by Ru Emerson
“So.” Brendan shook himself, stretched cautiously, wincing as muscle protested. “We knew this was no Midsummer picnic when we slunk from the Plain. We push on.”
“Do not look so disheartened, brother.” Brelian grinned, clapped him across the back. “No monsters have descended on you yet, have they? And—if they do, that is work for your sword, if Ylia and her cat have not shriveled them before you can free your blade.” He winked across the fire at her, and in spite of herself, she laughed.
“Well—maybe,” she replied. “I would probably be of more use with sword than the Power. I wouldn't count on magic, if I were you.”
“No? Why not?” Brelian asked frankly, then reddened. “Unless one may not ask, of course,” he added hastily.
For some reason, she was not as tongue-tied as usual. “Why not? After all, we are arms-mates, it is only fair you know what guards your back, or not, as the case may be.” She leaned back, collected her thoughts. “What do you know of the Power—anything? A little? Well, many hundreds of years ago, when Nedao was still an island kingdom, the AEldra were seafarers, and no more witch-kind than—well, than you, Brelian. But a call for aid went out and they came to what is now Yls, to aid the people then living there in their way against the Lammior.”
“Lammior. I have heard that name, somewhere.” Brendan rubbed at his chin, finally shrugged.
“A wizard. One who could create storms, could make creatures from air; if the tales are true, create evils to slay for him. When the AEldra came, the fortunes of war changed, the Lammior himself was slain. As reward, the AEldra were given the Gifts of Power. How much real truth there is in the tale, I cannot tell you. The Power itself is the only possible proof.
“A gift and a talent both, the Power. It does not show itself equally. Many of Yls no longer have it, or have little, for like a talent it must be exercised or lost. And it manifests itself differently in each of us: just as Lev has greater skill with bow than most, while Marhan is better with sword and dagger, so it is with the Power. Some AEldra can heal, as could Scythia, my mother. Some can build a seeming, again as she could, so real you could touch it.”
“The bowmen,” Marhan whispered. He looked, briefly, as unhappy as he must have when he first learned of the battle plans.
“The bowmen,” Ylia agreed. She caught at the corners of her mouth with her teeth; a smile, at this moment, could only enrage the old man. “Some can fashion such a thing real to the eye, not the hand. Some can see in their minds distant places, as though they stood in that place, while others such as myself can only reach with an inner sense more like touch than sight. Some very few are able to bridge—to be in one place and then in a distant other place they have forechosen in the space of a quick breath. This I have never seen done.
“My mother had many of these skills, as has Nisana. I have few, and such as I have are not strong.”
“I,” Malaeth volunteered, “have little besides the mind-touch myself, and that has grown capricious the past season or so.”
“Some AEldra, like Nisana,” Ylia continued, “have different form. As you see. I have heard there are AEldra among the great sea animals and the larger hunting birds, but if so, they are rare and were never really plentiful. Certain of these are said to shape-change. Another thing I cannot swear to, since I have never seen it.”
“I have,” Malaeth put in. “Nisana could, when she was much younger. I was but a girl then, and she—”
“Wait.” Golsat had moved, unnoticed, closer to the fire. He cast a swift, cautious glance in Levren's direction, but the distance seemed to serve. The Bowmaster ignored him. “Your pardon, Dame, but you are clearly of long years. And you say that—” He gazed down at the sleeping cat. “Their kind do not live so long,” he said flatly. Malaeth shook her head.
“AEldra do,” she replied. “I have long since passed three score myself, long enough that age is a matter for boast rather than concealment. She was born in the fall, Nisana, the same year I was born in spring.” Golsat regarded her in blank astonishment, the cat with a stunned kind of wonder. There was a brief silence, broken by a light wind soughing through the trees. Ylia took up the tale once again.
“I do not clearly understand all Nisana's uses of the Power. She is cat, I am human, and there are places within each of us closed to the other. But we have in common, she and I—and Malaeth—a strength of will. That is trained in all AEldra from early childhood.” Even Lisabetha was listening closely to what she said, though to all appearances she was staring disinterestedly across the lake.
