Everran's Bane

by Kelso, Sylvia

  “Surely, ma’am,” it was open irony, “not with a skilful smith?”

  “Wilt dare me, ah? A wise smith don’t try to temper flints.”

  “Then,” he said, “I had rather be a broken flint than one that was never tried at all.”

  Her eye held danger, open threat. “So tha’lt be broken, ah?”

  Deliberately, he answered, “Yes.”

  She paused. He held her eyes. Suddenly they twinkled with another of those disconcerting shifts to mirth. “I’ve broken a good many colts in my life. I’ve never broken a king.”

  He looked half-affronted, half-amused. She cocked her head, studying him. Then she said abruptly, “Take off tha clothes.”

  That did shake him. He balked and stared.

  “Take off tha clothes. Dost buy a horse in a blanket, or first take a look?”

  For a moment I thought he would refuse. Then he began to pull his turban off.

  She watched unblinking every detail of his one-handed struggle with the robe, the buttons of his shirt. I doubt she could have found a quicker, simpler way of humiliating him. As the shirt came off she said, “Whoa,” and began to walk round him, running her eyes up and down as if he were indeed a colt.

  “Hot-headed.” She poked the huge livid scars on his side. “Headstrong. Tck. Tha own fault.” I saw his jaw stiffen, his chin come up. If he refused counsel, he relished criticism less. But he held his tongue. She felt the arm, and nodded. “Smashed the great nerve.” She pushed it aside to touch the sting-pit. “Troubles thee still?”

  He said flatly, “No.” And she flicked her eyes up. “Th’art ignorant. Try not to be a fool.”

  He flushed and clenched his teeth.

  “Dost think,” she said, “aedryx need strength in naught below the neck? Th’are better stayers than a Quarred mare.”

  She came round and studied the scarred side of his face. He looked straight ahead like a soldier on parade.

  “Thorgan Fenglos,” she said musingly. “Does Everran suffer blemish in its kings?”

  His muscles tightened as if at a punch. “I am king,” he answered, almost under his breath, “by inheritance.”

  “Ah. And what does queen think of it?”

  Had I been Beryx, it would have ended there. He turned white, making the scar stand out worse than ever, but he did not speak.

  She went on with that deliberate, probing cruelty, “Not like it much?”

  Looking somewhere over her head he answered, just audibly, “No.”

  Her lashes flicked up. “And barren as well?”

  He shut his eyes. This time it was a mere whisper. “Yes.”

  “Ah.” Then, idly, “Poor child.” She walked away, not troubling to look back. “Put on tha clothes.”

  Silently, he obeyed.

  When he looked up, she said dispassionately, “Headstrong. Crippled. Green. Crossbred as well. I doubt I’d take the horse. Why should I trouble with the man?”

  That was too much. “Because,” he said through his teeth, “I may be maimed, I may be mongrel, but I am Everran’s only hope. I don’t want to learn for pride, or for power; I am not willful, and I have no time for wantonness. But I have a kingdom, ma’am, and whatever must be done to save it, by the Sky-lords’ faces, I will do!”

  He glared full in her face, his eyes blazing green. She shook her head. Then, to my utter amazement, her own lashes sparkled with tears.

  “Ah,” she said. “Th’art Heagian, sure enough. Straight back to that glorious old clown. Never mind wryve-lan’x, take wryve-lethar. And care naught that t’will bring the roof on tha own head.”

  She swiped a hand over her eyes and half swung away. Beryx stood, utterly bewildered, until she blinked away the tears.

  “Tha man shall take the beasts back,” she said crisply. “And we’ll do without that.” I gasped as his sword slid from the scabbard, turned a somersault, and landed on a rock ledge twenty feet above. “Tha might take to me when tha temper’s up. And get it up tha will.”

  She turned toward the rock mouth, and paused. Beryx had not moved.

  “Well? What art waiting for?”

  “This is not a ‘man.’” Beryx’s look was icy as her own. “This is my comrade and hearthbard, who brought me away from Coed Wrock. But for him I should not be here.”

  Fengthira gave me one razor look. “More fool he,” she said, and I knew it was no cliché. My secret had been read.

  Beryx still waited. She scowled. “Wilt try my patience already? What else?”

  “We are two days,” he said, “from water. Our horses have had none today.”

