Instead, they returned too soon, for Arranha had collapsed on the journey, and the Rosemage had struggled to bring him to the stronghold alive.
“We had just reached the gray mountain’s foot when he clutched his chest and fell,” she said to Luap. Aris was busy with Arranha, whose shallow breaths hardly moved the covering upon him. “I knew the climb out of the canyon had been hard on him; he said he found it hard to breathe that night, and didn’t sleep well. But I thought he was better, or I’d have turned back.”
She seemed to want reassurance; Luap nodded. “Of course you would; you couldn’t know.”
“He’s so old. I didn’t realize; he’s always been so active, so lively of mind. And now—”
And now he was dying. From Aris’s expression, no healing would serve. Luap felt his own throat closing. “I should have let him go with you, and made Aris and Seri wait,” he said; he knew that had had nothing to do with it, but it was all he could think of. Now the Rosemage put her arm around him.
“You know that made no difference. Neither of us…” She stopped, blew her nose and wiped her eyes, then went on. “Neither of us can stop age when it comes; not even royal magery is proof against time.”
Luap felt something shift inside him—not quite protest, but uncertainty. Curiosity. Was that really true? Had anyone ever tried to hold back age with magery? With the royal magery? It might not work with the very old, like Arranha (though how had Arranha stayed so vigorous so long?) but perhaps it would work with someone much younger, still strong.
But the immediate problem swept that from his mind. The Rosemage needed care as well as Arranha; she had the hollow-eyed look he remembered seeing in survivors of daylong battles. Luap called for Garin, and someone to help the Rosemage to her chamber; when she protested, he overrode her. “We all love Arranha; Aris is with him, and I will be with him. But I don’t want to lose both of you. Bathe, rest, eat—let Garin ease what he can. You’ll be needed later.”
“But—someone said the ambassador had come early, had been here—” She was trying to keep herself awake, upright, and focused; she would not let herself escape duty for comfort, even now. Luap put his hand on her arm, and let a little of his power seep into it, and into his voice.
“It went well; everything’s going to be fine. Go and rest. I will tell you all about it when you wake.” In the influence of his power, she staggered a little, and Seri moved quickly to support her and lead her away. “Take care of her,” Luap said to Seri; unnecessary, since Seri would never do less, but it let others know he considered Seri in change.
Arranha sank quietly, without a word or change in his expression, all through that night. Before dawn, the Rosemage was back at his side; Luap was glad she had come while he was there, “What did Aris say?” she asked softly.
“That he was dying, that it was from old age, and that he could do nothing. I’m not sure that’s true, because Arranha seems so calm—perhaps Aris eased him some way when you arrived…”
“He had been calm since the first day. Then, he seemed anxious. He said things—but I wasn’t sure he was aware of them.”
“Said what?”
She shrugged, and hugged her robe around her more tightly. “I—I don’t know if he meant it. Something about danger, about a darkness in the stone. But since he was dying, it could be that alone.”
“Mmm.” Luap thought about it. “When I climbed to the top of this mountain, I remember feeling that the light failed—but I thought it was being breathless from the climb.”
“Yes, I thought of that. Especially coming back with him, places I had to carry him—my sight went dark more than once. That’s why I didn’t tell everyone at once and give warning. Even Arranha, who so served the light, might lose it at death for a time. Yet if it was a true warning, what was it about?”
“That mountain, perhaps? The gray one? Perhaps it has the gold you hoped for, but it’s claimed by some rockfolk tribe; that would be danger, if we meddled with it.”
“I suppose.” She did not sound convinced, but neither was he. Most likely, Arranha’s approaching death had shadowed his mind, and his words meant nothing to those who were not dying. She stirred beside him. “So—tell me about the ambassador.”
He felt strange, sitting beside a dying man and talking of his own triumph—as he could not but see it—but it would pass the time. He kept his voice low, and began with the ambassador’s arrival, putting in all the details he could think of. The Rosemage listened attentively, clearly glad to have something to fix her mind besides Arranha. When he described the ambassador’s attempt to use the sword on himself, she gasped.
“And you caught the sword! What happened?”
Luap held out his hand. “I nearly lost fingers—you can’t see a scar at all, for Aris healed it at once, but from here to here—” He pointed, then allowed himself a wry grin. “It hurt a lot more than I would have thought.” Before she could ask more, he went on, explaining what the ambassador had thought, and what he himself had inferred from both the man’s actions and his gifts. “A powerful ancient kingdom,” he said. “More than a kingdom—more like the tales we had of Old Aare. They trade widely; I think they used to trade with Fintha in years past, perhaps before I was born. Powerful allies, if we are their friends, and dangerous enemies.”
She looked worried. “I expect they will see us as easy prey.”
“No.” His power bled into that, and she looked at him with dawning respect. “They fear us now; they will do us no harm. Wait until his next visit; you will see.”
She recovered her composure with an effort. “You are confident, suddenly.” The warning not to be overconfident came across clearly.
He shook his head. “I saw the man; I dealt with him. Aris’s healing power alone might have convinced them, or his use of the pattern to open the mageroad—surely you and Arranha realized that.”
