by DAVID B. COE
Shortly after Alayna and Jaryd received their cloaks, Jessamyn announced that she was retiring for the evening, and that the delegation to Theron’s Grove would be leaving from the Great Hall with first light, regardless of how late some of its members remained at the celebration. Nonetheless, the music and dancing continued well into the night. Jaryd, Baden, and Trahn did not leave Amarid’s home until just before dawn, and still the celebration was showing no signs of winding down. They accompanied Alayna and Sartol back to their inn, which was not far from the Aerie, and waited while they retrieved their belongings from their rooms. From there, the five mages hurried to Maimun’s establishment, where Jaryd, Baden, and Trahn quickly reclaimed their things. They then started back toward the Great Hall, but they ran into Kayle at the edge of the Aerie’s courtyard.
“Hawk-Mage,” she called to Jaryd in a sleepy voice, the familiar, crooked grin on her face. She walked up to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Her breath smelled of wine. “I was wondering where you’d gone.” She looked at the other mages. “You leaving the city so soon?”
Jaryd glanced briefly at Alayna, and was somewhat gratified to see her eyeing the barmaid warily. He turned back to Kayle. “Yes,” he told her quietly, “we’re leaving.” He smiled. “Try to stay out of trouble, all right?”
“I will. Where are you going?” she asked in the same lazy tone.
Jaryd hesitated.
“We’re going to Theron’s Grove,” Baden told her matter-of-factly.
“Arick guard you,” she said reflexively. The smile vanished from her face, along with much of the color in her cheeks. “Is he serious?” she asked Jaryd, her tone suddenly urgent.
Jaryd nodded. Yesterday, her response would have brought back all of his fears. But he had taken a vow this night; two actually: one that he had taken aloud, and another that he had taken in silence. He could ill afford to be frightened.
“Arick guard you,” she repeated, trying to grapple with what Baden had told her. She looked at Jaryd for a long time, saying nothing. Somewhere in the distance, a bird began to sing.
“Jaryd, we should go,” Baden said quietly.
Jaryd nodded again, but he held Kayle’s gaze. At length, he smiled. “Be well, Kayle. I’ll see you again. I offer you my word on that.” He stepped forward and kissed her cheek, as she had done a moment before. And without another word, the mages began to walk away, leaving Kayle in the dingy courtyard. Jaryd looked back once, just before they turned into a wider alley, and saw Kayle’s lone figure, seeming small now, and lonely, still staring after them. He paused, but only briefly, and then turned to begin his journey toward Theron’s Grove.
9
The company departed for the grove with surprisingly little fanfare. Radomil and Sonel were there to see the mages off, and several of the blue-robed stewards of the Great Hall had come out to help saddle the horses and secure the saddlebags. But that was all. By the time Jaryd and his four companions arrived, Jessamyn and Peredur were bidding their attendants farewell. Orris had already mounted his steed and was looking as forbidding and impatient as usual. Baden, Alayna, and Sartol quickly went to their horses and began adjusting their saddles, leaving Jaryd to make peace with the animal Trahn had found for him.
The creature was bay and white, with a splash of black on its nose, and though Jaryd thought that it looked terribly large, he had to admit that it was somewhat smaller than the horses the dark mage had gotten for the rest of the company.
“He’s a gelding,” Trahn said, standing beside Jaryd and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “He may not be quite as fast as the stallions I got for the others, but he’ll be swift enough for this journey, and he’s far less likely to throw you or bolt.”
His friend’s assurances did little to allay Jaryd’s fears, but the animal stood absolutely motionless for several minutes as Jaryd tried repeatedly and awkwardly to fling himself into the saddle. And when finally he had succeeded in mounting the horse, Jaryd began to believe that perhaps he could get along with this wonderfully docile and infinitely patient beast.
A few moments later, the company rode away from the Great Hall, following a wide thoroughfare into the old town center and then taking one of the ancient wooden bridges across the Larian River and continuing into Hawksfind Wood. For the first several miles, Trahn rode alongside Jaryd and tried to instruct him in the rudiments of horseback riding.
