Fleeing Peace

by Sherwood Smith

  o0o

  After an increasingly miserable trip through the inexorable onslaught of a northern winter Dtheldevor, Leander, and Senrid reached the shoreline of the Silver Lake. This last leg of the journey had been made less miserable by the silent appearance of the white horses, who carried them.

  And they rode straight into the Norsundrians.

  Both those patrols had been silently paced by phalanxes of watchers, four-footed and winged.

  The three were spotted by outriders, as they’d dreaded.

  The alarm went up, winding horns that echoed cold and weird against the snow-covered hills behind them.

  And the chase began, but those from Norsunder found themselves sorely beleaguered, and in ways they could not easily fight. Flocks of birds, a swarm of skunks, snakes hissing from tree branches to spook horses—against these swords and knives were all but useless.

  The three rode directly to the Lake, pursued to the edge of the ice-cold water. The Norsundrians drove the three into the water.

  As soon as they ducked under the icy waters (to dodge flying arrows) they felt a ripple of vertigo—and they popped up in an underground cave, climbing out to eerie greenish-silver lighting that seemed to come directly from the stone walls of the immense cavern.

  The white horses were gone.

  Gone, too, was not only the cold but the wetness of clothes and hair.

  Dtheldevor was the first to break the silence, cursing as usual—and then interrupting herself to observe, “First time in days I ain’t seein’ me own breath!”

  Leander looked back at the black underground pool, and shuddered.

  Senrid rubbed his head, feeling . . . not dizzy, but almost. Something had happened, all right—something more than a mere transfer from one location to another.

  He looked around. The cave had paintings on the walls. He moved to the nearest.

  Dtheldevor had pulled her sword and dried the blade out by performing warm-ups. Leander belatedly tended to his own, but his attention wavered between that and the walls, where Senrid paced, staring upward.

  “Wow,” Leander breathed.

  The wall-paintings were enormous, unimaginably ancient, in a stylized form that he’d never seen anywhere before—either in person or in records.

  He walked up to one wall, gazing at the letterings below a row of winged beings. Some of the letters were obscured by petrified mosses, but he could tell that the alphabet was also something he’d never seen before.

  “C’mon,” Dtheldevor said, thwacking the flat of her blade onto his shoulder. “We gotta find out where they sent us. And git movin’.”

  Leander bit down against an angry retort. She was right. But how could she not be struck by the same intense sense of wonder?

  In the faint greenish glow Senrid stood in a passageway, the rock smoothed by either time or ancient hands.

  “Who—?” Leander asked, waving vaguely at the caves. “You recognize either the alphabet or the style?”

  Senrid shook his head. “I think the real question is ‘when?’ Huh! I’ll bet this was here before Detlev was an evil gleam in his parents’ eyes.”

  “No parents,” Dtheldevor pronounced from behind. “Hatched.”

  “Spores,” Leander corrected.

  “Fungus,” Senrid stated. “Uh oh. No light up the tunnel there. I guess it’s time for the blind line.”

  They took hands, Senrid going first, and fumbled their way upward.

  After a time Leander imagined he saw vague lights, but nothing made sense. Sometimes sudden air currents, cold and wet and smelling of mossy stone, bathed his face. Once they heard—but did not see—a vast, thundering fall. At this point their path was a narrow ledge. With the falls thundering close by they were forced to shuffle sideways, their backs to damp stone, the air cool and moist. The hissing roar of the water vibrated up through the stone into Leander’s teeth.

  For Senrid, the journey was nightmarish and challenging. He hated going first, but he knew he would like being the blind follower less. Besides, he was the main target so it made sense for him to risk falling into an unseen abyss—though he did take the precaution of taking off his shoes so he could feel his way with his toes first.

  As he worked his way upward, he discovered that his vague perceptions were not imagination. He began to reach outward with more than his useless sight.

  And so when they came at last to a fork, he did not ask the others for opinions on which way to go: he chose the one that instinct insisted angled up toward the surface.

  “Light,” Dtheldevor exclaimed after an eternity. “Naw, I ain’t drunk. Or crazy. I see it!”