  That made her soften. “Bring them up. Take off bridles. They’ll follow. And leave tha ironmongery here.” Her eyes flicked to self-mockery this time. “I can’t abide cold iron. I’m a ‘sorcerer.’”

  We unsaddled; she said, “Come then. No, not tha. The beasts.”

  And to my wonder they filed after her like dogs. As the last rump vanished, Beryx, recovering some of his poise, murmured ruefully, “I’ll pay high for that.”

  * * * * *

  The cleft climbed steeply, narrow, gloomy, twisting, slippery with wet. Fengthira directed the horses. “Ware that slab. And t’drop.” We groped after as best we could, until the light returned in a fierce blue glare.

  We were on a V-shaped pocket of soil rising to the next monolith, hidden from all but the sky, its checquer of greenery framed in fiery red and distant blue. A glance showed me vegetables, a grain patch, a pair of elegant finlythes, a long slope of natural grass to more trees above. The horses were drinking at the cleft-top: a spring, no doubt, deepened and rimmed with rock slabs to make a pool before it seeped downhill, framed by fishbone ferns and overhung by giant tree-ferns, an enchanted and enchanting well.

  When the horses finished, Fengthira said, “Down. Come back with the rest.” As they retreated obediently, she turned with a flick of her eye.

  “Too full of How and Why to settle First. I’ll tell then, and spare all our tongues. This is Eskan Helken.” Red Castle, I translated, wondering who had named it. “The spring rises there,” she nodded uphill, “and t’was here before me. I only make it last. With Ruanbr’arx, yes: the Arts. Wryvurx, the weatherwords. But I steer, not brew, the storms. And that was wryve-lan’x with the horses, mastery of beasts. Not ’prentice work. The grays are mine: they go with my name.” Fengthira: moonlight. “I like horses better than men, so I use Ruanbr’arx to keep men away. And this is my garden, since I’m not Hethox and don’t like aedric hunts. Take nine lydyr with wryve-lan’x, but you’ll sicken when the tenth hops up. Not that plants,” she added thoughtfully, “don’t squeak when you pull them out.”

  We crossed the garden, seamed with tiny irrigation channels. “This lives by honest sweat. No Ruanbr’arx’ll master weeds.” Beyond a handkerchief lawn under the finlythes we climbed to the valley head. “And this is my house.”

  It was backed against the rock beside an even tinier spring thickly bedded in mint. A dirt-floored veranda was roofed by norgal bark that rested on a beam between two trees, overgrown with some climbing vine’s black and scarlet flowers. A single stone step, a natural boulder, led inside. The walls were latticed branch and vine, then native rock, which held a fireplace and an irregular door. The furniture, table, chairs, a hanging cupboard, was unsquared wood, tools were propped in a corner, utensils by the hearth. A lydel hung by its curled tail from a roof-beam, chattering with pointed furry face and huge irate black eyes.

  “Ah,” said Fengthira, propping up her scythe. “Strangers. Must put up with them.” She surveyed us. “And now th’art here, I suppose tha must be fed.”

  Beryx’s lip twitched. He said meekly, “Ma’am, I do know how to cook.”

  “Ah. Like tha harper shaves. Garden. Lettuces and some corn.” She tossed off her turban to reveal an arrogantly boned face under a crop of iron-gray hair, I walked outside and stood spellbound as all Hethria spread below me, an eagle’s vision on the wing.

  “Lettu
ces,” commanded Fengthira. “Wilt have long enough to gawp at that.”

  We gawped at it after we ate, silently watching Hethria’s solemn evening hymnal to the light. When the last red glow had left the horizon, Fengthira stirred and announced, “Harper shall do the garden. I’ll cook.”

  Beryx asked demurely, “Am I the horse-boy?”

  And she gave him a darkling glance. “Th’art the prentice,” she said grimly. “Tha’lt have work enough.”

  * * * * *

  We laid our bedding in the outer room, though I doubt either of us truly slept. Fengthira rose with the dawn. After breakfast, grain porridge and honey from the safe, she said, “Now.” Going to her tool-heap she unearthed a long plaited hide rope.

  “Four!” said Beryx in laughing alarm. “Are you going to throw and tie me like a Holmyx steer?”And she gave him a straight look. “Ah. Stand up. Put tha hands behind tha back.”

