Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 01]

by Glenraven (v1. 5) (html)

  The Aptogurria was supposed to be proof against all magic, he thought as he ran after the fleeing man. The damned tower was supposed to be wizardproof; that was why wizards worked inside such places. Nothing they did would get out, nothing anybody else did would get in. But the wall was gone and the traitor Yemus was getting away.

  False security we've had all these years, he thought. No telling what the bastard and his experiments could have dumped on us. Maybe what he did dump on us. Could be where the poxes came from; might have been what caused the plague; might even have been the reason the old folks got so sick in winter and started coughing while their chests bubbled and whistled, until they wasted away and died. Lies and more lies, wizard lies: this tower protects the townsfolk and gives me someplace safe to work.

  A liar and a traitor. Torrin's brother had fallen far from his family's tree. Well, when they caught him, they would hang him from the branches and tidy things up.

  Yemus raced toward the outskirts of Zearn. The guard shouted for help as he ran, and soldiers saw who he was, and saw the ruins of the Aptogurria; alarm bells sounded, and armed men poured into the street. Climbing onto horseback. Summoning others. Following the traitor.

  Somehow Yemus commandeered a horse; on horseback, he shot down the cobblestone street and raced out of the guard's sight. Others were on his trail by then, but the guard found himself a horse and followed the growing pack; he wanted a piece of the action when they ran the traitor to ground. Whenever they found Yemus, wherever they found him, Andu intended to be there.

  Fifty-two

  Yemus peeked out the stone slit at the broken glass ball that lay on the ground outside his window. The illusion he'd built into it still held. It would hold for a full day, though the wizard expected someone to come along and run a hand along the place where there should be rubble and find solid stone sometime before then. If he were lucky, though, the men who had run off in pursuit of him would be out of reach by then—too far to call back without difficulty.

  He focused on his doppelganger; formed of nothing but a trick of the light, it could elude any of the men who pursued it. It would cast no shadow, however. And the horse doppelganger would leave no hoofprints. As long as the day remained rainy and miserable, and he kept it close enough to the pursuers that they wouldn't have to look at the ground to track it, Yemus thought he would be all right. He concentrated hard on the location where he sensed the disaster would strike, and guided his double toward that place in the most direct route he could manage.

  Fifty-three

  The rain had soaked through to Jayjay's skin; her teeth chattered as she walked. The path she and Sophie and Matthiall followed gave way to another meadow, and the meadow to another stretch of forest. The sky grew darker, then darker yet; at just past noon, the unnatural night felt as cold to Jayjay as the chilling rain, and far more ominous.

  "We need to move faster. She's coming," Matthiall said, looking at the sky.

  Jayjay looked over at him. "Who?"

  "Aidris Akalan. It means our death if she finds us."

  Jay slipped and staggered into a thornbush; she returned her attention to the path and where she put her feet. "How do you know it's her and not one of the Kintari?"

  "I can feel her magic. I know her. I recognize her touch in this false night."

  "She caused this darkness?" Sophie, who looked as sodden and miserable as Jay felt, glanced up at the sky and pulled her poncho tighter around her. Jay wished she could see her friend's face well enough to get an idea of what Sophie was thinking.

  Matthiall nodded. "It will allow her to move her hunters after us during the daytime. She doesn't need the darkness for herself."

  "So she isn't coming alone."

  "No. I imagine if she is using the energy it takes to conjure the night, she has a full army after us."

  "How close is she?" Jay watched the blanket of night extend past the three of them, moving steadily…and quickly.

  "I have no way of knowing that. The larger the circle of darkness she creates, the more effort she will have to expend and the less time she will be able to maintain it. So if we assume she is being practical, we also have to assume she's close."

  "How much further do we have to go?"

  "To the edge of Callion's domain, we have perhaps half an hour of travel if we hurry."

  Jay nodded. She wished she and Sophie hadn't lost their horses. They could have moved so much faster on them.

  But if wishes were horses…

  Matthiall began to run slowly, as if he were pacing himself, or possibly holding back so that she and Sophie could keep up. The blanket of darkness occluded the last of the daylight, and Jay struggled to keep Matthiall in sight and avoid the obstacles on the ground that had abruptly become invisible to her.

