Yorath the Wolf

by Wilder, Cherry;

  I raced through the tower garden until I came to the bent apple tree. A whistle sounded, and there was Forbian Flink perched on the top of the wall. He played out a sturdy rope ladder fastened on the other side of the wall. I scrambled up and over.

  “Come then, Forbian!”

  He clung to my shoulder, and we scrambled down on the other side. The ladder was attached to Forbian’s upended handcart, and Ibrim held it fast. He smiled fiercely, and we had time to clasp hands before we ran to where Arn Swordmaker stood with the horses ready: two brown chargers; one for me, one for himself; and a swift red steed for Ibrim. We leaped into the saddles and went thundering over the northern drawbridge out of Swangard.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  We turned to the west and went galloping along a good road beside the river. Ibrim had taken the lead, and we rode on and on, slackening our pace for passersby and market carts. We exchanged only a few greetings and followed Ibrim as he went deep into the Lienish countryside, down leafy lanes, through villages, across patches of untilled common land. We had put twenty miles between us and Swangard before we drew rein. There on the edge of a small wood, we dismounted and led our horses into the trees.

  “Our first camp,” said Ibrim. “Welcome, dear lord. Welcome back from the dead!”

  We all embraced and clapped shoulders and shouted with laughter. Then we made camp and watered the horses at a brook before we sat down beside a small fire and I told my story. I recounted what had happened from the time I set out on my walk with Knaar of Val’Nur to the present time when, a few hours past, I had eaten the apple of wisdom from Liran’s Isle. But I kept to myself certain things that the Alraune had told me and certain of my own thoughts.

  At last I said, “Now my dear friends, I owe you more than I can ever repay. Pray tell me how you came here and found me.”

  Ibrim took up the tale.

  “I brought your steed, Reshdar, back to the Plantation, and he was very sick as you recall. The sergeant horse doctor cured him and turned him out to pasture. He told me plainly that the poor animal had been poisoned, and I had a first thought of treachery. I wondered who would do such a godless act as poison a horse.

  “I returned to Selkray in two days and found all in an uproar. General Yorath had been lost in the sea, fallen to his death from the cliffs trying to assist a traveller with a wagon that had come off the icy road. Lord Knaar was tireless in his search for a body along the seashore and clamorous in his grief for his lost friend and liegeman. He has never swerved from this, Lord. He has treated your soldiers well, held to your wishes for the Hunters’ Yard, declared a day of mourning for you in Krail.

  “I was stunned with grief, and I rushed down to the seashore with the other searchers and sat there mourning for my master. It came to me that you were not dead. I have a touch of the sight, as you know, from my ancestors in the Burnt Lands. I knew that you were not dead, and I had some half-formed suspicions of the manner in which you had fallen from the cliff. I sat upon the shore alone and prayed for Ara, the Great Mother, to enlighten me.

  “After two days and two nights I was enlightened. First there came Brother Less down from Selkray villa. He told a strange tale. He had been standing alone on the tower the night you were lost; the two guards were suddenly called below to quell some fight in the duty room, but he remained on the tower. He saw you walk out with Knaar of Val’Nur and before that he had seen a few of Knaar’s soldiers leave the villa with a wagon. He was too far away to see or hear all that passed, but it seemed to him that there was a fight on the further headland. He heard a voice crying out, your voice, crying for help. Even as he plucked up courage to go down and alert your escort, there came the alarm from Knaar himself and his servants. You were lost . . . plunged into the icy sea. He watched all that was done and kept his own counsel. He saw the wagon, the few travellers who said it was theirs. He saw nothing of this Hem Fibroll or his assassins, but I had already seen, among the things brought up from the strand by the searchers, two broken Danasken blades, which I thought came there by chance.

  “Brother Less did not dare tell his tale to anyone but myself. Suspicion weighed heavily upon us. Yet we could not tell your escort and set them against the power of Val’Nur, against Knaar who is their liege, too. I sat by the sea and prayed still for guidance. One morning a seal-wife came up out of the sea and looked into my eyes and showed me a certain pool among the rocks. I gazed into this pool, and it became a mirror and in it I saw a woman’s face.”

