'Oh, Cromis, why have none of you come before? These ten years, I have had need of your support. How many live?
– I have seen none of you since my father's death.'
'Grif lives, madam, for sure. Hours ago, he rode north at my request. He believes that Tomb and Trinor live also. Of the others I have heard nothing. We have come late to this, but you must not think too ill of us. I have come to discover just how late we are. What have been your Immoves to date?'
She shook her head musingly, so that her bright hair caught the light and moved like a fire.
'Two only, Cromis: I have held the city, though it has suffered; and I have dispatched Lord Waterbeck -who, though well-schooled, has not the strategies of one such as Norvin Trinor -with four regiments. We hope to engage my cousin before she reaches the Rust Desert.'
'How long has Waterbeck been gone?'
'A week only. The launch fliers tell me he must reach her within another week and a half, for she travels surprisingly fast. Few of them have returned of late: they report launches destroyed in flight by energy weapons, and their numbers are depleted.
'Our lines of communication grow thin, Cromis. It will be a dark age, should our last machines go down.'
Again, she took his hand, silently drawing strength from him, and he knew that her young frame was frail for such weight of responsibility. He blamed himself, because that was. his way.
'Cromis, can you do anything?'
'I start immediately,'he said, trying to smile and finding the requisite muscles stiff from disuse. He gently disengaged her hands, for their cool touch had disturbed him.
'First I must locate Trinor, who may be somewhere in the city; although if that is so, I cannot say why he has not come to you before now. Then it will take me only a short time to come up with Grif, since I can take paths impassible to more than one rider.
'What I must have from you, my lady, is an authorisation. Trinor or Grif must command that army when it meets the Moidart, or failing one of them, myself -this Waterbeck is a peacetime general, I would guess, and has not the experience of a Methven.
'You must not fear too greatly. Can it be done, we will do it, and fall bringing a victory about. Keep order here and faith with what Methven remain, even though we have not used you well.'
She smiled, and the smile passed barriers he had not thought existed in his morose soul. She took off one of the steel rings of Neap and slid it on to his left index finger, which was hardly of greater diameter than her own, saying:
'This will be your authorisation. It is traditional. Will you take a launch? They are swifter -'
He rose to leave, and found himself reluctant.
'No launch, my lady. Those, you must keep jealously, in case we fail. And I prefer to ride.'
At the door of the room with five windows, he looked back through the drifting shapes and curtains of light, and it seemed to him that he saw a lost, beautiful child. She brought to mind his dead sister Galen, and he was not surprised: what shook him was that those memories somehow lacked the force they had had that morning. Cromis was a man who, like most recluses, thought he understood himself, and did not.
The great white sloth watched him out with almost human eyes, rearing up to its full height, its ambered claws glinting.
He stayed in the city for that night and another day. It was quiet, the streets empty and stunned. He had snippets of rumour that the Moidart's remaining supporters skulked the narrower alleys after dark and skirmished with groups of the city guard. He did not discount them, and kept a hand on the nameless sword. He expected to find Trinor somewhere in the old Artist's Quarter.
He enquired at several taverns there, but had no information. He grew progressively more impatient, and would have given up had not a derelict poet he met in the Bistre Californium advised him to take his queries to an address on Bread Street in the poorer part of the Quarter. It was said that blind Kristodulous had once rented a garret studio athere.
He came to Bread Street at twilight. It was far removed from the palace and the Pastel Towers, a mean alley of aging, ugly houses, down which the wind funneled bitterly. Over the crazed rooftops, the sky bled. He shivered and thought of the Moidart, and the note of the wind became more urgent. He drew his cloak about him and rapped with the hilt of his sword on a weathered door.
He did not recognise the woman who opened it: perhaps the light was at fault.
She was tall, statuesque and graceful; her narrow face had an air of calm and the self-knowledge that may or may a not come with suffering: but her blue robe was faded, patched here and there with material of quite another colour, and her eyes were ringed with tired, lined flesh. He bowed out of courtesy.
