The Price of Blood and Honor

by Elizabeth Willey

  Reaching home from there was easy, Trixie flying straight and fast. Hunting was poor. Drought and heat lay on the fields and forests, growing worse as Freia neared the isle and the city. She slept beside Trixie, hungry, longing for rain to soften the aridity and green the slopes.

  Trixie flew over a wide swath of blackened desolation nearly as broad as the wasteland, but this had been made recently by fire. The trees were stark charred sticks, the ground black and baked, the waters—such as they were—silted and undrinkable. Passing this, they came at last to a once-lovely place in the high, jagged mountains Freia knew well, and it too had suffered; great ancient trees, burnt by fire and toppled by storm, lay with their roots exposed to the desiccating air. Their branches were dry, rattling bonily in the wind. Trixie landed reluctantly.

  “Oh, poor trees,” Freia said, walking through the fallen forest, shocked. The smell of old smoke bit her throat and nose. Here she had hunted, eaten, slept, many days and nights; it was one of her favorite places, and it was dead. Soon she was black with soot and char. Had Prospero done this in anger? She had seen him do such damage before, but never on so vast a scale. This place, the whole countryside, were spoiled. Why would he ruin his own Argylle?

  She went back to Trixie, who was drinking at a mucky brook, and mounted again. Trixie, though, wasn’t interested in travelling; she wanted to hunt, and Freia had to allow her to land in a water-meadow whose pond showed drying mud above its low waterline. The fires and storms had not crossed the ridge, and here the forest was still standing and alive. She had taken the season to be autumn, from the stars and other signs, but here the trees were budding out spring-green in fresh autumnal litter, and Freia examined them, puzzling over this, after the gryphon had gone off to catch her dinner.

  Freia followed the pond’s stream up the hillside. The landscape began to feel familiar; the angles of trees, the tilt of the earth evoked comparisons in her memory, an effortless sorting that finished abruptly when Freia came to a cracked reddish rock shelf over which the stream spilled. Here, yes, and above, onward, up another creeper-fringed cracked rock; this was the place she recalled indeed. Another half-hour’s clambering, and Freia found herself in an agreeable camping spot where the water spilled in a lacy veil over black rocks and green ferns and mosses. There were pools of cold water dammed by stones that she had pushed and hauled and caulked with leaves and sticks in the long summer days, years ago. Now her rough-crafted obstruction had become undistinguishable from nature’s work, modified by the impulses of the water over time. Happily, feeling at home, she undressed and splashed herself clean, then sat drying in the single broad shaft of sunlight that penetrated the gloom of the karial trees. These were fully in leaf, their trunks patchy red and their fronds long and luxuriant. Freia pulled on her shirt, lay on her stomach on a flat-topped rock to watch the pool of water for fish, and dozed.

  Her back was cold, and someone was calling to her.

  She woke reluctantly. Who was that? Nobody knew she was here. Unless Trixie had told. Gryphons couldn’t talk.

  “Freia.” It was only a whisper, in the sound of the water. A dream? “Freia,” the water whispered again.

  Freia pushed herself up and looked around, bewildered. The sun had left the clearing; now only deep-angled streaks of light fell on the water and the fronds. She saw movement in the water and, forgetting the dream, leaned forward with an arrow to try to spear the fish. The sun-spatters vanished, overclouded.

  No fish. Light shivered across the pool’s surface and swirled.

  “Freia,” said Dewar, a dappling image, ever-sundered and ever-coalescing in the stirring water.

  Freia lowered the arrow.

  “I thought you were a fish, or a dream,” she said, shaking her head. Still dreaming?

  He smiled and the waterfall said, “No, but—what is this, a brook? Moving water?”

  “Yes. A waterfall. And a stream.”

  “It’s difficult to work with,” he said. “It may not last. Freia, where are you? I have been looking for you.”

  “I’m home,” she said.

  “Did Prospero—”

  “I was—away. Trixie found me and brought me home,” Freia said.

  “Clever Trixie. Freia, you mustn’t stay in Argylle. Odile is there. I—”

  “Who is Odile?” Freia demanded.

