by Carol Berg
I wrestled my knees underneath my belly and prepared to lurch up and back, relishing the prospect of slamming him to the ground and crushing his balls. But as I rose, his friend pounced, and the two together flattened me again. Air escaped my chest in a painful whoosh.
While I fought to get a breath, the two Danae trussed my wrists and knees. Manhandling me as if I weighed no more than dandelion fluff, they dragged me toward the great oak on my back.
“Is this how the long-lived treat their kin?” I gasped as I bumped across the rocky meadow. The glowing pattern of oak leaves on one fellow’s legs pulsed an angry purple in several spots. I hoped that meant they hurt.
“You’re but a halfbreed,” said the youth on my left as if I might have the intelligence of a stick. “Scarcely kin.”
Entirely inappropriate laughter welled up from my depths. “Twice cursed!” Surely no man had ever been so afflicted with purulent family. Both branches of my ancestry grasped to hold on to a wretch that neither of them wanted.
When the dragging stopped, I assumed I’d be left until they were ready to take me wherever they thought to keep me. Did Danae have prisons? But the two uncoiled their loops of braided rope—vines, I thought—shoved me upright, and bound me to the massive trunk. I smothered a smile. No unspelled rope had held me for long since I learned how to make a voiding spell when I was eight. I just needed a little time and something to distract these two.
Yet as twilight dropped its mantle over this landscape, I could not focus on my spellmaking. Once they had secured my upper body to the tree, they spread my ankles apart and fixed them in place with loops of rope, a wooden block snugged firmly behind each knee.
“I would do this in thy stead, Kennet,” said the taller of the youths, whose wheat-colored hair was braided with firethorn berries. “I’d not have thy gentle heart troubled by the deed.”
The other youth, he of the bruised oak leaves, knotted the rope that fixed my thighs in place and looped it behind the trunk again. “I’d gladly give over the task,” he said when he reappeared, “but I’d best not refuse Tuari. Give me leave to settle my spirit and strengthen my arm. I would make it fast and clean.”
A third chunk of wood, long and narrow like a club—a very heavy-looking club—lay on the ground behind them.
A fluttering panic rose in my belly. “Great gods of mercy, what are you doing? I can be persuaded not to run again. Once sworn, I keep my word.”
They wrenched the bindings tighter yet. I strained at the braided rope, but could shift neither legs nor torso so much as a quat. “What offense have I given? I’ve ever honored the Danae. I’ve left offerings even when I had naught for myself. Told your stories with reverence.”
Their blue sigils glowed like traces of sapphire in the lowering dusk. A last tweak of my positioning and the Dané with the firethorn braid picked up the club and moved to one side.
“I did not make my father lie with one of you,” I said, panic stretching my voice thin. “I’ve done naught but be born!”
The other youth, Kennet, extended his hand upward as if to grasp a fistful of leaves above his head, then coiled his body into a knot close to the ground. As I watched, breathless with fear, he unwound himself, spun once, and leaped into the air higher than my head, legs stretched fore and behind, as light and quick as a frighted doe leaps a fence.
My heart leaped with him. For a moment the sheer power of his body’s feat overshadowed my foreboding. But as he sank to one knee, took a deep breath, and stood up again, terror came rushing back. No time for pride. “Please, I beg you—”
“No deed of thine has brought this trial on thee,” said the one holding the club. “Only the Law. Halfbreeds cannot be allowed to corrupt the Canon again. Thou must never dance in Aeginea. Thou shalt not.”
“Dance?” My eyes latched on to the brutish stick of wood as he passed it to the dancer Kennet. “I don’t even want to stay with you! I’ve no intent to dance anywhere…don’t know how…save in a tavern brawl…crude stomping to pipe and tabor…nothing like what you do. I’ll swear it…swear obedience…kiss your archon’s feet…whatever you want. If you cripple me…gods, what gives you the right? If you do this, I’m a dead man.”
I’d seen what happened to cripples in famine times. For a man who could not read, the only labors that might keep him eating required legs that worked.
“We cannot take the chance. No argument will change that. But be assured, once thou’rt recovered, we’ll help thee make a useful life.” When I opened my mouth to beg and curse him, he shoved a strip of leather between my teeth. “Bite down hard.”
