by Eve Forward
Yet he had learned his lesson in the Fens. It was too easy to damage innocent people in a direct confrontation, especially with many under your command ... The centaur, a foolish but innocent soul, might have been slain in that battle, and the lovely red-haired Druid might have come to harm just as easily. He’d heard of Druids; they were not evil, just misguided. And he felt it would be well worth the effort to save the lady from the company of darkness and guide her around to the right way of thinking, particularly with regards to himself. He peered down at the map before him, as he rested in the inn where not too long ago the villains themselves had rested. A glass of white wine was at his elbow.
“They should reach the Plains fairly soon... and when they do, there will be quite a surprise waiting for them.”
He smiled, and looked at the map. Its faded colors seemed to glow with promise. He took out a sheaf of paper and a quill pen, and, after a moment’s thought, began to write.
A short while later, he folded up the letter, sealed it with a drop of wax from a nearby candle and marked it with his signet ring, then went in search of Towser, now much recovered from his temporary death. The resurrected mage would teleport the letter faster than any messenger could run ... and the trap would be set.
VIII
“I believe this is your stop,” said the captain of the Sea Arrow, somewhat gruffly. They had pulled into a large sandy-bottomed bay of clear blue water, with a small seaport arranged like a jumble of children’s blocks along the shore. This was Pila’mab, trading city of the land of Sei’cks. Cities in Sei’cks were few and far apart, settled around a few suitable ports and rivershores as centers of trade and commerce. Most of the population would have little to do with crowds and buildings, the congestion of even such small towns. They lived their lives as freeroaming hunters of the plains, living off the land and pursuing their ancient ways and traditions without any government more stringent than clan leaders, no buildings more permanent than leather tents. It was here that the Hero, or Heroine, Ki’kartha Springdance, had been raised and trained as a priestess to the goddess Mula, Lady of Healing and Fresh Water. Though originally a simple barbarian deity, through the faith and fame other disciple the goddess had become one of the more important and widely worshiped deities in the Six Lands. The barbarian people of the Plains of Sei’cks were a proud and independent race, still strong and fierce even though
Mizzamir’s post-Victory guidance had curbed their tendency to have long blood feuds with their neighbors over who stole whose Tantelopes and when. They allowed the presence of the towns to provide trade for goods they needed, such as wrought metal and Barigan whiskey. But strangers in their sacred lands were frowned upon, and the townsfolk, most of them from other Lands, did not venture far into the wilderness for any cause.
Kaylana had been awakened and had gotten the others up to prepare to disembark. A low, small boat was lowered to the surface of the sea to carry them to shore. They had been forced to sell the carriage and horses, as the captain had been sailing with a full cargo and had no room for livestock. So cramped was the journey that they almost had to leave Robin behind as well, but the minstrel’s pleading eyes were too much for Sam, and he joined Blackmail’s mute insistence that the centaur accompany them. In gratitude, Robin had played and sang throughout the three days’ voyage, and by the time land was sighted all the villains had learned more than they ever wanted to know about the glory of the Heroes, recorded in the greatest free verse of the minstrels of the Days of Light. Free verse canticles were the common form among minstrels, as opposed, Kaylana explained to them, to the style of bards. Their music wove through the fabric of time, and even the webs of reality, the notes and words able to draw magic from music. Robin had been first affronted, then curious, and pressed to hear more about the long-extinct bards, but Kaylana just shook her head sadly and would say no more.
They made the shore safely, pulled the boat up onto the sands, and wandered up the beach and through the small town. They could not dally here, the community was too small, and they were too conspicuous. They would have to leave at once and get into the wilderness before too much attention was paid to them. A few hills, the remnants of old dunes and buried fishing settlements before the dawn of history, slowly rolled away under their feet and hooves, until at last the countryside opened out like a huge green-gold ocean, under a high dome of clear blue sky. They had entered the Plains of Sei’cks.
“Och, ‘tis as vast as me grandpa always did say,” com mented Arcie. The others silently agreed.
“We’d better stick to nocturnal travel,” suggested Sam. “Everything is too easily visible here in daylight, and at night campfires would be seen clearly.”
