by Adam Corby
For a moment Nam-Rog regarded them; then he went out again into the rain. The camp odors of horses and dung and stew-pots enclosed him, and its tents struck out all sight of the world. It seemed then to Nam-Rog that he had smelled these odors and seen these sights all the wakings of his life.
Nam-Rog shook his head, opened his mouth and drank the rain. Gundoen was somewhere in that fastness, and Nam-Rog meant to deliver him. Drenched with the cold rain, Nam-Rog passed back into his tent to rejoin his troupe of vicious Southron women.
‘Siege,’ he muttered, as their hands fluttered over him, baring his war-scarred limbs. ‘So be it.’
* * *
During the longsleep, the upper levels of the Palace fell still. In elaborate dimchambers the last surviving charanti and wealthy merchants slept heavily with their slaves, sheltered behind the walls of stone.
In the White Tower all was still as well. The maidservants of the Empress slept in ivory-paneled chambers just below the Empress’ own. Draped in short shifts the color of palest blossoms, the maidens stretched their long limbs and sighed in the sweet unrest of dream.
Above them, at the summit of the tower, a gray-headed woman climbed the servant’s stair to the chambers of the Empress. She was short, bowed and round, with the features of a farmer’s grandmother. Such was Emsha, who had been the Empress Allissál’s childhood nurse. With as much stealth as she could manage, the old nurse pushed open the hangings to the Empress’ dimchamber.
The saffron canopy about the couch was open, revealing the Empress’ couch-shift laid upon undisturbed coverings. The chamber was empty.
Emsha crossed to the ornate doors and went into the antechamber. It too was empty. At the doors leading into the main Palace at the base of the tower, she hesitated. She ascended the steps again, and entered the audience chamber.
In the long black room a small dark form huddled on the prayer-mat in front of the great throne. Perched on one armrest of the throne, a huge gerlin preened itself. The kneeling figure did not stir as Emsha drew near.
‘Majesty,’ Emsha said softly, abasing herself. The figure facing the throne did not reply.
Emsha glanced nervously at the bird. ‘Majesty, what is it you are doing here? You need your rest.’
Slowly, the golden mask turned to the old nurse.
‘The throne is empty,’ the Queen said. The voice rang with the metal surrounding it.
‘Then you should sit in it, majesty. It’s your place.’
‘Dear old Emsha. Once I told you everything, and what I failed to tell you you guessed anyway. But one thing I must hold alone – or else tell all the world.’
Emsha cast down her dark sad eyes. ‘It has to do with him. I know it.’
‘Then you know too much. Emsha, my mind turns from one side to the other, and when it does not spin like a wheel it is heavy and unformed as a stone.’
‘Then come let me dress you for sleep. Rest. Maybe the answer will reach you in a dream.’
‘If I were free, I would go riding on Kis Halá. As it is, I will rest here.’
‘I won’t leave you alone like this, majesty.’
‘I will fare better here than in my couch lying with open eyes. If you must do something for me, perhaps you might go down to the kitchens and get a little meat for Niad. And I might be able to eat something now.’
The old nurse’s face took on a new bearing. ‘Yes, majesty. I’ll get the best, leave it to me, and I’ll be swift too.’
When the doors closed again, the woman in black faced once more the empty throne. After a moment she reached into one of her sleeves and drew out a long dagger. It was a dagger of odd design, and had a handle of carved jade. Balancing the blade’s point on her fingertip for an instant, the Empress let the dagger fall. It turned over in the air and struck with its point on the rugs.
The Empress leaned forward, staring down at the dagger where it lay before her knees.
‘Yes,’ she breathed, ‘that is the answer. What other answer could there be? Truly, this has gone on too long now. Ara-Karn will die this waking.’
The great bird cawed.
‘Do you approve, Niad? Honor and pride both demand it; there can be no half-measures here. He dwells among us unsuspected, or else he dies. There is no way to imprison him. There are too many anguished and outraged hearts awake in the yards below; they would rend him to bits.
