Crystal Rose

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  The group that would contain Aine and Iseabal would be the smallest, the easiest to draw close to. Few of Iobert Claeg’s men would want to be near them. Those who were believers in the Osmaer would be too respectful of them to intrude, unbelievers would want to avoid close contact. Either way, who’d want to have his brains picked over by those two? They would be practically alone with Saefren and The Claeg, himself.

  He pictured the place; how Aine would sit huddled and pouting and Iseabal would be gandering all about trying to see the mountains in the dark. Iobert and Saefren would be wrapped in warrior’s conversation. And he’d sneak up to their fire and snag himself some supper.

  His stomach uttered a pathetic whimper at that, then, when he mentally shushed it, gave forth with a solid growl of discontent.

  He froze for a moment, wondering if the driver could hear it, then laughed at himself. Whatever else he was, he was also well-insulated . . . and hungry . . . and bored. Stiff. And sleepy. Very sleepy.

  He tried to take a deep breath of the musky, stifling air, but found it a chore. His breathing would be shallower if he slept. Perhaps he should indulge his growing drowsiness. He’d all but given in to the idea when it occurred to him to wonder exactly how shallow his breathing would become in this increasingly rancid little tomb.

  Tomb. Oh, he didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  Was it possible he was too well insulated? Was he in danger of running out of air? Suffocating?

  Adrenaline careened through his veins making them icy as a sled run. He gasped, pushed against the weight of the hides and pelts and bundles of fleece that lay over and around him. Hands and feet, arms and legs, all thrashed in discordant harmony, achieving little but to wind him.

  Stop it, Airleas, he told himself fiercely. You’re only making things worse. Don’t panic. Breathe calmly. Here, the Peaceful Duan. That’s what’s needed. Sing.

  He called the duan to mind, letting the music float through his head—tranquil enough to soothe, spritely enough not to induce sleep. A walking rhythm, Taminy had said. A rhythm that would set pace for the blood and the spirit. His heart picked up the rhythm of the duan, his breath filed in and out in an orderly march.

  Calmer now, he pushed upward against the hemming pelts with both hands. He was curled half on his side, making his efforts awkward, and something seemed to have fallen across the top of his sheltering crate. No matter how he tried, he could not lift the cargo from his body.

  Damn and damn.

  He chided himself for being so stupid as to stow away in an enclosed space. He hardly deserved to be Cyne of Caraid-land if he couldn’t think more sharply than that. Now he was stuck and there would be no sneaking around campfires to cadge supper from the unawares. There would be no victorious moment of revelation when the caravan reached the point of no return.

  Airleas tried to calculate how long it would take to reach Nairne, where they might be expected to unload the cargo. The journey up Baenn-an-ratha had taken the better part of a week; surely they’d move faster on the way down. But how fast? And once in the foothills, how long to reach Nairne? He’d starve to death or die of thirst before then.

  It occurred to him, belatedly, that this entire adventure was lame-brained. He was still a boy—a child. He was only Airleas, not Bearach Spearman. Unlike his distant forebear, he’d been raised gently. His father’s domain hadn’t been torn by insurrection and unease. He hadn’t been trained for battle or schooled in wiliness. He knew of those things only what he’d read in the histories. If he’d stayed put, he might’ve been taught how to fight, lead an army, regain his throne. Catahn could have taught him those things—turned him into a Cyne worthy of the title.

  Worst of all—worst—he’d disobeyed Taminy. Shrugged out from under her tutelage as if it were a burden he could do without. Well, he couldn’t do without it. More than the use of a sword, he needed to learn the use of his mind, the use of his aidan.

  All that would be academic if he couldn’t get out of here.

  He thought for a moment about his predicament. Perhaps there were ways other than the physical to lift the weight above him. He conjured to mind the image of a pair of fiery hands—

  No, not fiery! God’s grace! He’d burn himself alive! Iron hands, strong, mighty. They took hold of the fleeces and furs and whatever lay above them and lifted . . . lifted . . . lifted.

  The load lightened measurably. Airleas concentrated harder.

  Lift and throw. Lift and throw.