“I have few of the talents, as I say, and what I have are weak. For I am half of Nedao, and therefore of mixed blood.” ‘Hah.’ Nisana had wakened. Ylia ignored her. “I can use the mind-search, you have seen my use of the second level of Sight, which is a way of seeing in the dark with both eyes and mind. Also, I have the small weapons of the Baelfyr, though not the great.” Brendan grinned suddenly, rubbed his neck. “Of course, AEldra can merge thought, and Nisana and I do so, to speak or to strengthen each other. We can search for enemy at greater distances.
“But there are things none of us can do.” She gazed around the fire. Interest among her companions and a little fear, still. “None of us can read thoughts. I cannot read minds, though if it is strong enough, I can sense emotion. The same way, I think, as a dog senses fear. I cannot speak into anyone's thought if that person is not AEldra. And we cannot foresee the future; at least, I cannot. And I have never met anyone who could, though the High Lord in Yslar is said to dream—and what he dreams frequently comes to pass.” Lisabetha started. Ylia turned, but the girl had closed her eyes.
She turned back to the fire, held out her hands. Small, too small to properly grip a standard hilts. Strong, though. The Mothers knew she'd worked them long and hard enough. “Poor by AEldra standards, certainly. Enough to be of aid here, perhaps.”
“No weapon should ever be discounted, and certainly not in our present placing.” Levren stretched. “Well. Interesting. I do not think I knew the half of that. But my blood froze, I admit it,” he added with a laugh, “when those other bowmen appeared among us!”
The Swordmaster shook his head. “Magic,” he muttered unhappily. “We had better set the watches,” he added brusquely. “One or two at a time?” Levren shrugged.
“Ylia, what do you think, is it safe enough for one? We could all use the extra sleep.”
She met Nisana's eyes, briefly touched thought with her. “One. There is no need for more, there is not even a bear to hand that I can tell.”
“Those would avoid us,” Brendan said. “Shall we draw lots, then? If the first is not mine, I would like to prepare for sleep properly before it catches me sitting.”
“I will take the first,” Ylia offered. “And search better. Portion the rest how you choose.” Lisabetha gazed at her with dark, unfriendly eyes, rolled into her cloak with her feet toward the coals. Conversation lagged, as first one and then another slept. The two AEldra-gifted were alone.
It was truly a black night, for clouds had come from north and west as darkness fell and now covered the entire sky. Cat and girl moved down to the edge of the lake, listened a few moments to the gentle lap of water against the narrow, pebbly beach. A search showed nothing at first, save those animals one might expect: deer, rabbit, squirrel. Beaver and marmoset. The elusive fisher, a bear. High on the slopes behind them, goat.
'Nisana, if that's all we find—’
'Another try, when we haven't the responsibility for them. I'm not satisfied.’ She trotted back to the fire but seemed unable to rest, spent the next hour pacing in and out of the shadows. When Levren took the watch, they went back down to the water's edge, made a wider search that left Ylia exhausted, drained. But again—twice—they came across those footprints that shivered the blood. Old, yes. Old, but so strong, even as old as they were.
'I do not like this.’ Nisana's thought was edged with fear of her own. ‘They are old, faded. To meet the makers, to come u
pon that in full strength!’
“Shhh.” Ylia shook her head. “I refuse to think upon it, particularly tonight. I would sleep.”
The moon sailed from behind ragged cloud, briefly turned the lake to silver and glittering gems. They returned to camp.
But sleep would not come. Mother. Father. Grief suddenly pressed upon her with a terrible weight and would not be denied. Men and armsmen she had known her whole life—comrades, dagger-sworn, Father—did they lie cold and dead leagues away? Or had the Tehlatt burned their bodies upon those great fires? She swallowed hard; tears coursed down her face. She curled into a tight ball of misery and wept.
'Ylia! Ylia?’ She was, suddenly, no longer alone; Nisana came from the place she had chosen near the fire, fought her way between the folds of dark heavy wool to lie with her small head hard against the girl's throat. The cat's own grief was palpable; still, she tried to sooth her human companion, nudged at her, washed her cheek with a rough tongue. Nothing helped.
