To Green Angel Tower, Volume 2

  “That is him.”

  “I doubt very much that Maegwin knew him. She never traveled to Erkynland, and I believe that was where the young man lived before running away to serve Josua. Why?” Eolair shook his head. “I do not understand this.”

  “Nor do I. And I fear what it might mean. But in those last moments, it seemed Maegwin thought also of young Seoman, almost as though she had seen him or spoken with him.” Jiriki frowned. “It is our ill luck that the Dream Road is so murky now, so unrewarding. It was all I could do to glean that much. But something is happening in Asu‘a—the Hayholt—and Seoman will be there. I fear for him, Count Eolair. He is ... important to me.”

  “But that is where you are going anyway. That is fortunate, I suppose.” Eolair did not want to think any more. “I wish you luck finding him.”

  “And you? Even if Seoman had some significance for Maegwin? Even if she had some message from him, or for him?”

  “I am done with that—and so is she. I will take her back to Erkynland to be buried on the mountain beside her father and brother. There is much to do to rebuild our country, and I have been absent too long.”

  “What help can I give you?” Jiriki asked.

  “I want no more help.” Eolair spoke more sharply than he had intended. “We mortals are very good at burying our dead.”

  He turned and walked away, pulling his cloak tight against the flurrying snows.

  Isgrimnur limped out onto the deck, cursing his aching body and his halting progress. He did not notice the shadowy figure until he had nearly stumbled into it.

  “Greetings, Duke Isgrimnur.” Aditu turned and regarded him for a moment. “Is it not chill weather for one of your folk to be out in the wind?”

  Isgrimnur hid his startlement by an elaborate readjustment of his gloves. “Perhaps for the southern folk like Tiamak. But my people are Rimmersmen, my lady. We are hardened to the cold.”

  “Am I your lady?” she said with amusement. “I certainly hold no mortal title. And I cannot believe that Duchess Gutrun would approve of any other meaning.”

  He grimaced, and was suddenly grateful for the chill wind on his cheeks. “It is just politeness, my la ...” He tried again. “I find it difficult to call by their first name someone who ... who ...”

  “Who is older than you are?” She laughed, a not unpleasant sound. “Another problem for which I am to blame! I truly did not come to you mortals to discomfort you.”

  “Are you really? Older than me?” Isgrimnur was not sure if it was a polite question—but after all, she had brought it up.

  “Oh, I should think so ... although my brother Jiriki and I are both accounted quite young by our folk. We are both children of the Exile, born since Asu‘a fell. To some, like my uncle Khendraja’aro, we are barely even real people, and certainly not to be trusted with any responsibility.” She laughed again. “Oh, poor Uncle. He has seen so many outrageous things happen in these last days—a mortal brought to Jao é-Tinukai‘i, the breaking of the Pact, Zida’ya and humans fighting side by side again. I fear that he will finish his present duty to my mother and Year-Dancing House and then simply let himself die. Sometimes it is the strongest who are the most brittle. Do you not think so?”

  Isgrimnur nodded. For once, he understood what the Sitha-woman meant. “I have seen that, yes. Sometimes those who act the strongest are really the most frightened.”

  Aditu smiled. “You are a very wise mortal, Duke Isgrimnur.”

  The duke coughed, embarrassed. “I am a very old, very sore mortal.” He stared out across the choppy bay. “And tomorrow we make landfall. I am glad we have been able to shelter here in the Kynslagh—I don’t think most of us could have taken much more of the storms and the kilpa on the open sea, and God knows I hate boats—but I still don’t understand why Elias has not lifted a hand in his own defense.”

  “He has not yet,” Aditu agreed. “Perhaps he feels that his Hayholt walls are defense enough.”

  “Could be.” Isgrimnur voiced the fear that others in the prince’s fleet shared. “Or perhaps he is expecting allies—the kind of allies he had at Naglimund.”

  “That could also be true. Your people and my people have both wondered much about what is intended.” She shrugged, a sinuous gesture that might have been part of a ritual dance. “Soon it will not matter. Soon we will learn first hand, as I think you say.”

