Despite everything, that walk up the steep trail to the clearing below the falls reminded her again why she loved this country. All along the creek, more of the starry yellow flowers, more tiny ferns, more beds of fragrant mint. Tiny golden frogs splashed into the water, arrowing across pools not much larger than a kettle to flip themselves onto a sunny stone. The canyon walls closed around them, making each stretch of trail a private room, almost a secret.
She could well understand why someone might want to live here, even though in flood or in winter snow it would be impossible to get out, to join the others in the stronghold. If she had had no responsibilities, she might have wanted to live here herself.
They came around a last twist to the clearing, a grassy circle edged along one rock wall by the merest trickle of water. The Rosemage stared. The last time she had seen it, fruit trees and vines had been trained all around the margin in rock-walled terraces above the seasonal floods. Those trees had been hacked to the ground; their green wood, slow-burning, had fueled the smoke that rose as if in a chimney, straight up the cliffs past the dwelling. They had not smelled it before, but now acrid smoke stung her nostrils. Behind her, a mutter rose; a wave of her hand silenced it. She let her eyes rove up the cliff, ledge by ledge, looking for any movement, ignoring for the time a trickle of darker smoke from the dwelling entrance. Nothing… no movement, no sound, until her gaze flowed into the sky and found dark wings already circling. She moved cautiously around the clearing, keeping close to the wall. The trees had been cut with axes, the marks clear on their short stumps. A few branches had escaped the fire, their blossoms and tender leaves already wilted from the day’s heat. Some of the carefully laid terraces had been broken apart, the stones flung several arm’s-lengths. It could not have been done by stealth; it would have made considerable racket, to echo off the cliffs on every hand. The mageborn must have heard it—why had they done nothing? Because they had been killed first? She did not look forward to what they might find in the dwelling itself.
The lower, obvious entrance led to a small stable, carved of the rock. Here the families had kept goats and a couple of sturdy ponies to pack their fruit down-canyon and other supplies back up. Normally it was closed by a heavy door of thick planks; these were shattered almost to splinters. The Rosemage knew before she entered that the animals were dead; she did not expect the savagry with which they’d been flayed and butchered. Most of the meat had been taken, and the innards strewn to smear every bit of wall and floor with stinking slime. Here, for the first time, she found a footprint in the bloody mess: it could have been human, by its size and shape, a foot cased in soft leather, not boots with heels.
From the stable, an inner stair led up into blackness. The Rosemage considered, decided to use the outside approach to the family’s own chambers. This, outside, meant climbing a series of ledges, zig-zagging up the curving cliff. When she had visited before, a notched log had served to cross one gap which now required a careful leap.
The main entrance had served as a front porch, a low stone wall protecting small children from the drop to the clearing below. No water trickled past it now, but she remembered how beautiful it had been when the falls ran. She glanced out, down-canyon, surprised as always at the way the land hid its real shape. From here, the side-canyons were invisible; she could not tell where the stronghold lay.
But she could not stand gazing at lost safety, not now. She waited until half her band had made it that far, then called her light. It flickered for a moment as shock blurred her mind. There they were, the two families, the bones unmistakable through charred flesh, square in the entrance to the rest of the dwelling. A few ends of wood indicated that the household furniture had fed that fire. Stinking smoke trailed along the cave floor and made her cough. She moved forward.
“We have to know,” she said. “Maybe someone escaped, maybe a child found a hiding place—” In her light, she could see walls smeared with blood and filth and smoke. As she edged past the smoldering pyre, she realized that the passage had been systematically dirtied with the corpses before they were burned—she hoped they had been corpses then, not still living. Nausea cramped her belly, her throat, and she fought it down. She had to remember how the cave dwelling had been laid out. She heard someone retching behind her, but the stench of death and burning was so bad nothing could make it worse.
Two families, both fairly young; they had shared this passage, a dining hall, a large kitchen with two hearths, and the wide space behind the waterfall. On either side of the passage had been each family’s sleeping rooms and private space. She could not remember all of it; she wasn’t sure she’d been shown all of it. She went into the first opening she found, on the left, and found the remains of a loom, smashed, and the cloth ripped away, hacked and smeared with blood. In the next, only the splinters of whatever furniture had been there, probably taken to fuel the fire. Someone had walked through the pool of blood on the floor before it dried, leaving footprints like those in the stable. Chamber after chamber, on one side the central passage or another, had only destruction, blood, the smell of horror.
Her mind could not take in the whole thing. It seemed to fragment, to split into five or six minds, each attending to only one part of what she saw and heard and felt. Had they been surprised? Had anyone fought? Where had the attackers come from, and who were they? Could she find more clues?
In the kitchen with its double hearth, its concession to the kitchen rights of two women of equal rank, she found the first sign of resistance. A pothook, marked as if by a sword-slash. A broken knife, stained with blood. The Rosemage sniffed it, trying out what her magery might tell her. A strange odor seared her nose, woke terrible fears. Not human, not this blood. But what? She called the most experienced of the huntsmen, who sniffed and then shook his head.
