She frowned, leaned forward, arms on knees. “I suspect that they reckon us both qhal, you perhaps halfling, . . . but after what fashion or with what feeling I can find no delicate means to ask. Warn them? I wish to. But I would likewise know what manner of thing we shall awaken here when I do so. These are gentle folk; all that I have seen and heard among them confirms that. But what defends them . . . may not be.”
It well agreed with his own opinion, that they trod a fragile place, safe in it, but perilously ignorant, and enmeshed in something that had its own ways.
“Be careful always what you say,” she advised him. “When you speak in the Kurshin tongue, beware of using names they might know, whatever the language. But henceforth you and I should speak in their language constantly. You must gather what you can of it. It is a matter of our safety, Vanye.”
“I am trying to do that,” he said. She nodded approval, and they occupied themselves the rest of the day in walking about the village and the edge of the fields, talking together, impressing in his memory every word that could be forced there.
• • •
He had expected that Morgaine would choose to leave by the next morning, and she did not; and when that night came and he asked her would they leave on the morrow, she shrugged and in talking of something else, never answered the question. By the day after that, he did not ask, but took his ease in the village and settled into its routine, as Morgaine seemed to have done.
It was a healing quiet, as if the long nightmare that lay at their backs were illusion, and this sunny place were true and real. There was no word from Morgaine of leaving, as if by saying nothing she could wish away all hazard to them and their hosts.
But conscience worried at him, for the days they spent grew to many more than a handful. And he dreamed once, when they slept side by side—both slept, for sitting watch seemed unnecessary in the center of so friendly a place: he came awake sweating, and slept again, and wakened a second time with an outcry that sent Morgaine reaching for her weapons.
“Bad dreams in such a place as this?” she asked him. “There have been places with more reason for them.”
But she looked concerned that night too, and lay staring into the fire long afterward. What the dream had been he could not clearly remember, only that there seemed something as sinister in his recollection as the creeping of a serpent on a nest, and he could not prevent it.
These folk will haunt me, he thought wretchedly. They two had no place here, and knew it; and yet selfishly lingered, out of time and place, seeking a little peace . . . taking it as a thief might take, stealing it from its possessors. He wondered whether Morgaine harbored the same guilt . . . or whether she had passed beyond it, being what she was, and impelled by the need to survive.
He was almost moved to argue it with her then; but a dark mood was on her, and he knew those. And when he faced her in the morning, there were folk about them; and later he put it off again, for when he faced the matter, the odds against them outside this place were something he had no haste to meet: Morgaine was gathering forces, and was not ready, and he was loath to urge her with arguments . . . when the geas fell on her, she passed beyond reason; and he did not want to be the one to start it.
So he bided, mending harness, working at arrows for a bow which he traded of a villager who was an excellent bowyer. It was offered free, once admired, but in his embarrassment Morgaine intervened with the offer of a return gift, a gold ring of strange workmanship, which must have lain buried in her kit a very long time. He was disturbed at that, suspecting that it might have meant something to her, but she laughed and said that it was time she left it behind.
So he had the bow, and the bowyer a ring that was the envy of his companions. He practiced his archery with the young folk and with Sin, who dogged his tracks faithfully, and strove to do everything that he did.
In the pen and agraze on the grassy margin of the fields, the horses grew sleek and lazy as the village’s own cattle . . . and Morgaine, always the one who could not rest in an hour’s delay, sat long hours in the sun and talked with the elders and the young herders, drawing on a bit of goatskin what became a great marvel to the villagers, who had never seen a map. Though they had the knowledge of which it grew, they had never seen their world set forth in such a perspective.
Mirrind, the village was named; and the plain beyond the forest was Azeroth; the forest was Shathan. In the center of the great circle that was Azeroth, she drew a skein of rivers, feeding a great river called the Narn; amid that circle also was written athatin, which was the Fires—or plainly said, the Gate of the World.
So peaceful Mirrind knew of the Gate, and held it in awe: Azerothen Athatin. Thus far their knowledge of the world did extend. But Morgaine did not question them on it closely. She made her map and lettered it in qhalur runes, a fine fair hand.
Vanye learned such runes . . . as he learned the spoken language. He sat on the step of the meeting hall and traced the symbols in the dust, learning them by writing all the new words that he had learned, and trying to forget the scruples in such things that came of being Kurshin. The children of Mirrind, who thronged him when he would tend the horses or who had such zeal to fetch his arrows that he feared for their safety, quickly found this exercise tedious and deserted him.
“Elarrh-work,” they pronounced it, which meant anything that was above them. They had awe of it, but when there was no amusement to come of it, and no pictures, they drifted away—all but Sin, who squatted barefoot in the dust and tried to copy.
Vanye looked up at the lad, who worked so intently, and poignant recollection stirred in him, of himself, who had never been taught, but that he had sought it, who had insisted on having the things his legitimate brothers were born to have—and thereby gained what learning his mountain home could offer.