  Lighter, still, grew the suffocating heap and in a corner of Airleas’s mind a small boy jumped up and down with glee. Wait till he told Taminy what he’d done—how he’d saved himself from—

  The pile collapsed, stunning the breath from his lungs. For a moment, he was poised to begin another physical struggle, but regained control of himself before he did something so stupid.

  He silently hummed the Peace Duan again, slowing his rebellious heart and steadying his breathing. If only he could signal someone that he was here, make a noise, make . . . a Speakweave.

  He chewed his lip, considering that. His imagination supplied him with the humiliation he would suffer to be found huddled—no, trapped—beneath this pile of burr-infested stuff, looking supremely un-Cyne-like.

  Well, and who would he call? He was surrounded by giftless Claeg; his only chance was to reach Isha or Aine.

  He sneezed just then, his nose tickled by a wad of fleece, and found the regaining of his breath difficult. Spurred by fear, he formed a cry of distress. Pride modified it. The finished Speakweave was much more dignified than his reflexive yelp for assistance, but urgent, nonetheless.

  Inside his increasingly muzzy head, a time-piece marked the seconds—five bumps, now seven, and uncounted jostles. Dear God, would no one sense him? Were Aine and Iseabal as dense as these ungifted ones?

  He was at the point of giving up when the wagon stopped its mad jostling. He all but held his breath in anticipation, celebrated wildly when he felt the thing rock gently, when he sensed the presence of another person. Only when the weight above him began to lift, did he school himself to calm. By the time the last layer of hides came off, he was, he thought, suitably unruffled-looking.

  A stranger’s face peered down into his. “God-the-Spirit! It’s a boy!”

  Hands reached in to pull him up into the cold air—air that smelled strongly of moist wood and dust and tanning herbs. Behind the Claeg kinsman’s cowled head, a halo of gray light marked the entry of the small, hide-covered dray. In a moment he was being hauled toward that opening, stunned by the realization that this oaf didn’t know who he was.

  “Let go of me, you clod! Where’re Aine and Iseabal? Where’s The Claeg?”

  “At the head of the column, if it’s any business of yours, scrap,” the clod replied and lifted Airleas clear of the wagon to dump him unceremoniously overboard.

  He landed on all fours on the damp earth, but was quick to regain his feet. A circle of Claeg faces peered at him from beneath cowls and caps, the wind sucked Airleas’s breath away in misty streamers, nipping at any untucked edges of cloth.

  The man who’d evicted him from his hiding place crunched to the ground behind him.

  “By the Cleft Rock, Brunan,” exclaimed one of the onlookers, “what’ve you got here? A stowaway?”

  “What you’ve got,” said Airleas, “is the Cyneric of Caraid-land.”

  “A stowaway, indeed,” said Brunan. “Oddest thing, you know. I just got this sudden feeling that there was something amiss. It was like-like a voice whispered in my ear that if I looked, I’d find a stowaway in my wagon.”

  “I’m not a stowaway,” Airleas insisted. “I’m Airleas Malcuim.”

  “Oh, aye,” said his rescuer, “and I’m the Ren Catahn in disguise.” He winked.

  Furiously reining in his temper, Airleas pulled the glove from his left hand and raised his palm to them. Their reactions to the gytha were mixed, but gratifying; one man simply walked away, another retreated a
step while his neighbor came forward, face screwed up in awe. There were gasps of amazement, finger signs made to ward off any possible evil.

  Behind him Brunan leaned about to see what had his comrades so addled and swore under his breath.

  Airleas glanced up at him. “Well, Ren Catahn,” he said. “Do you believe me now?”

  The man stammered. “I-I—”

  “Happens you should believe him,” said a voice from just beyond the circle of onlookers and Iobert Claeg strode through his men with Aine and Iseabal in his tracks.

  “Airleas!” Iseabal reached him first, taking him in a fervent embrace, while Aine stood back, scowling her disapproval.

  “Airleas, whatever are you doing here? You’re supposed to be back in Hrofceaster with Taminy.”

  Airleas sighed. She would state the obvious. “I was trying to get to Creiddylad to—”

  “To avenge your father.”

