A Time of Omens

  Rhodry broke into a cold sweat. For a moment he merely stood beside the river and shook; then he turned and shamelessly ran for the horses. With clumsy shaking hands he saddled his gray, grabbed the lead rope of the bay gelding, then mounted and rode out at a fast trot. All the long way back to camp he wished for a good road and a gallop. And yet, when he saw the camp and, in particular, the other men in the warband, his fear seemed not only shameful but foolish, and he told no one what had happened. In fact, the more he thought about the incident, the more unreal it seemed, until finally he convinced himself that he’d fallen asleep in the warm sun and dreamt the whole thing.

  Two days later, on the last afternoon of the alardan, Oldana died. Rhodry was walking among the tents when he heard Enabrilia start keening. The high-pitched shriek cut through the noise of the camp like a knife and sobbed on and on. One at a time, other voices joined in, wailing and gasping. Rhodry turned and ran for Oldana’s tent, shoved his way through the sobbing mob at the door, and ducked inside. Her hair down and disheveled, Enabrilia was clawing at her own face with her nails while two of her women friends grabbed at her hands to make her stop. Oldana lay on a pile of blankets, her arms thrown wide, her unseeing eyes still open. She had been ill so long that her face seemed, at first, no colder, no paler than before, but her mouth hung slack, her lips flaccid. Huddled in the curve of the tent wall little Faren stood staring and silent, watching his elder brother mourn without truly understanding a thing. Rhodry gathered the pair up and led them out of the tent. In a time of mourning, boys belonged with the men while the women cared for the dead.

  Outside, other women were assembling at the tent while the men hurried through the camp, extinguishing every fire as they went. They gathered near the horse herd, where Oldana’s brother, Wylenteriel, met Rhodry and took his nephews with a murmur of thanks for the banadar’s second in command. Rhodry found Calonderiel swearing under his breath with every foul oath he knew.

  “She was so wretchedly young to die! I don’t understand the gods sometimes, I really don’t!”

  “Who can?” Rhodry said with a shrug. “I’m heartsick, too, but I’m worried about her sons more. Where’s their father?”

  “Up north somewhere with his herds, last anyone saw him. The boys will fare better with their uncle anyway, if you ask my opinion and not that anyone did.” The banadar looked briefly sour. “With luck we’ll run into their father down at the winter camps. The alardan will break up tonight, and we’ll be heading east.”

  “East?”

  “To the death ground. That’s right, you’ve never been there before, have you? We’re close enough to take her there for the burning, in this cool weather and all.”

  Rhodry felt oddly troubled. The sacred death ground lay right on the Eldidd border, not more than a hundred miles from Aberwyn, where once he’d ruled as gwerbret, not far at all from the place he’d always considered home.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Calonderiel said. “You look pale.”

  “Do I? Ah, well, it’s a sad thing, when one of the People dies so young. We’d best call for the ceremony to end the alardan. The sooner we get moving, the better.”

  The women sprinkled Oldana’s corpse with spices and covered it with dried flowers before they wrapped it round with white linen. They cut a white horse out of the herd to drag the travois that would carry her to the resting place of her ancestors, and when the alar left the rest of the gathering behind for their sad journey east, that horse led the line of march, with Rhodry and Calonderiel riding alongside. The boys, as much confused as grief-struck, traveled far back at the rear with their uncle and grandmother. Out of simple decency the king and the young prince came with them, and their alar, of course, as well, to dignify the eventual ceremony with their presence.

  It took them two full days and part of a third to reach the Lake of the Leaping Trout. During that time they ate food left from the alardan feasting, and slept cold at night, too, because no one could light a fire until Oldana’s soul was safely on its way to the world beyond. Slowly the grasslands began to rise, until by the third dawn they saw ahead of them rolling grassy downs that were almost hills. Finally, just after a noon gray with the promise of winter, they came to the last crest. Far down the green slope lay the silver lake, a long finger of water caught in a narrow valley pointing southeast to northwest. To the north a thick forest spread along the valley floor, the dark pines standing in such orderly rows that obviously they were no natural growth, but all along the north shore lay an open meadow. Calonderiel turned to Rhodry and gestured at the forest with a wide sweep of his arm.