  They both fell silent. The wind was not strong, but its breath was bitterly cold. Despite his rugged heritage, Isgrimnur found himself pulling his scarf higher on his neck.

  “What happens to your fairy-folk when they get old?” Isgrimnur asked suddenly. “Do they just get wiser? Or do they turn silly and mawkish, as some of ours do?”

  “‘Old’ means something different to us, as you know,” Aditu replied. “But the answer is: there are as many different answers as there are Zida’ya, as is no doubt true with mortals. Some grow increasingly remote; they do not speak to anyone, but live entirely in their own thoughts. Others develop fondnesses for things others find unimportant. And some begin to brood on the past, on wrongs and hurts and missed chances.

  “The oldest one of all, the one you call the Norn Queen, has grown old in that way. She was known once for her wisdom and beauty, for grace beyond measurement. But something in her was balked and grew bent, and so she curled inward into malice. As the years almost beyond counting rolled past, all that was once admirable became twisted.” Aditu had suddenly become serious in a way that Isgrimnur had not seen before. “That is perhaps the greatest sorrow of our folk, that the ruin of the world should be brought about by two who were among the greatest of the Gardenborn.”

  “Two?” Isgrimnur was trying to reconcile the stories he had heard of the silver-masked queen of ice and darkness with Aditu’s description.

  “Ineluki ... the Storm King.” She turned back to look across the Kynslagh, as though she could see the old Asu‘a looming beyond the darkness. “He was the brightest-burning flame ever kindled in this land. Had the mortals not come—had your own ancestors not come, Duke Isgrimnur—and attacked our great house with iron and fire, he might have led us out of the shadows of exile and back into the light of the living world again. That was his dream. But any great dream can flower into madness.” She was silent for a while. “Perhaps we must all learn to live with exile, Isgrimnur. Perhaps we must all learn to live with smaller dreams.”

  Isgrimnur said nothing. They stood for a while in the wind, silent but not uncomfortably so, before the duke turned and sought the warmth of the cabins.

  Duchess Gutrun looked up in alarm when she felt the cold air. “Vorzheva! Are you mad? Bring those children away from the windows.”

  The Thrithings-woman, one child cradled in each arm, did not move. Beyond the open window stretched Nabban, vast but strangely intimate; the city’s famous hills made the houses and streets and buildings seem built almost on top of each other. “There is no harm in air. On the grasslands, we live all our lives out in the open.”

  “Nonsense,” Gutrun said crossly. “I’ve been there, Vorzheva, don’t forget. Those wagons are almost like houses.”

  “But we only sleep in them. Everything else—eating, singing, loving—we do beneath the sky.”

  “And your men cut their cheeks with knives, too. Does that mean you’re going to do that to poor little Deornoth?” She bristled at the mere thought.

  The Thrithings-woman turned and gave her companion an amused look. “You do not think the little one should wear scars?” She gazed at the male infant’s sleeping face, then laid a finger along his cheek, pretending to consider it. “Oh, but they are so handsome to see....” She darted a sideward glance, then burst out laughing at the Rimmerswoman’s horror. “Gutrun! You think I mean it for true!”

  “Don’t even say such things. And bring those poor babies away from the window.”

  “I am showing them the ocean where their father is. But you, Gutrun, you are very angry and unhappy today. Are you not well?”


  “What is there to be happy about?” The duchess sank down again onto her chair and picked up her sewing, but only turned the cloth in her hands. “We are at war. People are dying. It is not even a week since we buried little Leleth!”

  “Oh, I am sorry,” Vorzheva said. “I did not mean to be cruel. You were very close to her.”

  “She was just a child. She suffered terrible things, may God grant her peace.”

  “She did not seem to have any pain at the end. That is something. Did you think she would come awake, after all that time?”

  “No.” The duchess frowned. “But that does not make the sadness less. I hope I am not the one who must tell young Jeremias when he comes back.” Her voice dropped. “If he comes back.”

  Vorzheva looked at the older woman intently. “Poor Gutrun. It is not just Leleth, is it? You are frightened for Isgnimnur also.”

