by Jim Grimsley
I ran up shyly. Kirith Kirin stood there dumbfounded. I watched him. I could see he was confused. “I’m glad you found us.”
“It was luck. I found the road and followed it.”
He said nothing else. It was clear he was not entirely comfortable with my presence and so, stung, I withdrew to my work, borrowing Mordwen’s good Cordyssan hunting knife for the skinning. Karsten knelt to help me, saying nothing.
The hares were warm, their rich blood staining my hands. I felt vaguely sorry as I gutted them and cut them to pieces, scraping their hides free of vestiges of fat, detaching the limbs, the tender breast-meat, spearing the stuff on sturdy branches and hanging it over the fire to cook. When I needed instruction Karsten patiently told me what to do. Mordwen stirred wild onions and mushrooms in a pot, and tea was brewing as well, the various smells hovering over us. Evening had quickly blossomed into night, starless and moonless, it appeared, as some nights are, though we dread them.
When a feeling of quiet had descended, with Kirith Kirin and Imral Ynuuvil sipping wine out of sight, Karsten said to me in a low voice, “Don’t mind him so much. What happened on the mountaintop rattled him.”
“Did you know why he was bringing me there?”
After a moment’s consideration she nodded. “We’ve used Aediamysaar for that same purpose before, and as far as I know others have used the stone circles as a test for sorcery for ages. If a person is wearing so much as a charmed rune-necklace the stone-writing will appear, I’ve never seen it fail.”
“Would it be possible for anyone but the Diamysaar to tamper with the mountain? To keep the stones from lighting?”
She weighed her answer carefully. “I’ve known my share of wizards, and none of them ever attempted to stand on Aediamysaar. Not even Jurel Durassa. Falamar was afraid to go near the place because of his kinship to Cunavastar. Drudaen has apparently inherited his father’s fear, and has always avoided Ym country.”
This made me thoughtful for many reasons. I could feel Karsten watching me but was too preoccupied to say anything. She eyed me with sudden suspicion. “Are you saying the runes should have become visible?”
I gave no answer. But now that the thought had occurred to her it would not be denied. “He thinks you’ve bewitched him, doesn’t he? That’s why he’s done all this. That’s why he brought you to the mountain.”
I sat unmoving, staring into my curved fingers, the laced shadows.
“I don’t think he meant you any harm, Jessex. But if you had ever seen the havoc a magician can wreak among humans, you’d understand why we fear them.”
We had done as much as we could about supper. Karsten said she was going to find a friend with a skin of wine, and she would provide for me when she did. She kissed my brow, almost shyly. I began to wonder if I myself understood all that I had told her by my silence.
I sat watching the roasting game, knees tucked under my chin, the warmth of night wind on my face. Under my breath I was singing, “Muraelonyi” mixed with a country dance song I had known since I was a boy. Thoughts came and went without pattern. I could have sat there till the stars came back and felt as happy.
We ate supper together. I had never felt so relaxed with the twice-named, free to be quiet in their presence, free of the worry that polite conversation might lapse too long. We sat listening to the songs of night birds and insects, the whispering wind in the trees. After a while even Kirith Kirin was at ease. Wine passed round, no one caring how much I drank. When Karsten murmured once about my age Mordwen reminded her my naming-day had just passed, the forty-third day of Khan. Being fifteen, I was now responsible for monitoring my own drink, as practice for my coming adulthood.
Kirith Kirin started to tell a story about Kentha Nurysem, who had often spent mid-winter near Sister Mountain. From the way he talked about the famous sorceress, I could see that she was on his mind for some reason, that this was not the first time her name had come up.
“I know about her,” I said. “She was Drudaen’s lover, and she broke Goerast under him.”
Prince Imral said, “That’s how she’s remembered anyway. The years before that are mostly forgotten now.”
“She was a very sad woman at the end of her life, Jessex.” Kirith Kirin spoke to me directly for the first time. Even then he could not look me in the eye for long. “She had lost everything.” His voice was full of feeling, sadness blossomed in his face; I could see he was telling more than the facts of her story. “We knew her, we were her friends. Our lives depended on her, too. Without a magician, one cannot oppose Drudaen.” He swallowed, shaking his head. “But her fate was like the fate of most sorcerers. Magic consumed her, and humans shunned her, out of fear. In the end she had nothing to do even with us, her friends, and shut herself up in Ellebren Tower. I believe she’d never have been seduced by Drudaen if she had not become so distant from the rest of us.”
“Those who schooled her would have more to say about it,” Karsten said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” She refilled her wine glass. “Only that we don’t know the whole story of what happened to Kentha. No one does, except the Diamysaar who taught her.”
A tingle ran down my spine. I asked another question that was on my mind. “Who is Yron? Have you heard of anyone by that name?”
I thought I was prepared for any reaction. But Imral spat his wine onto my hand, and asked, “What name did you say?”
“Yron.” The name means, “God’s claw.”
They looked at each other. I wiped my hand on the hem of my tunic. Finally Imral said, “That name is known to few people. You’re looking at the majority of them.”
