by Ellyn, Court
Kieryn stripped off his blue robe to examine his right thigh. He expected to find an arrow embedded there or the smoking black hole from a bolt of avedra fire. But his riding leathers and the flesh inside them were sound. The pain subsided, leaving only a dull ache.
Kicking furiously at the mule’s flanks, Zellel returned to the summit of the pass. “Clumsy lout!” he accused. “Can’t stay a-horse, can you, boy! Another step and you’d be naught but raven food.”
Kieryn would not be called an inept rider. “My leg, damn it!”
“What about it?”
“I don’t … ,” he began, but stopped himself. He had felt an inexplicable anxiety throughout the morning. Traveling through Windgate again was a dangerous undertaking, but the snows were gone; it didn’t warrant this pervading sense of dread. Glancing to the southeast, over Helwende’s jumble of stones and the blue smudge of Avidan Wood and the haze of the farthest meadows, Kieryn understood. “Kelyn,” he said, heart pounding in his ears. “He’s been injured, Zellel. He’s in battle right now, and he’s been injured. I must go to him.”
Zellel grabbed Kieryn’s shoulder and spun him around. The old avedra was out of the saddle now, a head shorter than his apprentice but fierce with a reprimand, “What good would that do? What’s done is done. And it’s your leg that sympathized with his pain, not your heart. Chances are, he’s alive. By the time you’d get to him, he’d be back on his feet. You’ve got to keep your focus, Kieryn, my boy. You’ve a different place entire to be. The Lady is expecting us. Saffron and Yarrow have told her we’re coming. We don’t show, we earn the court’s disfavor, and favor is a rare thing among the Lady’s court. Make a good impression, and maybe Aerdria will let you use her scrying pool. You can see to your brother then, eh?”
Kieryn swept his precious robe from the roadway and shook the dust out of it. Diorval offered a sympathetic whicker as he climbed back into the saddle. The old mare felt his distress even if Zellel refused to. Kieryn mumbled a curse for the old Hereti.
“I heard that,” Zellel said over his shoulder and beckoned Kieryn with a jerk of his head.
~~~~
19
“Ach, I hate this place,” Zellel said, guiding the mule around a pair of dwarves who bartered with all the kindness of two bulls smashing their heads together. Too many reeking human encampments surrounded the town, invaders that seemed to press the inns, houses, and shops against the castle walls. Horses and kine bawled in dusty corrals, and traders hawked their wares, the next one louder then the one before.
“Helwende isn’t so bad,” Kieryn countered.
Zellel regarded his apprentice as if he’d grown horns. “Aye, you’re right. I’ve seen worse.”
“In Heret?”
“No, an ogre’s den.” Zellel led his apprentice along the outskirts of the crush and warned, “Stay close. I’ve no wish to be delayed here, and the Veil I’ve woven around us extends only so far.”
“Veil?” Kieryn glanced around but perceived nothing different. Only when he used his Veil Sight did he see the shimmering shield of masking light. The Veil accompanied them like a bubble. Beyond it, the lifelights of every human and dwarf radiated like scores of stars come to ground, each distinct in pattern and rhythm. The world was transformed into a dance of light.
He stopped Diorval in the middle of the road and stared. Ahead, Zellel cried, “Ah, curse you! Here, boy, here.”
“I’m not your dog, old man.”
“Until you learn to weave a Veil of your own, you will stay as close as my dog.”
“What happens if I ride outside the Veil?”
“In this crowd, where everyone goes unnoticed, probably nothing. But do it elsewhere, and you’ll see very surprised and frightened folk, I assure you. In Dorél, they still have avedra hunts, did you know? While I lived there with the society, the Doreli Authority tried and cut up thirteen poor souls. Some of the society attended the trial in secret. Only four of the victims were actually avedrin.”
“Cut them up?”
“Cut off their hands, aye. Before burning them alive.”
Kieryn read in Zellel’s thoughts that every word was true. After that, he rode so close that Diorval and the mule might have been one animal.