At length, worn out, Ylia slept. She woke at first light with a small, furred body pressed hard against her face, small paws twined in her plaits.
Odd—but then, I have lived my life among humans and carry within me attributes of a Power fashioned for humans. To grieve for my sweet Scythia—I missed her, I had known I would. I had not thought I would so mourn her loss.
We have tales in plenty, ourselves, of the Foessa and the things once hidden among their treacherous heights. Few of these did Nedao ever know, and those they heard, they most often chose to disbelieve. For they are a common-sense folk, and the tales of their Black Well their Harvest-Fest bogies are all an amusement to them, since they are things no man has ever seen or touched—or slain with good steel.
8
It was sunrise when Ylia staggered to her feet, clumsy and stiff with cold and the previous day's exertions, but daylight was doubtful. Clouds covered the sky and it looked likely to rain within the hour. Brelian was tending the fire and there was a little warm water for washing, which she gratefully accepted. Levren returned to camp while she was still replaiting her hair, bringing filled snares, and Golsat was not far behind with two speckly trout which, when pressed, he said he had caught with his hands. Brendan was so astonished by this he forgot his quarrel with the haft-caste.
“No—no one can do that!”
“No?” Golsat shrugged. “If you doubt, come with me and I'll show you how it is done.” Brendan leaped to his feet, waved Brelian to join them, and the three vanished in the direction of the stream. Marhan gaped openly after them.
Levren's catch was already spitted, and he pushed the trout into the coals with a long stick while the Swordmaster roused the last of the company. Malaeth yawned, sat up with an amazing vigor; she seemed to have regained much of her strength with a good sleep, but Lisabetha was white and drawn, and Marhan had to take washing water to her where she lay.
They saved Levren's meat for noon-stop and ate the trout, since it would not keep as well. They were a kind unknown to any of the company, though similar to many found in the Torth. Small but tasty, these, and there were enough for everyone to have his own, for Golsat brought more. The brothers gravely verified he indeed caught them with his hands, and he had even shown them how, though neither had caught anything but bottom grasses. In the process, however, Brendan had largely lost sight of Golsat's hated heritage, and they spoke together with little of the stiffness that had marked their few previous words.
'Gods and Mothers, cat, I had not thought it possible.’
'Well? Marhan said it first; he's not totally a fool, and it wouldn't take much to let him see sense.’
Ylia nodded. ‘If Lev—’
'No.’ Nisana gazed across the fire to the Bowmaster, who still sat carefully, so he would not catch sight of the darker man. ‘It will take more than hand-caught fish to settle Levren. Perhaps your Mothers can rearrange his brain some night.’
The view that greeted them as they broke from the trees was awe inspiring. They stood in a deep, wide cleft between towering, jagged peaks, the heights covered with snow. Many were hidden in masses of swift-moving cloud. Before them, the water stretched for two leagues or more, forming a bowl at the base of the surrounding mountains. Waterfalls plunged down from all sides, vanished in the trees or dropped directly to the lake. A distant roar of falling water, the cry of a scavenger bird high overhead were the only sounds.
To the north, the wide spill of water they had seen the day before. It dropped from a saddle between two rugged, red-rocked heights to split on a pile of rock and tree, fell thence in two slender, shimmering lines. As they stood watching, the saddle was obscured by a thick mass of cloud that foamed down over the heights. The air was cool and damp. Marhan nodded as though his fears had been confirmed.
“Three leagues, perhaps more. We'd better stay yonder tonight, make the climb tomorrow. Take an easy day after yesterday. My feet hurt,” he added.
“Whose,” Brendan demanded, though mildly for him, “do not? I would not mind a second night in this valley; at least I slept warm last night.”
The sun filtered through momentarily thinned cloud cover; the saddle was again visible. Brelian stiffened, peered intently. Ylia's eyes followed his gaze; Nisana, alerted by that tension, climbed from pouch to shoulder.
“Marhan, have you your glass?” Levren held out a hand. The Swordmaster dug through his belt pouch, brought out a small Narran seeing glass. The Bowmaster squinted through it, nodded once, passed it on. When it came to her, Ylia peered, caught her breath: there, plain to see with the device, was a trail, a maze of sharp-cornered switchbacks leading up the saddle just east of the falls. She handed the glass on to Brendan.