“Nasty, lady, you’re right about that. But it’s nothing I’ve smelled before, not here or anywhere. It has a… a tingle in it, a ringing, almost a sound.”
“It’s wicked,” the Rosemage said. She felt something in the atmosphere as a smothering wave of evil. “And it knows we’re here.”
But nothing more happened, as they searched each chamber carefully. They found no survivors, only the bloodstains where each had been killed and gutted. They found no clues but the odd-smelling blood on that one blade, and the evidence of the pothook, that the attackers had used swords. And the sense that some great evil, some cold and incalculable menace, lurked about them.
The Rosemage was almost surprised to find that it was still daylight outside when she came back to the ledge behind the dry waterfall. Her head ached; her mouth tasted of smoke and death. The others were all white-faced and grim.
“We must find out if those in the narrow canyons are safe, and warn everyone,” she said. “Belthis, you go—tell Tam what we’ve found, and rouse the stronghold. Then check the first of the side canyons. Those two oldest lads of Seriath’s were planning to live there this summer; they’d started a rock shelter last year. Get them out of there, if they’re alive, then make sure the next side-canyon’s safe.”
“Should those people leave?” asked Belthis.
“No. Remember—the west wall of that’s the east wall of the canyon outside the stronghold, and there’s the tunnel.” The next side-canyon east had seemed a good place to expand the settlement’s living quarters, but it had proven inconvenient to have to go around the spine of rock between them. The Rosemage wondered just how far along that tunnel had come… she had not kept up with such things lately. But if they lost the upper canyon, if an enemy attacked, that tunnel could be dangerous.
They must not lose the upper canyon—they could not, if they only knew what they faced. And she must find that out, before worse came upon them. “Go on,” she said to Belthis. “Have Tam talk to Seri, as well as Luap, about defenses. Messengers must go today to the lower canyon, to the western valleys.”
He gulped. “And what shall I say about you, lady?”
“That I am tr
ying to find out what manner of enemy we face.” She followed him out from under the ledge, into the cleaner air that still smelled of smoke, and wished she need not stay.
Aris had chosen his room, and had his healers at work making it orderly and handy, when Seri came to find him. She was wearing the mail she had ordered from the Khartazh, and it jingled slightly as she moved. The expression on her face combined decent concern with pure glee.
“I had the word out before he said anything.” Her eyes sparkled; though she was trying to stay solemn, she looked very much the mischievous child she had been.
“How many?”
“Not as many as I’d like.” She scowled a moment, thinking, then went on. “We’ve lots more who could fight—who may have to fight—but of the ones trained solidly, either Girdish or magery, we’ve fewer than twenty hands—a bare cohort.” She didn’t say why; she didn’t have to. Luap had decided, when the Khartazh proved true to its treaties, that they did not need a large armed force. Training took time from more important things. “Of course I don’t suppose there’s ever been a commander who didn’t want more soldiers,” she added. Then, looking at him closely, “And how are you?”
Aris shrugged. What bothered him most was Seri going out to fight; they both knew that, and there wasn’t any use saying it. “I’m following our plan.” The one he and Seri had worked out together, in case Luap’s assumptions about the safety of the region were wrong. The Rosemage might be Luap’s ranking military commander, on the strength of her background, but Seri had trained the young men and women, mapped each canyon, and planned the details of defense. She had also, in the early years, led more than one expedition against the brigands.
“Good. If nothing interferes with her, she should have a messenger back here by midafternoon, at least. Then we’ll know something—” She paced the small room, her hair springing free with every stride. “I’ve got the old guardposts all manned, messengers on the way west—”
“To the Khartazh?” Aris asked. That had been a decision point in their plan, one they had argued over, taking opposite sides in alternation. Seri shook her head.
“Not just yet. I want to hear the Rosemage’s report.” Then she flushed, aware what that sounded like. “I mean—”
“I know what you meant.” Aris grinned. “You are, you know. You might as well admit it.”
“Luap hasn’t said anything,” she muttered, still red. He could think of several reasons for that, none of them good. He felt once more the emptiness, the coldness, he had felt when he realized that Luap was using magery to extend his own life. Images raced through his mind, all ugly: an empty skull, rolled along the stone by a high wind; a headless man staggering, falling, dying. If Luap had lost—whatever made him a leader, whatever made him care—then they were all lost. And what kind of leader would choose to live long, and watch his people age and die?
Not Seri. He had another clear vision of her, from one of the early raids against brigands, leading the way up a narrow ledge. She might have stayed back, knowing her value to them as a trainer, or even commander, but she always led—she never pushed. She would have been, he knew, a better leader than Luap; in her own land, in distant Fintha, she would have made a good Marshal, and probably come close to Marshal-General, for everyone liked and trusted her. But here, Luap’s refusals constrained her, like a plant grown in too small a pot.
Luap, when he came down, looked both calm and elegant. “The Rosemage can easily handle any little raiding party of brigands,” he said. Aris looked at him, thinking what one of the cooks said aloud. “And if it’s not just a little raiding party?”
Luap smiled, “Then we can gather everyone in here, and defend it; once those doors are closed, no brigands can open them.”
“But the crops—” someone said.