  “Well, there it is. The death ground of my ancestors, and of yours as well. Your father’s father was set free and his ashes scattered among those trees, though I think your grandmother died too far out on the grass to be brought here.”

  When they rode down to the lake, Rhodry realized that the meadow area was laid out as a proper campground: there were stone fire pits at regular intervals and small sheds, too, for keeping firewood dry and food safe from prowling animals. The alar rushed to set up their tents against the darkening sky and tether the horses securely as well, just in case there should be thunder in the night. As the early evening was setting in, Calonderiel fetched Rhodry.

  “Let’s go take a look at the firewood. The women tell me that we’d better do the ceremony tonight.”

  They crossed the neatly tended boundary of the forest into the dark and spicy-scented corridors of trees. In a clearing, not ten yards in, stood a structure of dry-walled stone and rough-cut timber about thirty feet long. Inside they found it stacked with cut wood, a fortune in fuel out on the grasslands.

  “Good,” Calonderiel said. “Fetch the others. Let’s get this over with before the rain hits.”

  But as if in sympathy with their loss, the rain held off. The wind rose instead, driving the clouds away and letting the stars shine through. Close to midnight the alar burned Oldana’s body to send her soul free to the gods. Rhodry stood well back toward the edge of the weeping crowd. Although he’d traveled with the Westfolk long enough to witness several cremations, still they disturbed him, used as he was to burying his kin and friends in the hidden dark of the earth with things they’d loved in life tucked round them. He found himself moving slowly backward, almost without thinking, easing himself out of the crowd, taking a step here, allowing someone to stand in front of him there, until at last he stood alone, some distance away.

  The night wind lashed at the lake and howled round the trees like another mourner. Rhodry shivered with grief as much as the cold, because she had indeed been so young, and so very beautiful. Although he’d never known her well, he would miss her presence in the alar. Among the Westfolk, that last remnant of a race hovering on the edge of extinction, where the loss of any individual was a tragedy, the death of a woman who might have borne more children was an appalling blow of fate. In the center of the crowd the women howled in a burst of keening that the men answered, half a chant, half a sob. Rhodry turned and ran, plunged into the silent camp, raced through the tents and out the other side, ran and ran along the lakeshore until at last he tripped and went sprawling. For a long time he lay in the tall grass and gasped for breath. When he sat up the fire was far away, a golden flower blooming on the horizon. The wind-struck water lapped and murmured nearby.

  “You coward,” he said to himself, and in Deverrian. “You’d best get back.”

  The alar would expect him, the banadar’s second in command, to be present at the wake. He got up, pulling down his shirt, automatically running one hand along his belt to make sure that his sword was still there, and of course his silver dagger—which was gone. Rhodry swore and dropped to his knees to hunt for it. It must have slipped out of its sheath, he supposed, when he’d tripped and fallen flat on his face. In the starry dark his half-elven sight could make out little: the blacker shapes of crushed-down grass against the black shadows of grass still standing. On his hands and knees he crisscros
sed the area, fumbling through and patting down the grass, pulling it aside, hoping for the gleam of silver, praying that the wretched thing hadn’t somehow or other slid into the lake. A gaggle of gnomes appeared to help, though he doubted if they truly understood him when he tried to explain what he was doing. Finally he gave up in disgust and sat back on his heels. In a flurry like a whirlwind the gnomes all disappeared.

  “Rhodry, give me the ring, and I’ll give the dagger back.”

  The voice—her voice, all soft and seductive—spoke from behind him. Swearing, he got to his feet and spun around to see her, standing some five feet away. She seemed to stand in a column of moonlight, as if the air around her were a tunnel to some other world where the moon was at her full, and she was wearing elven clothes, the embroidered tunic and leather trousers in which he’d first seen her. Her honey-colored hair, though, hung free, a cascade over her shoulders. In one hand she held his silver dagger, blade up.

