“Well done, lad,” he said. “Well done!”
“Was it?” Dani murmured.
Uncle Thulu frowned at him. “Would you have done elsewise?”
“No.” Dani shivered, remembering the way the vinewrapped Fjeltroll had rolled his eyes to meet his when he had plucked the vial from its palm. It had spoken the common tongue. He hadn’t expected that. Malthus should have warned him. They were more than mere beasts.
Killers, nonetheless.
Perhaps your people would not have been slain for your actions.
He shivered harder, wrapping his arms around himself, wondering how they had died. Quickly, he hoped. The Fjeltroll had offered him as much.
There was no pursuit; not that day, nor the next. They turned southward, making their way through a dense forest of spruce. The trees were ancient, their trunks covered with green moss, so vast Dani and Thulu could not have encircled them with joined arms. Ferns grew thick on the forest floor, turning brown and brittle with the advent of autumn. It was hard to walk without them crackling underfoot. With each crunching footfall, Dani felt the skin between his shoulder blades prickle.
Still, they saw no Fjeltroll. On the third day, they learned why.
No boundary stone marked the border between Fjel territory and Staccia, a nation of Men. They had no way of knowing they had crossed it until they emerged from the forest to find a vast structure of grey stone; a stone Keep, built by Men’s hands. Dani froze, staring at it uncomprehending. After endless days without a glimpse of human life, something so big seemed impossible.
“Back into the woods, lad,” Uncle Thulu muttered. “Quick and quiet, before we’re seen!”
Too late. Behind them, the ferns crackled.
“Vas leggis?” It was a woman’s voice, sharp with anger. “Vas jagen?”
Dani turned slowly, showing his open hands. The woman was young, scarce older than he, clad in leather hunting gear, with blonde hair tied in a braid. As she glared at him, he saw fear and confusion in her face; but it was resolute, too. She reminded him a little bit of Fianna, for she held a hunting bow, an arrow nocked and aimed at his heart, and he did not doubt that she knew how to use it.
“I am sorry,” he said in the common tongue. “We do not speak your language. We are lost. We will go.” Moving cautiously, he tapped his chest then pointed into the forest. “We will go, leave.”
“No.” She shook her head, gesturing toward the Keep with the point of her arrow. Her brow furrowed as she searched for words. “Go there.”
Dani glanced at his uncle.
“Go there!” The arrow gestured with a fierce jerk.
“I don’t think she means to give us a choice, lad,” Uncle Thulu said.
If his skin had prickled in the forest, it was nothing to what he felt here, crossing open territory with the point of a drawn arrow leveled at his back. The Keep loomed before them, grey and ominous. A reek of charred wood was in the air, as though a hundred campfires had been extinguished at once.
As they drew nearer, Dani saw the source. There was a wooden building in the courtyard, or had been, once. Where the foundation had stood, there was nothing but a heap of ash and debris, strewn with scorched beams. He touched the vial at his throat for reassurance, glancing over his shoulder at the woman. “What happened here?”
She stared at him. “Fjeltroll.”
At the tall doors of the Keep, she rapped for entry, speaking in Staccian to the woman who opened the spy-hole to peer out at her. The spy-hole was closed, and they waited. Dani eyed the doors. They were wrought of massive timbers, wood from the forest. Here and there, pale gouges showed where Fjel talons had scored them.
“I thought the Fjeltroll and the Staccians were allies,” he whispered to his uncle.
“So did I,” Uncle Thulu whispered back. “Keep quiet, lad; wait and see.”
The doors were unbarred and flung open with a crash. Dani jumped and felt the point of an arrow prod his back. Their captor repeated her words, mangling the syllables with her thick accent. “You go there!”
They entered the Keep.
Inside, a dozen women awaited them, hands grasping unfamiliar weapons. Dani glanced about him. Women, all women. Where were the men? There were only women. From what little he knew of life outside the desert, the genders did not dwell apart any more than they did within it. On each of their faces, he saw the same emotions manifested: a resolute anger, belying the shock and horror that lay beneath it.
