by Tad Williams
“... I did not even see her,” a voice was saying. After a moment, Guthwulf was able to identify it as the king’s, although there was a subtle, chiming tone to it that he had not marked before. “By God’s head, to think that I have become so slow and preoccupied.” The king’s laugh had a fearful tinge. “I was sure she had come for me.”
Guthwulf tried to respond to Elias, but found that he could not form the proper sounds. It was dark, so dark that he could not make out the king’s form. He wondered if he had been brought to his own room, and how long he had been senseless.
“I saw her,” Pryrates rasped. His voice, too, had taken on a ringing sound. “She may have escaped me for a moment, but by the Black Eon, the scrubbing-bitch will pay.”
Guthwulf, still struggling for speech, found himself amazed that Pryrates should be able to speak at all, let alone be standing while the Earl of Utanyeat lay on the ground.
“I suppose now I shall have to wait for Fengbald to return before I can send out the Erkynguard—or perhaps one of the younger lords could lead them?” The king sighed wearily. “Poor Wolf.” There seemed in his strangely tuneful voice little sympathy.
“He should not have touched me,” Pryrates said contemptuously. “He interfered and the slattern escaped. Perhaps he was in league with her.”
“No, no, I do not think so. He was always loyal. Always.”
Poor Wolf? What, did they think he was dead? Guthwulf strained to make his muscles work. Had they brought him to some curtained room to lie in waiting for burial? He fought for mastery of his body, but all his limbs seemed coldly unresponsive.
A horrible thought came to him suddenly. Perhaps he was dead—for who, after all, had ever returned to say what it was like? Only Usires Himself, and he was the son of God. Oh, merciful Aedon, would he have to stay trapped in his body like a prisoner in a forgotten cell, even as they laid him in the wormy ground? He felt a scream building within him. Would it be like the dream when he touched the sword? God save him. Merciful Aedon ...
“I am going, Elias. I will find her, even if I must crush the stones of the servant’s quarters into dust and flay the skin off of every chambermaid.” Pryrates spoke with a sort of sweetness, as though the savor of this thought was as splendid as wine. “I will see that people are punished. ”
“But surely you should rest,” Elias said mildly, as though speaking to a froward child. “Your injury ...”
“The pain I inflict on the chamber-mistress will take my own pain away,” the alchemist said shortly. “I am well. I have grown strong, Elias. It will take more than a single knife thrust to dispatch me. ”
“Ah.” The king’s voice was emotionless. “Good. That is good.”
Guthwulf heard Pryrates’ bootheels clocking against the tiled stone floor, striding away. There was no sound of a door opening and closing, but another shower of moisture spattered the Earl of Utanyeat’s face. This time he felt the chill of the water.
“L ... L ... ’Lias,” he managed to say at last.
“Guthwulf!” the king said, gently surprised. “You live?”
“Wh ... where... ?”
“Where is what?”
“... Me. ”
“You are on the balcony, where you had your ... accident.”
How could that be? Had it not been morning time when they had watched the Erkynguard muster? Had he lain here lifelessly until evening? Why hadn’t they moved him to a more comfortable place?
“... He’s right, you know,” Elias was saying. “You really shouldn’t have interfered. What did you think you were doing?” The odd ringing sound was beginning to fade from his voice. “It was very foolish. I told you to stay away from the priest, didn’t I?”
“... Can’t see ...” Guthwulf managed at last.
“I’m not surprised,” Elias said calmly. “Your face is badly burned, especially around your eyes. They look very bad. I was certain you were dead—but you’re not.” The king’s voice was distant. “It’s a pity, old comrade, but I told you to watch out for Pryrates.”
“Blind?” Guthwulf said, his voice hoarse, throat seizing in a painful spasm. “Blind?!”
His rasping howl broke across the commons, bouncing from wall to stone wall until it seemed a hundred Guthwulfs were screaming. As he vented his agony, the king patted him on the head as though soothing an old dog.
