by Jim Grimsley
“No.” She climbed into the cart and lifted the reins. The horse stopped drinking as if she had commanded him without my hearing. “But I’ll see you again.” At last she smiled, quite coyly. “Unless you tell anybody you saw me. Then I won’t. And you’ll never know why you’ve come.”
I bit my lip. No, I would not beg her; in fact I would not make a sound. After a heartbeat I bowed my head, and she received the forced courtesy graciously. She turned her handsome face away, swatted the horse on the rump with the reins and the cart heaved down the path.
The thought of following her never occurred to me. I doubt Nixva would have allowed it. While the woman had been talking and watering her horse Nixva stood calmly, never impatient, never stamping his feet as he usually did when he wanted to be running. He listened to the woman's voice and watched her. The wonder was not simply that she had said his name; he had also recognized her.
I rode home with that to think about. As usual I left Nixva with the groom and hurried to Mordwen’s tent where I found the Seer bent over the suuren book, studying the listings he had already entered, his brows furrowed together, a veritable ridge of hair. He gestured me to sit on a cushion without greeting me by as much as a word. He asked what I had seen. I told him about the road and the well. About the woman I said nothing. He entered the road by its proper name; I never paid the least attention to it and consequently cannot remember it now. He said, “This makes no sense to me. I don’t remember a well. I almost wish we had not brought back the ride, it troubles me so much.”
I asked him why but he would not tell me. Soon he sent me to Kraele for my lesson in High Speech.
6
One afternoon, when Mordwen Illythin had closed the suuren book, I asked him to tell me about his dream, the one that had brought me to Arthen.
We were seated on cushions under an awning in the clearing behind his tent. Dappled light crossed our faces. He heard my question and quietly turned to the householder, asking for tea. “Do you know anything about true-dreaming?”
“No. In the stories I’ve heard, you only get what happened afterward, when the dream came true.”
“These days there are only a few true-dreamers left, as far as we know — one in Cordyssa, one in Drii, some old codgers in the mountains. No one in the south.”
“Is a true-dreamer the same as a Seer?”
“Not precisely. A Seer is a harder thing to be. A true-dreamer dreams in sleep, when the mind is free to unlock itself, when the sleeper learns what has been in the hidden parts of his knowledge. A Seer can be overcome by the vision even while waking. This is the way it is with me. Or the way it was.”
The householder returned with tea and sweetbreads. Mordwen sipped his tea in silence, holding the delicate cup carefully poised. “Your dream came to me in the shrine, in the afternoon. The kyyvi was sick with fever and the physicians were baffled; they had told me the girl was likely to die, but they didn’t know exactly what she was dying of. I knelt to pray for her life but when I was on my knees, sight left me. In place of the altar I saw your farm, Jessex. I was hovering in the air above your house and a voice was telling me your name and your lineage, the fact that you would be kyyvi, the test by which you could be known, other signs. This was not the only dream I dreamed, either. Later I foresaw that you would meet Kirith Kirin in Cunuduerum. I told that part only to him.”
He looked as if he had more to say, but suddenly became silent. He was watching me in a new way. “In my dream I was told this: ‘Here is the youth who is awaited, who will return light toImith Imril, who will sing by the water’. Imith Imril is the name for the Court of the Fountain in Cunuduerum, where you met Kirith Kirin. That’s the place YY stood when she made Arthen and the first world. There you sang by the water.”
Here is the youth who is awaited, who will return light to Imith Imril, who will sing by the water.
He locked the suuren book into a casket — he had been holding it in his lap during this conversation, hands gripping it like an anchor. He gathered his cloak about him and stood. “You’ll be late for your archery drill if you don’t hurry. Theduril won’t like that.”
He bid me good-day and went inside his tent.
7
Kirith Kirin returned to camp early one morning, riding into the clearing before the shrine tent just as celebrants were arriving for the morning ceremony. I was waiting for the muuren to change when I heard horses. I had no time to wonder at the sound, however, since the stone quickly clouded through, as it does when sunlight is gathering at the horizon, and I took my place before the altar, keeping my eyes on the ground lest I should lose my concentration. The mind must be in the proper place in order for the ceremony to please YY-Mother.
When I finished singing I carried the lamp to the rear chamber and disassembled it quickly, cleaning it with practiced movements. When its components were locked safely inside the lamp box, I hurried through the before-shrine and clearing.
Nixva was awaiting me, Thruil standing beside him, stroking his velvet nose. Other horses were also waiting with him, the Keikin being one, ornate compared to his plainly attired son — Kirith Kirin had a jeweled bridle and a saddle trimmed with silver, while I rode with nothing but a blanket, a flat-style saddle and a leather bridle. Kirith Kirin was beside Thruil, and Imral was just behind him. Kirith Kirin watched me intently.
His return had caused a stir one could feel in the air like the charge that follows lightning. I could hear folks whispering about the Cordyssan messenger. But I paid little attention, taking the reins from Thruil, touching Nixva along his muzzle, mounting.
