"Yes, I get that too."
Syliva pulled up a stool and opened her satchel. "Well," she said, taking out a tiny wooden box, "this mixture might help. Make a tea from it — one big pinch is enough for a cup — and drink a little before each meal. It doesn't taste half bad if you hold your nose."
"Thanks." Lovisa opened the box. "Why so much? This looks like enough to last months."
Syliva busied herself with closing the satchel. "I didn't see Farlo outside. Is he alright? Aksel would always worry and get fidgety my last few months. I often wanted to send him away until it was time."
"He was in one of his moods this morning, still a little worried about the stranger. He reminded me that he does have a price on his head. I hate it when he talks of that. He told me that he was going down to Siadal to see if they would trade for nails and iron spikes, but I have a queer feeling he's up to something else. Yesterday he was mumbling about wanting to know if there was really a wrecked boat on the other side of the inlet. I think he's going to get a fisherman to take him over there to look."
"I wouldn’t worry about Reyin."
Syliva looked around the large one-room house, at the assortment of iron tools hanging from the walls. Farlo had built the huge fireplace in one corner with a flue and chimney. The house was never smoky.
"Your husband really is clever, in his own way."
"Sometimes, when left to himself. I only wish that he didn't have these strange days when he's so . . . oh, I don't know."
"A few years of happiness can't take away all the torment he's been through, a little more time maybe. Listen, I have a thought. Why don't the two of you come for a visit tonight after the singing? Reyin will play his strings and sing some of the Southern songs. It might do your man good to hear something of his old home. I'm sure he misses it."
"He says he doesn't."
Lovisa took the little box and put it away in her cupboard. "What can I give you for the tea?"
"Nothing," came the absentminded reply. Then she smiled thinly. "Don't you know? We're rich now."
Lovisa cocked her head. "Eh?"
Syliva took a yellow coin from her apron pocket. "Reyin gave us a solid gold ounce as thanks for his room and board — in secret of course — hid it in my flour crock. He didn't know that Jonn was watching him. You know, Jonn said that he cut it from a hidden pocket in his coat lining."
"Farlo told me about this. It's hard to believe, but the Southerners don't mean this as an insult. In the southern lands everyone is very greedy, and you have to give money when you stay with someone."
"Yes," Syliva said. "I understand that even in Noraggen it is that way."
"People of the Pallenborne?"
"In the city, yes." She turned her face away from Lovisa.
"Farlo said that it is much like the southern — Syliva, what's wrong?"
She breathed out heavily, "I believe that the land is blighted, that there will be no crops or grazing this year."
"It is true then?" Lovisa pulled herself to the edge of the bed and sat upright. "What are we going to do?"
"Most of us will go on with our lives as well as we can. And I think you should too, but in a different place."
"What are you saying?" "I want you to consider giving this gold piece to your husband, so he can take you south."
Lovisa stared at her open-mouthed.
"And you should go now, in the next week or two, while you still have food to take with you. It'll give you time to find a place to have your baby. Yothan has an old rowboat. He'll most likely give it to you if you ask him. It will be hard on Farlo, but I'm sure he can get you to Drendusia."
"Why?"
"Because things might get bad here. And I want one of us to be alright."
"Don't worry, Syliva, all will be well."
"That may be, but it is not well now. The land is very ill, and I don't have a cure for it."
"Isn't that why we sing the song?"
"No, dear. We sing the song so that we won't be afraid."
Lovisa looked hurt. "Why do you want me to go?"
Syliva took her wrist firmly in one hand. "Because you and Farlo have a chance out there. He's travelled in the wide world; he knows its ways. He knows how to protect you from the dangers of a city."
"City? No, I won't do it. I was born in this valley — I'm not leaving. And Farlo can't leave, north or south. Not ever."
Syliva spoke softly now. "Listen to me. I don't believe that Spirit has abandoned us. But if there is no harvest this year, only the fittest of us will live out the winter."
