Lupi 04 - Night Season

know what has been lost. We were gone longer than we wished to be…I tried earlier to tell him this, but—” He shrugged. “We have a saying: stubborn as a gnome.”
    Wen looked at Cullen, his eyes dark with some intense emotion Cullen couldn’t read. Wen looked human, but he wasn’t. His scent was alien, more alien than the gnome’s or the woman with the tusks. “Edge is a high magic realm. Do you know what that means, Mr. Cullen Seabourne?”
    â€œNot really,” Cullen admitted. “Aside from the obvious—lots of magic, so much of the technology we have on Earth wouldn’t work well here.”
    â€œEdge is very high magic, too high for most of it to sustain life consistently. Almost everyone lives along a strip of land five hundred taloni long and between fifty and a hundred taloni wide, where the level of magic is stable. This is the area around the Ka, the Sauwnosat, the Presti il Tó…we have many names for her, but she is life for us.”
    â€œThe river,” Cynna explained. “He’s talking about the river we’re headed for.”
    â€œYes. The magical races have more protection from the randomness than humans, but only the Fey can venture beyond the area stabilized by the Ka.”
    â€œNot just the Fey,” Cynna said.
    Wen gave her a level glance. “No. A human with a strong Gift of the type you call ‘sensitive’ would be protected.”
    Cullen’s heart did a funny skip thing. “So that’s why you wanted Lily. She can go where you can’t. But Cynna’s human. So are Brooks and Steve and Marilyn Wright, and we landed well away from the river.”
    â€œNot far enough to be immediately harmful. They’ve taken no damage. Adam McClosky, Steve Timms, and Marilyn Wright will be treated well once we reach the City.”
    Very softly he said, “But not Cynna?”
    It was Cynna who answered him. “I have to Find the medallion they lost, Cullen. Not much choice about that.”
    â€œWhat the gnomes lost,” Wen said, and that sure sounded like bitterness in his voice. “For hundreds of years they have held it, claiming only they could be trusted…they call it the Chancellor’s Medallion. It brings order, sorcerer. Among other things, it brings order to the seasons.”
    As Wen’s meaning sank in, Cullen’s hands clenched into fists. “It’s Night Season now,” he said slowly.
    â€œYes. Here, as in other realms, it gets cold at night. If night does not end, it will get very, very cold in Edge.”

FOURTEEN
    C YNNA walked along the rail, rocked by water. The Ka made the Mississippi look like a creek. She still hadn’t seen the far shore, though she’d been on the boat for two days now…no, two sleeps. No days here. No daytime at all.
    Not that it was completely dark. Aside from the vast smears of stars overhead and the glow of the moon, mage lights scattered along the barge’s hull announced its dimensions to other vessels. More mage lights floated freely over the deck like oversize fireflies. One bobbed along beside Cynna as she made her way past boxes and crates and barrels to the front of the boat.
    That one was hers. Cullen had shown her how to cast one. He’d been right—it was absurdly easy. She didn’t understand how they’d come to lose such a simple and useful spell.
    Near the lighted hull the river was brown and shiny, like suede rubbed slick by use. Away from the ship, brown rolled gently into black, its darkness interrupted by the running lights of other boats. The Ka grew crowded this close to the City.
    The cant of the deck felt almost normal to her now. It dipped toward the prow because their means of propulsion stayed underwater most of the time, dragging it along against the current. Built for cargo, not passengers, the barge Bilbo had commandeered was a long, shallow-draft vessel with a shack at the rear, where Marilyn Wright lay, still and silent. Tash had spent most of the past two “days” keeping her alive. Once they reached the City, she’d be seen by one of the best healers in Edge.
    Soon now. Ahead were the lights of the City—a million fireflies spreading along the left bank of the river, Most of the mage lights were white, but others were red, pink, green, purple. Like Christmas lights, she thought.
    Cynna wondered what the Ka looked like in daylight.
    Chances were,