The river valley waited for the oncoming storm. The chilly air warmed and grew heavy. The Stefflod murmured uneasily and the sky was gravid with angry-looking clouds. The travelers found themselves speaking softly, as if they rode past the sleeping form of some huge beast who might be awakened by disrespectful loudness or levity.
Hotvig and his men had decided to ride back to the rest of their party, who were nearly four score all told, men, women, and children. Hotvig’s clanfolk and their wagons were following as swiftly as they could, but they were no match for the speed of unencumbered riders.
“I am still amazed that your people would uproot themselves to follow us into an unknown and ill-omened wilderness,” Josua said at their parting.
Hotvig grinned, showing a gap in his teeth earned in some past brawl. “Uproot? There is no such word to the folk of the Stallion Clan. Our roots are in our wagons and our saddles.”
“But surely your clansmen are worried about riding into such strange territory?”
A brief look of concern flickered across the Thrithings-man’s face, quickly supplanted by an expression of disdainful pride. “You forget, Prince Josua, that they are my kinfolk. I told them, ‘If stone-dwellers can ride there without fear, can the people of the Free Thrithings shy away?’ They follow me.” He pulled at his beard and grinned once more. “Besides, it is worth many risks to get out from under Fikolmij’s hand.”
“And you are sure he will not pursue you?” the prince asked.
Hotvig shook his head. “As I told you last night, the March-thane has lost face because of you. Anyway, our clans often split into smaller clan-families. It is our right as people of the Free Thrithings. The last thing Fikolmij can do now is to try to keep us few from leaving the greater clan. That would prove beyond doubt that he is losing his hold on the reins.”
When they had all gathered around the fire after their encounter in the dark, Hotvig had explained how Fikolmij’s treatment of his daughter and Prince Josua had caused much disgruntled talk around the wagons of the Stallion Clan. Fikolmij had never been a popular leader, but he had been respected as a powerful fighter and clever strategist. To see him so bedeviled by the mere presence of stone-dwellers, to the point where he would lend aid to Fengbald and others of the High King’s men without consulting his clan chiefs, had made many wonder out loud whether Fikolmij was still capable of lording it as March-thane of all of the High Thrithings.
When Earl Fengbald had arrived with his fifty or so armored men, swaggering into the wagon camp like conquerors, Hotvig and some of the other randwarders had brought the men of their own clan-families to Fikolmij’s wagon. The March-thane had wished to set the Erkynlanders quickly on the trail of Josua’s party, but Hotvig and the others had stood against their leader.
“No stone-dwellers go armed across the Stallion Clan’s fields without a gathering of chiefs to say they can,” Hotvig had cried, and his fellows had echoed him. Fikolmij had fumed and threatened, but the laws of the Free Thrithings were the only immutable things in the clan-folk’s nomadic existence. The argument had ended with Hotvig and the other randwarders telling Earl Fengbald—“a foolish, dangerous man who likes himself well,” as Hotvig described him—that the only way the High King’s men could pursue Josua was to go around the Stallion Clan’s territory. Fengbald, outnumbered by ten to one or more, had no choice but to ride away, taking the shortest route back off the High Thrithings. The Earl of Falshire had made many angry threats before departing, promising that the grasslanders’ long days of freedom were over, that High King Elias would come soon and knock the wheels off their wagons once and for all.
Unsurprisingly, this public thwarting of Fikolmij’s authority brought on a terrible argument that several times almost erupted into deadly bloodshed. The disputing ceased only when Hotvig and several other randwarders took their families and followed Josua, leaving Fikolmij behind to curse and lick his wounds, his strength as March-thane weakened but by no means ended.
“No, he will not follow us,” Hotvig repeated. “That would say to all the clans that mighty Fikolmij cannot survive the loss of our few wagons, and that the stone-dwellers and their feuds are more important to the March-thane of all the High Thrithings than his own people. Now, we clan exiles will live near you for a while at your Farewell Stone and talk among ourselves about what we will do.”
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your help,” Josua said solemnly. “You have saved our lives. If Fengbald and his soldiers had caught us, we would be going back to the Hayholt in chains. Then there would be no one to stop my brother.”
