Madbond

by Nancy Springer

  “But why would it do that, as long as you wield it?”

  The tide turned dark, black, a black terror pressing in on me, and though I withstood it—for I was accustomed to it by then—I could not find words to explain it to her. How to tell her that I was a madman and a murderer, if she had not heard it already? She must have known, so why was she probing my fears? Bitterness engulfed me. Feeling it, Kor reined in his horse to ride beside me.

  “Tass,” he protested quietly.

  She turned her eyes away from me. “But there is no need to be afraid,” she protested in her turn. “The sword has a name, a centering, a will for loyalty. It is not a feckless thing.”

  I recalled her tale. “Yes,” I said darkly, “but I do not know the name.”

  “A pity,” said Tass, “for if you did, it could never be turned against you or anyone you love.”

  I lowered my left hand and touched the sword, feeling the dread power of the thing that went through me every time I touched it, feeling the blade of it hard and keen inside the leather scabbard. It was hard for me to believe that it had been made and named by any man, even a man of legendary times, and not just born out of some nightmare, out of earth’s uneasy dream.

  “Where did you get it?” Tassida asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  Kor surprised me. “Dan,” he urged, “think.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t remember! Sometimes I dream—” I hated even to say it, but my fear had subsided enough so that I could. “I dream of black water and feel as if I am drowning. That is all I know.”

  “Water,” Tass murmured. “That is odd. The swords were shaped in fire. Often the swordmasters gave them names borrowed from war or fire. Flamewing, Firefang, Blaiz …”

  “Tass,” asked Kor, his love for her soft in his voice, shining in his eyes, “who has told you all these things?”

  “No one.”

  “Tass,” I broke in, thinking she was being obstinate, “help us, help Kor! If there is a seer, perhaps we can go to him.” A seer would know why the world seemed to be dwindling.

  “There is no seer!” she retorted with an odd, plaintive undertone in her proud voice. “No one to help us. You think I have not searched?” She sent Calimir at a canter up a grassy slope, and we followed.

  “There,” I breathed when we topped the rise, and we all stopped our horses to look.

  To southward and eastward lay the vast upland valley of my people, spread out like a great rumpled pelt furred with evergreens, mottled and spotted with streams, shallow lakes, wildfire meadows, and the clearings the beaver left behind. Deer, Sakeema’s cattle, grazed openly in the meadows, and I smiled at the sight, though it seemed to me there were not as many as there should have been.… In the far distance rose the snowpeaks to one side, the thunder cone range to the other. But nowhere, near or far, could I see the skin tents or firesmokes of my people. That was as I expected, for they seldom camped openly. I would find sign of them soon enough.

  We camped under the hemlocks by a singing stream, and we were all merry, for once again we had water in plenty and we were sheltered. Hidden from the eyes of devourers—even though we had only once seen some on the journey, that was my first thought. They seemed the worst of our enemies, though Pajlat’s minions had attacked us and the devourers had not.

  I went and shot a half-grown deer, and we shared the meat with the fanged mares. They ate ravenously, even the hide and some of the bones, and Calimir watched curiously, for there had been grazing enough for him for several days by then, and perhaps he could not comprehend their hunger. In the morning, strengthened, we rode on.

  On the third day I found signs of my people, the small, neat hoofprints of their ponies and the pawprints of their hounds—for we used dogs in hunting, sometimes, to run the deer toward where the archers waited, small tan hounds as graceful as the deer themselves. I had thought my people would be near the marshy rivers to westward where the sweetroot grows at the time of year, and I was right. The trail seemed fresh enough, and we followed it as it wound down a wooded valley—

  “Dannoc!”

  A high, clear voice called from the slope to one side, and someone came thumping and crashing toward us. Only astonishment could have made a Red Hart hunter move so noisily. We halted. Joy had been in that call, joy that warmed me like a friend’s cooking fire, and in a moment a yellow-braided woman in doeskin tunic and buckskin leggings ran toward me between the trees. I grinned and slid down off Talu when I saw her—it was Leotie.

