Malwinna's hand fell from my forehead. As I raised my eyes to blink and blink again, I saw a woeful pallor on her face. So I quickly set aside the bowl and dared to take her hands within mine, striving to help her.
She smiled weakly. “It draws the strength—the more when one has little strength left. But it was laid on me to do this thing. Tell me, my daughter, what did you learn?”
“You did not see it, then?” I was surprised.
“No. It was not a farseeing for me, that I knew. It was yours only.”
I told her what I had seen: the gryphon englobed and a man in battle dress holding it. And I ended, “The gryphon is the badge of the House of Ulm. Did I then see the Lord Kerovan to whom I am wed?”
“That may be so,” she agreed. “But it is in my mind that the gryphon is that which is of the greatest importance to your future. If such ever comes to your hand, my daughter, do you guard it well. For it is also to be believed that this is a thing of the Old Ones and a focus of some power they once knew. Now, call Dame Alousan, for I have need of one of her strengthening cordials. But speak not of what we have done here this morning, for farseeing is a private thing and not to be talked of lightly.”
I said naught to any of the Dames, nor to Math. And the Past-Abbess allowed them to believe that she was merely a little wearied, so they fussed about her, for she was greatly loved. No one paid any attention to me. I had taken the bowl with me into the guesting room and put it on the table there.
Though I continued to look into it now and again I saw nothing but the wine; no dark mirror, no shadows moving. Yet in my mind was so vivid a picture of the crystal gryphon that I could have painted it, had I any skill in limning, in every small detail. And I speculated as to what it might mean. The gryphon so enclosed had differences from the one that appeared as Ulm's badge. A gryphon by rights had the wings and forepart of an eagle: its front legs end in a bird of prey's strong talons. But the rear, the tail, the hind paws are those of a lion, one of the beasts known to the south alone. On its bird's head a lion's ears stand upright.
In the ancient learning the gryphon symbolizes gold: the warmth and majesty of the sun. Ofttimes in legends it is the guardian of hidden treasure.
Thus the gryphon is mainly pictured in red and gold, which are sun colors. Yet the one enclosed in the globe was the white of ice—a white gryphon.
Shortly after that farseeing, Dame Math and I returned home to Ithkrypt. But we did not remain there long. For in this Year of the Crowned Swan I had reached the age of fourteen, and Dame Math was already preparing my bride clothes and the furnishings I would take with me when Kerovan would send for me, as was the custom, in the next year or two.
So we went on to Trevamper, that town set at the meeting of highway and river where all merchants in the north show their wares upon occasion. Even the Sulcarmen, who are searovers and seldom come far from wind and wave, travel to Trevamper. For there is the interior trade. And by chance we met there also my Aunt Islaugha, her son Toross, and her daughter Yngilda.
She came to pay a call on Dame Math, but I felt it was one of duty only and there was little liking between these sisters. However the Lady Islaugha presented a smiling face and spoke us fair, congratulating me on the fine marriage that had united me to the House of Ulm.
Yngilda pushed closer to me when our elders had turned their attention back to their own concerns, and I thought she stared rudely. She was a stout girl, bundled in rich clothing down which her braids rippled, their ends bound in ribbons hung with little silver bells meant to chime sweetly as she moved. Such a conceit did not suit her broad, flatfish face, with its too-small mouth always pursed a little as if she chewed upon a spicy secret she debated over sharing.
“You have seen the likeness of your lord?” she asked almost abruptly.
I stirred uneasily under the probing of her eyes. I knew her then for unfriend, though why she should be so when we hardly knew each other, I could not guess.
“No.” As always when such uneasiness with others was in me, I was wary. But the truth is better than any evasion which may later trip one up. And for the first time I wondered.a little at a matter I had never considered before. Why had Kerovan not caused to be sent a likeness of himself? That such was done in axe marriages I knew.
“A pity.” Her gaze seemed to have some manner of triumph in it now. “Look you here—this is my promised lord, Elvan of Rishdale.” She brought out of her belt pocket an oblong of wood with a face painted on it. “He sent it with his bride gift two years ago.”
The painted face was that of a man of middle years, no boy. And it was not a pleasant countenance to my thinking, but perhaps the limner had either not been skillful or had some reason not to flatter this Elvan. That Yngilda was proud of it was plain.
“He would seem a man of authority.” I did the best I could in way of praise. My disliking for the pictured face grew stronger the longer I regarded it.
She took that, as I had hoped, as a compliment to her promised lord.
“Rishdale is an upper dale. They are wool people, and the trade is rich. Already my lord has sent me this and this—” She patted an amber necklace which lay above her tabard and thrust her hand out to me that I might look upon a massive thumb ring of a serpent with eyes that were flecks of red gem-fire.
“The serpent is his House badge. This is his own ring, sent for a welcome gift. I go to him next harvest time.”
“I wish you happy,” I answered.
Her pale tongue swept out over her lower lip. Again she was in two minds over some speech to make. At last she brought herself to it, bending her head even closer, while I had all I could do not to withdraw at her approach, for her close company did not please me.
“I would I could say the same to you, kinswoman.”
I knew I should not encourage her now, yet something made me ask, “And why not, kinswoman?”