  “My old fellow will come back well,” Gutrun muttered. “He always does.” She peered up at Vorzheva, who still stood before the open window, a sweep of ash-gray sky behind her. “But what of you, who feared so much for Josua? Where is your worry?” She shook her head. “Saint Skendi protect us, I should not speak of such things. Who knows what ill luck it could bring?”

  Vorzheva smiled. “Josua will come back to me. I had a dream.”

  “What do you mean? Has all that nonsense of Aditu’s turned your head?”

  “No.” The Thrithings-woman looked down at her girl-child; Vorzheva’s thick hair fell like a curtain, so that for a moment the faces of both mother and daughter were hidden. “But it was a true dream. I know. Josua came to me and said, ‘I have what I always have wanted.’ And he was at peace. So I know that he will win, and he will come back to me.”

  Gutrun opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. Her face was fearful. Quickly, while Vorzheva still gazed at little Derra, the duchess made the sign of the Tree.

  Vorzheva shivered and looked up. “Perhaps you are right, Gutrun. It is getting cold. I will shut the windows.”

  The duchess levered herself up from her chair. “Nonsense. I’ll do it. You take those little ones right back and get under the blankets.” She paused in front of the window. “Merciful Elysia,” she said. “Look.”

  Vorzheva turned. “What?”

  “It’s snowing.”

  “You would think we were stopping for a visit to a local shrine,” Sangfugol observed. “That these were boat-loads of pilgrims.”

  Tiamak was huddled with the harper and Strangyeard on a windy, snow-clad slope east of Swertclif. Below them, landing boats bounced Josua’s army across the choppy Kynslagh toward the shore; the prince and the martial arm of his household were at the landing site, overseeing the complex enterprise.

  “Where is Elias?” Sangfugol demanded. “Aedon’s Bones, his brother is landing an army on his doorstep. Where is the king?”

  Strangyeard winced ever so slightly at the oath. “You sound as though you want him to come! We know where the High King is, Sangfugol.” He gestured toward the Hayholt, a cluster of spiky shadows almost hidden by whirling snow. “Waiting. But we do not know why.”

  Tiamak sank deeper into his cloak. His bones felt frozen. He could understand that the prince might not want them underfoot, but surely they could have found a place to stay out of the way that was less exposed to the wind and snow?

  At least I have drylander breeches now. But I still do not want to end my days here, in this cold place. Please let me see my Wran again. Let me go to the Wind Festival one more time. Let me drink too much fern beer and play snatch-the-feather. I don’t want to die here and be unburned and unremembered.

  He shivered and tried to slough off such glum thoughts. “Has the prince sent scouts toward the castle?”

  Sangfugol shook his head, pleased to be knowledgeable. “Not in close. I heard him tell Isgrimnur that stealth was useless, since the king must have seen us coming days ago, and heard of it long before that. Now that he has made sure Elias has no soldiers hidden in Erchester—soldiers! No one is there but dogs and rats!—Josua will send outriders ahead when the company moves up to set the siege.”

  As the harper went on to explain how, in his estimation, the prince should go about deploying his forces, Tiamak saw someone slogging up the hill through the snow.

  “Look!” Father Strangyeard pointed. “Who is that?”

  “It’s young Jeremias.” Sangfugol was a little nettled to be interrupted. “Been driven out like the rest of us, I suppose.”

  “Tiamak!” Jeremias called. “Come with me! Hurry!”

  “Goodness!” Strangyeard fluttered his hands. “Perhaps they’ve found something important!”

  Tiamak was already standing. “What is it?”

  “Josua says come quickly. The Sitha-woman is sick.”

  “Shall we come, Tiamak?” Strangyeard asked. “No, I am sure you would rather not be crowded. And what help or comfort could I give to one of the Sithi?”

  The Wrannaman started down the hill, leaning into the wind. As the snow crunched beneath his feet, he was again grateful for Sangfugol’s loan of boots and breeches, although both were too large.

  I am in a strange place, he marveled. A strange time. A marsh man wading through the snows of Erkynland to help one of the Sithi. It must be They Who Watch and Shape who have drunk too much fern beer.

