Fires of Azeroth

by C. J. Cherryh

  They walked in silence, almost to the hall. "There is a strangeness in you,"

  said Sezar then, which frightened him. He looked up into Sezar's pitying eyes. "A sadness… beyond your kinsman's fate, I think. It is about both of you. And different, for each. Your lady—"

  Whatever Sezar would have said, he seemed to think better of saying, and Vanye stared at him resentfully, no easier in his mind for Sezar's intimate observations.

  "Lellin and I—" Sezar made a helpless gesture. " Khemeis, we suspect things in you that have not been told us, that you— Well, something weighs on you both. And we would offer help if we knew how."

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  Prying after information? Vanye wondered, and looked on the man narrowly; the words still afflicted him. He tried to smile, but it was effort, and did not come convincingly. "I shall mend my manner," he said. "I did not know that I was such unpleasant company."

  He turned and climbed the wooden stairs into the hall, where dinner was being prepared, and heard Sezar on the treads behind him.

  * * *

  The village had already begun the cooking before they came, but there was enough for guests and to spare… a prosperous place, Carrhend, and the Mirrindim in their well-ordered fashion took a share of the work as well as of food. Cooks laughed together and children made friends, and old ones smiled and talked by the fireside, sewing. There seemed no strife from the mixing: the elders could lay down stern edicts when they must, and the qhalur law was clearly set forth and respected. "We have so much to exchange," said Serseis. "We long for Mirrind already, but we feel safer here." Others agreed, though clan Melzen still mourned for Eth, and they were very few here: most of the younger folk of Melzen, male and female, had elected to stay in Mirrind, a determination for Eth's sake, and showing a tough-mindedness that lay deep within the Men of Shathan.

  "If any of these evil strangers pass through," Melzein said, "they will not pass back out again."

  "May it not happen," Morgaine said earnestly. To that, Melzein inclined her head in agreement.

  "Come to the tables," called Saleis of Carrhend then, desperate effort to restore cheer. Folk moved in eagerly, and the benches filled.

  Sin scurried in and wedged himself into his promised place. The lad had no words during the meal, contenting himself with quick looks and much listening. He was there; that was enough for Sin; and Sezar caught Vanye's 74

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  eye during the meal and flicked a glance at the boy, strangely complacent— as if he had seen something clear to be seen.

  "It will come," Sezar said then, which Vanye understood and none else might. A weight lifted from him. He saw Morgaine puzzled by that exchange, and felt strange to have one single thought in which she had no part, a single concern that did not touch her affairs— to that extent their lives were bound together.

  Then a chill came on him. He remembered what he was, and that no good had ever come of friendship with those along their way; most that they touched— died of it.

  "Vanye," Morgaine said, and caught his wrist, for he laid down his spoon of a sudden and it clattered even amid the noise of voices. "Vanye?"

  "It is nothing, liyo. "

  He calmed himself, tried not to think of it, and tried not to let himself go grim with the boy, who had no thought of what fear passed in him. Food went down with difficulty for a time, and then more easily; and he put it from his mind, almost.

  A harp silenced the talk after dinner, announcing the accustomed round of singing. The girl Sirn, who had sung in Mirrind, sang here; then a boy of Carrhend sang a song for Lellin, who was their own qhal: they teased Lellin for it, fondly.

  "My turn," said Lellin afterward, took the harp and sang for them a human song.

  Then, still holding the harp, he struck a chord to silence them, looked round at them all, strangely fair as all his folk, pale in that dim hall, among their faces. "Take care," he wished them. "With all my heart, Carrhendim, take care in these days. The Mirrindim can have told you only a part of your danger. You are guarded, but your guards are few and Shathan is wide." His fingers touched the strings nervously, and the strings sighed in that silence. " 'The Wars of the Arr-hend'… I could harp you that, but you 75

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  have heard it many times… how the sirrindim and the qhal warred, until we could drive the sirrindim from the forest. In those days Men fought against Men, and they fought us with fire and axe and ruin. Be on your guard. There are such sirrindim at Azeroth, and renegade qhal are with them. It is the old war again."

