by Tad Williams
“He is seeing to the horses.” Binabik poked at the fire. “I convinced him to take them downslope in the open, so the horses would not be stepping on my morning meal or your face.” He lifted a bowl. “This is the last of the broth. Since our dried meat is now almost finished, I suggest you enjoy it. Meals may be scarce if our own hunting must be relied on.”
Simon shivered as he wiped a handful of snow on his face. “But won’t we reach the forest soon?”
Binabik patiently offered the bowl again. “Just so, but we will be traveling along it rather than through. It is a route more circuitous but less time-consuming, since we will not be cutting through underbrush. Also, in this frozen summer there may be few animals who are not sleeping in their dens and nests. Thus, if you are not soon taking this soup from my hands, I will drink it myself. I am no more interested in starving than you, as well as a great deal more sensible.”
“Sorry. Thank you.” Simon hunched over the bowl, enjoying a deep breath of the rising scent before he drank.
“You may be washing the bowl when you have finished,” the troll sniffed. “A nice bowl is a luxurious thing to have on a journey of such dangerousness.”
Simon smiled. “You sound like Rachel the Dragon.”
“I have not met this Dragon-Rachel,” Binabik said as he stood up, brushing snow from his breeches, “but if she was given charge of you, she must have been a person of great patientness and kindness.”
Simon chortled.
They reached the crossroads in late morning. The meeting of the two roads was marked only by a gaunt finger of stone set upright in the frozen ground. Gray-green lichen, seemingly impervious to frost, clung to it grimly.
“The Old Tumet’ai Road
runs through the forest.” Binabik gestured to the barely distinguishable path of the south road, which coiled away through a stand of firs. “Since I am thinking it is nevermore used and likely quite overgrown, we should instead follow the White Way
. Perhaps we will find some deserted habitations where we may be finding supplies.”
The White Way
proved a slightly newer road than the one leading from the ancient site of Tumet’ai. There were a few marks of recent human visitation—a rusted and broken iron wheel-rim dangling from a roadside branch, where it had doubtless been thrown by an irate wagon-owner, a sharpened spoke perhaps used as a tent-spike, discarded by the shoulder, a circle of charred stones half-covered in snow.
“Who lives out here?” Simon asked “Why is there a road at all?”
“There were once several small settlements east of St. Skendi’s monastery,” Sludig said “You remember Skendi’s—the snow-buried place we passed on our way to the dragon-mountain. There were even a few towns here—Sovebek, Grinsaby, some others, as I remember I think also that a century or so ago, people traveled this way around the great forest when they came north from the Thrithings, so there may have been a few inns.”
“In days more than a century gone,” Binabik intoned, “this part of the world was being much traveled We Qanuc—some of us, that is to say—traveled farther south in summer, sometimes to the edges of the lowlander countries. Also, the Sithi themselves were everywhere in their wandering It is only in these late and sad days that all this land has become empty of voices.”
“It does seem empty now,” Simon said “It seems like no one could live here anymore.”
They followed the winding course of the road through the short afternoon. The trees were gradually becoming thicker here at the forest’s edge, in spots growing so closely about the road that it seemed as if the companions had already entered Aldheorte, whether they wished to or not. At last they came to another standing stone, this one leaning forlornly by the roadside, with no crossing or other possible landmark in sight. Sludig dismounted to take a closer look.
“There are runes on it, but faint and weathered.” He peeled back some of the frozen moss. “I think they say that Grinsaby is nearby.” He looked up, smiling in his frosty beard. “Someplace with a roof or two, perhaps, even if nothing else. That would be a nice change.” His step a little springier, the Rimmersman vaulted back into his saddle. Simon, too, was heartened. Even a deserted town would be a vast improvement over the comfortless waste.
The words of Binabik’s song came back to him. You have slipped into cold shadows…He felt a moment’s pang of loneliness. Perhaps the town would not be deserted, after all. Maybe there would be an inn with a fire, and food…
As Simon yearned for the comforts of civilization, the sun vanished for good behind the forest. The wind rose and the early northern twilight came down upon them.
