The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  THE STORY:

  When they emerged from a final copse of trees lining the great meadow, the moon was full overhead.

  “The moon?” Jenna was puzzled. “When we left it was not moon time.”

  “It has been more than one moon since you left, sister,” a voice whispered in her ear. Jenna turned slightly. Skada was sitting behind her. Her face was a good deal thinner than Jenna remembered. And older, somehow.

  “Just how many moons …” Jenna began, then glanced past Skada to stare at the rest of her companions.

  Catrona and Katri on the bay mare stared back. There was a streak of white running through Catrona’s short cap of hair, a matching streak in Katri’s. Jareth, with his green collar tight across his throat, had a leaner look and Marek a downy moustache feathering his lip. Sandor’s cheeks were sprinkled with the beginnings of a beard. But it was Petra who had changed the most. She was no longer a girl but a young woman, with a soft curve of breast showing beneath her tunic.

  Jenna put a hand up to her own face, as if she might feel any change there, but her fingers held no memories.

  “Look at us! Look!” Marek said, his voice booming into the night.

  “I …” Sandor began and then, as if surprised by the depth of the syllable, stopped.

  Opening his mouth, Jareth strained for a sound. When none came, he closed it again, shaking his head slowly at first, then faster and faster, banging his fist on his thigh in frustration.

  It was Petra who spoke for them all. “The legends are true. Cocooned in time, the Grenna said. But they did not say how much time. How long …” her voice trailed off.

  Jenna got off her horse, followed by Skada. Turning to her dark sister, she asked: “How many more than one moon, Skada?”

  “I do not know. Many. After a time, I lost the count.”

  “Yet we ate not nor did we sleep,” Catrona said. “We hold no memory of those passages through time. How can that be?”

  “It is because of Alta,” Petra said.

  “And the Grenna,” Catrona added.

  “It be because of Anna,” Marek and Sandor said together.

  They all dismounted and the boys were quickly introduced to Katri and Skada. But the dark sisters’ arrival was only a small, familiar mystery inside the larger one. It was the question of time that consumed them all.

  “Is it one year or …” Catrona hesitated.

  “Or hundreds?” Katri finished for her.

  “Hundreds!” Marek seemed surprised at the possibility. “It be not hundreds. What about our Ma then?”

  “And our Da?”

  “What about our sisters?” Petra asked. “And the warnings?”

  Jenna twisted the priestess ring around her little finger. She was not heedless of the sisters. But she had to know first where they were—what time and what place. Staring at Jareth, she whispered, “You have not mentioned his Mai.” She did not add her own names: Pynt and A-ma and all the sisters at Selden Hame. What use was such a tally when they were so lost? She would not even think of Carum, would not conjure his face now. But Skada knew. She reached out and touched Jenna’s hand.

  They were not tired, but they thought it best to rest the night. In the daylight they might discover the path, might recognize some familiar landmark. Besides, the horses would fare better in the day without the added burden of the dark sisters. And they all needed to think.

  “To focus,” Catrona said, using the very word and tone Jenna remembered from their days in Selden Hame when Catrona had taught her about living in the woods.

  As part of that focus, they taught the boys how to match them breath for breath around a small campfire. Catrona felt the need for light far exceeded the danger. She told the boys the story about the five beasts who quarreled before they discovered that breath was the most important part of life. Jenna recalled Mother Alta telling that tale, and how it sat heavily in the priestess’ sour mouth. Catrona’s telling was far more sprightly. The boys laughed when she was done, even Jareth, though his laughter was silent.

  After the story, Marek and Sandor regaled them with rhymes their Da had taught them, all about pulling the ferry across the water. Teaching rhymes, Catrona called them.

  “Every craft and every guild has them,” she said. “The baker, the herdsman, the miller …”

  Jareth interrupted by placing his hand on Catrona’s. He gestured to himself.

  “A miller … a miller,” muttered Katri.

  They were all embarrassed into silence until Petra began to sing a lullaby in a sweet voice that soon had them all rubbing their eyes.

  “We will rise with the sun,” Jenna said.