“But you’ve heard it.”
“Yes.” He watched me patiently for a moment, as if he expected me to go on — the others were watching me the same way. Finally he asked, “What do you know?”
“That the name is mentioned in a prophecy.”
“Who told you that?” Kirith Kirin asked softly, watching the fire.
“A woman I met in Arthen, by a well.”
“You never told me about meeting anyone,” Mordwen said.
“She was just an old woman,” I said. “Driving a cart. I thought she was a merchant or a merchant’s wife. But she knew about me, and about the oracle. She told me I was a sign Yron was coming. But she wouldn’t tell me very much about him.”
“Have you ever seen her again?” Imral asked.
“Not the cart-woman,” I said, and that was the truth. “Do you know who Yron is?”
Mordwen turned to Kirith Kirin, who had drawn back from the fire. The Prince nodded.
Mordwen sighed. “We were told about the coming of the magician Yron by Kentha herself, as she was leaving Arthen the last time. There are some hints about it in Curaeth, too, but all very cryptic. Kentha had seen very clearly what was coming. She said he would cross the mountains on the air at the beginning of a hard winter, bearing Drudaen in another form. She said she built Ellebren Tower for him. She said a number of other things that we could never puzzle out. No one has ever explained how bringing us Drudaen in another form is supposed to help us. The name Yron has come up in two of my own true-dreams, but only vaguely.”
“Is that everything?” I asked when he stopped.
“That’s the essence of what we know.”
I took a deep breath. “Do these prophecies have anything to do with me?”
Everyone looked at the figure withdrawn into shadow. I watched the ground, awaiting judgement.
Mordwen said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Tell him,” Kirith Kirin said.
Mordwen turned to me, scowling as he used to when I first knew him. But his voice was gentle, despite his expression. “I never wanted you to know this, or I would have told it to you myself. Kentha told us the first sign we would have that Yron was close would be the finding of a boy in Imith Imril singing by the river in the abandoned city. This same boy is said to be a servant o
f two masters.” Here he swallowed. “The same image occurred in my true-dream. I saw a boy singing by Imith Imril. I saw you, in fact. And then Kirith Kirin found you, in my dream, as he did in real life.”
Again Mordwen turned to Kirith Kirin’s shadow. Again we waited by the fire. At last the deep voice spoke. “That’s enough.”
Kirith Kirin stood , and I had a feeling he was watching each one of us, though one could see nothing of his face. He walked away. So all of us, each with more questions than answers, said our good-nights.
3
Sleep never found me beside that boulder; I twisted in my bedroll till my inner clock told me dawn was close, and then I found the creek Karsten had described to me and in morning mist took my bath, counting breaths and washing each limb in the manner proper to the ritual. I had lacked the leisure for this ceremonial many days during the course of the ride from Golden Wood, and I felt very peaceful that morning performing my proper duties, breathing, breathing, while dawn birds chorused in eerie voices. I had no clean tunic to put on, nor any felva to dry myself with, so I beat my dirty tunic on a rock to shake out the dust, while the crisp morning air dried me.
I reached our campsite in time to sing Velunen, not loudly, but not softly either. Before, no one had stirred. When I was done with the song, Karsten was watching me from a place beside the fire, stirring the smoldering ashes. Her hair had the wild, tangled look of sleep, and she hardly seemed awake enough to be aware of me — curious, I thought, when in camp she would have been awake a good while by now. But when I returned to the fire, she said, “It was good to hear you. This time, I guess, we’ll all be riding suuren with you.”
“That’s true. I wonder what we’ll see.”
She sent me to fetch water for the jaka pot. I hurried to the creek as Mordwen was emerging from his tent, wearing the loose sleeveless shift in which he slept, his pale, freckled arms flashing upward, skin and muscle shimmering. His arms were not old or frail, though the hair that matted his skin was peppered gray.
Through our makeshift breakfast — strips of cold roast hare and dry bread from last night’s supper — the echo of the peaceful morning remained with me, along with memory of the conversation the night before. Kirith Kirin said very little when he returned from the creek, taking his mug of jaka and climbing to the top of the boulder to drink it. He and Imral spent a few moments talking about our day’s ride, and I gathered we would be meeting the rest of the Woodsfolk at the campsite in Suvrin country by nightfall. Karsten packed away the few cooking utensils we had used, spreading earth over the glowing coals of the fire. I chewed the dry meat and drank my jaka, trying to look inconspicuous, until Mordwen called me to help him tie up the tent. I had never done this before, and he instructed me patiently, till finally the task absorbed my whole attention.
We headed southeast, still following the road. By midmorning we were nearing mountain country, the first peaks appearing on the horizon, jagged white crowns, bluish slopes, fairy-tale sweeps of sheer rock that were almost toy-like. At least I thought so until we stopped on the summit of a local hill and took a good look at them. I realized then that we were still a long way off from even the closest of the peaks, and still we could see them clearly, etched against the gray-blue sky, lost in the undersides of clouds.
