by Greg Keyes
“I’ve got a new plan,” he told Winna and Ehawk, as they roasted the venison. Winna looked even worse than she had earlier in the day, and she clearly was having trouble eating. “But seeing as how it concerns all of us, I’ll want you two to mull it over.”
“What?” Winna asked.
“It’s something Leshya said, when we first met her. She said she’d heard that Fend had gone to see the Sarnwood witch.”
“Yah,” Winna said. “I remember that.”
“And the fellow we captured—he said that’s where Fend got the woorm. She’s supposed to be the mother of monsters, so I guess that makes sense.”
“You think Fend’s going back there?” Winna asked.
“Maybe. Maybe not. That’s not my point, though. If he got the woorm from the witch, he probably got the antidote there, too.”
“Oh,” Winna said, looking up.
“Ha,” Ehawk said.
“Yah. Maunt you both, we’re not catching this woorm. Not before we die. It’s days ahead of us, and yah, it may go slower on land, but I’ve seen it move, and it’s still as fast as a horse. And if it takes to another river…”
“So instead you want to go find the mother of monsters and ask her for the remedy for her child’s poison?” Winna said.
“I wasn’t planning on asking Fend for it,” Aspar replied. “I won’t ask her, either.”
“But we know Fend has it.”
“Not really. Or, rather, if I know Fend, he’s just got enough for himself.”
“Or maybe there is no antidote,” Winna went on. “Maybe Fend is like Stephen, and the venom doesn’t eat at him at all.”
“That’s possible,” Aspar admitted. “But Mother Gastya had a real remedy. Mother Gastya was a witch, so maybe this Sarnwood woman…” He trailed off and shrugged.
Winna considered that for a moment, then smiled weakly.
“It’s worth going just to see you chase a kinderspell,” she finally said. “I’m for it.”
Ehawk didn’t answer for a long time.
“She eats children,” he finally said.
“Well,” Aspar replied, “I’m not a child.”
They forded the Then upstream of the woorm’s path just at dawn, with Ogre breaking the way through the thin sheen of ice. The ground was firmer beyond and quickly rose in low terraced hills thick in willow and sassafras. By the time the sun was far up, they were on rolling prairie broken up by pasture and fields, brilliant green in calf-high winter wheat. Trees were few and far between, and stands greater than half a dozen were rare indeed. Aspar didn’t like so much openness; it felt as if something might swoop up on him from the sky. Who knew, maybe it could happen? If there could be a snake half a league long, maybe there were eagles that big, too.
There were also too many people in the Midenlands, at least there had been. They didn’t build huge towns as they did toward either coast, but farmsteads were common—a house, a barn, a few smaller buildings—and every few leagues or so there was a market square with half a dozen buildings. Almost anything that looked like a hill had a castle on it, some in ruins, some puffing smoke to show they were still inhabited. That day they saw three from sunup to sundown. That seemed like a lot, seeing as how there weren’t many rises in the land that imagination might make a hill of.
But they didn’t actually see anyone, not that first day, because they were still pretty much along the woorm’s trail, and it seemed to have made a detour every time it came within sight of houses. They didn’t see any cows, sheep, goats, or horses, either. The thing had to eat, and considering its size, it probably had to eat a lot.
Early the next day, though, the monster’s trail turned more northerly than Aspar wanted to go, putting them at a crossroad. The time came to test his resolve. A glance at Winna kept his mind made up, and they went northeast, toward the Sarnwood.
Within a bell they came across some foraging cows and a couple of people with them. As they got closer, Aspar saw it was a boy and girl, neither one older than thirteen or so. They looked at first as if they might run, but they stood their ground until Aspar and his companions were fifty or so kingsyards away.
“Hello!” the girl shouted. “Who is that?”
Aspar held up empty hands. “I haet Aspar White,” he called back. “I’m the king’s holter. These are my friends. We mean you no harm.”
“What’s a holter?” the girl returned.
“I ward the forest,” he replied.
