Silver Eve

by Sandra Waugh

  And he did, easily enough, ducking to enter. “You rested well, I trust?”

  I nodded jerkily. “You?”

  He nodded. We seemed at a loss after that, more used to arguing than pleasantries. I thought of Lill acknowledging his “height” and wondered if I was turning pink like she had. I never blushed, truly….But then I couldn’t stop from looking at him again from the corner of my eye. Laurent leaned against the doorway, gaze on me. My breath caught in a guilty lurch.

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “What tumble of questions do you sort through this time, my lady?”

  Anything—anything to distract. I thrust my hand out in some flurried gesture to indicate the space. “Tell me about Gren Fort.”

  “Ancient.” The Rider shifted and looked around. “ ’Twas settled the last time the Breeders had the amulets.”

  “Last time? How often have the amulets been stolen?”

  “Twice before.” His eyes fell back on me and he grinned. “That’s not a poor record, my lady, as you undoubtedly think. We cannot hold the Breeders off indefinitely.”

  I remembered the comb in my hand. “You got the amulets back, though,” I said, and began tugging through the last strands.

  “We have to,” Laurent answered. “The first attempt was quickly over. But the last battle endured four ages. Enough time to build this fort, certainly.”

  “Four ages!” The comb was snared in a tangle and I struggled with it, with the calculation of lives. “But the people—Was there a drought? Where were the amulets taken? Did the Breeders not want the Guardians to find them? And how did the Guardians survive all that time?”

  He chuckled at the onslaught. “Guardians don’t…” But then he stopped and said, “Forgive my staring. You are very beautiful.”

  My hand stopped. If I’d never intended that this Rider should affect me, I was so utterly wrong. I’d been called beautiful before, but this time the word sent flutters through my stomach to shiver straight up my spine. A vibration, a sensation—cracking open something like a door in my mind, something that had been locked tight, key tossed. It took too long to swallow, force the comb through, and ask, “Guardians don’t what? Survive?”

  “You are part of a line,” he answered, calm as anything. “If a Guardian is lost, there will be another to wake.”

  That was enough to erase self-consciousness. “Good to know we are expendable.” My tone was more than wry, but the Rider shrugged, unapologetic. So I added pointedly: “And what of Complements? Are they expendable?”

  “Never,” Laurent replied lightly. “You only get one.”

  He jested. But then again he seemed comfortable that I’d learned our connection, and unconcerned how. I had no witty response. I put down the comb and wove a braid, feeling heat rising again from chest to throat. “What has brought you to my room, Rider?” I asked. “Surely it is dull to watch me do up my hair.”

  “Your hair is caught by both the torchlight and the rising moon. ’Tis not dull.”

  “Still…” I was certain now my cheeks were pink. “It cannot be why you are here.”

  He raised a brow, then pushed from the wall, straightening. “Unfortunately, no. I am to escort you to supper.”

  All of this for an escort. I said a little tartly, “Only? I would have thought you’d be arming for the trek to find the amulet.”

  “Why? Do you know the way?” He was amused, not eager. I shook my head.

  “Then perhaps after supper,” he said with a grin. “You of all people should know the merits of a good meal.” He gestured toward the doorway. “My lady?”

  —

  The center hall was above us. We zigzagged our way up the quarry; Laurent following me, most likely making sure I didn’t fall. But I felt his gaze as something more—or maybe that was my own treacherous thinking. The walk was lovely, the moon sailing above in the deep blue and the punctuations of torches guiding us along the steps. The face of the quarry was riddled with lit doorways and balconies, like a sprinkling of fireflies. “How is this a fort?” I asked suddenly, laughing. “There are a hundred entrances.”

  “It cannot be reached from below and you were not awake to see how well hidden it is from above,” Laurent said. “The quarry is quite open but can only be reached from the top by footbridges, and they are easily downed.”

  I craned my neck to look up but could not see the edge. “Where is Arro?”

  “The bridges are slingbridges. He cannot pass over. There is a small outpost above where watch is kept. He stays with them.”

