“Why?” Alan asked. “Do you expect to find your grandfather there?"
Hal hesitated. “It is hard to say what I expect to find there. That is Veran's Mountain.” He stopped, as if that alone said all.
“Veran's Mountain?"
“Veran did what no one else has done: he ventured upon that mountain and returned unharmed."
“Indeed, is that so?” Alan gave him a wry glance, wondering what sort of strange peril Prince Gray Eyes was planning to lead them into now. He phrased his next question delicately. “What is so special about that mountain?"
“Folk of that time said it was the home of the gods, and worshiped it. Those who ventured upon its slopes came back witless. Some never returned at all. But Veran returned, and brought with him a bride so beautiful that folk called her the daughter of the gods, though she died a mortal death."
A year earlier, Alan might have laughed at this talk of gods. But now he looked at Hal sharply. “And you, Hal? Do you believe that yonder mountain is the home of the gods, who gave Veran their daughter and their blessing?"
“I believe in the One. But I have seen....” Hal fumbled for words to explain his dreams. “I have seen other folk, fairer than sun or moon or circling stars. That mountain calls me, Alan."
To get there or indeed to get anywhere in Welas, they had to travel the lowlands, which were held by the captains of Iscovar's conquest of twenty years before. These were harshly oppressive lords, struggling to rule a rebellious people. Their men patrolled the county constantly, alert and heavily armed. Hal and Alan decided to ride by night. But even so, it was not long before Alan found himself caught up in an anguished search.
One evening at dusk, as they were making ready to travel, Hal vaulted onto Arundel and trotted half a mile to a spring for water. Only a tiny village stood near the trickle of water, and Alan did not think any harm of the venture. But Hal failed to return. Uneasily, Alan rode after him, and found the torn earth where Hal had spun away from an ambush, and the straight trail where he had led his pursuers across the countryside, away from his friend. There might have been tracks of half a dozen horses, Alan thought. He felt sick. But darkness was falling, and he could not follow the track.
He spent a restless night at their campsite, hoping against reason that Hal would return. The next day, scorning fear, he followed Hal's tracks until he lost them in the rocky uplands of some lord's sheep pasturage. He circled in ever wider spirals through that day without finding a sign of his brother. Perhaps Hal had managed to shake the lordsmen from his track, but he had most assuredly lost Alan as well.
Alan scoured the countryside through days of rising panic, scarcely troubling himself to avoid the lordsmen. The few words of Welandais Hal had taught him were painfully useless to gain him any information. Finally, quite desperate, he turned Alfie toward Veran's Mountain. If Hal was alive and at liberty, perhaps he had resumed his interrupted quest.
For the weeks of the journey Alan rode mercilessly hard, ate little and slept only from exhaustion. Alfie grew thin, and his eyes rolled constantly, showing the frightened whites. But Alan fixed his bloodshot eyes on Veran's Mountain, cursing feverishly as it scarcely seemed to grow larger at all. He set his course straight toward it, impatiently outriding the lordsmen who pursued him.
At long last the peak grew, and changed, and filled the sky. Alan left the lowland habitations behind him and traversed the wild, steep shoulders of his goal. Then utter despair stabbed his heart, for he could not find a sign of Hal. He rode at random in the shadows of the crags for three days, until a certain afternoon. Then he heard harsh voices raised in shouts of cruel triumph. Fearfully he drew his sword, wrapped his left arm in his cloak by way of a shield and cantered toward the ominous sound. But it was not Hal that he found.
In a hollow of the mountainside grew a graceful ash tree. Around the tree circled five mounted warriors, chanting an ugly taunt. Tied to the trunk of the tree, with dry branches and kindling piled about her, was a slender maiden. She stood motionless and silent, her head bowed so that her long golden hair flowed down to hide her face. One of the warriors struck flint to steel. But before he could set the kindling aflame, Alan sent Alfie leaping into the dingle.
