The Deed of Paksenarrion

by Elizabeth Moon

  “But if I—when I was with the Duke, I was a soldier. I must have been. And you’re wearing mail. What happened?” Paks tried again to push herself up; this time she got both arms out of the blanket around her. She had on a loose linen shirt; below its sleeves her arms were seamed with the swollen purple lines of healing wounds. Her wrists were bandaged with strips of linen. She stared at them, and then at the man. “What is this place? Did you—”

  He reached out and took her hand; his grip was firm but gentle. “No, Paks, I did not deal those injuries. We brought you out of the place where that happened.” He turned to another man who had just walked up to them. “She’s awake, and making sense, but her memory hasn’t returned. Paks, do you know this man?”

  Paks stared at the lean face framed in iron-gray hair and beard. He looked stern and even grim, but honest. She wanted to trust him. She could not remember him at all. “No, sir,” she said slowly. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” said the second man. “I wonder,” he said to the first, “whether we should try to tell her what we know.”

  “Names, at least,” said the dark man. “Or she’ll be completely confused. Paks, my name is Amberion; I’m a paladin of Gird. And this is Marshal Fallis, of the Order of the Cudgel.”

  The names meant nothing to Paks, and the men looked no more familiar with strange names attached. She looked from one to the other. “Amberion. Marshal Fallis.” They looked at her, glanced at each other, then back at her.

  “Do you remember who Gird is, Paks?” asked Marshal Fallis.

  Paks wrinkled her brow, trying to think. The name woke a distant uneasiness. “Gird. I—I know I should. Something—it’s—what to do—to call—when—” she stopped, breathing hard, and tried again. “When you start to fight—only—I couldn’t say it aloud! I tried—and it wouldn’t—something on my neck, choking—No!” Paks shouted this last loud enough to startle the entire camp. She had shut her eyes tightly, shaking her head, her body rigid. “No,” she said more softly. “No. By—by Holy Gird, I will fight. I will—not—stop. I will fight!”

  She felt both men’s hands on her shoulders, steadying her. Amberion spoke. “Paks. Listen to me. You’re out of that. You’re safe.” Then, more quietly, to Fallis. “And what do you suppose that was about. Surely she wasn’t free to fight them?”

  “I don’t know,” was Fallis’s grim reply. “But I suspect we’d better find out. Considering how we found her—”

  “I won’t believe it,” said Amberion, but his voice had thinned.

  Paks opened her eyes. For a moment she stared blankly at the sky, then shifted her eyes to look at Amberion. She could feel patches of memory coming back, unconnected still, but broadening. “Amberion? What—”

  “You were injured, Paks. You don’t remember much.”

  “I feel—strange. Will you tell me what happened?”

  “We don’t know all that happened. And it might be better to let you remember it for yourself.”

  Paks looked around. “I don’t recognize this place. But the color of the rocks—something—is familiar.”

  “We moved the camp after you—after the fight.”

  “Are we in Kolobia yet?” Paks saw Amberion’s face relax a little.

  “Good. You are remembering. Yes, we’re in Kolobia. How much do you remember of the trip here?”

  “Some of it—we were in a caravan, for a long way. We saw the horse nomads, didn’t we?” Amberion nodded. “And I remember a bald-faced red horse, bucking—”

  “That’s my warhorse,” said Fallis. “Do you remember why we were coming to Kolobia?”

  Paks shook her head. “No. I wish I didn’t feel so peculiar. Did something hit my head? Was it a battle?”

  Fallis smiled at her. “You’ve been in several battles. Both on the caravan, and here as well. I think you’ll remember them on your own when you’ve rested more. Your wounds are healing well. Do you need anything more?”

  “Water, if there’s enough.”

  “Certainly.” The Marshal walked away and returned with a full waterskin. He set it beside Paks, then he and Amberion walked upstream, looking at the cliffs on the far side. Paks managed to get the waterskin to her mouth. She took a long drink, then looked around again. The dwarf was looking her way, talking to the woman. When he caught her eye, he rose and came toward her. She tried to think of his name.

  “Good morning, Lady Paksenarrion,” said the dwarf. His voice was higher and sweeter than she’d expected. She wondered how she knew what to expect. “How fare you this day?”

