Rowan looked down at his hands, fiddling with the flute he carried everywhere. “I won’t say that hadn’t occurred to me,” he said. “But it’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
He paused, as though waiting for Ash to prompt him with a question. Ash kept silent. Rowan sighed. “We’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve been gone two years,” Ash said. “You know where Turvite is. You could have visited.”
“We did,” Rowan said. “We went back this winter past, but you were gone, and Doronit wouldn’t answer any of our questions. If it wasn’t for a man named Aelred, we wouldn’t have known if you were dead or alive. He told us you’d left with a woman named Martine.”
It was a question.
“Yes,” Ash said. What could he say? Tell the whole story — Doronit’s use of him, the attack on Martine’s life, his decision to reject everything Doronit stood for? That was past, and no sense going over it. “She’s Elva’s mother. Little Ash’s grandmother. That’s how I met Elva and Mabry.”
At the word “grandmother,” Rowan had relaxed, no doubt imagining some white-haired old dodderer instead of the brazen seducer he had feared. Ash smiled, thinking of Martine’s calm beauty and the times he had forced himself not to desire her.
“When you leave here,” Rowan said quietly, “to sing the songs… do you want me to come with you?”
Astonishment kept Ash silent. This was one thing that had never occurred to him. He had imagined, when he first felt the power in his casting stones, joining his parents back on the Road. But he had never imagined his father joining him. He didn’t know what to say.
“Will I need you, to sing them?” he asked finally.
Rowan went very still, and then shook his head. “I doubt it.”
“Well, then,” Ash went on, suddenly sure. “I’ll be going into the middle of this fight. Better for you and Mam to be a long way off. Where I don’t have to worry about you.”
Rowan looked rueful. “Where you don’t have to safeguard us?” he asked. “No, don’t answer. You’re right. You have more to concern you than us, now, and that’s as it should be.”
Ash wasn’t sure if he’d offended his father or not. He never did anything right, it seemed.
“Your mother wanted you to go to Doronit. She said it would be the making of you. I wasn’t so sure, but she was right.” As usual, Ash thought. You always think she’s right. “From what you’re not saying, it may have been unpleasant,” Rowan added, “but it’s made you grow up.”
That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Ash wanted to shout at him. Why look so sad?
Rowan stood up and clapped him on the shoulder, then started to undress, getting ready to join the others in the caves. He hesitated, his eyes unreadable in the firelight. “Did you find anyone to love, since you’ve been gone?” he asked.
Ash thought of Doronit, Martine, Elva, Bramble… “No,” he said. “Other things have concerned me.”
He hadn’t intended it as a rebuke, but his father stiffened.
“It’s a hard road, when the gods hold the reins,” Rowan said. “Take care of yourself.” Then he walked into the cave, disappearing behind the entrance fire like a spirit.
Ash sat for a while, staring into the narrow sky above the clearing, and wondering why he felt both loved and lonely at the same time.
Bramble
GRADUALLY THEY APPROACHED the mountains and their path grew more difficult, over ridges and through steep valleys, down into chasms and up the other side, climbing with fingertips and toes. Halfway up a cliff face, barely hanging on over a sheer drop, they looked at each other and laughed, united in joy.
Then the hunter led her to an oak tree and said, “Take a step forward.”
When she did so, it was winter. The air bit at her cheeks and hands.
“You are in your moment, now,” the hunter said. “Your place is over there.”
It pointed west of south. Bramble’s mouth went dry. She had stopped thinking days ago; had relaxed into the rhythm of walking and climbing and hunting. Acton had retreated in her mind; now her need to make a decision surged forward. Her breathing quickened, and that was a mistake, because the hunter’s hand went to its knife in anticipation.
“Are you afraid?” it said.
“Look,” Bramble said, finally exasperated, “I’m not going to be afraid of you, all right? Just accept it.”
It smiled, painfully. “Until I kill you, I am in your world,” it said. “Bound to share your time. Your death will free me. Return me to what I was.”