His sword and the force of his charge left two men dead, but three strong fighters remained. They rallied swiftly, attacking Alan from all sides. Alfie whirled and darted like an iron-shod bird of prey. He rose on his hind legs and struck out with his deadly forehooves, lending his force to Alan's sword. The enemy fell back momentarily, and Alfie managed to set his hindquarters against a giant stone. But the warriors advanced once again in renewed strength. Alan took several cuts on the head and shield arm, and then a thrust through his left shoulder. He went white with shock, nearly losing his seat.
Silent and unmoving as a stone, the maiden watched with smoky gray-green eyes while Alan fought for his life and hers. But as she gazed, the cloudy sheen of her eyes grew darker and more intense, until all at once tears flooded down her cheeks. She strained against her bonds, crying out words which Alan could not understand: “O Aene so loften, ir shalden, el prien, trist a mirdas free engriste!” ["Oh One so high, help me, I pray, lest the brave man die!"] Even through the roaring in his ears Alan heard the maiden's cry. But little did he guess that tears had never moistened her face before, and that her strange words were a plea not for herself but for him.
Somehow she broke loose, whether by sorcery or merest luck Alan did not care. “Run!” he shouted to her. “Run quickly and hide! I cannot last much longer!” But she had no thought of running, even if she had understood. She picked up a dead man's sword, and with strange words she called a horse. With frightful, blazing eyes she mounted and spurred toward the fray. She aimed a clumsy blow at the back of the nearest warrior. But as he turned to face her, he froze in unreasoning terror, and she struck him full in the throat. The other two foes swung around quickly, and Alan, fearing for the maiden, summoned all his strength to strike one in the sword arm. But the two were unnerved, and fled head-long out of the hollow and down the mountainside, leaving Alan in amazed relief.
He leaned heavily on his saddle and gazed at the strange maiden who had just saved his life as he fought to save hers. She was lovely beyond belief, with a perfect beauty that defied his reason. If the bride Veran brought back from this mountain was anything like her, Alan thought hazily, it is no wonder folk took her for a goddess. She was looking at the sword in her hand with a peculiar expression, and then she dropped it abruptly to the ground, traces of tears were still wet on her cheeks as she turned toward him.
He vaguely knew that he should be afraid. He knew that armed men had fled before this maiden. But he was tired beyond fear. He met her eyes without hesitation, knowing that all of his despair, weariness, longing and love were in his gaze. For what might have been an hour or an instant her eyes engulfed him. He saw a white-haired patriarch with a face as young as the new day and as old as time. He saw a great horse running in a green valley where golden birds flew, and his heart leaped with hope that it was Arundel. He saw argent ships on tourmaline seas. Then weakness overtook him. The vision turned to blackness. He felt arms around him, and with what strength he could muster he lowered himself from Alfie's back and sank to the ground.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself propped against the ash tree. The maiden had unlaced his tunic and was stanching the flow of blood from his shoulder wound, weeping silently as she tended him. Alan reached out with his good hand and wiped away her tears. “Hush,” he said gently, “it is not so bad.” Then he caught his breath, dumbfounded. The words he had spoken were not in the language of Isle. Different sounds had left his mouth, musical emanations of the concern and comfort he meant to convey. The maiden still wept, but joy shone in her eyes.
“Tell me what to do,” she said in that harmonious language that Alan had not understood before. “I have never healed a man."
Alan reached across his body and took the fold of cloth she pressed again
st his wound. His fingers tingled as they touched hers. “Get the flask out of the saddlebags,” he told her. “It will give me strength."
A gulp of the burning liquid sent his memory back to the first time he had tasted it, when Hal had befriended him. The maiden's steady gaze reminded him of the gray eyes he had seen for the first time that day. Perhaps she was a relative of Hal's; it was not impossible. He watched her as she fetched water from a mountain tarn. She wore a simple garment of soft fiber, spring green in color. Her only ornament was a dark green stone which hung from a golden chain around her neck. She was lovelier than any bejeweled noblewoman Alan had ever seen. She was slender but stately, like the ash tree in the hollow. She moved as gracefully as its branches in the summer breeze, and her dress floated about her body like soft new leaves.