  “I’m all right. A little—confused.”

  “That is no wonder. Perhaps even names have escaped you. I am Balkon of the House of Goldenaxe.”

  The name fit; Paks could almost think she remembered it. As she looked at the dwarf, the distant silent scraps of memory came nearer and seemed to fuse in his face. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Master Balkon. You came with us from Fin Panir. You know about rock, where it will be solid or weak. You are a cousin of the Goldenaxe himself, aren’t you?”

  “Eighth cousin twice removed,” said the dwarf with a smile. “I think you must be recovering very swiftly. We are glad it should be so, who saw you in such dismay.”

  “Dismay?” Paks felt a twinge of fear.

  The dwarf’s face constricted into a mass of furrows and then relaxed. “Is that not the correct term? You must excuse me, Lady Paks. I have not the skill in wordcraft as were I an elf. Dismay? Distress? Dis—oh, I cannot find the word, plague take it! But you were much hurt by those blackhearts, and that your friends sorrowed to see. And you are now much better, and we are glad.”

  “Thank you, Master Balkon,” said Paks. She did not understand what he was talking about, exactly, but his kindness was welcome.

  “I wanted to ask you—if it will not be too great a sorrow to speak of it—what those rockfilth used on your injuries.”

  Paks stared at him. “Rockfilth?”

  “They corrupt the very stone, good stone, by living in its heart. Those blackheart elf cousins, I mean, who took you.”

  “Took me?” Paks shook her head, as a sudden chill ran over her. “I have no memory of such a thing, Master Balkon.”

  “Ah. Magics, then.” The dwarf muttered rapidly in dwarvish; Paks caught only one or two words. He stopped abruptly and looked sharply at her. “You remember none of it at all?”

  “None of what?” Paks began to feel a prickling irritation. Everyone else knew something about her, but wouldn’t tell what it was. It was unfair. She glared at the dwarf.

  “Tech! Be still. That Lord Amberion, your paladin, and the Marshal Fallis, they will not have you told too much, for seeing what you shall remember in time. Do you make noise, they will come to see what we speak.”

  “Will you tell me?” asked Paks with rising excitement.

  The dwarf smiled, a sly sideways smile. “And should I say what such men of power want not to be said? I am no prince or lord to rank myself above them. But they did not say to me what not to say—it is a point on which it is possible to differ. So—” He looked at her again. “I will say what I think should be said, as it would be done in the House of Goldenaxe.”

  Paks forced herself to lie still, remembering this much about dwarves, that they cannot be hurried in the telling of anything. The dwarf pulled out his curved pipe, packed it, lit it, and drew a long breath. He blew three smoke rings.

  “Very well, then,” he said, as if he had not paused. “You were taken by those blackheart worshippers of Achrya,” he spat after saying that name, “such as elves like Ardhiel do not like to admit exist and are of elvish origin—despite having their own word for them. That was when they attacked our camp, the second night in this canyon, and they carried you away down their lairs, under that cliff yonder—” he jerked his head to indicate the cliff across the stream. “And there they held you, some days. We know not what befell you in that dark place, save the marks you carry. Dire wounds enough,
they must have been, to deal such marks. We had some trouble to follow your path and find you—do you truly remember nothing of this?”

  Paks had been listening in rising horror. She stared at the cliff, the rust-red and orange rocks streaked with black, and shook her head. “I don’t—don’t remember. Yet—as you talk—something comes back. Like—like seeing a valley from a hill, faraway and hazy.”

  “That will be the magics, I don’t doubt, or the knocks on your head that left such lumps. Well, then, when we found you, that was a strange thing too. We had fought several times in the dark ways, and came to another band of the enemy. None of us knew what was that black warrior so tall behind the others, all in black armor. You—but we did not know then it was you—were killing them, the ones we faced, and when they parted seemed like to kill us too. Then—” he paused to puff on his pipe and blow more rings. Paks waited impatiently, a feeling of pressure swelling her head. “Then, Lady Paksenarrion, you were still, all at once, sword arm so above your head. Very strange. Very strange indeed. Lord Amberion and Marshal Fallis went to look—being careful, too, for any treachery. Then they lifted the visor of the helmet—and a nasty, evil thing that was, that I could sense from where I stood—and there was your face behind it, pale as cheese, and your eyes seeing nothing. All that bad armor was magics—enchanted—your paladin and Marshal had their way with Gird. It split, finally, lying around you like a beetle’s wingcases, then it shrivelled and was gone. But that wasn’t all. Around your neck—”

  “Master Balkon!” Neither Paks nor Balkon had noticed Amberion’s approach. He looked more than a little displeased. “Is this well done, to tax her beyond her knowledge?”