  “A woman?” I asked.

  “A lady, I should say,” said Ibrim. “She is dark, and neither old nor young. She is a mighty sorceress. I do not know her name. She spoke to me saying: ‘Ibrim, your master, the Lord Yorath, is not dead. I will see that you find him, but now you must go back to Krail and wait at the Hunters’ Yard. Tell his trusted friends Forbian, the beggar, and Arn Smithson of Nightwood. Bring the scribe, Brother Less, if he has stomach for an adventure to put in his chronicles.’”

  “Well, Ibrim did as he was told,” said Forbian. “He came to the Hunters’ Yard where there were all long faces, believe me, and mine among them, mourning for your death, Yorath. I had taken out your testament, leaving the yard for a home for the veterans, widows and orphans of the Company of the Wolf. I did not know what to believe when Ibrim brought this tale of sorceresses and seal-wives. We went to fetch Master Arn Swordmaker.”

  “I was about to set out on a journey to the north,” said Arn. “I had said farewell to my wife and my boys and girls and left the yard in care of my first apprentice. I meant to seek out Master Hagnild in Nightwood and tell him of your death. The Great King had died soon after New Year, and the truce had settled upon Mel’Nir. I was inclined to believe Ibrim’s tale, for I recalled how we had done magic by a pool in the forest, long ago. I believed always, my friend, that you were of noble birth and it had long been rumored that you were the son of Gol, the new King of Mel’Nir. It seemed to me that powerful forces might be ready to save you.”

  “We sat in the Hunters’ Yard every night and peered into a mirror as the lady had instructed me,” said Ibrim. “On the last day of the Tannenmoon, the message came. The lady greeted us from the mirror and spoke again: ‘Lord Yorath has been brought into Lien from a magic isle in the western sea. He is in the power of a magician, Rosmer, the vizier of the Markgraf of Lien. Rosmer will keep him pent up and helpless, but he will not kill him, for Yorath is the Heir of Mel’Nir and of Lien, the true-born son of King Gol and his first wife, the Princess Elvédegran. This is where you will find the Lord Yorath.’”

  “Then we saw that white prison, Swangard,” said Forbian, “a place neither palace nor fortress. We saw that it was a hermitage of the brown brothers. And the lady said: ‘You might bring Yorath out of this place when Rosmer is away from the city, from Balufir. None of you are known in Lien. Go to Swangard and spy out the tower. If you do bring him out, I will show you where to go. Let Forbian copy this map.’ So I fetched parchment and quills, and a map of Lien was in the mirror. I sat and copied it as quickly as I could. Then when it was done, the lady said again, ‘Good Luck . . . you will be rewarded!’ We have heard no more from this lady, but here is the map showing exactly where we must go.”

  “We left Krail separately and secretly,” said Arn, “and travelled together to Lort where we knew poor Brother Less was hiding himself. We persuaded him to join us. He did it for the truth, so he said, and for the saving of a prince of the blood. He agreed to travel to the Hermitage and go into it, for he is, after all, a follower of the Lame God, though he was trained at another foundation.”

  “I hope he comes to no harm on my account,” I said. “I cannot see that any will blame him for my escape.”

  “Now you know all, Lord,” said Ibrim. “We were set back by your sickness, the spell you were under, but, praise to the Great Mother, you have been released.”

  “The point is this,” said Forbian, “do we go on as planned? Do we trust this lady? She has served us well so fa
r . . .”

  “Is it a trap?” asked Arn. “Should we go back to Master Hagnild? Should we cross the river and return to Mel’Nir?”

  “No,” I said, “we will go on. I do trust this lady. I have seen her in my dreams. I think she must be some kin of mine who knows the ways of Lien.”

  So we rode on, following the map, through the beautiful land of Lien between the two rivers. Now that my memory had returned, I found that I was faced with all my old cares again and with new ones besides. I yearned more than ever for my lost Owlwife and counted the moons and days that we had been parted and wondered if we would ever meet again. I puzzled over the treachery of Knaar of Val’Nur. But one thing was certain, my face, when I saw it in a forest pool, was that of a bearded man. I had been denied the privilege of anything but moustaches for more years than I cared to remember, but now I was not a soldier any longer.

