Page 53 of Into the West

On the one hand, the forest hadn’t done anything but unnerve the scouts. Nobody had any reason to go into the Red Forest, and nobody wanted to.

On the other hand, Delia, Alberdina, and Sai had all emphasized aspects of the place that did not fill him with any optimism. The sense that it was a single living entity? He’d never heard of that before, and neither had Sai, who probably knew more about strange things in magic than anyone outside of the long-lost Imperial Palace. The sense of distant rage? Oh, that couldn’t bode well.

It appeared that the Old Men were of the same mind as he was, because as he approached the Gate, there they were waiting, ready to take their barges through, first in line. Whatever was out there, they wanted to be the first to set eyes on it.

He sent Arial to stand next to their Tow-Beast, one of the False Golds he’d “given” to the Emperor. The Tow-Beast was a beautiful creature, and if his coat didn’t shimmer in the thin sunlight as it had when Kordas taken him to the Capital, it was because he, like every other equine in the convoy, had grown a nice, thick coat against the winter.

“Hello, Sunshine,” he said affectionately as Arial moved to stand beside the huge beast. Sunshine snorted a greeting, amiably, and nuzzled Kordas’s hair. Kordas’s hair was easy for the False Gold to reach, because even sitting on Arial’s back, Kordas’s head was even with Sunshine’s nose. Kordas was a little surprised to feel himself choking up, and suddenly he was very, very glad he had taken the time to steal back his horses . . . and gladder still for the intervention of the stable-Dolls who had taken it upon themselves to rescue all the rest, and send them to Crescent Lake. He had since learned that the Dolls had not only saved horses and humans, but every single other living thing in the Palace complex that they could catch up and run with.

There hadn’t been a lot of creatures that weren’t human and couldn’t escape on their own, save for the horses and the chickens. The Emperor had discouraged pets, and even if he hadn’t, anyone who truly cared for their animals wouldn’t want to risk the chance that the Emperor would order their pet taken, hurt, or destroyed to make a point—or to score one. But somehow, even most of the chickens had been saved, at least according to Rose. And he saw no reason to doubt her. Apparently there had been a Portal for food deliveries down in the area of the stables and henhouses. There were no mews at the Palace. The Emperor knew nothing of falconry, and cared nothing for the sport.

The chickens, however, had not been sent to Crescent Lake, because the Dolls had known they’d have dropped straight into water amid the chaotic rush of hundreds of barges coming through that Portal as fast as the Portal would allow. No, the chickens had been sent to the Emperor’s duck and goose farm outside the Capital. Which must have been very confusing for the keepers of that farm. He could just imagine it: suddenly, in the midst of horrific noises from the Capital itself and the violent shaking of the ground, to see an enormous flood of chickens bursting out of their Portal.

Presumably, once they got over their surprise, the keepers had known what to do with the birds. Or surely knew farmers to send them to, even if they weren’t equipped to handle that many chickens.

At least they aren’t charred chicken, like if they’d stayed. He sighed, with a little regret. He hadn’t had fried chicken in a very long time. And although other folks had managed to bring down wild geese and ducks on this journey, so far none of those had made it as far as his kitchen.

“Are you ready, Baron?” asked the stablehand mounted—or rather, perched—on Sunshine’s broad back. He was from the more northerly of the Imperial domains, and his skin was lighter than Kordas’s own.

“Ready when you are,” Kordas assured him. He touched his heel to Arial, and she moved ahead of the Tow-Beast, who strained in his harness, feet planted firmly on the grass of the bank, trying to get his string underway. The barge-towing specialists were called ‘hoggees,’ though Kordas had no idea why. They were earning their keep and much more, and the Tow-Beasts gained decorations of rope braids, brass, and beads with each passing day, from an appreciative convoy. The hoggees appeared to have earned some treats, too.

Kordas experienced only a brief moment of disorientation in transition, probably because the Gates were so close together. The air that went through a Gate link blew from higher to lower air pressure, so environmental effects from the departure side had been muffled. But he got hit in the face with a blast of damp, chill air and a torrent of intense rumbling noise that startled him and Arial, and Arial snorted her dislike of it, though she didn’t falter.

