The White Tree

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Plus plenty of janberries on the way," Blays said, tipping his chin at another bush a short ways down the bank.

  "Just keep your stupid eyes open," Robert said, shaking his head. "Those norren were tracking deer, looked like. Water attracts all kinds of men and beasts. Probably see more of them before we see any chimney smoke."

  Blays gazed into the current. "Laga...Lagagaga...what the hell was it?"

  "The river. Call it the river."

  "Right."

  The norren-sightings increased their frequency the further they penetrated into the territories of the north. Blocky silhouettes on dawn ridges. Silent hunters crouched along streambeds, eyes gleaming from the thicket of their beards, tracking deer and elk through the snow. Sometimes Dante saw tracks so big it looked like two drunk children had been falling down every four feet. He tied the set of horns Gabe had given him to a length of leather string and draped it over his neck. They saw men, too: a single-sailed boat coasting down the river one afternoon, the twists of farmhouse smoke out on the flat expanse of the basin, a pair of raggedy travelers on foot who gave them one look before cutting away from the river into open land. It snowed one noon, adding a couple inches to the two or three already on the ground, going mushy and soggy once the sun broke back through the clouds.

  Villages began sprouting up every ten-odd miles. Farming, fishing, the smoke of smithies. They'd pass two or three a day. Not yet wanting for food, desiring no contact with the locals, they toured around, cutting through the lightly-treed fields and fallow farmlands. The ground got lower and the snow got thinner until one day it gave out altogether. For the first time in two weeks they were able to light a fire. The boys leaned so close their damp clothes and blankets steamed. Dante doused his bread in water and let it warm until it wouldn't crunch between his teeth for once. In the mountains and the hills they'd sometimes slept without keeping a watch, but in these lowlands, with the spark of their camp visible for miles in the night, they split shifts between watch and sleep. The nights were coming on the longest of the year and even with three hours of guard duty spent sitting with their backs to the fire or pacing around the rim of light they'd wake before dawn, fixing breakfast, chatting idly, waiting for the ground to grow gray enough for the horses to see.

  "That spire there," Robert said the day they saw their first real town in these lands, pointing to the tall, dark finger of a temple sprouting from the middle of the city. "I've been there. Almost twenty years ago, but I was there."

  "Does that mean we should go around?" Blays said, giving Dante a smirk.

  "What? Of course not. Anyone who'd remember that's probably dead by now." Robert rubbed his beard. "Or wouldn't recognize my face, at least. I'm sure they've forgotten."

  "Oh," Blays said.

  From a few miles out it looked the same as the cities of the south. From half again as close it smelled the same. Once they drew near enough for the buildings to resolve from grayish lumps to individual structures, Dante could see some of the outlying houses seemed to be roofed with sod. Not even the poorest houses were thatched, like he'd always seen in the outer ring of Bressel or down by the docks; these homes were roofed with steeply piled dirt or tight-set planks or overlapped tiles of shale. The nobler manors and wares-houses were set from firm, chunky, mortared stone. It looked like a city that would last a thousand years after its last occupant had died.

  "Looks all right to me," Dante said.

  "Wait a minute, I'm sure it will get horrible soon enough." Robert took the lead toward the town.

  "I mean, no fires. No fighting. No hordes of armed men. Where are Arawn's faithful?"

  "Maybe it's already over," Blays said.

  Robert rubbed his mouth. "Could be it hasn't started."

  "But this is much closer to Narashtovik," Dante said. "That's where Samarand and her council lives. Things should be ten times as crazy up here. What's going on?"

  Robert shrugged, then gave him a sharp look. "Don't go asking any questions."

  "They'll know we're foreigners anyway."

  "But they don't know we're stupid foreigners."

  "They won't think I'm stupid!"

  "I do," Blays said.

  "Yes, they will." Robert ticked the numbers off on his fingers. "First they'll think you're stupid because your accent's bad or you can't even speak the language and you dress funny. Smell, too. Second they'll think you're stupid because you don't know the things that everyone knows. 'Why isn't your city burning to the ground?' you'll ask, and they'll look at you like you just tried to eat a loaf of bread through your asshole."