  “Before the sun,” Catrona amended.

  THE SONG:

  Sisters’ Lullay

  Hush and sleep ye,

  Shush and keep ye,

  Safe within the

  Hame’s strong walls

  Naught shall harm ye.

  We shall charm ye

  With the song the

  Night bird calls.

  Sisters strong shall

  Keep the cradle

  Sisters long shall

  Watch the way

  Sisters all shall

  Guard and guide ye

  Till ye wake at

  Break of day.

  Hush and sleep ye,

  Shush and keep ye,

  Alta watches

  From above.

  We will praise ye,

  We will raise ye,

  Light and dark in

  Alta’s love.

  THE STORY:

  They drifted into sleep one after another until only Jenna and Skada were awake, side by side on Jenna’s blanket.

  “I have missed you,” Skada said. “And missed this world, so bright and deafening.”

  “Which have you missed more?”

  “In equal measure.” Skada laughed. Then she whispered, “But it has been hard on you.”

  “It has been harder on the others,” Jenna said. “And the fault …”

  “… is not yours, dear sister,” Skada said. “This is a time when a circle closes. That you are the clasp is not a fault, merely an accident of time.”

  “Jareth said I was a linchpin.”

  “We will miss his clear voice.”

  Jenna thought about that. It was what she had been feeling, but had not dared to say aloud. “I …”

  “We. Is it so difficult to accept that you are not alone, Jenna? That we all share the burden?”

  Suddenly Jenna remembered Alta’s words: You want to be and not to be the Anna. How easily Alta had said it. How hard it was to accept. She wanted to be the center, the clasp, the linchpin, but she did not want the enormous weight of it. Yet she could not have the one without the other. How much easier to share. Not I but we. She reached out and touched Skada’s hand. They did not speak again, just lay there hand in hand until sleep finally claimed them.

  “Jenna! Jenna!” The voice seemed far away, a dying fall of sound. Jenna awoke with a start to a day bright with birdsong. Catrona was shaking her by the shoulder. She sat up, almost reluctant to leave the comfort of sleep.

  Looking around, Jenna saw the horses cropping grass by a well-worn roadside, the others still asleep.

  “Catrona, I had the strangest dream,” she began. “There was a vast meadow and …” She stopped. A wide streak of white ran through Catrona’s hair and the runes across her brow were deeper than Jenna remembered.

  “No dream, little Jen. The meadow, the grove, the hearth and hall. No dream. Unless two can dream the same.”

  Jenna stood slowly. Two might possibly dream alike but that did not explain the age creeping across Catrona’s face. Or the fact that Duty, who had just lifted her face from the grass, had a dusting of white hairs on her nose. Or that Jareth, beginning to stir, wore a collar of green around his neck.

  “No dream,” Jenna agreed. “But if it is true, then where are we? And when are we?”

  “As for where,” Catron
a said, “that I know now. This is the road to Wilma’s Crossing Hame. It has not changed that much in the thirty years since I was last here.”

  “Thirty?” Jenna asked.

  “I was a girl missioning here,” Catrona said. “It was my last stop—and a dare.”

  “Why a dare?” Jenna asked.

  “Because it was so far from my own Hame and across the famous forest of the Grenna and because it was the very first Hame. And because I had boasted too much about not being afraid to come.”

  “And were you afraid?”

  Catrona laughed. “Of course I was afraid. I may have been a bit of a boaster, but I was no fool. I never saw any Grenna, of course. Doubted they existed. But fog and mist and men I found plenty. As for the men, well, I kicked my way out of several encounters and marched with a black eye but my maidenhead intact into Wilma’s Crossing Hame.” She chuckled at the memory.

  “And …”

  “And they laughed at me and gave me a hot bath and told me the facts of a woman’s life, which somehow I had neglected to listen to when my Mother Alta imparted them. I got my flow that next week and had a man on the way back to my own Hame. Katri never forgave me for not waiting for her.”

  Jenna blushed furiously.

