To Green Angel Tower, Volume 1

  “I will not do anything unless you ask me to,” Eolair promised.

  “Good.” Jiriki raised his hands and began making the slow circles once more.

  The Count of Nad Mullach sighed and leaned back against the stone bench, trying to find a comfortable position.

  Eolair awakened from a strange dream—he had been fleeing before a vast wheel, treetop-tall, rough and splintered as the beams of an ancient ceiling—into the abrupt realization that something was wrong. The light was brighter, pulsing now like a heartbeat, but it had turned a sickly blue-green. The air in the huge cavern was as tense and still as before a storm, a smell like the aftereffects of lightning burned Eolair’s nostrils.

  Jiriki still stood before the gleaming Shard, a mote in the sea of blinding light—but where before he had been as poised as a Mircha-dancer readying a rain prayer, now his limbs were contorted, his head thrown back as though some invisible hand was squeezing the life out of him. Eolair rushed forward, desperately worried but unsure of what to do. The Sitha had told the count not to touch him, no matter what seemed to be happening, but when Eolair drew close enough to see Jiriki’s face, nearly invisible in the great outwash of nauseating brilliance, he felt his heart plummet. Surely this could not be what Jiriki had planned!

  The Sitha’s gold-flecked eyes had rolled up, so that only a crescent of white showed beneath the lids. His lips were skinned back from his teeth in the snarl of a cornered beast, and the writhing veins in his neck and forehead seemed about to burst from his skin.

  “Prince Jiriki!” Eolair shouted. “Jiriki, can you hear me!?”

  The Sitha’s mouth opened a little wider. His jaws worked. A loud rumble of sound spilled out and echoed across the great bowl, deep and unintelligible, but so obviously full of pain and fear that even as Eolair clapped his hands over his ears in desperation he felt his heart lurch with sympathetic horror. He reached out a tentative hand toward the Sitha and watched in amazement as the hairs on his arm lifted straight up. His skin was tingling.

  Count Eolair only thought for a moment longer. Cursing himself for the fool he was, then flicking off a quick, silent prayer to Cuamh Earthdog, he took a step forward and grasped Jiriki’s shoulders.

  At the instant his fingers touched, Eolair felt himself suddenly overrun by a titanic force from nowhere, a rushing black river of terror and blood and empty voices that poured through him, sweeping his thoughts away like a handful of leaves in a cataract. But even in the brief moment before his real self spun out into nothingness, he could see his hands still touching Jiriki, and saw the Sitha, overbalanced by Eolair’s weight, toppling forward into the Shard. Jiriki touched the stone. A great bonfire of sparks leaped up, brighter even than the blue-green radiance, a million gleaming lights like the souls of all the fireflies in the world set free at once, dancing and swooping. Then everything faded into darkness. Eolair felt himself falling, falling, cast down like a stone into an endless void....

  “You live.”

  The relief in Jiriki’s voice was clear. Eolair opened his eyes to a pale blur that gradually became the Sitha’s face bent close to his. Jiriki’s cool hands were on his temples.

  Eolair feebly waved him off. The Sitha stepped back and allowed him to sit up; Eolair was obscurely grateful to be allowed to do it himself, even though it took him no little time to steady his shaking body. His head was hammering, ringing like Rhynn’s cauldron in full battle cry. He had to close his eyes for a moment to keep himself from vomiting.

  “I warned you not to touch me,” Jiriki said, but there was no displeasure in his voice. “I am sorry that you should have suffered so for me.”

  “What ... what happened?”

  Jiriki shook his head. There was a certain new stiffness in his movements, but when Eolair thought of how much longer the Sitha had endured what he himself had survived for only a moment, the count was awed. “I am not sure,” Jiriki answered. “Something did not want me to reach the Dream Road, or did not want the Shard tampered with—something with far more power or knowledge than I have.” He grimaced, showing his white teeth. “I was right to warn Seoman away from the Road of Dreams. I should have heeded my own advice, it seems. Likimeya my mother will be furious.”

  “I thought you were dying.” Eolair groaned. It felt as though someone was shoeing a large plow-horse behind his forehead.

