The demon, said some, took his desire away.
But others looked at the regard he paid to the yellow warrior and nodded to one another knowingly.
And amid tears and kisses and anguished good-byes, through the tunnel they fared—Aiko in the lead, her armor repaired, Burel following after, then Egil, Delon, Ferret, and Arin.
Once they were clear of the tunnel—and nothing untoward had occurred—then led by acolytes the camels came next: seven saddled for riding, four bearing supplies. As if remembering past terror, the animals balked at entering the confining way again, yet the handlers were adamant, and grumbling and protesting, the beasts finally went through the narrow passage.
When those also reached the far side—again with nothing of note coming to pass—then and only then did Alos venture into the dark strait, Mayam at his side, the old man moaning about his cracked ribs, though the abbess knew his words were impelled by fright. At the distant end, he peered out cautiously, trembling, and finally stepped forth, ready to bolt inward at the slightest need. But nothing appeared and so, grudgingly, Alos trudged to his camel.
Mayam stepped to each of them and murmured, “May Ilsitt favor you with her protecting hand.”
She embraced Burel and kissed him one last time, then stepped back as they mounted, the camels hronking and grumbling as they stood, their long legs awkwardly levering them and their burdens upward.
When they were erect and ready to go, Mayam called out, “Each and every one of you are welcome to return as you will. Fare you well.”
And amid growls of camels and cries of good-bye, the small caravan set off down the deep slot in the towering crimson stone.
CHAPTER 57
As they set about cleaning up the camel dung, Burel said, “I have always known that the demon and I would meet someday, for it was written. What I did not know is that Lady Aiko would be there as well.” The big man smiled over at the Ryodoan, receiving a smile in return.
Ferret cocked an eyebrow. “It was written?”
Basking in Aiko’s grin, Burel swung his gaze to Ferret and nodded.
“What do you mean, ‘it was written’?”
“Something my mother told me before she died,” replied Burel.
“Oh,” said Aiko, her voice all but unheard, her smile fading.
“What is it, my Lady?” asked Burel, turning his attention again to her.
Aiko sighed. “I was hoping your mother yet lived.”
“No. She died of fever when I was but ten or so.”
Aiko looked down at the red stone. “My own died giving birth to me.”
Burel dropped the bag he was carrying and stepped to the Ryodoan and embraced her. “I at least have my memories,” he rumbled, “whereas you have none.”
His arms around her, Aiko looked up at Burel as if studying his face. At long last she said, “I’ve never told anyone this, Burel: I never knew my mother, but even so, I miss her.”
He looked at her and wanly smiled. “As do I, Aiko. As do I.”
Aiko’s heart suddenly leapt, for it was the first time he had addressed her in the familiar.
“My mother is dead, too,” said Ferret. “And my father. Murdered both.”
She gazed back at the campsite where the others readied for the day’s travel. “I wonder if any of us have parents alive.”
* * *
They walked and rode all that day, pausing to take up old camel droppings they had left behind on the way in, as well as taking up any new; too, they cleaned up their own excrement old and new as well, leaving nothing behind to point to the temple in the maze. At sunset as they made camp they heard the demon horn howl, and Alos jumped and spat oaths. It sounded at midnight as well, startling the old man awake once more. “I’ve heard that cursed thing twice a night for the last, um, twenty, thirty days. Is it to plague me the rest of my life?” In spite of his ire, he fell instantly asleep again.
As they fared for the second day through the twisting rock canyons carved deep in the scarlet maze, the talk did turn to parents, and only Arin of them all had a dam and sire who yet lived, though not upon Mithgar but Adonar instead. All the others had died of illness or in battle or of natural causes, or had been murdered, or, in the case of Aiko, her father had died broken and disgraced, denied even the honor of committing seppuku when his daughter had been unmasked.
Upon learning this, when next they led the camels, Burel slipped an arm about Aiko and they walked along in silence.
“Well then,” said Delon, after a while, striding alongside Ferai, “we’ll just have to become our own family, though I’ll consider you, my sweet, as but a remote tenth cousin.”
Ferret looked up at him. “Tenth cousin? But why?”
“I would not have you be close kin, for then I couldn’t do this.” And he paused and took her face in his hands and kissed her long and gently.
Their camels, disturbed at being stopped, emitted loud hronks.
Alos, following, broke out in a cackle.
Ferai, her heart pounding, her face reddening, drew back from the bard. But he threw his arms wide and broke out in song.
Together they tugged on their camels, the beasts growling in dismay for now, of all things, they were being asked to move again, when they had just barely gotten stopped.
And down the canyon they continued, Delon singing a heartfelt refrain shared by two other men deeply enamored, each of them oblivious to the fears of those they loved: Dara Arin, who dreaded what the oncoming decades would do to her mortal lover and how he might react; fierce Aiko, who could but barely acknowledge that she had room for love in her warrior heart; and untrusting Ferai, who’d been raped as a child.
* * *
That night, as a distant demon howl echoed through the scarlet maze, they made camp on the Island in the Sky. While they waited for the water to boil above the charcoal fire, Ferret glanced across at Burel and said, “Tell me more about these things which you say are, um, written. Just exactly what do you mean by that?”