“Fine. Later. I’ll try to be afraid of you later, after all this is over, and then you can kill me.” It nodded, seriously, as though satisfied, and she thought wryly that she might regret that promise. “Can you take me further back?” she asked. “Can you take me back another five years?” If she warned them, then, of what was going to happen, surely she could divert history’s path?
But the hunter shook its head. “The Forest told me to bring you here. Nowhere else. No other time.” It looked at her suspiciously. “Why do you want more of the Forest’s time?”
“So I can change things,” she said. “Make them better.”
The hunter took a step back in shock. “No, no, no. Do you not understand? These are places of remembrance. They are not to be changed. Never. Memory is sacred.”
“But —”
It drew its knife. “I would kill you uncleansed first,” it said, “and die.”
“Why?”
It searched for words, its face troubled, like a child who had been asked too hard a question. “Time is knotted together with memory. With the places of remembrance. Make a change, and the knots come undone altogether. Not only the future unties. The past, too.”
Its voice was earnest, and she knew it told the truth. Her shoulders sagged. She might have known it wouldn’t be possible. Over and over the gods had put her in a place where if only she had changed things, the future would have been better, and over and over they had prevented her from acting. She supposed it was time to accept it. Her role was to watch, and to retrieve. To witness, and to remember. Just like the hunter.
It was watching her with concern, an expression she had never seen before on its face.
“You don’t want to kill me,” she said, wonderingly.
It flinched and looked away, then lifted its chin and stared her in the eyes. “You are too like one of us,” it said. “Fearless and joyful. But you are still my prey, and one day you will fear, and I will be there and claim my kill, and then I will be a true hunter once again. One who has not let the prey escape.”
She nodded. “That will be a good death,” she said. “I forgive you for it, and release you from reparation.”
The hunter paled. “What is it that you have done?”
Bramble smiled and touched its shoulder, just once, lightly. “It is how we cleanse each other of killing.”
That troubled it again. It stared at her, golden eyes unblinking, like a hawk’s. “I do not know if that is a good thing or a curse,” it said.
She didn’t know either, so she shrugged and grinned. “That’s a risk you’ll have to take, then,” she said, and it caught her gaiety and chuckled, suddenly full of energy.
“Come,” it said. “This way.”
She followed it, expecting another long trek, but within a few minutes they were standing at the edge of the woodland, looking down on Wili’s steading. It was very cold and her breath — but only hers — steamed in the air. The view she had of the steading was very much like the view Red had had. Startled by the thought, she looked around quickly and saw him, concealed from the steading by a large tree but clearly visible from their vantage.
She took a step forward into the shelter of a juniper tree so that he would not be able to see her. The hunter was already concealed there. She watched Red closely. He was a big man, shambling, looking uneasy and excited. He looked subtly different from seeing him with Baluch’s eyes, although she wasn’t exactly sure
how. She saw him more clearly, saw the details of his clothes, the shape of his head. Perhaps it was just the difference between a woman’s gaze and a man’s, or perhaps Baluch’s attention was so often on the music inside his head that he noticed little.
She had watched Red, wondering, for too long. With a shock she heard the puffing breath of a horse trudging through snow behind her. She wheeled around, and there he was.
Through her own eyes Acton seemed bigger than ever, particularly on the small horse. Tall, so broad across the shoulders that he reminded her of a blacksmith. His hair was uncovered and the new beard lit his chin with gold sparks in the winter sunshine. It was different, profoundly different, from seeing him through Baluch. Emotions roiled through her and she couldn’t separate them. She had hated him for so long, and then learned not to hate him, and then to hate him again. He had killed so many people… But here she was, standing in the past, and seeing him in the flesh made it real to her that he came from this time, as she did from hers, and he carried its strengths and weaknesses as his own. He was a killer because he had been trained to be, encouraged to be by everyone he respected. What excuse did she have? At least he tempered his killing with generosity and kindness and a great, encompassing enjoyment of life.
