She seemed on the verge of crying. “But I don’t want you to go, Simon. You are my friend—I don’t want you hurt!”
“And I don’t want you hurt, either.” He felt calmer now. He had a strange but powerful feeling that this was the right decision … although another part of him was simultaneousy crying mooncalf mooncalf! “That’s why I’m going with you.”
“But Josua needs you!”
“Josua has lots of knights, and I’m the least of them. You only have one.”
“I can’t let you, Simon.” She shook her head violently. “You don’t understand what I’m doing, where I’m going. …”
“Then tell me.”
She shook her head again.
“Then I’ll just have to find out by going with you. Either you take me, or you stay. I’m sorry, Miriamele, but that is all.”
She looked at him for a moment, staring hard, as though she would see into his very heart. She seemed to be in a kind of ecstasy of indecision, pulling distractedly at her horse’s bridle until Simon feared the animal might startle and bolt. “Very well,” she said at last. “Oh, Elysia save us all, very well! But we must go now, and you must ask me no more questions about where or why tonight.”
“Fine,” he said. The doubting part of him was still screaming for attention, but he had decided not to listen. He could not bear the idea of her riding away into the dark alone. “But I must go and get my sword and a few other things. Do you have food?”
“Enough for me … but you dare not try to steal more, Simon. There’s too much chance someone would see you.”
“Well, we’ll worry about it later, then. But I must have a sword, and I must leave something to explain. Did you?”
She stared at him. “Are you mad?”
“Not to say where you’re going, but just to tell them that you’re gone of your own will. We have to, Miriamele,” he explained firmly. “It’s cruel, otherwise. They’ll think we were kidnapped by the Norns, or that we’ve, we’ve …” he smiled as the thought came, “… we’ve run away to be married, like in the Mundwode song.”
Her look turned calculating. “Very well, get your sword and leave a note.”
Simon frowned. “I’m off. But remember, Miriamele, if you aren’t here when I get back, I’ll have Josua and every man of New Gadrinsett after you tonight.”
She jutted her chin defiantly. “Go on, then. I want to ride until dawn and be well away, so hurry.”
He threw her a mock-bow, then turned and ran down the hillside.
It was strange, but when Simon thought of that night later, during moments of terrible pain, he could no longer remember how he had felt as he hastened toward the camp—as he had prepared to steal off with the king’s daughter, Miriamele. The memory of all that came afterward crowded out what had throbbed in him as he pelted down the hill.
On that night he felt all the world singing about him, all the stars hanging close and attentive above. As Simon ran, the world seemed-poised on some vast fulcrum, teetering, and every possibility was both beautiful and terrible. It seemed for all the world as though the dragon Igjarjuk’s molten blood had come alive in him again, opening him up to the vast sky, filling him with the pulse of the earth.
He dashed through the encampment with hardly a glance for any of the night life that surrounded him, hearing none of the voices that were raised in song or laughter or argument, seeing nothing but the twisting track through the tents and small camps toward his own sleeping place.
Happily for Simon, as it seemed, Binabik was away from the tent. He had not given a moment’s thought to what he would have done if the little man had been waiting for him—he might have been able to come up with some practical reason for needing his sword, but could certainly not have left a note. Fumble-fingered with hurry, he ransacked the tent for something to write on, and at last found one of the scrolls Binabik had brought from Ookequk’s cave in the Trollfells. With a bit of charcoal plucked from the cold firepit, he laboriously scrawled his message on the back of the sheep-leather.
“Mirimel has gon away and I hav gon after Her.”
he wrote, tongue gripped between his teeth.
“We will be well. Tell Prince Josua I am sory but I hav to go. I will bring Her bak soon as I can. Tell Josua I am a bad knigt but I am tring to do wat is the best thing. Your frend Simon.”
He thought for a moment, then added:
“You can hav my things if I dont cum bak. I am sory.”