  “The ring, Rhodry Maelwaedd. Give me the rose ring, and you shall have your dagger back.”

  “Suppose I just take it from you?”

  She laughed and disappeared, suddenly and completely gone. When he swore, he heard her laugh behind him again, and spun around. There she was, and she was still holding the dagger.

  “You shan’t be able to catch me, of course,” she said. “But I always keep my promises. I promise that if you give me the ring, I shall give you your dagger.”

  “Well, if you want it that cursed badly…”

  When he started to slip the ring free, she moved forward, gliding over the grass, and it seemed that she was suddenly taller, her eyes flashing gold in the not-real moonlight that clung to her. All at once he was afraid, hesitated, stepped back with the ring still on his finger.

  “Just why do you want this bit of silver so badly?”

  “That’s none of your affair! Give it to me!”

  She strode forward, he moved back. She stood huge now, her hair spreading out in some private wind like flames stirring, and she held the dagger up to strike.

  “Stop!” It was a man’s voice. “You have no right to that ring!”

  Rhodry could see no one, but she suddenly shrank down to the form of a normal elven woman, and the dagger hung in a flaccid hand.

  “It was his long before I carved the runes upon it. You know it was. Admit it.”

  All at once a figure appeared to match the voice, a man with impossibly yellow hair and lips as red as cherries. Smiling, but it was more a wolf’s smile than a man’s, he strolled in between them. The long tunic he wore matched his unnaturally blue eyes. With a sense of utter shock Rhodry realized that he could see him so clearly because dawn was already turning the eastern sky silver, that the entire night had somehow passed during his brief conversation with the woman. She was staring at the grass now, and kicking a tuft of it like a sulky child.

  “Hand it over,” the man said.

  With a shriek of rage she hurled the dagger straight at Rhodry’s head. He ducked, twisting out of the way barely in time, then looked up to find them both gone. The dagger, however, lay gleaming in the rising sun. When he picked it up, he found it perfectly solid—and realized with surprise that he’d expected it to be somehow changed. Although he sheathed it, he kept his hand on the hilt as he started back to camp.

  “Rhodry?”

  The voice made him yelp aloud. The man with the yellow hair gave him an apologetic smile.

  “If I were you,” the fellow said. “I’d leave the Westlands. She won’t follow you into the lands of men.”

  He disappeared again. Rhodry ran the rest of the way back to the camp.

  The wake was long over. Most of the People, in fact, were asleep after the long night of mourning. Only a pack of dogs, a few of the older boys, and Calonderiel were sitting round the newly rekindled fire in front of the banadar’s tent.

  “Where were you?” Calonderiel said.

  “I hardly know.” Rhodry sat down next to him on the ground.

  Calonderiel considered for a moment, then waved at the boys and dogs impartially.

  “Go. I don’t care where—to bed, probably. But go.”

  Once they’d gone, the banadar laid a few chips and twigs onto the fire.

  “I hate to let it go out,” he remarked. “What do you mean, you hardly know?”

  “Just that. I thought I was but a mile from here, down by the lake, but the whole night passed like a bare moment, and I saw a woman who came and went like one of the Wildfolk.”

  While Rhodry told the story, and he finally admitted the earlier incidents as well, Calonderiel listened without a word, but the banadar grew more and more troubled.

  “Guardians,” he said at last. “What you saw were two of the Guardians. I don’t exactly know what they may be, but they’re somehow linked to the People. They’re not gods, certainly, nor are they elves like you and me, nor men like your other tribe, either. No more are they Wildfolk, though they seem more like the Wildfolk than like us at times. I’ve heard a wagonload of old tales about them. Sometimes they harm those that see them, but more often they help, which is why we call them Guardians. The bards say that at the fall of Rinbaladelan, a man of the Guardians fought side by side with the royal archers, but not even his magic could hold the Hordes off in the end.”

  “Do you think I should take the fellow’s advice, then?”

  “Most likely. Ye gods, I wish Aderyn were here! We need a dweomerman’s counsel, we do.”

