by Angus Wells
Then, before I could say more, he moved away, swift into the shadows at the stable’s farther end. I heard a door thud closed. I looked at the bracelet, touched it, wondering at his enigmatic words as I pulled on the gloves that were another gift of this keep. The gray mare kicked a stall, reminding me that folk looked to see me emerge: I loosed her tether and led her out into the icy air.
Yanydd and his kinfolk saluted from the door, and I raised a hand in answer, then I mounted and turned my horse to the gates, on through them into the streets of the town. There were few folk abroad, save the Changed working to clear the terrible weight of snow, and to them I nodded as I passed.
I continued downhill to the barbican, where the guardsmen huddling around their brazier bade me ride careful over the causeway. I saw no sign of hazard from the sea, which lay as calm as any ocean in winter, but as I ventured out onto the neck I (or more precisely, my mare) found it slick with treacherous ice. She shrilled a protest as her hooves slithered on the sleek black surface, fighting the reins so that after a while spent in useless argument I dismounted and walked her across. We both of us were thankful to reach the farther side, for all it seemed even colder, and I paused, calming her.
The village here was all but lost under the snow, the cottages white mounds marked by their chimneys and the dark shapes of cleared doorways. All down the beach the boats lay drawn up from the water, their nets and rigging ice-rimed, glittering under the cold sun. It was a sight both beautiful and terrible. I wound my scarf closer about my face and turned my back on Yanydd’s holding, climbing the gently sloping land in a northeasterly direction.
I could not afford to delay. With luck I should reach shelter by nightfall; without the blessing of fortune I must sleep out, and I was by no means certain either my mare or I could survive a night in such awful cold. I put heels to her flanks and urged her to a canter. She responded eagerly. I think she hoped to outrun the chill.
We climbed away from the village, up through the blighted orchards and the plantations. That far the way was cleared; then we faced the unhidden effects of the blizzard.
The road disappeared. Before us lay a seemingly unending snowfield, barely interrupted by rocks that would normally have stood tall as a mounted man, and snow-drowned trees. I slowed the mare, not wishing to founder in some drift, and wondered how we should survive: it seemed impossible that we could cross such a depth of snow.
That night I found the steading Yanydd had promised and took shelter there, repaying hospitality with a story and the answering of many questions. The farm folk were not much heartened by what I told them, but I urged them to a faith I could not quite share, and in the morning they saw me well fed, vowing themselves ready for whatever might come.
They had no better idea than I what that should be.
I went on, eastward now, around the southern edge of Kellambek. It was a longer route than the trade road across the massif, but I’d no desire to chance the mountains in such weather. I’d lay no odds on surviving that and thought none could argue my choice. Did Durbrecht wish me hasten, I’d make poor speed dead.
Even so, it was no easy path I chose. Indeed, for most of the way there was no path visible, and I must go by instinct, guided by instructions received and what few signs of the marked road remained. There were but three keeps between Morvyn and Whitefish village and few enough settlements. The land rose up to meet the tumbling flanks of the massif, where the great central mountains fell down into the southern sea, and those slopes were the domain of shepherds, empty of much other habitation. There was no natural shelter, and as the day aged I grew worried.
The sun westered fast and a wind got up, edged as a razor, skirling snow in ghostly clouds. As dusk fell, worry became fear. My mare needed rest and warm stabling; I no less a fire and walls about me. Here there was nothing: the landscape was smooth as a clean-scraped plate. I pressed on for want of alternative. Then, past a huddling ridge of snow, in the slope’s lee, I saw what I took to be a shepherd’s hut. I saw a chimney but no smoke nor light. I wondered why no dogs gave warning of my approach. I felt uneasy: the sun was lost behind the ridge and twilight shrouded the lee, shadow vying with the sparkle of starlight and moonglow. I reined in and hallooed the place. When only silence answered, I shouldered the door open and went inside.
I found a single room, sizable and neat. It was sparsely furnished, the hearth cold. It was eerie.
