"Plague, disrupter of death. Unnatural demon! What do you want from us?"
"The warmth of your hearth fires, the smiles of your children, the friendship of your elders."
The queen came out of her trance, and the last of the chanting priestesses fell silent. The crowd stirred nervously, impatient with the failure of their leaders to expel the outsider. The sorcerer was silent, his mouth turned up in scorn for the intruder.
"If you truly wish to be with us," said the queen wearily, not quite focusing her eyes on Tralane, "then you must be tested in other ways. Your magic is strong, but it is not our magic, and perhaps it is not even yours. There are forces within you, though, which can be drawn out. There are signs within you, omens and portents which can answer the questions which have been posed and for which you have no tongue. Both you and I will discover your purpose in coming here and whether you are truly destined to stay or to leave."
The queen sheathed the sword, turned, and departed through an exit behind the throne. Warriors sealed her departure and began herding the villagers from her house. The people left unhurriedly, without complaint. The priestesses remained, straightening and refurbishing the queen's quarters while Tralane followed the villagers out. Four warriors closed in around him as an escort. Tralane cast a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the sorcerer standing by the empty throne, staring coldly after him. Then he left the hut, and the brisk evening air awakened his spirit to the coming ordeal.
Chapter 10
Tralane was brought to a hut on the outskirts of the village, towards the pinched end of the valley through which the river squeezed to reach the flat lands beyond. A huge bonfire was burning on the site of the day's battle, sending thick columns of sinewy smoke coiling into the evening sky. His heart jumped when he saw a moon standing out among the stars. It was the first glimpse of the familiar moons of his world. But before he could identify the body, smoke had engulfed the heavens. He searched for another moon, but could find none.
He stood at the doorway of his hut, quickly checking the inside and finding only a sleeping mat of woven grass and a blanket. Instead of going in, he turned and watched the fire from across the village. His warrior escorts were walking towards the conflagration, and one of them glanced back apprehensively at the sword Tralane still clutched in his hand. There was no point in guarding what they regarded as an inhuman creature capable of destroying so many of the enemy and resisting their most powerful magic. If he wanted to leave, he was free to go. He was granted the freedom of the village, since there was no one to oppose him. Meanwhile, the villagers had abandoned their sacred hearths to him for a victory celebration, commemorating a battle he considered he had won for them.
He scowled with disgust, but did not venture out of his designated area.
He settled into the hut, laying down his sword and wiping his face with the blanket. Dried blood and dust, caked on his skin like scales, clung to the blanket's sophisticated weave. A slight sound near the doorway startled him and, grabbing his sword once again, he peered out carefully, fearing treachery. Instead, he could make out only the slim figure of a girl in a priestess' robe, running up the street. At his feet lay a pile of clothes and blankets, a basket of meats and fruits, and two jars of liquid that had been placed as an offering. Tralane took the goods inside.
One jar was filled with water, so he washed as thoroughly as he could. He noted that his wounds had healed remarkably and that his aches and pains had diminished, as if his body had sucked regenerative energy from the sword's life-taking. He changed into the loincloth, hide leggings, and jerkin that had been given to him. He ate quickly and voraciously, drinking the rich, mildly intoxicating contents of the second jar with deep appreciation. Only after the meal did he spread himself out on the mat with a groan and allow himself to relax. Though his body had begun to heal from the beating and cuts he had suffered in Fargouet, new aches were awakening as his muscles protested the exertions of the day. However, they were a welcome testimony to his prowess. He drifted pleasantly into sleep, relieved that at last the Jade Warrior had disappeared and trying to decide whether the courtesies he was enjoying were an attempt to appease him or a kindness dispensed on a doomed traveler.
He was dreaming when a blow, like a far-off warning at a gathering of thieves, woke him into tense wakefulness. He tried to recall the fleeting images his mind had conjured during his sleep, seeking to embrace their comforting aspects and drag them into the real world. But they fled precipitously before a chilly breeze and a sudden sense of danger.
His eyes still not accustomed to the dark world around him, Tralane rolled off the mat and lunged for his sword.
He became entangled in the blankets covering him, and something long and hard tumbled from his chest to the floor. His own weapon had been placed diagonally across his torso. A laugh, unpleasantly familiar, grated on the bard's ears.
"Brave warrior, what is a sword without a sheath?" Beside him, Tralane's hand fell upon a casing for his sword.
"Unless, of course, you plan on using your weapon on every possible occasion."
Tralane squinted at the Jade Warrior, who stood framed in the starlit doorway. The being held up a hand; when the hand was lowered, a green glass ball was floating in mid-air, its glow permeating the hut.
"Here is light," the Warrior continued, squatting, "so we may all see the mighty Tralane in his finest glory."
"Shut up," Tralane spat, recovering his sword and disentangling himself from the blanket. He sheathed the weapon, then noticed the Jade Warrior had somehow acquired a duplicate.
"And here's a belt to hang your sheath on. You'll need that, too."
"What are you doing here?" Tralane asked, disdaining to respond any further to the Jade Warrior's sarcasms.