Now among all the children of Mirrind, here sat one who reached and wanted beyond the others, and who—when they had taken their leave—would be most hurt, having learned to desire something Mirrind could not give. The boy had no parents; they had died in some long-ago calamity. He had not asked into it. Sin was everyone’s child, and no one’s in particular. The others will be only ordinary, he thought, but what of this one? Remembering his sword in Sin’s small hand, he felt a chill, and blessed himself.
“What do you, khemeis?” Sin asked.
“I wish you well.” He rubbed out the runes with his palm and rose up, with a great heaviness on him.
Sin looked at him strangely, and he turned to go up the steps of the hall. There was a sudden outcry somewhere down Mirrind’s single street . . . not the shrieks of playing children, which were frequent, but a woman’s outcry; and in sudden apprehension he turned. Hard upon it came the shouting of men, in tones of grief and anger.
He hesitated, his pulse that had seemed to stop now quickening into familiar panic; he hung between that direction and Morgaine’s, paralyzed in the moment, and then habit and duty sent him running up the steps to the shadowy hall, where Morgaine was speaking with two of the elders.
He needed not explain: Changeling was in her hand and she was coming, near to running.
Sin lingered at the bottom of the steps, and tagged after them as they walked the commons toward the gathering knot of villagers. The sound of weeping reached them . . . and when Morgaine arrived the gathering gave way for her, all but a few: the elders Melzein and Melzeis, who stood trying to hold back their tears; and a young woman and a couple in middle years who knelt holding their dead. To and fro they rocked, keening and shaking their heads.
“Eth,” Morgaine murmured, staring down at a young man who had been one of the brightest and best of the village: hardly in his twenties, Eth of clan Melzen, but skilled in hunting and archery, a happy man, a herder by trade, who had laughed much and loved his young wife and had no enemies. His throat had been cut, and on his half-naked body were other wounds that could not have broug
ht death in themselves, but would have caused great pain before he was killed.
They gave him his death, Vanye thought fearfully. He must have told them what they wanted. Then he reckoned what kind of man he had become, who could think foremost of that. He had known Eth. He found himself trembling and close to being sick as if he had never looked on the like.
Some of the children were sick, and clung to their parents crying. He found Sin against his side, and set his hand on the boy’s shoulder, drew him over to his clan elders and gave him into their care. Bytheis took Sin in his arms and Sin’s face was still set and stricken.
“Should the children look on this?” Morgaine asked, shocking them from their daze. “You are in danger. Set armed men out on the road and all about the village and let them watch. Where was he found? Who brought him?”
One of the youths stepped forward—Tal, whose clothes were bloody and his hands likewise. “I, lady. Across the ford.” Tears ran down his face. “Who has done this? Lady—why?”
• • •
Council met in the hall, the while the Melzen kindred prepared the body of their son for burial; and there was unbearable heaviness in the air. Bythein and Bytheis wept quietly; but Sersen-clan was angry in its grief, and its elders were long in gathering the self-possession to speak. The silence waited on them, and at last the old man of the pair rose and walked to and fro across the fireside.
“We do not understand,” he cried at last, his wrinkled hands trembling as he gestured. “Lady, will you not answer me? You are not our lady, but we have welcomed you as if you were, you and your khemeis. There is nothing in the village we would deny you. But now do you ask a life of us and not explain?”
“Serseis,” Bytheis objected, his old voice quavering, and he put a hand on Serseis’ sleeve to restrain him.
“No, I am listening,” Morgaine said.
“Lady,” said Serseis, “Eth went where you sent him: so say all the young folk. And you bade him not tell his elders, and he obeyed you. Where did you send him? He was not khemeis; he was his parents’ only child; he never went to that calling. But did you not sense that the desire was in him? His pride made him take risks for you. To what did you send him? May we not know? And who has done so terrible a thing?”
“Strangers,” she answered. Not all the words could Vanye understand, but he understood most, and filled in the rest well enough. At the feelings which gathered in the air of this hall now, he stood close to Morgaine. Shall I get the horses? he had asked her in his own tongue, before this council met. No, she had answered, with such distraction that he knew she was pulled both ways, with anxiety to be moving and guilt for Mirrind’s danger. She lingered, and knew better, and he knew better, and sweat gathered on his sides and trickled under the armor. “We had hoped they would not come here.”
“From where?” Sersein asked. The old woman laid her hand on the rolled map that lay atop the table, Morgaine’s work. “Your questions search all the land, as if you are looking for something. You are not our lady. Your khemeis is not of our village nor even of our blood. From some far land you surely come, my lady. Is it a place where things like this are common? And did you expect such a thing when you sent Eth out against it? Perhaps you have reasons that are too high for us, but, o lady, if it takes the lives of our children—and you knew—could you not have told us? And will you not tell us now? Make us understand.”
There was utter stillness for a time in which could be heard the fire, and from somewhere outside the bleating of a goat, and the crying of a baby. The shocked faces of the elders seemed frozen in the cold light from the many windows.
