“Sit and dine,” Illbane bade them, “and when your eyes are once more comfortable with the light that fills this cave, we will go out to see the sunshine itself.”
“Well thought.” Culaehra nodded, and sat by the torches as Lua set them in the center of the cave. “But I cannot waste time,
Illbane. You have given me a mission now, and I must be off to the south to find and slay the monster Ulharl!”
Kitishane looked up at him in alarm and shivered, then realized that there was a chill in the air, and Culaehra was rubbing his hands not in expectation, but to warm them by the little fire.
“All in good time, eager hero,” Illbane told him, amused. “You would be foolish indeed to run into battle before you are ready.”
“But I must find Bolenkar before he is ready!”
“You can only do that by assembling strong forces to lead against him. Your companions will do well enough for a beginning, but they are not an army in themselves. Even they, though, grow chill in this northern climate.”
Culaehra looked up, startled, and saw Kitishane and the gnomes shivering. “The armor does warm me! I should have realized, when my hands felt chilled! Forgive me, friends!” He started up. “I shall go kill a bear or two, and bring you some furs!”
“Nay, peace, my hero!” Kitishane stopped him with a hand, laughing. “Accustom your eyes to the brightness, and do not go hunting without your archers beside you! As to the furs, Lua and I have packed them away, when we shed them as the caverns became hot about us. Warm your hands while we dress!”
They left Culaehra to stir the stew while they pulled furs on over their tunics and leggings, then ate in hooded coats of fur. When they were done and their leavings cleaned, the companions all pulled on gloves, even Culaehra, who also needed boots, which Kitishane had thoughtfully supplied. Thus equipped, they stepped out to view what was left of the day.
They gasped with pain as they stepped out of the cave, squinting their eyes against the brightness, then slowly opening their lids—and gasped again with pleasure at the sight. They were still in the mountains, and the golden sunlight of late afternoon lent a glow to evergreens decked with whiteness. It was snow, and lay deep on the ground as well, and on the rocks all about them.
“Winter has come while we have been underground!” Kitishane cried. “Have we been below so long as that, Illbane?”
“Only a few days, as you know, Kitishane,” the sage replied, “but winter has been growing about us as we have marched northward, and has come all the quicker up here in the mountains. It will only grow colder from this point onward, for when we come down from these hills, we will not come very far; the northern land to which we go is a high plateau, and we have yet some farther distance to go.”
“To the north?” Culaehra bleated. “That is the wrong way, Illbane! I must go south now!”
“You must have a sword first, Culaehra, and I cannot forge it for you until I have found the Star Stone. Come, let us march!” He led the way off toward the north again. Culaehra stared after him, thunderstruck, then lowered his head and slogged off through the snow after the sage, muttering darkly. His companions followed, sharing glances of amusement.
They only marched for a few hours more that day; sunset came quickly, and they were happy to camp under a huge fir. Culaehra chafed at the delay, ready to march out into the night in his enchanted armor. “I must go south, Illbane!”
“In good time, Culaehra,” the sage returned, and sipped from his spoon.
Good time certainly was not the next day; they set off toward the north again, and Illbane sent the hero in his enchanted armor ahead, to forge a path through the drifts for them all. Culaehra grumbled continually, but not at the cold. “I go the wrong way, Illbane! Bolenkar lies to the south!”
“So does sunshine and warmth, Culaehra. Can you not suffer the chill for a few weeks more?”
“A few weeks!” the hero bawled in distress, but Kitishane caught up with him and squeezed his hand. “Patience, big man. I am not eager to see you go to brave dangers, but even less eager to see you without a sword.”
Culaehra looked up at her in surprise, then subsided into grumbling as he turned back to slogging ahead. But he glanced up at her again and could not help smiling before he set to his work.
That work became harder, for the wind blew more and more briskly. Then snow began to fall, but Culaehra felt it only on his arms; even his toes stayed warm in the bronze sandals the Wondersmith had fashioned for him. Kitishane slipped around to his back, letting him break the wind for her, and the gnomes followed close behind her. Illbane came last, striding through the drifts with his head high, long grizzled hair whipping in the wind, disdaining to show any sign of chill.