Hotvig looked at him keenly. “You may think so, but you do not know the strength of the Free Thrithings if you think we would be so easily overcome.” He hefted his long spear. “Already the men of the Meadow Thrithings are making things very difficult for the stone-dwellers of Nabban.”
Father Strangyeard, who had been listening carefully, made a worried face. “The king is not the only one we fear, Hotvig.”
The Thrithings-man nodded. “So you told me. And I would hear more, but now I must go back for the rest of my people. If your destination is as close as the woman says,” he indicated Geloë with careful respect, “then look for us before sunset tomorrow. The wagons can go no faster.”
“But do not delay,” the wise woman said. “I did not speak lightly when I said we must make haste ahead of this storm.”
“No one can ride like grasslander horsemen,” Hotvig said sternly. “And our wagon-teams are not much slower. We will be with you before tomorrow’s night.” He laughed, again showing his missing tooth. “Leave it to city folk to find stone in the middle of the meadowlands, then want to make their home there. Still,” he said to the prince, “I knew when you killed Utvart that things would never be the same for anyone. My father taught me to trust my hand and my heart.” He grinned. “My luck, too. I bet one of my foals on you, Josua, in your fighting with Utvart. My friends were ashamed to best me so easily, but they took my wager,” He laughed loudly. “You won four good horses for me!” He turned his mount toward the south, waving. “Soon we will meet again!”
“And no arrows this time,” cried Deornoth.
“Go safely,” Josua called as Hotvig and his men spurred away across the green lands.
Heartened by the encounter with the Thrithings-folk, the travelers rode cheerfully through the morning despite the threatening skies. When they stopped briefly to take their midday meal and water the horses, Sangfugol even convinced Father Strangyeard to sing with him. The priest’s surprisingly sweet voice blended well with the harper’s, and if Father Strangyeard did not quite understand what “The Ballad of Round-Heeled Moirah” was about, his enjoyment was the greater for it, and for the laughing praise given to him after.
When they were in the saddle once more, Deornoth found himself riding beside Geloë, who cradled Leleth before her on the saddle. She rode flawlessly, as one of long experience; Deornoth found himself wondering once more what the wise woman’s strange history might be. She was also still wearing the spare clothing he had brought out of the wagon-camp, as if she had come to that fateful copse of trees naked. After thinking for a while about why that might be, and remembering the clawed thing that had struck at him in darkness, Deornoth decided that there were some things about which a God-fearing knight should not inquire.
“Forgive me, Valada Geloë,” he said, “but you look very grim. Is there something important you have not told us yet?” He indicated Sangfugol and Strangyeard, laughing with Duchess Gutrun as they rode. “Are we singing in the lich-yard, as the old saying goes?”
Geloë continued to watch the sky. From her lap, Leleth looked at him as though he were an interesting rock. “I fear many things, Sir Deornoth,” Geloë said at last. “The problem with being a ‘wise woman’ is that sometimes you know just enough to be truly afraid, while still not having any better answers than might the youngest child. I fear this coming storm. The one who is our true enemy—I will not say his name here in this land, not in the open—is reaching the summit of his power. We have already seen in this cold summer how his pride and anger speak in the winds and clouds. Now, black weather is swirling out of the north. I am sure it is his storm: if I am right, it will bring woe to those who resist him.”
Deornoth found himself following her gaze. Suddenly, the ominous clouds seemed an inky hand stretching across the sky from the north, blindly but patiently searching. The idea of waiting for that hand to find them sent a poisonous dread twisting through him, so that he had to look down at his saddle for a moment before he could lift his eyes to Geloë’s yellow stare.
“I understand,” he said.
Sunlight bled fitfully through chinks in the clouds. The wind turned, blowing into their faces, heavy and moist. As they followed the line of the valley, a broad bend in the Stefflod revealed for the first time the old forest, the Aldheorte. The great wood was much nearer than Deornoth would have guessed—the party’s return on horseback had been far swifter than their straggling march out across the Thrithings. Because of their descent into the river valley, the forest now stood on the heights above them, a solid line of vegetation like dark cliffs along the valley’s northern rim.
