by Jaine Fenn
By the time he reached the spot where he would greet this last group of drovers he could see an amorphous mass lumbering along the valley side. It began to resolve into individual figures as they closed the distance. His eye was caught by a lone figure walking a little apart. It loped along, then stopped abruptly to bend down, as if looking at some item of interest. Einon heard a faint, high-pitched shout and the figure appeared to hesitate, then came back towards the rest of the drove. The one who had called out went a little way up the slope and together they walked over to the sleds where they joined a much taller man. Even at this distance Einon could see he was different from the clansmen who surrounded them.
As they approached, Einon realised why the shout he had heard sounded so odd. It came from a woman. What in the name of the Mother of Secrets was a woman doing here?
As soon as the drove leaders were close enough to hail he called out, ‘Well met, brothers. Be welcome in the name of the Five and take your rest.’ Not that they would get much rest: the main body of the drove was already preparing to ascend the Steps.
The men at the front traced the circle, and one of them stepped forward and gave the ritual response: ‘We seek to join those under your protection, and submit ourselves to the will of the Mothers, as given through your words.’ Everyone traced the circle again, and the man added, ‘I am Howen am Dangwern, and I lead the drovers from beyond the grass plain.’
‘You have time for some food and to water your animals, Clansman, but we cannot delay much longer,’ Einon said a little apologetically. ‘We must climb the Steps today.’
A straggly-bearded youth with a scrap of cloth tied over one eye stepped forward and said, ‘Gwas, I beg your indulgence.’
The older man glared at him, but the boy ignored him. He made the circle and continued, ‘I come before you as guardian to a skyfool.’
So that was the strange figure who had broken away from the others! But surely this youth could not be his father, notwithstanding the rumours of sexual improprieties amongst uplanders. ‘Really, Chilwar?’
‘Aye, Gwas. He is from Dangwern. My name is Fychan am Dangwern.’
‘Kindly show me this, ah, skyfool,’ Einon asked. ‘The rest of you should make your way to the marshalling stations.’
As the drove started up again with whistles and cries, Fychan led him back towards the three figures he had spotted earlier. The skyfool paid the approaching pair no mind. He was trying to shake the woman off; he was on the verge of tears, she on the verge of exasperation.
The pale stranger sat on a rock, head in hands. He looked up as Einon approached, and Einon thought what a striking man he was, with a nobility entirely lacking in these uplanders. Fychan did not bother to introduce him, but Einon stopped anyway.
The man stared at him uncertainly and said, ‘Are you a priest?’ - as though, with his shaved and tattooed head, Einon could be anything else. His accent was odd; Einon had met people from the four corners of Creation in the City of Light, but he had never heard an accent quite like that.
‘Aye, Chilwar, I am a priest,’ he said. ‘Do you, ah, do you have need of my services?’
‘I’m not sure, perhaps . . . I think I may need to talk to you later.’
‘Gwas!’
Einon looked up at Fychan’s call. Fychan had the candidate skyfool by one wrist; the boy wriggled and squirmed. The woman next to him had a face as dark as thunder.
‘Gwas, I present to you Damaru am Dangwern, who is of my blood and of my village, and who petitions to come before the Cariad and be tested,’ Fychan said hurriedly.
Einon looked at the boy. He had seen candidates before, at the presentations and public testings, though never this close. This Damaru certainly had the ever-shifting gaze and gawky yet oddly graceful movements of a skyfool. This could change everything.
‘I will hear your petition, Chilwar. Give me, ah, a little while to prepare, then bring him to the capel.’
‘Aye, Gwas. Er, where is the capel, please?’
Einon pointed up the slope to the stone enclosure at the base of the Steps. ‘There. Do not take too long. The drove must leave soon.’
As soon as the priest was out of earshot Kerin said, ‘Fychan, kindly let go of my son!’
Fychan released Damaru’s arm and the boy walked off, shook himself, then turned and came back and sat at Kerin’s feet in a flurry of limbs. She put her hand on his head and stroked his hair to calm him.