There was still light in the sky, but the snowy landscape had turned blue and gray, soaking up shadow like a rag dipped in ink. Simon and his companions were nearly ready to stop and make camp, and were discussing the subject in loud voices over the monotonous wind when they came upon the first outbuildings of Grinsaby.
As if to disappoint even Sludig’s modest hopes, the roofs of these abandoned cottages had collapsed under the weight of snow. The paddocks and gardens were also long untended, knee-deep in swirling white. Simon had seen so many emptied towns in his northern sojourn that it was hard to believe that the Frostmarch and the Waste had once been inhabited, that people had led their lives here just as they did in the green fields of Erkynland. He ached for his own home, for familiar places and familiar weather. Or had winter already crawled over the entire land?
They rode on. Soon Grinsaby’s deserted houses began to appear in greater profusion on either side of the road Binabik had named the White Way
. Some still bore traces of their once-residents—a rusted axe with a rotted handle standing in a chopping block before a snow-buried front door; an upright broom sticking out of the roadside drifts like a flag or the tail of a frozen animal—but most of the dwellings were as empty and desolate as skulls.
“Where do we stop?” Sludig called. “I think we may not find a roof after all.”
“We may not, so let us be looking for good walls,” Binabik replied. He was about to say more when Simon tugged at his arm.
“Look! It is a troll! Sludig was right!” Simon pointed off to the side of the road, where a short figure stood motionless but for its wind-flung cloak. The last rays of sunlight had found a thin spot in the forest fringe behind Grinsaby, throwing the stranger into relief.
“Be looking yourself,” Binabik said grumpily, but his eyes were fixed warily on the stranger. “It is no troll.” The figure beside the road was very small, wearing a thin hooded cloak. Bare, bluish skin showed where the breeches-legs failed to meet the top of his boots.
“It’s a little boy.” After amending his earlier identification, Simon steered Homefinder toward the edge of the road. His two companions followed. “He must be freezing to death!”
As they rode toward him, the child looked up, snow flecking his dark brows and lashes. He stared at the approaching trio, then turned and began to run.
“Stop,” Simon called, “we won’t hurt you!”
“Halad, künde!” Sludig shouted. The retreating form stopped and turned, staring. Sludig rode a few ells closer, then climbed down from his horse and walked forward slowly. “Vjer sommen marroven, künde,” he said, extending a hand. The boy stared at him suspiciously, but made no further move toward flight. The child seemed to be no more than seven or eight years old and thin as the handle of a butter churn, judging by the bits of him showing. His hands were full of acorns.
“I’m cold,” the boy said in fair Westerling.
Sludig looked surprised, but smiled and nodded “Come on, then, lad. “He gently took the acorns and poured them into his cloak pocket, then gathered up the unresisting child in his strong arms. “It’s all right, then. We’ll help you.” The Rimmersman placed the dark-haired stranger on the front of his saddle, wrapping his cloak around him so that the boy’s head seemed to grow from Sludig’s now-broad belly. “Can we find a place to make camp now, troll?” he growled.
Binabik nodded. “Of course.”
He urged Qantaqa ahead. The boy watched the wolf with wide but unworried eyes as Simon and Sludig spurred after. Snow was rapidly filling in the hollow where the boy had stood.
As they rode on through the empty town, Sludig brought out his skin of kangkang and let the newcomer have a short drink. The boy coughed, but otherwise seemed unsurprised by the bitter Qanuc liquor. Simon decided he might be older than first appearance made him seem; there was a precision to his movements that made him seem less like a child. Some of his apparent youth, Simon guessed, might be due to his large eyes and slender frame.
“What’s your name, lad?” Sludig asked at last.
The boy looked him over calmly. “Vren,” he said at last, the word fluidly and oddly accented. He tugged at the drinking skin, but Sludig shook his head and put it back in his saddle bag.
“ ‘Friend’?” Simon asked, puzzled
“ ‘Vren,’ I am thinking he said,” Binabik replied. “It is a Hyrkaman name, and I am thinking he might be a Hyrka.”
“Look at that black hair,” Sludig said. “The color of his skin, too. He is a Hyrka, or I am no Rimmersman. But what is he doing alone in the snow?”
