Linny Marsh's Arc

Chapter 10 of 22

Linny walked toward the lights with her hands open at her sides. The panther's pacing faded behind her. The far bank sloped down through a dense stand of frost-laden trees, their fine icy branches locked overhead into a pale canopy. The lights sat somewhere inside that cluster. She had no knife. She had lost it in the snow when the log dropped. Her pockets held paint tubes, a stub of charcoal, folded paper, and rope. Nothing that would cut. She stopped at the tree line and made herself think. The lights could be the place from the journal. They could also be a trap set by something that knew hungry travelers followed light. She had trusted the gray creature and it had brought her this far. She had also seen a winged panther try to eat her. Both had been true in one day. She needed a test before she stepped under the canopy. She pulled the stub of charcoal from her coat and drew a short line on the nearest trunk. Then she picked up a fallen branch, snapped it against her knee, and sharpened the end on a rock at the base of the tree. It was not a knife. It was a stick with a point. She held it low and stepped in. The icy branches closed over her head. The light inside the cluster was even, cool, and did not move. It came from nothing she could see. It sat on the snow and on the bark without a source. She recognized it. The painters had rendered this exact light and been called liars for it. She walked ten paces. The trees opened into a small clear space. In the middle of the space, a low stone sat half-buried in snow. The light poured up out of the stone like water held still. No lantern. No fire. No wire. It was the light itself. Linny knelt and touched the stone with the back of her hand. It was warm. She almost laughed. She had crossed a river and lost a blade and outrun a cat with wings to touch a warm rock, and it was worth it. This was a piece of the place. Not the whole thing. A marker. A doorway sign. She took out her paper and set it against her knee. She mixed a small square of the light onto the page in three quick strokes. Flat. Static. Correct. Then she heard the snow crunch behind her. Not a paw. A boot. Someone had followed her into the cluster, or had been waiting inside it. She did not turn. She closed her paint tin. She lifted the sharpened stick and set the paper flat under her knee so it would not blow away. Whoever it was took another step and stopped, close enough that she could hear them breathing.