The Runes of Norien

IV

  They forced down the food despite the revolting bitterness, for they would have to go without a breadcrumb or a drop of milk until their rite.

  Which they tried and tried to banish from their thoughts, to no avail; the Sage’s voice still resonated in their heads, though for the life of them they couldn’t understand why they had been dealt with so severely. Could it be that the Circle had divined their unspoken (and unspeakable) reluctance towards their alarmingly imminent rite, their earlier preoccupation with the legend of the Nameless Mates? Had they learnt of their nocturnal meeting with Tulanda? Raddia even wondered if it was because of what she’d dreamt, but dark follies were not the sleeper’s fault, and besides, what with all the grim rumours going about Lurien, red skies must be teeming with disturbing follies.

  “Why do you think they didn’t dissolve?” Raddia said, deflecting. They were cooped up in their cabin’s kitchen, where it was safe to speak aloud.

  Gallan took a sip of white ale, grimacing at the awful taste. “As we were leaving, I heard a Maker think that maybe it’s because we have somehow become too tainted, too unclean for the Sacred River to accept our Substance.”

  “Did the thing really have two heads? Or no, I’d rather you hadn’t told me at all; the whole ugliness makes me positively ill to contemplate.”

  “Perhaps someone saw me fooling with the grass the other day, like you said.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it has to be something worse than that; maybe it’s not just us – if the Sacred River has been rejecting the bodies of Makers, the Circle may have decided to turn rites into some trial of pureness; weed out inferior Substances.”

  “At least, no matter what happens, we shall be together,” Gallan said.

  Raddia smiled faintly, and then she blinked in sudden remembrance. “I almost forgot – I was meaning to ask you about it, but then havoc broke out and it slipped my mind. It was before they brought the Fault; a Maker was standing to my left, and she had the most peculiar thought: The Ghosts have forsaken us, she said to herself.”

  “The Ghosts? What’s that?”

  “I have no idea; I’ve never heard the word before. You haven’t, either?”

  “Not that I recall; it may be a thing concerning only Makers, like end spots.”

  Then, having taken a spoonful of goat cheese, Gallan suddenly bit on something hard, and exclaiming in pain, he spat it out; it was a thing they’d long been reisgned to, their old goat’s proclivity for swallowing, along with the grass she grazed, all sorts of teeth-hurting odds and ends, from gravel and sticks to apricot pits and wood chips. But this time she had outdone herself in dietary weirdness, for the object on the table, once cleaned from the white stuff, was the strangest thing Gallan and Raddia had ever seen.

  It was perfectly round, its colour like honey pierced by light, and despite its smallness it had to be made of stone, because it was quite heavy – and yet it couldn’t be, for neither glowstone nor dullstone (of which most tools in Lurien were fashioned) had this particular glinting hue. But even more unusual and intriguing was the image carved on both sides, which Gallan and Raddia stared at for quite a while before realizing what they were looking at – for there was no reflective material to be found in Lurien, and its dwellers spent their lives avoiding the sight of one another’s face.

  The carving was of a long-haired, bearded head seen from the side, and atop it rested an odd creature that resembled a porcupine with its quills raised in defence. But as to whom the face belonged to, and why he should adorn his head with a frightened porcupine, Gallan and Raddia couldn’t begin to imagine.

  They only knew, at once, that, whatever it was – a thing not of this world? an omen? – it should be kept secret; which shouldn’t be too hard, for although its discovery filled their minds with awe, there existed no words to describe it.