The Hyrkas, Simon knew, were a footloose people accounted good with horses and skilled in games at which other people lost money. He had seen many at the great market in Erchester. “Do the Hyrkas live out here, in the White Waste?”
Sludig frowned. “I’ve never heard of such—but I have seen many things of late I would never have believed in Elvritshalla. I thought they lived mainly in the cities and on the grasslands with the Thrithings-folk.”
Binabik reached up and patted the boy with a small hand. “So have I been taught, although there are some who also are living beyond the Waste, in the empty steppe-lands to the east.”
After they had ridden farther, Sludig dismounted again to search for signs of habitation. He returned, shaking his head, and went to Vren. The child’s brown eyes gazed unflinchingly back at him. “Where do you live?” the Rimmersman asked.
“With Skodi,” was the reply.
“Is that near?” Binabik asked. The boy shrugged. “Where are your parents?” The gesture was repeated.
The troll turned to his companions. “Perhaps Skodi is the name of his mother. Or it might be a name of some other town name near to Grinsaby-village. It is also being possible he has strayed from a caravan of wagons—although these roads, I have sureness, are not much used at the best of times. How could he survive long in fearful winter days like these…?” He shrugged a movement oddly similar to the child’s.
“Will he stay with us?” Simon asked. Sludig made an exasperated noise but said nothing. Simon turned on the Rimmersman angrily. “We can’t leave him here to die!”
Binabik waved a placating finger. “No, do not fear that we would. In any case, I suspect that there must be more people than Vren who are living here.”
Sludig stood up. “The troll is right; there must be folk here. Anyway, the idea of taking a child with us is foolish.”
“That is what some were saying of Simon,” Binabik responded quietly. “But I am having agreement with your first statement. Let us find his home.”
“He can ride with me for a while,” Simon said. The Rimmersman made a wry face, but handed over the unresisting child. Simon wrapped the boy in his cloak as Sludig had done.
“Sleep now, Vren,” he whispered. The wind moaned through the ruined houses. “You’re with friends, now. We’ll take you home.”
The boy stared back at him, solemn as a petty cleric at a public ceremony. A small hand snaked out from beneath the jacket to pat Homefinder’s back. With Vren’s slender form resting against his chest, Simon took his reins in one hand so he could drape an arm around the boy’s midsection. He felt very old and very responsible.
Will I ever be a father? he wondered as they cramped on through the gathering dark. Have sons? He thought about it for a moment. Daughters?
All the people he knew, it seemed, had lost their fathers—Binabik’s in a snowslide, Prince Josua’s to old age. Jeremias the chandler’s boy, Simon remembered, had lost his to the chest-fever. Princess Miriamele’s sire might as well be dead. He thought about his own father, drowned before he was born. Were fathers just that way, like cats and dogs, making children and then going away?
“Sludig!” he called, “do you have a father?”
The Rimmersman turned, an irritated expression on his face “What do you mean by that, boy?”
“I mean is he alive?”
“For all I know,” the Rimmersman snorted “And little I care, either. The old devil could be in Hell and it would not bother me.” He turned back to the snow-shrouded road.
I will not be a father like that, Simon decided clutching the child a little closer. Vren moved uneasily beneath Simon’s cloak. I’ll stay with my son. We’ll have a home, and I won’t go away.
But who would be the mother? A series of confusing images, random as snowflakes, flurried before his mind’s eye. Miriamele, distant on her tower balcony at the Hayholt; the maid Hepzibah; cross old Rachel, and angry-eyed Lady Vorzheva. And where would his home be? He looked around at the vast whiteness of the Waste and the approaching shadow of Aldheorte. How could anyone hope to stay in one place in this mad world? To promise that to a child would be a lie. Home? He would be lucky to find a place to get out of the wind for a night.
His unhappy laugh set Vren to squirming. Simon pulled the cloak tighter around them both.
As they approached the eastern outskirts of Grinsaby they still had not seen a living soul. Neither had there been any evidence of recent habitation. They had questioned Vren closely, but had been unable to elicit any information other than the name “Skodi.”