Her heart thumped wildly. He was so big. She had seen him, most often, through the eyes of a man as tall as he was, almost as strong. In her own body she was sharply aware of how much larger he was, how male.
As he came abreast of her, some instinct made him glance over. She couldn’t move. The gods would have to witness for her that she was frozen in shock. She was so used to being an unseen observer that it just hadn’t occurred to her that he could see her now. Surely this was tampering with memory; with history? Would all the past and future come unraveling around them because she had made a stupid mistake?
Then he smiled at her, that crooked sideways smile he used for courting, and she realized that she had seen this happen before, through Red’s eyes — that she was already a part of this time, this history. Relief hit her, but it wasn’t relief that made her smile back. It was him. His glance seemed to invite her to share joy in the day, the trees, the crispness of the air. It was a look full of celebration and invitation, and she could not resist it. Any more than any other woman ever resisted it, she scolded herself, and schooled her face into composure. But he had seen that first, irrepressible reaction, and he winked at her.
She wanted to pull him down from the horse and shake some sense into him; to take him by those broad shoulders and drag him away from the path he was riding; to drag him to safety. He was so reckless! To go riding off to who knew where without even Baluch at his back. She was reckless herself, and she understood why he took risks; had gloried in them with him. But this time, just this time, she desperately wanted him to be careful… If only he had been careful!
He smiled wider at the frown on her face and raised a hand in farewell, then rode on. There was something in the gesture that implied, “I’ll see you some other time.” The movement cut to her heart and reminded her where he was riding to. She regretted frowning. The last woman’s face he saw should have smiled at him.
“Are you done?” the hunter asked.
Bramble watched Acton ride into the apron of trees; watched Red leave his position and follow; and watched them both disappear behind evergreen. She thought of the burial ceremonies of her youth: the pine sprigs placed between the fingers, the Wooding Voice saying, “In your hands is evergreen; may our memories of you be evergreen.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m done.”
“I must touch you,” the hunter said. She realized that it wanted her to know that it wasn’t attacking her and understood that it must rarely touch. She reached out a hand, and it took it, its palm dry and rough, like a dog’s paw. They had been through the shift in time often enough for her to know what to do: she took a step.
Instantly the world shifted and tilted around her. The earth under her feet moved; instead of a slope, she was standing on level ground. Trees vanished. Buildings appeared. Men, turning, shouting, “Ghosts! The ghosts have come!” They raised weapons to their shoulders and one ran in and swung straight at Bramble.
“No!” the hunter cried. It leapt in front of her and the weapon — a pickaxe, the end wickedly sharp — pierced its body. It fell.
“Stop!” Bramble yelled, pushing and shoving the man away. She didn’t even have time to find her knife. She was defenseless. But the attackers jumped back, as though she had stung them.
“They’re talking! They’re talking! Ghosts don’t talk!” The men started to babble, the one with the pickaxe looking sick. He sank to his knees, the handle loose in his grasp.
“Gods of cave and dark,” he whispered. “I’ve killed him.”
The hunter was spouting blood from the big vein under the heart. Nothing could stop it, Bramble knew. Except perhaps enchantment, or the power of the Forest. She looked around wildly, but there were no trees here. They were in a place of gray stone and nothing else: stone buildings, flagstones, a great gash cut into the side of the hill. A mine. That’s why the men had the pickaxes ready. They weren’t an army, just men coming home from a shift in the pit.
Bramble gathered up the hunter, supporting its head. “I thought you lived forever,” she whispered.
“In the Forest. As a true hunter. Me, neither, now,” it gasped. It looked at the man who had killed it. “I fear,” it said. “You must taste the fear and be cleansed.” It dipped one finger in its own blood and held it out to the miner, who stared at it in confusion.
“That’s not how we do it,” Bramble said.
