep valley.

‘Definitely not.’

Kit peered at her, ‘so what can you do? What are you?’

It was hard not to smile, the questions were blunt. In another setting she would have considered them to be rude. But his expression was open and his gaze returned most often to the road ahead. The yellow cart rolled ahead of them, and she could see the blue wagon beyond that. The slopes were lined with dark yellow tussock grass and littered with grey boulders. At the very top of the peaks, almost out of view, it looked as though there was still snow on the mountains. Clouds were gathering to the sides, but for the time being, the sun kept the rain at bay. Lyris remembered coming through the pass on her way to the borderlands. Storm hadn’t liked it, not one bit. The horse was tethered to the side of the wagon and as she looked at him, was placidly following the paces of the large horse that pulled the caravan.

‘I’m a student of the Myst,’ Lyris explained.

‘What does that mean?’ Kit held the long reins to the cart horse in one hand, the other rested on the seat beside him. He lent back, relaxed as the wagon trundled on.

‘For me it means that I’ve learnt all my letters and numbers. I know some history, geography and the religion of the founding Gods-’

‘I thought that Myst worked to replace the gods?’ He interrupted with a sharp look.

‘Not at all, Myst are an extension of their work in the world. We can only use the power we’re granted.’

‘You don’t pull it from the dead?’

Lyris sank back in her chair, smoothing a hand down the skirts of her breaches. That was a hard one to explain. ‘My power is centred in water. I could no more attempt to pull essence from the dead then you could, Kit.’

He looked at her once more, shrugged and returned his gaze to the road, steering the horse around a particularly large dip. He next question remained unspoken and Lyris shifted, uneasy. Even if she abhorred the idea, then it didn’t mean that the same went for the rest of the Island.

‘On the Island, once you’ve learnt your schooling they start to teach you ways to access the essence in the world or magic some people tend to call it,’ she cleared her throat ‘then, as a student you start hoping that one of the Myst will take you on as an apprentice.’

‘Did that happen to you?’

‘Yes,’ Lyris smiled. The accusation had almost faded from his tone. She pulled her fingers through her hair, finding knots in the dark strands and trying to untangle them. ‘Now, my studies with her are drawing to an end and I’ve been given a quest to complete.’

‘Is it hard?’

She sighed and counted the days to midsummer. ‘I have to return to the Island before midsummer. Twenty days to cross Milany and take a ship home.’

Kit laughed, ‘even at a Wagons’s pace, you should make Issen within fifteen days, easy. How far by ship?’

‘Two days in good sailing,’ she sighed. The journey out to the borderlands had taken more than double the time it should have, but then she had been alone. It had been a long time since she’d left the Island without Morglain, or another Myst and had been forced to ask for assistance. Lyris understood that she’d learnt a lot from the adventure, specifically that even the folk that smiled at her, could be less than helpful. She’d lost count of the number of wrong villages she’d arrived in, only to back-track her route and set off straight. It had been harrowing and she’d almost cried with relief at finding the village on the borderlands. Hidden as it was between mountain passes.

Kit shook his head, still grinning, ‘well,’ he gestured to the end of the valley, ‘once we’re out of this pass we’ll be stopping for lunch. To rest the horses and stretch our own legs. Don’t worry, Lyris. We’ll not delay your journey long.’

She smiled her eyes and sat forward again. Hopeful that with the caravan moving to Milany she would have plenty of time. There were three spare days for any problems that arose. Three days in hand. Her chest felt tight when she thought too much about her deadline, so she focused on the passing road.

‘What happens if you don’t make it?’ Kit broke the silence.

Lyris let out the breath she’d been holding, ‘then I am unworthy of progressing beyond my apprenticeship. They might let me become a teacher to new students on the island, or they might ask me to leave…but they ensure I can never reach the essence again.’ She shivered. She’d heard about the ritual that bound a mage’s power. Sealing it away from their soul so that it could never be reached. She suspected that once, she’d even heard the screams of a failed apprentice as the spell was worked. The memory was enough to dim the sunlight that shone down on the caravans.

‘You look like I’m going to throw you off a cliff,’ Kit peered at her.

‘It would be a better punishment,’ she replied. This was a dark conversation for such a beautiful day; so she stood. ‘Can I walk alongside?’ Her heart was squeezed tight in her chest and sitting still, inactive, she couldn’t inhale enough for her lungs.

‘Of course,’ Kit slowed the horse enough for her to swung down from the steps. ‘We’re stopping not far ahead, you won’t lose us.’

She forced a smile and scrambled up the side of the bank, waving at the young man, ‘how slow do you think I walk?’ the young woman retorted.