'I seek Norvin Trinor,'he said, 'or news of him.'
She peered into his face as if her eyes were weak, and said nothing. She stepped aside and motioned him to enter. He thought that a quiet, sad smile played about her firm mouth.
Inside, the house was dusty and dim, the furniture of rough, scrubbed deal. She offered him cheap, artificially-coloured a wine. They sat on opposite sides of a table and a silence. lie looked from her discoloured fingernails to the cobwebs in the windows, and said:
'I do not know you madam. If you would be -'
Her weary eyes met his and still he did not know her. She got slowly to her feet and lit a squat hanging lamp.
'I am sorry tegeus-Cromis. I should not have embarrassed you in this fashion. Norvin is not here. I -'
In the lamplight stood Carron Ban, the wife of Norvin Trinor, whom he had married after the fight against. Carle-maker's brigands, twelve years before. Time had gone against her, and she had aged beyond her years.
Cromis upset his chair as he got to his feet, sent it clattering across the floor. It was not the change in her that horrified him, but the poverty that had caused it.
'Carron! Carmon! I did not know. What has happened here?'
She smiled, bitter as the wind.
'Norvin Trinor has been gone for nearly a year,'she said. 'You must not wormy on my behalf. Sit down and drink the wine.
She moved away, avoiding his gaze, and stood looking into the darkness of Bread Street. Under the faded robe, her shoulders shook. Cromis came to her and put his hand on her arm.
'You should tell me,'he said gently. 'Come and tell me.'
But she shrugged off the hand.
'Nothing to tell, my lord. He left no word. He seemed to have grown weary of the city, of me -'
'But Trinor would not merely have abandoned you! It is cruel of you to suggest such -'
She turned to face him and there was anger in her eyes.
'It was cruel of him to do it, Lord Cromis. I have heard nothing from him for a year. And now -now I wish to hear nothing of him. That is all finished, like many things that have not outlasted King Methven.'
She walked to the door.
'If you would leave me, I would be pleased. Understand that I have nothing against you, Cromis; I should not have done this to you; but you bring memories I would rather not acknowledge.'
'Lady, I -'
'Please go. '
There was a terrible patience in her voice, in the set of her shoulders. She was brought down, and saw only that she would remain so. Cromis could not deny her. Her condition was painful to them both. That a Methven should cause such misery was hard to credit -that it should be Norvin Trinor was unbelievable. He halted at the door.
'If there is help you require -I have money -And the queen -'
She shook her head brusquely.
'I shall travel to my family in the south. I want nothing from this city or its empire.'Her eyes softened. 'I am sorry, tegeusCromis. You have meant nothing but good. I suggest you look for him in the north. That is the way he went.
'But I would have you remember this: he is not the friend you know. Something changed him after the death of Methven. He is not the man you knew.'
'Should I find him -'
'I would have you carry no message. Goodbye.'
Chapter Three
That night, haunted by three women and a grim future, a Cromis of the nameless sword, who thought himself a better poet than fighter, left the Pastel City by one of its Northern gates, his horse's hooves quiet on the ancient paving. No-one hindered him.
Though he went prepared, he wore no armour save a mail shirt, lacquered black as his short cloak and leather breeches. It was the way of many of the Methven, who had found armour an encumbrance and no protection against energy blades. He had no helmet, and his black hair streamed in the wind. The baan was at his belt and his curious eastern instrument across his back.
In a day, he came to the bleak hills of Monar that lay between Viriconium and Duirinish, where the wind lamented considerably some gigantic sorrow it was unable to put into words. He trembled the high paths that wound over slopes of shale and between cold still lochans in empty conies. No birds lived there. Once he saw a crystal launch drift overhead, a dark smoke seeping from its hull. He thought a good deal of the strange actions of Norvin Trinor, but achieved no conclusions.
He went in this fashion for three days, and one thing happened to him while he traversed the summit of the Cruachan Ridge.