“What is your name?” Alan asked when she came to him. “If you wish to tell me,” he added quickly. In this strange tongue, he instinctively knew, a name revealed the essence of the bearer.
She smiled, not with her mouth so much as with her shining eyes. “Certainly I will tell you,” she replied. She bathed the cuts on his head with cold, pure water. “It is Lysse."
Alan knew at once that her name meant “the graceful one.” Even as she applied thick black ointment to the cuts on his head, her every movement flowed with the grace of perfection, quick and precise. When she had bandaged his head, she bared his left forearm and bathed off the caked blood. He lay still, his eyes intent on her. The touch of her hands thrilled him.
“What is your name?” she inquired.
He told her, then asked, “Does it mean something to you, as yours does to me?"
Again she smiled with that strange glow in the eyes. “Ay, surely. It means ‘handsome.’ It also means that you are a gentle man, one who would live in harmony, not in strife.” He reddened at her praise, but she went on, not seeming to notice. “What are you doing here, Alan? Do you have some quest here? I know that your heart is sorely troubled."
“I am searching for my belledas, my blood brother. We were separated in the lands of the evil lords, and I—I fear he might be dead. He had planned to come to Veran's Mountain, and so I came hoping to find him here."
“But why did he wish to come here?"
“By my troth,” replied Alan slowly, “I believe he himself hardly knew. He seeks his grandfather, but I do not think he expects to find him here."
“And who is his grandfather?"
“I am sorry,” answered Alan. “It is not my secret."
She seemed surprised and puzzled, but not angry. She bandaged his arm in silence. When she had finished, she looked into his eyes, studying his strength.
“If you can ride,” she said, “we shall go to my people. Perhaps my father can help you find your belledas."
“But who are your people?"
“That,” she said, with her hint of a smile, “is not my secret."
They padded Alan's shoulder wound and put the arm in a sling so that it would not be moved. Then Alan bandaged Lysse's wrists where they were cut and burned from the thongs which had bound her. She did not consider it necessary, but he insisted. He offered her some dried meat, but she refused, saying she ate no flesh. Weak as he was, his own stomach turned at the sight of the stuff, but he nibbled at some anyway, for strength. Lysse did not eat; she had shown no sign of such faintness as he felt.
Her home, she told him, was no more than three days away, less if they traveled quickly. As soon as he was ready, they started. Lysse rode her captured horse. “He is a good steed at heart,” she explained, “and did not willingly serve such a master."
They conversed very little, for Alan needed all his strength for riding. Every jolt and jounce sent pain through his hurt limbs, and his head was throbbing from the blows he had taken. Their course was steep and rough, over boulders and around crags. There was no beaten path to soften the way. After a while Alan's shoulder began to throb like his head, and he could scarcely keep from crying out in his misery.
They stopped just before dark, when Lysse found a grassy place for them to stay. Alan was beyond pride. He staggered off Alfie, sank to the ground and fell at once into a stupor. Lysse carefully covered him with his blanket, then unsaddled the horses and sat watching over him late into the night.
The next morning, Alan was awakened by the touch of cold water as Lysse bathed his face. His shoulder was red and swollen, and his whole body was pulsing with pain. Lysse put cold cloths on the wound while Alan ate some dried venison. Before the sun was well up, they were on their way once again.
For Alan, the day soon faded into a haze of wretchedness. If anyone had asked him to retrace his path, he could not have done so, for he saw nothing except the rump of Lysse's horse moving in front of him. He followed it blindly, trusting Alfie to avoid the pitfalls of the trail. Lysse was pushing the pace. She knew she could not have mercy on Alan and let him rest, for infection was setting in. If she did not soon get him to shelter and proper doctoring, he might die. She had seen the utter weariness and despair in his eyes, his empty saddlebags, his haggard face. And she knew what Alan himself hardly realized, that he had worn himself to the thin edge of exhaustion, that his wound was more dangerous to him than it seemed.