“I suppose…” Her voice weakened; Luap felt a rush of sympathy.
“You’re still tired; let me fetch something to eat.”
“No—I’m all right. I suppose—Arranha and I both felt they were hiding something—the ones we met in that town. Perhaps they were trying not to show their fear of the magery.”
“That sounds reasonable. The ambassador seemed frightened even before we began, and if they have no magery of their own— if they cannot believe mortals have it—”
“You can’t pretend we’re elven!” She stared him in the face, shocked.
“Of course not!” Luap put a bite in his voice and she reddened. “We’re mortals, not elves, and I could not pretend otherwise. What I was going to say—” He looked at her, and she looked away, still flushed. “Was that if they have no experience of mortals using magery, they may give us more respect for that reason. I went out of my way to say we were not those who had built the stronghold.
“Still, if they are in awe of magery, our few numbers will not be a temptation to them.”
“Yes. I can see that.” A long breath. “Now that they know we’re here, whatever we can in honor do to convince them we’re too strong to attack—”
“Exactly,” said Luap. “If we must balance magery against numbers to avoid confrontation—”
“But we could not fight them,” the Rosemage said.
“Of course not.” Luap nodded. “The point is to avoid that— avoid it ever becoming an issue. They seem to think that because we are here, where their legends place demons or monsters, that we must have greater powers than we showed. Of course we must not masquerade as elves, or claim their allegiance. Not only would that be dishonest, it would place us at greater risk. But they found Aris’s healing power, and the mageroad, impressive enough. If they think of us as a small but powerful folk, who want only peace and trade, they will have no reason to test our strength.”
“I see,” the Rosemage said. She looked again at Arranha. Luap thought his death very near; he remembered that slow cessation, breath by breath, from Dorhaniya. “Do you think we should ca
ll Aris?”
“Both of them,” Luap said. “They will want to be here.” He rose and went to the door, where a boy dozed against the corridor wall, and sent the lad for Aris and Seri. Soon they came, sleepy-eyed and solemn. Aris nodded after he looked at Arranha.
“Yes—very soon. I could not heal him— ” His shoulders sagged. Luap patted him as he would have a child.
“It’s not your fault, Aris; no one heals age.” The words felt familiar in his mouth, and he remembered that the Rosemage had said that first, many hours ago.
“I know, but we have no other priest. Who will perform the rites for him, and for the Sunlord?”
“I suppose I will,” Luap said slowly. “What he taught me, at least; I am not trained as a priest of Esea.”
“He was the last—” the Rosemage said, and then she was crying, her shoulders shaking. It echoed in Luap’s mind: the last. The last priest of Esea, the last of his father’s generation, the last link to the old world where his kind had ruled. With Arranha would die the knowledge that had comforted Dorhaniya—no one else was likely to know the rituals for making altar linens, or care. With Arranha would die memories of Gird shared by no one else—for neither Gird nor Arranha had told him all of the time they journeyed together to the gnomish lands. With Arranha would die quarrels among priests, theological disputes, conflicts of power, even such unimportant things as the questions he had asked Dorhaniya’s sister, that drove her to anger. Arranha had connected him to his own past, had known the boy he had been, had known his father, had known men whose grandfathers came over the southern mountains from Aarenis, had been one of an unbroken priesthood stretching back to Old Aare.
Luap felt acutely aware of that loss. Gird’s death had ended what he might learn from Gird, but there were still many peasants living in vills much like his, plowing fields, making tools, tending sheep and cattle. Arranha—what had been Arranha’s vision, that died here with him? What had he thought, as a young man, would shape his life? What had really shaped it?
He stared at Arranha’s quiet face, already as remote as a stone carving, and wished he could shake it to life and speech again. Now he knew the questions he should have asked—now, when it was too late. Now he knew what he did not know—would never know. Elders died, he thought. Elders died, and with them their personal visions died. If Gird had died at Greenfields, as he had said he should have, Gird’s vision would have died there too. It had lived on because Gird lived on, and when he died it began to fray…
Luap shied away from that thought, forced his mind from the thought that different people—himself included—had striven to engrave their own visions on what was left of Gird’s. Instead, he thought of himself as an old man for the first time. He would be old soon, the elder on whom the others depended, as he had depended on Arranha. Here, in this stronghold and the land around it, lay his vision. When he died, what would happen to the stronghold? To his people?
I did not seek command, he cried in his heart. It is not my fault that it was thrust on me. In that familiar echoing space, a comfortable warmth rose. He might have come to it by accident, against advice, but he had nonetheless done well. His people prospered, and praised him. Perhaps he had not been fit for command in Gird’s day—he would admit that—but now? Who else could have done what he had done? He hugged that to him, comfort for his genuine grief, as they carried Arranha’s slight body to its resting place on the mountaintop, where the first sun each day could find it.
He must not die until it was safe, he thought on the way back down. He must shape it now, while he could, with all his strength, and be sure he did not die too soon. He felt the weight of responsibility settle onto him… his people had no one else to depend on, now.