  He was not laughing now. “Wilt be taught?” she demanded. “Or not?”

  Tight-lipped, he did as he was told. She tied his wrists with a horse-breaker’s hitch, ordered, “Outside,” ran the rope over a tree-fork, said, “put tha feet together,” and tied his ankles too. Then she told me curtly, “Down the garden.” As I went, I heard her go on in that curt, intent voice, “The first lesson for aedryx is to know thaself.”

  While I pottered among the irrigation channels the sun climbed, the meager dew dried away. I went to the spring and drank. A black and white saeveryr twirled on a fern limb, mocking me. Eskan Helken was quiet as a tomb. I climbed to the finlythes and sat in the shade, back against a trunk: but all Hethria’s prospect could not fill my thoughts.

  Fengthira was in the shade before I saw her, a dappled gray ghost with a pot of mint-tea and a pair of mugs. Her turban was off. There was sweat on her temples and her finely fleshed face was sharp with strain, or weariness. Over her arm hung four pieces of severed hide rope.

  “Sit!” she said sternly. “Pour that out.”

  As I poured the tea, she began, with her customary deftness, to splice the rope. “No,” she said without looking up. “Don’t take him any. Don’t go near him. If he sees thee now he’ll never speak to thee again.”

  I sat winded by that clairvoyance, wondering wildly what she had done to him.

  “Teach me to kill a dragon,” she growled under her breath. “And ruined my good rope. Had to cut it off him in the end.” My mouth flew open and she gave me a rapier glance. “For his good, not mine. The stronger they are, the harder they fight. And I’ve not used Phare these twenty years. He might have broken my hold.”

  “What—what is Phare?” I got out at last. I was very afraid of her, not least for myself.

  “Sight.” A dour smile. “Into minds.” Once again she anticipated me. “Reading thought, that’s Scarthe, but thought’s not all of a mind. That’s where tha thinks tha thinkst. Really just where tha thinks in words. Under that tha thinkst without them. That’s where tha thinks more than tha thinkst.”

  “I—see.” I was remembering how, before words can be spoken, they must first be formed in thought.

  She nodded, reaching for another end. “Ah. Tha doesna like tha thought-words read. Tha likes it less when someone shares them first.”

  “Er—” I said timidly.

  “With Scarthe,” she said dryly, “needst not know. With Phare, tha dost.”

  I thought suddenly of how we think, assured of utter privacy, and frantically tried not to think at all. She smiled sardonically and I knew she had read that too.

  “Phare goes further. Hast a memory, ah? Some canst open when tha likes, some not. But t’is all there. All that ever happened to thee. Phare shows it all.”

  “Four,” I whispered, feeling sick. “It would be like reliving—”

  “Tha whole life,” she nodded. “With someone inside, sharing it.”

  I shuddered, thinking I understood why she had had to cut the rope at the last. She smiled again, more grimly still. “Ah. But tha thinks with tha body too. Muscles. Lungs. Heart. Tha never ‘thinks’ of it while tha lives. Wait till someone takes control of them.”

  She glanced sidelong. “A ride on a bolter, ah. And no jumping off. Hast senses too. Phare steals them. Sight, touch, taste, smell. All lost. And speech. No, listen to the rest. Art only hearing it. Under that comes the part that tha thinks never thinks at all. The fire under the kettles. The things tha durst not, cannot think. The things tha wilt not let thaself think.” I stared at her, open-mouthed. “Phare makes tha think them. Through someone else. Some fight when they lose their muscles. They all fight when it comes to that. But by then t’is too late. Art under control. Canst only feel. Not act.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Now tha knowst why I tied him. I don’t like Phare. But without Phare, canst not learn. Dost not know thaself.” She finished the last splice and reached for her tea. “He knows now. Leave him be till he gets over it.”

  * * * * *

  We worked in the garden till noon, then climbed back to the finlythes and went to sleep. At last, when the sun was almost down, she took me up to the house, made more mint-tea, and gave me one of the mugs, thickly laced with honey, steaming and sweet. “Take that out to him,” she ordered. “Up t’hill. And bring him back.” As I looked at her in consternation she added, “Better if t’is thee, the first.”