  The new voice, immediately recognizable to the young Malcuim, came from the back trail. Everyone turned. Astride a red roan horse, the slight figure swaddled in green seemed impervious to the wind. She rode forward, the folds of her cowled cape stirring only slightly.

  “Osmaer!” Iobert Claeg dropped to one knee before her, while Aine and Iseabal sprouted smiles that cut the gray day like spears of light.

  The Claeg men reacted as they had to the sight of Airleas’s gytha; repulsed or drawn, awe-struck or fearful. One young warrior moved surreptitiously to place a tentative hand on the roan’s steaming flank as if by so doing he could receive a benediction from its rider. As if she sensed the gesture, Taminy looked down at him and smiled.

  Airleas was sure the young man must’ve nearly swooned. He remembered what he’d felt the first time those green eyes had caught him unawares.

  Foul luck. No, not luck, he realized as Taminy continued to regard him. He came forward to stand before her, head bent, hands busy with a loose close on his coat.

  “You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew I meant to leave Hrofceaster.”

  “Aye. So did Gwynet. You put her in a terrible dilemma, you know. She wasn’t sure whether to tell Catahn on you or not. But then, of course she realized I must know too.”

  Airleas looked up at her, puzzled. “But you let me come. Why?”

  Taminy tilted her head and the Kiss on her brow gleamed in the semi-dark beneath her cowl. “Tell me, Cyneric Airleas, what was your opinion of your adventure when you embarked on it?”

  “I thought it was . . . necessary.” He squared his shoulders and lifted his head. “I thought I must do it. That it was the brave thing to do. The-the thing any Malcuim would do. Should do.”

  Taminy nodded. “You thought to prove yourself. To be a true Malcuim, worthy of the throne of Caraid-land.”

  “Aye,” Airleas mumbled, melting beneath her eyes. The murmurs of approval from the warriors around him meant nothing now. Only hours ago they would have been musical—magical.

  “What do you think now?”

  Airleas sighed deeply. Galling, this was, to admit this before men who, in his daydreams, marched behind him into battle. “I committed an error in judgment, Mistress. I proved nothing but my own lack of forethought and wisdom.”

  “And what do you think of your adventure?”

  “It wasn’t adventure; it was folly.” He dared to raise his eyes again. “I have much to learn about being Cyneric.”

  “That is why I let you come.”

  Airleas’s world became suddenly very still. His breath stuck in his throat, hope and humiliation struggled in his heart, and on some barely palpable level, he felt his hushed soul expand. A smile twitched the corner of his mouth; despair tugged it down again. He found he had nothing to say except, “I’m sorry, Mistress.”

  “I know,” she answered him and turned her beautiful face away from him to Iobert Claeg. “We’ll be going now, Chieftain. I don’t want to slow your progress. Meri’s grace to you, sir.”

  She raised her hand. The gytha showed clearly in her palm.

  Claeg’s men murmured, eyes wide.

  Taminy crooked a finger then, and the circling watchers made way for a second, riderless horse to pass among them. It was Airleas’s own mare, Shena.

  He mounted in silence and, pushing back through the assembled warriors, clattered up the trail toward Airdnasheen. Behind him, he vaguely heard Taminy give her blessings and good-byes to The Claeg and her two other waljan.

  He was on the verge of kicking his horse into a dangerous gallop when she caught hold of his mind, bidding him wait for her. He hesitated, then obeyed, knowing that anything short of obedience would be fruitless and stupid. He felt her close regard of him all the way back to the holt.

  Was this what it was to be a Malcuim? he wondered. Was this what his father had been as a boy—a stew of angers and vanities and false bravery? Was the essence of The Malcuim a rebellious soul? A soul only humiliation could impress for good or ill? A soul that could be led about by its own pride?

  “I don’t want to be like my father,” he said to the silence of the trail.

  Taminy’s hand lit on his shoulder, fanning a strange Eibhilin warmth through his body. “Many people will be eager to tell you that you are your father’s son. But don’t mistake that to mean you are your father’s likeness. You are not.”

  Airleas flipped the reins against his horse’s neck. “I look just like him. Just like him. Even mother says so.”