  We were riding through a well-ordered, thickly populated country with fine towns, decent villages and elegant country houses among the trees. For all that, we found it a finicking small place for those who have lived in the broad countryside of Mel’Nir, and we crossed it in a week at the narrowest part. I began to understand Rosmer’s grand design better; for all its order and high living, Lien was too small, too full of people. The spring weather broke—I thought I recognised the lady’s work—and we rode on through heavy rain and windstorms. If there was any pursuit, we never heard of it.

  We came at last to the river Ringist, the border with the Chameln land. Over the swift-flowing river there loomed the dark trees of the Great Border forest, clothing the slopes of the mountains. We passed a town called Athery and saw a Chameln town across the river in the rich mining district called the Adz. Still we followed the map and came to a place where the Ringist plunged through a gorge; there was a wooden bridge over the river, just as I had seen in a dream. We were instructed to cross this bridge, but on the other side there was no sign of the lady. We rode on through the dripping trees of the border forest.

  “This is better,” said Arn. “We’re safe in the forest.”

  “It smells of home,” I said. “Of Nightwood.”

  But Forbian shivered and moaned and said that he preferred the city. Ibrim allowed that he liked to be able to see further ahead: the High Plateau and the Eastern Rift had always pleased him.

  “At least I have come on a journey,” said Forbian, from his place on the front of my saddle. “I never thought to travel the world or come into Lien.”

  We followed the river and saw on the other bank, in the neat fields, a large white building, which was a foundation of the Moon Sisters. The map was nearly at an end, but we could not guess our destination. We turned up a narrow stream that ran into the Ringist. There was a clearing or what had once been a clearing, now thick with underbrush and nettles and young trees.

  I saw tracks at the base of a tree stump and said, “The Kelshin know this place.”

  “Not the Kelshin,” corrected Forbian. “Those others . . . what are they called? We have come into the land of the Tulgai.”

  Behind the trees there was a ruined building of some kind; I saw the corner of a grey wall. It was raining steadily as we came to the oak tree marked on our map, a spreading forest giant. We sat in our saddles with a sense of disappointment; no one stepped from behind the tree to greet us, no Tulgai swung down from its branches. Ibrim gave the signal as me had been instructed: he rapped three times upon the trunk of the oak with his sword hilt. Nothing happened. I moved my horse closer, bent down and struck the trunk three ringing blows with my ash staff.

  There was a sound like the rending of the air overhead or like a chord of music. Before our eyes the scene was changed: the clearing was green and filled with sunlight. It rained still among the trees and across the river, but here was another magic place where the weather was a matter of craft. We rode forward amazed. There between two wooded hills was a small keep with towers and turrets, the same that I had once seen in the forest pool.

  I led the way across the green fields; at a path to the keep we got down and led our horses. Music sounded, like distant trumpets; I thought they were calls of the house of Lien. So we came to the open door of the keep, and at the top of a stairway stood an old man and an old woman welcoming us into the house.

  “Come in,” they said softly. “Come in, Prince Yorath . . .”

  The old man came down and took the horses, and three or four servants in hooded tunics ran up to help him lead them to the stables. We followed the old woman into the hall of the keep, which was cool and shadowy. We could hear music, the laughter of children, the clash of pots and pans in the kitchens. The old woman took our cloaks and bustled us further into the pleasant hall, rather bare of furniture but painted in friendly colors. There were flowers and leaves arranged in the long fireplace. A door opened, and the silver trumpets sounded faintly. The lady came forward to welcome us.

  She was of middle height with brown-black hair threaded with grey and dressed in Lienish fashion under a silver net. Her gown glittered as if green light was trapped in its folds, but I saw that she used little magic on her face: she had an ageless beauty. She looked at me with an expression of great tendernes.

  “Dear Yorath,” she said, “welcome to Erinhall. Good Ibrim, Arn Swordmaker, Forbian, you have served your friend, Prince Yorath, most truly. Pray you, let me speak to the prince alone. Go with Mistress Bowyer to your chambers, and soon we will all sit down to dinner.”