“We are not so far from Ulmsdale as you. We have heard—much.” And she strove to give such a dire accent to that last word that she did indeed make an impression on me. For all my prudence and distrust, I could not now deny her this confidence.
“Much of what, kinswoman?” My tone made a challenge of that, one she was quick to note and that pleased her, I am sure.
“Of the curse, kinswoman. Did they not tell you that the Heir of Ulmsdale lies under a double cursing? Why, his own mother has refused to look upon his face since his birth hour. Have they not told you that?” she repeated with open relish. “Alack, that I should spoil your dreaming about a brave young lord. He is a monster thing, they say, sent to live apart because all men shrink from—”
“Yngilda!” That saying of her name was as sharp as a whip crack, and under it she flinched as if indeed some lash had bitten into her body. Dame Math stood over us, and it was plain in her face she had heard those words.
So open was her wrath that at that moment I knew Yngilda had indeed spoken the truth, or at least come so close to it as to shake my guardian. Only the truth could have aroused her ire so greatly.
She said no more, only eyed Yngilda menacingly until the girl edged back, her full cheeks blanching a little in her fright. She gave a kind of squeak and scrambled away. But I sat where I was and met Dame Math eye to eye. Within me the cold grew, setting me to shivering.
Cursed—a monster whom even his mother could not bear to look upon! By the Heart of Gunnora, what had they done to me, to give me in marriage to that? I could have screamed my terror aloud, but I did not. For in that much I kept my control. I only said slowly, forcing my voice to be level, determined to know the full of it here and now, “By the oath of the Flame you serve, Lady, tell me now the truth. Are her words that truth? Am I wed to one who is not like other men?” For I could not bring myself to say “monster.”
I think up until that moment Dame Math might have covered with fair words. But now she sat beside me, her face grave, as the flush of anger faded.
“You are no longer a child, Joisan. Yes, I will
give you what truth I know. It is true that Kerovan dwells apart from his kin, but he is not a monster. There is a curse laid on those of the House of Ulm, and his mother comes from the updates, from a family rumored to have inter-wed with Old Ones. Thus he has such blood within him. But he is not monstrous—of this Lord Cyart made sure before he would consent to the marriage.
“Yet he dwells apart from his kin. Is it true that his mother will not look upon him?” The cold within me was such now I could hardly control myself.
Still she was frank with me. “That is true because of the manner of his birthing, and she is a fool!” Then she told me an unusual tale of how the Lord of Ulm had taken wives and had no living heir because of the curse. How he wed a third time with a widow, and how she had been taken on the road before her time with birth pains and had borne her son within the walls of one of the Old Ones’ buildings. And of how thereafter she had turned her face from him because she was so filled with fear that the babe was of the Old Ones’ sending. But he was sound and no monster. His father swore to that by the Great Oath for which there can be no breaking.
Because she told it all so plainly, I believed her and was less shaken.
Then Dame Math added, “Joisan, be glad that you take a young lord. Yngilda, for all her prating, goes to one already wed once, a man old enough to be her father, and one who will have little patience with any youthful follies. She will find him far less indulgent to her whims and laziness than her mother, and she will perhaps rue the day she left her own keep for his.
“Kerovan by all accounts is one you will well company with—for he is learned in rune scrolls as well as in sword-play, which so occupies the minds and bodies of most men. He has a liking for searching out old things, such as you have also. Yes, you have much to think right in your wedding, and little to see of shadows. You are a maid of good mind and not easily shaken. Do not let the envious words of this foolish wench overset your reason. I swear, if you wish it, by the Flame—and you well know the meaning of such an oath for me—that I would not stand by without protest and see you wed to any monster!”
Knowing Dame Math, that reassurance was indeed all I needed. Yet during the days that followed I did think again and again of the strange upbringing Kerovan must have had. That a mother had turned her face from her child was hard to believe. Still, giving birth in a place of the Old Ones might have poisoned her mind against the cause of her pain and fear as she lay therein. And I knew well from my reading at the Abbey that many such places had malignant atmospheres that worked subtly upon mankind. She could well have fallen prey to such influences during her hours of labor.
For the rest of our stay in town my aunt and her daughter did not come near us. Perhaps Dame Math had made plain her views on what Yngilda had told me. I was well content not to see her full face, her pursed mouth, and her probing eyes again.
3
Kerovan
To most dalesmen the Waste is a fearsome place. Outlawed men were driven to refuge there, perhaps coming to regard it in time as they had their native dales. And there are hunters, wild as any outlaws in their own fashion, ranging it to bring back packloads of strange furs as well as lumps of pure metal congealed into odd shapes: not native ores, but substances that had been worked and then reduced to broken pieces.
Such lumps of metal were greatly prized, though smiths had to rework them with care. Swords and mail made from this metal were stronger, more resistant to weathering. On the other hand, sometimes it had fearsome properties, exploding in vast configurations to consume all nearby—as if some power had struck it. A metal-smith both yearned to use it for the promise of fine craftsmanship and feared that each piece he brought to the forge might be one of the cursed bits.