Fychan began, ‘He must be told to—’
‘Fychan, what do you think you are doing?’ Kerin interrupted. She had curbed her anger for too long. ‘We have walked all night, Damaru is exhausted and confused, and now he must be tested - here, now? Why in the name of the Abyss did you not tell me this?’
‘Do not interrupt me, woman!’ Fychan shouted, going white with rage. ‘I am his guardian! His affirmation is my responsibility - and it is not a test. Tis merely the first stage, when I come before a priest and swear to his worthiness!’
Kerin got herself under control and asked, more equably, ‘Must Damaru go himself? Can you not speak for him?’
‘My father said that the Traditions demand he be examined by a priest before he can continue any further.’
‘Then we had best not keep the priest waiting, had we?’ she said, her voice conciliatory.
‘No! Arthen appointed me as his guardian,’ Fychan said. ‘You stay here - tend Sais, he looks unwell.’
Fychan was not wrong in that, but Kerin was not about to back down. She straightened and looked Fychan in the eye. ‘If you believe you can convince my son to come with you without my help, then go right ahead. But consider this: if you hurt him, or distress him, not only might I never forgive you, but you may not live long enough to ask for that forgiveness. Or have you forgotten what happened to the reivers?’ She strode off a few paces.
Damaru watched her, puzzled.
Into the tense silence Sais called, ‘Listen, I don’t want to interrupt, but I just wondered what’ll happen if you don’t do this affirmation thing now.’
Fychan lowered his head. ‘If Damaru does not come before the priest, or if he is not found worthy - which he will be - then he and I must return to the village in shame.’
Kerin felt her cheeks reddening. This should not be about her dislike of Fychan, but about Damaru. ‘Fychan,’ she said evenly, ‘will you permit me to lead my son to the capel? I will explain to him that when we get there he must go with you, and you can take him inside.’
Fychan’s mouth twisted. Then he nodded. ‘All right.’
Kerin looked at Sais.
‘I’m just tired,’ he said. ‘I’ll sit here and do nothing for a bit while you take Damaru to the priest.’
She nodded and went over to Damaru. After some whining on his part, she managed to get him to go with her.
Like the huts in the village they had passed through a few days earlier, the capel was square and built of stone. Two men lay in bedrolls on either side of the entrance. One, his clawed hands clasped on his chest, slept fitfully; the other, who had incense burning in a bowl next to him, was awake, moaning to himself. More victims of the falling fire, left to the mercy of the Mothers.
She told Damaru that he must go with Fychan, but he was unwilling to leave her at the threshold of the capel. Fychan tutted, and grudgingly indicated that she had better come inside too.
The priest, who had been kneeling before the crammed offering table, stood up and turned around. He had his ceremonial stole on: he now spoke as the voice of the Skymothers. As she made the circle, Kerin noted that this priest’s stole was brightly woven and encrusted with polished metal, far richer than those of the travelling lay-priests who visited Dangwern. It also had a lot of green in it, rather than an even mix of all five colours.
The priest’s eyes flicked over her dismissively, then he gestured to Fychan. ‘Approach, Fychan am Dangwern.’
Kerin looked to Fychan, who said, a little sulkily, ‘Gwas, Damaru is tired by his journey,
and will not be parted from his mother.’
The priest raised his eyebrows, then cleared his throat. ‘So be it. Tell her she may enter, but she must not intervene.’
Presumably the priest felt it below his dignity to speak to her himself, Kerin thought. To Fychan, she whispered, ‘I will remain where Damaru can see me. Do not worry; I will not get in the way.’
Fychan led Damaru up to stand before the priest. Kerin shadowed them, making sure Damaru could see her out of the corner of his eye.
The priest raised his hands and eyes to Heaven and was silent for a moment. Then he looked at Fychan and intoned, ‘Fychan am Dangwern, do you swear on the names of the Five that the boy who stands before me is, as far as you know and believe, touched by the sky?’
‘Aye, I do,’ Fychan said, his voice shaking a little.