“Is Skodi your father?” Simon asked.
“It is a woman’s name,” Sludig offered. “A Rimmerswoman’s name.”
Simon tried again. “Is Skodi your mother?”
The boy shook his head. “I live with Skodi,” he said, his words so clear despite the accent that Simon wondered again if the boy was not older than they had guessed.
There were still a few desolate settlements perched among the low hills along the White Way
, but they were appearing more and more infrequently. Night had come on, filling the spaces between trees with inky shadows. The company had ridden too long—and too far past eating-time by Simon’s reckoning. Darkness now made their search impractical. Binabik was just setting a pitchy pine limb alight to use as a torch when Simon saw a gleam of light through the forest, some distance from the road.
“Look there!” he cried. “I think it’s a fire!” The distant white-blanketed trees seemed to glow redly.
“Skodi’s house! Skodi’s house!” the boy said, bouncing so that Simon had to restrain him. “She’ll be happy!”
The company sat for a moment, eyeing the flickering light.
“We go carefully,” Sludig said, flexing the fingers that clutched his Qanuc spear. “It is a damned odd place to live. We have no assurance these folks will be friendly.”
Simon felt a sudden inner chill at Sludig’s words. If only Thorn were reliable enough for him to carry at his side! He felt his bone knife in its scabbard and was reassured.
“I will ride ahead,” Binabik said. “I am smaller and Qantaqa is more quiet. We will go to have a look.” He murmured a word, the wolf slid off the road through the long shadows, her tail waving like a puff of smoke.
A few minutes passed. Simon and Sludig rode slowly along the snowy downs, not talking. Staring at the warm light that shimmered in the treetops, Simon had fallen into a sort of shallow dream when he was startled by the troll’s abrupt reappearance. Qantaqa grinned hugely, her red tongue hanging from her mouth.
“It is an old abbey, I am thinking,” Binabik said, his face almost hidden in the darkness of his hood. “There is a bonfire in the dooryard and several people who are around it, but they look to be childr
en. I was seeing no horses, no sign of anyone waiting to ambush.”
They rode quietly forward to the crest of a low hill. The fire burned before them at the bottom of a tree-lined clearing, surrounded by small, dancing silhouettes. Behind them loomed the red-tinted stone walls and cracked mortar of the abbey. It was an old building that had suffered beneath the weather’s rough handling, the long roof had collapsed in several places, the holes gaping at the stars like mouths. Many of the surrounding trees also seemed to have pushed their limbs right through the small windows, as though trying to escape the cold.
As they sat looking, Vren slithered free beneath Simon’s arm and hopped down from the saddle, tumbling into the show. He stood, shaking like a dog, then pelted down the hill toward the bonfire. Some of the small shapes turned at his approach with glad cries. Vren stood among them for a moment, waving his arms excitedly, then pushed through the abbey’s front door and disappeared into the warm glow.
When long moments had passed and no one came back out again, Simon looked inquiringly at Binabik and Sludig.
“It is certainly seeming to be his home,” Binabik said.
“Should we go on our way?” Simon asked, hoping they would say no. Sludig looked him over, then grunted in exasperation.
“It would be foolish to pass the chance of a warm night.” the Rimmersman said grudgingly. “And we are ready to make camp. But no word of who we are or what we do. We are soldiers run away from the garrison at Skoggey, should any ask.”
Binabik smiled. “I approve of your logic, although I am doubting I can be mistaken for a Rimmersman warrior. Let us go and see Vren’s home.”
They cantered down into the dell. The small figures, perhaps half a dozen in all, had resumed their dancing game, but as Simon and the others approached they paused and fell silent. They were only raggedly-dressed children, as Binabik had suggested.
All eyes now turned to the new arrivals. Simon felt himself subjected to a thorough scrutiny. The children seemed to range in age from three or four up to Vren’s age or a little older, and seemed to be of no one type. There was a little girl who shared Vren’s black hair and dark eyes, but also two or three others so fair they could be nothing but Rimmersgarders. All wore expressions of wide-eyed caution. As Simon and his friends dismounted, heads turned almost in unison to watch. No one spoke.