That night around the campfire, Culaehra seemed resigned to his fate; he laughed and chatted with the others, replying to Yocote's sour remarks with gibes of his own, then lay down by the fire, reminding Yocote to waken him for his watch—but when his companions breathed with the deepness of sleep and the gnome had fallen deeply into his trance, Culaehra rolled slowly to the side, farther and farther out of the gnome's line of sight, so slowly and gradually that he did not disturb the little shaman's contemplation of whatever arcane mystery occupied his meditations. When he was sure he was far enough out of sight, Culaehra climbed to his feet and moved quietly into the darkness beneath the evergreen trees. He picked his way away from the campsite with stealthy movements until the light of the fire had disappeared behind him. Then he increased his pace until he came out from beneath the pines onto a broad, windswept slope, stark beneath the starlight. There he drew a long breath, grinning at the feeling of freedom. He looked up to find the North Star, turned his back upon it and set off toward the south, walking quickly.
His path twisted between giant boulders. He set himself against the wind, thinking that he would welcome a brief respite among those rocks. He stepped in among them, relaxed as the wind's pressure let up, turned and turned again to follow the shallowest depth of snow, then braced himself as he saw the end of the outcrop ahead. He stepped out into the wind—and stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the black-robed, white-haired figure before him.
Illbane smiled, amused. “How rude of you, Culaehra, to leave your friends without a word of parting!”
“How .. . how did you come here, Illbane?” Culaehra stammered.
“Very quickly, I assure you.”
“But how?” Then Culaehra realized how useless that question was with a shaman, and changed his tack. “How did you know I had gone? You were asleep!”
“Never so deeply asleep that I would not know where you were,” Illbane assured him. “I shall be alert to your every movement from this night forth, Culaehra, no matter how deeply asleep I may be! Come now, let us go back to our friends, for it would be uncivil indeed to leave them alone in this wild land.”
There wasn't the slightest trace of threat in his voice, but he set both hands upon his staff as he said it, and the gleam of anticipation in his eye was enough to remind Culaehra how poorly he had fared against his teacher in the past. For a moment, though, the feel of the magical armor on his body was almost enough to tempt him to resist, and the memory of the thousand drubbings that staff had given him sparked enough anger to drive him—but he remembered also how he had come to have that armor, and how Illbane had stood by him in danger, and realized that he could no longer summon even mild dislike for the old man. He sighed and capitulated. “As you will have it, Illbane. Back to the campfire, then.”
The sage laughed, clapped him on the shoulder, and went with him back into the outcrop of boulders.
Chapter 20
That was not his last try, of course. With all the fervor of the penitent, Culaehra now burned to make amends for all his past wickedness, even at the peril of his life. He tried cajoling, nagging, and exhorting Illbane for hours on end as they marched.
“The deed must be done, Illbane! The younger races cannot wait! Every hour that we tarry, B
olenkar's agents are corrupting another gnome, another elf, another human! Every day of delay yields another battle, building to another war! We must go south!”
“We must go south when we have a chance to win,” Illbane corrected. “Let it ride, Culaehra. If you strike before you are ready, Bolenkar will win, and there will be a thousand times more misery than arises while you wait for your sword!”
But Culaehra would not let it ride—he kept after Illbane until Yocote finally snapped at him to stop, for he was boring them all to the breaking point.
The next day, Culaehra started in on Illbane again, nagging and pleading until the sage finally rounded on him and said, “Go south without that sword and the final readiness it bestows, and you die yourself, with nothing accomplished and nothing to show for your life, Culaehra! Do you truly wish that?”
“I certainly do not!” Kitishane stepped up to him wide-eyed. “Don't you dare to make me a widow before you have even made me a wife!”
Culaehra turned to her in surprise.