  Senrid realized his eyes had been shut. There was faint bluish light just where he’d expected—up and to the right.

  They emerged into a cloudy morning in deep cove-forest not unlike that along the western border of Everon and Wnelder Vee. Running water was everywhere: streams, drips from needles and leaves, and soon—when the rain began—running down tree trunks, while the drops hardly reached the kids because of the thick canopy overhead, formed by ancient firs.

  Wisps of vapor drifted among the trees. The air was cool, not cold, and the trees burgeoned with springy life.

  “We’re way, way north,” Leander guessed, looking around. “But . . . where’s the winter?”

  Dtheldevor shrugged. “Maybe it ain’t here yet.”

  Leander snorted. “Impossible. The sun up here at this time of year goes south, to where we live. That’s what winter means. Unless the Silver Lake pulled a nasty one on us, we’ve come even farther north, which by rights would mean it would be almost dark even in the day, and far, far colder than what we just left behind.”

  Senrid just stood there breathing slowly, his eyes half shut.

  Dtheldevor shrugged again. “Well, I ain’t seeing me no snow, and that there is light. If it was home, I’d say spring light, and that breeze ain’t so cold, neither—a good topsail breeze, if ye get me drift.”

  “It’s not winter,” Senrid murmured.

  “That’s what I just said,” Dtheldevor laughed.

  “You aren’t getting it,” Senrid said slowly, as impressions added up in his mind, and formulated into words. “We were shifted not through space, but time. Winter is over.”

  “What?” Dtheldevor squawked. Then she grinned. “Now, how could I learn that trick?”

  Leander shook his head slowly, and let out a long whistle.

  “Come on,” Senrid said, running down the narrow trail from the rocky hillside from which they had emerged.

  Within twenty steps the opening was already obscured, not that any of them noticed. They were too busy looking around in wonder—and breathing the air, so pure it made their heads feel light.

  “Time,” Senrid whispered. “How is it possible?”

  “Never mind, it’s done,” Dtheldevor said. “Let’s get a-movin’. Before someone finds us.”

  They began tramping along an animal trail. Here and there in dark, greenish coves they saw blue-white snow, but it was obviously old, and melting. Everywhere around them was the new growth of spring, even on the ancient firs—tiny sprouts of light green tipping old blue-green branches.

  “Is there a ratio between distance and time when you travel that way, an immutable rule?” Senrid muttered.

  “Who cares!” Dtheldevor answered. “What I’m interested in is eats!”

  Senrid didn’t even hear her. “Who made the decision to shift us here, and at this time?”

  Leander’s insides tightened. It wasn’t just the magnitude of the power, but the fact that someone—some unknown someone—would act and not tell them.

  Senrid turned, his brows drawing together. “Who is that powerful—and if they can do this much, why not smite the Norsundrians with that same power?”

  Dtheldevor waved a hand. “Aw, Sharly and Sarmonwilda both say the old folks—you know, the ones ain’t human—don’t smite.”

  “But—are we really being watched? By whom, a
t what cost?”

  Leander and Dtheldevor exchanged laughing glances, both saying at the same time—just ahead of Senrid—”I need to know what’s happening!”

  Senrid clawed his hand through his wild hair, then sighed. “Am I really that much of a bore?”

  Leander chuckled. “Never that. But you do say it a lot. All of us think it, Senrid.” You’re the only one who seems capable of figuring out what to do about it. But he didn’t want Dtheldevor taking that as a challenge.

  Senrid sighed, short and sharp. “All right. But if I become a bore, tell me to shut up, okay?”

  “You’re both bores, ‘bout history and the like,” Dtheldevor said cheerfully. “s all right. I already knowed I’m a bore about m’ ship. Who cares?”

  “I wonder if we might be in Helandrias,” Leander observed, frowning around at the gnarled old trees. “Fits the description in—”

  “You would be right,” said a scratchy voice.

  They whirled. Blocking the trail was a deer with eight points. “Humans are not welcome here.”

  “We know that,” Leander said. “But we were put here by the beings in Silver Lake.”