He left the note on Binabik’s bedroll, grabbed his sword and scabbard and a few other necessities, then left the tent. At the doorway he hesitated for a moment, recalling his sack of beloved treasures, the White Arrow, Jiriki’s mirror. He turned and went to retrieve it, although every moment he kept her waiting—she would wait; she must wait—felt like an hour. He had told Binabik he could have them, but Miriamele’s earlier words returned to him. They were entrusted; they were promises. He could not give them away any more than he could give away his name, and there was not time now to sort out the things that could safely be left behind. He dared not even take the time to think or he knew that he would lose courage.
We will be alone together, just us two, he kept thinking in wonderment. I will be her protector!
It took him what seemed an agonizingly long time to find the sack where he had hidden it in a hole under a flap of sod. With sack and scabbard clutched under his arm, his worn saddle over his shoulder—he winced at the noise the harness buckles made—he ran as quickly as he could back through the camp to where the horses were tied, to where Miriamele—he prayed—was waiting.
She was there. Seeing her impatiently pacing, he felt a moment of giddiness. She had waited for him!
“Hurry up, Simon! The night is slipping away!” She seemed to feel none of his pleasure, but only a sense of frustration, a terrible need to be moving.
With Homefinder saddled and Simon’s few belongings hastily pushed into the saddlebags, they were soon leading the horses up toward the hilltop, moving silently as spirits through the damp grass. They turned for a last look down at the glowing quilt of campfires spread in the river valley.
“Look!” Simon said, startled. “That’s no cookfire!” He pointed to a large, moving billow of orange-red flame near the middle of the encampment. “Someone’s tent is on fire!”
“I hope no harm comes to them, but at least it will keep people busy until we are away,” said Miriamele grimly. “We must ride, Simon.”
Suiting action to words, she clambered deftly into the saddle—she was once more wearing the breeches and shirt of a man beneath her heavy cloak—and led him down the hill’s far side.
He took one last look back at the lights, then urged Homefinder after her, into shadows that even the emergent moon could not pierce.
PART THREE
The
Turning Wheel
27
Tears and Smoke
Tiamak found the empty treelessness of the High Thrithing oppressive. Kwanitupul was strange, too, but he had been visiting that place since childhood, and its tumbledown buildings and ubiquitous waterways at least reminded him a little of his marshy home. Even Perdruin, where he had spent time in lonely exile, was so filled with close-leaning walls and narrow pathways, so riddled with shadowy hiding places and blanketed in the salt smell of the sea, that Tiamak had been able to live with his homesickness. But here on the grasslands he felt tremendously exposed and utterly out of place. It was not a comforting feeling.
They Who Watch and Shape have indeed made a strange life for me, he often reflected. The strangest, perhaps, of any they have made for my people since Nuobdig married the Fire Sister.
Sometimes there was solace in this thought. To have been marked out for such unusual events was, after all, a sort of repayment for the years of misunderstanding that his own people and the drylanders on Perdruin had shown him. Of course he was not understood—he was special: what other Wrannaman could speak and read the drylander tongues as he could?
But lately, surrounded again by strangers, and with no knowledge of what had happened to his own folk, it filled him with loneliness. At such times, disturbed by the emptiness of these queer northern surroundings, he would walk down to the river that ran through the middle of the camp to sit and listen to the calming, familiar sounds of the waterworld.
He had been doing just that, dangling his brown feet in the Stefflod despite the chill of water and wind, and was returning to camp a little heartened, when a shape flashed past him. It was someone running, pale hair streaming, but whoever it was seemed to move as swiftly as a dragonfly, far faster than anyone human should travel. Tiamak had only a moment to stare after the fleeing form before another dark shape swept past. It was a bird, a large one, flying low to the ground as though the first figure was its prey.
As both shapes vanished up the slope toward the heart of the prince’s encampment, Tiamak stood in stunned amazement. It took some moments for him to realize who the first shape had been.
The Sitha-woman! he thought. Chased by a hawk or an owl?