Kitishane blushed and lowered her gaze. “Well, perhaps you had not planned to ... but I had flattered myself that—”
“Of course I had! Or desired to, more than anything in my life. Though I had no certainty you would agree if I asked.”
Her eyes lighted with merriment and delight; she tossed her head and invited, “Try.”
“I dare not,” Culaehra said through thick lips. “I dare not ask until all this turmoil is done. Then, if Bolenkar lies dead and I live, I may dare to ask.”
Kitishane quivered with a sudden surge of desire that amazed her, and pressed close to his arm. “I cannot bear to think of you lying dead! But perhaps I spoke foolishly, about waiting to be a wife—”
“You do not,” Illbane said sternly. “Wed him or bed him, and you weaken his stroke out of fear for your fate. You must remain a maiden, Kitishane, a maiden and an archer until this war is aborted or ended. Then you may begin your world, when it is new.”
Kitishane lowered her gaze. “It will be hard, Illbane, hard to wait.”
“Never let me say that there are no wonders in the world,” Culaehra breathed, his gaze fast upon her, and he said nothing more about going south for the rest of that day.
That night, though, he tried to escape again.
Once more he waited until everyone slept; once more he crept out by inches; once more he climbed to his feet and ran silently through the night. This time, though, he stopped at a rocky outcrop, then walked backward very carefully, setting his feet in his own footsteps until he neared a tall pine. There he crouched, jumped high, caught a limb, and pulled himself up. He climbed twenty feet, then settled himself next to the trunk with one arm around it, waiting for morning.
He had no chance to wait nearly so long, though. In less than half an hour a huge bear came ambling across the snow. Culaehra watched it with curiosity—what manner of bear would be abroad in winter? And what had wakened it from its long winter's sleep?
Hunger!
Suddenly, Culaehra's curiosity was anything but mild. He watched the bear with the first tendrils of fear snaking through his vitals as the beast meandered here, meandered there—and came to his tree!
The bear stood as if stretching itself, then looked up through the boughs. Its gaze met Culaehra's. He stared back in horrified fascination, then found himself whispering, “Go away, bear! Go away!”
It was a very contrary bear. It set its huge claws into the bark; it began to walk up the trunk.
The fear gripped Culaehra's belly now. He ached for the sword Illbane had promised him, but not having it, he slid his common sword from its sheath.
The bear reached the limbs and began to use them as a sort of ladder, pulling itself up on a branch, then catching its huge feet on the one below. Higher and higher it climbed, closer and closer. Culaehra glanced up; he might climb another five feet before the trunk became too thin to bear them both. He glanced at the next tree over, wondering if he could jump the intervening space without falling to his death. He decided that he could not and turned back, his eyes going cold as he set himself for the battle. If he must die, better to die fighting than running—and he might not die at all, if Agrapax's armor was as virtuous against bear's claws as against men's swords.
The bear climbed a little higher; its head was just below his foot, and Culaehra readied himself to kick when it gained one more branch. But the bear gazed up at him, its eyes neither hungry nor angry. Its muzzle opened but it did not snarl, only said, “Come down, Culaehra. There is no point in your spending the night in so uncomfortable a place when I will only find you in the morning.”
The voice was Illbane's.
Culaehra sat, staring. Then he unfolded himself and began to climb down, cursing.
The bear listened with interest as it backed down the trunk, watching him. When Culaehra dropped into the snow again, the bear said, “Let us go back to the campfire; you must be chilled to the bone.”
“No, Agrapax's armor keeps me warm, even as you said it would.” Culaehra fell in beside the huge animal. “I am rather stiff, though.”
“Not surprising, in this weather,” the bear said judiciously. “You know, we both lose sleep this way, Culaehra.”
“It would have been worth it, if I could have slipped away to the south.”
The bear sighed. “You wished for a sword to fight this bear.
How do you think you will fare against Bolenkar, if you cannot even fight a bear without a sword?”
“There are many swords,” Culaehra muttered.
“Yes, and most would be of use against a bear—but only one can strike down Bolenkar.”