  “My mother,” Dewar said. “A vicious sorceress. Avoid her, as you love life.”

  “I don’t,” Freia said tartly, and turned her back on the waterfall and the pool.

  Dewar said other things, rushed words in the water-rhythm. She stopped her ears. The waterfall ran on wordlessly and then whooshed; spray dampened her back and head. Startled, Freia turned around in time to see Dewar lose his footing and fall from the moss-slicked rocks of the pool.

  No watery vision: Dewar, solidly there.

  She stared without speaking as he regained his feet and, soaked and green-slimed, climbed onto the boulder beside her, holding her gaze with his own fixed on her.

  “You’re very difficult to talk to,” he said. “Or perhaps I say the wrong things.”

  “How did you do that?” she whispered.

  “I’m a sorcerer. Freia, I wish to offer you help if you want it, but I suppose you don’t want it. But you could at least say no.” Dewar’s voice was low and unsure; he rubbed at a mossy stain on his white shirt cuff, unbuttoning the cuff, nervous.

  “I don’t need any of your help,” Freia said. “I got here all by myself with Trixie. What do you mean, you were looking for me?”

  “I’ve been trying to Summon you for days. Freia, please—I don’t know where you’ve been hiding, but I’m worried about Odile being here. If she has gotten at that Spring, we’ll really have trouble. I’m afraid she has her claws deep into Prospero. You’d be safer if you came away and stayed with me.” He spoke quickly, but clearly: emphasizing the danger and the safety.

  “What’s it to you whether Odile does anything to me, and why would she want to?” she asked crossly.

  “You’ll be in her way if you stay, she will hurt you or kill you, and I like you,” Dewar said, eye to eye with her.

  Freia tossed her head, glaring at him. What right had he, a stranger here, to tell her to leave? When had he done any kindness for her that did not help himself as well? She was wiser now than to believe him. “You don’t. You’re a sorcerer and you don’t care a rat’s turd about anyone else. You want to use me for something, yourself; you’d never speak to me otherwise. Go away and let me be!”

  Dewar’s face went blank with shock. He began to speak; he said nothing, stunned by the cold anger ringing in her voice.

  Was it so? When had she ever lied?

  The waterfall tumbled over the rocks.

  “I’m sorry,” Dewar said finally, and he slid off the rock, waded across the pool, and stood under the waterfall. It thrummed on his head and filled his ears.

  A Way, he thought; he’d open a Way through the moving water and leave her as she wished: but the water soothed the pain that had shot through his heart.

  “You are mad,” Freia said, watching him, but she knew he wasn’t, and she wondered what to do for a long time while he stood with his back to her, his hands braced on the rocks. He couldn’t just stand there. It wasn’t right. Perhaps he meant it this time, meant to help her without seeking something hidden for himself; perhaps he wanted to help Prospero, if Prospero was in trouble. Now she had hurt him, just as he had hurt her, and the balance of insult wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

  Freia splashed after him and stood out of the water’s reach. He ignored her. “I shouldn’t have said that, Dewar.”

  “It’s true,” he said to the water. “And what benefit have you gotten from me so far? I have harmed you as much as, more than, any man dead or alive, including that bastard Golias. You don’t need me: it’s true.” His voice was punctuated with the rush and rhythm of the falling water.

  “How can you stand that? Get out of there, please. You’re
giving me an ague just looking at you.” The water was cold. Freia’s feet were numb already.

  “I like water,” he said.

  “I like trees. Come sit by one. You can still see the water. Dewar, please. People don’t stand under waterfalls. It’s cold. Please.”

  He shook his head, but he pushed himself away from the water-polished rocks and turned to look at Freia. She was warily waiting for further irrationality from him. Dewar pointed to a tree; she nodded. They picked their way out of the stream to scramble over rocks and sit under the fronds of the patchy-barked tree, on a lumpy bed of moss.

  “It’s soft,” Freia said, patting it after they had sat for several minutes.

  “Lovely stuff,” he agreed, stroking it delicately with his fingertips.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked after another silence.