Only three times that whole long day they rested. On those occasions Lysse brought Alan cold water to drink, and bathed his face and wound. Then, while he lay on the grass, she foraged for berries and wild fruits to sustain herself. But by the end of the day they had seen the last of the plants and shrubs tucked away in the crevices of the slopes. Far above them the mountain rose in barren cliffs. The air was thin, wrenching Alan's breath. He panted at even the slightest exertion, and the pain in his chest made him feel so weak that he leaned over and clung to his saddle as his tears moistened Alfie's mane.
Alan never remembered stopping and dismounting to sleep that night. The next morning he thought he could not move. “Elwyndas!” Lysse called to him sternly, and with a groan he sat up; the name was a summons of power to him. He could not eat, but Lysse made him drink what remained in his flask. “We should be there by early afternoon,” she said, “but the hardest part is yet to come. You must have your strength about you.” She spoke bravely, and turned her face away so he would not see the pity in her eyes.
That day they scaled the cliff. The horses walked along a ledge cut into the face of Veran's Mountain, spiraling around it like the staircase of a tower. Alan was hardly aware of the steep ascent, but when he finally noticed hawks circling far below, he pulled Alfie to a halt, waiting for his faintness to pass. Lysse paused anxiously, but they soon pressed on. Alan did not look down again, but followed her closely, and did not find it strange that he trusted her with his life and his love.
At the top of the mountain curved a valley, a giant circle protected on all sides by ramparts of rock, filled with dells and streams, green trees and sunny meadows. Alan did not notice when they arrived. Only gradually he realized that Alfie's hooves fell on grass instead of rock, and that they were moving down, not up, a slope. With great effort he raised his head and focused his eyes. Lysse was leading him toward some brightly colored cloth shelters scattered amidst a grove of trees. People were coming out of them, calling to each other. Perhaps the fever was affecting his mind, Alan thought, or perhaps he had died and reached some realm of the blessed. He had thought no living creature could be as lovely as Lysse, but these folk were beautiful beyond description. There was a light all about them, an unworldly glow like the shimmer of Lysse's eyes. In spite of his pain and sorrow Alan felt his heart smiling, though he could barely see their faces.
Then one of them rushed through the group, running to meet him. One of them and yet not one of them! Alan reeled in his saddle as relief and happiness struck him with all the force of unbearable sorrow. “Hal!” he tried to shout; his voice came out a husky whisper. Then strong arms helped him down from the saddle, and he wept unashamedly in Hal's tearful embrace.
Chapter Two
Alan
awoke to the feel of soft blankets on his bare skin, and found himself lying on a thick bed of down comforters. He found it hard to believe that he had ever been exhausted and burning with feverish pain. Overhead shimmered a canopy of finely woven gold cloth; the glow of the sunlight that filtered through was like the glow of health he now felt. Luxuriously he stretched himself beneath his covers, but stopped as a stabbing pain in his shoulder reminded him that his troubles were not a dream. More cautiously, he raised himself on his good elbow and looked around. Hal lay sleeping a few feet away, one muscular arm thrown across his blanketed chest with childlike abandon. Alan thought that Hal looked rather pale and worn. He did not realize that he himself looked considerably worse than he felt.
He vaguely recalled his illness, the many people that ran to meet him and Lysse, and Hal's arms supporting him. He remembered Hal's broken words of comfort, the horrible pain as his wound was lanced and drained, the cool water and fresh bandages, and a springtime fragrance which made him forget he had ever known sorrow. But it all seemed so long ago.
There was a slight sound outside, and Lysse peeked in at the tent flap. When she saw he was awake, she entered, carrying a tray with a pitcher and two goblets. Her eyes were shining.
“Lysse,” Alan whispered, and reached out to her with his good hand. She put down her tray and settled herself on the grass beside him, taking his hand in both of hers. Her touch was warm, like the glow in her eyes.
“You are feeling better,” she said softly.
“Much better. How long have I slept?"
“Only a night. It is the morning of the day after we arrived. Veran's flower works quickly. They gave it to me also, for I was overwrought, and now I feel as rested as if I had never left the valley."
The White Hart Page 31