‘Damaru?’ said the priest tentatively. Damaru had been looking towards Kerin and did not show any sign of having heard the priest. Einon moved in front of him and called his name again. When she saw Damaru frown, Kerin tensed, ready to call out a reassurance. Then Damaru looked at the priest; something about the man caught his attention and Damaru kept watching him, an expression of interest on his face. They stood like that for a while, the priest staring Damaru in the eyes, Damaru standing perfectly still, while Kerin and Fychan looked on.
Finally the priest stepped back. Damaru twitched his shoulders and looked around. He saw Kerin, focused on her briefly, then began to wander towards the capel entrance.
The priest spoke to Fychan. ‘The candidate’s petition is accepted. Will you stand guardian for him in the coming journey and at his presentation and testing in the City of Light?’
‘Aye,’ Fychan said, then remembered his words and added, ‘I so agree.’
‘Then I recognise your role on behalf of the Skymothers. You will journey with this boy to Tyr Aryir, the Tower of the Sky, and there stand before the Cariad, the Beloved Daughter of Heaven herself. Go in peace under the sight of Heaven.’
Fychan made the circle. Kerin hastily did the same and followed Damaru out.
Sais was where she had left him. While they waited to be called to take their places for the ascent of the Steps, Kerin found the three of them some food. After Damaru had eaten he curled up on the ground and fell asleep.
‘Will you be able to manage the climb?’ she asked Sais quietly. ‘Neithion said it was hard.’
‘There’s not much alternative.’ He sounded awful.
On impulse she said, ‘I know something that may help. Something Neithion showed me.’
‘I’m open to suggestions,’ he said.
‘You will need to sit in front of me while I kneel up behind you.’ She blushed, but he did not appear to notice any impropriety in her suggestion. As he settled himself, she began to massage his shoulders. He grunted as the knots in his muscles popped under her fingers, then relaxed, leaning back against her. ‘That’s really good,’ he murmured. She questioned whether this intimacy dishonoured her dead husband’s memory, then decided not: Neithion was at his rest, and she had to live for the future now, not the past. She kept her hands on Sais’s shoulders for a while after she had finished. He did not tell her to remove them.
The call went up to move, and they joined the now far larger group of villagers who travelled with the sleds behind the councillors and the priest. The great mass of beasts, and the men and dogs herding them, brought up the rear. Kerin had never seen so many living beings in one place.
On the relatively gentle lower slopes great stone slabs had been laid, wide enough for ten men to walk abreast. Each stone tilted gently upwards and formed a shallow step. Damaru kept to the path most of the time, making occasional short forays up or down the hillside. As they walked, Sais asked her how the Steps got their name.
‘It is said that long ago a Consort from the uplands played the slabs of rock into place with his bogwood pipes,’ she replied. ‘He did it to give his people a way over the mountains to the market without having to take the treacherous route along the Glaslyn Gorge.’
‘This is the easy route? I’d hate to try the hard one!’
Kerin thought about her own words. There was something unreal about recalling this tale at the Steps themselves. And she was here in the company of a boy who might, Mothers willing, become a Consort himself. She had never questioned the underlying truth of such stories. Yet the Steps were obviously the work of men, and the skyfool was her own son.
After lunch, the mountain grew steeper and the Steps narrowed to become long sweeping switchbacks. Kerin looked back down the slope to see the line of men and animals strung out below her, the last of the herd still on the flatter, lower section. Above them, the path disappeared into cloud. Damaru stayed close now, as to leave the path risked slipping and falling.
The path narrowed further, and they moved into single file. Wet snow began to fall in great soggy flakes. They pressed on despite the cold and the poor visibility until the snow hardened to hail and the drove straggled to a halt. The men pressed themselves back into the hillside, hunching down in their cloaks until the hail had passed, leaving the air bitter. When Sais looked back at Kerin his face was pale as whey. She offered up a prayer to Turiach to give him strength; there was nothing else she could do for him right now.