It made no sense, but then she—Aditu was her name—made little sense to Tiamak either. She was like nothing he had ever seen and, in fact, frightened him a little. But what could be chasing her? From the look on her face she had been running from something dreadful.
Or to something dreadful, he realized, and felt his stomach clench. She had been heading toward the camp.
He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed as he set out, protect me—protect us all from evil. His heart was beating swiftly now, faster than the pace of his running feet. This is an ill-omened year!
For a moment, as he reached the nearest edge of the vast field of tents, he was reassured. It was quiet, and few campfires burned. But there was too much quiet, he decided a moment later. It was not early, but still well before midnight. People should be about, or at least there should be some noise from those not yet asleep. What could be wrong?
It had been long moments since he had caught his most recent glimpse of the swooping bird—he was certain now it was an owl—and he hobbled on in the direction he had last seen it, his breath now coming in harsh gasps. His injured leg was not used to running, and it burned him, throbbed. He did his best to ignore it.
Quiet, quiet—it was still as a stagnant pond here. The tents stood, dark and lifeless as the stones drylanders set in fields where they buried their dead.
But there! Tiamak felt his stomach turn again. There was movement! One of the tents not far away shook as though in a wind, and some light inside it threw strange moving shadows onto the walls.
Even as he saw it, he felt a tickling in his nostrils, a sort of burning, and with it came a sweet, musky scent. He sneezed convulsively and almost tripped, but caught himself before falling to the ground. He limped toward the tent, which pulsed with light and shadow as though some monstrous thing was being born inside. He tried to raise his voice to cry out that he was coming and to raise an alarm, for his fear was rising higher and higher—but he could not make a sound. Even the painful rasp of his breathing had become faint and whispery.
The tent, too, was strangely silent. Pushing down his fright, he caught at the flap and threw it back.
At first he could see nothing more than dark shapes and bright light, almost an exact reflection of the shadow puppets on the outside walls of the tent. Within a few instants, the moving images began to come clear.
At the tent’s far wall stood Camaris. He seemed to have been struck, for blood rilled from some cut on his head, staining his cheek and hair black, and he reeled as though his wits had been addled. Still, bowed and leaning against the fabric for support, he was yet fierce, like a bear beset by hounds. He had no blade, but held a piece of firewood clenched in one fist and waved it back and forth, holding off a menacing shape that was almost all black, but for a flash of white hands and something that glinted in one of those hands.
Kicking near Camaris’ feet was an even less decipherable muddle, although Tiamak thought he saw more black-clothed limbs, as well as the pale nimbus of Aditu’s hair. A third dark-clad attacker huddled in the corner, warding off a swooping, fluttering shadow.
Terrified, Tiamak tried to raise his voice to call for help, but could make no sound. Indeed, despite what seemed to be life-or-death struggles, the entire tent was silent but for the muffled sounds of the two combatants on the floor and the hectic flapping of wings.
Why can’t I hear? Tiamak thought desperately. Why can’t I make a sound?
Frantic, he searched the floor for something to use as a weapon, cursing himself that he had carelessly left his knife behind in the sleeping-place he shared with Strangyeard. No knife, no sling-stones, no blow-darts—nothing! She Who Waits to Take All Back had surely sung his song tonight.
Something vast and soft seemed to strike him in the head, sending Tiamak to his knees, but when he looked up, the several battles still raged, none of them near him. His skull was throbbing even more painfully than his leg and the sweet smell was chokingly strong. Dizzy, Tiamak crawled forward and his hand encountered something hard. It was the knight’s sword, black Thorn, still sheathed. Tiamak knew it was far too heavy for him to use, but he dragged it out from beneath the tangle of bedding and stood, as unsteady now on his feet as Camaris. What was in the air?