  “If you had not pushed me out of the alignment in which I was trapped, worse than death would have awaited me, I think.” He laughed suddenly, sharply. “I owe you the Staja Ame, Count Eolair—the White Arrow. Sadly, someone else already has mine.”

  Eolair rolled toward his side and struggled to stand. It took several tries, but at last, with Jiriki’s help, which Eolair accepted gladly this time, he managed to drag himself upright. The Shard again seemed quiescent, flickering mutedly in the center of the empty arena, casting hesitant shadows behind the stone benches. “White Arrow?” he murmured. His head hurt, and his muscles felt as though he had been dragged behind a cart from Hernysadharc to Crannhyr.

  “I will tell you some day soon,” said Jiriki. “I must learn to live with these indignities.”

  Together they began to walk toward the tunnel that led out of the arena, Eolair limping, Jiriki steadier, but still slow. “Indignities?” Eolair asked weakly. “What do you mean?”

  “Being saved by mortals. It has become a sort of habit for me, it seems.”

  The sound of their halting footsteps sent echoes fluttering across the vast cavern and up among the dark places.

  “Here, puss, puss. Come now, Grimalkin.”

  Rachel was a little embarrassed. She wasn’t quite sure what one said to cats—in the old days, she had expected them to do their job keeping the rat population down, but she had left the petting and pampering of them to her chambermaids. As far as she had been concerned, handing out endearments and sweetmeats was no part of her obligation to any of her charges, two-footed or four. But now she had a need—if admittedly a daft and soft-headed one—and so she was humbling herself.

  Thank merciful Usires no human creature is around to see me.

  “Puss, puss, puss.” Rachel waved the bit of salt-beef. She slid forward half a cubit, trying to ignore the ache in her back and the rough stone beneath her knees. “I’m trying to feed you, you Rhiap-preserve-us filthy thing.” She scowled and waggled the bit of meat. “Serve you right if I did cook you.”

  Even the cat, standing just a short distance out of Rachel’s reach in the middle of the corridor, seemed to know that this was an idle threat. Not because of Rachel’s soft heart—she needed this beast to take food from her, but otherwise would just as happily have smacked it with her broom—but because eating cat flesh was as inconceivable to Rachel as spitting upon a church altar. She could not have said why exactly cat meat was different than the flesh of rabbit or roe deer, but she did not need to. It was not done by decent folk, and that was enough to know.

  Still, in the last quarter of an hour, she had more than once or twice toyed with the idea of kicking this recalcitrant creature down the steep staircase and then turning to some idea that did not require the assistance of animals. But the most irritating thing was that even the idea itself was of no practical use.

  Rachel looked at her quivering arm and greasy fingers. All of this to help a monster?

  You’re slipping, woman. Mad as a mooncalf.

  “Puss ...”

  The gray cat took a few steps closer and paused, surveying Rachel with eyes widened by suspicion as much as the bright lamplight. Rachel silently said the Elysia prayer and tried to move the beef enticingly. The cat approached warily, wrinkled its nostrils, then took a cautious lick. After a moment’s mock-casual washing of whiskers, it seemed to gain courage. It reached out and pulled loose some of the meat, stepping back to swallow it, then came forward once more. Rachel brought up her other hand and let it brush the cat’s back. It started, but when Rachel made no sudden move, the cat took the last piece of beef and gulped it down.
She let her fingers trail lightly against its fur as the cat nosed her now-empty hand questioningly. Rachel stroked it behind the ears, gamely resisting the impulse to throttle the particular little beast. At last, when she had worked loose a purr, she clambered heavily to her feet.

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “More meat.” She turned and stumped wearily up the corridor toward her hidden room. The cat watched her go, sniffed around on the stone floor for any scraps it might have missed, then lay down and began to groom itself.

  Jiriki and Eolair emerged into the light blinking like moles. The count was already regretting his decision to choose this entrance into the underground mines, one that was so far from Hernysadharc. If they had come in through the caverns where the Hernystiri had sheltered, as he and Maegwin had the first time, they could have spent the night in one of the recently-inhabited dens of the cave-city, saving themselves a long ride back.