  There was frightened murmuring in the hall.

  "Ill news," Lellin said. "I grieve to bear it. But be alert and be ready to walk away even from Carrhend if it comes to you. Possessions are nothing. Your children are precious. The arrhead will help you rebuild with stone and wood, with our own hands and of all that we have; so must you be ready to aid any village that should be in need. Trust at least that we are moving to deal with it; the arrhendim are not always there to be seen, and so they serve you best. Let us do what may be done in the way we know; it may suffice. If not, then it will be your arrows that defend us."

  The strings sighed softly into a qhalur song, and folk listened as if it cast some spell over them. There was neither outcry nor debate. When it was done, the hush remained. "Go to your homes, Carrhendim, and Mirrindim to your sheltering; we four guests will leave early in the morning. Do not disturb yourselves to see us go."

  "Lord," said one of the young Carrhendim. "We will fight now if we can help."

  "Help by defending Carrhend and Mirrind. Your help in that is much needed."

  That one bowed, and joined his friends. The Carrhendim left, each bowing to their guests; but the Mirrindim stayed, for they were bedded down in the wings of the hall.

  Only Sin departed. "I shall sleep by the horses," he declared, and Vanye did not deny him that.

  "Lellin," said Sezar, and Lellin nodded. Sezar left, likely to his kinfolk for the night, or perhaps to some young woman.

  * * *

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  The hall was long in settling. There were fretful children and restless young folk. Blankets hung on cords curtained the wings, making a sort of privacy, and leaving the area nearest the fire for their guests.

  At last there was quiet, and they settled comfortably, without armor, sharing with Lellin a few sips of a flask that Merir had sent with him.

  "Things are well done here," Morgaine said, in the whisper the hour and the sleeping children demanded. "Your folk are very well organized to have lived so long at peace."

  The qhal's eyes flickered, and he cast off the sober mood that had lain on him like a mantle. "Indeed, we have had fifteen hundred years to meditate on the errors we made in the wars. So long ago we settled on what we would do if the time came; it has, and we will do it swiftly."

  "Is it," asked Vanye, "that long since a war in the land?"

  "Aye," answered Lellin, compassing with that more than the known history of Andur-Kursh, where strife was frequent. "And may it be longer still."

  Vanye thought on that long after they had taken to their pallets, with the qhal-lord resting beside him.

  Fifteen hundred years of peace. In some measure the thought distressed him, who was born to warfare. To be locked within such long and changeless tranquility, in Shathan's green shadow— the thought distressed him; and yet the pleasantness of the villages, the safety, the order— had their appeal.

  He turned his head and looked on Morgaine, who slept. Theirs was a heavy doom, endlessly to travel… and they had seen enough of war for any lifetime. Might we not stay here? he wondered, brief traitor thought: and pushed it aside, trying not to think of their existence and Mirrind side by side.

  * * *

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  Morning was not yet sprung where there came a sound of horses in Carrhend. Vanye rose, and Morgaine, sword in hand
; Lellin padded after them to the windows.

  Riders had come in, with two saddled horses in tow; they tied them to the rail of an empty pen and rode away.

  "Well," said Lellin, "they came in time. They have ridden in from the fields of Almarrhane, not far from here, and I hope they have care riding home."

  At the doorstep of one of the nearest houses Sezar appeared, lingering to kiss his parents and his sister, and then, slinging his bow and his gear to his shoulder, he walked across the commons, waved back at his family and then came toward the hall.

  They went back to the fireside and armed, quietly gathering their belongings, trying not to disturb the sleeping Mirrindim. Vanye slipped out to saddle the horses and found Sin awake, already beginning that task.

  "Are you going to Azeroth to fight sirrindim? " Sin asked, and while they both worked… no longer innocent, the Mirindim: they had seen Eth's fate, and had been driven from their homes.