  “Yes, this is the road to Wilma’s Crossing. There the road goes back through the forest.” She pointed to the long, empty path. “And there are Alta’s Pins.” She pointed ahead to a pair of rolling hillocks, grass-covered dunes that stretched for almost a mile. “Nothing like them in the whole of the Dales.”

  “Thirty years,” Jenna mused. She combed through her hair with her fingers, then braided it up, twisting a dark ribband around the bottom to hold the plait in place.

  “Thirty—or more,” Catrona said.

  “How much more?”

  “I would tell you if I knew, child. I puzzled all night on it.” Giving Jenna a swift, sure hug, she added, “As for that dream we both had, I recall there was food in it as well.” She went to her own blanket and the saddlebags that she had used for a pillow. Opening up the flap of one, she rummaged around. “Yes, here. Quite a dream, that can supply such as this.” She pulled out two loaves of a braided bread and a leather flask. “Come, girl, First up, first fed, we used to say in the army.” She broke off the heel of the bread and handed it to Jenna. “In fact, First up, finest fed. As I recall, you were always partial to the ends, even as a babe.”

  Jenna took the bread gratefully and started chewing. At the first bite, a sharp burst of some sweet herb filled her mouth. She sighed.

  Smiling at her, Catrona took a long draught from the flask, then grinned. “The red. She gave us the red. Bless her.”

  At that, Jenna laughed. “Only you, Catrona, would bless someone for wine.” But she reached out and took a sip herself. She was careful not to mention to Catrona that the wine was not red at all but the gentle rosy drink that she preferred. Either Catrona was losing her judgment, or there was a strange magic at work here. It was not worth mentioning either way.

  The others were up soon after, finishing off both loaves of bread and the flask which, though no one remarked it greatly, supplied milk for Petra and some kind of dark liquid for each of the boys, which Jenna thought might be tea.

  They saddled the horses and were away just as the sun climbed between the rolling hills Catrona had called Alta’s Pins.

  “As I remember it,” Catrona told them, “it is but a morning’s walk from here to the Hame.”

  “Then it will be a short ride with the horses fresh,” said Jenna.

  Following Catrona, they threaded their way in a single line through the Pins and across a boggy meadow that was full of spring wildflowers, white, yellow, and blue. Quite soon they saw the wreckage of several buildings jagged against the clean slate of sky.

  “Too late,” Jenna whispered to herself as they neared the ruined Hame. She braced herself for the inevitable bodies and the horrible smell of death. “Too late for any of them.” The whisper took on Sorrel’s accent and she cursed herself and her companions for spending the time they had in Alta’s grove.

  Dismounting at the broken gate, they wandered through the silent ruins. Vines twisted up between fallen stones. The weedy arberry had taken root in the cracks. There was a scattering of linseed along the pathways, the blue flowers bending in a passing wind. But there were no bodies; there were no bones.

  “This be not happening yesterday,” Marek remarked cautiously, his fingers smoothing down his new moustache.

  “Nor the day before that,” Petra added. She plucked up a yellow flower and crushed it against her palm. “How long …” her voice trailed off.

  Squatting, Catrona smoothed her hand across the gravelly ruin of a side wall. “A year. Or two. Or more. It takes a season at least for arberry and linseed, tansy and hound’s tooth, to take hold in a waste. A season at least for vines to begin to twist up through the walls.”

  Sandor’s eyes grew wide. “And see how high they go.”

  Jareth measured the vines and they were five times the width of his hand, from little finger to thumb. He spread his hand, counting silently. Five.

  Sitting down heavily on a great stone, Jenna drew in a deep latani breath. When she finally spoke she hoped her tones were measured. “We must find out what year it is. Whether one has passed or …” Glancing at Jareth, whose hand still silently tallied the length of the vines, she finished her thought. “Or five. We must know how long since we rode out.”

  “And then find out what damage to the Hames,” Petra said.

  Jenna nodded. “And then …”

  “Hush! Now!” From her squatting position, Catrona had flung herself onto the ground, ear down, listening. For a moment she was still. Then suddenly she sat up. With a sweep of her hand, she whispered, “Riders!”