  A question occurred to her. "Who is Callion?" she asked, running a few steps behind him.

  "An old friend. A fellow conspirator. Someone who wants the same things I want." He sighed again, or maybe he was breathing heavier because he'd picked up the pace. "I don't think any of us are going to get what we want, though."

  He grew silent after that comment, and Jay, who felt she was responsible for his unhappiness even if she wasn't sure why, didn't ask anything else. They ran, picking up speed when the ground permitted and they dared, and slowing when they had no choice. Time passed slowly, but it passed.

  Matthiall stopped as the three fugitives reached the black wall of a forest edge, and for a moment he said nothing. In the quiet, Jay thought she heard voices coming from behind them. They were distant cries, and faint, and the sound of the rain made her unsure that she heard anything at all. She didn't say anything. She waited for Matthiall, who studied the trees, searching for something. Jay suspected his friend Callion had marked his domain with some subtle sign; she imagined broken twigs or notches in branches. Whatever he had been looking for, Matthiall quickly found, but he didn't point it out to either Jay or Sophie. "This way," he said, and led them into the woods. The steady pounding of rain on Jay's face dwindled to a cold and dreary trickle.

  They walked. Jayjay wanted desperately to run. Above the steady white noise of the storm, she had for a moment been certain she heard a clear shout. Neither Sophie nor Matthiall had reacted to it, but she felt sure her ears hadn't deceived her. Matthiall led them over deadfalls and once walked along the length of a fallen tree, balancing carefully; he insisted that Jay and Sophie follow his route precisely. Jay did so, feeling queasy creeping along the enormous, rain-slicked trunk, arms out to balance herself. Sophie followed her. Jay heard one voice clearly. It yelled "That way!" and though it was distant, it wasn't distant enough. Neither Sophie nor Matthiall reacted; Jay realized they had probably heard the pursuers at about the same time she had, but what was the point in saying anything?

  Walking…walking…with the voices coming closer every minute. Walking…walking…following some path that didn't appear to be any sort of path at all to Jay. And yet she got a feeling of pattern from Matthiall's chosen route. A sort of inward, clockwise spiral. Walking…and she wanted to bolt, and she wanted to scream, and she wanted to cry, and she did none of those things. She kept walking. Following Matthiall, who followed his crooked path.

  Matthiall slowed further and began dragging his hand along individual trees, muttering as he went. "No…no…not this one…no…"

  Jay wanted to scream at Matthiall, Do something! Do something! She knew he was doing something, but it didn't look like much. The warrags began to howl.

  "Yes. Here," Matthiall murmured. He stopped in front of a huge old tree and rested his palms on its trunk. He pressed his forehead against the bark, whispered something, then stepped back. For a moment nothing happened. Then the surface of the tree began to glitter, and a dry, icy breeze sprang out of nowhere. The tree faded and the center of the trunk began to bulge outward at the sides and melt away in the center until the one tree became two enormous, weathered trees that grew from the same patch of ground. The glittering ligh
t illuminated the surface of the trees but didn't go past them. The rest of the forest remained dark, and no light shone on Sophies face or Matthiall's. She could see the weird trees well enough, however. One of them was pale and smooth-barked, the other dark and rough. At their bases they had merged, their mismatched wood overlapping and bulging, grown together through time and proximity and at least some compatibility until, over the course of what must have been centuries, they had come to form a single two-toned trunk that, about two feet above the ground, split into two limbless trunks that curved upward and away from each other; their arcs reunited twenty feet in the air and twined around each other. For another ten feet, the pale and dark trunks spiraled upward, dancing a slow waltz of centuries together. Only above that smooth spiral did the first branches fan out, delicate and wispy, the lace-edged leaves of one tree mingling with the shining gold arrowheads of the second. The air in the ellipse of negative space formed by the trunks shimmered faintly, as if heat from an unseen source distorted the light through it. And light came through it. Neither the unnatural darkness cast by Aidris Akalan nor the dreary drizzle of the day that had existed before touched that inner world. Sunlight glimmered there, illuminating jewellike flowers and catching the wings of butterflies and dragonflies. The lush trees, rolling meadows and pristine brook that sparkled just within view beckoned; this was Eden before the fall—perhaps, Jayjay thought, quite literally.