The noise was incredible, like thunder that never came to an end. It was pretty clear that, until he got far enough away from the rapids behind him, he wouldn’t be able to hear a bloody thing. The air was just a short step above freezing, and so very damp there were tiny droplets collecting on the fleece collar of his sheepskin coat.

Kordas glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Rose was still behind him on the pillion pad—he’d never once lost anyone on a Gate-transit, but it was a habit with him to check—and then took a moment to peer in the direction they’d just come from. Dwarfing the size of the Gate, the sight of rapids and deadly breakers practically terraced upon each other, covering a quarter of the horizon, was awe-inspiring. The sound went into his body strongest through his chest, legs, scalp, and fingertips, then seemed to emerge from the other side of him. The sensation of being a drumskin occurred to him, something spiritual. Being within sound felt like being encompassed by a deific presence who had forever to explain their secrets to him.

Or like the land itself had just taken him by his shoulders and directed his attention. Here, man. Here. This is what I am. This is my grandeur, my presence, my truth. You are a part of me. With this I remind you, lest you lose sight of it: I am bigger, vaster, and stronger than you can imagine. Tread on me with care, man, for I can crush you on a whim. But respect me, and I might show you wonders like this.

Kordas didn’t blink for nearly a minute.

He returned from his reverie and peered downriver from the waterfalls and rapids. There was no sign of the mysterious forest; there was nothing but scrub brush, stubby trees, and rocks, but ahead of them the river did make a big curve around a hill, so it was probably on the other side of that. He urged Arial forward; he wanted to get well ahead of the Old Men’s barges so that he could survey the forest himself, alone, for a few moments.

And once around that deep bend, there it was. It stretched as far as he could see in either direction, enveloping the river completely.

It looked perfectly normal from a distance: a vague, gray haze of bare branches and trunks and a lot of red on the ground that was probably fallen leaves. But . . .

But . . .

Now he understood completely what Alberdina had meant. He felt it, just as she had described, a simmering, deeply buried, distant rage. So distant that he might have attributed it to his own bad temper, had he not been warned about it. Arial felt it too. She tossed her head and stamped one foot, trying to tell him that she didn’t want to go on.

But there wasn’t a choice, not really. “Rose, I want a Doll stationed on this side of the Gate,” he said. “And another on the side where the caravan is. And one right here. The scouts told me it took about four marks to transit the forest, so the Doll standing here will stop the caravan at four marks to sunset. Relay that to the Dolls at the Gates, and end the Gate transit for the night.”

“That seems very wise, Kordas,” Rose replied. “I do not believe any of us should take chances here.”

“You sense something too.” He made it a statement, not a question.

“It seems almost familiar, as if someone has taken something I know well and twisted and warped it until it is nearly unrecognizable,” the Doll said. “I don’t understand it. I do know that if I were to put a name on what did this in the first place, it would be the Magic Storms that marked the end of the Great War between human mages five hundred years ago.”

He didn’t like going under those trees alone, so he waited until the barges transited the Gate and joined him. A plainly garbed Doll he didn’t recognize, but who had a thorn pinned through their tunic like a brooch, jumped down from the first barge as they neared him, and took up a station, as if they were perfectly prepared to stand there forever—or at least until the convoy was completely through the Gate.

In the prow of the first barge were Dole, Ceri, and Ponu, their attention completely riveted by that distant haze of trees. Ponu appeared on the side of the barge and waved at him. He thought about riding ahead, but decided that he’d hop aboard for a little bit at least. He wanted to hear their reaction to this place.

He leaned down over Arial’s neck, attached the long lead to her bridle, and dismounted, playing the lead out until he could hop onto the barge with the assistance of Ponu and his apprentice. He tied the lead off on a belaying ring on the rail, and could not help but notice that, instead of coming up to walk right at Sunshine’s tail, Arial resisted for a brief moment before reluctantly moving along.

The normally placid and unflappable Sunshine didn’t like the forest either. He had his ears back, and mouthed his bit nervously, something Kordas had never seen him do before.

“Lovely place you’ve found for us,” Ponu said lightly. “I’m reminded of the traps tunnel-spiders make.” Ponu made no outward sign he’d even noticed the hard sidelook Kordas shot at him.