  “You do not look well,” the Sitha commented, which was probably no more than the truth. Eolair’s head had at last stopped ringing, but his muscles still ached mightily.

  “I do not feel well.” The count looked around. There was still a little snow on the ground, but the weather had improved greatly in the last few days. It was tempting to consider staying right here and traveling back to the Taig in the morning. He squinted up at the sun. Only mid-afternoon: their time underground had seemed much longer ... if this was still the same day. He grinned sourly at the thought. Better a painful ride back to the Taig, he decided, than a night in the still-cold wildlands.

  The horses, Eolair’s bay gelding and Jiriki’s white charger, which had feathers and bells braided into its mane, stood cropping the meager grass, stretched to the ends of their long tethers. It was the work of only a few moments to make them ready, then human and Sitha spurred away toward the southeast and Hernysadharc.

  “The air seems different,” Eolair called. “Can you feel it?”

  “Yes.” Jiriki lifted his head like a hunting beast scenting the breeze. “But I do not know what it might mean.”

  “It’s warmer. That’s enough for me.”

  By the time they reached the outskirts of Hernysadharc, the sun had finally slipped down behind the Grianspog and the base of the sky was losing its ruddiness. They rode side by side up the Taig Road, threading through the not inconsiderable foot- and cart-traffic. Seeing his people once more out and about their business eased the pain of Eolair’s aches. Things were far from ordinary, and most of the people on the road had the gaunt, staring look of the hungry, but they were traveling freely in their own country again. Many seemed to have come from the market; they clutched their acquisitions jealously, even if they held no more than a handful of onions.

  “So what did you learn?” Eolair asked at last.

  “From the Shard? Much and little.” Jiriki saw the count’s expression and laughed. “Ah, you look like my mortal friend Seoman Snowlock! It is true, we Dawn Children do not give satisfactory answers.”

  “Seoman... ?”

  “Your kind call him ‘Simon,’ I think.” Jiriki nodded his head, milk-white hair dancing in the wind. “He is a strange cub, but brave and good-natured. He is clever, too, although he hides it well.”

  “I met him, I think. He is with-Josua Lackhand at the Stone—at Ses ... Sesu ...” He gestured, trying to summon the name.

  “Sesuad’ra. Yes, that is him. Young, but he has been caught up by’ too many currents for chance alone to be the explanation. He will have a part to play in things.” Jiriki stared into the east, as if looking for the mortal boy there. “Amerasu—our First Grandmother—invited him into her house. That was a great honor indeed.”

  Eolair shook his head. “He seemed little more than a tall and somewhat awkward young man when I met him—but I stopped putting trust in appearances long ago.”

  Jiriki smiled. “You are one in whom the old Hernystiri blood runs strong, then. Let me consider what I found in the Shard a while longer. Then, if you come with me to see Likimeya, I will share my thoughts with both of you.”

  As they made their way up Hern’s Hill, Eolair saw someone walking slowly across the damp grass. He raised his hand.

  “A moment, please.” Eolair passed the Sitha his reins, then swung down from his saddle and walked after the figure, which bent every few moments as though plucking flowers from among the grass-stems. A loose scatter of birds hovered behind, swooping down and then starting up again with a flurry of wings.

  “Maegwin?” Eolair called. She did not stop, so he hurried his steps to catch up to her. “Maegwin,” he said as he came abreast of her. “Are you well?”

  Lluth’s daughter turned to look at him. She was wearing a dark cloak, but beneath it was a dress of bright yellow. Her belt buckle was a sunflower of hammered gold. She looked pretty and at peace. “Count Eolair,” she said calmly, and smiled, then bent at the waist and let another handful of seed corn dribble from her fist.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Planting flowers. The long battle with winter has withered even Heaven’s blooms.” She stooped and sprinkled more corn. Behind her, the birds fought noisily over the kernels.

  “What do you mean, ‘Heaven’s blooms’?”

  She looked up at him curiously. “What a strange question. But think, Eolair, of what beautiful flowers will spring from these seeds. Think of how it will look when the gardens of the gods are a-blossom once more.”