  When we were alone, she smiled and said, “Do you know me?”

  “I have heard your voice in my dreams, lady,” I said, “and I have seen your likeness once in Swangard, but I can hardly believe . . .”

  There was no sound to be heard now, a silence had fallen on the keep. Far away I thought I could make out the footsteps of my friends mounting the stairs. The lady said, “I am Guenna of Lien. I am your grandmother.”

  Her eyes had filled with tears. I took her hand, and we sat down together. She held up a silver medallion, a swan of Lien.

  “Mine was the first one,” she said, “and I gave one to each of my daughters. Hedris gave hers to her daughter Aidris, the Queen of the Firn in the Chameln lands; and Elvédegran, your mother, wife of Gol of Mel’Nir, placed hers upon your breast.”

  “Grandam,” I said sadly, “I come from Swangard, and there is a lady there . . .”

  “I know,” she said. “My daughter Aravel is confined in that place. Who knows what became of her silver swan? Her son Sharn does not have it, nor her daughter Rilla, nor the youngest one, Carel. Alas, Yorath, there is no magic in these poor silver swans. When I gave them to my three girls, I could do no more magic than conjure up a few pictures in a wishing well.”

  “But now, Lady,” I said, “I think you must be a mighty sorceress. This is a magic place.”

  “Erinhall was built by a Lienish nobleman, one of the Denwicks, as a hunting lodge,” said Guenna. “He had the land from the Daindru, the twin rulers of the Chameln lands, in payment of a debt. When I first saw it, years ago, it was in the midst of a small overgrown park, but the building itself was sound, more or less as you see it now. The first magic that I learned to perform had to do with the hiding of this place. The real Erinhall stands in a clearing. Passersby on the river and in the forest and even those who might look from afar through scrying stones see only ruin standing in a wilderness. If anyone chanced to come through the forest, they would be prevented by strong barriers. The Tulgai, the small folk of the forest, keep me supplied with game, which they leave by the Boundary Oak.”

  “I saw Erinhall,” I said. “I saw it in a wishing pool in Nightwood. I had wished to come to some kin. Raff Raiz, my friend, had us all make wishes that day.”

  A man gave a gentle cough somewhere in the shadowy hall.

  “Come then!” said Guenna of Lien, smiling. “Yorath, I cannot entertain you in royal state, but I have another guest who has come to welcome you.”

  A man in a robe of white wool came slowly towards u
s. For a moment I thought it was Hagnild, but then I saw it was a younger man, his hair grey-blond, his features more rounded, his expression stern, his dark eyes piercing. It was Jalmar Raiz, Hagnild’s brother, the father of my two friends, Raff and Pinga, with whom I had spent one magic summer.

  “I bring you greeting, Prince Yorath, from Aidris Am Firn, Queen of the Chameln lands, sharer of the double throne of the Daindru,” he said formally.

  I asked after his sons at once, and he told me that Pinga waited for him in Achamar where they served Queen Aidris. Raff Raiz had become a merchant adventurer in the lands below the world. I found him less easy and pleasant than Hagnild.

  “Master Raiz is a healer,” said Guenna, “and he has come here with great speed and secrecy. Yorath, let him examine you.”

  “Surely,” I said, “but I am sound in wind and limb, Grandmother.”

  “I hope it is so.”

  She left me alone with Jalmar Raiz, and I asked at once, “Master Raiz, why does my grandmother live in this exile?”

  “She hides from Rosmer, her sworn enemy,” he said bluntly. “She watches him and thwarts his plans if she can.”

  “I have heard Rosmer speak of her as if she were dead,” I said. “Is that what he believes?”

  “He believes that she is incurably crippled and living in that hospice of the Moon Sisters across the river,” said Jalmar Raiz. “People from the court at Balufir bring offerings to the banished markgrafin on feast days. They see a pitiable old woman, half blind, unable to move or speak. I do not know how this working is done. Most likely it is a real invalid with the looks of the markgrafin put upon her by magic.”

  It was a gruesome picture.