The sword, unexpectedly, seemed light in his hands, despite the heavy scabbard and dangling belt. He raised it high and took a few steps forward, then swung it as hard as he could at what he thought was the head of Camaris’ attacker. The impact shivered up his arm, but the thing did not fall. Instead, the head turned slowly. Two eyes, shining black, stared out of the corpse-white face. Tiamak’s throat moved convulsively. Even had his voice remained, he could not have made a sound. He lifted his shaking arms, holding the sword up to strike again, but the thing’s white hand flashed out and Tiamak was knocked backward. The room whirled away from him; the sword flew from his nerveless fingers and tumbled to the grass that was the tent’s only floor.
Tiamak’s head was as heavy as stone, but he could not otherwise feel the pain of the blow. What he could feel were his wits slipping away. He tried to lift himself to his feet once more but only got as far as his knees. He crouched, shaking like a sick dog.
He could not speak but, cursedly, could still see. Camaris was stumbling, wagging his head—as damaged, seemingly, as Tiamak. The old man was trying to hold off his attacker long enough to reach something on the ground—the sword, the Wrannaman realized groggily, the black sword. Camaris was prevented from reaching it as much by the dark, contorted forms of Aditu and her enemy rolling on the ground beneath him as by the foe he was trying to keep at bay with his firelog club.
In the other corner, something glittered in the hand of one of the pale-faced things, a shining something red as a crescent of firelight. The scarlet gleam moved, swift as a striking snake, and a tiny cloud of dark shapes exploded outward, then drifted to the ground, slower than snowflakes. Tiamak squinted helplessly as one settled on his hand. It was a feather. An owl’s feather.
Help. Tiamak’s skull felt as though it had been staved in. We need help. We will die if no one helps us.
Camaris at last bent and caught up the sword, almost over-balancing, then managed to lift Thorn in time to stave off a strike by his enemy. The two of them circled each other, Camaris stumbling, the black-clad attacker moving with cautious grace. They fell together once more, and one of the old knight’s hands shot out and pushed away a dagger blow, but the blade left a trail of blood down his arm. Camaris fell back clumsily, trying to find room to swing his sword. His eyes were half-closed with pain or fatigue.
He is hurt, Tiamak thought desperately. The throbbing in his head grew stronger. Maybe dying. Why does no one come?
The Wrannaman dragged himself toward the wide brazier of coals that provided the only light. His dimming senses were beginning to wink out like the lamps of Kwanitupul at dawn. Only a dim fragment of an idea was in his mind, but it was enough to lift his ha
nd toward the iron brazier. When he felt—as dimly as a distant echo—the heat of the thing against his fingers, he pushed. The brazier tumbled over, scattering coals like a waterfall of rubies.
As Tiamak collapsed, choking, the last things he saw were his own soot-blackened hand curled like a spider and, beyond it, an army of tiny flames licking at the bottom of the tent wall.
“We don’t need any more damnable questions,” Isgrimnur grumbled. “We have enough to last three lifetimes. What we need are answers.”
Binabik made an uncomfortable gesture. “I am agreeing with you, Duke Isgrimnur. But answers are not like a sheep that is coming when a person calls.”
Josua sighed and leaned back against the wall of Isgrimnur’s tent. Outside, the wind rose for a moment, moaning faintly as it vibrated the tent ropes. “I know how difficult it is, Binabik. But Isgrimnur is right—we need answers. The things you told us about this Conqueror Star have only added to the confusion. What we need to know is how to use the three Great Swords. All that the star tells us—if you are right—is that our time to wield them is running out.”
“That is what we are giving the largest attention to, Prince Josua,” said the troll. “And we think we may perhaps be learning something soon, for Strangyeard has found something that is of importantness.”
“What is that?” Josua asked, leaning forward. “Anything, man, anything would be heartening.”
Father Strangyeard, who had been sitting quietly, squirmed a little. “I am not as sure as Binabik, Highness, that it is of any use. I found the first of it some time ago, while we were still traveling to Sesuad’ra.”
“Strangyeard was finding a passage that is written in Morgenes’ book,” Binabik amplified, “something about the three swords that are so much concerning us.”
“And?” Isgrimnur tapped his fingers on his muddy knee. He had spent a long time trying to secure his tentstakes in the loose, damp ground.