The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Garrett Robinson (poetry books to read TXT) 📖

still spin, in chorus they weave the tale of the world. And that tale shall never die, even if one day none of us remain to hear it.”

He glanced at her again, but only for a moment. “It is as I said in the tavern, Sun. You are too eager to reach the end of the story. You would be wiser to enjoy yourself. Take your time. All things end, yes, but that does not mean we should charge recklessly towards that end, eager to meet it. And neither should we cower from it, afraid for it to find us.

“I have met many people who needed to learn that second lesson. Mag needed to learn the first.”

Winter had yet refused to release its forbidding grip on the land of Dorsea when Mag, Dryleaf, Oku, and I rode down out of the Sunmane Pass. Of course, we had clothes to protect us against the weather, but there is a sort of cold that no cloak can entirely dispel, and it shrouded us. The peaks of the mountains at our backs remained snow-capped all year round. But now the snow covered everything from those peaks to the valleys and the wide-open land before us, shrouding it all in white. Even forests made little impression on the snowy blanket. Only the marks of towns and other settlements were plain to see, patches of brown that spouted the grey smoke of hearths into the sky.

You will remember that we had remained in Calentin for some time before continuing our pursuit of Kaita. The best information we had was that she had been heading southwest, and so that was where we went. We took the long road south through Calentin’s eastern reaches, bearing my sister’s writ, which let us pass unmolested through the lands of the other Rangatira.

In the city of Opara we rested for a few days, visiting our friend Victon and seeking what information we could. But there was precious little of it. All along our journey north, Kaita had been enticing us with a trail of clues, hidden just well enough to make us think we were terribly clever for discovering them. Now that she no longer wished to be followed, we were faced with tracking down a weremage in a wide-open world. That can be a nearly impossible task. We knew only of her connection to the Shades, and so it was information about them that we sought. All we had found so far was some vague rumor, gleaned from the Rangatira in Opara, of a plot that concerned northeastern Dorsea. And so that was where we had turned our steps.

The search was long and fruitless, and it weighed heavy on us. There is only so much time one can spend seeking one’s quarry before one tires of the hunt. Sometimes we were desperate for any sign of Kaita. Other times we were apathetically numb and merely going through the motions of our journey.

No one had heard anything in any of the places we visited. There were no rumors of a rogue weremage. We could find no reliable information about the Shades.

It was now a week since we had come down out of the mountains, and we were drawing near to a small town by the name of Taitou. As we rode, Dryleaf often turned to face the south. He was blind, of course, but he had traveled these lands when he was younger. He knew the Birchwood was close, and he must have been thinking of Loren.

Loren would have been much on my mind as well, but I was preoccupied with Mag. She was my best friend, and we often jested and poked fun at each other. But ever since the Sunmane Pass, a dark mood had come over her. There had been an avalanche in those mountains, and though it posed no danger to us, Mag had been somber since.

I thought she might harbor worry for Dryleaf and me, imagining that she was dragging us along a more dangerous journey than she had at first foreseen. Or mayhap she only hoped, as I did, that the end of the road was near, and all her thought was bent upon it. But as we approached the walls of Taitou, I sought to cheer her up.

“What troubling thoughts leave you so grumpy?” I called out to her. “If you are not careful, your face will freeze in that frown—though I suppose that could only be an improvement.”

She did not laugh. In fact, she barely glanced at me. “No troubling thoughts,” she said. “Only a hope that the journey will soon be over. But mayhap that is a fool’s hope.”

“You should enjoy what you can of your wanderings,” I told her. “Look at the land we ride in. Is it not beautiful? Drink it in and let your cares go, while they are not pressing.”

“It has always been beautiful.” Mag tossed her head to the north. “I used to live two days’ ride from here, in the northern reaches of the Carrweld Forest. You can see its southern reaches there. Taitou was the closest settlement of any notable size—I once thought it was a great city.”

There are few things she could have said that would have been more surprising. In all our years together, Mag had seldom spoken about her past.

“I did not know that,” I answered after a moment.

“It was a small village.” Her words came slow, her voice careful. “A tiny village called Shuiniu. There I dwelled until … well, until I outgrew it, I suppose. One day I had to go out into the wider world, of which I knew nothing, and when I did, I had to pick a direction. South was straight into the forest. I knew of nothing interesting to the west or east. But I had heard tales of Feldemar, and it seemed a grand kingdom, and so that is where I went. And that