The girl scratched her head, then looked around as if searching for a forest. “Are you lost?” she asked.
“No,” Aspar replied. “But can I come closer? All this shoutin’ is wearing out my throat.”
The two looked at each other, than back at the trio. “I don’t know,” the girl said.
“We should dismount,” Winna said. “They’re frightened.”
“They’re scared of me,” Aspar said. “I’ll dismount. Winna, why don’t you go closer first. But stay on your horse, at least until you get there.”
“That’s a good idea,” she assented.
Aethlaud and her brother Aohsli were both fair-haired, pink-cheeked youths. She was thirteen, and he was ten. They had some bread and cheese, to which Aspar added a generous portion of the last day’s venison. He hadn’t had time to cure it properly, so what they hadn’t eaten would soon spoil, anyway. They sat on a gentle rise beneath a solitary persimmon tree and watched the cows.
“We’re taking ’em down to Haemeth,” Aethlaud explained, “to my uncle’s place. But we’re supposed to graze them on the way.”
“Where is that?” Aspar asked.
Her expression said that anyone who didn’t know where Haemeth was didn’t know much of anything.
“It’s about a league that way,” she said, pointing northeast. “On the Thaurp-Crenreff road.”
“We’re going that way,” Winna said. Aspar wanted to shush her before she offered to accompany them. He didn’t want to be kept to the speed of cows. But she looked so gaunt and brittle, it froze his voice.
“Are you sick?” Aohsli blurted.
“Yes,” Winna said. “We all are. But it isn’t catching.”
“No, it’s from the waurm, isn’t it?”
They were out of Oostish country, and her pronunciation was a little different, but there wasn’t any mistaking what she meant.
“Yah,” Aspar said.
“Haudy saw it,” the boy confided.
His sister popped him on the back of the head. “Aethlaud,” she snapped. “I’m too old for that nickname. I’ll be married by next year, and Mom will send you to live with me, and I’ll make you eat kalfsceit if you call me that.”
“Mom still calls you that.”
“That’s Mom,” the girl said.
“You saw the woorm?” Winna interrupted. “West of here?”
“No,” she said. “That’s it coming back, I think.”
“How do you mean?” Aspar asked, leaning closer.
“It was back before Yule,” she said. “I went with my mom’s brother Orthel to Mael to have some rye ground. That’s on Fenn Creek, what flows into the Warlock. We saw it in the river. The people around there, a lot of ’em took sick, like you.”
“Before Yule.”
“Yah.”
“So it did come out of the Sarnwood.”
“Oh, yah,” the girl said, her eyes rounding. “Where else would it come from?”
That lifted Aspar’s spirits, if only a little. He’d made one good guess; perhaps the rest of his “maybes” were true.
“What do you know about the Sarnwood?” Aspar asked.
“It’s full of ghosts and alvs and booygshins!” Aohsli said.
“And the witch,” Aethlaud said. “Don’t forget the witch.”
“Do you know anyone who’s been there?” Winna asked.
“Eh…no,” the girl replied. “ ’Cause anyone who ever went—they never came back.”
“ ’Cept Grandpa,” the boy corrected.
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“Yah,” Aethlaud agreed. “But he’s gone west t’ the wood.”
“Is that where you’re going?” Aohsli asked Aspar. “The Sarnwood?”
“Yah.” Aspar nodded.
The boy blinked, then glanced at Ogre. “When you are dead, may I have your horse?”
Ehawk, not usually given to outbursts, exploded at that. He was laughing so hard that Winna caught it, and in the end even Aspar found himself grinning.
“Now you’re wishing for things you’d might rather not have,” he said. “Ogre might be a little much for you.”
“Nah, I could handle ’im,” Aohsli said.
“How much longer do you expect it’ll take you to get to Haemeth?” Winna asked.
“Another two days,” Aethlaud said. “We don’t want to walk the fat off ’em.”
“Is it safe, just the two of you out here?”
