Lackel did not move toward this at once, for his thoughts were too bemused. An
Ash arrow for an Ash kill! It was not just the personal guards of the one he served that had been a part of the hunt, but those of the woman's own Family as well. Rough justice indeed, unstoppable, brought even to this backwater. Brave
Hasard, braver than any other he had ever known. He touched the edge of his helm as if he would salute an overlord, or at least a worthy enemy. Now he was chilled by more than the wind. She who had dispatched him on this wild mission was said to have her own methods of spying. And it was also whispered that some who served her did not wear human aspect. But such thoughts were best kept to one's self…
Out in the stream, the boat dipped and dragged as if some weight had attached itself to its stern. Then the water about it was whipped to a frenzy of splashes, and those on the bank retreated. The reports of what might be encountered deep in the Bale-Bog were bloodily graphic. They saw a man's hand slip from the rough wood as a second body was dragged from the boat and under the water. Not all had fallen to arrows, Ash or otherwise.
"Lord! There by the bow!"
They had no torch lit, but the pale glow that hung above the boat, looking like some corpse-light of its own, revealed the scene clearly enough. Lackel did not see a woman's body, and reasoned that she, less strong than a man and weakened further by the child she bore, had already perished and been dragged away by the creature that was even now devouring the corpses of two soldiers who had accompanied her.
He laughed and raised his hand in mock salute to the other shore. "So, Bog-folk, you have served our purposes," he said softly. "Ready not yourself, for we are not warring on you, nor are we on the hunt today. Indeed, this night we have been on a mission that you seem to have finished for us. And for that, we give you thanks."
His men were retreating. Each walked backward, steel showing in hopes it could be seen by whatever might emerge from the deeps to drag them down. They were as white-eyed as horses forced into battle against their will.
He raised his voice. "Enough! It is plain that the trail has reached its end and that whoever wrought this has served our purpose."
Still, he could not rid his mind of that Ash arrow planted in Ash flesh. The
Bog-folk were one thing, but the arrow another. He knew, if his men did not, that no commander from one House would countenance the use of another House's badge or distinctive arrows, not even to throw a pursuer off a scent.
They played deep games at court, and there had been enough rumors abroad these past few days about so-called hunting parties that were better armed for raiding. The Ashenkin might well have a reason for such a split in their forces.
A King's son held in secret—whether born of a Queen or of a lesser mother—now that could be a rare prize, especially for a waning House.
If so, their plan had ended at the Bog border, as had that of his own troop. He could make this report in all truth, and he believed that she who was his liege-lady would find it to her liking.
Joal, headman of the Bog-folk, stood scowling barely inside the doorway of
Zazar's dwelling. His face twisted with a grimace of distaste at the body that still lay on the floor. "Outlander! Send it to pools. Feed silent ones." He was a short, misshapen man whose wiry thicket of graying hair was knotted up with the finger-bones of at least five enemies. Others of the Bog-folk crowded behind him, but none wanted any more than he to cross that threshold.
"Well enough, Joal," Zazar said indifferently. "Follow custom."
Joal still lingered at the threshold. "There be smell of blood—birth blood. Did
Outlander bear living child? Give it to us!"
Zazar's level gaze caught and held the chief's eyes. "I bide by my trade as you do by yours, Joal." She held up a bundle wrapped in a reed weaving. "This is my named daughter, Ashen. By my craft, I have the right to claim her."
"Already you have one to learn from you, Wysen-wyf." Joal jerked his grimy thumb in Kazi's direction. "That be custom also. Who says you need another?"
"Yes, I have one of your people," she returned calmly. "One who you denied for her ill-healed, crooked leg and was spared by me when no one wanted her and it was thought death would find her soon enough. But this child is my chosen daughter, born through my skills. Ashen she is to me, no matter what blood flows within her. And further, the Lady of Death herself witnessed the mother-naming!"
She smiled grimly. "You can claim only what is allowed, and that you know well."
Joal drew back a step, crowding those behind him. Za-zar knew she had won. The headman could judge the worth of an ordinary man, and of most women, but Zazar was alone, unique, and no one but she knew her full name or who had birthed her.
It was never well to deal with the unknown, and this caution of theirs she depended upon when having converse with the Bog-folk.
"Take dead, leave squaller-brat," Joal said finally. Two of his followers stepped forward and bundled the dead woman's slight body in the stained mats and departed.
Zazar was well aware that Joal was scowling. She sniffed in disdain. Joal and his kind—she did not need any nudge of fear to be wary of them. But the tricks of Outlanders? Yes. She must send forth her messengers and learn what this unexpected turn of events might mean to her.
Two
Ashen's earliest memory, at the age of four, was of the same thing she was doing just now, as a big girl at the age of eight—stirring the kettle filled with mol-lusk glue, careful not to let the mixture come to a boil. It had to stay at a low simmer; otherwise it would separate and be ruined. Everyone, including the people in the village, used the noxious stuff to repair the matched roofs of their huts. Their own roof—hers and Zazar's—had started to leak again, so they couldn't put off tending it any longer. And Kazi's roof, too, of course. She lived there as well. Ashen found it easy to forget Kazi, as Kazi found it easy to ignore Ashen. They just didn't like each other, though Ashen had no idea why.