Culaehra raised his head, frowning. “What would make this particular sword so powerful?”
“The Star Stone, the shard of Lomallin's spear that fell to earth during his battle with Ulahane. With the virtue of Lomallin's touch within it, it will prevail against the son of the Scarlet One.”
“The power of the human-lover will be vested in a piece of his spear?” Culaehra frowned in skepticism.
But the bear nodded. “Virtue, not power—the unselfish, outgoing spirit that still resides within Lomallin's ghost. So rich was that aura that it spread to anything he touched. His staff would have great power indeed, if any could find it—the staff he carried when he took human guise. But the scrap of his spear has far more virtue in battle, for he used it to fight the Scarlet One, and it is might imbued with goodness directed against Evil.”
Culaehra was silent, plodding on beside the bear, turning the matter over and over in his mind. He hated to delay a single day when he might be traveling south to the battle that would make amends for all his past deeds, and he knew the forging of a sword took many days, perhaps weeks! But what the bear said was true: there was no use going up against Bolenkar with ordinary human arms.
“Ah, warmth!” the bear said.
Culaehra looked up and saw the campfire ahead of them— with Illbane sitting beside it, gazing into the flames! The warrior stared, astounded, then whirled to ask the bear how this could be—but the great beast was gone as if it had never been. Culaehra stared foolishly at the space where it had stood, then looked down and, sure enough, saw huge prints in the snow, prints that turned and went back in the direction from which he and it had come, though they angled off a bit toward the west. The bear had moved quickly, though, for it was already lost in the night.
Scowling, Culaehra strode through the snow and sat himself down by the campfire, hissing, “How did you manage that, slave driver?”
Still Illbane sat, then slowly lifted his head, turning to Culaehra, and the warrior realized that he had come out of a trance. He smiled and said, “The bear is my totem, Culaehra, and the shape in which I visit the shaman world. This bear was quite willing to be host to my spirit; I roused its limbs from its winter's sleep, and have sent it back to its cave now. It will not even remember the waking.” His tone turned to reproach. “But it was unkind of you to create a need for the
poor beast to waken.”
“It was unkind of you to make it chase me,” Culaehra retorted, then remembered that he was talking so disrespectfully to the legendary hero Ohaern, the one who had lain so long in enchanted sleep, the one who had led the hosts against Ulahane himself!
But Culaehra could not really believe it in his heart of hearts; the old man looked no different, spoke no differently than he ever had. Illbane he had been, Illbane he would ever be—to him. He collected his wits and demanded, “Can you not let me begin my task?”
The sage sighed. “I have been at great pains to transform you from a brute to a man, Culaehra. I would not willingly see all my work erased with one stroke of Bolenkar's war club.”
The thought rocked Culaehra; he sat unspeaking for a moment and was just managing to work up another retort when the sage smiled and said, “The hour grows late, and we must march long tomorrow. Sleep, now.”
The next thing he knew, the sky was light with dawn, and Illbane was nudging him with a foot. “Waken, warrior. You have had as much rest as you are going to have, and it is your own folly if you did not have more.”
Culaehra pushed himself upright with a halfhearted snarl and began his day—but when breakfast was done and he strode after the sage beside Kitishane, and Kitishane asked him, “Did you have a bad night?” all he could truthfully answer was, “Not bad, no. Odd, perhaps, but not really bad.”
That did not mean he was about to give up, of course. That night, he rested a little while they dined, then told stories—but when the others went to bed, Culaehra tried a new strategy. He claimed the first watch for himself and sat by the fire, watching the night and feeding the flames until he was sure everyone slept, even Illbane—though truth to tell, he was beginning to wonder if the sage could ever truly be said to be asleep. Still, it was worth one more attempt.
He would not leave them without a sentry, of course, so he set a few pine cones at the edge of the fire, knowing they would catch in a little while and explode with loud noises some while after. Then he rose and strode straight off into the night—but stepped down onto the ice of the frozen brook that ran nearby.
The Sage Page 27