Burel did not look up from the fire. “I will ask you this, Ferai: do you believe that you can choose your paths in life?”
Ferret poked her riding stick at the charcoal, nudging a lump to where it would catch fire. “Yes, Burel, I am totally free to do anything I so choose.”
Burel shifted his ice-blue eyes away from the glow and toward her. She shivered as if from a sudden chill, but she did not look away. For a moment his gaze held hers, then he looked to the eastern night sky and pointed at the full moon shining aglance o’er the crimson maze. “If you so desired, could you step to the moon?”
Her own gaze followed his, and for a long while she did not answer. But at last she said, “Perhaps. But it would take long training in the ways of Magekind.” She glanced at Burel’s sword, then added, “Or in the ways of Dwarven crafting to make a ship that can sail the skies above.”
Burel grunted, then said, “But you cannot step there now merely by wishing it so.”
Ferret grinned and shook her head. “Alas, I cannot.”
“Then there are limits to your totally free choices, eh? You cannot step to the moon, cannot fly, cannot change into a fish, cannot do countless things. They are beyond your means. That is, merely oft what you may desire is not a choice at all.”
“True, Burel. Nevertheless, my will is entirely free. Of all those things within my power, I can pick and choose which to do.”
The big man shook his head. “I think not, Ferai. I think all is predestined, and this notion of free choice, of free will, is but an illusion.”
“How so?”
Burel took up a pebble. “Consider this stone. If I were to place it so that it would roll down a slope and strike another stone of like size lying on the surface, would it not cause that second stone to roll downslope as well?”
Ferret nodded but remained silent.
Burel continued. “And if I knew precisely where the first stone would strike the second, would I then not know exactly how both stones
would react, the angle and speed at which the first would bound, as well as the direction and pace of the second?”
Again Ferret nodded.
“Then consider this: if those above Elwydd and Adon created all, and know all, and set all in motion, would they not know, know, our destinies? Are we not merely like pebbles impelled by the many collisions in our lives? Collisions which the highest of all already know the outcomes, and the outcomes of those outcomes, and so on forever?
“You may believe you have choices, Ferai, yet the collisions in your life are already set and your path is immutably determined…just as is mine, just as is all that was, that is, and that will ever be. We are merely moving through an endless story already told.”
“Ha!” crowed Ferret. “If it is an endless story, then how can it already be told?”
Burel merely shrugged.
Ferret shook her head. “If you think the path is already set, then why strive to do anything, why make any choices whatsoever?”
“Because it is written that we shall do so, written that we shall strive and make choices though, like the pebbles, we merely rattle down the preordained way.”
“Bah!” growled Ferret, then she turned to Arin. “What say you to this mad man, Dara?”
Arin smiled. “My view is different.”
“How so?”
The Dylvana scratched a line in the rocky soil. “All lives are made up of choices. Should we choose this way, then here we shall go.” Her line in the grit jagged left. “But should we choose elsewise”—she moved her stick back up the scrape and jinked it to the right—“we go this way instead. Life itself consists of branching pathways, turning left and right and running straight, or swerving at any number of angles, some paths more likely than others, though any path may be taken. And each choice we make leads to still more branches ahead.
“When we live a simple life, perhaps isolated and full of routine, then the impinging events and choices are few. But as our lives cross with those of others—family, friends, strangers, foe—their choices at times affect what we do, as our choices at times affect them. And the more people we encounter, the more our paths cross and criss-cross and cross again. The more people and events, the more branches, the more confusing the tangle…so many choices and interlinked branches as to represent chaos itself.
“However, because as Burel says, most people cannot choose to step to the moon or burst into flame or lift a mountain or become a god…or a countless number of things entirely beyond their power, then this endless tangle of branches is indeed bounded by practicality—a bounded chaos, if thou wilt.
“Looking into the past, though, we see the tangle resolved into sets of choices made, chaotic no more but fixed instead—much as Burel would have it. But looking into the future is like looking into an endless snarl of choices, like looking into chaos itself all knotted and meshed and entangled, as you, Ferret, believe.
“There are, however, past and present and future events which stand out above the confusion and chaos, with virtually all paths leading from them or to them in due time, almost regardless of what choices are made.”
“Like wyrds?” asked Egil.
Arin nodded. “Thou couldst think of it that way: wyrds for individuals, couples, families, clans, communities, nations, the world. These are the ways of prophecy…ways leading toward signal events.”
“And this is what you deem the green stone to be, eh? A wyrd for the world?”
“Yes, Egil, I do.”
Delon shook his head. “But Dara, first you tell us we have choices, and then you tell us that all paths lead to signal events. If all paths lead to such an event, then what we try to do is hopeless.”
“I did not say all paths lead that way—”
“She said virtually all paths,” interjected Ferret.
“Bah,” snorted Alos. “Immutable destiny. Choices. Wyrds. It’s all nonsense. It’s the fickle gods who reach down and meddle with our so-called destinies, shoving us this way and that, visiting calamity upon us when we least expect it.”