  “Why?” This new growling voice was from a huge timber wolf who emerged from the shrubbery, and stopped directly in the path ahead of them.

  As more animals emerged from the shadowy forest Senrid closed his eyes. He tried to listen to the animals, and a kaleidoscope of sights and smells impacted his mind, making him dizzy. He stopped reaching and shut his thoughts behind a mental wall, where he sorted through the images. When he realized that these creatures were a kind of vanguard, he turned his attention back to the others—to find a dramatic change in atmosphere.

  “ . . . with Sartora?” That was the deer.

  “Yes,” Leander said, his fear easing into a wondering sort of relief.

  As if it read his mind, the timber wolf growled. “We know of Sartora’s mission, through one of our own kind.”

  Leander looked at muzzled faces whose expressions he could not read. “We are trying to get to Bereth Ferian as quickly as possible.”

  The deer turned, and with a flick of the tail and a dramatic, soaring leap, was away.

  “There will be help,” the wolf snarled. “Use this path for now.” And she vanished, a gray streak running northwards.

  “On we go,” Dtheldevor said cheerily. “Glad that worked. Weird, though.”

  “Oh, it’s going to get weirder,” Senrid muttered.

  He was right.

  The word sped ahead of them, swift and sure as beak and wing could carry it.

  Three days later, while low thunderheads rumbled away to the southeast, Oalthoreh, soon to be head of Bereth Ferian’s mage guild, urged her tired pony up the last ridge toward the distant clump of cedar over which the gray hawk circled and circled.

  Inwardly she braced herself for a task that she so disliked she could not permit herself to send anyone else. She clucked to the pony, urging it below the edge of the ridge so that she would not create a silhouette.

  Her trail meandered as cold wind worried at her aging bones. Fifty years since she’d reached master-mage status, the same year she first saw the barefoot, nameless wanderer who had come seeking magic. How many years since Winn’s beloved father had walked into the Ghost Lakes, never to return?

  Among the sweet-smelling cedar, a shadowy figure motionless, watching northwards. His head turned, and there was the young version of that wanderer’s face. How it hurt!

  Oalthoreh tightened her grip on the reins.

  Winn hid the urge to grimace. There was sour old Oalthoreh.

  “Norsundrians down there. Doing magic,” he said, motioning to the waiting mount.

  Oalthoreh forced her stiff legs to work her up onto the animal’s back.

  As they eased through the cedar branches, Oalthoreh sniffed, then pulled her jacket tighter. Like his mother, before a Norsundrian blade killed her in the fight to defend Bereth Ferian, Meral Winzhec didn’t seem to notice cold. That reminder struck Oalthoreh another inward blow.

  Winn picked out a laborious trail that kept them out of the Norsunder perimeter’s line-of-sight. Not that the Norsundrian scouts were very assiduous. They looked bored and cold.

  They stopped above a little waterfall. Gazing through the crevasse into the little valley running along a river, they spied the Norsundrian mage. She was just finishing a long spell. The greenish shimmer in the air was visible even to Winn, but more palpable, as grit in the teeth, and an ugly hum in the bones.

  The Norsundrian mage faced a new direction and raised her hands.

  Oalthoreh put her fists together, thumbs up. Her eyes nearly closed, she began whispering, and drawing her thumbs toward her. Winn smelled a change in the air, a cooling, a ruffling of vapor from the stream running beyond the horses’ feet. The vapor rose lazily, like smoke, twinned in greater volume down along the river, and there in the hazy distance again, beyond the Norsundrian.

  The thumbs stopped, Oalthoreh intoned a long phrase, and Winn blinked, his vision hazing. Fog rose from the ground, white and thick and cold, all along the river.

  The mage below broke off her spell, and raised a horn to her lips. The faint sound carried, like the caw of a rook.

  “She suspects,” Winn said. “The sentries will be searching now.”

  “Of course she suspects,” Oalthoreh replied impatiently.

  During this brief exchange the fog thickened until they lost sight of the mage. Winn sat back to enjoy. The Norsundrians would search, but in terrain they didn’t know, losing all sense of direction. That mage might even change her spells, but her magic would feel the fog.

