Lightning began to flash in the vicinity of the black rider. Arrows shot at him were turned to ash and any gray man that raised a lance against him that he did not slay with his sword was struck down by unearthly white fire.
A few feet to Ka’en’s left, Mallet raised his enormous arms to the sky and shouted.
“Oho, Findaen, Oho! See – I told you he was a god!”
They watched in dazzled astonishment as the black rider and his great mount tore through the lines of the enemy. Then a lasher joined in the fight but the black rider ran him down and left him dead on the field. And then he killed another and charged a third. The ordered lines of the enemy began to dissolve.
Findaen shook himself and turned to run down the steps to the level of the gates.
“Come on, men of Derosa!” He shouted. “Let’s get into this fight!”
Ka’en turned to join him, but found her father’s hand on her arm. He shook his head firmly.
“You and me, daughter, we’re the reserves. Let the men go first and we’ll follow.”
By the time they formed up outside the gates and moved toward the battle, the bulk of Manon’s army was already tumbling toward the rear, fleeing the terrible rider and his deadly beast. The black rider was fighting one last duel with the remaining lasher commander over to their left, on the enemy right, as they swept past.
Within minutes, though, he surpassed them, thundering by as he chased the confused, frightened mass of the enemy. But then he veered to his right, toward the enemy center where there had appeared a tall thin man, dressed in silver robes, standing before a wooden cone sheathed with shining metal atop a wagon. The strange figure seemed to glow in the sunlight, as if his body emitted flames of pale green fire.
Finding the enemy beyond their reach, the Derosans stopped – Ka’en and Lancer among them – to watch this final duel.
The black rider charged straight at the robed, glowing figure, but then, at the last moment, the great beast swerved, nearly unseating its rider. Digging its massive hooves into the soil of the plains, the beast turned quickly back toward them, away from the strange figure atop the wagon.
There was an odd sound, terribly distant, and yet near at hand. It reached into Ka’en’s soul and shook the very center of her being.
A flash of blinding light, and the air around them seemed to contract, to compress, and then an unseen force crashed into them, like the sudden shock of thunder close by.
She trembled and very nearly went to her knees. Findaen on one side and her father on the other grabbed her and held tight, but it was as much to keep themselves upright as it was to prevent her from falling. Up and down the line, here and there, men did fall; and many of them, before regaining their feet, found it expedient to relieve themselves of the contents of their stomachs.
Ka’en swallowed at the distress in her own throat, steadied herself and looked to the west.
The wagon and its glowing figure were gone. Where the wagon had been, there was a crater in the earth, surrounded by an expanding ring of fire.
The black rider was also gone.
“The Maker help us.” Findaen looked past her, at his father. “What was that?”
Lancer shook his head and wiped at the corners of his mouth with his sleeve. “I don’t know, but we should go forward and see if we can give aid to our champion – if he yet lives.”
They began to move forward, but just then, two more beasts roared out of the hills and charged across the field to their front. There was no metal covering these beasts’ bodies and Lancer stopped and watched their progress open-mouthed.
“Horses,” he said quietly, and his voice trembled with awe. “Miracle of miracles, my children – those are horses. I thought they lived only in legends.”
The horses, one black and one dark brown, both large animals, crossed the field and went down into the hollow of a stream two or three hundred yards to their front. After a few minutes, the horse clad in black armor and the man also appeared. Both appeared to be injured. The black rider pulled himself up onto the brown horse with the help of the black and the two newcomers positioned themselves on either side of the armor-clad horse – for that’s what it was – and the four of them went haltingly from the field.
There was no discussion but none of the Derosans – not Lancer, Findaen or any other – felt that they should intrude into the business of that small group of astonishing creatures that had seemingly appeared out of the mythic mists of legend. Amazement compelled them to remain at a distance.
The black rider turned his head and looked at them, glancing up and down their line. The visor of his helmet was up, but his face was a ghostly shadow in its depths. Then the movement of his head stopped.
Ka’en drew in a short, sharp breath.
He was looking at her. She could not see his eyes, only the shadows in his face where they were, but she knew. He looked at her and no one else.
Then he turned away and they went slowly into the trees and up into the hills to the north, but before he passed from view, he turned his head and looked at her again.
The battle was over, the enemy scattered.
He had come upon the field, he and his great mount, like a storm of death, and had saved the people of Derosa from ruin.
And then he was gone, and still they did not know who – or what – he was.
3
Where was he? More important; who was he? His mind, evidently, had been affected by the recent heat and pain and had succumbed. Where there should be memory and information – cognizance – there were only scattered bits of random knowledge lying here and there in a boundless, empty nothingness. He remembered the heat, and was glad it had gone. He remembered the pain, and was overjoyed that it had lessened. But there was nothing else.