‘And yet, how much is won by killing him? So far it appears he will work us no injuries; the opposite, in fact. Would his death bring peace? Or would his barbarians fight on out of hatred? If we hung his corpse before them, the barbarians would fight to avenge him. And his death,’ she added, shaking her head beneath the black cowl, ‘would be a thing irreversible. His secrets would die with him.
‘Still, still,’ she groaned, ‘this cannot go on. He is too clever, too dangerous to be free. And yet, can I kill him? And if I cannot, how then could I order another to do so? “No ruler shall order any deed he cannot do himself.” Elna himself wrote that law.’ She sighed. ‘O Niad,’ she moaned, ‘how many times must I run this same course? Tell me then, decide the matter for me: what am I to do?’
The great bird looked down at her. All about them, the silence of the sleeping Palace hung. In the darkness of the gerlin’s eye any feeling might have been read, save for one faltering or debased.
‘Very well,’ the Empress assented at last.
Her voice was very small behind the wall of the mask. ‘It shall be done, and it will be I who strikes the blow. But not yet. The hour should be propitious, and pleasing to Her. Therefore when Goddess is most distant, on the festival of the Pass of God, then Ara-Karn will die. I, Allissál nal Bordakasha, swear it.’
XI
Gundoen’s Dream
THE OLD WOMAN LED GUNDOEN through the Sontil gloom. From her rags she drew meal-cakes wrapped in leaves. He chewed upon the cakes slowly, finding in them sweetness and a source of strength.
After a while, she stopped and indicated they should rest. Gundoen laid the Southron’s body on the moss and found a hollow beside a root. He did not know if it was the hour for sleep, but sleep sucked him down for hours.
A gentle prodding of the seeress’ staff woke him.
‘I have looked upon your friend,’ she said. ‘His hurt is grave. If I am to do anything for him, we must get him to my home.’
‘He is no friend of mine,’ Gundoen said. But he shouldered the Southron’s body once more and followed her. Along the path she gave him another cake and he drank from a stream.
After two passes they came upon a steep hill, the base of which was broken by a wall of stone. Into the stone delved several cave-mouths. The old woman led Gundoen into the midmost cave. It was spacious and bright. Against one wall was a low pallet of unsquared logs and leaves, upon which Gundoen laid Southron’s body.
Melkarth removed the tunic and armor. When she laid bare the chest, Gundoen saw deep, blue-green gashes. The stench of them filled the cave.
‘But this is worse even than I feared,’ she said. ‘I do not know if there is anything any mortal strength can do here.’
‘It was the Darkbeast,’ he said. ‘It was the Darkbeast’s tongue.’
The sight and smell brought back memories of the battle. He shook his head and left the cave.
A shallow stream jumped down the hillside. Gundoen stripped and lay in it. The chill waters washed over him, soothing his limbs. It seemed as though his spirit drifted up from the stream-bed like smoke, and filled the space beneath the leaves. The memory of life’s sourness left him, and he slept the sleep of peace.
* * *
The weeks passed slowly in the Sontil. Gundoen regained his strength, except for an ache about his left hip. He hunted and fished, and gathered the leaves and roots the old woman described to him. That was a task he knew well, for he had often done as much for Hertha-Toll. Melkarth seemed to take a liking to him, and they often sat upon stone seats on the hillside and spoke of the ways of wood-beasts and the turns
and tides of weather. Autumn drew to an end, and the bite of winter closed about the Sontil, and Gundoen gathered wood and stored food.
Upon the low pallet the Southron lay still. He had not opened his eyes since the battle of the Darkbeast. Each waking the Melkarth lay new dressings on his wounds, poultices and leaves crushed in steaming water. The bones set and the wounds healed, leaving behind them only whitish scars, but Ampeánor did not wake. Only the green gashes about his chest were unhealed.
Melkarth sent Gundoen out for still rarer herbs. Sometimes the hunt led him far from the hill, and he was gone for many passes. Yet the green wounds did not heal.
‘These are a deadly evil,’ the old woman said. ‘The poison will not leave his flesh, and it is all I can do to prevent it from deepening and spreading. All his flesh thereabouts is choked with it.’