She let go of her wrist and placed her hand on Lovisa's stomach. "Do you understand?"
Lovisa went to the east window, opened the shutters. She stood there facing the morning light for a long time.
"You're very kind, Syliva, but my husband and I will be staying for whatever comes to pass."
The night was barely cool, but Syliva had Aksel build a fire while she served august-root tea with a slice of dried apple, noticing that Farlo slipped his piece of fruit into Lovisa's cup. He sat staring at the floor when Reyin played, a narrow smile crossing his face when a certain short lively tune caromed off the strings. Syliva was glad that Farlo seemed at ease that night, that he shook Reyin's hand in their foreign way and did so earnestly. All that suspicion did no good.
After an hour of playing, Reyin asked, through Farlo, "Do you have any common songs that you could sing now? I would really like to hear a true song of the Pallenborne, even if I don't understand it."
Kestrin answered for them. "We only have songs at festival time and weddings and such. At times like this we tell stories. Most everyone knows a few, but Syliva is the only one who knows them all. All the stories together and in proper order we call the Poem of the Great Circle, because each story has a connection with the one before it as well as the following one. You see? There is no beginning or end to the poem."
They all asked Syliva for a story then, and she told the Tale of the Fire Giant. That story called for rhythm and heat, unfolding into something like a chant. When it was done Reyin nodded solemnly, as if he had understood every word. His manner with her changed after that night, as if he were suddenly less than her equal.
The week passed quickly, the mornings brisk, the afternoons warm and slow, a simple dinner, the evenings graced by Reyin's mandolin while they waited for the song at twilight. His limp fading at length to a steady stride, the man seemed to regain his health despite the poor diet she offered him, mostly flatbread with butter and aged goat-cheese. Farlo told her that in his native land the guest ate with family, not alone in a separate house or room as is the custom in the Pallenborne, and Reyin accepted happily when she invited him to sit at their table in the main house.
Syliva walked between Reyin and her husband in the warmth of early evening. Sunset is a little later every week, she thought, as they approached the dusty circle of trampled ground. They had come early. Celvake and his brother were the only ones there, laying quartered logs as a foundation for the fire. The two nodded a greeting and went back to their work. Reyin took Aksel's bundle from him and dragged the sticks to the fire pit.
"I woke up early this morning," Syliva said to her husband, "and I couldn't stop thinking about Jonn. It's just a strange feeling. Maybe you should go see if he's alright."
"That's a lot of walking for these old bones," Aksel said with a smile, the playful, teasing sort of smile he had given her every day when they were newlywed. "You're a much better hiker than I."
"But the dogs would be happier to see you," she said pointedly, joining in the game. "They all like you better than me."
"Yeah. I guess so. Okay, I'll go tomorrow."
She took his arm and laid her head against it. All things seemed so simple right then. Her husband was a simple man with a dry easy humor. He had a good soul and would be alright. They would simply do what they knew how to do.
The people of Lorendal came two and three abreast down the footpath. Nodded greeting
s, low talk — everyone waited for the first star.
Reyin stood silent, as if listening to something distant. More and more heads tilted skyward. Syliva looked back toward the village. Someone was late. A running man, tall and broad shouldered, dashed out between two houses, slowed to a jog at the end of the lane, found the footpath, and letting out a yell of distress and triumph began to sprint down the gentle incline. He tripped, tumbled, got to his feet again and loped on doggedly toward the group, waving and shouting.
Syliva reached for her husband's hand. "It's Jonn," she gasped.
Her son ran staggering to them, then bent forward on wobbly legs, his lungs billowing too much for him to talk. Aksel had run out to meet him, and now held him up, speaking gently to him.
"Easy, easy. It's alright son, you're here now. Catch your breath before you tell us."
Syliva looked at Jonn closely. A purple knot stood high on his forehead. A trace of dried blood clung to his upper lip — a bloody nose, staunched hours ago. The elbows of his shirt were torn away, revealing skin freshly scraped to the pink, and he looked as if he had been whipped by pine switches from shoulder to ankle. A large thorn lay embedded in the heel of one hand.
