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Like aa dove froht theiant clock-tree inside it, the one where they’d found the Seeing Hare, and where Jollyby had died The tree had a deep sunken scar where its clock had been, a blinded cyclops, but at least it wasn’t thrashing any Eliot had extracted the watch froive to Quentin had died He was sorry about that, but not so sorry that he wished he hadn’t done it It orth it to know that wherever he was Quentin at least had that with him
They decided to spend the night there If history was any guide, it was a good place to await so down out of the saddle
“I’ll get us dinner”
“They packed us dinner at the castle,” Eliot said
“I ate it for lunch”
In businesslike fashion, Janet pulled a short staff from a pair she wore crossed on her back and trotted off into the trees Eliot had never seen her wield a staff before, but she held it as if she knehat to do with it
“Hm,” he said
It was a spooky place to be alone in, especially without his queen The grass was dotted ildflowers; he’d always otten around to it, and now he probably never would It was too late He heard a rustling, cracking sound from all sides which alare of thedead branches for firewood They ely touching
Fro Eliot extracted their tent, a neat canvas parcel, and tossed it on the soft grass It unfolded and erected itself in the deepening twilight, with a sound like a sail being hoisted in a high wind
—
In theover the o ceased firing, leaving behind puffs of silent white gunsmoke in the air
They rode all day without incident—that’s tn, five to go, Janet said—and by sunset they’d reached the end of the green splendor of the Queenswood and entered the adjacent ray firs called the Wormwood On the third day they forded the Burnt River, never a pleasant experience, though rarely actually dangerous Its black water was always choked with ashes, nobody knehy, and the nylossy black of a beetle—a terrifying creature with silvery eyes ent up and down the river at night screa
Eliot proposed trying to talk to her, but Janet shuddered
“That’s a last resort,” she said “That’s like day six”
“Whatever It’s not the end of the world”
“FYI, you only get to make that joke one time, so I hope you enjoyed it”
Eliot would have preferred to head west from there, toward the lakes called Umber’s Tears, or maybe to Barion, a melloalled hill-tohere they rain Eliot ot to visit But Janet wanted to ride north
“That would be fine,” Eliot said, “except that there’s this horrible thing called the Northern Marsh It’s north of here, hence the name”
“That’s why I want to go north I want to go there I’ the marsh”
“I’m not I hate that place”
“Wow, I thought you were supposed to be all Johnny Quest over here Fine, I’ll meet you in Barion”
“But I don’t want to go to Barion alone!” Eliot said
“Your whininess is beyond unattractive Coo to Barion”
“What if I die in the Northern Marsh? People do, you know”
“Then I’ll go to Barion alone I like traveling alone If you die can I have your townhouse?”
Eliot said nothing Privately, and very much in spite of hi a hunch about the nore those Not in the context of a quest
“Fine,” he said “I was just testing your resolve Gloriously, you have passed To the o”
The Northern Marsh wasn’t actually as far north as all that By late afternoon the ground had begun to get squishy, and they ht The next day dawned gray and brisk, and they picked their way through cattails and coarse grass and chilly puddles until the horses refused to go any farther Janet’s was a Talking Horse, and he politely explained that he was speaking for both him and his dumb companion when he said that this was not a place you wanted to cross on hooves, not when your legs break as easily as horses’ legs do Eliot accepted their resignation graciously The two of them went on on foot
The air was full of the s weedy expanses of standing water and occasionally waded through them when they had to The Great Northern Marsh was a lonely, quiet place You would have thought it would be full of frogs and insects and waterfowl, but nothing seemed to live there Just a lot of plants and smelly microbes
As they forced their way deeper in, the ground became mud flats and water punctuated by occasional stubborn hu hopelessly befouled, and Eliot felt the ratio of solid ground to water shifting slowly and inexorably in the water’s favor The as bordering on impassable when they found a narrow boardhich Janet had been looking for without telling hiray planks laid flat over the sucking puddles, and in places elevated a few feet off the ground by stilts and pilings and opportunistic tree stumps
Eliot took a h he was pretty sure they weren’t salvageable, then they set off again There were no railings, and they had to balance their way along like a damn circus act He tried to re or an urban myth
“I wonder where all the birds are,” he said, to take his mind off it “I’ve seen, like, two birds This place should be covered in them”
“Makes you wish Julia were still here,” Janet said “She was good with birds”
“Mm Do you? Wish she were here?”
“Of course I always liked Julia”
“You didn’t show it very often,” Eliot said
“If you really got Julia,” Janet said, “you would have understood that she didn’t like people ere too demonstrative with their affections”
This caused Eliot to retroactively evaluate a lot of the interactions he remembered between Janet and Julia Their footsteps sounded hollow on the boards in the marshy hush
“Incredible that this thing is still standing,” Janet went on “I can’t iine who keeps it up”
“How do you even know this place?”
“I was out here once, when you-all were away at sea I thought so I ran into some scary shit and backed off, but not before Ipeople”
Eliot wondered, not for the first tiotten up to while the rest of theotten the official version of course, which was that she’d been running the country and doing an excellent job of it But every once in a while Janet said things that made him wonder if that was the whole story
“Do you ever wish you ith her? Julia, I mean? To that other-side deal, whatever it was called?”
“I think about it soone Being king here is who I a about that part, before” He wobbled for a h”