daks

"Who would be having much cheer after what you went through last night?" said Binabik, frowning. He tossed the mushroom bits into a pot of water, added some powdery substance from a pouch, then set the pot on the outermost edge of the coals. "I am surprised that the things you have been seeing in this year gone past have not made you mad, Simon, or at least trembling and fearful always." Simon thought about this for a moment. "I do get frightened sometimes. Sometimes it all seems so big—the Storm King, and the war with Elias. But all I can do is what is in front of me." He shrugged. "I'll never understand it all. And I can only die once." Binabik looked at him shrewdly. "You have been talking to Camaris, my knightly friend. That sounds with great similarity to his Canon of Knighthood—although the words have true Simon-like humbleness." He peered into his pot and agitated the contents with a stick. "Just a few things to add, then I will be leaving it to itself for a time." He tossed in a few strips of dried meat, chopped a small and rather lopsided onion into pieces and added those as well, then gave the mixture another stir. When he had finished this chore, the troll fumed and pulled his hide bag close to him, rummaging through it with an air of great concentration. "There is something in here I thought might give you interest ..." he said absently. After a few moments, he pulled a long parcel wrapped in leaves out of the sack. "Ah. Here." Simon took it, knowing it by the feel even before it was unwrapped. "The White Arrow!" he breathed. "Oh, Binabik, thank you! I was sure I had lost it." "You did lose it," said the troll dryly. "But since I was coming for visiting you in any case, it seemed that I might as well be carrying it along." Miriamele reentered. Simon held up his prize. "Look, Miri, my White Arrow! Binabik brought it!" She gave it barely a glance. "That was kind, Simon. I'm glad for you." He stared at her as she made her way to her saddlebags and began searching for something. What had he done to make her mad now? The girl was more changeable than weather! And wasn't he supposed to be upset with her? Simon snorted quietly and turned back to Binabik. "Are you going to tell us how you found us?" "Patience!" Binabik waved a stubby paw. "Let us have our food and a little peace, first. Princess Miriamele has not even come for joining us yet. And there is other news as well, some of it not happy." He bent over his sack and rooted some more. "Ah. Here they are." The troll produced yet another parcel, a small drawstring bag. He upended it and his knucklebones tumbled out onto a flat rock. "While we are waiting, 1 will find what the bones may be telling me." The bones made a soft clicking noise as he gentled them in his hands then tipped them out onto the stone. He squinted. "The Shadowed Path.

" The troll grinned sourly. "That is not the first time I have been seeing that." He rolled them out again. "The Black Crevice." Binabik shook his head. "Still we are having that, as well." He shook the bones for a final time and spilled them before him. "Chukku's Stones!" His voice was unsteady. "Is Chukku's Stones a bad throw?" Simon asked. "It is a cursing word," Binabik informed him. "I was using it because I have never been seeing this pattern of bones." He leaned closer to the pile of yellowed objects. "A little like Wingless Bird," he said. "But not." He lifted one of the bones, which was delicately perched on two of its fellows, then took a deep breath. "Could this be Mountains Dancing?" He looked up at Simon, eyes bright, but not in a way Simon liked. "I have never been seeing it, and have not known anyone who was seeing it. But I think I was hearing of it once, when Ookekuk my master talked to a wise old woman from Chugik Mountain." Simon shrugged helplessly. "What does it mean?" "Changing. Things changing. Large things." Binabik sighed. "If it is indeed Mountains Dancing. If I had my scrolls, I could perhaps be discovering with sureness." He swept up the bones and dropped them back into their pouch; he seemed more than a little frightened. "It is a throw that has only been appearing a few times ever since the Singing Men of Yiqanuc have written their lives and learning on hides." "And what happened?" Binabik put the pouch away. "Let me wait before more talking, Simon. I must be thinking on this." Simon had never taken the troll's bone oracles too seriously—they had always seemed as general and unhelpful as a fortune-reader from a traveling fair—but he was shaken now by Binabik's obvious uneasiness. Before he could press the troll for more information, Miriamele returned to the fire and sat down. "I'm not going back," she said without preamble. Binabik, like Simon, was taken by surprise. "I am not understanding your meaning. Princess Miriamele." "Yes, you do. My uncle sent you to bring me back. I'm not going." Her face was as hard and determined as Simon had ever seen it. Now he understood her preoccupation. He also felt more than a little anger.

Why was she always so stubborn, so cross? It almost seemed she enjoyed pushing people away from her with words. Binabik spread his palms in the air. "I could not make you do anything that was not your wanting, Miriamele—and I would not try such doing." His brown eyes were full of concern, "But, yes, your uncle and many others worry for you. They worry about your safeness, and they worry about what you plan. I will ask you to be coming back ... but making I cannot do." Miriamele looked slightly relieved, but her jaw was still set. "I'm sorry, Binabik, if you have traveled so far for nothing, but I am not returning. I have something to do." "She wants to tell her father that this whole war is a mistake," Simon muttered sullenly. Miriamele gave him a look of disgust. "That's not why I'm going, Simon. I told you the reason." She haltingly explained to Binabik her ideas about what might have led Elias to the clutches of the Storm King. "I am thinking you may indeed have discovered his mistake," Binabik said when she had finished. "It is close to some of my own supposing—but that does not mean that there is any likeliness you will be succeeding." He frowned. "If your father has been brought close to the Storm King's power, whether by the trickiness of Pryrates or something else, he may be like a man who drinks too much kangkang—telling him that his family is starving and his sheep are wandering away may not be heard." He laid a hand on Miriamele's arm. She flinched, but did not pull away. "Also—and this is a hard thing for my heart to be saying—it is perhaps true that your father the king cannot anymore survive without the Storm King. The sword Sorrow is a thing of great power, a strong, strong thing. Perhaps if it is taken from him, he will go sliding into madness." Miriamele's eyes welled with tears, but her expression remained grim. "I am not trying to take the sword from him, Binabik. Only to tell him that things have gone too far. My father—my real father—would not have wanted so much harm to come from his love for my mother. Everything that has happened since must be the work of others." Binabik raised his hands again, this time in resignation. "If you have guessed the reasons for his madness, for this war, for his pact with the Storm King. And if he can be hearing you. But as I told you, I cannot stop your journey. I can only accompany you to help keep you from harm." "You're going to come with us?