Lying there in the utter blackness, or standing perhaps, he wasn’t sure, he searched the vault of his mind for other bits of knowledge, separate from the memories of heat and pain, but found it barren except for one thing that seemed sure. His name, he was fairly certain, was Aram, and he had recently been in terrible jeopardy of some kind, but anything particular pertaining to his past, either recent or distant, had fled the chambers of his mind. He was utterly lost. He opened his eyes, or thought he opened them – they might have already been open; in the absence of any light, it was hard to tell – and looked around.
Nothing.
4
Ka’en turned away from the darkening plains and looked up at the gatekeeper standing atop the wall, a young man named Wyll.
“Can you still see?”
“Yes, my lady. It is growing dark, but I can still see a good distance. My eyes are very good.”
Despite her fears, she smiled. “And what can you see with your very good eyes, Wyll?”
The young man stood still and tense for a long moment, staring out across the fading landscape. Finally, regretfully, he shook his head.
“I’m sorry, my lady. There’s nothing there.”
Ka’en turned back to gaze into the twilight, dread clawing at her soul with desperate, deadly fingers of ice. In the year and a half that had passed since she had met and fallen in love with Aram, she had spent much more time away from him, sick with worry, wondering if he was alive, than she had spent in his presence.
Gazing into the gathering darkness, she thought back to that first meeting.
One day, early in the spring of the year that followed the battle, after he had saved them and then disappeared into his mysterious valley to the north for the winter, word came up through the streets of Derosa that the man “who’d sent the black rider” was in town.
Ka’en, when she heard this, knew with instinctive certainty one thing – the man in town was not the one who’d sent the black rider but was, in fact, the rider himself. She did not share in Mallet’s belief that he was a god; she was certain that he was a man. He might be one of the ancients, as Findaen and even Wamlak believed, but he was a man.
And she wondered what a man that
had lived on the earth for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years would look like, would be like. When Findaen sent word that the stranger would come to supper at her father’s house, she could barely contain her excitement. She was accepting of her lot in life, however limited, and had never complained. But deep in her heart she felt that, to this point, her existence had been small and cramped, constricted by the ongoing war. Necessarily, her life was small.
She had never been away from Derosa or its valley, had never seen the world beyond the hills, and though she understood the necessity in times of war to be circumspect, nonetheless her naturally adventurous spirit suffered in the confines of its invisible chains.
But the unknown world beyond the gates had brought her an unexpected gift. Tonight, in her own house, she would look upon a legend. A mystery man, arisen from the ancient depths of myth.
She dressed into her best gown, a wine-red velvet dress, trimmed in black fur, not for the purposes of enticement – she had no interest of that kind in a man hundreds of years older than herself. Besides, Mallet might be right, he might be a god rather than a man – still, she felt that on such an occasion, she should look her best.
The man was upstairs with Findaen, having been put into one of the seldom used guest rooms, when she went down to the hall and took her place beside her father. The room hummed with excitement and anticipation, though there was very little conversation. Not a person in the place could keep his or her eyes off the double doors standing wide open at the entrance to the hall.
And then they heard Findaen’s cheerful voice in the foyer outside, and he and the stranger came into the room.
Ka’en caught her breath and held it a moment.
This was no ancient man, soiled by the layered dust of history.
He was older, yes, but not ancient. How she knew this, she didn’t know, but she knew it.
The stranger was tall, rather lean, with black hair and a short dark beard. He was not handsome, the lines of his features were too severe, but he was perhaps the most striking man she’d ever seen. His eyes were vividly green, and his smile, when he gave it to various people as he passed – Mallet for one – was dazzling, though he seemed inclined to bestow it grudgingly. When that smile disappeared, rather quickly, an expression of seriousness reasserted itself in the set of his face.
She had the distinct feeling that he was not happy to be in the presence of such a crowd.
And then her father stood, took her hand and pulled her upward. Standing there with her younger sister Jena on the other side, they waited for the man to come to the table.
Ka’en discovered that she was trembling.
Findaen and the tall stranger came to the other side of the table and stopped. He looked at her, directly into her eyes. The expression in their emerald depths, other than an undisguised earnestness, was unreadable.
Then Findaen spoke, and he glanced away.
“My father, Lancer, the Prince of Derosa. Father, allow me to present Lord Aram, our friend from the valley.”
Up close, Ka’en could see that despite his somewhat rough exterior, the man Findaen called “Lord Aram” was in fact only a few years older than her brother, thirty-five, she guessed, maybe forty.
She heard her father say, “Come, Lord Aram, meet my daughters.”
And she felt herself being propelled around the end of the table toward the tall stranger. And he looked at her again. And she knew. She knew that these were the same eyes that had gazed out from the shadowed depths of the helmet seven months ago and found her across the plain.
“My daughter, Ka’en.”
Her heart missed a beat and her breath wouldn’t come, but she managed to murmur something appropriate and hold out her hand. He took it and kissed it. His own hand was rough but warm, and caused hers to tingle. Standing so near to him, she realized two things. He was not old at all, older than her, yes, but a young man nonetheless.
And he was, in fact, handsome.