She gave the mixture another deep stir, bringing up the mollusk shells from the bottom and picking out those she could snag, using a twig lest she burn her fingers. She knew, from listening, that this had once been Kazi's job, but by now, the old woman had turned it over entirely to Ashen, at least when Zazar wasn't around, or when it was just dull routine. At critical points, Kazi took over and claimed full credit as well. Ashen wished she had someone else, smaller and easy for her to defeat, to whom she could give the task in turn, but there was nobody. Well, maybe there could have been, but the creatures she called the
Squeakers seldom came around these days.
She had never been able to really see the Squeakers except with occasional sidelong glances, but she could certainly hear them when in the night they came to visit Zazar. They squeaked and cluttered, and sometimes purred. Ashen thought they must be very nice little creatures, and she longed to be able to hold one and stroke it. Such a luxury, however, had been denied her so far. There was just too much work to do.
Also, since the thunder-star had streaked toward the north and landed with an impact that shook the earth even as far as the Bog and lit up the sky, the
Squeakers' visits had become less frequent. All of the grown-ups now went around with worried expressions, especially when one of the fire- mountains awoke and streaked the sky with spark-filled dark clouds. All this had no great effect on
Ashen, however, nor did it diminish in the slightest the number of ever- present chores that had to be done.
The roof eternally needed repair so they could at least sleep without being drenched by the frequent rains. Just getting in enough food to feed themselves for more than a day occupied much of the rest of their time. In this they were not any different from the people of the village located down the small hillside from Zazar's hut, close by one of the deep pools that made up most of the
Bog-land. This pool was one of the rare ones, though, different from the others, because the water bubbled up from underneath, and was re
latively fresh. Other pools held a stagnant, slime-covered, smelly liquid that people avoided as much as they could when they went out food-gathering. Because she had no freshwater pool near her dwelling, Zazar preferred to catch rainwater in her big pot for their use in drinking, cooking, and bathing. When she was using the pot for other things—such as boiling up the nasty glue, or making potions, or cooking a large mess of the stew that was their usual food—they had to rely on the village pool like everyone else did. Ashen was glad that this duty had not fallen to her. Even Kazi could not make her stir the pot and go down to the pool carrying water jars at the same time.
Ashen was always uncomfortable when she ventured into the village. She knew that she was different from the inhabitants and knew also that the villagers were uneasy with her presence. Why she was different from everybody else, she did not know or understand. It was a fact, however, and one she had to acknowledge.
For that matter, Zazar herself was different both from the villagers and from
Ashen. She had told Ashen about it, a little, once in a rare mood when she had drunk a little too much of a certain potion Ashen was strictly forbidden to touch. Zazar claimed she had existed many more lifetimes than Bog- folk had and that she would be here long after they were gone. And further, she claimed that when she did get old and a young, vigorous Wysen-wyf was called, she would bring it forth from her own body, alone and without help. Impossibly, she claimed that the Bog-folk knew all about it. This, Ashen thought, should surely have turned the Bog-folk against Zazar forever if—and it was a big if—the stories were true.
But somehow, the Bog-people accepted Zazar even as they rejected Ashen. Perhaps it was because of the brews Zazar could concoct, the healing mixtures, the herb-rich salves that kept away the worst of the stinging insects that tormented everyone in the Bog. Even Joal called Zazar "Wysen-wyf," and Ashen had heard the grudging respect in his voice.
"How goes it?" Kazi asked from behind her. Ashen jumped, startled.
"I think it is nearly done," she said. "You know that better than I do. It's at the point where you should tend it now." She smiled sweetly, knowing that the mixture needed at least another full hour of stirring but not willing to let this chance for release pass. "Zazar wouldn't be pleased if it got ruined."
Kazi scowled, but took the stirring-stick. Ashen was free now to go and occupy herself with more agreeable tasks.
First, she had to change her clothes. When she worked at the kettle, she wore an old tattered shift made of the remnants of a woven reed- fluff blanket so that any splashes would not harm her, or ruin the lupper-skin garments Zazar had painstakingly made for her.
These garments were, she knew, finer than those worn by the villagers, having been made only from hides taken from very young luppers, then tanned by Zazar's art to a suppleness that rivaled traders' cloth. She slipped out of the shift and wriggled into the leggings. Still bare to the waist, she fastened on the armor, made from small squares of turtle shell, that covered her legs from ankle to knee. It was scarred in several places by the fangs of serpents, thwarted in their attempts to sting her. Then she tied up her buskins and carefully cross-gaitered the entire arrangement so that it fit snugly and would not hamper her movements. She noted that the armor was almost too short to reach her knees; she had been growing again. She and Zazar would have to add another strip of shell pieces to the top very soon.
