Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “And there it ends, my dream; there it ends, the sending.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Kairn

  Early Spring, 1E9574

  [Six Months Past]

  Alamar threw up his hands. “That’s it? Nothing more? You just wake up?”

  Jinnarin took a deep breath. “Well, there is one more thing, but I don’t see—”

  “You let me be the judge of that, Pysk. What is this ‘one more thing’?”

  Again Jinnarin took a deep breath. “Just this, Alamar: as I watch the ship sailing toward me, I have this—this feeling of dread, as if something terrible is about to happen…or as if something horrible is drawing near. And I flee—where? I don’t know—I just flee. And that’s when I waken, trembling in fear, drenched in sweat, my heart racing.” With shaking hands, Jinnarin took up her tea and sipped it.

  Alamar shook his head. “Not a good sign, this fear of yours.” He stood and added another log to the fire, then turned and faced the Pysk. “But heed: not all images within a dream are what they seem. That black ship may represent something else altogether…as might the crystal castle, the storm, and aught else…even your fear. What they might truly be, or mean, I cannot say.…If Aylis were here instead of traipsing about the world, she would know.”

  Jinnarin looked up at the Mage. “Aylis?”

  The elder shuffled back to his chair. “My daughter. She is a seer.”

  “A seer? What is a seer?”

  Alamar cocked an eye at the Pysk and slowly shook his head, and Jinnarin burst out, “Well, I told you I didn’t know much of the world beyond the borders of Darda Glain.”

  The eld Man shrugged. “A seer is, well, a kind of Mage…one who can divine much of hidden things.”

  “Can’t you do that as well? I mean, aren’t all Mages alike?”

  “Ha!” barked Alamar, Rux opening an eye and then closing it again. “Preposterous! All Mages alike? You must be jesting. Are all Hidden Ones alike? Are all Pysks alike? Is aught of anything alike?”

  “Raindrops,” shot back Jinnarin. “Twins. Stars.”

  “Don’t be foolish!” snapped Alamar, glaring. “Even you know the falsity of your words.”

  A look of ire crossed Jinnarin’s face, and Mage and Pysk sat in angry silence for long heated moments, broken by Jinnarin at last: “I suppose,” she said, “that raindrops are not all alike, for there are big ones and little ones, warm ones and cold ones, some are gentle and others harsh.

  “And twins have differences, else even they could not tell one another apart.

  “And the stars—”

  “And the stars,” interrupted Alamar, “sweep from bright to dim, some all but invisible while others are brilliant to the eye; some are fuzzy and others are sharp; and their hues range from red to blue to green or yellow and all colors in between; and while most seem fixed within the turning crystal vault, a very few glide about; then there are those that streak across the firmament, coming from nowhere, burning brightly, swiftly fading to nothingness; and yet others flare up in the darkness between, blazing where no star stood before, slowly ebbing, falling back into the blackness once again; and then there are those which come from that very same indigo dark and blaze for night after night, long bright tails glowing, bringing bane and bale within their wake.”

  Alamar fell silent and Jinnarin shivered, seemingly for no reason at all. At last she asked, “And the Mages?”

  “Mages,” grunted the elder, “are like raindrops and twins and stars. There are similarities, yet each is different.”

  “Snowflakes,” murmured Jinnarin.

  “Eh?”

  “Snowflakes, I said,” answered Jinnarin. “Each alike; each different.”

  “Exactly so,” snapped Alamar querulously, “and don’t you forget it.”

  Jinnarin ground her teeth and gritted, “Fear not, O One of Many Mages, ignorant I may be but swiftly do I learn.”

  Again an ired silence fell between them. At last Jinnarin took a deep breath and asked, “Now what, Alamar? I’ve told you of Farrix’s quest, of his letter, of my dream. Where do we go from here?”

  “To Kairn,” answered the Mage.

  “The city?”

  “Where else will we find a library?”

  “Library?”

  “Is there an echo in here?”

  Jinnarin sprang to her feet. “You are the most exasperating old grouch I have ever—”

  “And you are the most impudent Pysk!” shouted Alamar.

  Rux leapt up and, growling, trotted to the door and pawed it open. With a disgruntled glare over his shoulder, the fox skulked out into the night.