“No, Alos,” protested Delon. “Although the gods may meddle, I think our destinies are written in the stars.” He looked around for agreement, but found none. “Even so, there are choices to make, for it is said that the stars impel but do not compel, though one should heed their urgings.”
Burel turned to the Ryodoan. “I would hear what you think, Aiko.”
She looked up from the glowing coals, her eyes dark and unreadable. “Whatever comes, we must endure.” Aiko fell silent and said no more.
Ferret said, “Well I think Dara Arin is right: all before us is chaos and we have free choices to do that which is within our power.”
“The chaos is but an illusion,” said Burel. “In truth the paths we take are already set before us, and nought we do will alter our steps along the way.”
“Ha!” barked Ferret. “Not mine, Burel. I will not march lockstep on a path not of my choosing.” She leaped up and with consummate ease twirled in pirouette then executed a backflip.
Delon clapped his hands together in pleasure and shouted, “Bravo, luv!”
Breathless and laughing, Ferret sat down again. “There, Burel, was that foreordained?”
Burel merely nodded.
Ferret snorted.
“Perhaps, Ferai,” said Burel, “you are along to make us believe that we indeed have free will.”
“And perhaps, Burel, you are along to make us believe we do not.”
* * *
“Here, let me show you. See, the arm moves in an arc, and a curved blade matching that arc will sustain contact throughout a long slashing cut, whereas to do so with a straight blade requires you to alter the stroke as you cut, and here the edge may either lodge or lose contact altogether.”
“But, Aiko, such a curve in a blade would hamper a clean thrust.”
“Yes, Burel, it would. The straight blade is best for thrusting, piercing; the curved for slashing, cutting.”
“My sword will cleave anything.”
“Indeed it will, though to do so it carries great weight, and given a chance a quick foe can defeat it.”
Burel touched his neck. “I remember.”
In the light of the rising sun Aiko drew one of her swords. “My blades have a delicate curve, not too much to hamper thrusts, but enough to aid a slashing cut.” Aiko momentarily paused, as if considering, then she handed the weapon to Burel. He received it as if it were a fragile treasure.
“Aiko!” called Arin.
The Ryodoan turned. “Yes, Dara.”
“Let me examine thy wound.”
Aiko sighed and, casting a glance at her sword in Burel’s hand, she reluctantly trudged toward the Dylvana, the Ryodoan unfastening her leather jacket.
After moments: “Hmm. I do believe we can remove thy stitches ere we set out today.”
“What of kinmichi?”
Arin nodded. “Thou canst begin again…slowly at first.”
“Hai!”
* * *
As the camels headed westerly, Ferret reined back to ride alongside Arin. Both of their faces were now covered with silken scarves, for they now rode across a land where hidebound fools held sway. “Dara, I would speak to you in private.”
Arin glanced at Egil. He shrugged and tapped his camel with his riding stick, calling out, “Hut, hut,” and moved ahead to join Burel and Alos, while Delon to the fore rode alone in the lead.
As Egil looked back, masked Aiko rode up to join Arin and Ferret, and she was not turned away. “Hmmm,” said the Fjordlander, “what is it they share?”
Burel looked about. “The women of Ilsitt were always talking together—especailly when their blood came upon them…or not—and often when I came near they would stop.”
Egil sighed. “Women’s secrets, I suppose.”
“Heh,” barked Alos. “Females. A bunch of cackling hens, if you ask me.”
“Have you been around many females, Alos?” asked Burel.
&n
bsp; The old man looked at the big man, Alos’s white eye glaring. “Me? Of course not. I’ve other interests.”
Now Burel looked at Egil. the Fjordlander shrugged and replied, “Some. Though I think when it comes to these matters, Delon has the most experience of us all.”
“Let’s go see,” rumbled Burel. “I have a question to ask.”
Together, Burel and Egil urged their camels ahead, but Alos did not ride forward with them.
* * *
“How will I know I am in love, Dara?”
The Dylvana looked at Ferret and smiled. “Thou shalt know, for every idle thought thou has will be filled with pleasant visions of him. Thou wilt admire his strengths, see his goodness, but not be blind to his failings. And thou wilt desire intimacy—”
“Intimacy?”
“Not merely lust, Ferai, but a sharing of feelings, of heart and mind and soul as well as a physical sharing.”
Aiko let out a long sighing breath. “What you name physical sharing, Dara, seems like surrender to me.”
Arin looked at Aiko in surprise.
“Surrender?”
* * *
“Yes, Burel, it is somewhat like surrender. You are, um, invading her being.”
Burel sighed. “I don’t believe that Lady Aiko has ever surrendered to anything in her life. She is a warrior beyond compare.”
Delon nodded, then said, “But she is also a woman and you are a man. You must woo her, and if she desires you, she will make it known.”
Burel blew out a breath. “I have no experience in wooing. The women of Ilsitt came to me, rather than I seeking them out.”
Delon laughed. “It must have seemed as if you had found Paradise, eh?”
“They seemed to enjoy it, as did I, physically. But something was ever missing,” replied Burel. “There always seemed to be a fulfillment lacking, as if there were no true sharing.”
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