Aethlaud raised her shoulders. “Used to be safer, I guess.” She frowned, then continued a little more defiantly. “But there’s not much choice. There’s nobody else to do it, not since our father died. And we’ve done it before.”
Winna glanced at Aspar. “Maybe we could—”
“We can’t,” he said. “We can’t. Two days—”
“A moment over here, Aspar?” Winna asked, gesturing with a toss of her head.
“Yah.”
There wasn’t anyplace to go except away, and Winna was having trouble moving, so they didn’t go all that far. But whispering made it feel a little private.
“You aren’t as sick as I am,” Winna said. “Something happened when the Briar King saved your life, something that made you stronger. You don’t really drink the medicine you got from Fend’s man anymore, do you?”
He acknowledged that with a small nod. “I still feel it,” he admitted, “but yah, I’m not so sick as you.”
“How much farther to the Sarnwood?”
He considered. “Three days.”
“At the pace we’re traveling, I mean.”
He sighed. “Four, maybe five.”
She coughed, and he had to catch her to keep her from falling.
“I’m pretty sure I won’t be sitting a horse in two days, Aspar. You’ll have to tie me on. Ehawk’s got a little longer, I’d guess.”
“But if we dally here…”
“Just me and Ehawk, Aspar,” Winna said. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “If I’m only going to live a few more days, I’d rather use them helping these two get where they’re going than chasing after some cure that isn’t there.”
“It is there,” Aspar insisted. “You heard ’em: Fend got the woorm in the Sarnwood. I’m sure he got the antidote there, too.”
“I also heard them say that most everyone who has ever gone into the Sarnwood never came out.”
“That’s because it’s never been me before.”
She shook her head wearily. “No,” she said. “Let’s take them to Haemeth. You can ask questions there, learn more about the witch.”
“We can do that, anyway, without dallying to drive cattle.”
“I want to help them, Aspar.”
“They don’t need help,” he argued, desperation creeping into his words. “They’ve done this before. They said so.”
“They’re terrified,” Winna contradicted. “Who knows what they’ll come across out here in two days. If not a woorm or greffyn, then maybe just cattle thieves.”
“They aren’t my concern, Winna—you are.”
“Yah. I know. But do this for me.”
She was crying freely but silently. Her face was red, her lips tinted blue.
“I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll go by myself. It’ll be easier that way; you’re right about that. Ehawk won’t be in any condition to fight by then; you’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, love,” Winna said. “No. Then I’ll die without you, you see? I want to breathe my last in your arms. I want you to be there.”
“You aren’t going to die,” he said evenly. “I’ll be back, with your cure. I’ll meet you in Haemeth.”
“Don’t. Can’t you hear me? I don’t want to die alone! And she’ll kill you!”
“What about Ehawk? You’ve given up on yourself, but there still might be time to save him, even by your reckoning.”
“I…Aspar, please. I’m not strong enough for this.”
His throat was clotted, and his pulse pounded in his ears.
“Enough,” he said. He lifted her, strode back to her mount, and pushed her up on it, then brushed away her clinging hands.
“Ehawk,” he shouted. “Come here.”
The boy obeyed.
“You and Winna’ll go with these two to the town. Then you find a leic, you hear? The folk around here may know more about monsters and their venom then we think. You wait there, and I’ll be back.”
“Aspar, no!” Winna wailed weakly.
“You were right!” he shouted back. “Go with them.”
“You come, too!”
Instead of answering, he clapped his mouth and mounted Ogre.
“I’ll tell him to find you when I am dead,” he told Aohsli. “But you take care of him.”
“Auy, sir!”
He turned to regard Winna and found her and her horse only a few paces away.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered. Her lips moved, but he scarcely heard the sound.
“Not for long,” he promised.
She closed her eyes. “Kiss me, then,” she said. “Kiss me one more time.”
Grief welled up like a monster, climbing out of the caves of his guts, trying to claw its way out of his eyes.
