Everran's Bane

by Kelso, Sylvia

  Beryx’s mouth opened: and shut. He eyed the lydel, with more trepidation, I should imagine, than he had his first boy’s spear.

  It seemed a long time he studied it. His eyes did not take fire, but stilled, and deepened, and presently I realized with shock that it was a good five minutes since he had blinked. Then at last he relaxed with a long sigh, while the lydel, ignoring him, composedly cleaned its paws.

  “The best tha hast done,” said Fengthira, and cocked her head.

  He looked at the lydel in wonder. He glanced at me and chuckled.

  As I broke into a laugh, Fengthira, smiling too, said, “Good. Now bring it to thee.”

  Then his eyes began to dance.

  Fengthira snorted, but with a quirk in her lips. “Th’art true Heagian. Unquenchable. And askst, How, with the whole battery of Ruanbr’arx in tha armory? Find out.”

  Beryx pondered a very long moment. His eyes darkened, then, very slowly, showed a soft fire, and died. The lydel paid no heed at all.

  he said ruefully, and began again.

  This time the fire was hotter. The lydel chittered and wrinkled its nose: then it scurried across the table, to bounce from his knee onto the chairback and up into the roof, and he glanced at Fengthira with laughter that was a shade unsure.

  “No cells,” she said. “It did not like thy smell, and tha letst it go. Well enough. We’ll try the horses now.”

  A horse’s perception so fascinated Beryx that it was some time before he could be brought to use a command at all. Next they tried the saeveryr over the well. Then Fengthira said, “Now stretch thaself. Find a wild lydyr out there and bring it to me.”

  It took so long I had lost track of Beryx’s slow, wide-spaced breaths and begun to watch the clouds pattern, trying to find a rhythm that would take their dreamy changes without sending an audience to sleep. But then came a scutter in the cleft.

  The lydyr hopped out, leisurely as if on its own affairs, a little furry melon with paws and tail and pink blurry eyes which were oddly fixed. It stopped, sat up, rubbed a paw up its face, then suddenly jerked its head up and was off down the cleft as fast as jumps would carry it, while Beryx and Fengthira laughed.

  “Men first, “she said, “to learn the Commands, and give thee practice and—later—the strength. Because a mind without words is harder than one like tha own. And easier than something with no mind at all.” Beryx looked uneasy. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Wilt need tha sleep.”

  * * * * *

  After breakfast she came with me to the garden, while Beryx washed up. When we finished she glanced round at me and said, “Yes, mayst watch if tha wants.”

  We went back inside. She sat Beryx down at the table, put a hand on his neck, and said, “Move that honey-jar.”

  After a moment it slid along the wood. Fengthira removed her hand and said, “Alone.”

  Beryx eyed the jar apprehensively, and set his teeth.

  His eyes kindled, wove into sheets of light, wove brighter, faster, until they dissolved in a blur of white-hot green like a wheel spun against the sun, his breaths became huge heaving gasps, the sweat trickled down his face. And the jar did not move.

  Without comment Fengthira said, “Again.”

  After the fourth attempt she said, “Let be.” And he dropped back, utterly spent.

  “Axynbr’arve is hard,” she said. “Must use another level of power. Mostly, the only way there is to jump.” She went over to the tool-heap and unearthed her rope.

  Beryx looked at her beseechingly. She merely clicked her tongue. He stood up and put his hands behind his back. She tied them, backed him to the kingpost, and ran the rope round and round him all the way to his feet. Then she went to the table and took up a stone.

  He had gone white, and was gritting his teeth. She grinned. “Dost not like to play the fairground shy, ah? Then get tha temper up.” And she under-armed the pebble straight at his face.

  Beryx ducked with a soldier’s quick economic grace. Fengthira nodded and aimed the next one at his chest. That did not miss.

  He winced. His eyes began to glow. As her arm went back for the next throw, they shot one brief green flash and her hand stopped in mid-air.

  “Tck, tck,” she said. “Axynbr’arve is with things, not minds.” She frowned. “Must be a Command, then. Look here.”

  I first realized when it seemed to take far too long. Then I heard Fengthira begin to breathe. I looked at her hands, and they were clenched, saw her back was arched, snatched a glance at her eyes and hastily averted mine before that molten white focus burnt them clean away.