“It is not far now,” Geloë said.
They rode on through the afternoon as the curtained sun slid down the sky, glowing behind the gray murk. Another turn in the river’s course brought them around a cluster of shallow hills. They stopped short.
“Merciful Aedon,” Deornoth breathed to himself.
“Sesuad’ra,” Geloë said. “There stands the Stone of Farewell.”
“That’s no stone,” Sangfugol said disbelievingly. “That’s a mountain!”
A great hill rose from the valley floor before them. Unlike its low, rounded neighbors, Sesuad‘ra thrust up from the meadows like the head of a buried giant, bearded with trees, crowned with angular stones that stood along the ridgeline. Beyond the spiky stones some shimmering whiteness lay along the hill’s very peak. An immense, upward-straining slab of weathered rock and clinging brush, Sesuad’ra loomed some five hundred cubits above the river. The uneven sunlight washed across the hill in wavering bands, so that the entire mass almost seemed to turn and watch them as they rode slowly down the watercourse.
“It is much like Thisterborg, near the Hayholt,” Josua said wonderingly.
“That’s no stone,” Sangfugol repeated stubbornly, shaking his head.
Geloë laughed harshly. “It is all stone. Sesuad’ra is a part of the very bones of the earth, thrust free of her body in the pain of the Days of Fire, but still reaching down into the very center of the world.”
Father Strangyeard was eyeing the massive hill nervously. “And we are going to ... are going to ... stay there? Live there?”
The witch woman smiled. “We have permission.”
As they neared, it became apparent that the Stone was not so sheer as distance made it seem. A path, a lighter streak through the choking trees and brush, snaked its way around the base of the hill, then appeared again farther up, spiraling summitward around the circumference of the rock until it disappeared near the crest.
“How can trees live on such a stone, let alone thrive?” Deornoth asked. “Can they grow in the very rock?”
“Sesuad’ra has been broken and worn over the eons of its existence,” Geloë answered. “Plants will ever find a way, and they themselves help to further break the stone until it is crumbled to a dirt scarcely less rich than found on a Hewenshire freeholding.”
Deornoth frowned slightly at this reference to his birthplace, then wondered how the wise woman knew of h
is father’s farm. He had certainly never mentioned it to her.
Soon they were walking in the sudden twilight of the hill’s long shadow, whipped by a chilly wind. The path that began at Sesuad’ra’s base lay before them, hugging the hillside, a trampled cut of grass and moss overhung by trees and twining creepers.
“And we are going up?” Duchess Gutrun asked in some consternation. “Up into this place?”
“Of course,” Geloë said, a touch of impatience in her rough voice. “It is the highest ground for leagues. We have need of high ground just now. Besides, there are other reasons—must I explain them all again?”
“No, Valada Geloë, please lead us,” Josua said. The prince seemed fired by some inner flame, his pale face alight with excitement. “This is what we have been searching for. This is where we will begin the long road back.” His face slackened somewhat. “I do wonder, though, how Hotvig and his folk will feel about leaving their wagons below. It is a pity there is no way to get them up the hill.”
The wise woman waved her callused hand. “You worry too soon. Step ahead and you will have a surprise.”
They rode forward. Beneath the straggling grass the path that wound up the hillside was as smooth as one of old Naglimund’s hallways and wide enough for any wagon.
“But how can this be?” Josua asked.
“You forget,” Geloë responded, “this is a Sithi place. Beneath this bramble is the road they built. It takes many, many centuries to destroy the handiwork of the Zida’ya.”
Josua was not cheered. “I am amazed, but now I am even more worried. What will keep our enemies from climbing as easily as we do?”
Geloë snorted in disgust. “First, it is easier to defend a high place than to take it from below. Secondly, the nature of the place itself is against it. Third, and perhaps most importantly, our enemy’s own rage may outsmart him and ensure our survival—at least for a while.”
“How so?” the prince demanded.
“You will see.” Geloë spurred her horse up the path, Leleth bobbing on the saddle before her. The child’s wide brown eyes took in everything without any show of feeling. Josua shrugged and followed.