“There are,” Morgaine said at last, “enemies abroad; and they are spread throughout Azeroth. We watch here and rest, and through your young men, I have kept watch over you as best I could . . . for your young folk know these woods far better than we. Yes, we are strangers here; but we are not of their kind, that would do such a thing. We hoped to have warning—not a warning such as this. Eth was the one—as you say—who ranged farthest and risked himself most. I knew this. I warned him. I warned him urgently.”
Vanye bit his lip and his heart beat painfully in anger that Morgaine had said nothing of this to him . . . for he would have gone, and come back not as Eth did. She had sent innocents out instead, boys who little knew what quarry they might start from cover.
But the elders sat silent now, afraid more than angry, and hung on her words.
“Do none,” asked Morgaine, “ever come from Azeroth?”
“You would best know that,” Bythein whispered.
“Well, it has happened,” Morgaine said. “And you are near to the plain, and there are Men massed there, strangers, armed and minded to take all the plain of Azeroth and all the land round about. They could have gone in any direction, but they have chosen this one. They are thousands. Vanye and I are not enough to stop them. What befell Eth was the handiwork of their outriders, seeking what they could find; and now they have found it. I have only bitter advice to give now. Take your people and walk away from Mirrind; go deep into the forest and hide there; and if the enemies come further, then flee again. Better to lose houses than lives; better to live that way than to serve men who would do what was done to Eth. You do not fight; and therefore you must run.”
“Will you lead us?” Bythein asked.
So simple, so instant of belief: Vanye’s heart turned in him, and Morgaine sadly shook her head.
“No. We go our own way, and best for you and for us if you forget that we have ever been among you.”
They bowed their heads, one after the other, and looked as if their world had ended . . . indeed it had.
“We shall mourn more than Eth,” said Serseis.
“This night you will rest here,” said Sersein. “Please.”
“We ought not.”
“Please. Only tonight. If you are here, we shall be less afraid.”
It was truer than Sersein might understand, that Morgaine had power to protect them; and to Vanye’s surprise, Morgaine bowed her head and consented.
And within the same degree of the sun, there was renewed mourning in Mirrind, as the elders told the people what they had learned and what was advised them to do.
• • •
“They are naive people,” said Vanye heavily. “Liyo, I fear for what will become of them.”
“If they are simple enough to believe me utterly, they may live. But it will be different here.” She shook her head and turned away for the inside of the hall, for there came the women and children down the midst of the commons, to begin the preparation of the evening meal.
Vanye went to the horses, and made sure that all was in readiness for the morning. He was alone when he went, but when he reached the gate, he heard someone behind him, and it was Sin.
“Let me go where you go,” Sin asked of him. “Please.”
“No. You have kin who will need you. Think of that and be glad that you have them. If you went where we go, you would never see them again.”
“You will never come back to us?”
“No. Not likely.”
It was direct and cruel, but it was needful. He did not want to think of the boy building dreams about him, who least deserved them. He had encouraged him too much already. He made his face grim, and attended to his work, in the hope that the boy would grow angry and go away.
But Sin joined him and helped him as he always had; and Vanye found it impossible to be hard with him. He set Sin finally on Mai’s back, which was Sin’s constant hope, whenever they would take the horses out to graze, and Sin stroked the mare’s neck, and suddenly burst into tears, which he tried to hide.
He waited until the boy had stopped his crying, and helped him down again, and they walked together back to the hall.
• • •
Dinner was a mournful time. There were no songs, for they had buried E
th at sundown and they had no heart for singing. There was only hushed conversation and few even had appetite, but there were no animosities, no resentment shown them, not even by Eth’s closest kin.
Morgaine spoke to the people in the midst of dinner, in a hush in which not even a child cried: babes slept in arms, exhausted by the day’s madness, and there was a silence on all the children.
“Again I advise you to leave,” she said. “At least tonight and every day hereafter, have your young men on guard, and do what you can to hide the road that leads here. Please believe me and go from this place. What Vanye and I can do to delay the evil, we will do, but they are thousands, and have horses and arms, and they are both qhal and Men.”
Faces were stricken, the elders themselves undone by this, which she had never told them. Bythein rose, leaning on her staff. “What qhal would wish us harm?”
“Believe that these would. They are strangers in the land, and cruel, even more than the Men. Do not resist them; flee them. They are too many for you. They passed the Fires out of their own land, that was ruined and drowning, and they came here to take yours.”
Bythein moaned aloud, and sank down again, and seemed ill. Bytheis comforted her, and all clan Bythen stirred in their seats, anxious for their elder.
“This is an evil we have never seen,” said Bythein when she had recovered herself. “Lady, we understand then why you were reluctant to speak to us. Qhal! Ah, lady, what a thing is this?”
Vanye filled his cup with the ale that Mirrind brewed and drank it down, trying with that to wash the tautness from his throat . . . for he had not shaped what followed them and now threatened Mirrind, but he had had his hand on it while it formed, and he could not rid himself of the conviction that somehow he might have turned it aside.
One thing of certainty he might have done, and that regarded the Honor-blade which he carried, a kinslaying that might have averted all this grief. In pity, in indecision, he had not done it. To save his life, he had not.
The Complete Morgaine Page 54