Kennet stepped toward me, the club poised on a line with my left knee. I slammed the back of my head against the ridged oak bark, squeezed my eyes shut, and all at once the sky fell and lightning struck…
Chapter 12
Stripes of lightning blazed on my breast. On the ground before me writhed a snarl of blue light…thumps, groans…quickly silenced. Beside me a dark shape yanked away ropes and my arms fell free. Dazed…confused…I spat out the strip of leather, but a hand clamped over my mouth, demanding silence before moving back to its other tasks. A whisk of cold steel sliced through the extra loops holding my thighs and knees, and I was free. My knees…intact. Of a sudden my every joint felt like mud.
My senses began to pick the truth out of the darkness. Blade strokes, not lightning strokes, had sliced through the braided rope across my breast. The spreading warmth dampening my shirt was my blood. And I had two rescuers…
Bright blue sigils faded to a dull glow, outlining my captors’ sprawled bodies, then winked out. The third Dané, the one who had fallen…or jumped…out of the tree, fumbled at my arms. “How hast thou—?” Hissing enmity spewed through the night as if it were the glowing dragon on his face that spoke. “Who else walks here?”
“Stay away from him!” Saverian’s brisk command whipped through the night as my ankles came free, the binding ropes hacked apart by her blade. “Run, Valen!”
Though I could not see the physician herself, her weapon—a dagger the length of my forearm—appeared to my right, reflecting the Dané’s blue fire. I stumbled, weak-kneed, to join her.
“No!” Kol stretched out his leg and spun. The dagger went flying. He grappled with the shadowy figure, cutting off her growl of fury, and threw her to the turf. Then his iron hands clamped on to my arm and propelled me away from the oak. “Come with me, Cartamandua-son, or count thyself captive of the archon once more and be broken. The remedy I’ve given thy captors will not quiet them long.”
“Wait! What have you done? The woman…” Recovering some semblance of strength, I wrestled free of him and returned to Saverian, relieved to feel the beat of life in her neck. “I’ll not leave her.” She had thwarted the prince’s will and jeopardized his bargain with the Danae, and I trusted neither Osriel’s mercy nor his friendship.
“The human is no concern of mine.” Kol’s voice shivered my bones. “She interfered where she had no business.”
So did you, I think, uncle. Though not for love of me. The memory of his grieving at Clyste’s Well remained as vivid as on the day I’d witnessed it. Duty, not care, had brought him to my rescue.
The Dané moved away, the words trailing behind him. “Stay if thou willst. Gratefully will I be finished with thee.”
I had only a moment to decide. Kol seemed honest at least, both in his dislike and in his grief. He held out some hope of evading Osriel, whose perfidy had sapped all faith. No vow, no pledged service for whatever cause, should require a man be crippled. I scooped the limp physician into my arms, heaved her over my shoulder, and hurried after the Dané, praying the gods to forgive my presumption of divine benevolence in the face of my oath breaking.
We moved west on undulating ground, the river a constant rush on our left, and the bulge of land and rock that formed the pinnacle of Fortress Groult a swelling blackness against the starry sky on our right. I fixed my eyes on the blue-limned shape ahead of me, wh
ile concentrating every other sense and instinct on my footing. The Dané acknowledged my presence with neither glance nor speech, but the distance between us did not vary, no matter that I flagged under Saverian’s weight on every uphill pitch. He could have vanished in an instant. I had no choice but to trust him.
The night deepened. My shoulders ached. The wind grew into a constant buffeting, whipping my face with the hem of Saverian’s cloak and the flaps of her leather skirt. The physical effort and the concentration required to avoid a fall made thinking impossible. So it was only when a sudden gust from my left staggered me that I noted the change in the air. The wind smelled vaguely of fish and felt odd—cold, yes, but heavy and sticky. A quick look around staggered me as well. Not three steps to my left, the earth plunged precipitously into the night. The far side of the river gorge had vanished. And beyond those black depths…the river’s voice had changed into a rhythmic pounding crash. “Kol,” I called. “Where are we?”