  Beryx was panting too, eyes white-hot as hers. The air strained like fabric being pulled in two, there was a ringing in my ears, and I covered them, so I only saw Beryx’s convulsive gasp before he went limp in the ropes, while Fengthira, breath whooping, leant hard on the back of her chair.

  “Art growing,” she said between lungfuls, “difficult—Everran.” His look was not defiance but apology. “I know—couldst not help thaself. We all face up sometime. Good practice, too. But tha’ll stand now.” She turned for another pebble, swung, and threw.

  It took him right between the eyes and it came far harder than the others, flung by mind rather than muscle, I suspect. He had tried to dodge it, and failed. He stood lowering, while a point of blood slowly welled, broke and trickled down his nose, and I wished I dared protest, and Fengthira weighed the next stone.

  “Temper,” she said, “is like Yxphare. Double-edged. Canst use it for... or against.” The pebble took him fairly on the center of his right collarbone and he yelled with the rage of pain.

  Fengthira merely took another stone. As she cupped it in her hand, he struggled with mind and muscle, eyes boiling now. She flicked it at his face. His eyes sparked savagely: the pebble shot up and over and took her with still greater impetus right in the middle of the chest.

  “All... right,” she croaked, hunched on the floor while I fluttered in panic, not least that she would leave me with a royal wizard helpless in bonds I could not loose. Beryx was shouting, just as panicky if from a somewhat nobler cause.

  she responded, rubbing gingerly at her chest. It had struck just below the hollow of the collarbones, on the breastbone itself. she commented, deliberately mimicking him.

  She got up heavily, while he seethed with anxiety and remorse and his own impotence. Her lip twitched. “Art not an aedr-slayer yet. Or a master’s-butcher: though t’has been known. Or even a woman killer. W’are tougher than tha thinks.” Tenderly, she moved to the table, leant on the chair, and took another stone.

  Beryx deliberately shut his eyes. Fengthira broke into a chuckle and caught her breath. “Rest easy. Wilt not hit me again.”

  Distrustfully, he opened his eyes. She flicked the pebble without moving her hand, in a green flash he hurled it back, but this time it rebounded even more fiercely and too swiftly for him to stop. “Ha,” said Fengthira as it thudded into his ribs. “Mayst save tha lamentations for thaself.”

  he said when he opened his eyes.

  Fengthira smiled briefly. “Untie him, harper. Everran, look here.”

  As I slipped the last knot he stepped away from the post, rubbing at his right wrist, then at each successive bruise. “Hast learnt axynbr’arve,” said Fengthira. “Pick up tha mess.”

  He eyed her a moment, before he turned. His eyes flashed. One by one each missile flew back to the table, and he looked round to Fengthira
with a small triumphant smile.

  “That,” she said, “was worth a bruise or two.” She scanned him. “If my lydel thought tha stank, had best alter it. The pair of you. Hot water. And shave. Lookst like a hedgehog with green eyes. Then sit out there and let harper play with the aivrifel. No, canst not go on now. Wilt be little use to Everran if I kill thee in the breaking yard.”

  She vanished, leaving us to boil the kettle and shave in the spring’s mirror and then strip down. As we scrubbed, Beryx said apologetically,

  I was shocked at his loss of flesh: every rib showed, even the big spinal muscles had wasted to reveal the vertebrae, and his shoulders were pure bone. With the beard off his face looked worse, gaunt and drawn, a mere frame for the intensely, abnormally vivid green eyes. They were no longer just striking. They were compelling, fascinating, the very irises seemed awake, they had that constant weave and dance of light in a green flowing stream...

 

  Somebody jerked my arm. Beryx’s face snapped from the green, looking almost appalled. “Stop what?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. he answered curtly, and turned away.

  I watched his averted profile: clean mouth, springing nose, jaw made more emphatic by the loss of flesh, the long-lashed eye. Only, I thought with a sense of loss, it was no longer safe to look at that. It was a wizard’s now.