  “Lot of things. I don’t think you want to know them all—” He ran his fingers through his soaked hair, squeezing water out.

  “I guess I didn’t ask, then,” snapped Freia.

  “I think you don’t like me second-guessing you,” Dewar said, and he caught her eye and made her smile. He went on, taking heart, but halting often to find a word. “I don’t want you to be hurt, Freia, but I see now that I’ve been the agent of much pain to you, and, and if it could be undone I’d do it. And I wonder if I should stay away from you, although I want to protect you. I don’t want to be only a sorcerer. If I help you, I can fight that. So perhaps I do want to use you, to that end, to better myself—to protect myself. But I do like you. I always have. I have given you grief and never joy, and perhaps you had rather I never meddled with you again. Do you want me to go? I will.” He waited a moment and whispered, “Do you hate me?”

  Freia answered at once, “I like you. When you’re not being greedy or a—a sorcerer or standing under waterfalls you’re, you’re, I like you.” She could not comprehend hating Dewar. He might be cruel, or selfish, or simply oblivious of her, but she could not hate him, she knew; for in the same moment he might be tender, or open-heartedly generous, or meet her eyes and smile, somehow making her smile too. No matter what he did, she knew she would always like him, would always help him if she could; and she could not remember what it was to not know him. He was a piece of the world, a piece she had missed without knowing what was lacking. She did not want him to go.

  “If you’ll please tell me about the first when you notice it, I might keep from the second,” Dewar said, “and as for the third, well, I do love waterfalls. Not to everyone’s taste. You don’t enjoy swimming?”

  “No.” Freia was preoccupied with an odd warm, liquid feeling surging up in her body. She was acutely aware of Dewar’s proximity, of his damp, clean smell, of the unevenness of his breathing. He was agitated; why?

  They stole glances at one another and decided to continue the conversation.

  “How do you know that?”

  “You didn’t want to swim at the sea,” Dewar said, “but I thought it was because you were sick.”

  “Waves are terrible. I don’t mind watching them, but they’re too, too rolly and big and thumpy and dangerous. They make me afraid.”

  “They’re predictable, though,” he said. “They just go along like the waterfall, and they wouldn’t happen, just like the stream and the waterfall, without the earth and stones to shape them.”

  “Really?”

  “I could draw you a diagram, but I fear you’d think I was being an idiot.”

  Freia shook her head, thinking of pushing the rocks together to make the pool, and looked sidelong at him again. Dewar was looking steadily at her. She was wearing only her shirt, and although it covered her to mid-thigh, it was wet.

  “I wouldn’t think you were an idiot for explaining. I like things explained.”

  They regarded one another.

  “We like different things,” Dewar said, “but they’re not exclusive. The trees need water.”

  “They do,” Freia said, taking the general case for specific. “It doesn’t seem to have rained here much, and there were fires, over that way a ways.” She gestured.

  “It feels very weak and life-poor,” Dewar said. “Speaking as a sorcerer. I’m sure the place has missed you, if you weren’t here. It is yours.”

  They had moved closer together without noticing it, leaning, turning, shifting.

  “I missed you,” Freia whispered. “I was so angry at you, but I missed you. You were so sweet, so friendly when we were travelling. Then you did such cruel things. Why did you change?”

  “I did. I—I was angry at myself,” he said, and looked down. “I should be flayed for treating you so. Blind, self-centered, deaf too—I should have taken you home again when you asked me to in Landuc. I have wished that at least daily since. You were right about that; you’ve been right about everything. I’ve made you deathly wretched, and myself too, and I only want to give you good things, you ought to be happy, someone should do that. And I’ve missed you, Freia, and I’ve been worried about you—”

  “Dewar—”

  “I’m sorry. If you had rather that I left and never troubled you again, I will do that. I’ve done little to deserve another chance with you. You trusted me, and I hurt you.” He snapped a fallen frond in small and smaller pieces.

  “Dewar.” Freia touched his chin and lifted it. “You’re sorry, and I’m sorry, and can we both try to be, to be—better?” She searched his eyes, brilliant blue-rimmed black pools.

