Her words slurred in the haze of the state preceding sleep.
“There are doorways, and there are bearers. Doorways work only in one direction. If you enter, you cannot leave the same way. If you leave, you cannot enter the same way. Bearers, like the white stage, are two-sided doorways, so to speak. They can bear anyone in or out, but only if they are on opposite sides.”
“Seems strange, does it not? Why are there such restrictions placed on the Lows?”
Leshaya panted. It took Voran a moment to realize she was laughing at him. “If you do not yet realize the peril of entering the Lows of Aer, I am sure there will be ample opportunity to find out. Silly cub.”
In the morning, Voran and Mirnían started the climb. Leshaya was not with them, and Voran assumed she was out hunting again. As they rose, they waded through small waterfalls, not a dry stone to be seen. They snaked the tortuous way up the hill, which became more and more shrouded in rain and mist. By midday, Voran thought they had entered another doorway into a different level of the world, until they stumbled onto two cairns lining the road. The summit-marks.
At that moment, the clouds parted, and the sun warmed their wet backs. Voran turned to look back. The dale stretching behind them was a pure emerald green, sparkling everywhere as the rivulets and waterfalls seemed to be showing off to the sun. It was a stark, gorgeous landscape. For a moment, it seemed that he and Mirnían were the only beings in existence on the earth. Had Adonais himself descended on a horse of fire from the Heights at that moment, Voran would not have been surprised. In such a place, Vasyllia and her trials were somehow absent. Or rather, Vasyllia did not belong in this world at all; this was a different place, a different time.
“Why do so few of the priests ever talk about Adonais in the right way, Mirnían?”
Mirnían seemed to forget his days-long silence. “What do you mean?”
“Do you not see? The curve of that mountain. The thunder of that waterfall.”
“Yes, I do.” Mirnían smiled for the first time in weeks. “It’s almost as if Adonais is here, present in these natural beauties.”
“If the chief priest knew him as he claimed to,” said Voran, thinking of Kalún’s mumbling of the prayers, “he would spend his days singing the wonders of his craft with the best poetry. Not try to call down fire from heaven by his will alone. You know, it’s all written down in the Old Tales. The priests in those stories were poets who sang from the tops of hills as the snow pelted their faces.”
The fire burned brightly in Voran’s chest. He felt Lyna’s nearness, but he had no idea how to call her to himself. It was maddening.
Then the sun swaddled itself in fog, and the cold and wet became all too real again.
“Look at this,” said Leshaya, barely visible in the fog down the road.
As they approached, a wrought iron gate seemed to form itself out of the tendrils of mist. It was decorated in shapes of strange animals and plants, none of whom Voran had ever seen or even read about in the stories.
“Is this the doorway out of the Lows?” asked Voran.
“Let’s find out,” said Mirnían and pushed it open. It opened with little resistance. Nothing changed. The downslope remained ahead of them, leading to another valley where trees of changing colors surrounded a village of thatch houses settled along a snaking river, brown with the recent rains. The village looked empty.
They walked through the entire village without meeting another creature, except for the wild rabbits that fled from them in panic.
“Is that…music?” said Mirnían.
Voran heard the unmistakable strumming of a hand-held harp. Then the smells struck him like a fist across the nose—pork, cherries, apple, bacon. Had he gone mad?
Whether real or not, the source of the sound and the smell seemed to be a wooden hut, crookedly constructed, as though it were stuck in an eternal shrug. From this vantage point, the two dark windows only intensified the house’s puzzled look.
The front door was open. The music stopped, but the smells were even more intense. A head popped out of the doorway, belonging to a young girl, buxom, red curls messy on her shoulders. Voran felt an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach. She was very beautiful.
“Come in, my lords! Oh, what joy! I hoped to have company this day. Dinner is almost ready.”