  “Dan! But how—what—” She flung her arms around me, and I kissed her and lifted her off her feet, hugging her, for I was very glad to see her, even though I felt Tassida’s silent presence at my back, even though Leotie wore blue-dyed feathers in her braids.

  “But you are pledged,” I teased her when I released her. I twirled one of her braids. The indigo feathers tied to the end showed that she was in her first year of wedbed. “Who is the man so blessed?” I gave the braid a yank before I released it.

  Her smile of delight turned to a scowl. “Dannoc, you know very well who, and if you insist on being a bear about it—”

  “Leotie,” I interrupted, “I don’t know who. I woke up in a cave by the ocean, with the folk of the Seal Kindred, and I remembered nothing, not how I got there, not even my own name. Some of it has come back to me, but not all.”

  Her face, which had been flushed pink with pleasure, turned pale, and she seemed not able to speak a word.

  Others of my people were hurrying down through the trees, drawn there by Leotie’s cry, and a few of them had come close enough to hear this. And the nearest of them, a tall youth, nearly as tall as I, came and put his arm around Leotie as if to comfort her or support her. He faced me silently, his face a mask. It was my brother Tyee.

  “You!” I exclaimed.

  Leotie nodded, looking as if she were trying not to weep. Tyee did not move or speak. He looked thinner than I remembered him, and lean, as if he had seen trouble.

  “And I held it against you?”

  Leotie nodded again.

  “Well, the more fool, I.” Lifting my hands palms out in gesture of peace, I went to greet my brother.

  Tyee’s face crumbled as if the mask had cracked and fallen apart, and suddenly he looked as near tears as Leotie. “Dannoc, nothing has been right since you went away,” he whispered as he returned my embrace, thwacking me on the back. “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t remember,” I told him, and then there were others of my tribe around us, ten or more of them, all young men and women close to my age, and they were all reaching to touch or hug me, gathered around me in a cluster of joy.

  “Kor!” I shouted. “Tassida!” For I wanted them to be part of that joy-flower as well.

  Kor left his mount and came over to me, looking nearly as shy as Birc. Tass stayed where she was, on Calimir’s back, wearing her cocksure air once again. Let her sit, then, I thought.

  “Tyee, Leotie,” I told them, “this is Rad Korridun, king of the Seal Kindred and a friend such as few men ever find. Kor, this is Tyee, my brother.… How is our father?” I asked Tyee abruptly, and he looked at me with a very still face, as if the mask had come back.

  “Much as ever. Where are your leggings, Dan? And why have you cut your hair?”

  “It is a long story and not much worth going into.”

  They had it out of me anyway, or most of it, over the confused course of the rest of the day. We made camp where we were, very nearly, and there was an excited uproar and a busy bringing in of meat. They wanted to feast me.

  “Where are Father and the others?” I asked Tyee.

  “A day to the southward, near the place of many springs. I have sent a messenger to tell them the news, and we will go with you there tomorrow.”

  “But why are you out here, off by yourselves?”

  “Scouting for deer … What tribe is she of, that maiden with the dark eyes?”

  Tassida had gotten down off
her gelding at last, stiffly, arrow straight, and no one was speaking to her, for my people did not know what to make of her.

  “Sakeema knows,” I told Tyee. Being with him, I remembered what it was that had always annoyed me about Tyee: for all that he looked like a tall, strong man, there was no strength of spirit in him. He was good and kind, but he bent like a reed before storm wind. Already I felt that there were things he was not telling me, not because he was dishonest, but because he was afraid. Well enough. There were things I would not tell him.

  “She is not of Korridun’s tribe?”

  Kor himself came up to me at that moment, sparing me answer. “I am going to see if I can take Tass off somewhere,” he said to me in a low voice, “to hear me out.”

  I nodded at him. “She would probably prefer that to this. We will save you some meat.”

  Tyee talked on, but I no longer heard him. I saw Kor go to Tassida, speak to her, place a hand on her shoulder, and after a while, walking aimlessly so that no one was likely to notice—though in fact everyone noticed—they wandered off.