  She moved forward but Matthiall stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and a shake of his head. "We can't go through until he invites us."

  "But they're coming."

  "It doesn't matter. This is Callion's domain, to my knowledge the last of the hidden worlds, and no one can enter it unless Callion brings him through."

  Sophie stood close to Jay and Matthiall. The sounds of the hunters' voices grew nearer. "Can't you let your friend know it was an emergency?"

  "It isn't that I won't go in," Matthiall told her in a patient whisper. "It's that I can't. The hidden world will resist our presence unless he opens it to us."

  Jay hugged herself, listening to the calls that grew always closer. "How long will it take him to get here?"

  "I don't know. He comes when he chooses."

  "Does he at least know we're here?"

  "I've done my best to tell him." Matthiall sagged against the crotch of the tree and closed his eyes.

  Jay looked from the tree to the woods behind them, then back to the tree. She didn't see anyplace to hide if Callion didn't arrive in time. There would be little sense in running. All she and Sophie could do was wait.

  "I smell them," something roared, far nearer than Jay had imagined the hunters could be.

  "Quick! Through the gate," a rough voice said from inside the hidden world.

  Matthiall acted without hesitation. In a fluid motion he grabbed Jay and picked her up and shoved her through the opening, grabbed Sophie and shoved her through, and flung himself in behind them. Jayjay heard baying from just behind her, and turned in time to see the faces of several warrags closing on the opening in the tree. Then, inexplicably, they stopped and stared, and their heads lifted and they began to howl.

  "I closed the gate. Pity they saw into my realm before I did." A bolt of light shot out from the gate trees and enveloped the warrags; they screamed and crumbled into dust. "Now they won't tell their bitch what they saw."

  Jay shivered; at the deadliness of the door and the coldness of the voice.

  "Callion. I didn't think you were going to arrive in time," Matthiall said, and Jay turned away from the gate to see the man to whom he spoke.

  Matthiall wasn't speaking to a man at all, but to an animal. The animal looked from him to Sophie, and from Sophie to her, and she tried not to stare. Callion's beady, anthracite eyes glittered; his broad, black, leathery nose twitched, and when he grinned at her, double rows of needlelike teeth gleamed. He stood about three feet high. His bare feet, claw-tipped and four-toed, were twice as long as hers, narrow and bony with a light coat of glossy honey-gold fur along them. Two black stripes ran from the knobby joint above his toes along the tops of his feet and disappeared into his pant legs. He'd belted the coarse blue homespun pants beneath his round belly with a length of what looked like hemp rope. He hadn't bothered with a shirt. Jayjay guessed that maybe with his fur, he didn't need one. His belly was covered with short, creamy white fur that darkened to gold at the sides and back. The fur on his back grew longer and coarser; four thick black stripes ran from the nape of his neck down his spine. His coarse, brushy hair was close-cropped and glossy black; it stood up straight in all directions, making him look as if he'd had a bad scare. He had no fur on his face, which was a pale copper gold darker than the cream of his belly but lighter than the fur of his back, and the lips that curved over his short, tapering muzzle looked shockingly human. But his broad, fur-covered shoulders and short, muscular arms terminated in four-fingered hands tipped with heavy digging claws that still trailed bits of bark. He looked, she thought, like a very large, overdressed badger.

  Callion returned his attention to Matthiall and said, "Well, you certainly brought trouble to my doorstep this time. She's sitting out there, you know, and unless I overestimate her enormously, she's busy figuring out a way to get through my front door."

  "I'm sorry," Matthiall told him. "We had no other choice."

  "We had no other choice," the creature grumbled. "No, I don't suppose you did. It's such a pity that I can't kill all of them and be done with them." He turned and bowed to Sophie and Jay. "Welcome," he said. "You look like you've had a weary, miserable journey. I'll feed you and offer you warm baths. I'd give you new clothes if I had them, but since nothing I own is your size, I'll have my nephew clean them for you while you bathe."