  “Tax her? I but tell her what things are lost to her.”

  “But you knew we thought it wise to tell her nothing.”

  “That you thought it wise, yes—but you never forbade such telling to me. And of the ill-doing of elves and their kindred we dwarves have more knowledge than those the elves would make their allies. To my wisdom it seems right that she should not be left to anxious wondering.”

  Paks felt a wave of irritation that they would talk over and about her as if she were not there. “I asked him, Sir Amberion, as I asked you. And he chose to think me whole-witted enough to answer me as one fighter to another, not as if I were a witless child.” She surprised even herself with the bitterness in her voice.

  Amberion looked at her, brows raised. “Surely, Paks, you realize that we do not think you a child—you, of all people. We were concerned that if we told you what we knew, you might never regain your own memories, which must include much that we cannot know. Have you so forgotten the fellowship of Gird, that you mistrust a paladin this way? It must be your wounds that make you so irritable.”

  Paks felt herself flush at the mild reproof. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, still angry. “I—I was worried.” Her voice trailed away, and she looked beyond Amberion to the cliffs beyond.

  “Are you in much pain?” Amberion went on.

  Paks realized that she did, in fact, ache all over as if with a fever; her head throbbed. “Sir, I do ache some.”

  He felt her forehead, and frowned. “It may be fever—and no wonder with your wounds—yet you feel cold. Let me see what I can do.” He placed a hand on either side of her head, and began to speak. Paks felt she should know the words, anticipate the phrases, yet she could hardly concentrate enough to hear them. Her vision hazed. For a few moments the throbbing in her head merged with her aching body in one vast rhythmic pain, then it eased. As it disappeared, she knew how much pain she had felt, and wondered for an instant why she had not known it—had it been even worse, that she could accept it as normal? Her vision cleared. She felt Amberion’s warm palms leave her head.

  “Does that ease the pain?” he asked.

  Paks nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you. I had not realized how much it was.” Now her outburst of a few moments before seemed unreasonable to her; she could not understand why she had said such a thing to Amberion.

  “Good.” Amberion sighed, and sat beside her, across from the dwarf. He looked tired. “Master Balkon, I heard but the last of what you told her. Was it just the tale of her capture and our pursuit?”

  “Aye, it was, and scantly told, at that. I did not speak of the capture itself, since none of us saw it, only that she was taken. Nor did I speak of the debate when she was found missing, or—”

  “Well enough,” Amberion interrupted. The dwarf scowled at him. “Paks, has any of that come back to you as he was telling it?”

  “It seemed, sir, almost as if something were trying to break into my head. Something I should know. But as I told Master Balkon, what I do recall seems faraway, dreamlike.”

  “That’s not unusual. By Gird, I wish that elf would wake!”

  “By his face,” said the dwarf sourly, “that one is enjoying some rare dream such as elves delight in, too rare a dream to wake for our need.”

  “Elf?” asked Paks.

  “Ardhiel,” said Amberion. “From the embassy to Fintha—”

  “Oh!” A live memory flashed into Paks’s mind. “I remember him. In Fin Panir, when we—” she looked at Amberion, then went on more slowly, with dawning comprehension. “When we planned this expedition—I remember that now. I was there. I was taking training, and then—” In her excitement, Paks tried to sit up, but could not.

  “I’ll get another pack for you,” said Amberion. He brought a fat blanket roll, and propped her higher on it. For an instant she was dizzy, but recovered.

  “I do remember,” she said eagerly. “On the caravan, and when we turned off—those canyons with the white stone high above. A black hill with a dip in the top. Is this farther down the canyon we went into, the one Master Balkon said was not as deep as it was meant to be?”