“We can replant; we can trade to Khartazh if we need to. We have reserves of both food and money. And if it’s some invading force, horse nomads gone crazy or something, we can call on the Khartazh for aid.” That smile again, confident and calm. “As you know, we have close trading ties there; the king has promised to be our brother.”
Seri poked Aris in the back. When he didn’t move, she poked him harder, then hissed in his ear. “Ask him to—” But Luap was already talking again.
“I know there are some of you who would like to see me call out our guard. Seri, I know you’ve been training them for years—” Aris dropped his hand and grabbed Seri’s wrist even before she moved. He knew how that tone would affect her. “—But we don’t yet know what we face,” Luap said, reasonably. “Better to give an early warning and let families pack up their goods on the chance they might have to come here.”
As if a heavy iron trapdoor fell on stone with a great clang, Aris felt something shift in his head: something final. From the expression on Luap’s face, he had felt something too, and all the mage-born crowding around had the same startled, wide-eyed look.
“What was that—?” began someone. Aris felt an icy certainty, and again saw it mirrored in the other faces. He knew what it was; he knew… and by the time they had reached the great hall, others knew it too.
There, each beneath the appropriate arch, stood two figures that Aris knew at once were rulers of their folk. More than their rich clothing, or their crowns, their bearing proclaimed their sovereignty. The elven king carried a naked sword in his hands; the blade glowed blue as flame. The dwarf king bore an axe with the same light. Both looked grim and angry. Between them, but not in Gird’s arch, stood a gnome all in gray, holding what seemed to be a book bound in slate and leather.
Luap went forward to meet them, as an aisle opened through his own people. Aris followed close behind him.
“Selamis Garamis’s son, you have broken your word with us; you have loosed that which we bound long ago, in spite of our warnings.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Aris felt a cold wave wash him from head to foot. He had not known Luap had made a contract with elves and dwarves—what contract? The elven king continued.
“We revoke our permission; we lay a ban upon you. The patterns of power you enjoyed will not longer suffer your use. You must scour the evil from this land, or be forever mured in this hall.”
“But what is it?” Luap asked, all in a rush. Then he took a long breath and said, more slowly, “My lords, I do not know what you mean. We do not yet know what the smoke portends; my people have gone to find out. We have waked no evil that I know of—”
“Then you are blind and deaf, mortal, and your pretensions of power all are lies! You were warned; you were told to beware your neighbors, to walk softly and keep watch: you have not. The very air stinks of evil; the rock tastes of it; the water; the trees wither in its blast—and you claim you do not see?”
“But then—if you revoke your permission—you want us to leave?”
The dwarf spoke. “Mortal, we could wish you had never been, save that that would be to walk with cursed Girtres Undoer. What you have done cannot be undone; it must be mended, if that be possible, by the one who broke the covenant. Thus we command, who have that right.”
“But—how? What do you mean?” Aris could hear the tremor in Luap’s voice, and smell the sweat that sudden fear brought out on him. He himself stood watchful, wondering.
The elf spoke again. “You are barred from the use of the patterns to make your way elsewhere, lest the evil you waked travel with you, and bring dishonor on the patterners. You are forbidden permission to live here, where you have polluted a holy place with evil; the living water and all green things will no longer do your bidding. You must fight free on the land’s skin, cleansing it from the evil you waked, or die here—your deaths payment for what evil you have done.”
Aris could not see Luap’s face. His voice, when he spoke, was low and halting. “You—cannot condemn all these for my failure, if indeed I failed. Not all are guilty; we have children, young people… Let them escape by the mageroad; I will stay and fight…”
“
A people abide the judgment of their prince,” the gnome said in a colorless voice. “If the prince errs, the people suffer: that is justice.”
“But it’s not fair!” Luap cried. “You have never told me the nature of this evil—I don’t even know what I did, or did not do, or what it is you speak of!”
In the silence that followed that outburst, Aris heard running footsteps coming toward the hall. One of the youngest of the militia ran in, gasping, bearing a broken knife in his hand. Without ceremony, he said, “This is it! This is what the Rosemage found!” Luap turned his back on the kings, and reached out a hand.
“Let me see that.” The young man held it out; Aris intercepted it as a strange, almost-forgotten smell tickled his nose. Luap scowled, but Aris brought the broken blade to his nose and sniffed.
“Iynisin,” he said. Luap recoiled, snatching back his hand. Aris turned to the kings. “This is iynisin blood—is that the evil you meant? Are iynisin the evil, or the servants of it?
The elvenking spoke. “You are right, mortal, in your surmise: that is iynisin blood, and they are now awake and powerful in this place, where once they had been banished and trapped in stone. Your prince paid no heed to our warnings; one by one he broke the terms of that agreement by which we gave permission, and used his magery in ways no mortal should. Now the evil has come upon you; now the pattern comes to its necessary end.” For a moment, compassion moved across his face like a gleam of light between clouds. “We take no joy in the suffering of those innocents among you, but we cannot risk evil escaping from hence to ravage wide lands. Escape may be possible for some of you—but not by magery. Those roads are closed until another of your people comes by land.”
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