"I'm your companion. I told you it is not so easy to rid yourself of me. I am your aide. I facilitate the course of your adventure."
"Well, my adventures are at an end."
"Oh?"
Tralane rose and walked by the Warrior to the doorway. He looked out across the sleeping village to where the bonfire had been. There was no sign of life on the field; he had slept through whatever rites the villagers had performed.
"Were you in their ghost hut when they took me in?"
"Yes," the Warrior replied without turning to face Tralane. "These villages always provide my brethren with lodgings. I merely availed myself of the convenience."
"They took you for a spirit haunting me."
"Who is to say that is not so?"
Tralane snarled and whirled about to find the Warrior facing him, feet firmly planted apart.
"You almost ruined my attempt to gain a normal life here," the bard exclaimed bitterly.
"Do not blame me for the harvest your own actions have reaped."
"Don't try to fool me. I saw them celebrating their victory out there, and I'm the one who made that victory possible. I am their hero. It was that jealous sorcerer of the queen's, and your poor choice of lodging—"
Tralane stood and glared at the Jade Warrior, emboldened by a new thought.
"You and the sorcerer are in league."
The Warrior shook his head. His eyes gleamed maliciously. "No, Mascu and I have not allied ourselves against you. I would not stoop to aid his kind, and he would never dare call on me. He hates you quite naturally, without instigation on my part."
"Why? What have I done? I'm not interested in his queen or in his position in the village. I don't want to take what is someone else's. I want to earn what is mine."
"The queen, Lisakeness, is not his for you to take from him. Nor is he fearful that you will take his role in the life of the village. His animosity has been raised because you are alien and evil. The fire was not a celebration, it was purification. You have disrupted their order—the battle had not even commenced. I told you the magicians had not yet made their appearance. Your presence, with its accompanying aura of violence, hatred, and gratuitous death, along with your refusal to leave, force
d them to make a sacrifice of their dead in the hopes of cleansing the earth and their souls of blood. Mascu hates you because you do not fit into the pattern that has been laid out for the village. You will never belong, yet you refuse to leave. For them, that is an attack."
"But I want to try to fit into their pattern," Tralane protested, catching his childlike whine- too late.
"Why?"
Tralane frowned, struggling with the words to convey his feelings. Not only were his emotions strange to him; but the need to express them was also a new aspect of himself that had never been open to examination. He went back to the mat and seated himself.
"I'm tired of deaths and running."
"Deaths never disturbed you before." The Jade Warrior spoke with a hint of amusement, as if Tralane's confession were a source of entertainment. The bard, aware of the attitude, replied coldly, trying not to reveal too much emotion in his statements.
"Only because I didn't have to see them."
"Yet you caused so many, Tralane. Did you ever think that your abandonment of Mathi might have broken him and caused his death? You were his pupil, his hope for the future of the knowledge he was accumulating. All that he strove to gain would have been yours."
"But that was not what I wanted from him," Tralane cried out.
"Does that justify his death? And in the kingdom of Corru, did you not know that your sudden departure would implicate the princess Amalkys in a plot to overthrow her own father? What do you think happened to her in the hands of a king feared for his savagery? When you played the fool in Lord Yshaleth's court, watching his seven brothers who had placed their faith in you vanish one by one after you reneged on your promise of providing them with an escape from their mad brother, did you not ask yourself what the Lord had done to them? Were you not weary of death then? But we need not go so far back into your past for examples of your noble character. You could have cared for Oram and given him the few extra days of life he would have needed for the two of you to escape Agathom's camp. Crecia, I hear, did not fare too well either, nor did Fatome. Where four could have lived, only one survived unscathed. Curious."
Tralane, shocked by the revelation of a past he had conveniently forgotten or passed over as playful incidents, whispered hoarsely, "How did you know?"
Ignoring the question, the Warrior pressed his point. "Did you care?"
"No." The truth of his admission made his voice barely audible.
The Jade Warrior laughed, rocking back and forth, his hands resting against his hips. "Then don't be a fool and care now."
Tralane stared at the ground, guarding his shame. He did not admit to the Warrior that he had never thought about the people he had been involved with enough to care about them. They had all seemed selfish, concerned with their own survival, so he had felt no compunction in placing his own well-being above that of others. That they might have had better reasons than he to be so concerned about their lives had not occurred to him. Like his involvement with Crecia, he had understood what the people around him felt, but had not judged the sincerity with which they came to him for help. The hard ones like Crecia, as well as the vulnerable ones like Princess Amalkys, had suffered indiscriminately. He had not realized what it was to hurt others, having wrapped himself in the invisible cloak of his own pain and the suffering of real and imagined wrongs.
"But I do care, now, and I wish the gods of this place to forgive me. I want the people of this place to accept me into their midst."
"You show more faith in gods and people than you have done in the past."
Tralane shrugged, then looked up. "Will you help me?"
"No."
"Then if you will not be my aide in this new course of my adventures, why are you here?"
"Because the course of a river does not change with a wish. I am with you, as you have been with others."