  “Yes, Lady,” said the dwarf. “This is the canyon choked with sand. I have not yet had the time to look, but I expect something—some rock fall, perchance—has blocked the downward end.”

  “And at the high end—that’s where the cliffs were that the smoke came from?”

  “Yes, in a branch canyon to this one. Do you remember the fight?”

  “Something of it. One of those black fighters called out, and it was hard to move after that.”

  Amberion nodded. “It affected most of our party, save Master Balkon and me.”

  “Then you did something, and it eased; they were shooting arrows down. Ardhiel and Thelon were shooting back—”

  “Yes,” said Balkon. “And then that black scum who called down the fear on us came down the cliff in the shape of his lady—” the dwarf spat again. “That one.”

  “Like a spider,” said Paks. “I remember. It was horrible—he just came down the rocks, straight down, and then more and more of them swarmed out of holes in the walls, and Ardhiel blew that old hunting horn he carries, only it didn’t sound like a hunting horn.”

  “No,” said Amberion. “And after he blew it, its own shape returned. It was under some enchantment. It’s an elven horn, the only one I’ve ever seen, and a rare treasure. Whatever or whoever it was who appeared when the horn sang, I know not, but great goodness and power were allied in him.”

  Paks shook her head. “I don’t remember anything but the sound of it.”

  “Pretty enough,” grumbled Balkon, “but I’d like to know what it means.”

  Amberion stretched and sighed. “It meant trouble for our enemies that day, and a long sleep for Ardhiel. Paks, I think your memory will come back; as it does, I’d like to know about it.” She nodded. “Master Balkon, we still think it would be best to let her recall these things on her own.”

  “I worry about those wounds,” said the dwarf frankly. “The elves have some means of speeding and slowing growth. Something like that must have been used by those rockfilth—she’d still be bleeding, else. It’s dangerous. I would know what was used on her, and would wish you to think what may be done.” He grinned at Paks for an instant and went on. “Bes
ides that, it is this talk which has brought her memory so far. Surely more would be better.”

  “It is that,” said another voice, “which distinguishes dwarves from more temperate folk—they always think more is better.” Paks looked over to see a dark man in stained leather clothes; she remembered that this was Thelon, their half-elven scout. Master Balkon bristled at his words, but Thelon laughed gently, and lifted his hand. “My pardon, Master Balkon, but I could not resist. It has been long in this camp since anything seemed funny.”

  “I don’t see—” began Balkon; Thelon shook his head, then, and bowed.

  “Sir dwarf, I am sorry. I had no intention of insult; I’ll say so before all, and confess a loose tongue.”

  Balkon shook his head, and finally smiled at Thelon. “You are but half-elven, and a ranger—which is another word for hardy, as we dwarves know. And I confess I am as fond of plenty as you are of enough. Let it pass, Thelon; I will not bear anger to you.”

  Thelon bowed again. “I thank you for your courtesy. I came to ask Amberion to attend the Marshals. Ardhiel may be rousing from his sleep, and they asked for you.”

  Amberion looked sternly at the dwarf as he rose. “Master Balkon, we are as concerned as you, but if Paks doesn’t remember, she can’t tell you what they used. It would be better to let it be.”

  Balkon nodded. “If the elf is wakening, he might know far more than I—only he should be told at once, if he can listen.”

  “Then—?”

  “Then I will but bear her company, and no tales tell, until you bring word of Ardhiel,” said the dwarf. And with that Amberion had to be content, and he turned away. Paks watched the dwarf, hoping he would resume his talk, but he did not meet her eyes. He poked and puffed at his pipe, until the smoke rose steadily. Then he looked at her. “I am not one to break my word,” he said fiercely, “even so little of it as that. Bide still; the time will come, and you will hear it all.”

  Paks slept again while waiting for Amberion to return, and woke hungry. She was able to feed herself this time. With help, she managed to stand and stagger a short way to the shallow sand pit that served the camp for jacks. But that exhausted her, and she fell into sleep again as soon as she came back to her place. It was evening when she woke, with sun striking the very highest line of the opposite canyon wall.