  Aditu had been taken to a makeshift shelter, a cloth cargo cover that had been stretched across the bottom branches of a tree on a rise above the shoreline. Josua and Sludig and a few of the soldiers stood by awkwardly, hunched beneath the low roof. “Sludig found her,” the prince said. “I feared she had surprised some of my brother’s spies, but there are no marks of violence upon her and Sludig said he saw no signs of struggle. No one heard anything, either, although she was only a hundred paces up from the shore.” He frowned worriedly. “It is like Leleth after Geloë died. She is sleeping, but will not wake.”

  Tiamak stared at the Sitha’s face. With her eyes closed she appeared nearly human. “I did little for Leleth,” he said, “and I have no idea what effect my herbs would have on one of the immortals. I do not know what I can do for Aditu.”

  Josua made a gesture of helplessness. “At least see that she is comfortable.”

  “Did you see anything that might have caused it?” Tiamak asked Sludig.

  The Rimmersman shook his head vigorously. “Nothing. I found her as you see her, lying on the ground with no one else nearby.”

  “I must get back to watch over the unloading. Unless there is something ...” Josua seemed distracted, as though even this upsetting event was not quite enough to hold his full attention. The prince had always been a bit remote, but in the day since they had made landfall, the Wrannaman had found him to be unusually preoccupied. Still, Tiamak decided, with what lay ahead of them all, the prince had a right to be a little distracted.

  “I will stay with her, Prince Josua.” He bent and touched the Sitha’s cheek. Her skin was cool, but he had no idea whether that was unusual.

  “Good. My thanks, Tiamak.” Josua hesitated for a moment, then ducked out from beneath the lean-to. Sludig and the other soldiers followed.

  Tiamak squatted beside Aditu. She was dressed in mortal clothes, pale breeches and a jacket made of hide, neither of them heavy enough for the weather—but Sithi cared little about weather, Tiamak reminded himself. She was breathing shallowly, and one hand was curled into a fist. Something about the way her long fingers were bent caught Tiamak’s interest; he opened her hand. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

  Nestled in Aditu’s palm was a small round mirror, scarcely larger than an aspen leaf. Its frame was a narrow ring of what appeared to be shiny bone, minutely carved. Tiamak lifted it up and balanced it gently in his own hand. It was heavy for its size and oddly warm.

  A tingling, prickling sensation crept through his fingers. He tilted the mirror so that he could see his face reflected; as he moved the angle, he could find no trace of his own features
, but only roiling darkness. He brought it closer to his face and felt the tingling grow more pronounced.

  Something struck his wrist. The mirror tumbled from his hand onto the damp ground.

  “Leave it.” Aditu withdrew her hand and let herself fall back, covering her eyes with her long fingers. Her voice was thin and strained. “Do not touch it, Tiamak.”

  “You are awake!” He looked at the mirror where it lay in the grass, but felt no particular urge to flout Aditu’s warning.

  “Yes, I am now. Were you sent to take care of me? To heal me?”

  “To watch over you, anyway.” He moved a little closer to her. “Are you well? Is there anything I can get you?”

  “Water. Some snowmelt would be a good thing.”

  Tiamak scrambled out from under the heavy cloth and scooped up a double handful of snow, then brought it back. “I have no cup or bowl.”

  “It does not matter.” She sat up, not without effort, and received it in her cupped palms. She pushed some of it into her mouth and rubbed the rest on her face. “Where is the mirror?”

  Tiamak pointed. Aditu bent and plucked it from the grass; a moment later, her hand was empty again. Tiamak had not seen where she put it. “What happened to you?” he asked. “Do you know?”

  “Yes and no.” She pressed her hands against her face. “You have learned something of the Witnesses?”

  “A little.”

  “The Dream Road, the place we Zida‘ya go when we use such Witnesses as the mirror you held for a moment, has been almost completely barred to us since Amerasu Ship-Born was slain in the Yásira. Because of this, I have not been able to confer with Jiriki or Likimeya my mother or any of my people since I left them. But I have been thinking about the things you and Strangyeard asked me—even though, as I told you, I have no answers myself. I agree that your questions may be very important. I hoped that since we are now closer to my kin, perhaps I could somehow let them know I needed to speak with them.”