  “Our horses …” Jenna cried, but she threw herself down on the ground and felt the pounding of the earth under her cheek. The riders were close. Saying no more, she drew her sword from its sheath and lay on the ground, waiting. All of her anger, unhappiness, and fear were focused for what was sure to be a fierce battle. The ground foretold many horsemen.

  Petra and the boys flung themselves down as well, the boys wriggling about to draw their knives.

  Jenna could see between two of the fallen stones, as if through the narrow line of an arrow slit. At first all she could make out were the trees across the road; then a gray cloud of dust from the horses’ hooves rising up against the background, obscuring the trees. Slowly, the front line of the oncoming riders resolved itself and Jenna could see that one of the lead horses was gray.

  “A gray!” she called over to Catrona, not sure if her voice could be heard in the building thunder. “A company of king’s horse.”

  Catrona nodded.

  Jenna could feel a shiver run across the back of her shoulders, as if something cold had snaked its way over her neck. Then she shook her head and whatever it was she had felt was gone. Looking aside at the others, she nodded. The boys nodded back but Petra’s eyes were wide and unseeing. Jenna guessed she was praying.

  A prayer would not be amiss, she thought, trying to remember one. But the pounding of the hooves and the rising dust and the sun on her head and the fear that her friends might die because of her pushed all prayer from her mind except the one word: now … now … now.

  Then Catrona leaped up, sword raised, and Jenna followed, screaming what was left of her fear into the faces of the galloping troop. She could feel heat in her face and the remains of the rosy wine threatening to leave her stomach and a throbbing of a vein over her right eye.

  And then suddenly the first of the horses, a black gelding, was pulled to a rearing stop by its rider. Behind it, the gray and then the others fanned out. There were more than twenty-one. Many more.

  Jenna’s sword hand began to shake. She reached over with her left hand and grasped her right wrist to hold it steady. She heard a strange braying coming from Catrona’s direction and could not make it out
. She dared a quick glance.

  Catrona was laughing and lowering her sword. Laughing!

  The man on the black horse was laughing as well. When the noise had settled, he spoke. “Well, well, well, Catkin. Like an old copper, ye turn op in the oddest of hands.” He grinned, showing a mouth gapped with uneven teeth. His beard was luxuriantly black and white; his eyes narrow and the piercing blue of a cold spring sky; his tongue strange to Jenna’s ears.

  Catrona sheathed her sword. “As often as not I turn up in your hands, Piet.”

  The man Piet dismounted. He was a big man, his solid flesh starting to run to fat, but he moved with a feline grace. “Ye’ve not been in my hands for so lang a time, girl.”

  “How long a time?” Catrona asked, almost casually.

  Jenna held her breath.

  Piet narrowed his eyes even more and grinned. Her caution had not fooled him. “Looking for compliments at yourn age, my catkin? Or somewhat more, eh?” He laughed. Jenna had been expecting a cold sound, and calculating, but it was full and warm. “And where is that dark, daring sister of yourn?”

  “She is around,” Catrona said. She held out her hand to him and he took it. Instead of shaking it, he simply held it, his massive fingers wrapping hers.

  Jenna was surprised that Catrona let her hand be prisoned that way.

  “I’ve missed ye, girl. No doubt of it. Nane to drink me doon like ye can, after a good fight. And nane like ye ever for a blanket companion, eh?”

  Catrona laughed lightly, gaily, a sound Jenna had never heard her make before.

  Clearing her throat, Jenna moved toward Catrona. Petra came over to stand by her side. The three boys, knives still tightly in their hands, clustered together.

  “The kittens are restless,” Piet said, dropping her hand at last. “Introduce us to this litter of yourn.”

  Catrona turned and signaled them to her and they came like bidden children, though Jenna was not happy at the thought.

  “The boys are from Callatown. Sandor and Marek are, as you can see, brothers. And the small one is Jareth.”

  Piet put out his hand to them each in turn, nodding and saying their names aloud. Sandor and Marek gave him greeting but Jareth’s silence troubled the big man.