A little later, they entered the clouds. The air grew misty, and droplets of water condensed on hair and clothes and soon froze. The view back down the mountain was swallowed up in featureless grey. Kerin found it odd that clouds looked like solid objects far up in the sky, but once you were inside them they were really nothing more than floating fogbanks.
The path was cut into the near-vertical rock face now, and Kerin found herself grateful that the mist hid the lethal drop off to the side. The endless climb through the chill grey twilight made her feel as though she were in a featureless nowhereland, on the way out of her old life into her new one. The thought did not worry her as much as she might have expected.
Sais was almost crawling now, leaning forward to feel his way along, his breath coming in harsh gasps. As the drovers in front of them began to pull away, a muffled cry came from up ahead.
Kerin, freezing and exhausted, assumed something bad had happened. She turned to look at Huw, who was following behind Damaru, to ask if she should go forward, but he was grinning.
‘Do not fear,’ he called back. ‘Tis the men who go before us giving thanks for having safely reached the top.’
There is only so much that willpower can do, Sais concluded during the climb up Piper’s Steps. Regardless of the will driving it, a body can take only so much punishment before it gives up.
The rest at the bottom of the Steps and Kerin’s massage had helped a little, but all too soon they were off again, when all he wanted to do was lie down and never get up. Dizzy spells began to come in waves, along with weird visual effects. Despite the bone-numbing cold, the view shimmered as though in a heat-haze, and he kept glimpsing patches of darkness at the edges of his vision.
As his body climbed, his mind chased shadowy thoughts and he wondered - a faint hope - if in his delirium he might access those missing memories. At least if he were lost in his head, then his body might get on without him. It was a stupid thing to consider on a mountain, but he couldn’t summon up the energy to be afraid.
He was already shivering by the time it began to snow, and after that his teeth chattered so hard he began to worry that he’d bite off his tongue and lose the ability to speak. This possibility terrified him, in a way the risk of falling hadn’t, and he felt himself sliding back into the nightmare of evil, mesmerising eyes waiting to strip his soul. Only now he wasn’t asleep; this time he wouldn’t wake up—
A shout jolted him out of his reverie and he looked around, finding the world had been eaten by grey nothingness. His surprise turned to shock as his left foot slipped on a rock. Instinct took over: his right knee tensed to take the load and his arms went out for balance. His consciousness shot fully back into the moment
and in his first clear thought for some time, he realised:
He was screwed.
His body was trying to compensate for the inevitability of gravity - arms flailing, the beginning of a shout coming up his throat - but he knew it was pointless. The formless void yawned seductively on his right and he was powerless against it. His knee buckled, but even as his mind welcomed the inevitability of the fall, he was vaguely annoyed to find that his body hadn’t got the message yet and his hands grabbed at air.
He hoped the end would be quick, and not too painful.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kerin knew what was about to happen a moment before it did; something - intuition, a sound, a movement out the corner of her eye - tipped her off—
But before she could react, her breath, her heart, her very being, was frozen—
—then freed again.
She staggered to her left, into the mountainside, hands splayed to catch herself, and while she teetered for a moment, her fear of the sheer drop was overlaid with the memory of this sensation . . .
She took a deep breath, then another, until she was sure of herself again. Then she looked around. Sais was lying face down on the path, one arm dangling over the edge. Behind her, Damaru was sitting on the ground, whimpering to himself. Huw stood beyond Damaru, looking astonished.
‘Did you see what happened?’ asked Kerin.
‘Sais slipped and fell,’ said Huw, ‘and Damaru snatched him from the air.’ He circled his breast, then, coming to himself, called back down the line, ‘We have a fallen man here! Everyone halt!’
Kerin bent to check on Damaru, who was upset, but unhurt. She murmured a quick reassurance to him and made her way further up the path to Sais. ‘Can you hear me?’ she whispered urgently. ‘Sais, can you hear me? Are you all right?’ He didn’t react to her voice at all.
‘How far to the top?’ she called back to Huw.
‘Not far. Is he hurt?’
‘I do not believe so, though I cannot rouse him.’