The Jade Warrior reached out and took back the green globe. The glow faded as he wrapped his hands around it, and Tralane's hut was dark once more.
"I would sleep if I were you," the Jade Warrior advised, turning to leave. "You will need a clear head for what they will ask of you. When you have finished, I will be waiting by the river with your mount. If you are still alive, we will move on."
The Warrior passed through the doorway before Tralane could question him further about the next day's events. By the time the bard reached the opening, the Warrior had vanished without a trace. He decided the search for the ghost hut would be a vain one—the Warrior appeared to have little inclination for revealing anything that might help him.
He returned to his mat, glanced at the sword which lay beside it, and wondered what had driven him to take it. The mystery surrounding the Jade Warrior's existence was even more troubling after the brief respite from the being's pointed comments. The illusion of freedom had evaporated, burned away by the questions to be asked about the Warrior and about the bard himself. Only when there were no more surprises within him, Tralane realized as he drew the blanket around him and closed his eyes, could he face the Warrior on his own terms.
But all these doubts would prove to be unnecessary, for in the morning he would rise and face the test the villagers had proposed. After the villagers' fears were erased, the secure welcome of the people would embrace him.
Chapter 11
Two young warriors, one wearing an unhealed scar across his cheek while his shorter comrade limped slightly, came to escort Tralane to the place of trial. They stood outside his door impassively, their stoic faces and averted gazes cutting off Tralane's unspoken desire for a morning meal.
He emerged from the hut in the shadow of the rising sun. The village was deserted, as it had been since his arrival. Those who worked the fields, as well as the herd animals, household pets, fowls, and even stray animals foraging on the village's wastes had been sent somewhere out of sight.
Angered by their avoidance of him, Tralane stopped suddenly and put a hand on his sword hilt. He surveyed the village with deliberation while his escorts waited patiently, without urging him on. Since they did not respond to his provocation, he continued sullenly to follow their lead.
He was unsure of his new-found emotion and the ease with which he could express it. Anger had given him an unaccustomed feeling of mastery and power the previous day. He was not as weak and vulnerable as he had once thought he was, and yet he could not believe he was as strong as he now seemed. His bow and arrows were forgotten; his clever and wily guiles, stratagems, and maneuvers were not necessary to his survival anymore. Having contained his anger for so long while letting it seep into the world through intricate, quietly executed plots and manipulations, Tralane did not fully trust the new form the emotion had taken, nor the new perspective in which frank anger now placed him. Before he had never thought of himself as angry and now he knew that was all he had ever been. Uneasy with himself, he wished more than ever to sink back into the warmth and security of lively fellowship, where often such knowledge is inadmissible to others and to one's self.
But his memory cursed him. As they left the village, heading for a hut he had not noticed the day before further along the river, the lumbering figure of Oram loomed over the walls of Tralane's feigned ignorance. The white-haired giant had also suffered loss, privation, and loneliness, and a Tribe Nation had taken him in. Could these sedentary, subdued people, who had settled land and understood the agony of rootlessness better than Oram's adopters, truly drive Tralane away? Or was the earth still too new; was their wildness, unbridled from the demands of nomadic life and still not wholly accustomed to the new routine of life, rebelling against the shifting of laws that governed behavior? Tralane studied the shoulders of the warriors walking in front of him, but the answers were not painted among the designs of bright colors, which decorated the youths.
Perhaps the differences lay not in the people who were in the position to accept strangers as much as in the strangers themselves. Oram had drowned himself in a flood of emotion, while Tralane could only sip momentaril
y at a well of feeling before continuing his trek across a vast, inner desolation. Others had reached for Oram and touched a living, responsive spirit —Fatome mourned for his passing. Tralane did not know of anyone who would mourn his own death.
His mood was still wavering between uneasiness and self-pity when the group reached the hut. Upon close examination, the shelter appeared to have been newly constructed, perhaps built overnight. Apparently, after the bonfire, the villagers had crept downriver and raised the hut. He suspected they had picked a site outside the sacred confines of their home territory.
The two warriors pointed to a spot before the entrance, which was covered by a black blanket, then ran off in the direction of the village. Tralane stood on the place that had been picked for him and waited. He lowered his eyes to the blanket, thinking only of his immediate environment, and tried to relax. Then the fading footsteps of his retreating escorts suddenly stopped as if they had sprouted wings and flown away. Tralane did not turn around to see what had happened. Wyden's Eye hung heavily around his neck.
Finally, the grim figure of Mascu stepped out from the hut. He barred the entrance and ran his eyes over the bard, noting every minute detail as if to catch some physical flaw which would disprove Tralane's claim to humanity. He sneered at the village-made clothes Tralane wore, but failed to find any gross irregularities. He stepped away from the door.
"You may enter, Tralane. Our queen waits for you."
"My thanks, Mascu," Tralane replied flatly. He stopped when, taking notice of the sorcerer's surprise, he remembered the source of his information concerning names. He answered Mascu's startled expression with one of cool bravado.
"I see Lisakeness has gone to some lengths to prepare for my reception," he said, gesturing at the hut.
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