  Jinnarin burst into laughter, while Alamar scowled at where the fox had been. “Enough, Mage,” giggled the Pysk, “for my fox has run away since he couldn’t stopper his ears from our quarrelling.

  “Let us start anew. What will we find at the library in Kairn?”

  Alamar stood and paced to the door, peering out, seeing nought of the fox. He swung the portal to, shutting away the night chill. “Where else,” he asked as he hobbled back to his chair, “where else will we find word as to a pale green sea, a crystal castle, a black ship?”

  “And exactly where is this library in the city of Kairn?”

  “On the island in the Kairn River, there where the academy sits.”

  “And this academy, Alamar, what exactly is it?”

  The Mage drank the last of his tea. “It’s where Mages study, Jinnarin, where we refine our art.”

  Jinnarin’s eyes widened. “A college of Mages?”

  Alamar nodded. “And we have one of the finest libraries in all of Mithgar. You and I will go there in the morning and see what we can find.”

  “Oh no, Alamar,” protested Jinnarin. “I cannot walk among Humankind in the daylight. At night they will not see me, but in the day…”

  Alamar sighed. “Then we will go tomorrow night.”

  “Why not tonight? There are yet hours before dawn.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Pysk,” muttered Alamar. “Even Mages need rest.”

  Without another word, Alamar stood and stumped to his cot, leaving Jinnarin sitting upon the table. After a moment she swilled the last of her now cold tea and clambered down to sit before the fire, staring into the dying embers.

  Dusk drew down upon the land, the air crystal clear, stars appearing one by one against the violet sky. Alamar plodded down the wending way, the lights of Kairn in the near distance. At his side rode Jinnarin upon Rux, the fox padding silently in the gloom.

  Earlier in the day they had gathered together a few supplies, Jinnarin replenishing her packs. During this time not much had been said between her and Alamar; the Mage for the most part had sat at his rolltop desk making notes in his journal. He had, though, asked Jinnarin to make a sketch of the black ship, and she had complied, the drawing a tiny one, though it seemed to satisfy the Mage. Rux as usual had gone foraging and had slaked his appetite afield. The day had worn on, Jinnarin resting, and when from afar the many bells of Kairn had at last announced sunset—just as they had announced dawn—Alamar had arisen and had taken up his knapsack and had impatiently demanded to know just what they were waiting for, and they had set forth for the city.

  And now they walked in the gathering gloom, each wrapped in his own thoughts.

  “Alamar,” asked Jinnarin, breaking the silence at last, “do you truly believe that we will discover aught of the black ship or the pale green sea or the crystal castle?”

  “Foolish Pysk,” gnarled the Mage, “of course we will. Did I not say that it was the finest library in all of Mithgar?”

  “I thought you said that it was but one of the finest.”

  “Don’t quibble! Quibbling is a sign of infancy.”

  Jinnarin’s jaw fell open. Quibbling is a sign of— She began to laugh.

  “What are you tittering at?” The elder’s words came sharp.

  “Nothing, Alamar. Nothing,” she replied, trying to smother her lau
ghter, failing, looking up at the eld infant striding along beside her.

  They paced in silence for a while, and down and away from Alamar’s hill, Jinnarin could see the shining lights of Kairn some two or three miles afar. And as Mage and fox and Pysk descended the gentle grade, Jinnarin asked, “Just how do we get to the college if it’s on an island in the middle of the river?”

  “Ferry,” answered Alamar.

  “Oh.” And on they went.

  At last they came to the base of the slope, where the meandering path they followed joined an east-west tradeway, and leftward onto this road they fared, heading west toward Kairn. Behind, the road disappeared into the easterly darkness, threading the length of the narrow cape and toward the distant War wall—a defensive stone bulwark spanning the width of the strait, sheer-sided peninsula—beyond which lay the interior of the island.

  To the north, Jinnarin could hear the purl of the nearby River Kairn, the water flowing along a course which reached from the distant central tors to cross half the isle, running at last down the length of the promontory and through the city, where it tumbled across a high linn to thunder at last down into the sea.

  They came to a freshet babbling alongside the road, its clear water flowing out from a small stonework structure and running down to join the river. “We stop here, Pysk,” said Alamar, the elder settling down on a long length of cut log. “My legs tell me I must rest.”