  Before I had felt out two chords on the aivrifel he was asleep, and he slept like the dead the whole afternoon. Fengthira came once, looked, nodded, and went away. Overhead the clouds passed, heavy woolpacks that dappled Eskan Helken with shadows slow and dream-like as the shapes in Fengthira’s inner world.

  I began to make a song for it: all minors, which the aivrifel favored, dwindling cadenzas, single mysterious chords, till the very structure grew tenuous and I had to pull it together with one of those gifts that come when you are seeking something else. A gem in its own way, an elfin, haunting motif like the shadow of remembered joy. I looked up to see Fengthira with its echo in her eyes.

  “Ah,” she said. “Hast understood what it will mean.” And cut off my questions by prodding Beryx. “Wake up, Everran. Sleepst like a hedgehog, too.”

  * * * * *

  The next two days were largely a reprise. They played Thor’stang, wrestled mentally, robbed Fengthira’s hive with Beryx keeping off the bees, threw pebbles and failed to hit each other, all to my boredom and their great delight. The third morning we came in to find the fire out cold and Fengthira sitting with folded hands by the hearth.

  “Wryviane,” she told Beryx. “Must light it if tha’d eat. Go on. T’will be easy enough.”

  I brought twigs and shredded grass and bigger sticks. Beryx stood before the hearth as a fighter does, four-square, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet. He drew a breath that seemed to go forever. Then without any warning his eyes lashed and a jet of flame went roaring up the wall. “Whoa!” shouted Fengthira. “I said light the fire, not burn down the house!”

  They did not work that day. It was humid, enervating, the clouds had thickened, and by noon there was a darkening boil in the north that presaged a storm. We watched it from the verandah. Or at least, I watched it, for Beryx was looking at Fengthira instead.

  She turned to answer his thought as she had so often answered mine. “Yxphare,” she said, “comes from my line. Scarthe’s my own gift. But tha’rt Heagian. Flame-tree. So fire-work comes easy to thee. Tha springst from Th’Iahn, who was one of the greatest aedryx ever made. Not born: he came late to it, like thee. One day, mayst use Phathire for the tale. Berrian was eighth generation, across the blanket to a Slief Manuighend concubine. Slief Manuighend is what tha callst Heshruan Slief. T’was all Heagian country once. Berfylghja and Tirien were their offshoots, as Tyrwash was from Hazghend. No, not the Hazghend tha knowst. Thine are corsairs, no more. Hazghend was the line of Vorn. In tha Tirs was its tower. Stiriand and Histhira were in Holym. And Havos was in Bryve Elond.”

  She glanced away to the storm. “The first Fengthira brought them Maerheage blood. She was got by Maerdrigg’s eldest son, that was killed by his brother Vorn. There’s Maerheage in tha line too, but that’s another tale. They were all cross-bred, the old Tingrith, just like Quarreders. And yes, I am the last of my line. I came here after the Sorcerer hunts.”

  “Ah,” she smiled with irony as we both sat up with a jerk. “Six of tha generations past. Pure aedryx are like dragons: they live long, unless th’are killed.”

  No wonder, I thought, that she had “thee’d” us both like boys. But she was measuring the storm as Ragnor had the sea, a known, conquerable element.

  “I’ll teach thee Wryvurx,” she said. “May come in useful. That will miss us, but t’is coming this way.”

  They climbed Eskan Helken’s north wall, and for a long time I watched them, two tiny tense figures in wildly blown robes against the crescendoing storm. It seemed impossible they could master such a tumult of the skies. But slowly, slower than the cloud-shadows’ motion, I saw a change in the heavy bruise-black of the storm wall, that makes Gebrians spit because the rain is going past: an arch appeared in it. Then it became a black mountain piled above a white-mouthed cave, as the rain front pivoted head-on to us, and that white slowly climbed to fill the sky, while the horizon shortened under its feet. When thunder and lightning were simultaneous and the first drops blew through that gusty, eerie light, they came down, Beryx wet enough to have stayed there, Fengthira quietly satisfied.

  It was a splendid storm. The towers poured such cascades it doused the fire, the thunder drove the lydel under Fengthira’s arm, and we all had to hide in the rock chamber till it passed. “T’will feed the spring,” said Fengthira, “a full three moons.” She eyed the sopping house. “Find some kindling, Everran, and light the fire while I see to this.”