I had lived close to these mountains all my life and yet had never seen them before; the sight, the whole breathtaking landscape, flooded me with a nameless joy, like when I was a little boy and came upon some wonder while wandering in the woods around the farm. Hearing a description of mountain country is not the same thing as seeing it for oneself. I had never dreamed the land could rise so high, could mount such a challenge to the sky. One could feel the new raw edge to the wind, sweeping down from the snowy peaks.
Karsten noted my awe and said, matter-of-factly, “But Jessex, these are little mountains. You should see the Barrier Range, beyond Montajhena. Compared to that, these are only foothills.”
“They look tall enough to me. Has anyone ever climbed them?”
“Certainly. That’s the way to Drii.”
I swallowed. She laughed, and pointed north to a cleft between two peaks. “That’s the mouth of Svorthis, the pass to Drii. There’s another pass from Drii south to Montajhena, called Cundruen. I’ve made the trip myself. It’s hard, but it can be done.”
“Is that the only way to get to Drii?”
“No, you can go south, round the mountains. It’s a much easier trip, I’ll grant you. But sometimes there’s no tonic for the heart like a ride through icy country. Don’t you think you’d like to make a mountain journey someday?”
“Maybe I will.” I watched the distant snowcaps and shivered. “But no time soon, I hope.”
We had left the road to climb to the hilltop, Kirith Kirin wanting to get a first look at the peaks himself. He and Imral had ridden down the ridge toward a thicket of faris and hemlock; they signaled us to follow and we returned to the road.
The Keikin set a pace only a royal horse could have kept up, and by afternoon we had ridden through leagues of countryside of indescribable richness, dense tapestries of vine, flower, branch and leaf, different from the lighter, golden country we had left. This forest had an older, darker aspect, brought about by the density of undergrowth and the difference in tree-types. The duraelaryn do not grow in mountain shadow. We had ascended to a higher elevation than the Golden Wood, and the delicate, flowering trees that had thrived in that well-watered, benevolent climate could not have survived this altitude. The trees that dominated this landscape were shaggier, evergreen: faris, pine, fir, dumis cedar and hemlock for the most part. Wildflowers found shelter and sustenance in every conceivable spot, climbing out from beneath fallen tree trunks, splitting the seemingly impermeable surface of a boulder, carpeting a hillside. Streams flowed among the hills in abundance, carving through the soil to reveal the rock beneath, water beading over dark granite, spray washing smooth across terraced shale. Occasionally I longed for the leisure to stop and admire some beauty particularly, but after a while the speed of our passage was part of the wonder, and every new beauty added to the composite image of reckless wilderness.
We reached the new campsite near nightfall, in a valley between three broad hills, sheltered by one of them from the winds that swept down the mountains. A storm was blowing when we met Gaelex, and she hurriedly reported to Kirith Kirin on matters that needed attention. camp was mostly set and the cook tents were in enough order that Thuerthin was promising a meal for the evening. The Jhinuuserret tents were settled and the Nivri pavilions were being staked. The shrine tent was being oriented, the shrine itself awaiting Mordwen’s presence before unpacking was begun.
But news had reached the column as it wound its way through the eastern forest, first from Cordyssa and then from Pel Pelathayn’s party, which had ridden south to review the border encampments in Maugritaxa and lower Illaeryn. From Cordyssa came news of bread riots in the city streets. From southern Arthen came reports that Drudaen and his army were marching east across the Cuthunre Valley and central Kellyxa, a host some six thousand strong, including heavy infantry from Vermland.
We heard this much at once since Kirith Kirin summoned the messengers before we had even dismounted. We’d ridden straight through central camp to the Nivri precinct — as I was to learn, the royal camp was always laid out in the same pattern, as heedless of the geography as possible. Gaelex told us the news, adding that the spy Duterian was awaiting Kirith Kirin in the glade where householders were pitching the Prince’s tent and that a delegation of Cordyssans wished to meet the Prince in Suvrin country, and awaited permission to enter Arthen at River Gate.
Mordwen and I went to oversee the shrine-mounting while the rest followed Kirith Kirin to hear the news.
We worked quickly even in the gathering darkness. A dozen torches burned in the clearing, blue-green flames and clear white light or orange-red tongues licking upward, coloring the flesh warmly. The soldiers were tired, some of them swe
ating, rivers of dirt washing down broad shoulders, scarred arms, collecting in exposed, ludicrous bellybuttons, between firm breasts, in hairy armpits. Voices mingled with laughter, wisecracks, snatches of song, brief moments of flirtation.
When the tent was in place I brought in the lamps and tool-cases, helping a woman I did not know roll in the jars of oil. I set everything to rights in the workroom and unpacked my own belongings. Soon the tent took on the familiar orderly look I remembered, and I got a start the first time I walked through the back flap, when instead of golden vuthloven I entered a thicket of hemlock and cedar, lower branches festooned with false grape vine in full leaf and flower. I heard the stream that ran behind a nearby fall of elgerath and felt the peacefulness that comes with return to order. I was home again, though home itself was in a different place.