  Jinnarin dismounted from Rux and approached the spring. As the fox lapped water, Jinnarin gazed at the arc of mortared stone cupping a large flat rock through which the rivulet burbled. “What is this place, Alamar?”

  “Eh, they call it Elwydd’s Spring. It’s a roadside shrine.”

  “Oh my,” exclaimed Jinnarin. “Why, it looks as if it hasn’t been kept. Adon’s daughter deserves better.” The tiny Pysk began gathering up scattered leaves that lay upon the wide flat rock. With handfuls, she swept the springstone clean. Stepping back, Jinnarin surveyed her work. Looking about, she plucked a tiny blue springtime flower and laid it at the bow of the arch. “There now, it’s set right.”

  “Do you do this often?” asked Alamar.

  “Do what?”

  “Sweep out shrines,” answered the Mage.

  Jinnarin shook her head. “Oh no. We have no such in Darda Glain.”

  “Yet you honor Elwydd.”

  Now the Pysk nodded. “Honor her, yes. But not in stonework shrines. Instead, I speak to her when I am in a glade or alongside a stream or other such in the forest. I especially like to talk to her when I find a circle of mushrooms.”

  Alamar’s habitual scowl softened. “A Faery ring.”

  Jinnarin grinned. “Some call it that.”

  “Do you dance there in the ring?”

  Jinnarin pirouetted and curtseyed. “At times.”

  Alamar fished through his rucksack, withdrawing a tin cup. “Would you fetch me a drink?”

  As the Pysk filled the tin, she asked, “Tell me, Alamar: why is that Elwydd seldom answers?”

  “Eh?”

  Jinnarin stood, hefting the cup up into her arms, bearing it as would a Human carry a barrel. “Just this: It is said that long past both Adon and Elwydd trod the Middle World. Yet now they are absent—at least most of the time they are absent. And when we speak to them—to Adon and Elwydd and the Others—seldom do they answer. And so I ask you, Alamar…why is this?”

  The Mage took the cup from Jinnarin and drank it dry, waving her off when she reached out to take it for a refill. As he stuffed it back into his sack, he asked, “Jinnarin, have you thought what it might portend for the gods to answer?”

  “What do you mean, Alamar?”

  The elder spread his hands apart. “Perhaps it would lead to the ultimate evil.”

  “For gods to answer is an evil thing?”

  Alamar shrugged. “Mayhap. Heed, long past in Adonar there was a great debate. At question was the gods’ interference in the lives of the lesser folk, of mortals and immortals alike. The two mightiest gods—Adon and Gyphon—quarrelled bitterly, with Adon holding that the gods would destroy those whom they would control, and Gyphon contending that it is the right of gods to do as they will. Some of the gods sided with Gyphon, but most allied themselves with Adon, including His daughter Elwydd, for it was She who brought forth life unto the Folk of the High and Middle Worlds.”

  “What about the Under World, Alamar?” asked Jinnarin. “What about Neddra?”

  Alamar shook his head in regret. “Ah me, tiny one, ‘twas Gyphon who spawned the Spaunen—the Rucha, Loka, Ghûlka, Trolls, and other such Rûpt.”

  A small Oh escaped Jinnarin’s lips, and then she added, “I have always known that Elwydd created the Hidden Ones, but I did not know about the Rûpt.”

  Jinnarin glanced up at the eld Man. “What about the Mages, Alamar? Who created your Folk? And on what world?”

  “Elwydd, we believe. As to the world, we come from neither the High, Middle, nor Lower Plane…but instead from—you might call it—the Outer Plane, from a world named Vadaria.”

  Jinnarin was astonished. “You mean, there’re more than three Planes?”

  “Of course,” snapped Alamar. “Everyone knows that.”

  Jinnarin felt her face flush with anger, yet she held her retort. At last she managed to say, “Well, I didn’t know it.”

  The elder drew his knapsack up into his lap, looping the strap over his shoulder. “Pysk, there are more Planes than any of us realize, yet most are unknown to us, for to go between there must be a fair match from world to world. Why, look here, only on the island of Rwn is there a known crossing between Mithgar and the Mage world of Vadaria. Only on Rwn.”

