by Pati Nagle
“That child has never shown an interest in any craft calling for the manipulation of khi!”
“Could Turisan have been the source? He mentioned that he felt it.”
She gazed thoughtfully at the coals on the hearth. “I do not think so. I will speak with him of this, for I must seek him out to give him messages for mages in Highstone. How extraordinary!”
“Extraordinary indeed.” Remembering his prior mood, he looked at Heléri’s face, faintly lit by the glow of the embers before her. “And your prayer seems to have worked. You have set me at ease without my being aware of it.”
Heléri smiled, then turned to the table and picked up the ewer of tea. “Some for you?”
He nodded, watching her fill both cups, enjoying the tea’s fragrance as it drifted toward him. Knowing his body needed food, he picked up a slice of bread and took a bite. It was sweet and tasted slightly of nuts.
They talked as they shared the meal, but only of innocuous subjects. He mentioned that a second mage circle was forming and asked if Heléri would help him oversee it.
“I would be glad to as long as Felisan remains here. When he departs, I must go with him.”
Rephanin nodded, feeling a stab of unhappiness. He would miss her in a hundred ways when she left. Dismissing that pain to the future, he finished his tea and set the cup down.
“I should go.”
Trouble brought a crease to her brow. He wanted to reach out and smooth it away. Instead he stood up and summoned a smile.
“Thank you. My mood is much improved, but I still do not wish to inflict it on you, hard as it is to forsake your company.”
“We could both do with a little solitude, I suppose.”
She smiled as she rose, but the trouble remained in her eyes as she reached up to touch his face. He caught her hand and leaned his cheek into it, then pressed a kiss against her fingers, a silent promise.
“I will see you at sunset.”
“The Council meets this evening.”
“I know. Once the circle has its work in hand, I will attend.”
She nodded and went with him to the door, handing him his cloak. Grateful for her patient understanding, he turned to her once he had donned it.
Thank you, my friend.
The concern he had seen on her face instantly filled the air between them, abated by relief, tempered with solicitude. He was tempted to stay now, but he put up his hood and opened the door, flinching a little at the daylight.
Rephanin—
Not now, dear one.
Stepping out into the light, he shut the door, severing their brief contact. He paused, leaning against the door for a moment and closing his eyes. How weak he was to be so sorely tempted by one gentle touch. He would have to do better than that if he was to survive the coming test of his will.
Luruthin pointed across the Asurindel’s valley and down toward the foot of the triple waterfall, where the conic tips of three small stone pillars were just visible amid shrouds of drifting mist. “You can see the conces there, at the foot. They honor those for whom the falls are named.”
“The Three Shades.” The Greenglen turned to him, dark eyes lit with curiosity. “Who were they?”
“Three females who were handfasted to warriors killed in the Bitter Wars. Their names are forgotten, or at least I have never heard them.”
“And they died there?”
“They watched there, and when their loves did not return …”
Vanorin drew his cloak closer to him. Though dawn was not far off, the night’s chill clung to the mountains. “So now their shades haunt the place?”
“So it is believed. I used to haunt the place myself, hoping to see one.”
Vanorin looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “And did you?”
“I might have, once.”
Vanorin gazed at the falls again. “May we walk down and look at the conces?”
“If that is your will, though the falls have worn away whatever markings they bore. The water is relentless.”
Vanorin nodded thoughtfully. “I would like to stand there.”
They made their way down the road through Highstone and across the public circle, where the day’s market was already beginning. Folk from nearby holdings were laying out their goods of carved wood and stone, berries and nuts. A few farmers had come up from the eastern plains with carts full of roots and onions.
Two of the onion growers, females, paused to watch Luruthin and Vanorin cross the circle. Vanorin smiled at them, then spoke under his breath.
“I am a curiosity here.”
Luruthin nodded. “It was the same when Turisan was here. A Greenglen is an uncommon sight in Highstone.”
“And a Stonereach is rare in Glenhallow. We have a little more diversity, perhaps, but Greenglen and its kin-clans make up most of Southfæld’s people.”
A grin crept onto Luruthin’s face as he remembered the sea of fair heads at the first feast he had attended at Hallowhall. The Council delegates from other realms had been easy to discern.
“Well, there must have been a Greenglen or two among Stonereach’s forebears. We are lighter in coloring than Ælvanen, though we began as their kin-clan.”
Vanorin gave a laughing nod. “Perhaps some of those who went to settle Fireshore fell out in Alpinon along the journey.”
Luruthin stopped walking, staring in astonishment at Vanorin, who halted and turned a questioning gaze at him, his smile fading. Was Clan Darkshore so casually spoken of in Southfæld? Had the Greenglen intended an insult by implying that traitors’ blood ran through Clan Stonereach?
As if his thoughts had followed the same trend, Vanorin flung up a hand in defense. “I meant the new settlers, those who went to join Clan Sunriding after the Bitter Wars.”
“Oh.” Luruthin gave an embarrassed laugh as they both relaxed. “I do not know why I thought otherwise.”
“We always mean Sunriding when we talk of those who left Southfæld for the north.” A hint of bitterness sounded in Vanorin’s tone.