  "Nephew?" Matthiall asked.

  "A long-lost relative has come visiting." Callion tipped his head far back to stare up at Matthiall. "Shall we go in? Your friends seem quite tired."

  Callion turned and pointed at a little wooden door angled into the side of a small, artificial hillock covered with wildflowers. He looked back to Jay and Sophie and bowed slightly. "My home. Not built for Alfkindir, not built for Machnan…built for me. Still, you'll manage well enough inside if you watch your heads."

  He led them to the door and opened it for them, ushering them in before him. Jayjay had to duck to get through, and once inside she found she couldn't stand up straight in the corridor. The ceiling was about five feet high, which probably felt roomy to Callion.

  When she looked at him and his home, she had a hard time picturing Callion as the rightful inhabitant of his Eden. He appeared to have constructed his house entirely by excavating tunnels and chambers into the hillside, then reinforcing his work with rough finished post-and-beam supports. He'd wasted no time on ornamentation and no time on fine finishing. The dovetail joints fit crudely, though they did look solid. In the entry hall, he'd fitted shelves between many of the posts, and filled the shelves with dried meats, dried herbs, jars and vials and bits and pieces of things Jayjay didn't recognize…and wasn't sure she cared to examine. Dim globes glowed along the corridors, a limited concession to visibility. The floors were dirt, the walls were dirt, and the ceilings were dirt.

  "First door through," Callion said, pointing them down the hallway to the left. "I'll be with you as soon as I gather some food and drink. You'll want to eat before you wash. Once you're clean I'm sure you'll want to sleep for a while."

  The room into which he'd directed them featured several homemade wooden benches built for someone with legs far shorter than Jay's. Its single window looked out onto a meadow; the view would have been prettier if the glass had been either clean or gone. A red rug of lumpish weave and dreadful design covered the floor, and several shelves with books and curios on them hid large portions of the walls. Callion appeared to have made use of a tree root that grew into the room; he'd cleaned it and was using it to dry another pair of homespun pants.

  The three of them took seats, Sophie on one
side of Jay and Matthiall on the other. They didn't talk much. They were alive, and they were probably safe for a while, but they were wet and cold and hungry and filthy and tired, and Jay didn't think they were very safe, or that even their marginal safety would last for long. She didn't want to talk. She wanted to recover. And then she wanted to go home.

  Callion trotted through the door carrying a tray on which rested drinking glasses and little plates, a tall corked bottle and a corkscrew, some bread, a large bunch of dark purple grapes, a bowl of olives, a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter and a butter knife.

  Jay and Sophie gasped in unison when they saw the peanut butter.

  "Where did you get that?" Sophie asked, beating Jay to the question by microseconds.

  Callion grinned. "I have my sources. I thought you might enjoy it. It is by far my favorite of all the foods the Machine World has invented."

  "The Machine World?" Jay said.

  "It describes your home well enough, doesn't it?"

  Jay nodded.

  So he knew the world they came from, and had some contact with it. Perhaps when he said he could help them, he'd been telling the truth. Maybe he could get them out of Glenraven and back to the Peanut Butter World.

  He passed around the glasses and plates, struggled with the corkscrew but managed it at last, poured wine for each of them, then passed around the tray and waited while they loaded their plates with food.

  "Eat, eat," he told them. "While you're eating, my nephew is heating the bathwater. When you're finished, tell me and I'll take you to your rooms. One for each of you…they're small rooms, and you're not small people, are you?" He chuckled, and poured more wine for the three of them.

  Jay began to warm up. The wine was vivid emerald green, and it bit like a snake at the first sip, but after that first startling bite the warmth rolled down her throat and into her belly and flowed into her veins, and suddenly she was warm and nothing hurt. She ate as much food as she could hold, stuffing herself with juicy sun-sweet grapes and firm, fleshy, slightly salty olives, bread and peanut butter, cheese, and wine. More wine. Much more wine.