  She gave me no orders, but thinking of the garden I took a wooden spade out to the irrigation channels, which were in predictable choked or broken ruin. While I worked, the storm bellowed off southward and the light cleared to that still sweet aftermath of dry-land rain, leaving a tender cerulean blue sky to the north, and overhead, a sunset spectacle to rival Hethria’s. The entire side of Eskan Helken turned the color of golden wine, which pools and wet leaves shot with scintillance, all framed in deep, burnt-gold rock, and overhung first in lurid scarlet, then by a purple gloaming shot with lights of silver and royal crimson. As splendid but less transient than the meteors in Maerdrigg’s maerian.

  As the image came to mind I straightened up, content with my labors, and turned: and Maerdrigg was at my back.

  I do not think I thought. There was no time. One flash of recognition, one paralyzed reflex to cry aloud, and I had been sucked into the depths of that milky, gold-shot fire.

  A voice was speaking overhead: clear, ringing as a trumpet’s does, as did Beryx’s spoken voice, but not his mental one. “Helve,” it was saying, with soft, impersonal, dispassionate power. “Helve, Maerdrigg. Imsar math.” It did not pronounce the words with Fengthira’s impulsion, but gravely, almost sadly, like the unanswerable decree of a Sky-lord himself.

  I opened my eyes. Beryx stood over me, looking across me to something else. I knew what it was. I kept my eyes on him until his stance eased imperceptibly, and I knew Maerdrigg was gone.

  As I got up his eyes shot wide in relief. “Thank the Four! You’re all right! I thought—”

  Then we both gasped. I said stupidly, “You said it aloud.”

  He did not answer, but looked past me, and I saw Fengthira standing among the sodden corn.

  “Ah,” she said. This time the quiet in her voice was a farewell. “Hast broken the Command. And I laid it on thee in Phare. T’would have held against all but this.” She came slowly forward. “I thought t’was safe for him alone. Then I heard him cry. But tha wast quicker. Wilt often be quicker, now.”

  Beryx did not speak. She nodded at him.

  “Hast the strength. Knowst
the arts—all save a couple tha’lt find at need, and some that are no use now. Hast missed the aedric snare. Art a good lad, Everran. Th’art strong, and I pushed thee to tha limits, and tha never showed an ounce of vice. If tha kicks, tha dost not strike or bite.” A curious compassion showed in her eyes. “Everran will be lucky in thee. No, no Yxphare. Tha’lt manage for thaself.”

  Beryx moved his left hand quickly, opened his mouth. She shook her head and walked away.

  * * * * *

  When we came down the cleft for the last time, she glanced up at the sword on its ledge, then at Beryx, and shook her head. “Ah. Wilt not need that again. Art thine own weapon now.”

  She rode with us to the valley’s end, and as we reined in she turned to Beryx, saying, “I little thought to use this again, but...” She held out her left hand.

  Hesitantly, his came to meet it, and she turned it so her thumb pressed the vein inside his wrist. “T’is the aedric way.”

  Beryx drew a breath. “There’s nothing you’d take,” he said, “if I had it to give. But I told you once, you’d find a welcome in Everran. This time, it’s true.”

  Fengthira laughed at him with one of those quicksilver transformations into gaiety. “Guard tha harper well,” she said, “if tha’lt make truth of that. Luck!” She waved. Then the gray mare came round on her hocks and cantered away, the rider not looking back.

  Chapter VIII

  Leaving Eskan Helken, we struck south-west in as direct a line for southern Everran as is possible in Hethria. When Beryx turned that way I had gulped, which earned me one quietly ironic look. “Don’t worry, Harran,” he said. “I know where I’m going.”

  Hethria was in full bloom, fields of unknown, exotic flowers. Water often lay on bare claypans, and beasts ran from our very feet. We were so short of food that in a day or two we had to hunt. Beryx said, “I don’t like this, but... So we’ll make it a gambler’s shot.” He summoned a wyresparyx in bowshot, then let it go, and I managed, with some help I think, to put an arrow in its skull. The skinning was gruesome, but the flesh tasted a little like fish.