Luruthin could understand his feeling. All ælven were bitter against the alben, but as it was Greenglen from whom Clan Darkshore had sprung, theirs was the greatest fury at Darkshore’s violation of the creed.
They walked on in silence, leaving the city behind, and soon reached the bridge over the river Asurindel. Luruthin glanced at Vanorin to see if he took note of the bridge—made all of darkwood brought from Fireshore with considerable trouble. Darkwood resisted weathering far longer than any other wood and was coveted for works such as this bridge.
Vanorin seemed not to notice it, however. He stood gazing westward, listening to the muffled roar of the falls.
Luruthin crossed to the far side and waited for Vanorin at the narrow trail that led toward the Three Shades. As the Greenglen joined him, Luruthin cautioned him, here where they could still hear without shouting.
“Go carefully. The rocks around the falls are always wet and slick.”
Vanorin nodded, and Luruthin led him up the trail. The sky was lightening to a jewel blue, cut by knife-edged dark cliffs above them. Before long they reached the last sharp ridge, beyond which were the falls. Luruthin paused to glance back at Vanorin.
The Greenglen raised his voice over the sound of the falls. “What a roar!”
Luruthin grinned. “Only wait.”
He stepped around the edge and waited for Vanorin to join him, watching his expression of awe as the thunder of the Shades smote them both. Cold spray dashed their faces as billows of mist rose from the foot of the triple cascade, instantly painting their exposed skin with a layer of wetness.
Vanorin moved toward the conces, near the edge of the pool at the base of the falls. In the deep canyon it still seemed night, with dense mist obscuring the sky.
The three conces were grouped an armspan apart. Vanorin stood in their midst, closed his eyes, and stood motionless, as though reaching for the khi of the place. Having done this himself many times, Luruthin knew that
the effort would be fruitless: The Shades overwhelmed any other power that might chance to be near. He doubted that Vanorin could even sense his khi so close to the falls.
He glanced at the pool, where he had once thought he saw a glimmer of a shade, then let his gaze trace the plummeting water back up to the clifftop. A drift of mist revealed a figure there, glowing white in the growing dawn. He caught his breath and squinted, trying to determine if the light was playing tricks on his vision.
Vanorin stirred, drawing Luruthin’s attention. He called something, but his words were drowned in the water’s roar. Luruthin pointed toward the cliff, and Vanorin looked up.
The pale figure was still there, standing motionless just by the head of the falls—a lady clad in a white gown that looked far too light for this season. Her dark hair spilled down her back beneath a veil of blue, and for a moment Luruthin thought she was Heléri, but she could not be; Heléri was yet in Glenhallow. Even as this thought passed through his mind, the figure moved, stepping calmly forward, off the cliff’s edge.
She plummeted down, her gown whipping and rippling round her, the veil trailing as she disappeared into the roiling mist of the falls. Luruthin felt more than heard his own cry of horror.
Vanorin bounded toward the water. Luruthin caught his arm to hold him back.
Even at a distance from the churning foot of the falls, the pool was filled with currents of deadly strength. He had not thought to mention it because there was no question of anyone wanting to bathe in the frigid water of the Shades, certainly not at this season.
The Greenglen turned an angry, frightened face toward him. Luruthin leaned closer to shout an explanation, then paused, his gaze fixed on the pool where the white-gowned woman now drifted slowly and gently as if she lay in the hot spring far above them instead of the maelstrom at the foot of the Shades.
Vanorin’s hand grasped at his arm as he also saw her. The two of them stood frozen, unable to look away from the lady in the water.
She floated on her back just beneath the pool’s surface, her face fixed with a sadness that froze the heart. Luruthin felt as if the warmth was draining from his blood, leaving snowmelt to run in his veins.
A shade. She was a shade.
She seemed unmoved by the turbulent waters. Long dark hair twined about her white fingers, her ice-blue eyes gazed skyward, and the gown glowed softly white though no glint of sun penetrated the mist. She drifted there briefly, then vanished, fading slowly into the black depths of the pool.
For one moment they were still, then Vanorin clutched convulsively at Luruthin’s arm. The Greenglen’s eyes were wide, his face nearly as white as the shade’s gown.
Luruthin jerked his head toward the eastward path, and they scrambled to it, clinging together. Not until they had rounded the cliff’s edge and gone down the trail a good way did they let go and stop to lean against the canyon walls.
They were still close enough that the Shades shook the earth beneath their feet. Even the cliffs seemed to tremble.
Vanorin coughed. “W-was that—?”
“A shade. One of the three.”
Vanorin’s expression was of mingled disbelief and accusation. “And you have seen this before?”
Luruthin shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. What I saw before—it must have been nothing.”
He pushed away from the wall, running a hand through his damp hair. His fingers were shaking.
Vanorin sank to the ground with his back against the rock. Luruthin watched him for a moment, then staggered over and leaned a hand against the cliff.
“Come, it is too cold to stay here. Back to Highstone. The public lodge serves a good cup of mulled wine. You look as if you could do with some, and I know I could.”
Vanorin nodded. Luruthin helped him to his feet, and they made their way back to the bridge.