  And then we reached a flat ledge where a set of wooden doors—the only doors in the fort—was flung wide to the night air. The Great Room, Laurent announced, the largest of the tunneled spaces. Cave or no, ’twas the most formal space I’d ever seen. Torches made the rock glint gold. The walls were hung with weavings. An enormously long wooden table ran down the center of the room, laden with dripping beeswax candles and food in dishes carved from wood and stone. It made me smile. “It’s beautiful!”

  “It’s copied from Castle Tarnec,” Laurent said. “That is beautiful.”

  Despite the elegant setting, ’twas more brawl than banquet. If Lill said a hundred people remained at the fort, then the table was crafted for everyone to fit, and everyone did. They were already at supper—an event as wild as Dann’s ale festivals. Some were deep in private conversation, but most shouted along the length of the table, boisterous and rude as they exchanged trays and bowls of food and dug into their meals. I spied Lill somewhere in the middle, sitting next to a boy her age with blond hair and a handsome face. He would be the one she was sweet on; she was yanking at his sleeve for attention. I wondered if she’d found a daisy.

  Our arrival was ignored. Only a few nearest the doors turned briefly to see who entered. But at the far end of the table, the most enormous man I’d ever seen was rising from his seat and waving us forward. “Come down! Come down!” he boomed.

  Laurent and I worked our way along opposite sides of the table; people shifted down the benches to make room. “Eudin,” our host bellowed over the din when we reached him. “Captain of Gren Fort.”

  Up close the captain was even more impressive, wider than he was tall, with a thick beard that ringed a blinding, full-toothed smile. He radiated strength, exuberance…and risk. His body was studded with welts and scars. I was fascinated…a little horrified.

  “You have felt your share of swords.” I pointed as I reached him. “And axes.”

  “A curious greeting!” Eudin’s laugh was deafening. “Could be a worse showing for one my age.”

  I looked at Laurent. “Three score and ten,” Laurent murmured, and my jaw dropped.

  “Welcome to you!” Eudin shouted. He turned first to Laurent and gripped forearms with him like old friends, then turned to me and took my face between his huge hands like an elder might pat the cheeks of a child. “Welcome, Evie Carew.” He beamed, then said under his breath, which was hardly a whisper: “We’ll keep your Guardianship to ourselves here, eh? What the clan does not know will keep them safe. Best not to know where the treasure is hidden, I say!” He gestured for us to take our places on the bench, announcing, “We neither wait nor stand on ceremony for guests. Just tuck in.”

  I looked down the table at the feast—fowl and fish, mostly, things that did not require space to herd. But the vertical gardens and the abundance of water provided a bounty: greens (the spinach that Lill had been so disdainful of among them), varied squash, and roots. There were fruit jellies, sweet and savory sauces, and bread with fresh honey. Hard cider and ale spilled from wet-beaded flagons. I touched my finger to one of the pitchers; ’twas icy cold. “Chilled in the lake, our beverages!” Eudin said proudly when he saw my interest. “We sink the casks and draw up what we need!” Both were favorites, I guessed, looking at his florid cheeks and double set of tankards.

  Plates and knives were produced from somewhere and shoved over to us. Then there was a general rumble as people began passing thi
ngs, heaping our plates, making me laugh at the ordered disorder. Someone sloshed cider into a cup and plunked it in front of me. Then everyone turned back to the revelry.

  “Eat,” the captain directed, and I did. I gorged. Mouthfuls of bliss. I could not stop, not even in the spirit of regret for those who suffered beyond this fort. Food, drink, company—’twas a privilege to have any and all, and I glowed from being so sated. There was near as much pleasure in this meal as the last solstice feast in Merith. And I remembered, then, Raif sitting next to me, our hands touching as we passed platters or reached for wine. It was sharp, that memory, but brief. For I was aware too of the Rider who sat across from me, aware of his hands as he tore a heel of bread or lifted his cup, aware of the smile that showed him amused again that I wolfed my meal.

  I turned back to my plate, very daintily speared a piece of fish with my knife.

  “Now, my friend, what news?” Eudin asked Laurent beneath the din. “Do not save detail,” he added. “Better we talk honestly in a crowd. A quiet place begs for eavesdroppers.”