He had reached the third cairn on the ridge when a mist descended. Aware of the insecurity of the path in various places ahead, and noting that his beast was already prone to stumble on the loose, lichen-stained rock, he halted. The wind had dropped, and the silence made a peculiar ringing noise in his ears. It was comfortless and alien up there, impassable when the snow came, as were the lower valleys. He understood the Moidart's haste.
He found the cairn to be the tumbled ruins of an old fourfaced tower constructed of a grey rock quite different from that beneath his feet. Three walls remained, and part of a ceiling. It had no windows. He could not guess its intended purpose, or why it was not built of native stone. It stood enigmatically among its own rubble, an eroded stub, and he wondered at the effort needed to transport its stones to such a height.
Inside, there were signs that other travellers of the Cruachan had been overtaken by the mist: several long-dead fires: the bare bones of small animals.
He tethered his horse, which had begun to shiver; fed it; and threw a light blanket over its hindquarters against the chill. He kindled a small fire and prepared a meal, then sat down to wait out the mist, taking up the eastern gourd and composing to its eery metallic tones a chanted lament. The mist coiled around him, sent cold, probing fingers into his meagre shelter. His words fell into the silence like stones into the absolute abyss:
'Strong visions: I have strong visions of this place in the empty times… Far below there are wavering pines… I left the mowan elphin woods to fulminate on ancient headlands, dipping slowly into the glasen seas of evening… On the devastated peaks of hills we ease the barrenness into our thin bones like a foot into a tight shoe… The narrative of this place: other than the smashed arris of the ridge there are only sad winds and silences… I lay on the cairn one more rock… I am possessed by Time…'
He put the instrument away from him, disturbed by the echoes of his own voice. His horse shifted its feet uneasily 5 The mist wove subtle shapes, caught by a sudden faint breath of wind.
'tegeus-Cromis, tegeus-Cromis,'said a reedy voice close at hand.
He leapt to his feet, the baan spitting and flickering in his left hand, the nameless sword greasing out of its dull sheath, his stance canny and murderous.
'There is a message for you.'
He could see nothing. There was nothing but the mist. The horse skittered and plunged, snorting. The forceblade fizzed in the damp atmosphere.
'Come out!'he shouted, and the Cruachan echoed out! out! out!
'There is a message,'repeated the voice.
He put his back against a worn wall and moved his head in a careful semi-circle, on the hunt. His breath came harsh. The fire blazed up red in the grey, unquiet vapours.
Perched on the rubble before him, its wicked head and bent neck underlit by the flames, was a bearded vulture -one of the huge, predatory lammergeyers of the lower slopes. In that gloom, it resembled a hunchbacked and spiteful old man. It spread and cupped a broad wing, fanning the fire, to preen its underfeathers. There was a strange sheen to its plumage; it caught the light in a way feathers do not.
It turned a small crimson eye on him. 'The message is as follows,'it said. Unlimbering both wings, it flapped noisily across the ruined room in its own wind, to perch on the wall by his head. His horse sidestepped nervously, tried to pull free from its tether, eyes white and rolling at the dark, powerful wings.
Cromis stood back warily, raised his sword. The lammergeyers were strong, and said by the herders to Monar to prefer children to lambs.
'If you will allow me:
'tegeus-Cromis of Viriconium, which I take to be yourself, since you tally broadly with the description given, should go at once to the tower of Cellur.'Here, it flexed its cruel claws on the cold grey stone, cocked its head, ruffled its feathers. 'Which he will find on the Girvan Bay in the South, a little East of Lendalfoot. Further -'
Cromis felt unreal: the mist curled, the lammergeyer spoke, and he was fascinated. On Cruachan Ridge he might have been out of Time, lost: but was much concerned with the essential nature of things, and he kept his sword raised. He would have queried the bird, but it went on:
'-Further, he is advised to let nothing hinder that journey, however pressing it may seem: for things hang in a fine balance, and more is at stahe than the fate of a minor empire.