“No… I remember.” The hunter’s words were coming harder now, and weaker. It coughed; there was blood on its lips. “I remember… Forgive. I forgive . . .” Its head drooped but it turned its face to the miner. Its voice was hardly audible. “I forgive and… and release from reparation.”
Bramble was crying. The tears she had held back all these weeks in case they had made her seem afraid were pouring down her cheeks and dropping onto its face, its hawk-feathered hair, its body.
“Why did you save me?” she said.
“You are my prey.” Its voice became stronger for that one sentence, then faded away. “No one but me should kill you.”
“In our next life,” she said, trying not to laugh, because surely there was nothing to laugh at. “I promise. In our next life you can kill me.”
“Too late,” it said, smiling with an echo of its old joy. The slitted pupil in the hawk eyes narrowed and disappeared until the eye was entirely golden. Then its flesh grew insubstantial in her hold and vanished away like a water sprite pulled out of water. The wind blew away only a mist, a scent of pines, a whisper. Bramble bowed her head over her empty hands and wept.
Leof
LEOF TURNED ARROW to the road and trotted sedately into Bonhill like any normal traveler. It wasn’t a large village, but it had an inn. He called up the ostler and handed Arrow over to her with strict instructions about water, feed and grooming. Before he let her be led away he patted her and told her how marvelous she was. She knew it — tired as she was, she tossed her head and flirted with him.
Then he found the innkeeper and ordered a message be sent to… He hesitated for a moment. The enchanter had moved in a serpentine route. Although finding him had taken many hard riding hours, they were not that far from Carlion. Sendat was further, but he was sure that Thegan would not want to take the garrison out of Carlion. Two messages, then, one to Sendat and one to Thegan. While the best horses the inn had — sturdy little cobs which usually pulled the wagon — were being saddled, he wrote quick notes to Thegan and Sorn.
This was the first time he had written to her, and he reflected that he should take a lesson from the circumstances — the only communication between them should be like this, an officer’s note to the warlord’s wife. He signed it formally: “Thy willing servant, Leof son of E
ric.” He wrote with truth that he would be her servant, if nothing else.
Sendat was a day’s march away, and they couldn’t wait for the foot soldiers to catch up. He asked her to send the mounted troops, and to double each trooper with a pikeman. Hard on the horses, but it wouldn’t be a long campaign and the roads were good.
Thegan had put a lot of silver into repairing roads when he first came to power in Central Domain, as he had done in Cliff Domain, and for the same reason. The people thought it was to improve trade and connection between towns, but Leof knew it was in preparation for moments like this, when he needed to move large numbers of men quickly.
Once he had sent the messages and checked on Arrow, he grabbed a piece of cold roast chicken from the flustered cook in the kitchen and went out the back way, taking a threaded, concealed path to where he had seen the wraiths hover.
Farmland wasn’t ideal for stalking, but Leof had been well trained in scouting and by the time he had finished the chicken he had managed to worm his way to the side of the hill near the enchanter. He kept well back, away from the circle the wind wraiths were endlessly tracing above the rise.
He had been half-expecting Thegan to be right: to see the white-haired man from the pool. In any event, he was expecting such a powerful enchanter to be old. Perhaps very old. But the man who was digging and sorting out the bones he unearthed was around the same age as Leof: twenty-five, twenty-eight, no older than thirty.
Leof was tempted to simply kill him before he could raise more ghosts. He didn’t look like a warrior — he was tall but had no muscle, and his mannerisms were nervous. Leof suspected that confronted unexpectedly with a sword, the enchanter would have no defense.
Two things stopped him. If he failed — if the enchanter had protective spells of some kind, or if the wind wraiths protected him — Thegan would have lost any chance of surprise. And the other thing: he just didn’t know enough about the spell on the ghosts. Maybe the enchanter kept them under some kind of control, and if that control disappeared… Leof shuddered at the thought of the Carlion ghosts let loose on the rest of the Domains.
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