There was no chance of my staying with the Meads. A one room hut housing a family of seven is no place to catch up on sleep. I refused as politely as I could, tied the cheese and the flagon of mead that constituted my healers fee to the back of the saddle, hauled myself up and rode off into the misty morning.
The sky was still pale and faintly pink in the east. A heavy dew had silvered the grass and hedgerows. Still a country district like Cardun rises early. As I passed down the muddy track that wound through the village of Cardun, I could hear babies crying or early morning coughing, coming though the walls of the little thatched huts along the way. I met Big Petro and Jacko the Leg walking out to their fields with hoes over their backs and Maria Prima was already pulling weeds from among her veggies.
"You be careful Madame Dion," called Maria as I passed. "I saw them Wanderers passing through last night. The forest will be crawling with 'em."
Possibly she was looking for an argument for she looked a bit disappointed when I simply nodded and went on, but I was too tired to be bothered stopping and starting our usual wrangle in which I tried to convince her that Wanderers were entirely harmless and even worthwhile people and she maintained they were thieving drunkards and whores.
A little way beyond the village the forest began. Under the towering trees the air was redolent with the delicious smells of damp earth and sweet oil. It was the most delightful time of the day. Though the dawn chorus had ended, flocks of honey parrots were still squawking among the sweet oil blossoms and the silver calls of Kurrajongs still filled the air. It was so peaceful here with nobody else about. Pony ambled along steadily and I must have nodded off in the saddle.
Suddenly I was in the great cathedral again. It was roofless, its arches straining up at the sky like broken ribs, and up above the stars peered in at me watching, watching like hungry cats. Before me was a white statue of Mother Karana. So beautiful mother Karana, but as I stood marveling up at her, her eyes suddenly flickered to red. Glowing hungry red. She smiled a wet red smile. Cold shock went though me. I must run! I couldn't move! I must... Her claws bit into my arms. Her eyes. Oh God her hot red eyes. It felt like my heart was being pulled forth in a thin read line. The pain . The pain. Sucking out my soul, killing me. The agony, Oh God! No!
"Cark!" came a loud cry in my ear. I started awake and almost fell off the back of the now stationary Pony.
We were standing at the back of my hut beside the little stable where Pony lived. Pony was calmly eating hay out of the hay stack. I saw that the carking came from a big black raven that was sitting on the nearby woodpile regarding me with its beady black eyes. Ravens were regarded as lamb killers and birds of ill fortune in Cardun. I did not tell my customers that I fed them as I fed all animals that came near my hut.
I'd certainly fed this raven before. He was a regular visitor who even had a name. I called him Symon. It was not my habit to call animals with the names of people, but this raven just seemed to be a Symon. He distinguished himself by being inordinately fond of cheese which he much preferred to raw meat.
"I bet you'd like some of this cheese Woolly gave me, wouldn't you, you handsome devil," I said. "Just wait till I get Pony fixed up and I'll cut you a piece."
I heaved myself out of the saddle feeling exhaustion in every bone in my body and cursing those dreams. I'd been up all last night turning that calf in the womb and seeing it came out right. Wasn't I entitled to a little rest? But no. There was that damned woman again. That woman, that damned demon woman breaking my sleep, as she had broken it every night for the last week and many nights before.
I unsaddled Pony still cursing.
What sort of new torment was this anyway? I hadn't dreamed of Andre/Bedazzer in six months and now, just as I was hopping he had forgotten me, came this horrible vision of some demon world. Was this sent intentionally or was it just some delightful new side effect of the link that had been forged between us that time we had fought together. Sometimes lately I'd been too scared to go back to sleep after the dream for fear that I would wake again and find Andre standing by my bed as I both feared and longed for. Would this never end?
"It seems you have bad dreams Enna Dion" said a voice.
On the chopping block before the wood pile sat a pale haired man, his knees drawn up to his chin.
”Good morning to you, Enna!”
He was a Wanderer. At least I thought he was. He wore black, whereas most Wanderers wear shades of green or brown, but the holy symbols of the Wanderers; cups, candles and circles of leaves were embroidered all over his garb in the way they have.
Despite Maria Prima's remarks which were to a certain point of view true enough, I liked all the Wanderers I had met immensely and had even had a particular friend among them. Almost every month, a half-blind woman called Causa would come to call, lead by her young daughter and we would drink tea and she would tell me of the news from Gallia city. It was a strange relationship for she was a warm kind woman interested in any of my problems and yet she never told me anything of herself. I was not sure why she or any of them, for that matter, called on me. They had no need of my healing skills and in fact sometimes gave me advice. Maybe it was because I was a mage and they were a people steeped in magic. Perhaps we were simply drawn to each other in the way exiles are, for like me they had been exiled from Moria after the Revolution of Souls five years ago. We were on the very border with Moria here in Cardun and that must certainly have been what attracted them to the district.
Though in my restricted childhood I had had little to do with Wanderers even I could remember the breath of fresh air that had seemed to pass through our district when the Wanderers came. They bought news and trade goods and they mended things or helped with the harvesting. People believed them to have uncanny skills of foretelling and they also bought little magics from the Wanderers for they were far cheaper if a little less reliable then the magics my foster father sold. Yet even in Moria where the Wanderers had had their place in the scheme of things, people were ambivalent toward them. Not only where they travelling folk who looked different from the great dark haired mass of Morians, but many of them did drink and lots of them were addicted to the dream drug hazia as well. And Wanderer women had great hordes of hungry children following them about and it was never clear who the fathers of these children were.
They looked like fallen angels, white haired, raggle-taggle people with dark eyes in beautiful fine-boned faces. When I saw them in Cardun, their children always looked hungry and so I gave them what food I could. Sometimes my parishioners scolded me for feeding them.
"They know you are soft hearted now," they said. "They're thieves and trash, Madame Dion." The Wanderers were even less liked in Gallia then they had been in Moria.
Causa told me that the Wanderers were as the legends said of them, the remnants of a great race of mages who had lived beyond the Red Mountains of Moria when our ancestors had come from Aramaya 400 years ago. Their home lands had been destroyed in Smazor's run a hundred years before leaving them homeless, a hopeless wandering remnant who many people assumed would die out. They worshipped the spirits of nature and of place and so the loss of their homeland had obviously been a great blow to them.
Even drunk or dazed by hazia however they always seemed a gentle people and though I was taken aback by the sudden appearance of this man, I was not afraid.
"Greetings," I said. "May I help you?"
"It is a beautiful morning, is it not? I have a foretelling especially for you, Enna Dion."
He spoke Morian and used the Morian honorific.
"Today is a new beginning. After today, everything will be different. Two men will come to see you today, Enna Dion. You will do well to follow them. Is that cheese?"