Luruthin kept seeing the white-clad figure jump, again and again, and each time his heart contracted painfully. The roar of the falls, usually a welcome sound, now taunted him with memories of the pale lady drifting in the pool.
On the bridge, Vanorin paused. The Asurindel glided beneath them, nearly silent now. The Greenglen looked back toward the falls, though they were not visible from this place.
“Do—do many see this vision?”
Luruthin his head. “I have not heard anyone describe what we just saw. I do not think anyone living has seen it, or if they have, they did not speak of it.”
“Why us?” Vanorin’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “What can it mean?”
Luruthin looked upstream, dread riding on his heart as he watched mist billow above the cliffs. He swallowed and turned away, toward Highstone.
“Maybe nothing.”
Rephanin arose, though he knew it was scarcely past midday. He had tried to meditate but found no peace. Too many memories had been awakened this day. He put on his cloak, paused to take a length of ribbon from a shelf in his chamber, and went out into the city.
His cloak, in which he had constructed a shielding focus that was several days in the making, had not often been tested so severely. By the time he had walked to the city gates, his eyes ached from the day’s brightness despite its protection. He went on, though, passing both gates and walking along the road that led to the Silverwash.
On the plain outside the city walls, many guardians were in training. He could hear the shouts of their commanders and turned his gaze away from the bright glint of light on their weapons.
Ahead was the first bridge over the Evrindel as it flowed around Glenhallow on its way to join the Silverwash. He left the road before it crossed the bridge, turning aside to walk down to the riverbank.
A solitary conce stood there, just outside the shadow of the bridge. He recoiled a little on seeing it despite having known what he would find. He had never come here before.
Slowly he approached the monument. He had selected the stone himself—contributed it anonymously—and had even made himself watch while the mason cleaved it in twain. One half had gone south to Cold Crossing, to mark the place where Soshari’s partner had taken his life. The other stood here, bearing only her name, carved into the broken face of the stone with deep strokes like those she had used to open her veins here on the riverbank.
Rephanin glanced up, looking above the brush on the far bank where small birds argued over seeds and long grasses stood dry and yellow, northeastward to where the foothills faded into the plain. The river’s murmur could not fill that vast openness.
Soshari had chosen a pretty place to die. He wondered if the view had brought her any peace as she sat here, letting her blood flow down into the water, her khi drift away on the wind.
He looked at the conce again. Her family had placed no words of commemoration on its surface, no hint of her life or her crossing, save that which the conce itself told—that she had died here, through violence, comfortless and alone.
He reached out a hand to the stone’s pointed tip, hesitating briefly before touching it. There was nothing of Soshari in it, of course, but he thought he sensed an echo of her family’s grief. They had mourned here, though as far as he knew they then had returned home and made no pilgrimages to keep their grief alive.
He drew the ribbon he had brought with him from his sleeve—a length of white with a single thread of gold—remembrance from an Ælvanen, a foreigner. He looped it around the conce and through itself, letting the ends fall free to stir in the restless breeze.
“It shall not happen again.” Though alone, he whispered, uncertain whether it was a promise or a plea.
The river drew him, and he stepped forward to crouch at its edge, peering at the grasses and reeds, watching the water’s endless progress. Pushing aside a fear of what he might find, he slowly opened his awareness to the khi of the place. He sensed only the small urgencies of creatures hurrying about their lives, readying themselves by instinct for winter’s trial. The clay beneath him had long since been washed clean of Soshari’s blood.
He bre
athed relief. He had half feared, through the centuries, that a shade might have formed here and had kept an ear to the city’s tavern gossip for any tale of such an apparition. None had surfaced, and having now seen this place, he felt confident no shade existed.
Soshari had not been troubled by unresolved problems, only by the unresolvable mortification of having broken her handfasting vow. Death had been her solution to a life irretrievably damaged, honor lost and unrecoverable. No ælven pledge could be recanted in good faith, but the vow of handfasting was the most sacred. She had broken it, and though the fault had not truly been hers, she had chosen the customary atonement.
Rephanin closed his eyes. Davharin’s assurance that those in spirit were present with those in flesh prompted him to address the soul that had walked as Soshari.
I will not forget.
No answer came. He had expected none. She had scarcely known him; why should she make any extraordinary effort to speak to him? Perhaps she could not do so even if she wished to.
The irony of his responsibility for her death was that he had not himself touched her, not until he had understood her situation and removed her from the magehall, taking her at once to the healing hall. By then, of course, it had been too late.
His only comfort—a small one, at best—was that few knew of Soshari’s suicide. He had spent several days in agonized suspense, wondering if any who had been at the magehall that evening would deduce what had happened, if more deaths would follow as others realized their roles in Soshari’s doom.
That had not occurred, and he was grateful to Aliari, mistress of the healing hall, for her discretion. Turon had been told, and word had been sent to Soshari’s kin in Cold Crossing, but few others had known—and then the war had come.
Rephanin rested his chin on his knees. Saved by a war, an ignoble preservation. With another war looming, he was prey to uncomfortable reflections.
He was far from alone in this. Many were frightened without understanding what they feared, including a fair number of the newly recruited guardians.