Valerie adjusted her hood against the bright sun. “Be sides which, it’s hot out here.” Blackmail, in his un removable dark armor, nodded silent agreement.
“We shall take a rest for the day, then,” decided Kaylana. “And head on when evening falls. Let us see if we can find a defensible position.”
“Ye dinna think Fenwick and his lot be after us yet, do ye?” asked Arcie worriedly. “He canna possibly ken where we be after ... we scarce ken ourselves!”
“That’s a good point,” agreed Sam. “We’d better de cide that before we go further.”
“Let us see of we can find a suitable place to make camp,” decided Kaylana, “and there we shall discuss the matter.”
They moved off over the dunes, parallel to the sea, until they finally reached the last one, a tall hill of waving grass. Behind them, the dunes rolled down to the distant smudge of the town and the sea beyond, and ahead, the prairies stretched, flat and sunlit, a green-gold plain ex tending unbroken to the horizon.
“This are a fair enough place,” said Arcie, looking about. “Ye can spy just about all ye can spy from this great height, and with a fine sea breeze as well.”
“But then, a molehill’s a pretty great height to you, Arcie,” Sam joked; the Barigan glowered up from his minus-five feet.
“Does the altitude addle yer brain, laddie, or were ye born a blatherin’ nitwit?”
“Here, then,” decided Kaylana, interrupting the ensu ing argument. The rest agreed, and began setting up camp. As they were doing a quick search of the area to make sure there were no hostile creatures lurking nearby, Sam noticed great quantities of wildflowers hidden in the tall grasses. All shapes and colors, with thin stems and variously shaped leaves. Wildflowers were becoming more and more common all over the Six Lands this autumn, but they seemed extra-plentiful here. Looking at them, he said absentmindedly, “I’ll take first watch.”
“Spifiywell, then,” agreed Arcie. The company settled down to rest for the remainder of the day. The sun was hot, and Valerie had appropriated the only small patch of shade-formed by a lump in the hillside. Her raven hopped about in the grass, snapping up crickets. Blackmail sat leaning against the back of the hill; Arcie flopped down in a patch of soft grass and put his hat over his face and was soon snoring like a bullfrog. Kaylana had removed her heavy outer robe and woven cord armor and lay curled up on top of them wearing her simple homespun tunic and leggings, one hand firmly gripping her staff. Robin stayed awake, lying with his long legs underneath him as he watched Sam. The assassin appeared to be picking flowers.
“I’m afraid I am still not used to this night marching,” the centaur ventured apologetically after a moment.
Sam looked up, his fingers holding a cluster of pale pink blooms. “Don’t worry about it... you’re doing fine. It just takes practice. Pass me that blue one there, will you?” Sam asked, waving a hand vaguely at a section of flower-covered hill.
“Blue?” Robin asked, looking at the ground.
“Yes, that one, the blue one,” Sam replied impatiently.
Robin looked puzzled, until Sam finally reached over and plucked the forget-me-not. “See? This one.”
“Oh,” said Robin, ears twitching. “I’m sorry, I don’t know much about flowers. So that’s what you call a Blue, is it
? We call them Never-Forget-Me’s in the Commots.”
“Urn ...” Sam looked thoughtfully at the centaur.
“What color does it look like to you?”
“Color? It’s gray, of course. About the same shade as that patch of grass there, next to those orange and yellow flowers with red tips.”
“Ah, yes, of course ...” Sam nodded and filed the bit of information away. He can’t see either green or blue ... and doesn’t even know the names of the colors, so it must be a common centaur trait. He braided a few stems together, whistling softly through his teeth. Robin sat watching, nervously grooming a few burrs out of his long silky tail.
“This ... quest of yours,” he said after a moment. “Is it really true what you told me? That the world’s going to be destroyed?”
“That’s what I’ve been told,” Sam replied. He admitted to himself that, to someone not attuned to life on the dark side, the world seemed beautiful, happy, more full of life and light than it had ever been ... he knew the young centaur couldn’t sense the sickliness of it, the boredom, the inertia that flowed over everything.
“Who told you all this?” Robin asked at length. Sam smiled wryly.
“Well, not normal sources of influence to send me halfway around the Six Lands ... but Kaylana and Valerie both believe it.”