  "That's what's stupid," Dante said. "They'd be stupid to think that."

  "Well, why don't you just educate them as to the error of their ways, because that's how people think everywhere. Go on. You're not in any hurry, are you?"

  "Fine."

  "I thought we were in a hurry," Blays said.

  "We are," Dante said. "Quit dawdling."

  They rode into town. Other than the sturdier buildings, the occasional presence of norren rather than neeling, and the foreign language—Gaskan, Dante presumed, since for the last few hundred miles they'd been in Gask and its territories, as far as anyone could be said to rule over the worthless lands around the Dunden Mountains—it didn't feel that much different. He'd never really paid attention to the traders and travelers who'd spoke Gaskan back in Bressel, but with an ear cocked toward the tongue he started to think he was going mad. It was a thicker, more imperative-sounding tongue, but it sounded just enough like Mallish to make him think he could catch about every tenth word, if only they wouldn't speak so maddeningly fast. With a jolt, he realized he understood one of their words, and not from his native tongue, but from the Cycle: to release or unlock.

  "They dress funny," Blays said, nodding to a couple men wearing long, open-bottomed clothes that struck Dante as some kind of fur-lined dress. Robert sighed. He took the lead and headed for the market, where they wandered around until they found a merchant who spoke enough Mallish to sell them some fresh bread and dried meats and could barter with Robert over a couple bottles of wine. Eventually they reached some kind of agreement and Robert cradled his bottles and smiled out on the bustle of the market, the cries of the sellers and the guarded eyes of the buyers. Not all the smells here were bad, either. For every whiff of old fish there was one of cinnamon, for every sulfurous blast of hide-tanning there was the sweet, sagey lilt of lan leaves.

  "Don't suppose we can spare a day or two here," Robert said.

  "No," Dante said.

  "That's why I said 'don't.'" Robert kept lingering, though, arguing with tradesmen in a broken combination of the two languages, sometimes resorting to exaggerated gestures and repeating himself very loudly. He bought some salt, some fresh-cooked crayfish which he sucked from the shell, a bag of strong, bitter-smelling leaves.

  "We'd better get moving," Dante said, checking the light. Good for another ten miles, maybe.

  "One last thing while we're here."

  "Robert."

  "Dante."

  Dante squeezed his teeth together. "We're not here to stuff ourselves with treats or take a wife. We need to go."

  Robert bit his lip and took one last long look at the flash of coins changing hands, the laughter of men sharing a bottle, the wry faces of women sweeping doorways or naming the price of their vegetables. He nodded. Dante mounted up and led them on. Robert lagged at their tail, head turned over his shoulder, watching all those people fade into the waning light.

  * * *

  The river unspooled across the land, bowing east and then back north, and they followed it across the days. From the berth of a few miles' distance they saw the steeply pitched black roofs of another town dotted with snow. Three days from the dead city, Dante reckoned. He tried to imagine what Narashtovik would look like, but all he could see was the twisting alleys of Bressel, the damp-rotted docks, the overgrown clusters of houses ringing the city on three sides to the river; half the city was fres
h-cut wood, houses and halls that hadn't existed fifty tears ago, to hear the old men talk. He couldn't picture a city that had been Bressel's rival when the last pages of the Cycle had been penned a thousand years ago. And once he was there? How would he complete his two tasks? Who would teach him to read the final third of the book? Would they have an academy? A forgotten library? Monks eager to teach the good word to those who'd come to hear? How could he hope to learn the dead language of Narashtovik and track down and kill Samarand at the same time? He didn't imagine it would be as simple as walking up behind her in the street and sticking a sword between her ribs. She was chief architect of all the chaos in the south. From what little he'd gathered, she was practically queen of a city that paid service in name only to the greater kingdom of Gask. He knew he wasn't nearly potent enough to kill her in a fair fight and wasn't nearly stupid enough to think her army of priests and retainers would let him get close enough to die that way in the first place. He wished Cally were with them. The old man would know what it would take. How had all this dropped on his shoulders? He and Blays to end a war? It had seemed far less insane back when they were nestled safely in the temple outside Whetton. Here and now, with less than a hundred miles to the end of their journey, it seemed to Dante the caprice of colossal miscalculation. This warranted armies or hardened assassins, not a pair of boys whose faces didn't even wrinkle when they smiled. They were going to die. Three days from now, perhaps a week from now, but they were going to die.