He did not respond. I repeated the call several times, especially once the path began a twisting descent that ofttimes seemed more vertical than not. Sand and gravel on the path set my boots skidding and my heart galloping. Immediately after one jolting slide, when only a nubbin of crumbling rock had saved me from skidding off the path and plummeting the rest of the distance to the bottom of the cliff, Saverian began to squirm, mumbling something about hands and castration. Her heavy cloak, leather overskirt, woolen riding breeches, and leggings were all in a bunch about her thighs, half obscuring my vision.
“For the love of the Mother, hold still,” I shouted, planting my heel in a crack well suited to a cliff swallow’s roost. “I’ve no place to set you down. And you don’t want to see where we’ll land if you throw me off balance.”
If she spoke I didn’t hear her, but she did settle. The roar of the sea grew louder, the scent of salt wrack affirming the evidence of my ears. At a slight leveling of the track, I risked another glance. A star-filled sky illumined the white curls of breaking waves.
Ardra touched the western sea just north of the tin mines and cliffside sea fortresses of Cymra. But to reach the shore one must cross the wilds of the Aponavi, painted clansmen who herded goats and crafted rugs and collected heads for sport. To consider how far we might have traveled stretched my tired mind beyond reason.
Below me, Kol’s fiery sigils vanished, and I hurried onto the next downward pitch. My left boot slid sidewise toward the void…Concentrate, fool! But my right boot had no purchase on the skittering rocks, and I dared not trust it with our combined weight. Three quick steps at once brought me to another course reversal and an even steeper pitch. I dared not pause the entire last quarter of the descent, so that when I hurtled onto a shore of rippled sand I had difficulty persuading my feet to stop before they quickstepped right into the sea.
“Great Deunor’s grandmother!” I said, dropping to my aching knees…my blessed, aching, unsplintered knees. A rush of gratitude led me to deposit Saverian onto the sand with far more care than my screaming shoulders would prefer. Then I sat back on my heels, gulping air. She sat up, pulled her half-unraveled braid out of her face, and gaped.
“You’ve infected me with your madness.” Narrowing her eyes to slits, she rubbed her temples vigorously. “Else I’ve bumped my head, and all this”—she waved at the sea and sky and sand without looking at them—“is but my own mind’s imagining. If you tell me it’s neither, and that I’ve not just dreamed performing the single most appallingly stupid act of my life, I beg you snap my neck quickly.”
“You saved my life, lady—you and he.” I nodded a hundred quercae down the shore where Kol sat on a cluster of boulders, long arms wrapped around his bent knees, allowing the sea spray to shower him. “I could not leave you to reap Osriel’s whirlwind for your kindness. But truth be told, I don’t know as I’ve done you any favor. I’ve no idea where he’s brought us…”…assuming Kol had brought us here at all. Just because I had managed to follow him didn’t mean he wished us to be here.
She bent her head to her knees and beat her fists on her skull. Mumbled invective flowed from her like lava from a volcano. Her inventive mixture of human anatomy and unlikely violence altogether lifted my spirits.
The chill, damp wind flapped my cloak. Driftwood lay about the shore, tempting me to direct the prickly mage’s attention to fire. But the luminous breakers, the wind-borne scent of unknown shores, and a heaven filled with brilliant stars of such profusion and arrangement as I had never witnessed reminded me that we were not in our own land, but lost in Aeginea.
I pushed up to my feet. “I must speak to him before anything. Find out where he’s brought us and what he wants of me. You’ll be all right for a bit?”
“On the day I require the protection of a lunatic, I’ll snap my own neck. Yes, please go find out where we are, so I’ll know whether I’ve a better choice to travel east to Estigure or west to Cymra to find a new employer.” Her gaze, sparked with starlight, traveled up and down my height. “You’re going to tell me we’re in the realm of angels, aren’t you? And that the naked man with the exceedingly odd skin that I’ve imagined seeing is some kin of yours?”
I grinned down at her. “My uncle. Though he’s as loath as my every other kinsman to claim me. I’ll be back as soon as I may, and I’d advise not burning anything right away.”