‘Hertha-Toll could heal it.’
‘Perhaps she could. Perhaps I can, but it will take much time. And even then, how do we know this is for the best? You know as well as I what effect this poison can have even on those who survive its bite.’
‘Use a knife dipped in flame, and cut the poison out.’
‘If I did that, I might cut untouched vessels and spread the poison further. It might enter his heart.’
‘Still,’ Gundoen grumbled, ‘do something. This is not working. I grow impatient.’
‘Then why stay?’ The old woman returned to her place beside the fire, where the stone kettle bubbled. ‘I do not hold you here. Return to your armies and your son, and leave this man to his fate. For your wife’s sake you should do this.’
‘You still need me to gather herbs. If you left here for more than the length of a pass, he would die.’
‘That may be true, but why does this concern you? This man is your enemy.’
Gundoen sat on the stones at the far side of the fire. In his hand he held one of the long, curving teeth. ‘We fought and slew a Darkbeast together.’
‘If he wakes, he will take you among his people, your enemies. You will die there.’
‘Old woman, my death has been foretold me so many times that now it only makes me sleepy. First it was my wife. Years ago she told me that Ara-Karn would bring me death. But instead he brought luck and power and wealth. Again and again she foretold evil, but each time the story changed, and nothing came of it. Now you tell me this man will bring about my death, but I think he will be lucky to escape his own. What is there about you women, that all you can speak of is death?’
‘Death is a strong thing, easily scented from afar,’ Melkarth said, ‘especially a death such as yours. And there is this also, Chieftain: these foresights of ours came from Goddess alone, and She speaks to us most of those She favors most. Does it surprise you now to learn that She has favored you – you, the hunter who disdains women? Yet it is so, Gundoen Strong-In-Girth.’
‘She has not done me much good in the way of sons.’
‘That is a tale that, were I allowed to tell it, would surprise you. But this much I will say, Gundoen, because knowing it will do you no harm, and this will be the only chance you will have to learn of it. A child will bear your name after all, and your wife will raise it with the greatest love any child ever had. And that boy will do great things in lands beyond your knowledge.’
‘Well, at least that is better than this talk of dying,’ Gundoen said. ‘But what of the Southron? If you are so wise, do you know what fate will befall him?’
‘Goddess has had nothing to say of him for years. I know no better than you whether my mixtures will save him, or what the state of his spirit will be if he wakes. But if you will heed my counsel, Chieftain, you will pray to Goddess for his death.’
* * *
From that waking, Gundoen stayed longer away from the cave. He went on long hunts, and returned once a week. The moss was thick with leaves, and the rain came more often. It grew colder in the Sontil. Gundoen ranged about the forest, learning its streams and hills and trees. Yet he did not go beyond the hills where Melkarth lived, nor venture near the Darkbeast’s vale.
Now and again he thought of the army, of his tribe and fellow-chiefs, and of Ara-Karn. He thought of the joy of battle. He dreamt of past campaigns, and he saw the mistakes he had made: he saw in the besieged cities weaknesses hidden before, he saw how to order the ranks of men more strongly. Once he grew so eager for it he would have set forth without delay if only he had known where the army was camped. But in the cave his pride would not let him ask the old woman of those things. He would not admit to her that her words might have cast fear into his heart. He was Gundoen.
So he remained in the Sontil and awaited the Southron’s fate, though in his heart he knew well it was wrong and he should have gone long before.
He brought down a large elbuck of the southern kind, slaughtered it and bore the flesh back to the cave. Melkarth made a feast of it, and even took out beer she had brewed, and that was the first Gundoen had seen of that. Gundoen let the cave ring with his songs. The old woman laughed and clapped her hands.
‘And will you sleep here this sleep, and stay here this pass?’ she asked him. And Gundoen, who would have denied her almost nothing then, nodded.
When he woke, Gundoen felt none of the pains he usually felt after drinking. The cave was still. The Southron lay upon the low pallet, breathing harshly, his chest covered with a yellow muck of herbs. The fire at the hearth was all but dead beneath its ashes. The old woman was gone.