“Well? What do you think? Does this continue the trail we had yesterday?”
Marhan shrugged. “Don't know. Not important, if it goes north.”
“It was not made by animals,” Golsat said. He handed the glass back to Marhan, who returned it carefully to his bag. “It is definitely man-made, though it seems old and uncared for. Of course, there are mountain-hunters within the Foessa,” he added, “and they could have made it.”
“Well.” Marhan gazed thoughtfully across the lake. “It is certainly ready made for us. If no one else minds, though, we won't make that climb today.”
“Agreed,” Brelian said quickly, and even Lisabetha nodded. The company turned away from the lake's edge, stopped at the creek to fill water bottles and set out to skirt the mere.
This day's march went easily, for all that there was no one not painfully stiff. But the way was flat and forested, the ground underfoot thickly carpeted with pine and leaves. Often the way Marhan led was through knee-deep fern, and Malaeth occasionally moved away to gather plants for evening meal: liontooth with its shaggy yellow flowers, bracken, cresses by the edge of a trickling stream, flat plantain and flowering elder for tea.
Marhan led, since he had a good idea of where he wanted to finish for the day, and he set a slower pace than any taken to that point. Even Lisabetha was able to keep up, but Malaeth still limped and Nisana rode the entire distance, for her pads were cut and bruised.
Noon-meal: they sat or lay in a clearing barely a length from the water's edge, watching as the sun came from behind heavy clouds, more frequently than it had earlier, to turn the water briefly to dancing silver and emerald, the waterfalls to glittering diamonds that brought tears to one's eyes for the brightness of them. As they moved on, however, the clouds drew in closely and a wind blew cold and damp from the heights, driving grey-black masses ever more swiftly across the sky, so that one moment the peaks stood out against cloud, and the next vanished under a billowing curtain. Once rain fell, but the trees sheltered them from the worst of it.
It took Marhan some time to find a place he liked for camp; even so, no one was particularly worn when they stopped. The place the old Swordmaster chose was well within the trees, and so sheltered from what rain might still fall, not far from the lake. A creek tumbled noisily down a steep
cleft; one of those from the twin waterfall high above. The water was nearly too cold to drink, but there were deep pools under overhanging rock and bushes that had Golsat rubbing his hands in anticipation. He dropped cloak and weapons-belt near the firepit and took the brothers with him.
Marhan tended the fire while Levren went to set snares; Malaeth went down to the lake to bathe her sore feet, Lisabetha with her. The girl, while still not speaking with anyone, had stayed close to the old nurse the entire day.
'Ylia—’
'I know, cat.’ She sighed heavily. Tired still, despite the ease of the day's walking. ‘Search.’ She nodded, caught up Marhan's empty kettle. ‘Not here, though.’
'Of course not.’
'—You needn't mock me, Nisana,’ she added stiffly. ‘Uphill. Perhaps we can find a patch of groundberries. Mothers know we're high enough.’
Nisana had little interest in berries of any kind, but had no objection. They moved quietly past the fishers. Golsat's voice reached them: “Damn-all, Brel, not like that! Ye must move fast—did you never grab a maid at Fest!” Brendan laughed, Brelian snorted in disgust. Nisana's amusement filled her companion's mind briefly.
“If we are going to search, let us do it first.” Ylia set the kettle on a flat rock, dropped down next to it. The clearing was small enough, but she could see the flat white flowers that preceded groundberries. Too early for fruit, then. “We leave this valley tomorrow, cat; I am afraid what we will find when we do.”
'You're afraid! How do you think I feel?’ Nisana eyed her. ‘But it's too bad. If you had more to add to this, we could search further—’
“If we had the strengths of the Nasath, we could search Yslar,” Ylia retorted. “Or bridge to Aresada tonight, all of us. If, if, if!”
'Join,’ the cat replied shortly. They searched, shivering as the sense touched lightly on the fear they had found the previous night across the lake, still, there. West, then. Nothing, not even the least trace of life of any kind. Nothing but snow, heavy snow and bitter cold.