  Eolair stared at her helplessly for a moment. Maegwin continued to walk forward, sprinkling the corn in little piles as she went. The birds, stuffed but not yet sated, followed her. “But you are on Hern’s Hill,” he said. “You are in Hernysadharc, the place where you grew up!”

  Maegwin paused and pulled her cloak a little tighter. “You do not look well, Eolair. That is not right. Nobody should be ill in a place like this.”

  Jiriki was making his way lightly across the grass leading the two horses. He stopped a short distance away, unwilling to intrude.

  To Eolair’s surprise, Maegwin turned to the Sitha and dropped into a curtsy. “Welcome, Lord Brynioch,” she called, then rose and lifted her hand to the reddening western horizon. “What a beautiful sky you have made for us today. Thank you, O Bright One.”

  Jiriki said nothing, but looked to Eolair with a catlike expression of calm curiosity.

  “Do you not know who this is?” the count asked Maegwin. “This is Jiriki of the Sithi. He is no god, but one of those who saved us from Skali.” When she did not reply, but only smiled indulgently, his voice rose. “Maegwin, this is not Brynioch. You are not among the gods. This is Jiriki—immortal, but of flesh and blood just like you and I.”

  Maegwin turned her sly smile onto the Sitha. “Good my Lord, Eolair seems fevered. Did you perhaps take him too close to the sun on your journeying today?”

  The Count of Nad Mullach stared. Was she truly mad or playing some unfathomable game? He had never seen anything like this. “Maegwin!” he snapped.

  Jiriki touched his arm. “Come with me, Count Eolair. We will talk.”

  Maegwin curtsied again. “You are kind, Lord Brynioch. I will continue with my task now, if I have your leave. It is little enough to repay your kindness and hospitality.”

  Jiriki nodded. Maegwin turned and continued her slow walk across the hillside.

  “Gods help me,” Eolair said. “She is mad! It is worse than I had feared.”

  “Even one who is not of your kind could see that she is gravely troubled.”

  “What can I do?” the count mourned. “What if she does not recover her wits?”

  “I have a friend—a cousin, by your terms—who is a healer,” Jiriki offered. “I do not know that this young woman’s problem can be helped by her, but there could be no harm in trying, I think.”

  He watched Eolair clamber back into his saddle, then mounted his own horse in a single, fluid movement and led the silent count up the hillside toward the Taig.

  When she heard the approaching footfalls, Rachel almost
pushed herself farther back into the shadows before she remembered that it would make no difference. Inwardly, she cursed herself for a fool.

  The steps were slow, as if the one making them was very weak or was carrying a huge burden.

  “Now where are we going?” It was a harsh whisper, deep and rough, a voice that was not used very often. “Going. Where are we going? Very well, then, I’m coming.” There was a thin wheeze of sound that might have been laughing or crying.

  Rachel held her breath. The cat appeared first, head up, certain now after nearly a week that what was waiting was dinner rather than danger. The man followed a moment later, trudging forward out of the shadows into the lamplight. His pale, scarred face was covered in a long, gray-shot beard and the parts of him that were not covered by his ragged, filthy clothes were starvation-thin. His eyes were closed.

  “Slow down,” he said raspingly. “I’m weak. Can’t go fast.” He stopped, as though he sensed the lamplight on his face, on the lids of his ruined eyes. “Where are you, cat?” he quavered.

  Rachel leaned down to pet the cat, which was butting at her ankle, then slipped it a bit of its expected salt-beef. She straightened up.

  “Earl Guthwulf.” Her voice seemed so loud after Guthwulf’s whisper that it even shocked her. The man flinched and fell back, almost toppling over, but instead of turning to run he raised his trembling hands before him.

  “Leave me alone, you damnable things!” he cried. “Haunt someone else! Leave me with my misery! Let the sword have me if it wants.”

  “Don’t run, Guthwulf!” Rachel said hastily, but at the renewed sound of her voice, the earl turned and begin to stagger back down the corridor.

  “There will be food for you here,” she called after him. The tattered apparition did not answer, but vanished into the shadows beyond the lampglow. “I will leave it and then go away. I will do that every day! You do not need to speak to me!”