  “I’m still surprised he never came to the alardan. It’s not like the old man to miss one.”

  “Just so.” Calonderiel suddenly yawned with a convulsive little shudder. “Well, let’s get some sleep. It’s been a miserable night, all told. Maybe your dreams will tell you something useful”

  That afternoon, though, Rhodry dreamt of the long road, that is, the time when he’d ridden as a silver dagger into political exile. When he woke, he could remember nothing particular about the dream, and it faded fast as dreams will, but the feeling of it lingered round him, a sour sort of omen. He found himself alone in the banadar’s huge tent, with the rest of the warband gone, though he did hear whispering voices just outside. When he dressed and went out, he discovered a clot of men, all white-faced and shaking, standing round the young prince, Daralanteriel, who had his hands set on his hips and an angry toss to his head.

  “What’s all this?” Rhodry was instantly awake.

  “My apologies, sir,” the prince said. “The men keep talking about ghosts, and I’m trying to force some sense into their heads.”

  “Good.” Rhodry turned to Jennantar, who of all the men in the warband was usually the most hard-headed. “Now, what—”

  “Mock all you like, we saw her!” Jennantar said. “Oldana, standing at the edge of camp clear as clear.”

  The rest nodded in stubborn agreement.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Daralanteriel snarled. “Only Round-ears believe in trash like that. Well, begging your pardon, sir.”

  “Tact isn’t your strongest point, lad, is it? But apology accepted. Look at it this way: the men saw something, so the real question is, what was it?”

  “I’m glad to see that someone believes our sworn word.” Jennantar shot Daralanteriel an evil glance.

  “Enough of that! It’s a prince you’re looking daggers at,” Rhodry broke in and quickly. “Where did you see this thing?”

  With the others trailing after, Jennantar led Rhodry out of the camp on the forest side. He pointed to a spot between two ancient pines.

  “Right there. She was standing between those trees, in the shadows, yes, but we still saw her really clearly, all wrapped up in the white linen, and her hair was all white, too.”

  “When you looked at her, did she seem solid, or could you see things through her, like you can through smoke?”

  “Interesting.” Jennantar thought for a moment. “In the bard tales, you can always see right through a ghost, but she looked as real as you or me
, and it was sunny, of course, which should have made her look even less real, but it didn’t.”

  “What did you do when you saw her?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, we all yelped and jumped. She didn’t say anything, just looked at us. And Wye said, ‘Look at her hair, it’s not yellow anymore, it’s turned white.’ And she smiled at that, like, and vanished, sudden as sudden.”

  “And you’re sure it was Oldana?”

  “Looked exactly like her, except for that white hair.”

  The other men nodded agreement. Rhodry sighed with a sharp puff of breath. Whoever or whatever that spirit who coveted his ring might be, there was no doubt that she could shape-change to perfection.

  As they walked back to camp, three women came running to meet them. They ringed Rhodry round and all began talking at once: they too had seen Oldana, prowling round her family’s tent.

  “I suppose she wants a look at her children, poor thing,” Annaleria said, her voice shaking with tears. “I know I would.”

  “Ye gods!” Rhodry snarled. “Where are the boys?”

  “With their grandmother in her tent.”

  “Good. Go join her. Fill that tent with women, and for the love of every god, don’t let the apparition near those boys. If she gets her claws into one of them, he’ll be gone where none of us can get him back.”

  Except, no doubt, by handing over the ring.

  “Let’s go. Hurry!”

  Rhodry broke into a run and raced for camp, leaving the others startled behind him. Enabrilia’s distinctive tent, painted with scenes of deer drinking at a river, stood off to one side, with nothing beyond it but the lakeshore. As Rhodry jogged up, he saw Val heading down to the water’s edge with a leather bucket in his hands. Rhodry took off after him, yelling his name. The boy stopped on the pale sand and looked back, smiling. Out on the water something was forming. It seemed a wisp of mist at first, then shimmered and began to grow thicker.

  “Run!” Rhodry shrieked. “Come here, Val!”