  "Where I go next I can never say. Sin, seek the qhal when you are old enough; I should not tell you that, but I do."

  "I would go with you. Now."

  "You know better. But someday you will go into Shathan."

  The fever burned in the dark young eyes. The Men of Shathan were all smallish. Even so, Sin would never be tall among them, but there was a fire in him that began already to burn away his childhood. "I will find you there, then."

  "I do not think so," Vanye said; sorrow settled deep in Sin's eyes, and all at once a pain stabbed him to the heart. Shathan will not be the same for 78

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  him, he thought. We will go, and destroy the Gates; and it is his hope we are going to kill. It will all change, in his lifetime… either at our enemies'

  hand— or ours. He gripped Sin's shoulder then, gave him his hand.

  He did not look back.

  * * *

  They were not quiet enough for the village; despite their wish to depart quickly and quietly, there was no preventing the Mirrindim, who rose to bid them farewell; or Sezar's mother, who brought them bread hot from the ovens— she had risen long before dawn, baking for them; and Sezar's father, who offered them some of his finest fruit wine for their journey; and the brothers and sister who turned out to bid Sezar farewell. They laughed gently when Lellin planted a kiss on the sister's cheek, picking her up and setting her down again, for though she was a budding woman, she was tiny next to a qhal. She laughed at the kiss, but glanced down shyly and up again with a look that held her heart in her eyes. Then they mounted up and rode out quietly among the trees, past sentries who were themselves little more than shadows in the trees. Leaves curtained them from Carrhend, and they soon had only the sound of the forest about them.

  Sezar was downhearted after the leavetaking, and Lellin looked at him in frowning concern. His mood needed no inquiry, for surely Sezar and perhaps Lellin would have been glad to stay for Carrhend's protection, and the duty which drew them off lay heavy on them at the moment.

  Finally Lellin gave a low whistle… and in time there came an answer, slow and placid. At that Sezar looked somewhat cheered, and they all felt better for his sake.

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  Chapter 6

  They kept to the streamcourse for a road after Carrhend and made good time. The horses that the two arrhendim had acquired… both bays, Lellin's with three white stockings… kept well from Siptah's vicinity, so that Lellin and Sezar generally kept the lead by some small space.

  The two talked together in soft voices which they, who rode behind, could not quite hear, but they had no distrust for it, and sometimes conversed themselves in private, though usually in the qhalur tongue. Morgaine was never inclined to conversation, not in all the time he had known her, but she spoke idly and often since they had come to this land… teaching, at first, deliberately making him speak, correcting him often. Then she seemed to have fallen into the habit of talking more than she once would.

  He was glad of it, and though she never spoke of her own self beyond Andur-Kursh, he found himself speaking of home, and of the better moments of his youth in Morija.

  They could speak of Andur-Kursh now, as one finally could speak of the dead, when the pain was gone. He knew his own age; she knew that of a hundred years before his birth; and grim as some of the tales they passed back and forth might be, there was pleasure in it. Time-wanderer she was; and now he was of her kind, and they could speak of it.

  But once she mentioned Myya Seijaine i Myya, clan-lord of the Myya when she had led the armies of Andur-Kursh… and then her eyes clouded and she fell silent, overcome by memory— for that was one of the scatterings in time which had begun what sat at Azeroth, clan Myya, clan Yla, clan Chya— men who had served her once, and who had become lost in Gates and time. Myya survived. Their children's children a thousand years removed had dwelt in Shiuan, recalling her only as an evil-legend, confounding her with myth… until Roh came to rouse them.

  "Seijaine was a fell sort," she said after a moment, "but good and generous to his friends. So are his children, but I am not among their friends."

  "It looks," he saidwith desperate irrelevance, "as if it might rain."

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  She looked perplexed by his bent of thought, then looked up at the clouds that were only slightly gray-edged, and at him again. She laughed. "Aye.

  Thee's good for me, Vanye. Thee is— very good."