“Keep that kiss,” he said. “I’ll get it when I return.”
Then he turned and rode and did not—could not—look back.
ROBERT DARE stroked his mustache, sipped his wine, and sighed. From their vantage on the dike he glanced out over the flooded lands toward Eslen.
“I’ve always favored the Galléan wines,” he commented. “You can all but taste the sunlight in them, you know? The white stone, the black soil, the dark-eyed girls.” He paused. “You’ve been there, Sir Neil? Vitellia, Tero Gallé, Hornladh—you’ve had quite the tour of this continent. I really hope you can arrange to see the rest of it. Tell me—they say that traveling opens the mind, broadens the palate. Did you learn any new tastes in your travels? Or anything at all?”
Watching the prince, Neil had the strange impression he was seeing some sort of an insect. It wasn’t anything obvious but something subtle about the way he moved.
A dog, a stag, even a bird or lizard—all those things moved smoothly, in time with the larger world around them. Beetles, in contrast, moved weirdly. It wasn’t just that they were quick or had six legs; it was more that they seemed to move to the rhythms of a different world, a smaller one, or perhaps to the smaller rhythms of this world that giants such as Neil could not feel.
That was how it was with Robert. His gestures studied normality but could not reproduce it. Seen from the corner of the eye, even the parting of his lips seemed oddly monstrous.
“Sir Neil?” Robert prompted politely.
“I was just thinking,” Neil said, “how best to sum it up. I was overwhelmed at first by the size of the world, how many parts it has. I was amazed by how different people are, and at the same time how they are all the same.”
“Interesting,” Robert said in a tone that suggested it was anything but.
“Yes,” Neil said. “Until I came to Eslen, I thought my world was large. The sea, after all, seems endless when one is upon it, and the islands seem uncountable. But then I came to discover all of that could fit into a cup, if the world were a table.”
“Poetic,” Robert said.
“In the little cup of the world I lived in,” Neil went on, “things were pretty simple. I knew who I fought for, I knew why. Then I came here, and things became confusing. As I traveled farther into the world, they became more confusing yet.”
Robert smiled ind
ulgently. “Confusing how? Did you lose your sense of right and wrong?”
Neil returned the smile. “I grew up fighting, and mostly I fought Weihand raiders. They were bad people because they attacked my people. They were bad people because they fought for Hansa, people who once kept my people in bondage and would do it again if they could. And yet looking back on it, most of the men I killed were probably not that different from me. They probably died believing their cause was just, hoping their fathers would look from beyond the world and be proud of them.”
“Yes, I see,” Robert said. “You may not know this, but there is a philosophy of considerable weight built on that same premise. It is not a philosophy suited to the weak-minded, however, because it suggests—as, in fact, you just suggested—that there is really no such thing as good or evil, that most people do what they think is right. It’s just the lack of agreement on what is right that leads us to believe in good and evil.”
He leaned forward almost eagerly.
“You traveled great distances, Sir Neil. Leagues. But one can also travel, so to speak, in time, through the study of history. Consider the argument that sits before us now; I am vilified for trying to strengthen our bonds of friendship with Hansa and thus avert a war we can ill afford. My detractors point out that by doing so I create conditions that might allow a Reiksbaurg to take the throne a few years hence.
“Now, why should that be considered wrong? Because Hansa is evil? Because they desire control of this kingdom? And yet my family, the Dares, wrested Crotheny from Hansa in a bloody conflict. My great-great-grandfather murdered the Reiksbaurg emperor in the Hall of Doves. Who was good and who was evil then? It’s a meaningless question, don’t you think?”
“I’m not as learned as you,” Neil acknowledged. “I know little about history, even less about philosophy. I am a knight, after all, and my job is to do as I am told. I have killed many men I might have liked if we had met under other circumstances, because they weren’t—as you say—evil. We were merely serving masters at cross-purposes. In some cases, it wasn’t even that. To do my duty, I had to stay alive, and to stay alive sometimes means killing others.