  "What's so funny?" Blays asked.

  "Our 'plan,'" Dante said. "The brilliant part about it is we can get as drunk as we want, because if we accidentally tell someone about it they'd never believe a word."

  "Hilarious. Does that mean you've been working on it, then?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh?" Robert said.

  "I've got to the part where we get to the city."

  "Ah."

  It was two more days till they climbed the brown mound of a low hill and saw the dead city. It consumed an entire quadrant of their horizon, a boundless smear of black and gray buildings broken here and there by the windy spires of cathedrals and the closed fists of keeps, circumscribed by two concentric rings of walls, a bigger bulge of accumulated industry than Bressel itself, ten miles across if it were an inch. Two of its arms reached north to hold the gray waters of a bay, and beyond it the haze of the sea. Dante's face split with a smile. He'd come from shore to shore, well more than a thousand miles, a distance he'd ever only dreamed of crossing. Whatever else befell him, by noon tomorrow he'd step foot in Narashtovik, the city of the book, the city of the dead. He had dreamed it and then willed this dream to life.

  Robert stopped them the following morning some ten miles from the city. He pawed through a pack and passed around meat and cheese, stabbed a knife into the cork of a wine bottle and twisted it open. He tipped it back into his waiting mouth, bubbles glugging into the bottle's upturned base, then wiped his lips and passed it to Blays. Blays chugged and passed it to Dante and Dante had a sip. Robert sighed through his nose and considered the distant lumps of the city.

  "Never feels right to say goodbye without a drink of wine," he said.

  "I've never liked it at all," Dante said. Robert nodded.

  "Who's leaving?" Blays said, handing the bottle back to Robert. "Are we sending off the horses? Why would we send off the horses?"

  Dante frowned at the ground. Robert chuckled, then went quiet when he realized Blays meant no joke.

  "We're not sending off the horses."

  "Then what are you talking about?"

  "It's time," Robert said. He tapped his nails against the side of the bottle. "Here's where I leave you two to yourselves."

  "Why?" Blays said, just the one word, and Robert had to look away.

  "You two have your mission. I'd just get in the way."

  "No you wouldn't! You're the best swordsman I've ever seen!"

  "What you need right now's not a sword, it's a story to tell the locals why you're here. Two young men could be anything—lordlings out to see the world, a pair of hired blades, a scholar and his man-at-arms. Whatever you say, they'll never imagine the two of you could be a threat, and that's the thing that will save your asses." He took a drink and pushed his mouth against his sleeve, face red. "Some old bastard tagging along's just going to confuse them. Make them wary where you want to be a snake among the reeds."

  "This whole thing seemed stupid and crazy when there were just the three of us." Blays' eyes shone with anger and some rawer hurt. "Now we're supposed to do it all with two?"

  "Trust me, you'll be better off. This calls for subtlety beyond my means."

  "And what if we're not enough to take her down?" Blays said, flinging his hand at the city. "What if they go and unleash Arawn? Maybe he will eat the world. Even if that's a steaming pile meant to rile things up, they look pretty damn safe up here. The king's not going to march an army to the ends of the world when Samarand's got mobs burning up his back yard. People are going to die!"

  "Quit that," Robert barked.

  "Quit what? Saying what we've all been thinking?"

  "Trying to shame me into this, you whelp," he said, stepping forward and sticking his finger into Blays' chest. "If I thought for a moment you two were skipping off toward suicide I'd make you turn back right now, or at least rob you before the others could get to your corpses. First time I met you Dante was busy lighting up the entire town watch, for gods' sakes, and you killed plenty yourself as soon as your hands weren't tied. You two could set the world on fire if you wanted."