My gray mare nickered impatiently, urging me to haste in search of stable and fodder. There was an outbuilding, but it was mired so deep in snow, I saw no way to clear an entrance and elected to grant my horse the hospitality of the cottage. I took her reins and brought her inside. She promptly kicked a chair. I bade her show some better manners, which she answered with a snort and snapping teeth, and so I stripped her down and rubbed her off, then doled her a measure of oats. That soothed her, and as she ate I set logs in the hearth and got a fire started. I was somewhat guilty at rendering this tidy home a stable, but I saw no other choice. I thought I should restore it on the morrow.
I ate. I even found a jar of distilled wine and helped myself to a cup or two. Then, with murmured thanks to my unwitting hosts, I stretched myself on the larger of the three beds and went to sleep.
That night I had a strange dream. I recall it as clearly as those others I have told. Indeed, it was linked to those others, as if some spirit of that oak grove beyond Cambar had touched me and set the dream in my head; save it now seemed to unfold like a story I could not quite understand. This is what I dreamed:
I stood again in the hurst, again enveloped in swirling gray mist, but now a brume cold as the night outside. Icicles hung from the oaks, and the ground was thick with snow. I looked about, once more finding the spectral figures of warriors locked in battle. Not of my own volition, I shouted and they ceased their fighting, all lowering their blades and axes as they turned toward me. I felt very afraid, for all they offered me no harm but only stood, a silent circle, watching me or waiting on me to shout again. I felt they expected something from me, but did not know what.
Then all were gone, and in their place stood a great throng of Changed, and they, too, were silent. Unthinking, I took my left hand from my staff and held it up, that all might see the bracelet I wore. The Changed murmured at that, but their voices were like the wash of waves and I could not discern precise words, nor gauge the import of what they said. I raised my hand higher, and it was as if my ears were unstoppered. What they said was “Urt’s Friend,” and the mist and the snow were gone, the wood lit by warm sunlight.
I raised my head. For a moment I was blinded by the sun, then my vision cleared and I saw the sky cloudless, and then abruptly filled with shadow. I heard a sound like distant thunder or the rumble of water over rocks. I felt something immense approached, something awesome and terrible in its grandeur. I raised both amulet and staff, not knowing why they should protect me or if they would. The branches of the oaks trembled; leaves fell. I was suddenly aware I stood alone. I wanted to run and could not. I wanted to cower and could not. I could only stare as the darkness coalesced.
I cried out then; I did not know whether in fear or triumph. Perhaps both, for what I saw was confirmation of a dream, a merging of hope and wonder, and very terrible.
I saw a dragon.
It was vast. Great wings, leathery and clawed like a bat’s, beat rhythmically, holding the massive bulk of the body stationary above me. I felt the beating of its wings as must a ship’s sail bellied by a storm. I felt its breath hot on my face, dry and arid as sun-baked stone. I saw such jaws as might easily encompass a horse and its rider, set with fangs akin to sword blades. A serpentine neck extended from huge shoulders, the body hided in smooth glossy blue, sleek as armor. The limbs were heavy with muscle, the forequarters shorter than the hind, all ended in articulated paws that were tipped with sharp, curved talons, all large enough to grasp a man. A tail limber as an octopus’s tentacle lashed behind. I should have been smashed down by the wind of
its hovering, but I was not. I stood staring, my gaze met by great yellow eyes that observed me with an alien intelligence. I felt myself judged.
What conclusions this oneiric beast reached, I did not know. I was trapped by its yellow orbs as surely as any rabbit was ever held by an eagle’s implacable stare. I was lost. I felt no longer myself but a husk, as if the dragon leached out my spirit, as if it looked not at me but into me, into those secret places I kept hidden.
Then the beast craned back its great craggy head and screamed. It was the howl of a hunter, the shriek of a storm wind, the grinding of rocks in the bowels of the world. All of those: it dinned inside my head and drove me at last to my knees. And when I rose, the dragon was gone.
I opened my eyes and yelled in unalloyed terror as I felt hot breath on my face, saw eyes that I knew were real peering down at me.
My mare snorted and backed from the bed, tumbling furniture on her way. I sat up, groaning, rubbing at my eyes. I felt weary, as if I had not slept at all. I thought the dream should vanish, but it did not: it remained precise in my memory. I staggered from the bed, my legs unsteady as I found the water bucket and drank deep before giving the pail over to my horse. I was trembling, and sweat beaded my brow. I took the jug of distilled wine and gulped a cup, then sat, slumped against the table.