A flash of Robin’s centaur upbringing showed itself.
“Women? You come all this way on the advice of women?” he said incredulously. The advice of mares and fillies was generally held in low regard in his society. Sam pulled up a red shaggy flower and looked at him sternly.
“Well, centaur, I like to think I’m as much of a man as the next fellow ...” They both looked at the flower in Sam’s hand. Sam coughed, and threw it away, continuing hurriedly, “but what they say makes sense. You don’t need to go to a wise man on a mountain to see things aren’t right. I wouldn’t believe it if you or Arcie or ha! even the knight told me something like that ... but I don’t think Kaylana or even Valerie is lying about this.”
Sam scooped up his collection of wildflowers and sat down on a tussock. “I trust them. Arcie trusts something ... or maybe he’s just along for the ride. I don’t know why Blackmail is with us. And as for you,” Sam shrugged, “if you aren’t sleepy, you can earn your keep and play a soothing tune to calm my hurting heart. Let me hear what you have so far about us,” he suggested.
Robin sighed, took out his harp, and began tuning it.
“There isn’t very much,” he began. “We’ve been kind of busy...”
“Yes,” said Sam with a smile. “Those of us that have stayed awake when we were busy, at any rate.”
Robin blushed, his ears flipping backwards and forwards in consternation. “Just because I don’t lust for blood and violence ...” he began crossly. Sam waved a hand airily.
“Don’t get defensive, Robin. I understand. You’re young yet, if I’m any judge of centaurs. Play a song, anything you like, provided it doesn’t wake up the others.”
Sam leaned back and began fooling with his flower collection.
Robin tuned his harp in silence. Sam was apparently weaving the flowers together, whistling softly between his teeth as his nimble fingers worked the thin stems. The profusion of blooms triggered a memory in Robin, and he ran his fingers down his harp, then began an old song.
Summer’s blooms blow into winter once more, Speaking of things that have gone long before.
Maybe once when our childhood was young, we were free.
But now we are moved into ways we can’t see.
He fumbled for the next line, how did it go? Caught in ... what? As his fingers began the tune again, he was startled to hear another voice come in with the words.
Caught up in a game of daring and chance, Moving in step though we don’t know the dance.
What now is a slave, a crime, or a war?
What does a death that was not done before?
Sam sang with a soft, clear voice that added a bittersweet sound to the music, giving the ancient, cynical
words a strange poignancy. Robin kept silent but continued to play. Even as the assassin’s voice drifted away, the next verse was begun by a beautiful voice that made both assassin and minstrel look up in surprise. Kaylana was sitting up, eyes closed, holding her staff. Her voice was changed, different, ringing with an ancient magic and music long lost.
We are but the flashes of sun on the sea, Nothing will change or all we may be, Heroes and gods may far wander their ways, But lost and forgotten shall we end our days.
Kaylana finished the song and looked at them, her eyes and voice returning to normal. “That, minstrel,” she said softly, “is similar to how the old bards used to sing, long ago. They went the way of my ancestors.”
“Bards?” spoke Robin. “Tell me more?”
“Later, centaur. I suggest you sleep now. I shall take the next watch in about an hour, assassin,” she added to Sam.
Kaylana gave Robin a smile, and the centaur nodded.
He was tired. He sighed, packed his harp away, and shifted to a softer part of the grass to lie at a comfortable angle against the slope of the hill. Kaylana drifted back to sleep, until Sam woke her up about an hour later.
She woke with a start, feeling something on her hair.
She shook her head, and a wreath made of tiny flowers woven together by their stems fell into her lap: She looked up sternly to see Sam lying a ways off, watching her. He’d had to take off his tunic because of the heat, and his black silk shirt was open to reveal a muscular chest, skin that would have been smooth if not for the network of scars that crisscrossed it from a thousand old wounds. A small birthmark, like a star with thin rays, showed on his left shoulder.
“Your watch, I believe,” he said softly.
Kaylana looked at the flower wreath and picked it up. “Yes. Fine weaving, by the way. It is very pretty.” The assassin had certainly got a wide range of rare flowers worked together. Some of them, she was surprised to note, even seemed to be ... She tucked it into her cordbelt.