  I felt sure of the outcome, and I wished him well. By the cooking fire in the midst of the camp I sat and talked, but I cannot remember much of the talk, for in spite of myself my mind was with Kor. Later I sat and ate and talked. Leotie complained that we had no mead, but we were all merry enough. We feasted. Dusk came, so that the fire seemed to bum yet more brightly. By this time, I thought, he will be lying with her.…

  And there through the dusk came Tass, alone, striding past the fringes of the camp, heading toward the horses. I stumbled up from my place by the fire, my legs nearly numb with sitting, and caught up with her just as she reached Calimir.

  “I am going,” she told me curtly, swinging her bedroll onto the gelding. “You cannot stop me.”

  She looked frightened and angry, as far as I could tell in the half light. “I doubt if anyone could stop you,” I said to mollify her. She seemed hardly to have heard me.

  “I will not lie in wedbed with any man, ever!”

  It was her anger speaking, I told myself, but the words struck me like hurled stones. She was tying the cordgrass bridle and leather reins onto Calimir, her hands so harsh in their movements that the gentle gelding flung up his head in protest.

  “Not if it were Sakeema himself!” she shouted, turning and lunging a step toward me. “And yes, I speak also to you, Dannoc-who-cannot-remember.”

  My face must have moved. She seemed truly to see me for the first time. For a moment she stood still.

  “I’ll not be chivvied back and forth like a driven deer between you two—” She sounded uncertain.

  “We have no notion of chivvying you!” I said hotly. “What have Kor and I ever done but show you courtesy? Tass—”

  She turned her back. I caught at her arm.

  “Tass, by all the powers,” I appealed, “what is wrong?”

  She snatched her arm away as if I had burned it, vaulted onto Calimir. I got hold of the reins before she could lift them.

  “Tass, what is the matter with you?” I was angry now. “Kor is—noble, wise, merciful, they are only words, but he is—he is very truth of them, fire true. The love he would give you—”

  “Let go of my reins,” she said in a low voice between clenched teeth.

  “Listen to me! And do not tell me you hate Kor, for I know it cannot be true. At least do not leave so churlishly. You will hurt him to the quick.”

  “Dannoc, you ass,” she said in a strangled voice, as if she were choking with anger, and she pulled out her knife.

  I stood stunned by the gesture. That she could draw against me! I never thought of the great sword that hung by my side, and I did not care if she hurt me, I did not move. “Please,” I begged her softly, “think of Kor.”

  “You fool,” she whispered, “I am thinking of him.” And she slashed with the knife. She meant only to cut the reins from my grasp and gallop away without them. I saw that by the angle of her aim, and I moved to release my grip so that she would not put herself in such danger, riding a horse out of control. But Calimir had grown tired of our shouting in his sensitive ears, and as the knife swished down he swerved and shied, sending it hard onto my arm. It cut to the bone even as I let go of the reins.

  “Mahela blast it all to perdition!” Tass swore, giving Calimir a kick, and as the horse leaped away I heard her sobbing.

  It was some time before I gave up watching after her and turned around. Blood was running down my shield arm, and all my tribemates sat silent as the twilight, watching me, even those on the nearer side of the fire had twisted around to watch me. It seemed to me, thinking about it, that they had been silent for some time. I stared back at them for a moment, and some of those who had turned to gawk hastily faced back toward the food and the fire. But Leotie got up and came over to me with a strip of binding for my arm.

  “What have you been doing with your nights of late, Dannoc?” she asked, smiling, gentle, trying to tease. “Much the same as ever?” But I did not answer her. She wrapped my arm tightly to stop the bleeding.

  “Where is your friend?” she asked a moment later, still gentle, still teasing. “Has she taken the knife to him, too?”

  “I trust not!” I found my voice, and I had to answer her smile. “If he is not back by moonrise, I will go looking for him.”

  In fact, he was back a little after full dark, and I met him at the firelight’s reaches, for I had been watching for him. “She’s gone,” I told him.

  “I know.” He sat down where he was, wearily, and I sat beside him, and the others let us alone. Nor were they any longer very merry.