It was an effort to rise. I conjured the image of the dragon. I wondered if it was a true image or merely the product of my imagination. I went to the fire and stoked the embers, adding a few logs against the cold pervading the room.
My mare had soiled the floor, and I cleared her dung before heating what was left of last night’s stew. I fed her and tidied the cottage, then broke my own fast and doused the fire. I saddled her and led her out, still bemused by the odd dream. I swung the door closed and mounted. A trickle of smoke rose from the chimney, soon lost against the dawn-time gray. It was very cold, but the sun flirted on the rim of the eastern horizon, and I thought the worst of the night’s chill should be soon gone. I felt no wish to linger.
I never learned what became of the inhabitants of that cottage, though I was told their names the next night, when I sheltered in another lonely shepherd’s hut. The general opinion was that their bodies would be found come the thaw. If the thaw came: none were too sure of that.
Were they killed by this occult winter, they were not the only ones. The toll of lives and livestock was heavy throughout all Dharbek. Folk died in the lonely places, of hunger, of the cold; in the cities and settlements, too, as food grew short; fishermen drowned as ice-caked boats capsized. Deer froze in the wilderness, and wolves came down from the highlands to prey on penned sheep and cattle. I saw it all as I wound my way eastward, thankful that I survived.
I was rounding the southern coast, and Whitefish village lay not too far distant. I came to Amsbry on a day the wind hurled frozen snow like needles against my face, and I was grateful for the warmth of Perryn’s hall, the strong stone walls and stout wood shutters. It stood like an eagle’s aerie atop a cliff, and beyond the land ran down broken to the east coast. They were on short rations—all Dharbek was on short rations now, I heard—but it seemed rich fare to me after long days sharing what poor shepherds and farmers could spare. I reported all I had seen along my way to Kydal, who was commur-mage there and not much older than I, and I had back what news she could give me. It was not much, nor different from all I’d got along my way: unlikely winter prevailed, famine threatened, the Great Coming was anticipated. I remained three days and then set off for Tarvyn, which lay some nine days away.
Those nine days stretched into thirty.
I quit Amsbry with the sun a silver disk in a steel-hard sky. There was no cloud, and the snowfields shone bright, undisturbed by wind. By the midpart of the day a breeze came out of the east. I paid it no attention at first, more concerned with boiling my tea. Then my mare whickered, and when I glanced toward her, I saw she stood with head raised, her nostrils flared. She seemed expectant, and I thought perhaps she caught the scent of wolves and rose warily. A flank of hillside loomed above us, a shallow valley below, pines straggling thin over the slope. I saw no sign of predators and went to where the mare stood. She greeted me with an almost amiable snort, her head tossing, her hooves pawing. I saw that her ears were up and her eyes not rolling, which I took for confidence. I did not understand her behavior: she seemed frisky, coltish, which was not at all her way. I stroked her neck, and to my surprise she allowed it, even going so far as to nudge me in return. I frowned; then gasped as I smelled what she had sooner known: the breeze was such a draught as heralds spring.
That night we found shelter in a village. Rhysbry, it was called, and it boasted a tiny inn where I was made welcome, bed and board offered in return for my stories. I told but one: the folk of that place, who had passed the last months snowbound, were entirely occupied with the weather’s shifting. All their talk was of the breeze; of its scent and strength, its promise. Spring came, they said, and soon the snow should be gone. My weather lore was no less than theirs, and I must agree it was a spring wind; but even knowing all I did of the sorcerers’ beliefs, still I could scarcely credit so sudden an ending of the Sky Lords’ winter.
The next day, however, the gusting came again, and the sky was a warmer blue, the sun golden, and the air warm enough I shed my scarf. By noon, I rode without my cloak. By dusk, my mare’s hooves left deep prints in which water puddled, and when I halted at a shepherd’s cottage, I must walk her awhile to cool her. That night I threw off my blanket.
As I readied for departure the shepherd, whose name was Tarys, gave me warning.
“You ride for Tarvyn, no?” he said, and when I confirmed this: “Then best ride careful, Daviot. ’Tween here and the keep, the way’s all valleys and ravines, and does spring come on us swift as this God-cursed winter, there’ll be flooding with the melt.”