  Alamar stood and said brusquely, “Let us be on our way.”

  Jinnarin whistled Rux to her side and mounted up. As they set out once again, Jinnarin returned to her original thread: “Alamar, it seems to me that if a god never answers, then He just doesn’t care.”

  “Think, child,” responded Alamar. “Perhaps a god who doesn’t answer is a god who cares the most.”

  “How can that be? I mean, you have yet to explain why it would be evil for the gods to answer those who spoke to them.”

  “Child, I did not say that it would be evil; what I said was that perhaps it would lead to the ultimate evil.

  “Heed me, if in every instance you were in distress or doubt you called upon your god to aid you, and if that god answered and resolved your woe, then I ask you, what would happen to your initiative? Why struggle when there is no need? Your god will see to all. Yet, would that not lead to your god controlling every aspect of your life? And if that happened, then what would be the challenge of living?

  “Let me ask you this as well: if your god was not benevolent but instead were a selfish, jealous god, then would you have Him control every aspect of your life? And heed, even were He a beneficient, loving god, still, would you give up your free will for the generous life He would afford you? Would you surrender your very being in order to live in the comfort of a golden prison? And if you did surrender your very being, then what would be left of you? What would you have become?”

  Jinnarin shook her head. “All this merely from speaking to a god and receiving a reply?”

  “Mayhap, Jinnarin. Mayhap. For who knows where events will lead, given even an innocent start?”

  “I find it difficult to believe that they will lead to the ultimate evil, Alamar.”

  “Then let me ask you this, Jinnarin: what is the nature of evil?”

  Jinnarin’s mouth dropped open. “Why, Alamar, everyone knows that.”

  “Oh? Is that so? Well then, Pysk, tell me.”

  “Evil is bad,” responded Jinnarin.

  “Don’t be stupid,” snapped Alamar. “To say that evil is bad is the same as saying evil is evil. Or good is good. Or tall is tall. And to define a thing in terms of itself is the sheerest of folly.”

  Jinnarin bristled at Alamar’s remarks, yet at the same time she realized
the truth of his words. She rode along in silence for a while, at last saying, “This is not an easy question, is it.” Her statement was a declaration, not a query. “Even though I believe I know evil when I see it, still, to say what it is, to define it, well…”

  Again the Pysk fell silent, contemplating. Rux padded along, easily keeping pace with the Mage, the elder plodding slowly. Once again it was Jinnarin who broke the quiet. “How can it be that something I had always thought so simple could be so complex upon reflection? Everything that I can think of has exceptions, exemptions, times when evil in one thing is virtue in another. Like, say, killing: Farrix killed a boar to save your life, but he would not kill a boar just to have done so, just for pleasure.…There is no easy answer, is there, Alamar?”

  The elder grunted in affirmation, then added, “The nature of evil has been pondered for millennia, and you are right, Jinnarin, there is no easy answer…but there is an answer, though even it is hedged about with qualifications.”

  “Don’t tell me what it is, Alamar. Let me ponder some more.”

  Alamar looked down at the Pysk in surprise, a glint of admiration in his sharp gaze.

  On toward the lights of Kairn they went, the city drawing closer. At last they came in among dwellings, and Jinnarin and Rux slipped into the shadows, where darkness seemed to gather about the Pysk and fox, cloaking them, and even Mage eyes were hard pressed to spot them in the gloom. The road they followed continued westerly, paralleling the river, and alongside these stony banks they trod, passing before rows of buildings, crossing side streets now and then, some cobbled, others not. And all along the way they encountered people, hurrying to and fro or strolling in leisure or lounging. Yet, though many of these glanced at Alamar or stepped aside to let him pass, none seemed to see Jinnarin or the fox cloaked in shadow flitting through shadow—it was as if the two were invisible to ordinary eyes, though now and again, Alamar could make them out.

  They passed by a bridge crossing the river, the lantern-lit span supported by pontoons floating on the water. In the near distance downstream, Jinnarin could see an island mid river, several towers rising up. And toward this place she and Rux and Alamar made their way, the Mage walking in the light of street lanterns. Pysk and fox slinking in shadow. As they came opposite the northernmost tip of the isle, they arrived at last at the dock of a ferry, three Men lounging on the torchlit quay.