At the southern edge of town, the avedrin passed a row of fruit vendors. Kieryn stooped in the saddle and swept up a fat golden pear. Zellel had spared little time for breakfast before starting up Windgate. Kieryn ate half the pear before he realized he hadn’t paid for it. Hadn’t even considered it. The vendor couldn’t be allowed to see him, he had to keep moving, he was hungry, and suddenly he was a thief. A pear was only a pear, but he’d stolen it all the same.
A narrow road he walked, indeed, if he could stray from it without realizing. Perhaps, once, avedra hunts had been merited after all. He dropped the rest of the pear on the street and scrubbed off the sweet, sticky juice with his sleeve.
Zellel glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Easy, wasn’t it?” He spoke softly, a smile of understanding nestled in his beard. “Don’t fret over it, boy. Your conscience saved you—this time.”
Beyond Helwende’s noisome crowds, Zellel dispelled the Veil and veered off the King’s Highway, breaking across open country. He gave even crofters and herders a wide berth. Late in the afternoon, the avedrin drew up within the shadows of Avidan Wood. Kieryn liked the look of the trees less now than before. He had glimpsed the strange creatures that lurked under those ancient, contorted branches and had no desire to encounter them again. Kelyn might be bleeding to death, and something in these trees might be sizing Kieryn up for its evening meal. Damn, why had he ever left his library? When Zellel paused at a stream to water the horses, Kieryn was grateful.
“What’s got you so melancholy now, eh?” Zellel asked, dismounting. “The Wood is safe—relatively—I told you that.”
“Aye, a dozen times.”
“Or are you still fretting over that pear?”
“Can’t you just read my mind?”
“I could, but it’s unethical, I told you that, too.”
“Aye, a dozen times.”
“I don’t repeat myself that often.”
“Half a dozen times, then.”
“Well, it’s true. The Wood is safe. Relatively.”
“It’s the ‘relatively’ I’m worried about.”
“Bah!”
“What, worrying isn’t permitted?”
“If I could control a single thought in your head, boy, no, it wouldn’t be permitted.”
“I’ll stop worrying about my brother and the evils of Avidan Wood,” Kieryn retorted, “when you stop thinking about the dolphins.”
Zellel shoved aside the mule, scaring her into a braying fit, and advanced on his apprentice. “What do you know about that?”
Though aware that this diminutive man could turn him to ash with a thought, Kieryn stood his ground. “I can’t help but overhear them in your thoughts. They’re always there. Why do they bother you so much?”
“Never suffered pain so deep it nearly drove you mad, have you? Forget about it!” Zellel looked for his mule, found she’d trotted upstream and started after her. “Do as I suggest and look to your own affairs. And while we’re at it,” he added, tugging the mule after him, “forget about Lady Rhoslyn, too.”
“Rhoslyn? What does she have to do with anything?”
“Lady Halayn saw you in the garden the night before we left. She thinks you’re after something you can’t have.”
The words hurt, but Kieryn tried to pretend they didn’t. “Rhoslyn won’t have me, Zellel. She’s implied it more than once. And I’m not the climber that Rorin of Westport is. She has no need to worry about me. And I mean Rhoslyn. I don’t give a damn about Halayn. Rhoslyn comes to me when she fears other people, or the lack of them. She confides in me, Zellel.
“And that will get you into trouble.”
“I’m not to be a friend to her?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. No one had eve
r doubted his character before.
“You’re not to cross the line, that’s all,” Zellel replied. “The duke can’t defend his daughter, so I must. When she inherits, I hope she will make a match that is best for her people.”
“Am I so unsuitable?”
“You’re avedra. By marrying her, you would do her no favor. People will mistrust you, and by association they will mistrust her. If you would be a friend to her, as you put it, continue to serve her as I have served her father. That is what she needs from you.”
“Yes … safe,” Kieryn muttered.
Zellel’s hard black eyes softened with something akin to sympathy. “Then you know your place and will keep it.” Hauling the mule along as if the animal were a ton of bricks, Zellel returned to his cantankerous old self. “We’ll walk from here. Keep a hold on that nag and hurry along.”