I tramped the short distance down the broad tidal flats, finding it easier going than slogging through the dunes. Kol took no notice of my coming. Mustering every shred of graceful manners my tutors had beaten into me, I bowed and spoke the greeting Osriel had used. The Dané might not delight my eye, but my gratitude could not be measured. “Envisia seru, Kol. How may I serve thee in recompense for sound legs?”
“Be unborn.” He continued to stare into the churning sea.
The rebellious ember that yet denied the story of my birth winked out of existence. Seeking shelter from the wind and spray, I squeezed between his waist-high perch and another slab, pressed my weary back to the damp stone, and sat.
“If wishing could accomplish such a thing, gods know it would have happened long before now,” I said, twisting my aching shoulders. “My father’s family wished it. Many’s the time I’ve wished it—but that was before I learned that I had a kinswoman who could be spoken of as ‘beloved of every Dané for her joyful spirit.’”
“Do not think to ingratiate thyself by speaking of her.”
“I’ve no wish to ingratiate myself with any of your kind,” I snapped, his arrogance a cold wash on my conciliatory sensibilities. “You have extended me favors I never asked of you and that are clearly at odds with your own inclinations. Thus I must assume it is your sister’s desires you serve and that she wished us to treat each other with honor, if naught else. I offer no less than she would ask—and no more.”
After a long moment, he jerked his head in agreement. “I retract my unworthy accusation.”
Resisting the temptation to gasp in mock astonishment, I gestured at the desolate shore. “So, why would my mother want me here?”
“She chose me as thy vayar—thy teacher. The shores of Evaldamon provide a suitable place for teaching and are little traveled. Days pass slowly here. Yet were the days each the lingering of a season, the task is already impossible. I smell the remasti close upon thee. Once a body has passed the last remasti unchanged, naught can be done to alter it.”
“The last remasti…my birthday.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and ground his jaw. “Clyste trusted the Cartamandua to bring thee to me in the proper season—long ago. Despite what human lies tell, the long-lived do not steal human children away to Aeginea. Clyste’s innocence burned as the stars; the Cartamandua’s false promises stank as human dwellings do.”
“So it was for one broken promise that you stole Janus’s mind—stole his life.” Kol’s arrogance revolted me. “You mourn for my mother who broke your laws and sent me off with him. Yet for a failed human man, you alone issue a judgment that breaks all
bounds of compassion. I’ve no desire for your lessons.”
“Which is precisely why the teaching would be useless.”
The Dané unfolded his legs, pressed the bottoms of his feet together, and drew his heels close to his groin. I squirmed as I watched, imagining the uncomfortable stretch. Clasping his hands together, he straightened his arms over his head, then slowly bent his body forward until his chest came near touching the surface of the flat rock. I hugged my knees tightly, as if someone might prod me to replicate his move.
The silence lagged. Already I rued my hasty retort. My life demanded answers. I needed to understand what I was and what I would be, come the winter solstice.
“You brought me here despite your belief that I could not learn what you would teach,” I said. “She had some plan, didn’t she…my mother? She mated with Janus because she—”
“I will not speak of that joining.” He sprang to his feet, his sigils pulsing, posture and voice articulating bald humiliation. “It is enough that my sister’s blood flows in thy veins. She believed the Everlasting had accounted a place for thee in the Canon. This I cannot and will not accept. And if ever such a disordered event were possible, the season of its accomplishment has long passed. Yet even so late in this waning season I know what she would ask of me.”
“The Canon. A vayar is—” I pounced upon the absurdity, astonishment ruining my intent to curb my tongue. “You don’t think to teach me to dance?”
His face, long, narrow, and perfectly formed, might have been cold marble beneath his sigils. “No. But if I gift thee the separation gard, as if thou wert a nestling new released from thy parents’ side, the Law forbids Tuari to damage thee without informing thy argai—thy eldest kin, who is Stian, my sire. The custom provides only a delay, shouldst thou be taken captive again, for the archon’s judgment of a halfbreed will never be other than breaking. But it might give trustworthy companions a chance to protect thee.” He jumped down from the rock, landing on his bare feet with the weight of thistledown. “If I can convince Stian to agree and gift thee the walking gard as well, thou canst move through the world with certain skills of the long-lived, which will aid thee in eluding capture. Clyste would wish these protections for thee, though all other wishes fail.”