It was a meal fit for a king. There was soup of a soft, red fish, unexpectedly tangy and salty from an excess of chopped pickled cucumbers. The first course was a white river-fish garnished with mushrooms that burst with juice at every bite. Lightly steamed vegetables— salty with a smoky aftertaste—followed. Finally, the boar—succulent, tender at the first bite. With it came a purple hash of some semi-sweet root, dripping with juice dark as blood. The ale was sweet, tinged with cinnamon and nuts.
Voran ate with relish. Mirnían waited before eating, staring at Voran as though he expected him to transform into yet another legendary creature. When nothing happened, he ate—tentatively at first, then as ravenously as Leshaya, whose slurping could be heard outside the hut, though she sat some ways off, feasting on the boar’s entrails.
They remained silent through the entire meal.
Afterward, Voran and Mirnían walked to the brook to wash their hands and faces. The water had a faint smell of old cheese. Leshaya lay asleep near the door, snoring.
“Voran, I can’t rest easy,” said Mirnían, unexpectedly friendly. “There’s something happening here that I do not understand. Something is very wrong.”
Voran said nothing, but plunged his entire head into the brown water. It was unpleasantly warm.
“Is it not all a bit convenient?” continued Mirnían. “An entire village abandoned except for one hut with a girl making dinner especially for us? How does she live in this village? How does she support herself?”
Voran laughed. Such mundane details seemed irrelevant in the Lows of Aer.
“And I can see how you stare at her, Voran.” There was a hint of a growl in Mirnían’s voice. “Do not forget you are promised to another.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Voran, lying through his teeth. The girl was beautiful, too beautiful in a way, as though some poet had imagined her into existence. Yet he desired her; lust for her pulsed through his body. He was again on the cusp of that madness when nothing matters, when reason falters. He had to have her.
“You are tired, Mirnían. Sleep with your sword by your side. I will take the first watch. If there is even a hint of something untoward, I will call for you.”
Voran stood by the river, deep in thought. Heavy clouds roiled in the sky, churned by warm gusts, pregnant with rain. The river gurgled like an over-full stomach. The trees twitched with each gust as though awakened into a bewitched half-life, only to fall back to uneasy sleep. As each gust heaved and died, the air seemed to bloat, giving off the same acrid odor as spoiled milk. Voran sweated under his cloak, but neither the river nor the wind relieved him.
“It’s quite full with storm tonight,” said the redhead, somehow appearing next to him. She wrapped herself in a thin shawl, her arms crossed over her belly. Her linen shift was unbuttoned at her throat, just enough to reveal the swell of the breast underneath. Voran looked away quickly.
“Strange for this time of year,” he said, lamely. His teeth chattered, but not with cold.
“It is that.” She sighed and closed her eyes in contentment. Her lips were unnaturally red. Her hand barely grazed his. It was the touch of white-hot iron.
“You are not lonely here, all by yourself?” he asked.
She lowered her eyes. Even in the dark, he could see a flush creep up her cheek. Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly.
“Oh, I am, my lord.” She turned away, the picture of demure modesty.
“I hope we have leavened your solitude a little,” said Voran, awkwardly fumbling over the words.
She did not answer, instead walking away to an old willow weeping over the river. She sat down on a bed of moss between two ou
tspread roots. She looked up at Voran and smiled, then leaned back against the trunk of the tree and beckoned to him.
He could never afterward recall exactly how it happened. Rather, the memories remained very clear, but as if belonging to someone else. Before he knew what he was doing, he had lain with the girl. After it was done, as the slow realization slithered into him, he lay between the outspread roots embracing her, caressing her. A drowsy slumber enticed him, and he fell asleep.
He dreamed that he saw the girl standing before him, but her face was unrecognizable through a mask of savage hatred. At her feet lay the carcass of some dead animal; a dagger was clenched in her fist. Blood dripped from its tip with insistent regularity. The animal was majestic, its fur spotted with bloody dirt. Its head, twisted grotesquely to the side, sported a pair of antlers still half-luminescent with gold. The white stag.
A wave of nausea throttled him awake. It was still early morning, and his mind felt muddled as if with wine, his limbs like cold fish. A scream of anguish. Mirnían.