  “Appearances are deceiving. Colfre Malcuim may have shaped your body and your face, but Toireasa has done more to mold your heart and mind. And your soul has a shape of its own that no man or woman in this world can mold.”

  “Except you, right, Taminy? You can mold it, can’t you?” He was desperate to believe that.

  She shook her head. “Only you, Airleas. Only you can mold the contours of your own soul.”

  Well, now there was an unsettling thought. Airleas let himself back into the rhythm of his mare’s stride and rode to Hrofceaster in silence.

  oOo

  Saefren Claeg stretched out on his bedroll, his eyes on the leather satchel his uncle had settled gently on the ground-cover of their tent.

  “The Lady’s talismans?”

  Iobert nodded. “Aye.”

  “What are they?”

  In answer, the elder Claeg pushed the satchel toward his nephew. “Open it,” he said, then lowered himself to his own bedroll.

  Saefren tried not to appear over-eager as he picked up the satchel and flipped back the flap. Inside were a number of soft, dunnish leather scrolls tied at both ends with twine. Curious, he removed one and turned it in his hand. Painted on or pressed into the outer surface of the scroll at roughly its center was the Gilleas crest—a white star on an irregular field of purple. Inside was a small, hard lump.

  He raised questioning eyes to his uncle’s impassive face. “What are they?”

  “The scrolls are messages. As to what’s inside . . .” He shrugged.

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “Why should I? I’m not among those who need to see such talismans.”

  And damn proud of it. “May I look?”

  Iobert seemed poised for a sharp retort, then merely shrugged again. “Aye, if you must.”

  Saefren untied the twine at one end of the scroll and parted the soft folds. Light from the tent’s single lamp glittered on something within.

  “It’s a shard of crystal.”

  When Iobert said nothing, he opened the scroll further.

  “There’s nothing on it. This scroll is empty.” He shook his head, incredulous. “You said they were letters.”

  “I said they were messages.”

  “That say nothing.”

  “To you, perhaps.”

  Saefren laughed, letting a bit of his scorn escape. “And for these you’d have us travel miles out of our way—to put an empty skin and a chip of rock into the hands of the Gilleas?”

  “We’ll not go out of our way.”

  “Uncle,
the Gilleas holdings are well away to the northeast—”

  “I know where the Gilleas holdings are, Nephew. We shall not be troubled to go there. The Gilleas will meet us in Nairne.”

  Saefren was dumfounded. “How can you know that?”

  “Taminy said he would be there. He and his elders.”

  Saefren held up the scroll. “To receive a blank message.”

  His uncle rolled onto his side. “Put that away carefully,” he said, and closed his eyes.

  Exasperated, Saefren could only stare at him.

  A moment later, one frosty gray eye opened. “And put out the lamp. Makes it hard for a man to sleep.”

  Saefren did as ordered, hoping he’d be around to see the Gilleas Chieftain’s face when he opened his “message.”

  Chapter 5

  The World of Form and Shadow is set about by the direst of afflictions and the sorest of trials. It wastes away of its disease while those who hold power in their hands seek to treat its ills by their own devices. Yet, they are unable to fathom the cause of the disease and can only guess at its remedy. Only the Divine Healer can cure this patient, but these jealous doctors have imagined that Friend to be an Enemy.

  — From the Testament of Osraed Bevol

  “A distant ally is better than no ally at all.”

  Ruadh Feich raised his finger from the map and looked his cousin Daimhin in the eye. “You think so, do you? It will take weeks for the Teallach to assemble even a token force and get them here.”

  “Then we can march on Halig-liath in four days with Malcuim regulars, our own men and the Dearg’s. The Teallach can meet us there in two weeks—one and a half if the weather holds and the rivers aren’t running too high.”

  “Ah.” The younger Feich traced the march between the Teallach lands northeast of the port of Eada and the foothill village of Nairne. “That’s always supposing they don’t have to take the long way around through the midlands.”

  “Now, why on earth should they have to do something like that? Surely it’s more expedient to cut directly through the hills.”

  Ruadh’s finger lit solidly on a green-tinted cluster of mounds just south of the lands held by the House Teallach. It sat squarely in the line of march he’d traced the moment before.