“Good morning Jessex. Have a peaceful ride.”
Nixva wheeled and we rode away, like any other morning.
Chapter 5: ILLYN WATER
1
Clouds boiled and wind blasted onto the treetops, piercing my thin clothing with a cold like the dead of winter. Storms foretold themselves. Nixva ran as if a demon were chasing him beneath the darkening lower branches of trees. I huddled against his back, losing the first edge of joy and feeling a sharper companion take its place, a metallic taste of fear, a prickle along my scalp.
Spring storms are often violent in the north country, where high, sharp mountains surround the Fenax, where the cold wind can sweep down by accident or by design, boiling the warmer air to madness, wringing storm on storm out of the sky.
I saw lightning crashing on the horizon and heard the echo of thunder. Fine rain began to fall. I sealed the seams of my coat and fastened the throat clasp. I considered turning Nixva back to camp since there was no ceremonially-prescribed time limit for the suuren ride. But I had seen no luck yet. Could I tell Mordwen I had become frightened by the fringes of a storm and forced Nixva back to camp against his will? — obviously against his will, since he was galloping faster and faster toward the storm’s full force.
I pressed my face into Nixva’s damp mane and felt his powerful striding toward the center of the wind, a jarring through my whole frame, my flesh melding to the horse. We broke momentarily clear of the trees, riding through an open clearing, and suddenly I realized we were in Raelonyii again, the country of iron-colored trees. Nixva had brought us to the field where the stone shrine had stood unmolested since the days of Cunavastar. The rain splattered hard on my shoulders and lightning crashed from the sky. The wind was stronger than any I could remember, bearing down on me with a weight I could hardly withstand. Light flashed around me, and I remember Nixva rearing, and the wind dashing me from his back, and terror. I was falling, for a long time, it seemed.
Arms caught me at the last moment. I gazed up into a woman’s face, round and ruddy, dark eyes and heavy lashes. She watched me impassively, as if I were a cat. I heard Nixva neighing joyously. My head struck something hard. Darkness engulfed me, the storm vanished, and I lay dreaming in a stranger’s embrace.
2
In the haze that followed I was aware only of my breathing. The storm howled yet I was untouched by wind and rain, unable to move. Now and then
I felt a vague touch along my skin, the brushing of a hand or a wind along my face. Once I heard voices, distant and detached. “How are we doing, sisters?” asked one voice.
“All right,” said another. “Vissyn is steering pretty well for a change.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said a third voice, presumably Vissyn, a cheerful contralto with a feeling of depth. “I’ve never had a mishap at this altitude. It’s only lower down I have trouble.”
“I would hate to contradict you with facts,” said the second voice, mellow and resonant.
“Pay attention to the child,” snapped the first voice.
“He’s quite all right,” said the second, “I have him in a trance deep enough for a fourth-level novice.”
“Oh do you,” said the first. “Maybe you should take another look at your trance-work, sister.”
“My heavens, he’s hearing every word we say,” said Vissyn.
“But that can’t be,” said the second voice, “I set the trance on him myself.”
“I saw you,” said Vissyn.
“You don’t suppose he could have fought it off?”
“He is thought to be talented,” said the first voice, and fingers brushed the lids of my eyes, and darkness returned.
Again, for an indeterminable time, I knew only darkness, quiet and a surrounding chill that made my bones ache. No more voices sounded in my ear, though now and then as I struggled within whatever bound me, I could feel the wisp of touch, catch a glimpse of a face, or — oddly — the jagged peak of a steel-colored mountain, crowned with shining snow. Fragments of the conversation I heard floated in and out of my consciousness. I understood I was moving. I understood there were three voices accompanying me, three women. I remembered my last moments of consciousness in Hyvurgren Field, where Nixva had reared up to avoid a flash of lightning.
Three women on horseback, richly dressed ...
One woman in a cart, stopping along the forest road to water her poor thin horse ...
I know why you have been brought to the Woodland
Again the brushing of fingers across my lids and unearthly singing, a soothing sound, words I could nearly understand like a pulse in my brain, lulling me into unconsciousness, into the place where no thought could find me.
So deeply was I entranced this time that I could not sense at what moment the traveling ceased. Time passed without my awareness of it. I thought vaguely of the lamps, dark in their cases, of the altar, of Kraele waiting with my lesson books and Theduril cursing me in front of the other archer-apprentices. Days and days might have passed since the flash of lightning in the holy field. When I swam upward into fuller awareness I knew I was stationary, I could feel a vast house over me and caverns beneath me, an awful cold penetrating my bones like stories of the cold at the roots of mountains. I felt as if I had become quite small. For a long time I tried to keep my mind blank, to keep awareness at arm’s length, for fear I should feel the fingers on my eyelids yet again and be plunged downward into darkness for another interim. But more time passed and no touch came. Somnolence ebbed. I began to wonder where I was, to reason as to what had brought me here, to fear the future.