“Riding is really quite easy,” Trahn explained, obviously trying to sound comforting. “Just try to move with the horse. Rather than bouncing in the saddle as your mount gallops, you should try to rise and fall in rhythm with the animal. It may take your body some time to get used to this,” the mage added with a grin, “but it will save you a good deal of discomfort.”
Jaryd agreed that the mechanics of it seemed simple enough, and he was pleased to find that the gelding responded with alacrity to his sometimes desperate efforts to steer and stop it. But he quickly realized that Trahn’s help and the gentleness of his mount could not overcome his inexperience with horses and the fact that his body was not at all ready for the rigors of the journey. Within an hour of the mages’ departure from Amarid, the muscles in Jaryd’s thighs, buttocks, and back began to scream with fatigue and pain. Two hours later, when the company stopped for a brief rest and a bite to eat, Jaryd found that he could barely lift his leg high enough to dismount. Once on the ground, he certainly could not walk. And so he sat in the dirt, just next to the horse, and chewed on a piece of smoked meat, wondering why he had ever been anxious to join this delegation.
The mages rested twice more during the day before stopping for a fourth time to make camp beside an emerald-green lake in the high country of the Parneshome Mountains. Jaryd heard the others commenting on the magnificence of the view and the beauty of the glacial lake, but, still sitting on his horse as the animal chomped loudly on the alpine grass, he could not even bring himself to look. He was aware of nothing save the pain, which had spread from his legs and back to every muscle in his body, including many of which he had never before been aware. Even his connection with Ishalla seemed to grow distant and faint, obscured by his agony and his fatigue. When he finally dismounted, Jaryd merely collapsed on the ground near his mount. Unable to walk and too exhausted to eat, he lay motionless on his back, listening to his horse chew, and waiting for sleep to carry him away from his misery.
“If you can roll over onto your stomach, I might be able to soothe those muscles a bit,” he heard someone say as he lay there.
Opening his eyes, he saw the Owl-Sage standing over him, her expression sympathetic, although tinged with amusement. Slowly, agonizingly, he turned himself over. Jessamyn knelt beside him and placed her hands on his back. Immediately, Jaryd felt her power seep into his body, warm and soothing like the summer sun.
“One’s first ride can be very hard,” she said with compassion. “Lack of experience often leads to a great deal of suffering at first, but it’s bound to get better with time.”
“I know,” Jaryd managed to croak. “I just didn’t expect it to be this bad.”
“I was speaking to the horse,” Jessamyn responded in a flat tone.
And it seemed that he still had it in him to laugh, although it hurt terribly to do so.
The sage continued to heal him for perhaps a half hour, her hands deft and sure as they moved slowly over his back and legs. The pain did not vanish, but it did subside until it was only a dull ache. When she was done, Jaryd found that he could walk again, though awkwardly, and that he was, in fact, ravenous. After eating, he crawled off to a spot near the fire and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. He felt even better the following morning, but his recovery proved to be only temporary. After a light breakfast the company remounted. And with his horse’s first jarring step, all Jaryd’s discomfort began to return.
The agony of the second day’s ride seemed, incredibly, to surpass that of the first. The mountain terrain remained brutally rough, and they rode longer than t
he day before. Again, Jessamyn healed his aching muscles in the evening, and again he recovered enough to eat and sleep, only to find that his pain returned with the commencement of the next day’s ride. The pattern repeated itself for one more day as the company completed its trek through the mountains and descended into Tobyn’s Wood. But midway through the fourth day of the journey, as the company rested in the cool shade of the vast forest, Jaryd noticed that the soreness had begun to abate. As they remounted and rode on, he also realized that his horsemanship had improved. He was being jolted less; he felt himself moving more in concert with the animal beneath him; and he sensed that his horse now labored less than it had, no doubt in response to his growing comfort and confidence. Perhaps sensing this, Trahn steered his mount closer to Jaryd and said with an impish grin, “See, I told you this was easy.”