'This comes from Cellur of Girvan. That is the message.'
Who Cellur of Girvan might be, or what intelligence he might have that overshadowed the fall of Viriconium (or, indeed, how he had taught a vultaure to recognise a man he never could have met), Cromis did not know. He waited his time, and touched the neck of his horse to calm it.
'Should you feel you must follow another course, I am instructed to emphasise the urgency of the matter, and to stay with you until such time as you decide to make the journey to Lendalfoot and Girvan. At intervals, I shall repeat the message, in case it should become obscured by circumstance.
'Meanwhile, there may be questions you wish to ask. I have been provided with an excellent vocabulary.'
With a taloned foot, it scratched the feathers behind it head, and seemed to pay no more attention to him. He sheathed his sword, seeing no 'threat. His beast had quietened, so he walked back to the fire. The lammergeyer followed. He looked into its glittering eyes.
'What are you?'he asked.
'I am a Messenger of Cellur.'
'Who is he?'
'I have not been instructed in the description of him.'
'What is his purpose?'
'I have not been instructed in the description of that.'
'What is the exact nature of the threat perceived by him?'
'He fears the geteit chemosit.'
The mist did not lift that day or that night. Though Cromis spent much of this time questioning the bird, he learned little; 'its answers were evasive arid he could get nothing more from it than that unpleasant name.
The morning came grey and overcast, windy and sodden and damp. The sister-ridges of the Cruachan stretched away East and West like the ribs of a gigantic animal. They left the third cairn together, the bird wheeling and gyring high above him on the termagant air currents of the mountains, or coming to perch on the arch of his saddle. lie was forced to warn it against the latter, for it upset the horse.
When the sun broke through, he saw that it was a bird of metal: every feather, from the long, tapering pinions of 'the a great wide wings to the down on its hunched shoulders, had been stamped or beaten from wafer-thin iridium. It gleamed, 'and a very faint humming came from it. He grew used to it, and found that it could talk on many diverse subjects.
On his fifth day out of the Pastel City, he came in sight of Duiri
nish and the Rust Desert.
He came down the steep Lagach Fell to the source of the River Minfolin in High Leedale, a loamy valley two thousand feet up in the hills. He drank from the small, stone-ringed spring, listening to the whisper of the wind in the tall reed-grasses, then sought the crooked track from the valley down the slopes of Mam Sodhail to the city. The Minfolin chattered beside him as he went, growing stronger as it rushed over falls and rapids.
Low Leedale spread before him as he descended the last few hundred feet of Sodhail: a sweep of purple and brown and green quartered by grey stone walls and dotted with herders'crofts in which yellow lights were beginning to show. Through it ran the matured Minfolin, dark and slow; like a river of lead it flowed past the city at the north end of the valley, to lose and diffuse itself among 'the metal-salt marshes on the verge of the Rust Desert: from there, it drained westward into the sea.
Sombre Duirinish, set between the stark hills and the great brown waste, had something of the nature of both: a bleakness.
A walled city of flint and black granite, built twenty generations before against the threat of the northern clans, it stood in a meander of the river, its cobbled roads inclining steeply among squat buildings to the central fastness, the castle within the city, Alves. Those walls that faced the Rust Desert rose vertically for two hundred feet, 'then sloped outwards. No welcome in Duirinish for northern men. As Cromis reached the Low Leedale, the great Evening Bell was tolling the seventh change of guard on the north wall. A pale mist clung to the surface of the river fingering the walls as it flowed past.
Camped about a mile south of the city, by the stone bridge over the Minfolin, were Birkin Grif's smugglers.
Their fires flared in the twilight, winking as the men moved between them. There was laughter, and the unmusical clank of cooking utensils. They had set a watch at the centre of the bridge. Before attempting 'to cross, Cromis called the lammergeyer to him. Flapping out of the evening, it was a black cruciform silhouette on grey.
'Perch here,'he told it, extending his forearm in the manner of a falconer, 'and make no sudden movement. '
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