  “The good news first,” Laurent said. “Tarnec has its queen once more.”

  Eudin nodded and raised his tankard in salute to that. “Guardian of Life returns her amulet and reign begins anew. May all the amulets be restored; may she reclaim the Balance and hold it long.”

  The fish fell off my knife. My cousin, the Guardian of Life—she was also queen of Tarnec? I pictured the castle hanging over the cliff, from where she nearly threw herself in her attempt to reach me. Lark was queen of that realm.

  What a journey you’ve had, I’d told her. But, truly, I’d had no idea.

  Laurent caught my expression. “The Life Guardian is always queen,” he said gently. “She has found her home.”

  Home. I couldn’t dispute it, but it stung to think home would nevermore be our cottage, our village. I wanted to keep the image intact—of Lark roaming the fields with her dog, Rileg—not to imagine her bound up by crowns and thrones.

  Eudin was nodding, pleased. “So the queen is returned, and already you’ve found the next Guardian.” He flicked an eye to me, then said to the Rider, “Let us hope this bodes well for a quick end to the trouble. Two Guardians proved so quickly.”

  “We had help.” Laurent said it without emotion, but there was a tightening of his mouth—something I now recognized.

  “Why does having help make you angry?” I asked.

  “Because we shouldn’t have had it.” Laurent turned to Eudin. “I do not believe such ease bodes well. The Breeders know we were loaned the books of Fate; they’ll simply wait for us to find the Guardians and then make their move. And if the return of the first amulet was a brilliant win for Tarnec, why offer the next amulet in such plain sight unless they want it easily found? So, no, I do not trust this freedom with which we travel.”

  “Freedom!” I laughed. “There were wisps, and swifts, and soldiers in all directions. How do you call it freedom? Certainly it wasn’t ease!”

  “Those were minor obstacles, comparatively.” Laurent shrugged. I scowled at that.

  But Eudin agreed with the Rider. “We’ve had message doves from Heran. They’ve seen disturbances on the Myr foothills, raids on the outposts. Breeders are slinking their way overland, summoning their worst.” He lowered his voice more. “Not just Troths. They think—”

  “I know what Heran thinks.” Laurent stopped Eudin from telling, throwing the smallest warning nod in my direction. “It isn’t enough that Troths have run through Merith and Crene and Bern and Littlefen and however many more. Now Tyre is on the prowl—they are stealing entire communities, not just the slave-aged.” He cast an eye to make sure no one was listening. “They’ve sent scouts. They are not far.”

  “Aye, no secret, we’ve killed a few.” Eudin nodded, grim. “And since Tyre is eager, so does Dorgrun seize opportunity. Those sod dwellers will scavenge the land in Tyre’s wake. They both amass armies—already we’ve had reports of skirmishes to the north.”

  I was shifting in my seat, unsettled by how businesslike they discussed conflict—past or impending—Laurent and Eudin reeling off names of whole villages and cities like a scattering of individuals, and leaving some things unspoken—for my sake, annoyingly. “How many come to fight?” I asked.

  “One, a thousand, tenfold that…” Eudin took half his ale in one swallow, then smacked the tankard on the wood. “For you it does not matter.”

  “How not?”

  He leaned close. “It only takes one to change fate, to start a war. You shake your head, young lady, but the source of upheaval is what you must focus on, not the hordes that follow. Take out the source by finding the amulet.”

  “And if I don’t find the amulet, what happens? The Breeders of Chaos win?”

  Laurent made a noise and Eudin glanced at him, then shook his head. He said to me, “You will find your amulet, Guardian. If the Breeders win ’twill be because of what happens to the amulet once you’ve found it.”

  “I return it to Castle Tarnec,” I said flatly.

  The large man laughed and sat up with a slap to his knee. “Aye. Be it that quick for all the Guardians!”

  “What else would there be to do but return it?”

  “You have a choice, Evie,” Laurent said. “You may also destroy it.”

  I snorted, but Laurent was serious. “You might have the best intentions, but beware how the Breeders manipulate. Yes, they toy with the amulets, bring upheaval to Nature. There are earth rifts and drought. They can suck the air from a room or lash out with flame—”

  “They’ve done all of this?”