Voran sprang to life and reached for his sword. It wasn’t there. He ran.
In front of the crooked hut, Mirnían stood on his knees, his face in his hands. He wailed in pain. His arms, hands, neck, everything was flaky-white, gouged with deep sores. Another wave of nausea checked Voran’s run. He knew the signs. Leprosy.
Standing over Mirnían, facing Voran, was something that had once been the beautiful red-head, now twisted and gnarled and wrapped in a hairy black cloak. Her curls were gone, replaced with rare wisps of grey. Her eyes were sunken and red, and a toothless leer replaced the former beauty. She leaned on a stone club that bore a sickening resemblance to a pestle, and she cackled, unable to restrain herself, hopping in place.
Voran tried to approach Mirnían, but found he was rooted to the ground. To his left, Leshaya— hackles raised and teeth bared—seemed also unable to move. The hag leered at Voran, as though challenging him to defy her, though he felt no more than a thing in her misshapen hands, to be thrown around and played with before being devoured.
“Oh, how delicious,” she cackled. “The sons of Vasyllia are no more than worms writhing in the mud.” She twitched her head side-to-side like a deranged crow.
“Voran,” Mirnían sounded like an old man. “Whatever you do, do not tell her anything. She tried to seduce me last night, thinking I would be amenable to talk. Keeps asking about our quest. I spurned her. Disgusting hag!” He spit on her. She danced around him, then struck him with the pestle across his face. He fell on the ground, his legs twisted underneath him, but did not cry out.
“Le-per! Le-per! So much for words, princeling.”
“You have no power over me, hag,” said Mirnían, blood flowing from his mouth as he tried to roll over. “Though you curse me with this leprosy, you will not stop us from completing our journey.”
“Well, well. There you are very wrong, princeling. My darling Voran is staying with me, probably for a long time. You see, Voran gave me the power over you all. Gave it willingly, too, the great-hearted warrior. He did not spurn me.”
Voran vomited. The hag turned to him, crouching, her head cocked sideways.
“You thought you could take your pleasure from my body,” she said, “and it would cost you nothing? You do have a high opinion of yourself, Voran, son of Otchigen.”
Mirnían’s face creased into disgust and fear.
“Voran? Is this true?”
Voran could not meet his eyes, but nodded once, curtly. Sabíana filled his mind, and the regret was like ten swords plunged one after another into his chest.
“What has Sabíana ever done to deserve you as her champion?” Mirnían scraped himself off the ground and crawled to Leshaya. She crouched to the ground and helped him up to her back with her jaws, as though he were no more than a cub. She trembled in fury. Voran could no longer contain himself.
“Yes, I am guilty!” he screamed. “I despise myself for it. Yet I am friend to the Sirin. Lyna loves me, and will intercede for me. She will not forsake you, Mirnían. Do not give up now!”
“What can I do?” Mirnían sounded as old as Dar Antomír. “I don’t believe your tales about the Sirin. I don’t claim to have heard their song, you madman. Now, I am a leper. The quest lies with you. I have no more strength. Leshaya, take me home to die in peace.”
“Yes, yes!” the hag squawked. “Go and die, pointless princeling.”
Leshaya looked at Voran, her eyes red and almost human. She looked like she was about to say something, but she only shook her head. In a moment, she and Mirnían were a blur racing back up the mountain.
“As for you, my delicious Voran, I won’t kill you yet. You’ll do slave duty for a while. And then I’ll eat you.”
The hag resumed her frenetic dance around Voran, punctuated with several blows from her pestle on his back and legs, just enough to hurt without breaking anything.
“Now, tell me. What were you looking for in the Lows of Aer?”