  Beryx was lying flat and straight on his face in the grass at the coign of the northern cliff, both arms over his head as if for a shield. He could not have moved all day. Grass seeds had fallen on his clothes, great patches of sweat had dried white on the back of his shirt. When my approach became audible, I saw his back muscles crawl and tighten as he clenched his whole body in defense.

  I sat by his shoulder and put the mug between us: at such times, music had always been my speech. The light commenced its evening descant, the silence of Hethria enveloped us, while I sought in vain for an opening chord.

  But then, stiffly, painfully, he untangled his arms. Keeping his face averted, he rolled over, sat up, and took the tea, cupping it against his right hand as if to warm them both. His movements were slow, forced, cramped, as if he had been beaten all over and the bruises were stiffened: but these bruises were not on the bone.

  With a little sigh, he set down the cup. “Thank you, Harran,” he said, sounding spent and shaky, and forced himself to glance up. Instantly his eyes jerked away as if the contact had hurt, and I pulled mine away in shock, for his had the stricken, shattered look of one who has taken a mortal wound: and known it.

  Desperately, wanting to help, remembering my orders, I said, “Lord... you will be too cold up here.”

  He went stiff all over. Then he managed to get up. His hands were trembling. Under his breath he said, “Yes.”

  We walked across the hill, me aching for a helpful word, he with the kind of desperate courage that goes forward because otherwise it will run away. But at the firelit door that too failed him. He ducked his head as he entered, as I had done to avoid meeting Hawge’s eyes.

  Busy over the fire, Fengthira merely said, this time in a neutral tone, “Sit.” And not till we had eaten did she so much as look at him.

  By then he had swung round, left arm on the table, in profile to her. She did not speak, but whatever she did, the mere touch of her eyes made him flinch as if hit on a burn.

  “Ah,” she said under her breath. With that same desperate courage he turned and looked her full in the face.

  “Whoa,” she said, after a moment, and a small, not unkind smile moved the muscle of her cheek. “Needst not slaughter Hawge tonight.”

  His eyes dropped. He let out a long, shaky breath.

  She said, “Pass me the cup.” As he reached out, she nodded. “If tha canst hear, then canst learn to speak.”

  Beryx looked up in perplexity. Fengthira said, And I too stared astounded, for her lips had not moved.

  Her eyes turned to me. It came with probing interest.
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  Before I could start a panicky disclaimer, her eyes had moved away again. She watched Beryx for a long, silent moment, and in that moment her pupils contracted as if the light had changed and her clear gray irises assumed the shimmer of molten lead.

  Then she said,

  He swung on her with something like irritation to shield him, opened his mouth, and choked.

  Fengthira watched impassively. He tried again. Coughed. Retched, gasped, fighting for speech as drowning men fight for air.

  she said.

  Perhaps it was reaction. More likely it was inevitable. He was a king, and proud, he had suffered as much as both would bear, and now he could not so much as proclaim a mutiny. His face contorted as he fought to yell at her, he struggled as if manacled, clawed the air. Then came up with a bound that overthrew the chair, and charged.

  Looking full in his face, Fengthira made a single smooth hand sweep and ordered,

  He brought up as if he had hit a wall. She held him with those eyes whose hot shimmer had brightened to a midday summer horizon, while he fought to come at her, completely beside himself. Then she said,

  He stood. If you can call it standing, when he was fighting to move with every atom of his physical strength. His eyes were quite black. Sweat poured off him. I think he actually foamed at the mouth.

  Fengthira gave him a moment to see it was futile, and said aloud, “Rope.”

  When I did not move, she repeated, “Rope. Hast lost tha feet?”

  She did not raise her voice but I scuttled like a mouse. As I came back, she ordered,

  Beryx’s eyes turned greener and blazed with active resistance. Fengthira’s widened a little, shimmering brighter still. I heard her breathe. Slowly, irresistibly, his hands were drawn behind his back.

  “Tie... them. Tie... t’other... end... to kingpost.”

  The words were spaced, as in phases of a mighty effort. My hands shook as I obeyed.

  She waited a moment longer. Then she let go her breath and relaxed in the chair.

  Beryx flew at her like a chained mastiff and brought up with a jerk that should have torn his shoulders off. He was beyond reason, beyond capitulation, let be any attempt at obedience. He did his best to break the rope or break his arms or uproot the kingpost, while Fengthira leant back, regained her breath, and wiped her brow.