Everyone perched in a half-circle around him, watching silently. Still breathing hard, he exhaled words. "Do you remember . . ."
"What, son?" Syliva asked.
"The sky boat."
Aksel and Syliva looked at their son and then each other.
"Here," Aksel said, "sit down and rest a moment, then you can tell us the whole story."
"Hey," called a woman from the back of the crowd, "the first star is out now. Are we going to start singing?"
Farlo had crept forward, his dark eyes fixed in a sidelong stare at Jonn. He slowly lowered himself to one knee beside the young man.
"Everyone give us some room," Aksel said.
"No," Syliva said to Taila Keyvern, the woman in the back, "I think the song should wait."
Aksel waved Farlo aside and crouched directly in front of Jonn. "Who did this to you? Was it someone from Hyerkin?"
Jonn looked at him in innocence. "Who did what?"
"Who beat you?" Aksel said impatiently. Jonn was still stunned by what had happened, and the hubbub around him didn't help. Aksel spoke more evenly. "Jonn. You're hurt. Who did it?"
"I did," he said.
Everyone fell quiet at this, except for a few snickering young boys. Syliva took note that Jonn's complexion wasn't pale, nor did his eyes appear too large or black. He was not in the midst of a fit.
"After the dream had gone, I got up and started to run. I didn't mean to; I just couldn't help it. The sun wasn't up yet, but all I could think of was to get here as soon as I could. I got lost in the dark and ended up in the east woods. I think I ran into a tree. Anyway, the next I knew, I was in the woods, pretty deep I think because it took me hours to find my way out, and by that time the sun was past noon."
Syliva pulled the thorn from his hand. He didn't seem to feel it. "Tell us from the beginning."
Someone had brought Jonn a skin full of water. He took a long drink. "It was about midnight last night. It's still cold at night in the upper valley, but I felt really hot and couldn't sleep, so I just lay there looking up at all the stars. I guess I fell asleep then because that's when I dreamed about the Spirit. She showed me her face in the sky and spoke to me. I couldn't hear the words, but I knew what She was saying. She told me that the sky boat had taken Her away. And She said that I should come and tell him."
He pointed to Reyin. One of the older men turned away at this, tapping his head with a forefinger. The young man had never been in his right mind. All the others began to walk away.
"Jonn," Aksel said, "don't you think you — " He froze, the squint suddenly plastered across his face. "What did you do with the goats?"
"The goats," Jonn said blankly.
"Yes, the goats," he said, the words rising on the heat of his growing anger. "You know — the animals that are going to keep us alive next winter. Where are they?"
"I just left them there, but the dogs came with me. They're at home."
"You left them there." Aksel stared at him for a moment. "You idiot! You had a dream and up and ran off into the bush and tore yourself to shreds. Never mind your responsibility to your mother and me."
He turned to Syliva. "You were right. I'm going home to get a few things. If I start out right away I can get to Hyerkin before sunrise and catch a few hours sleep at the Svordens."
Syliva nodded. She found a rag and dampened it, then began wiping the dried blood from her son's upper lip.
"I don't know when I'll be back. Send word if you need me, but not by that fool we raised." And he stomped away into the early twilight.
Farlo moved closer, spoke quietly. "You said that you remembered this sky boat?"
Jonn nodded vigorously. "I saw it last year, just before the first snow. I was up on the west ridge at sunrise, and I saw it fly up from the sea."
Farlo looked at Reyin then back to Jonn. "Where did it go, lad?."
Jonn pointed to the Skialfanmir. The sharp, horn-shaped peak stood black against the red afterglow of the western sky. "Up there. The highest place."
"Why is it so important for you to tell the stranger?"
Jonn looked directly at Reyin. "Because he knows secret things."