  Blays snatched the bottle away from him and had a pull.

  "Fine," he said, rapping the glass with his knuckles. "Run off to your whores and your booze and your brawls. If you ever had a set of balls, they're far too shriveled to help us now."

  Robert started to reply, then bit his teeth together, lips curled. He looked away. When he spoke at last his voice was forcibly softened.

  "Spill as many words as you want. I'm leaving. I know in my heart it's the right thing to do. Nothing can change that. The only thing left to settle is whether you'll remember me with darkness in your heart."

  "Get out," Blays said. Nobody moved. He raised his arm and smashed the bottle against the frozen dirt. "I said get the hell out!"

  "Well enough." Robert turned to Dante, face blank but eyes bright. "I think I've repaid whatever debt I owed you."

  "I never held you to any debt," Dante said.

  "I know." Robert grinned. "That's the only reason I stuck around at all."

  Dante nodded, gazed back the way they'd come. "Where will you go?"

  "Should have a few friends still kicking around these parts. Would be plain rude to come all this way and not say hello." He sniffed, wiped his nose against the cold. "I'll be there in Whetton, Blays. You know where to look."

  "Passed out in your own filth behind any public house," Blays said, back turned.

  "You were listening after all." Robert smiled for just a flicker, then flashed his eyebrows at Dante. He climbed into the saddle, wheeled his horse, began to backtrack the first of the miles. He halted thirty feet out and faced them. Blays turned his head at the sudden silence of the horse's hooves. "Walk with the gods, boys. Don't you dare let them get you before you get them."

  Dante watched him ride away. At a hundred yards Robert dropped down a ridge and left his sight. Dante nodded to himself. He'd see Robert Hobble again, he pledged, and when he did he'd bring Blays with him.

  "You don't look too surprised," Blays said, face matching the dark clouds overhead that hadn't yet decided to spill their burden.

  "You saw how he was in that town. He's been saying he meant to leave us since Gabe's."

  "I didn't think he meant it."

  Dante shook his head, a flare of frustration budding in his chest. "He means every word he says."

  "He does," Blays agreed. He kicked a stone. Dante couldn't think of a single thing to say to soften what had happened. He stared dumbly at
the dead city, thinking ten miles, ten miles, two hours if we hurry and three if we don't; ten miles, ten miles, as if all he had to do was think hard enough and they'd shrink away to none. He risked a look at Blays.

  "Want to rest before we finish it?" he said.

  "When we're this close? What are you, a girl? A baby? I want to see this fancy city of yours."

  "It's not mine. Yet." He nudged his horse forward. A breeze followed him. He imagined he smelled the faint scent of saltwater. "Gabe told me, before the attack, you ought to name your sword."

  Blays glanced at his side as if he'd forgotten it was there. "Name my sword?"

  "He said it might give it power."

  Blays laughed and pulled it free. Sun glinted down its steel as he waved it in front of his face.

  "You believe him?"

  "All the famous warriors do it," Dante said, lifting half his mouth. "They must be on to something."

  Blays slitted his eyes, nodded. Air whistled over his swing. He smiled grimly.

  "I dub thee Robertslayer."

  "No, come on," Dante said.

  "It's my sword. I can name it what I want."

  "What kind of a name is 'Robertslayer'?"

  "It's a vow," Blays said, brows furrowed like Dante was stupid for asking. "Next time I see him, I'm going to challenge him to a duel."

  "What about all the help he gave us?" Dante said. He tried and failed to see any hint of humor in Blays' eyes.

  "I'm not saying I'm going to kill him." Blays held the sword level with his arm and peered down its length. "Just slosh some of his blood around. Show him who's the whelp."

  "All right." Dante freed his own weapon from its sheath. "I think I'll name mine Blayschopper."

  "The gods will know you're copying. Your blows will land as falsely as its name."

  "You've got a direct line to them, do you? You have chats?"

  "I know how these things work," Blays said, cutting the air between them. "You can't just name your sword a joke."