My beloved is like a cherry tree in the midst of the desert. I delight to sit in his shade. His fruit is a sweet taste on my lips. Take me away with you; let us hurry from this place. The bridal chamber awaits…
-From “The Song of the Dar’s Beloved” (The Sayings, Book III, 2:7-9)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Island
The sweat, mingled with the sting of sea-wind, burned Lebía’s eyes. Her fingernails were threatening to pop off with every thrust of her hand into the black soil. The hand-harrow was slowly transforming into lead. Her back reminded her, periodically, that if she did not straighten out soon, she would remain hunched over the ground forever.
It was exhilarating.
She had never felt this alive, this useful. All her life she was served, waited upon, coddled, and worried over. All her life she ached to help others, but her father’s assumed guilt branded her, and all Vasyllia shrank from her touch. Here in Ghavan, everyone needed to work, or everyone would starve. She never imagined something as innocent-sounding as preparing the soil for winter would be the hardest work of her life.
“Take a break, dear girl,” the voice was firm, despite the age of the speaker. Lebía secretly envied Otar Svetlomír his vigor. Though his nose looked like an old potato, though his eyes had more red in them than white, he labored over the soil longer than anyone else.
“I will not stop while you still work, Otar.”
“Oh, I stopped an hour ago, swanling.” His smile smoothed out the furrows in his forehead, making him look twenty years younger.
His young smile had been the first thing Lebía saw when the pilgrims arrived on Ghavan Isle. Even now, the events of their coming to this place were as fresh as if they happened yesterday. The disappearance of Voran, the coming of the white stag, the passage into the Lows of Aer, the waiting longboats on the shores of the Great Sea…
“So pensive for a little one,” he interrupted her thoughts. “I know the island encourages it, but you must not grow up too fast, Lebía.”
“It is not merely the island, Otar,” she said.
A howl shattered the air, as though it were made of glass. There was something human in the howl.
“That is no wolf,” said Svetlomír, gathering the long hem of robe in his right hand and running off like a ten-year-old boy. Lebía sprinted after him. The entire village already crowded the beach, keeping a healthy distance from an enormous black wolf with nearly human eyes. At its feet lay an emaciated body, milk-white, but spotted with livid red. Lebía gasped and ran to him. It was Mirnían.
“You’ve grown so much, swanling,” said the wolf.
Before Lebía could fully register the fact that a wolf had spoken to her, the creature had turned and leaped into the water. Mirnían groaned in pain, and Lebía’s attention was snapped away from the she-wolf. Svetlomír picked up Mirnían with no effort at all, he was so wasted away.
“Svetlomír, you are not afraid of the leprosy?” Lebía asked.
“No, little bird.” H
e smiled. “Are you?”
“No,” she said, surprised at herself. “Otar, will you do something for me? Let me take care of him. Put him in my home.”
Svetlomír’s eyebrows momentarily met in the middle, but his expression softened as he looked at her.
“Yes, swanling. That would be a good thing.”
Lebía dedicated herself entirely to Mirnían’s care. Her presence seemed to ease his pain, her touch to stop the progress of the disease. After only a few days, his emaciated body filled out. Through the petulant lips and the pain etched into the lines around his eyes, Lebía glimpsed something she had never seen in Mirnían—a man of courage and gentleness.
Two weeks later, he awoke for the first time. When he saw her face, he shook his head as though trying to dispel the lingering tendrils of a dream.
“It cannot be,” he whispered.
She caressed his head, and he leaned toward her as if she were a hearth-fire. After that moment, he recovered not in days, but in hours. With every one of those hours, to her surprise, Lebía lost another piece of her heart to him. Even when he slept, she sat by him, content merely to stare at him. She pitied him, but it was more complicated than that—something thrilling and joyful, a stirring attraction that went far deeper than physical allure. She sensed his emotions and his pain as though they were her own.
“How did you come here?” asked Mirnían one morning, when he was strong enough to sit up in bed and hold a bowl of soup with his own hands. “You must know that we have been combing the wilds to find you. We thought you were lost, or worse. You’ve heard about the invasion?”
“Yes, there is talk of little else among the pilgrims.”
The Song of the Sirin (Raven Son Book 1) Page 13