He spoke of this concern to no one. He might have discussed it with Arranha, in the old days, but Arranha was dead; in the days after the funeral rites, Luap found himself worrying the problem of his own mortality whenever the pace of work allowed. He was not afraid of death itself—he had proven that, he thought, in the old days, on the battlefields of Gird’s war—but he wanted to accomplish something before he died. Gird would have approved, he thought. Gird, too, had dreamed of establishing a people in peace and prosperity—and that was all Luap wanted.
Always and ever, in the depths of his mind, the question tickled him: was it really not possible to hold back aging with magery? Could he not at least try? It couldn’t hurt, surely… not if he took care. Even the appearance of youth or agelessness might help impress the Khartazh, and the Rosemage had agreed that anything harmless which had that effect was good.
“And how is the prince, after the death of his priest?” the black-cloaked leader asked his spy.
“He has recently thought of trying his magery—his ‘royal’ magery, as he calls it—against aging,” the spy said. “They have told him it will not work, but he is not convinced. And now, of course, he worries more than ever about the fate of his people if he should age too soon.”
“I believe he will find his magery strong enough for that,” the leader said “He deserves a long and healthy life.” The black-cloaked assembly laughed, their voices harsh as jangling iron.
A few days after Arranha’s funeral, Luap called Seri and Aris into his office to look at the maps the ambassador had left him. Seri’s eyes lit up.
“Imagine the effect of these in Marshals’ training,” Luap said.
“Do they have any of the old caravan route?” she asked.
“You remember I asked the ambassador that, and he said he would find out. But I have another idea. If we could find a practicable route from the upper valley down to the plain, it might be shorter and safer for caravans to come through there—and then through our canyon to Dirgizh. Then we would have someone to trade with, and a way for those who won’t use the mageroad to visit.”
Seri frowned. “Do we need that? It’s a long way for anyone to come, and I doubt Girdsmen would…”
“I think they will,” Luap said. “That trade used to prosper; as Fintha recovers from the war, Finthans will have more to trade. You know yourself the spice merchants do well. We could be trading now, if the Marshal-General weren’t so opposed to frequent use of the mageroad… imagine how easily we could sell the gifts the ambassador brought. An overland route should be acceptable to the Marshal-General.”
“He’s right, Seri,” Aris said. “He’s not opposed to trade; he’s encouraged the trade south into Aarenis—” Luap had not known that; he wondered how Aris knew.
“And you want us to find a way through these canyons to the old eastern route?” Seri said.
“Yes… and I don’t know whether you should begin by finding it from outside—from Dirgizh—or from the upper valley. But you’re our most experienced explorers so far.”
“We’ll have to start now if we’re to be done by winter,” Aris pointed out.
“I hadn’t thought you’d start this season,” Luap said. “Until we have others who can speak the Khartazh language as well, I can’t spare you more than a few days at a time.”
“Then we’ll start there,” Seri said. “Aris can teach his prentices, and I’ll teach the militia—”
“And me,” Luap said, smiling. “I should learn Khartazh.”
“And you,” she said. “But you learn faster than most.”
Even so, Aris and Seri managed a short trip into the upper valley. Deciding just where to start the climb out of the main canyon was hard enough. Two approaches ended in sheer cliffs they could not climb. Finally Seri climbed partway up one of the north-running canyons across from what they thought should be the best way.
“We didn’t use our heads,” she said when she came back down.
“Again?” Aris grinned at the expression on her face.
“It’s not funny,” she said. “We don’t have much time and we’ve wasted too much. What we need to do is follow that game trail—” She pointed. “It disappears over that knob—”
“Which is too far to the right; th
e valley has to be right up over that fallen block.”
“And we can’t climb it. Think, Aris: the animals go everywhere. We follow the game trail and keep choosing the ones that go higher.”
The game trail angled sharply up the steep slope; Aris found himself grabbing for rocks and bushes to help himself climb. By the time they were above the trees, he could see far down the canyon, and back up the one Seri had come out of. Above him, Seri’s boots went steadily on, occasionally giving him a faceful of dirt.
“This is a lot worse than the trail to the mountain top,” he said, gasping, when they stopped for a rest.
“We have more to climb.” Seri tipped her head back to look. “Gird’s toes: look at that. We should be goats to get up there— and how could anyone bring a caravan down?”
Aris looked down and wished he hadn’t… the broken rock and loose soil below looked unclimbable. “We have to find another way out: I don’t want to break both legs going down this!”
On the next stretch, they came out on rock that looked, Seri said, like cake batter or custard that had stiffened in pouring. It did not look like honest rock, Aris thought, and wondered what had formed those loops and layers. At least it didn’t shift underfoot, and the angle of the corrugated surface made climbing easier. The slope eased; they could walk upright again, between odd little columns of the strange stone. Here Aris agreed—they looked exactly like the last bit of batter from a pan, dripping crookedly to one side or the other.
The game trails disappeared into a grassy meadow thick with late wildflowers—tall blue spikes and low red stars. Bees hummed past them busily. On their right, still higher cliffs rose; they seemed to be crossing a terrace that might, Seri thought, come out above the valley they sought. They could see a similar cliff face to their left; between, they assumed, lay the tumble of broken rock they’d been unable to climb.
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