Baden fell in beside him as well. “You seem to be doing better,” the Owl-Master ventured with a sympathetic smile.
“I am,” Jaryd responded with genuine relief. “I feel as if I’ve come back from the dead.”
“Good. You and Theron will have something to talk about,” Trahn quipped.
The three of them laughed, and they continued to ride together for much of what was left of the day, exchanging stories and engaging in the easy banter that they had begun to develop during the Gathering. Jaryd was glad to be with them again and thankful that his aches had subsided enough to allow him to enjoy their companionship.
Riding with his friends a few strides ahead of the rest of the company, Jaryd began to take note of the terrain through which he was moving. During the first several days of riding, he had been able to enjoy little of the scenery offered by the Parneshome Range. He had been vaguely aware, through the miasma of pain and weariness, of the snowy peaks and majestic vistas around him, but most of what he saw failed to reach him. Now, however, as the delegation made its way through Tobyn’s Wood, and Jaryd’s discomfort diminished, he began to drink in the splendors, both striking and subtle, of the God’s forest.
He and Baden had crossed the northern portion of Tobyn’s Wood during their journey from Accalia to Amarid, but for some reason, the wood had not affected him then as it did now. To walk through Leora’s Forest, the woodland Jaryd had come to know through his childhood and adolescence, was to experience a playful colloquy between light and shadow. The forest itself, with its myriad shades of green, its endless natural patchwork of clearings and copses, seemed as quixotic and spirited as the Goddess for which it had been named. Jaryd had assumed, he realized, that all of the land’s forests would be like the Goddess’s. But Tobyn’s Wood was different. Its massive, towering oaks, maples, hickories, and elms crowded the path that the company followed, the trees’ lofty branches meshing to form a thick, ponderous canopy that allowed little light to reach the wood’s floor. Where Leora’s Forest appeared to dance with the sunlight, Tobyn’s Wood brooded stubbornly in its own shadows, powerful but moody, like the God who had created it. And yet, despite its heaviness, its melancholy, the forest pulsed with life. Hundreds upon hundreds of tiny rivulets bubbled ceaselessly through the wood, fed by rain and the snows of the Parneshome range, feeding larger streams that meandered to the south and west toward Fourfalls River and, eventually, the mighty Dhaalismin. Beside the brooks and rills grew ferns and jewelweed, hawksbalm, and the velvet-blue leaves of shan, all of them flourishing as if in defiance of the shade cast by the wood. The flute-like refrain of thrushes echoed among the hulking trunks of the trees, squirrels and chipmunks chattered noisily as they chased each other on the ground and through the branches, and an occasional fox slipped furtively through the undergrowth. That night, as the company ate and conversed around the bright evening fire, crickets and cicadas serenaded them, and owls called from nearby perches, making the mages’ birds uneasy.
After finishing their supper, Baden and Trahn worked with Jaryd on developing the young mage’s mastery of the Mage-Craft. They had him light fires, large and small, and they taught him to shape wood. They also requested that, for what remained of the journey, the other mages bring to Jaryd all their minor bruises and scrapes, so that he might practice the healing art. Without a ceryll, Jaryd found it difficult to focus his power sufficiently for some of the finer tasks, but even in the course of just that first night, he felt himself growing more confident and adept. He also felt his connection to Ishalla growing stronger once more, and he welcomed their renewed intimacy the way he would a home-cooked meal after days without food.
The next morning, as the mages ate their customary breakfast of dry breads, cheese, and dried fruits, Jessamyn expressed concern about the rapid depletion of their food supplies. The company agreed that they would stop at the first settlement they reached to buy or trade for additional provisions. It was not until late in the morning, however, that they finally came to a small village, nestled among the huge trees of the wood and fronted by a swift, narrow stream. They turned off the main path and approached the settlement, but they never reached the center of town. Coming to a small wooden bridge that offered the lone access to the village, the mages were confronted by a group of twenty or thirty townspeople, all of them armed. The mob did not attack the company, for how could they? Thirty men and women carrying axes, knives, and tools would have no chance against eight mages. They could not even mask the fear in their eyes as they faced the company. But none of the mages was blind to the resolve and—there was no other word for it—hatred that also burned in the townspeoples’ grim features.