“Thank you,” replied the gentle voice. “But it is not as pretty as you.”
Without moving a muscle, Kaylana debated. Was that a remark worth hitting him again for? Or was it just an innocent bit of chat he probably was regretting even now? Innuendo translation wasn’t one of her strongest skills... she decided, in order to keep the peace, to ignore it. She stood and dusted off her clothes. “Sleep well, assassin. We have a long journey ahead tonight.”
Sam sighed, and stretched like a sleek black cat. “True enough. Wake Arcie up when you’re tired. He loves all this adventuring stuff.” The assassin rolled over and was soon drifting into slumber. Kaylana watched, and thought.
When she woke Arcie, the Barigan peered out from under his hat, then got up. Noticing the wreath hanging from Kaylana’s belt, he swatted at it.
“Here! What’s this then?” he asked. Kaylana sat down.
“It is a wreath that Sam made,” she explained. The cutpurse looked at the wreath, then at Kaylana, then his face split in a wide leer.
“Oho, he did, did he? Aye, I might have been guessing! All the gossip in Bistort says how fair skilled he is with his hands.” Arcie yelped as a dirt-clod struck him in the middle of the back. Sam was awake, eyes open and glaring. Arcie rubbed his back, still smirking. “Aye, yon’s the man as never misses ... heard of that before too! Izzit pretty-pansy fwuppy flowers, Sam? Ouch!” he cried again, as a hail of dirt-clods pelted him. Laughing, he hid behind the Druid, forcing the fuming assassin to hold fire and with a final glare curl up again with his back to the party. Kaylana shook her head in puzzlement.
“It is your watch, Arcie,” she informed the Barigan.
“Aye, well enough ... Be seeing ye in the gloaming, then,” he said with a grin.
When evening fell, they consumed a quick breakfast and consulted Valerie’s notes.
Walk the line twixt Mula’s sign, And the path her tears define.
Here fate will ta
ke you like a wave The hardest Test of all to brave.
“The blasted riddles be harder than yer Tests,” complained Arcie, scratching his head.
“There are few landmarks in this wild land,” commented Kaylana. “The gods, in these puzzles, have always referred either to landmarks or historical events.”
“So it must be a historical event?” hazarded Sam. “I’m afraid I don’t know much history ...”
“Well, that’s what the minstrel is for,” said Valerie, with an evil smile. “It’s about time the four-legged fumble started earning his keep.”
“I-I-I,” stammered Robin, his mind racing. He hadn’t yet had time to report the villains’ new location to Mizzamir and was almost afraid to ... the Arch-Mage was probably very upset by all the chaos the evildoers had wrought in his own home. Now it seemed he might have to aid them still further, in order to save his mission and possibly his life.
“That’s not a bad idea, Valerie... Robin lad, have you any ballads of Mula’s tears or the suchlike?” Arcie looked up at him from where he sat on a hillock. Blackmail sat nearby, his dark brooding presence seeming larger by the dim shadows of night.
“No ...” he said miserably, “I can’t think of any really good ones ... religion wasn’t one of my main fields of study ...” That at least was true.
“However,” Kaylana put in, “we still sit here discussing this within dim sight of civilized land. It would be wise, I feel, to move farther inland, away from those who might pursue us.”
“I suppose,” agreed Valerie. “If the Test is anywhere on Sei’cks it is probably inland ... or at least not here.”
So, the renegades set out, with the objective of putting some distance between them and the potential enemy.
The moon hung high in a wide clear sky, and the prairie was full of sounds.
Above them, clearly visible here with no clouds or city lights to dim or obscure, the stars shone brilliantly. The long veil-like river of stars and shining dust stretched overhead from west to east. The shining band, that Sam and Arcie knew as the Scarf, Valerie would have called Moonblood. Kaylana’s ancestors had named it Fors Mor, the Great Waterfall, and Robin’s childhood teachings marked it as Selkin’s Tail. None of them knew what Ki’kartha believed: the shimmering band was formed from the free-flowing tears of the Goddess of Healing and Fresh Water at the creation of the world, when she wept for the sorrows of pain and wars to come.