He knew that look. It plucked a chord within him, one that had sounded at the Fjeltroll’s terrible words, one that was only beginning to settle into his flesh in the form of fearful knowledge.
Something bad, something very, very bad had happened here.
At their head was a woman of middle years, holding a heavy sword aloft in a two-handed grip. She had brown hair, parted in the center and drawn back on either side, and her face was a study in grim determination.
“Who are you?” She spoke the common tongue, spitting the words in distaste. “What seek you here?”
“Lady.” Uncle Thulu spoke in a soothing voice. “Forgive us. We are travelers, far from home. What is this place?”
“Gerflod,” she said grimly. “It is Gerflod, and I am Sorhild, who was wed to Coenred, Earl of Gerflod. Darklings, dark of skin; you do not come from Staccia, and I do not believe you come lost. What do you want?” Holding the sword aloft, she gritted her teeth. “Did Darkhaven send you?”
“No, lady.” Dani spoke before his uncle could reply. He met Sorhild’s blue-grey gaze, holding it steadily. “It is Darkhaven we seek, but Darkhaven did not send us. We are Yarru, from the place you call the Unknown Desert.”
“Dani!” Uncle Thulu’s protest came too late. The damage, if it were damage, was done.
Sorhild’s eyes widened and something in her expression shifted; hope, painful and tenuous, entered. The sword trembled in her hands. “The Unknown Desert?”
Dani nodded, not trusting his voice.
“‘When the unknown is made known …’” Sorhild quoted the words of Haomane’s Prophecy and gave a choked laugh, covering her face with both careworn hands. Her sword clattered against the marble flagstones as it fell. “Let them enter,” she said, half-stifled. “It is the Galäinridder’s will they serve.”
At her insistence, Dani and Thulu spent the night in Gerflod Keep and learned what had transpired there. They heard the tale of the Galäinridder, who had come upon Gerflod in terror and splendor; of his white robes and his pale horse, of the blazing gem upon his breast, and the horrible warning he bore. War was coming, and Haomane would fall in his wrath upon all who opposed him; those who did were already marked for death. They heard how the Galäinridder, the Bright Paladin, had changed the hearts of the Staccians who beheld him, charging their spirits with defiance.
“Was it Malthus?” Dani whispered to his uncle. “Why didn’t he come for us?”
“Who can say, lad?” Thulu shrugged. “The ways of wizards are deep and strange.”
They learned of dissension in Staccia, and how the lords along the Galäinridder’s route had gathered themselves for battle, making ready to ride to the plains of Curonan to await the coming war, filled with the fire of their changed hearts. And they learned how Earl Coenred had stayed, reckoning he guarded a more important thing.
Vesdarlig Passage.
It was a tunnel, a very old tunnel, leading to Darkhaven itself. Staccians and Fjel had used it from time out of mind. And from it, a company had come; Men and Fjel. Earl Coenred had seen them emerge and knew they were bound for his estate. He had sent away the women and children of Gerflod, bidding them take shelter at a neighboring manor house.
“There was a slaughter.” Sorhild, wife of Coenred, told the story sitting at the head of the long table in the Great Hall, her eyes red-rimmed from long nights of weeping. “It is all we found upon our return. Bodies stacked like cordwood, and bloody Fjel footprints upon the floor, everywhere.” She smiled grimly. “My hus
band and his men fought bravely. There were many human dead among those Darkhaven had sent. But they were no match for the Fjel.”
“No,” Dani murmured. “They would not be.”
In the small hours of the night, her words haunted him. It was too easy, here, to envision it; it was written in the grieving visages of the women, in the bloodstained cracks of the floors. And if it was real here, it was real at home, too. He thought about Warabi, old Ngurra’s wife, always scolding to hide her soft heart. It was impossible to think she was not there in the Stone Grove, awaiting their return. And Ngurra, ah! Ngurra, who had tried to teach him all his life what it meant to be the Bearer, patient and forbearing. Dani had never understood, not really.
Now, he wished he didn’t.