“Diorval’s no nag,” Kieryn barked, sorrow roughening his voice. He unlatched one end of the rein to make a lead rope and followed Zellel across the swift stream and up the far bank. For what seemed another mile or two, Zellel stayed outside the line of trees. He seemed not the least troubled that they would be entering the Wood at dusk. In fact, he seemed almost giddy, as if he had arrived home for a relaxing evening at a hearth fire. His mule bawled, however, and Diorval fought the lead. Peering deep into the gray shadows, Kieryn searched for something lovely or benevolent to encourage him. But Avidan Wood was swathed in murky twilight. Constricting vines choked slender saplings and snaked up twisted black boles. A dank swampy smell rose with tendrils of mist. Where was the birdsong? He was a fool for coming here. He made up his mind to insist they turn back, he could meet the Lady some other day, but the old avedra stopped and pointed.
“See that tree there? The squat fat one with the red vine on it? That’s where we enter.”
Kieryn noticed something drastically different about the fat tree. The sun shone fully on it, slanting low from the west. Glistening leaves danced on a breeze that failed to touch the trees nearby.
“Take that nag in hand, boy,” Zellel ordered. “She won’t like it, so you’ll have to pull her through.”
“Through?”
“The Veil, the illusion. You don’t think the Lady would live in a place that looked like this, do you?”
“An illusion around the entire Wood?”
“Of course. How else would they keep humans away? Humans are like rats, that way. They’re attracted to whatever’s shiny and pretty, and by the time they’re done with it, they’ve ruined it with their filth. But the illusion doesn’t deter everything, so be watchful.”
Kieryn took Diorval by the bridle and followed Zellel past the sun-bright tree. The hairs lifted on the back of his hands, a brief humming tickled deep inside his ears, causing him to shudder. Diorval whinnied and tried to pull free, but Kieryn held tight and spoke softly to her and urged her forward. As quickly as the strange sensations struck, they were gone again. And the Wood was transformed. Golden sunlight slanted in long shafts between smooth straight trunks as thick as castle towers, and fell upon lush ferns and soft dry beds of leaf-fall. The vines that had resembled serpents burgeoned with red leaves and clusters of tiny pink flowers. The air hung close and still, but it was cool and fragrant, and birdsong echoed high in the canopy, as if the birds were under glass.
Relief flooded through Kieryn; he couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s enchanting!”
“Hnh,” Zellel groused. “You just need to trust me, boy.” He led his mule and his apprentice through flowering shrubs and over mossy, braided roots.
Diorval shied violently. Kieryn’s grip on the lead had slackened, and the mare nearly made good her escape. Ahead, the mule bucked and brayed, but Zellel steadied her with a harsh command in Elaran.
“What in the Abyss … ?” Kieryn asked.
“Silence!” Zellel beckoned his apprentice forward with a flick of his fingers. “Naenion,” he whispered, pulling the staff from a saddle sheath as though it were a broadsword. With the tip he pointed to a shrub trodden flat beside the path. “And that one there,” he said, indicating a broken sapling on the other side of trail. “Passed this way some time ago, but the animals still caught their stink.”
“What’s a naenion?”
“What are they, boy. Naenion, plural for na’in. You call them ogres.”
“Mother above! Ogres live here?”
“Quiet! If the naenion are near, they just heard you. Now shut up and let me listen.” Zellel’s eyes closed and he stood as still as the andyr trees. The birds … , he began silently.
Kieryn finished the thought, … have stopped singing.
“But ogres …” Zellel shook his head. “I can’t hear them. I can’t smell them. But that doesn’t mean they’re not lying in wait. Avidanyth is not their home. They venture into the Wood for two reasons. To pick up dead animals they sniff out or to attack Elaran strongholds. The party that passed here was a small one.” Zellel looked up at Kieryn with eyes like sharp chips of obsidian. “They’re hungry.”
Kieryn remembered the bow and quiver he’d tied to his saddle. But the bow was unstrung. Unless the magic in his hands decided to make an appearance, he would have no time to defend himself.
With a small jerk of his head, Zellel bid Kieryn follow, but after only a couple of steps, the old avedra stopped and brought the staff up across his chest in white-knuckled fists. From the underbrush on the left, the short whistle of a bird; high on the right another. A bare arm seized Kieryn about the throat, throttling the breath from his body, and dragged him off his feet. He doubled his fists to strike at his assailant but refrained when he felt the tip of a blade pricking his ribs.