When I had lain still for what seemed endless days, with the cold enduring, numbing every part of me, my mind refusing sleep and clinging stubbornly to awareness, a voice from nowhere resounded in the darkness. While the voice lasted, I was pierced with the sweetest warmth I had ever known. “Whose child is this, sleeping in the darkness?” someone asked.
Fear stole my voice for a moment, but at last I said, “The child you stole from Nixva’s back, in the holy field in Arthen. Which one are you?”
“No child-stealer,” the voice said — a feminine, deep, velvety voice, throbbing like a purring cat — “and what is Nixva’s back to me?”
“You’re the woman I met in Arthen,” I said, “the hag who drove the cart with the skinny pony.”
“Where is Arthen?”
I held firm to my resolve, and said, “You know well enough, since you have spied on me there and now have snatched me out of my rightful life.”
“You’re full of accusations. But you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The sound of my voice gave me confidence. “Yes I do. I saw you and your sisters my first morning as kyyvi, in Hyvurgren Field, and then I saw you on the road in Arthen, when you stopped to water your poor mistreated horse, and now you’ve stolen me away by magic, and I suppose you intend to sell me to Julassa Kyminax, or to Drudaen Keerfax himself. I know your voice. I’ve felt your hand on my brow. But I won’t go to sleep again.”
“Oh yes you will.” I felt the touch along my lids, darkness closing in on me, though I fought it this time, knowing that it came on me by some power. I sang Kimri in my head. From above I sensed irritation and this time felt the touch a second and a third time before the darkness took me. I heard other voices speaking strange words though I could not distinguish them, and understood that she-who-spoke had not been alone, that her friends were with her.
I kept this thought with me when awareness flowed back more fully, and by then I had accustomed myself to the pattern of darkness-and-light, of sleep-and-then-awareness. I was not so much afraid. Again I was certain my body was not in motion, and in fact I was sure I was in the same place as before.
A different voice — the contralto, Vissyn — greeted me upon my return. “I certainly hope you’re in a better temper today.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Which one are you?”
Gentle laughter surrounded me, and the chill abated from my battered body for a while. “What do you mean, which one? I’m the same voice as before, there’s only one of me.”
“No, there are three of you,” I said, “I saw you in Hyvurgren. You’re different from the first voice. Your name is Vissyn, isn’t it?”
She laughed again, but this time she didn’t seem so sure of herself. “I have no such name. In fact you have no business asking my name at all.”
“Haven’t I? When you snatched me off my horse’s back and dragged me to YY-knows-where?”
“For your information I found you lying here in the snow. Did you know that’s where you are, at the bottom of a snow drift? The snow is beautiful and white, and the sky is clear over your head, and wind is blowing across you, and your skin is quite blue. How did you get to the top of the mountain?”
“I’m not on any mountaintop,” I said, “I’m in a room, and your sisters are with you in it and all of you are watching me. Why are you trying to trick me?”
“How do you know so much? You can’t see, can you?”
“Not with my eyes,” I said.
Again her laughter rang out, echo-less, as if we were under the broad sky; but still I was sure I was right. “What do you use to see then, if you don’t use your eyes?”
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. But I can see you. You have blonde hair. You are bending over me. Your eyes might be blue or green, and your lips are rather thin, and you use no paint on your face. You have your fingers just above my forehead waiting to send me back to sleep, but you hope you won’t have to, because it hasn’t been so easy keeping me asleep. Has it?”
“What do I care whether you sleep or not?” she asked.
“Your name is Vissyn,” I said, ignoring the interruption, “and when I was brought here you were the one that carried the rest of us through the air. I heard the others making fun of you.”
She said nothing else. After a moment I felt the touch again, the cool fingertips, but this time I was waiting. “I won’t,” I said, “you can’t send me anywhere, because I won’t go. My grandmother Fysyyn was a witch, and my mother was a witch, so powerful that Drudaen sent his servant Julassa to capture her, and I’m a witch too, ask the other trainees in Theduril’s archery drill, they all say so; I stopped the lightning from falling on my uncle’s horse. You won’t send me anywhere.” But already other fingertips were joining hers, already the warmth of her voice a
nd presence were abating, and I felt sleep rise over me. “Why are you doing this? YY-Mother will punish you. I’m her servant, and she’ll protect me sooner or later.” Speech came more slowly. For a moment I thought I was gone, then I heard someone mumbling words, and caught at the sound like a handhold. “Even if you were Drudaen the Great I would not be afraid of you. I am the youth who is awaited, who has come to return light to Imith Imril, and I was found singing by the River as was foretold —”
The darkness evaporated entirely and the cold fled. For a moment I was free, and I saw the waking world, three women in rich black robes bending over me, jeweled rings on their fingers, an incredible radiance around them. They were startled when I sat up, throwing off the smooth cloth that had lain across my naked body, looking round at them all. Then the tallest of them, the broad-shouldered, dark-haired woman I had met on the road in Arthen, said a word I could not understand though I could hear it, and she lifted a white jewel aloft. She touched it to my brow quickly and the room vanished with a crackle like lightning. I was in darkness again, and alone, and sightless.