  Oalthoreh drew in a deep breath, and began her own spells. They were long, and complicated, that much Winn knew from having witnessed several of these minor rift-breakings.

  “We can go,” she said finally.

  Winn led the way back. Any of the more experienced mages could have warded that beginning rift. The fact that she’d come, and alone, meant she had something to discuss. Probably something unpleasant. She would have sent a messenger for good news. She avoided Winn otherwise.

  So they rode in silence until the fog thinned into distant fingers of smoke. Winn kept his attention divided between the trail before them and Soot’s ears. The old trail horse would warn him long before his human senses were there danger.

  “I have received a message,” Oalthoreh said at last, when they were well beyond the area of danger. “From Helandrias. Comes a child who is being pursued by Siamis and the Norsundrians.”

  Winn slewed around in his saddle. “You mean that, um, whats-her-name? Sartora?”

  “No.”

  The flat voice was a warning.

  “The boy she was apparently traveling with. Good authority names him the heir to the Marloven empire.”

  “Marl—it’s not an empire,” Winn said, trying not to laugh. “Hasn’t been for generations.”

  Oalthoreh made an abrupt, dismissive gesture. “You deny they use dark magic there?”

  “No.”

  “Nor that they would be empire-building if they could?”

  “That’s probably true as well,” Winn said, thinking of his single visit there—and his hasty retreat. He did a fast mental count of years, then grunted. “I guess the baby they all talked about would be about the age now to want his throne. Hmm. And you say he was with Sartora? And chased by Siamis? Not the other way around?”

  “The messengers were very clear.” Oalthoreh frowned. “So, too, the message from the morvende is to give our hand in aid of his plans.”

  “Huh.”

  “Apparently this boy has extensive magical knowledge,” she said. “The word came to Evend by other sources.”

  “And?”

  “And Evend wishes, most straitly, for Irtur and this boy to meet,” Oalthoreh said. Reluctantly.

  “Irtur?” Winn repeated the boy’s given name, because the earnest older generation refused to use the nickname that the
boy preferred: Arthur. “I thought he was to be kept hidden again.”

  “Irtur has . . . continued to exhibit signs of independence,” Oalthoreh said, even more reluctantly.

  As well he might, Winn thought. Sequestered by the mages so that he would not be tainted with military tastes, kidnapped by Norsunder, forced onto his own resources, thrown into world politics. Of course Arthur would question the old constraints.

  Winn was interested in Evend’s decree about the Marloven boy, who would be exactly the sort of person the mages would guard Arthur from meeting.

  The Marloven regent certainly had been a raving bully, the kingdom seething with discontent, duels, corruption, and war-fever the time Winn passed through in search of better training: the Marlovan cavalry academy might have been great years ago, and was certainly world-famed, but all he’d seen there were bullies learning martial skills.

  “Evend does not want us interacting with this boy at all,” Oalthoreh said, in a tone of finality. “Or interfering with his plans.”

  “So does that mean Arth—Irtur is to come to our camp, then? You know we’ll put him to work.”

  “That’s apparently what Evend wants,” Oalthoreh said. “For him to be kept busy. No patrols. He is not prepared for that. But he can help in the camp, and he can run messages to us, so that we may continue his studies.”

  “All right, tell Evend to hear is to obey. And we’ll find something for the Marloven to do as well, once we figure out why he’s here.”

  Oalthoreh rode off without another word.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The Hervithe left Senrid, Dtheldevor, and Leander at the foot of the hills that formed a natural border between Helandrias and Bereth Ferian.

  They were met by a handsome, dashing young man with long dark hair who rode a handsome, dashing stallion.

  Senrid looked sardonic, and Dtheldevor squinty-eyed. When they neared Leander saw the expression of humor in the fellow’s eyes, and said, in Sartoran, “We’re apple-pickers. Is it harvest time?”

  The fellow laughed. “Come! I’ll show you some fine pluckings!” He spoke Sartoran with a lilting accent.