Zellel whirled, staff leveled, a spark ready to explode from the orb, but when he saw Kieryn’s captor he relaxed his stance and rolled his eyes. “Ach, curse your bones, Laniel.”
“Who’s your pup, Zellel?” There was a foreigner’s accent to the words, and though the voice issued as a growl, it was made of silk.
“You might’ve asked, then decided to attack him. Would’ve been more polite.”
Neither the arm nor the dagger relented. Black spots gathered in Kieryn’s vision.
“All right!” Zellel conceded. “Kieryn is my apprentice. The robe shoulda told you as much, you daft treewalker. Now let him go!”
The dagger let up and the throttling arm shoved Kieryn toward the seething avedra. Kieryn spun to face his assailant and stared agape. The elf stood half a head taller than Kieryn and dwarfed Zellel. Fair skin glistered with a pearlescent sheen, reflecting the green of the leaves, now the brown of the earth. Stripes upon cheek, brow, and chin, apparently tattooed in green ink, only heightened the flawless proportions of the face. A heavy mane of golden hair reached to his waist and was tied back to reveal pointed ears pierced with silver loops, from which fluttered small gray feathers. Lithe, lean, and shimmering, the creature appeared to belong more to sunlight and cloud than to earth and flesh. The blade in his hand belonged to a dagger with a haft made of elk antler. He wagged it like a chiding finger. “Dangerous, bringing him here without warning us first. We don’t like surprises.”
“He was a surprise to me, too,” Zellel admitted.
Kieryn felt as unwelcome as if he’d barged into a stranger’s party and plopped himself down at the host’s table. He squirmed under the elf’s cool glare. Those eyes were gray, clear as the dawn, and lined with the green ink in the manner in which highborns of the eastern countries lined their eyes with kohl.
“Who did you say he was?” asked the elf.
“My apprentice,” Zellel snapped.
“Besides that!”
“Kieryn of Ilswythe.”
To Kieryn’s surprise, the elf said, “Aye, I know him. A few weeks back I saw him on the Highway. His azeth was brighter than Thyrra at her full.” He blinked, and his gray eyes focused differently as he examined Kieryn’s azeth for confirmation. Then his gaze slid over the older avedra and he grinned. “Your apprentice shines more brightly
than you do, Zellel.”
“And I shine a great deal brighter than you, Elari,” Zellel retorted.
By this time, Kieryn realized: “The Dragon Eye?”
The elf affirmed with a nod. “We allow passing humans to see our lifelights. They don’t know they have lights of their own. It’s a simple tactic, but it keeps away unwanted travelers—usually. Be thankful you needed come no closer to retrieve that arrow of yours, young friend. The reputation of the Dragon Eyes is well earned.” He tapped Kieryn’s chest with the dagger. “I had an arrow of my own aimed about here.” Putting the dagger back in its sheath, he added, “Of course, this secret stays in the Wood. Doesn’t it.” Laniel’s hand paused on the dagger’s antler haft.
Not even Rhoslyn, Zellel put in.
In a matter of moments, legend had become history for Kieryn. The terrors of the Elf War, the bloodshed, the merciless hunting of one people by another, he would never doubt any of it again. Having been driven into small sanctuaries like Avidan Wood, any elf’s trust would need to be earned. “Of course,” Kieryn promised. “I’ll be silent.”
The elf’s gray eyes pinned Kieryn for an intolerable moment, but in the end, he could do nothing but accept the stranger at his word. “Good. I’m Laniel Falconeye, by the way. Pardon if I don’t apologize for scaring you. I had to be sure. And to teach the old man a lesson.”
“You presume to teach me?” Zellel cried. “Yours is an unadulterated arrogance, elf.”
Laniel laughed. “Oh, undoubtedly. But at least I can be pleasant when I want to, unlike a certain mule-headed avedra.” Apparently these two had long waged a war of jibes, and anything was open to attack. “Come,” Laniel said to Kieryn, “I’ll take you on to Linndun.” Graceful as a cat, he stooped into the ferns for a short, recurved bow shaped of pale thellnyth wood. He slung it over his shoulder and started along the trail.