Gundoen ate of the elbuck thoughtfully. He washed the meat down with the water in the stone bucket.
The hillside was quiet. There was no sign of the seeress. Gundoen washed his head in the stream, shook his hair and went back to the caves. He sat in one of the stone seats and shaved his skull with the Southron’s war-knife.
It rained, and Gundoen unburied the embers and built a fresh fire. He slept that shortsleep on the stones before the hearth. The smoke and the pattering of the rain without made him drowsy. He slept past the time of the fifth meal. When he woke, it was in the manner of a beast in the wild: all at once his eyes were open and he woke. It rained still. In the bright circle of the open cave-mouth he saw a low, dark figure.
The figure extended one of its arms. ‘Come.’
‘Where have you been?’ Gundoen asked. ‘I thought you had forsaken us.’
‘There were preparations to be made,’ the old woman said vaguely. ‘Many things are possible this pass. I was readying a gift for you.’
‘What is this talk of a gift?’ he growled. ‘And what is special about this pass?’
‘Do you not know what pass we enter on, then?’
‘It is a cold one, I know that.’
‘At the end of the longsleep, it will be the Pass of God.’
She led him out into the rain. At the mouth of the last cave she beckoned, and Gundoen passed within.
‘I cannot enter now,’ she said. ‘But take this, drink it, be at ease. There is nothing to fear.’
‘I fear nothing,’ he said, taking the bowl in both hands. He sniffed at the dark liquid. It was warmed spice-beer, the kind they served on winter festivals in the far North. The vapor rose through the back of his head as he drank. When he lowered the bowl he found that Melkarth had returned to the other cave.
He shrugged, sat on a stone, and finished the beer. Then he noticed something strange about his right arm. Just above the inner wrist he had been scarred by a burning coal when he wrestled Ara-Karn the length of the village in a fight that had all but killed them both.
Now that scar was gone.
Other scars from other battles were also missing. His skin was smooth and tight and shone as it had when he had been young.
‘Gundoen.’
The voice was strange, yet he knew it.
A maiden stood in the doorway of his hut, tall and slender and lovely in a tunic she had woven by the cunning of her own hands. Her long, thick hair, the color of late-summer straw, was drawn back over one shoulder by bright cords strung with shells.
There was the blue feather of a corjan bird as well. Her eyes were like green pebbles on the seabed. It was Hertha-Toll as she had been twenty winters earlier, before their courtship began. She stepped forward, and her body swayed like a green bough in the Spring.
For a moment Gundoen was so enchanted that he could not think of what to say or do. Then all at once he caught her up in his strong young arms, spun her about and kissed her.
Her mouth tasted of the open air, of the salt sea, and the sweet grass of the fields about the village.
They went out of the hut of Tont Ornoth. A light snow was falling on the thatched roofs, but on Gundoen’s head and shoulders it felt like flowers, not chill at all.
Silently, hand in hand, they went down the village. Gundoen cast his eyes from Hertha-Toll to the huts about him. The village of his fathers, how he had missed it! But there were no folk about, only they two.
At the shore the sound of shallow waves curling up to swallow the snow came muffled to their ears. Gundoen knew that somewhere beyond the snow, dark God rose out of the bright horizon.
The Pass of God began.
He looked into his young wife’s eyes. He asked no questions. ‘We will return to the hut of Tont Ornoth,’ he said. ‘Upon this pass there will be no one who will disturb the chief.’
‘Until dark God falls,’ Hertha-Toll agreed. It had been many years since Gundoen had known such hunger for her.
They lay upon each other beneath a pile of pelts. The great old hut was empty. Upon the walls were arrayed the relics of the tribe, among them the tooth of a Darkbeast slain by Oro-Born in a hunt still sung of, and the bones of all the champions Gundoen had slain in wrestling-bouts. Only the hilt of the sword of Tont-Ornoth was lacking. The blade of that hilt had tasted the blood of Elna on the peak of Urnostardil, but Gundoen had ordered a new blade forged for it and had presented the sword to Ara-Karn.