She watched him that night, often surreptitiously, and spoke to him when the opportunity was afforded. He was agreeable, though serious, and though everyone treated him with the deference due to his station and the things he had done, Ka’en found it increasingly difficult to view him as the fierce warrior he no doubt was, for there was an air of quiet earnestness about him that appealed to her heart and belied a violent nature.
At the end of the evening, reluctantly, she left the hall at an appropriate time. The man called Aram was engrossed in conversation with Mallet, and she did not feel that it was her place to intrude.
But then, later, she heard unsteady footfalls in the hall outside her door and she and Jena went to investigate. Lord Aram stood at the intersection of two hallways, peering one way and then the other, obviously lost, and also somewhat inebriated, much to Jena’s girlish delight.
She posited her giggling younger sister back in the bedroom and went to his aid.
“May I help you, sir?”
He turned to look at her and she saw irritation in his eyes, but then she realized that that annoyance was focused inward, at himself.
“I’m lost,” he admitted.
She offered her hand and after gazing at it for a moment, he took it. The touch of his fingers on hers gave her a strange thrill that made her feel almost giddy. She led him up through the passages to his room and stopped before the door. After a moment, with strange, unexpected regret, she removed her hand from his.
“Will you be alright now, sir?” She asked.
He nodded, started to say something by way of explanation for his being lost, but then stopped and just stared at her.
In his earnest green eyes, she saw something that stirred a feeling in her that was new, and made her feel as if her life had grown suddenly larger. And she realized again, with utter certainty, that these were the same eyes that had gazed upon her across the carnage of a battlefield. There was no awkwardness in the moment, only something deep and urgent. It was as if he looked into her soul, and by doing so, allowed her a glimpse into his. Sleep did not come readily to her that night, for her thoughts were full of this strange man named Aram, and what it might mean to her that he had come into her world.
She prepared breakfast for him the next morning – the first time she had ever cooked for anyone other than her immediate family – and hoped that the day would allow a chance to get to know him better. But he spent that day in the company of the men of the town and it was two days later when – thanks to the machinations of Findaen – she found herself alone with him for lunch.
And two marvelous things happened to Ka’en, princess of Wallensia.
First, this tall fierce man opened up the world for her. He told of his life, begun as a slave on the great plains far to the west (a fact of which he seemed ashamed, but that made her admire him all the more. However, since the telling of it appeared to cause him anguish, she discerned that it was a secret shared between them and that she would keep it as such). Aram told her of how he had escaped into the wild under the cover of a raging storm, discovered the ancient city where he now lived, befriended the horses and gained mastery over the wolves. As he spoke of these things, he broadened her horizons, describing distant places and things of which, until now, she had known nothing, but had dreamed of knowing.
And though she learned from this widely-traveled man the sobering truth that the war – which she had hoped might be near its end, largely because of that which he himself had done – was, in fact, still very near its beginning stages, there was one other marvelous and astonishing thing that happened to the lady Ka’en.
She fell deeply, and truly, in love with Aram.
She could not tell if he reciprocated or if he was just being kind but it seemed to her as the days lengthened out and they spent more time together, that he enjoyed her company as much as she enjoyed his. Nothing was declared between them, but though there was a whole town full of people that would have kept him occupied, he sought her out day after day, and she made certain t
hat, day after day, she was easy for him to find.
Several times, it seemed to her that he was struggling to find the words to make his feelings known, and she waited eagerly, but something, or someone, always intervened. And then one day the great eagle, Alvern, came and summoned him home, for there were horses in his valley, those marvelous beasts of legend, desiring an audience.
Ka’en was astonished to witness the conversation between the great bird and Aram – even more astonishing, she heard the voice of the lord of the air herself, in her own mind, a marvelous thing, and her world grew larger yet.
Aram was gone for two months and when he returned to Derosa, the news had come that the enemy was building a fortress on Flat Butte, near Burning Mountain, barely a hundred miles to the west. So once again, much to her increasing frustration, he went away, leading a small group of townsmen into the green hills, in order to discover the true nature of the enemy’s intentions and if possible, to disrupt those intentions.
In the meantime something that, until now, had been nothing more than a minor annoyance in Ka’en’s life developed into a serious and abiding problem. Kemul Usilam, eldest son of the family line that had governed Derosa before the fall of Stell and the coming of the Prince, proclaimed his intention to her to convince her to marry him.
He had always been attentive and recently had taken to sitting near her whenever there was an important gathering or dining event at Lancer’s house, but as he was a scion of one of the leading families and had a right to sit at the head table, she had endured, though she was careful never to give the burly young man encouragement in his designs.
One day, when Aram was still away to the west with the raiding party, Kemul found her as she was strolling through the courtyard. He caught her hand and when she tried to remove it from his grasp, held on the more tightly.
“Hold on, Ka’en, I want to talk to you.”
She beheld him coolly. “Well, then, talk.”
He glanced away for a moment and composed his pugnacious features into an expression of serious earnestness. Then his blue eyes sought out the topaz-colored depths of hers.
Kelven's Riddle Book Three Page 2