“We cannot linger here,” he whispered, hearing his uncle toss restlessly on the pallet next to him. “If there is pursuit, we would lead the Fjel to their doorstep”
“I know, lad.” Uncle Thulu’s voice was somber. “We’ll leave at first light. What do you think about this tunnel she spoke of?”
“I don’t know.” Dani stared at the rafters overhead, faintly visible in the moonlight that filtered through the narrow window. It made him uneasy, all this wood and stone above him. The thought of being trapped beneath the earth for league upon league made his throat feel tight. “Are there more Fjel hunting us, do you think?”
“We cannot afford to assume otherwise,” Thulu said. “But from which direction?”
“If they come from the north, the tunnel is the last place they would think to look for us. But if they come from Darkhaven …” Dani rolled onto his side, gazing in his uncle’s direction.
Uncle Thulu’s eyes glimmered. “We’d be trapped like rabbits in a burrow.”
“Aye.” Dani shuddered. “Uncle, I am afraid. You must choose. You are my guide, and I trust you. Whichever path you choose, I will follow.”
In the darkness, Thulu nodded. “So be it. Leave me to think upon it, and I’ll name my choice come dawn.”
ELEVEN
MEARA REACHED FOR THE SOUP ladle.
“Not that one.” Thom, who cooked the soups, didn’t look up from the turnip he was chopping. “The Lady’s is in the small pot. Mind you don’t confuse them.”
Despite the sweltering heat of the kitchen, Meara shivered as though an icy finger had run the length of her spine. “What are you saying?” she whispered. “What are you doing, Thom?”
“What is best.” He worked the knife at blurring speed, thin, pale slices of turnip falling away from the blade.
“On whose orders?”
The knife went still then, and he did look at her. “By our lord’s will.”
He meant Ushahin, who was theirs. Who summoned them and gave them succor, who made a place for those who had no place. He had listened to the words she had spoken. There was a bitter taste in Meara’s mouth, and she was afraid to swallow. “He is one of the Three! He cannot gainsay his Lordship’s will!”
“No.” Thom regarded her, lank hair falling over his brow. “But we can do it for him.” He nodded at the door. “Hurry. Lord General Tanaros returns soon.”
She filled the tray in haste, ladling soup from the small pot into a clay crock. It was of Dwarfish make, simple and fine. The soup was a clear broth with sweet herbs. It steamed innocently until Meara placed the lid on the crock, sealing in its heat. She selected three pieces of white bread, wrapping them in a linen napkin, then hurried out of the kitchen.
In her haste, she almost ran into Lord Ushahin.
“Meara!” He steadied her. “Is your errand so urgent, child?”
“I don’t know, my lord.” She lifted her gaze to meet his eyes; the one with its pale, splintered iris, the other solid pupil. In its dilated blackness was that understanding beyond understanding of all the spaces between, all the lost souls who had been thrust into them and forgotten. It was beautiful to her, and comforting. “Is it?”
He saw the tray then and understood that, too. Ushahin Dreamspinner shook his head gently, releasing her. “Do not speak to me of what you carry, Meara. Whatever it is, I may not know it for certain.”
“I’m … I’m not certain, my lord. But whatever it is, is it worth …” She swallowed, tasting the bitter taste. “Defying his Lordship?”
“Out of loyalty, yes.” A somber expression settled over his uneven features. “Do not fear. Whatever you do, I will protect you. Betimes it falls to madness to preserve sanity, child. Too many things have transpired, and now, in Neherinach, something further. An entire company of Fjel is missing.” He shook his head once more, frowning into the unseen distance. “I sent my ravens too far afield, seeking the Bearer, and there were none that saw. It was an error. Yet there are too few of them for all of Haomane’s Allies afoot, and the Bearer’s pace swifter than I reckoned. How was I to know?”
“My lord?” Meara was confused.
“Never mind.” Lord Ushahin smiled at her. “Serve the Lady her supper, Meara.”
The halls had never seemed so long. She would have taken the secret ways, but General Tanaros had barred from within the entrances that led into the Lady’s chambers. He was wary of her safety. Meara’s rapid footfalls echoed, setting off a series of endless reverberations. She caught glimpses of her reflection in the shining black marble with its glimmering striations of marrow-fire; a hunched figure, scuttling and fearful. She remembered the might-have-been that the Lady Cerelinde had shown her: a pretty woman in an apron kneading dough, her hands dusty with flour. A man had entered the kitchen, embracing her from behind, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh. He was tall and handsome, with dark hair.