  “Here and there. This dearth of rain is the most widespread.” Laurent leaned forward. “But all of that is just toying, Evie; I told you. They cannot truly hold or use the amulets; they just take pleasure in seeing how the upheavals distress us and turn us upon each other.” He touched my cup as I reached for a swallow, holding it. His eyes were dark blue. “Ultimately, the Breeders need you to claim your amulet so that you may destroy it.”

  “But I wouldn’t!”

  “Masters of manipulation,” he said, low and grim. “You wouldn’t even know you had until it was too late. And if any of the amulets are destroyed, then the upheavals are permanent. Chaos unleashed.”

  A breath of cold flicked the back of my neck. Save or destroy. The Rider had said that before, but not that a Guardian could destroy without knowing. He wasn’t just reminding, he was warning me. I found myself nodding, as if I had to promise.

  “So.” Laurent softened then and leaned back. “Beware the Breeders’ intent. For if the shell is here as we think, isn’t that a bit simple?”

  Eudin broke in, “Do not scare our girl, Rider. Let it be that simple. We can manage the rest.”

  I turned to Eudin. “Manage means battle.”

  He grinned. “What else? The amulets are not for negotiation.”

  “You do not fear it?”

  “Fear battle?” A guffaw. “ ’Tis what Breeders would hope! Have us cower before them!”

  Then Eudin shouted to the table at large: “Heads up, ye of Gren Fort! Do we fear battle?”

  A rousing shout of “Nay!” followed—young and old, women and men alike. The captain beat his tankard on the slab, beginning a chant quickly taken up by all:

  “Chaos and Gren: their loss, our win! Chaos and Gren: their loss, our win…!”

  Over and over they shouted and drummed until the table shook and the walls rang with victory. I put my hands to my ears; Laurent looked over at me, raised a brow to say, See, Healer? Allies of the Keepers can be as aggressive as any Breeders’ bane.

  I yelled to Eudin, “Is there no other way? Not everyone is as prepared as you! There are those villages that don’t even have weapons!” I looked at Laurent. “You said that not everyone should carry the burden—”

  “That’s not—” Laurent started to object, but Eudin jumped in: “Nor should you!”

  “But we do!” I cried. “We all must
help. You speak of cities mobilizing to conquer and things from the Waste creeping in to destroy. How can you think a hundred people from Gren Fort can stop this? It is all our burden!”

  Eudin laughed out loud. “We are not but a hundred swords, young Healer!”

  “Evie,” Laurent said. “No one is asking you to fight.”

  “It’s not for me; I do not speak as a Healer. Merith, my village—we…” I swallowed. I could hardly bear to think of my friends in Merith trying to wield weapons again. “We don’t know how to fight. We cannot fight. And there are more like us as well.”

  Laurent half smiled. “You are the lucky ones.”

  “Says the man with horse and sword!” Eudin snorted. “Lucky is the Rider!” He reached over and patted my shoulder. “There is no shame for your Merith friends. There must be some who travel life unweighted by the knowledge that Chaos lurks in a simple shift of power.”

  Like Lark and I were before, I thought. Unweighted. When we looked at the world with wonder, not fear. ’Twas the way I still wanted to—why I couldn’t help arguing that it should be other than it was.

  I wondered what Lark had thought when she learned of all this darkness. I wondered if she’d missed Merith as much as I suddenly did; I wondered if she was afraid.

  I wasn’t afraid; I was sad.

  Eudin was still watching me. He chuckled. “Do not be so severe in your thoughts. ’Tis not all doom. There is always choice, there is always hope, there is always sanctuary in the worst of places. Remember that as you travel.”

  I frowned at him. “Now you too are warning me for a purpose. You mean as I look for the amulet.”

  His laughter boomed. “I do not frighten you, my lady, do I?”

  “I do not frighten.”

  “Exactly! And so here you are.” He drew us in and spoke low, “And now to task: the Rider says that you believe your amulet hidden within a waterfall.”

  “Of which you have many,” I said. “But I cannot claim it is here for certain.”

  “How did you perceive its hiding place? Was it in a vision?”