She slipped the lupper-skin tunic over her head, and then she was dressed. She debated on whether to add an over-tunic the way Zazar was always telling her to do, and decided against it. The days were not yet cool enough to make it necessary to wear the outer garment. She did, however, slip a shell- bladed knife into the top of her leg armor. From a shelf she took down a wooden jar filled with the salve that repelled the worst of the biting insects of the Bog and rubbed it into her skin. Once, she had forgotten and had been stung so severely that she had been sick for several days. She shook another jar, the one that held trade-pearls, and realized there was only a single pearl left in it. So that was where Zazar had gone. When she went to deal with the Traders, she always took all the pearls but one, left for luck and to bring more to the jar.
Ashen's errand was now plain. She picked up a woven basket and escaped out the back way. Nobody could fault her for going pearl- hunting. Also, she might gather a few of whatever foodstuffs came to hand. Nobody had to know that she was, in reality, just getting away from the ever-present work, the chores, and especially Kazi.
Ashen had not been allowed to run wild. There were lessons, sometimes given painfully, which she had absorbed over the years. After all, Zazar had claimed her as an apprentice. And to that learning, Ashen had taken as those in a lean time welcome a feast.
Learning, however, had early awakened her curiosity. And above all, she wanted to know why Zazar went alone, and where, journeying over the wilder parts of the
Bog as if she had some secret goal. Not all of her travels involved the Traders.
Ashen decided that perhaps, daringly, she would expand her borders today, go just a little way beyond the limits Zazar had set on where she could explore safely.
"There are places you may not yet approach," Zazar always told her. "When you are old enough, I will personally take you to them so that you may learn more of who you are, and what you are, and what you must be. Until then, be patient."
There was something about the Wysen-wyf's tone, and the way a spark sometimes came from her fingertip, that inclined Ashen to obedience. However, because of her own errand, Zazar had not been at the hut for several days now, and with the passage of this much time, her discipline had weakened. Ashen was more than ready to take as much advantage of the situation as she dared. And so with a light heart, she left Kazi behind and disappeared into the underbrush that marked the edges of the clearing where Zazar's hut stood.
In the capital city of Rendelsham stood the Great Fane of the Glowing, the largest and most important cathedral dedicated to the Ultimate Ruler of Sky and
Land. A thing of conscious beauty as well as of reverence, it was the product of the best artisans in the land. Tall white columns held up the lofty roof, carved to represent the four Great Trees, which, in turn, were the badges of the four ruling Houses.
The Fane also boasted windows both great and small, decorated with pictures made of pieces of colored glass, set into the openings with great skill and artisanship. The largest of these windows surmounted the main doors. In the shape of a circle and designed with nothing in mind other than sheer decoration, this window glowed with the least amount of light. Flowers and leaves, picked out in jewel tones—ruby and garnet and rose quartz; sapphire and spinel and aquamarine; golden topaz and yellow quartz and citrine; emerald and chrysophase and tourmaline—representing the four Houses, shed rainbows upon any and all who ventured inside. There other windows, both small and large, depicted scenes of edifying content that represented the daily life such edification was supposed to improve. Not surprisingly, many of the tableaux featured artistic renderings with likenesses of the patrons who had commissioned the work.
Three of the smallest windows were virtually hidden from all but the most inquisitive, few of whom, after discovering them, would return again. Exquisite as these windows were, they nonetheless inspired vague feelings of dread, for they changed with time and no artisan's touch could account for the shifting.
One of the panes depicted the Hands and Web of the Weavers. With the advent of the thunder-star and its impact when it struck the northern lands hard enough to make the entire earth quiver and certain fire-throated mountains to awaken, this window, which had changed only a little from the oldest man's memory, began to shift. Now the dark Hands of the Weavers moved more quickly, and the Web upon which they worked began to take on a different appearance.
The second window, the one showing a Bog-lupper, also began to change. The small lupper had moved away from the pool it had been sitting beside and vanished into the underbrush. Now the surface of the pool was
starting to be disturbed, as if something dark and fell were trying to fight its way onto land.
But it was in the third window that the biggest peril was beginning to emerge, though the few who observed the change had no idea of what they were witnessing.
This mysterious pane had ever shown a blank face, white and barely translucent.
Its very lack of design made it uninteresting. Now, however, something was stirring in its depths, as if a creature more deadly, more horrifying even than the one still hidden beneath the surface of the Bog-pool, were emerging from a heavy snowstorm.
More agreeable to the inhabitants of the city of Ren-delsham, and certainly better to look upon than colored-glass windows that refused to keep to their original design, were the four living trees that had long flourished in the
Fane's forecourt. Oak, Ash, Yew, and Rowan, they, even more than the marble columns within, stood as tall symbols of the four ruling Houses of Rendel. And yet even these trees carried their own grim message that all was not well within the Kingdom. Oak leaves suffered blight, only a trace, but present and spreading. Ash drooped sadly, shedding leaves even during the period of growth, and no amount of care seemed able to reverse the tree's decline. Even Rowan looked ill with some unknown disease, a few green leaves still valiantly struggling to keep the tree alive. Yew, however, thrived. No trace of the ills that afflicted the other three touched this one, and people looked upon the