He stabbed a thumb skyward in emphasis. I looked up and saw a spring sky; the air was balmy, and I suspected he might well be correct. I thanked him, and he ducked his white head, declaring that he’d not see a Storyman drowned. I mounted my mare and turned her east, thinking that he gave me sound advice: I came to accept the winter fled.
Clear of the high country, the slopes were forested, and all that day water dripped relentlessly from the branches overhead, and the snow beneath my mare’s hooves grew soft, rivulets forming to trickle downslope. For all I sweated under it, I donned my cloak. I studied the valley bottoms and ravines carefully and saw the streams there swollen, no longer iced, but running swifter and gray with snowmelt. In the afternoon, as I crossed a valley, I heard a rumbling from the far slope and saw a great mass of snow break loose, trees and boulders tossing in its passage, leaving behind a scar of muddy brown earth. I began to worry again.
I found no shelter that night, for I was forced to detour from my route by three more avalanches. I made camp atop a ridge spread with looming cedars that no longer dripped, which in itself was disturbing, for they should not have dried so soon. Neither should the ground there have been visible yet. It was as though the seasons accelerated, winter fleeing before onrushing spring in a matter of days. I wondered what manner of summer might follow.
Whatever it should be, I did not think I should need wait long to find out. Day by steady day, the temperature rose. I could no longer follow my chosen path, for I must all the time ride around landslips or find some way over streams become rivers, rivers swollen to torrents. Valleys lay waterlogged, bridges were washed away, and fords become impassable. Pastureland was rendered quagmire, swaths cut through timber. I saw animals—sheep and cattle and horses, deer and wild pigs, twice bears—washed drowned and bloated past me. Sometimes I saw human bodies, tumbled by so swift, I could not tell whether they were Truemen or Changed. When I found the road, it was awash with mud and ofttimes blocked by the detritus of landslides. Farms and villages stood wet and miserable, and everywhere folk told sad tales of ruined planting, of fields lost to the excessive melt, of deaths by drowning or land
slide. They forecast a poor harvest, if any harvest at all might be reaped. And all the while the heat increased, until all the snow was gone and it seemed Kellambek was become a land of swamps and lakes. It seethed under the sun, vapors rising thick as mist from ground that dried as rapidly as it had flooded. Save our world was somehow drawn closer into the sun’s orbit, there could no longer be any doubt that frightening magic was brought against us.
By the time I reached Tarvyn, the floods were gone and the earth baked as if midsummer were come. Rivers that had run in spate were now thin streams, streams were dry gutters. Trees that had been denied the chance to bud stood withered, what grass had not been washed away lay sere. There were fires in the hills and dread throughout the land.
Tarvyn Keep stood beside the sea, where the southern ocean met the Fend. The sun sparkled off slow waves and the still air was heavy with the odor of rotting seaweed. Boats stood along the beach with tar oozing melted from their caulking, their crews lounging idle, paying me only the slightest attention, as if the heat leached out their curiosity. I rode in shirt-sleeves, a cloth wound around my forehead to hold off the sweat that would otherwise blind me. My gray mare had long since lost her springtime friskiness and walked sullen, her head low, panting in the excessive heat. She seemed not even to have the vitality of her usual ill temper. Nor was I in much better fettle. This heat—and belief in its origin—drained hope as surely as it leached energy. I thought it must be very hard to fight in such weather.
We plodded slowly to the keep’s entrance, and I announced myself to gatemen whose look reminded me of boiled lobsters. They waved me by as if that effort cost them dear. As I crossed the yard, I saw folk all languid in the heat, stripped to decency’s minimum of clothing. There was no breeze, for all the sea was but a stone’s throw distant, and the aeldor’s banners hung limp from the tower. I dismounted, shirt and breeks clinging wet to my body, and walked my horse into the stable. It was thankfully a little cooler there, but not much, and the Changed ostlers who came to offer help plodded like their equine forebears. I gave them the warning that had become my custom and saw to the mare myself. She made no protest as I removed her tack and rubbed her down, not even her habitual attempt to bite me. I thought I had rather suffer her temper than see her thus.