It was a fierce hurt to cling to. The Lady Cerelinde should never have shown her something that nice. It hurt too much. Kindness was not always kind, even when people begged for it.
A pair of Havenguard were posted outside the Lady’s door, Mørkhar Fjel, black and bristling. They were loyal to General Tanaros. Meara held her breath as they examined her tray, lowering their massive heads, sniffing at it with flared nostrils. She kept her head low, tangled hair hiding her face. She knew they could smell her fear, but the Fjel would not think it strange, not in one of Darkhaven’s madlings, who were prey to all manner of terror. She did not know if they could smell poison; or if, indeed, there was poison.
There must be poison.
If there was, it was nothing the Fjel could detect; nothing that was deadly to them. Little could harm the constitution of a Fjeltroll. They unbarred the door and granted her admittance into the Lady’s chamber.
Maybe there was no poison.
And then she was inside, and there was the Lady Cerelinde, tall and shining. All the light in the room seemed to gather around her, clinging to her as though it loved her. It shimmered down the length of her golden hair, clung to her silken robes, rested on her solemn, beautiful face in loving benison. Unfair; oh, unfair! It filled her with a terrible yearning for all the lost beauty of the world, all that might have been, and was not. No wonder General Tanaros’ face softened when he gazed upon her. Meara ducked her head and ground her teeth, remembering how he had spurned her advances.
She was a fool; no, he was a fool. She would have been content with a little, with so little. Was there madness in it, or a desperate sanity? She could no longer tell. Love, soup, poison, loyalty, folly. Which was which?
The Lady smiled at her as she placed the tray upon the table. “Thank you, Meara.”
What did it cost her to be gracious? It was all the same in the end. She was one of the Ellylon. They had turned their back on Lord Ushahin when he was no more than an innocent babe, because he was not good enough, though their blood ran in his veins. Tainted by violence, tainted by the seed of Arahila’s Children, who had accepted Lord Satoris’ Gift. No one was good enough for them. For her.
Not Meara, who was only to be pitied.
Not General Tanaros, who protected her.
Not even his Lordship, no; Lord Satoris, who turned no one
away. Whose Shaper’s heart was vast enough to embrace all of them, even though he bled. Who saw in Ushahin Dreamspinner something rare and wonderful, who understood his pain and respected it. Who offered all of those whom the other Shapers had abandoned this sanctuary, who gave them a reason to live and to serve, who valued the least of their contributions.
Meara loved him; she did.
And still her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth as the Lady of the Ellylon lifted the lid from the crock, steam escaping. Was it right? What was right? Did it matter? The thought made her uneasy, setting a tide of gibberish rising in her mind, the words she had spoken echoing in the vault of her skull.
You should kill her, you know. It would be for the best.
The Lady Cerelinde lowered her silver spoon, filling it with broth, and lifted it to her lips, blowing gently across the steaming surface. Meara would have done the same. It wasn’t fair. Were they so different, Arahila’s Children and Haomane’s? Thought chased itself around her mind, mingling with her words, her shattered visions and fragmented memories, until a dark pit opened before her. It was as it had been since she was a child of twelve. The world tilted and her thoughts spiraled helplessly, sliding into a chaos of repetition and babble, seeking to give voice to a pattern too vast to compass.
The spoon halted on its journey. “Meara?”
She clutched her head, seeking to silence the rising tide within it.
Be for the best for the best of the rest for the best for the blessed beast for the rest the beast blessed for the beaten breast of the blessed rest be eaten lest the breast be wrest for the quest of the blessed for the best beast that blessed the rest . . .
Words, slipping between her clutching fingers, slipping onto her seething tongue, sliding between her clenched teeth.
… eaten lest the blessed beast be beaten lest the beaten rest be left bereft lest the breast bereft be cleft lest the blessed be wrest …