  “I’m trying,” he said. “Water isn’t much without the earth around it to shape it, Freia. I need you to make me better. I take direction from you; you guide me without knowing you guide, command me …” His voice trailed away. He was lost in her eyes. “I want you to be happy,” he whispered. “Forgive me. Let me stay. With you.”

  She said, or only thought, “Yes.” It seemed to her that she could feel his body as well as her own; she was conscious of herself from within and without—the pressure of her legs on the moss, the coolness of her hand against Dewar’s cheek. She stroked his smooth face, longing to comfort him and extinguish the sadness in him. It was beyond words, what she wanted to say; it came out in gestures, in touch.

  Freia’s fingers moved lightly along Dewar’s jaw, touched his wet hair, his neck. Her chest rose and fell in the damp linen shirt; she could feel his body’s heat. He reached up, found her timid fingers—they curled around his, and he brought them to his mouth and brushed his lips, then his tongue, over them—smoothness, warmth. Her breath caught. Freia said something soundlessly, a faint movement of her lips as she leaned toward him, and then she drew his hand toward her and pressed his palm against her mouth, a light kiss. Dewar helped her settle against him, enfolded and supported. He closed his eyes and embraced her, his lips on her temple, her eyes, her cheek. Freia made a sweet, startled sound, then another, pleased, tasting his soft mouth; another kiss, a delicate unexpected touch, and she moved against him, sudden, hard.

  “Slowly, sweet love, so,” he whispered, and set the pace with his hands: slowly, and her body loosened as she sighed and entrusted herself to Dewar.

  The sound of the waterfall poured over them and the moist moss cushioned their elbows and knees as he rolled onto his back. Rain began to fall, so that the fronds moved and rustled under the water-drops and the moss made a light pattering sound.

  “ ’S raining,” Dewar sighed, feeling the drops on his face.

  “Need rain,” she whispered, and licked the water away. “Oh, please oh—”

  He shivered and clasped her, suddenly inside her body trying to find his way into her soul, and some detached part of him lectured on rulers and realms and linkages and lives, and the rest of him ignored all the complications of the Art and danced.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Lovely.”

  Though wet, they were beyond cold. The rain was falling softly and steadily, a gentle but determined downpour. The waterfall was louder; the moss, soggy. Dewar sighed; Freia turned her head and looked
into his half-open eyes, dark in the dimming light.

  “Just then,” she said, “it felt as if I dissolved, and you dissolved, and we weren’t—separate.” She stroked his face with a fingertip, smiling shyly. “I wish it had lasted longer.”

  Dewar gazed seriously at her, more alert. “Complete.”

  Freia nodded, framing his face between her forearms.

  “Yes,” he said, “it was like finding something I lost, only for an instant. Sweet love. Oh, love.” He kissed her, his arms against her back pressing her tightly to him. Dewar wanted that thing, whatever it was; its absence had been plaguing him for years, and he knew now that the thing he had lost was Freia. The empty ache from the missing piece of him had started after her suicide; it had made itself felt as he walked along the snowy road, away from the Moonstone where he had bargained for her life and then for his own. The Stone had protected her, child of earth that she was: his prayers had been granted, at considerable expense. Was the consequence of sharing one life between them to be a perpetual preoccupation with her? Or had that already been there? He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter now. It was there, and he could not remember what he had been like without it.

  The closer he was to her, the further the ache receded. Sometimes his dreams of her had subdued it. It had been gone completely for a moment, and he could barely remember the missing-piece pang now. He kissed her neck, then her throat, then the smoothness of her chest, marred by the white line of a scar; she relaxed her hold on him and let him touch her freely. Her own touch was uncertain, and he tried to help, guiding, encouraging. Now they lay in the wet moss caressing, whispering further confidences, fears and pleasures and kindnesses offered in turn. Presently, “Was that it?” Dewar whispered, and Freia answered by pulling him on top of her and wordlessly demanding his cooperation. He moaned and sighed and swayed with her for, it seemed, hours, until he passed his endurance and collapsed into her arms in self-annihilating hot dissolution. She shouted with him, urging him on and on, and he laughed breathlessly when he could laugh.