Those who found such metal and traded in it were notoriously close-mouthed about the source. Riwal believed that they mined, not the earth, but places of the Old Ones wherein some ancient and unbelievably horrible conflict had fused metal into these lumps. He had attempted to win the confidence of one Hagon, a trader, who had twice passed through our forest territory. But Hagon refused to talk.
So it was not only the broken-off road that beckoned us. There were other secrets to be uncovered. And I found this venture well to my liking.
We reached the broken-off end of the road by mid-morning and stood studying it before we set foot on its earth-drifted surface. It was indeed a puzzle, for that break was as clean-cut as if some giant swordsman had brought down his blade to sever the masonry. Yet, if some such action had occurred, where was the rest? For beyond the break there was not even a trace of old rubble to suggest it had ever run beyond this point. And why would any road come to such a purposeless ending? It may be true that the purposes of the Old Ones were not the same as those of men, and we cannot judge their actions by ours.
“How long ago since men walked here, Riwal?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Who knows? If it were men who did so. But if the road ends thus, the beginning may be of more interest.”
We were riding the small, desert-bred horses used by Waste rovers, tough beasts with an inherited ability to go far on a minimum of drink and forage. And we led a third horse with our supplies in a pack. We went clothed as metal traders, so that any spying upon us could believe we were of the Waste ourselves. We traveled alert to sign and sound, for only he who is ever-watchful can hope to best the traps and dangers of such a land.
The Waste is not pure desert, though much is arid land with a scant covering of small, wind-beaten shrubs and sun-dried grass in ragged clumps. At times, dark copses of trees grow so thick they huddle trunk to trunk. And outcrops of stone stand like pillars.
Some of these had been worked, if not by man, then by creatures who used stone for monuments. But the pillars had been so scoured by years of winds that only traces of the working remained. Here a wall could be seen for a bit; there a pair of columns suggested a past building of some pride.
We passed such a place soon after we took to the road, but there was not enough left to explore. In the open there was silence, for this was a windless day. The clop-clop of our mounts’ feet on the pavement seemed to echo, making far too loud a sound, so that I found myself looking from side to side, and now and then over my shoulder. The feeling grew stronger that we were being watched—by outlaws?
In spite of myself I found my hand straying ever in the direction of the sword hilt, ready to defend against attack. Yet when I glanced at Riwal, I saw him riding easy, though he also watched right and left.
“I feel”—I urged my mount closer to his—“that we are watched.” Perhaps I humbled my pride to admit that, yet this was more his land than mine, and I relied on him.
“It is ever so—in the Waste,” he returned.
“Outlaws?” My fingers closed about the hilt now.
“Perhaps. But more likely other things.” His eyes did not quite meet mine, and I sensed he was at a loss to explain. Perhaps he, too, feared to display some weakness before me, a younger and less-tried venturer.
“Is it the truth then that the Old Ones left guardians?”
“What man among us knows?” He countered my question with another. “This much is so: when one ventures into their ways, there is often this feeling of being watched. Yet it has never been with me more than just watching. If they left guardians, as you say, those are now too old and tired to do more than watch.”
I found that hardly reassuring. And still I continued to watch—though nothing stirred out in that flat land across which the road hammered a straight and level path.
At nooning we drew to the side of the pavement, ate and drank, and gave our horses to drink also from the water skins we carried. There was no sun, and the sky over us was gray; still I could see no clouds gathering to threaten storm. But Riwal sniffed the air, his head up to the sky.
“We must seek shelter,” he said, and there was urgency in his voice.
“I see no storm clouds.”
“Storms come unheralded and swiftly in
the Waste. There—” He had been surveying the countryside around, and now he pointed ahead to where there was a pile beside the road, perhaps another cluster of time-eroded ruin.
We pushed on, to discover that sight-distance was deceptive in this place. There was a haze that seemed to rise from the ground so that things appeared closer than they were. But at length we reached the spot he had appointed. And none too soon, for the sky was no longer the gray of a gloomy day, but had darkened now into twilight come hours too soon.
Chance had brought us to shelter. Though the ruins at the outset of the road had been so formless as to only suggest they had once had purpose, this ancient building was in better preservation. There was actually part of a room or hall among the jumble of stone blocks with a portion of roof over it. And into that we crowded both ourselves and our animals.
Now the wind blew, whirling up the grit, hurling it in marching columns to fill eyes, mouths, nostrils. We had to fight to gain the last few strides to cover. Once inside, when we turned to look out, it was to see a curtain of dust.
That did not last long. Overhead sounded the rumble of thunder as if an army with a siege train marched. And the lash of lightning followed with force enough to suggest it had struck not too far away. Then came rain—quickly beating down the dust, yet not clearing any path for our vision; rather providing a second curtain, this time of moisture, not grit.
Water ran in a stream across the pitted floor, so we crowded back into the farthest comer of the ruin. The horses whinnied and snuffled, rolling their eyes, as if they found this fury of nature frightening. But to me our corner gave an illusion of shelter, though I flinched when the lightning struck again.
Such fury deafened us. We were reduced to the point of simple endurance and we kept hold of the reins, lest our mounts break out into the storm. As they began to quiet, no longer tossing their heads or stamping, I relaxed a little.