2nd INTERLUDE: The Supplicants of the Final Grammarie
The man known to the society as Ephemeris told the mate to anchor near the place they called the Sea Gate, and went to his little cabin to pack his robes and ceremonial accoutrements. It was considered rude to arrive in travelling clothes, but he wasn't going to walk across the Black Tongue wearing traditional dress. His own heavily wrinkled eyes looked at him from the tarnished silver mirror. He would soon wear the white mask as one of the inner circle if he played this correctly.
The two-masted felucca began rocking in the swells as headway ceased and the anchor dropped. Always gusty here, Ephemeris thought. He wished he could quickly perform the incantation for dismissing the wind, but there was a rule against weather magic anywhere near the Temple of Supplication. Temple. He rarely used that name when he thought of it — in his mind it was still the Sardonyx Tower, the name he and his novice friends had called it when he first came here.
He went back onto the deck, and looked across the lava field to where the tower rose out of wind-carved desolation. Not really made of sard and onyx, still it had that appearance with its layers of white and reddish brown. It was rather large to have been a watch tower, large enough to house, on three of its seven levels, a meeting hall, a library, and a set of apartments for the inner circle. No one knew why the builder, some long-forgotten sea king, chose to make it from two different sets of stone, but from far out on the ocean the tower stood perfectly camouflaged, disappearing into the strata of the buttes and bizarre rock formations that formed the backdrop to this volcanic coastline.
Twenty years had passed since the night he had stood on the very top of the tower in a driving rainstorm and attained the essence of the magician. He remembered how lightning had struck the tops of the distant cinder cones. Calling the lightning — that was how he had forged his essence. "Any student of magic can learn to call lightning out of a storm," Cipher had told him. "The real art comes in making it strike what you want." In an epiphany born of his impatience, in an ecstasy rising from his desire, Ephemeris had called the lightning upon himself.
He was not killed. And all who had the sight could see that he was now connected to the Essa. Before he had even recovered, the inner circle awarded him the brown robes of the initiate, making him a true supplicant. But it was the lightning, being touched by the Unknowable Forces, that made him believe that one day the final grammarie would be revealed.
The mate knuckled his forehead and said, "Your boat 's ready, Cap'n."
They crew knew something of the truth about him, as much as they needed. But he had put the eye of glamour upon all nine of them,
including the cook — these types were simply unreliable without it. And he wanted to make sure they did their best to maintain the ruse. When he went out into the world he was nothing more than a trader captain from eastern Jakavia.
The jolly-boat pitched and heaved in the churning waves. Ephemeris climbed over the side and down into it easily, without much thought. He had been orphaned and sent to sea as a cabin boy at the age of ten, and although only two years passed before he was noticed by a supplicant of the outer circle and brought to the tower, he never lost his sea legs or the desire to master a ship of his own.
After landing at the tiny beach just inside the sea cave, the only place within thirty leagues a boat could get ashore, the crewmen hauled the boat halfway out of the water, and Ephemeris stepped onto the black sand. The flow of the Essa was strong here, strong as it was in the tower; he had forgotten how good it felt.
He sent the men back to the ship then found the crevasse at the back of the cave. A step up onto a boulder, a quick scramble up another slab, and he was out, facing a gargantuan swath of undulating black rock. The pocked and pitted landscape looked like the surface of an enormous black sponge, with every delicate flair of stone sharper than a sword. Even the smooth places hid tiny knife points.
There was no path across the ancient lava flow as very few of his brothers and sisters ever arrived by the Sea Gate. Ephemeris himself hadn't come this way in years. Like most of his fellows, he usually docked in Port Toscarbi and made the three-day journey across the island, but this time he wouldn't be staying long. They all thought of him as more mundane, less spiritual, for maintaining a private yacht. They saw it as a weakness, as a tie to the material, and not for what it really was: an object of power. Sure as any enchanted ring or eldritch book or any great device made in the high age of the magician, his ship gave him a power few others had. The inner circle remained defiant of this scientific age, but Ephemeris would seek power in the unseen future as well as the forgotten past.
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