  “Go after her, Kor,” I said.

  “When this other matter is done, perhaps.”

  “Never mind that!” I felt annoyed and disappointed in him, in his lack of courage. “I can go to my father alone, and you can come to him another time. Kor—”

  “What has happened to your arm?” he interrupted mildly.

  “Never mind that, too. Kor, you must go after her now, before she rides out of your reach!”

  “Dan,” he retorted with just a touch of edge to his voice, “I have not gotten by entirely without thinking, out there in the forest, and I myself have decided what I must do. You were not there, and there is no need for you to instruct me.”

  Once again, it seemed, I was an ass. I sagged, defeated. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  “No need.”

  “I still cannot believe she would refuse you.”

  “It is not that she dislikes me,” Kor said, something wry in his voice. “We talked, we rambled. We were friends.…”

  He got up and touched my shoulder so that I also got up and followed him. We walked out of the reach of the firelight, wandering and looking up at the stars.

  “Why did she hurt your arm?” he asked after a while. “I would not have thought it of her.”

  “It was mischance.” I remembered Tassida’s sobs as she rode away, and the memory sent a pang through me. I longed to comfort her, to soothe away her anger and pain, to heal whatever hurt was in her that had sent her away from us—and then the guilt struck. I would never touch her, never allow myself to touch her. She was beloved by Kor.

  “Dan,” Kor said softly, “no need for shame. Sakeema knows, you have given me my chance.”

  “Blast it,” I whispered between clenched teeth. He had felt—whatever warm song had flooded my veins—

  “I know you love her. I have known for days.”

  “Curse it, Kor!” I cried out, turning on him, miserable and angry, though not truly at him. “Why do you have to know such things? It can only hurt you, and I would have held my peace until it passed!”

  “You think it will pass?”

  I was no longer sure. It felt different, as—Tassida was different.… Numbly I rested my head against a hemlock trunk. “I hope so,” I muttered.

  “Perhaps you ought to take your own advice, and go after her.”

  So Kor was not whol
ly without malice, after all. He had said that to hurt me, I felt sure of it, and he had succeeded. I nearly writhed with the pain of the knife-edge he had put me on. But there was this odd consolation, that whatever anguish he caused me, he felt as well. In less than half a heartbeat he groaned out loud and reached blindly toward me, meeting my hand as it lifted toward him. Hands met and gripped, hard, and that simple pain of the body helped both of us.

  “Forgive me,” Kor whispered, a catch in his voice. I heard his chest heave. “Dan, you are all honor, and I have hurt you—”

  “Blast it, hush,” I ordered him. There was no need for such talk. His goodness vexed me.

  “You would have given your happiness for mine, and I am bitter.”

  “Would you bloody hush!” I snapped.

  “In a moment.” He had charge of his voice again, and I was glad of it, for above all things I did not want to weep. I was afraid of weeping—not that of others, but my own. I heard his breathing, hard and ragged, and flinched from that sound, then heard it steady and was glad of that as well.

  “There is one more thing I must tell you,” said Kor. “I owe it to you.”

  I waited.

  “Tass more than half loves you.”

  A bubble of joy welled up in my chest and burst into sorrow. Great Sakeema, no wonder he was bitter. Let me tell you a merry-go-sorry.… I could not speak.

  “I felt it in her when you greeted Leotie. But it was all a jealous surge, love and anger. The anger has sent her away.”

  I could not bear any more; I was spent. “Kor,” I appealed to him, “what are we going to do?”

  Grip of his hand tightened on mine. “I wish I knew,” he said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  All seemed so hopeless in regard to Tassida that we did nothing, and I, for one, gave over thinking about her. In the morning we readied our fanged mares. Tyee and his hunting band caught their curly-haired ponies, and we all rode together through the day to the place where the main body of the tribe was camping.

  “Your people, these ones of them anyway, are much to my liking,” Kor told me privately as we went out to catch the horses. “And Tyee—I very much like Tyee. His is a gentle heart. But there is a trouble in them none of them will name.”