  She went sober after, and found something to look at which did not necessitate meeting his eyes. Something swelled up in him that was bitter and sweet at once. He savored it briefly, but then, his eyes on Lellin's back— Lellin, whose pale, spidery grace was the very like of Morgaine's— he despaired, and put a different interpretation on what she had said to him… recovered the good sense which had long saved him from making a mistake with her which would sever them.

  He laughed aloud at himself, which drew from her a strange look. "An odd fancy;" he explained, and quickly led the talk to stopping for noon rest; she did not probe more deeply.

  * * *

  The rain proved an empty threat. They had feared a wet camp and a hard night, but the clouds passed over with Only a slight sprinkling at evenfall, and they lay down on the stream-side haying made good progress during the day, well-fed, and under a clear sky on dry ground. It was as if all the wretchedness that had attended their other rides were a bad dream, in this land too kindly to do them harshness. Vanye chose first watch… even in this matter they were more comfortable, for the four of them sharing watches meant longer sleep. He yielded his post afterward to Lellin, who rubbed his eyes and propped himself against a tree, standing, while he lay down to sleep without a qualm of apprehension of treachery.

  But he was roused again by a touch on his back, and at once terror seized on him. He rolled over and saw Lellin likewise touch Morgaine Sezar was already awake. "Look," Lellin whispered.

  Vanye strained his eyes against the dark, following the fix of Lellin's stare.

  A shadow stood among the trees on the other side of the stream. Lellin gave a low trilling whistle, and it moved… manlike, but not a Man. It 81

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  waded the stream with soft splashes, long-limbed and jerking in its precise movements. A chill tightened Vanye's skin, for he knew now that he had seen such a creature before, and in the same vicinity.

  Lellin arose, and so did they all, but they stayed where they were, while Lellin walked to the stream and met the creature. Its height was greater than Lellin's; its limbs were arranged like those of a Man, but the articulation was different. When the creature looked up, the eyes were all dark in the starlight, and the features were thin and the mouth pursed, very small for the enormity of the eyes. The legs when it moved flexed like those of a bird, knees bent opposite the direction of a Man's. Vanye crossed himself at the sight, and yet more in awe than in fear, for there seemed less menace in it than difference.

  "Haril," Morgaine whispered in his ea
r. "Only once have I seen the like."

  It came onto the bank, wary, and looked them all over with its large eyes.

  Whether it was male or female was impossible to tell. The body, dusky-hued, was ambiguous under its thick, fibrous robes, which were short and matched the shade of its skin, whatever the color was in daylight. Lellin spoke softly and signed to it. The haril answered in a lisping chitter and made a gesture of its own. Then it turned and waded the stream, heron-like in its cant of body and its movements.

  "There are strangers," said Lellin. "It is distressed. Something is fearfully amiss that a haril has approached us. It wants us to follow."

  "What are they?" Vanye asked. "How much can you understand of what it wants?"

  "They are from long ago. They live in the deepest parts of Shathan, the wild parts where we seldom go, and generally they have nothing to do with qhal or Men. Their speech is their own; we cannot learn it and they cannot learn ours… nor wish to, I suppose… but they will sign— and if a haril has come asking us to do something, then we should do it, my lady Morgaine. There is something vastly amiss to urge it to that."

  The haril waited, across the stream.

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  "We will go," Morgaine said. Vanye spoke no word of objection, but there was a tightness at his belly that settled in like an old friend. He gathered up their gear and started for the horses in haste and quietly. Whatever they had evaded in these last slow days was suddenly upon them, and from now on, there seemed no hope of coming peacefully to Nehmin.

  * * *

  They rode across the stream, moving as quietly as the horses might, and the haril went before them, a shadow that the horses did not like. It chose ways difficult for riders, and often they must bend beneath branches or negotiate difficult slopes. At each delay the haril waited, silent, until they had overcome the obstacle and began to close the gap. "Madness," Vanye said under his breath, but Morgaine did not regard him.