One burly man, somewhat older than the rest and carrying a heavy, double-bladed ax, stepped forward to the center of the bridge and addressed the company.
“If you’re here to destroy us,” he told them in a strong, even voice, “we’ll fight you until every one of us is dead, even knowing that such a fight is futile.” He paused, slowly surveying the delegation. “If you’ve come for some other purpose,” he went on, his tone still strong but lower, “forgive us, but we would ask that you move on, and leave us alone.”
No one in the company responded for what seemed an eternity, until Jessamyn, her voice tight with emotion, said simply, “We’ll go.” She then turned her horse without another word, and continued through the wood, trailed by the rest of the delegation.
The mages made good progress for the rest of the day, pausing only briefly to rest and eat, and to feed and water the horses. But after their encounter with the villagers, a shadow seemed to settle over them. No one spoke except when necessary, and none of them seemed to take note of the remarkable terrain through which they moved. For his part, Jaryd could only hear the words of the ax-wielding villager repeating themselves again and again in his mind. He had faced an angry mob at Taima, but this had been worse. At least the people of Taima had a reason for their anger. But, as far as Jaryd could tell, these people had suffered no attack at all. There was no evidence of fire or bloodshed. The townspeople had just refused to let the mages into their village. Talk of corruption within the Order was taking an even greater toll than Jaryd had feared.
Late that afternoon, the delegation came to the ancient Riversmeet Traverse, a tremendous moss-covered stone bridge constructed just below the point where the Sapphire and Fourfalls rivers united with the main stream of the Dhaalismin. Built thousands of years before Amarid and Theron discovered the Mage-Craft, the bridge spanned the broad, roiling current in a high arc whose grace and delicacy seemed to belie the immensity of the stones that made up the structure. Its only visible supports were four enormous pedestals, two at each end of the bridge, the weight of which held the other stones in place. These pedestals supported statues that, despite their weatherworn appearance, were clearly intended to depict Arick, Duclea, Leora, and Tobyn. Smaller stones, piled neatly to the height of Jaryd’s thigh, lined both sides of the broad traverse to serve as a guardrail. It was an awe-inspiring sight, as impressive and imposing as anything Jaryd had ever seen. And yet, even this could not lift the dark mood that had gripped the mages since their confronta
tion with the townspeople.
The company stopped for the day just beyond the traverse, setting up their camp in the shadow of the ancient structure. Jessamyn and Peredur retired just after supper, and the rest of the mages sat around the fire saying nothing, all of them still brooding on the day’s events. Surprisingly, it was Orris who finally broke the grave silence.
“We should have stayed and spoken with them,” he said, his tone uncharacteristically subdued. “We shouldn’t have just left.”
“To what end?” Sartol asked. “They obviously were afraid of us. They wanted us to go.”
Orris glared at the Owl-Master. “So we just let them continue to think the worst of us?” he demanded. “We need to start rebuilding our bond with Tobyn-Ser’s people.”
“You may be right, Orris,” Baden commented, “but I’m not certain that this would have been the best time to start. I don’t think they would have been open to any overture we made.”
“We don’t know that,” Orris returned. “It might have worked.”
“I agree with Orris,” Jaryd chimed in, surprising himself, and Orris as well, judging from the expression on the burly mage’s face. “There may never be a good time to start repairing the damage that’s been done, but we have to try anyway.”
“So you’re saying that we should have forced our way into their village in order to make peace with them!” Alayna countered hotly, her dark eyes boring into Jaryd. “That’s ridiculous!”
“I didn’t say that!” Jaryd returned. “But we could have tried to reason with them. I just don’t think that leaving was our best option.”