Luthiel's Song: Dreams of the Ringed Vale

by Robert Marston Fannéy

They found a low place on the wall between the battlements and sat down. For a while, Luthiel sat in silence unsure what to say. She looked at him as healer might, taking him in from the top of his head to the end of his toes. He smelled of blood and polished metal. The grey armor laid over him like ice over stone. Even his face seemed to be frosted and mask-like. Far more pale than the natural color of flesh. His breathing was very slight and those pit eyes seemed to hold nothing.

  The way he looked terrified her. Everything that made him look as though he were living seemed to be fading from him.

  She pulled the flask of honeywine from her pouch.

  “This was a birthday present from my brother. Would you care to share it with me?” She undid the stopper and held it out to him.

  “I would, lady,” he said. That slight smile touched his lips again.

  What happened to him? she thought. Yesterday he seemed so much more alive.

  He took the bottle from her hand and brought it to his lips. For a moment, confusion passed over his eyes. It was as though he’d forgotten how to drink. Then recognition awoke in those dark eyes and he took a swallow.

  “That’s good,” he said, the wan smile on his face grew brighter. He handed her back the bottle.

  When she brought it to her lips, the place where his mouth had touched it was cold. She shuddered, but forced herself to swallow the golden liquid.

  Luthiel was unable to contain herself any longer.

  “Vaelros, what is the matter with your men? They seem as if they’ve died. They don’t draw breath and their eyes seem like dark pits. You don’t look much better.”

  Vaelros laughed. It was a grim, half-hearted sound.

  “You are as lovely and nearly as wise as the lady Merrin of Arganoth. But she is much sadder. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were her younger sister. The eyes are different and the hair. I can’t believe it. If you won’t tell me your name, then will you at least tell me where you come from?”

  Luthiel bit her lip. She noticed that some of the life was again returning to Vaelros. His eyes held her as if she were a blazing beacon. But what could she tell him? What if the Vyrl were right about her heritage? What if Zalos found out?

  “You asked me to tell a secret. It is one I am afraid I must keep,” She said.

  “Aye, and what you have asked about is secret as well.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes each gathering their thoughts.

  “Would you sing a song for me?” Vaelros asked.

  Luthiel almost gasped.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Sometimes, singing makes me feel—better. Merrin used to sing to me.”

  “What song would you like me to sing?”

  “There was a song I heard in dreams. It must have been more than a fortnight ago now. But it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. It goes something like this—“ Vaelros hummed the tune to her namesong. “I couldn’t quite hear the words. Do you know this song?”

  Luthiel took another drink from the bottle and passed it back to him. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t see anything sly about the warming smile on his lips. But in his brightening eyes there was a curiosity she couldn’t understand. To her, it looked as though he were slowly coming out from beneath a dark and cold shadow.

  “If I sang that song, I may as well tell you my secret,” she whispered, staring at her hands.

  He laughed again, and then took another drink from the bottle before passing it back to her.

  Unthinking, she took a drink. This time, the mouth of the bottle was warm.

  Below, a couple of wolves were staring up at them with their ice-blue eyes.

  Vaelros noticed this and took Luthiel’s hand. His hand was cold.

  “Lady, I think we’re being watched. Why don’t we find some place a little more private to continue our conversation?”

  Luthiel nodded.

  “This castle is so dark,” she said. “Why don’t we go over there?” She pulled her hand out of his and pointed toward the lake.

  “A fine place,” he said.

  Without saying another word, they walked side by side down the stairs and out the small door beside the gatehouse. They made their way toward the Miruvoir following the path that wound about the lake a ways before sitting down on a boulder. Out in the lake, mists rose from the water riding in tiny wisps over the slate surface. They sat in a patch of sunlight but the mists swirled around them in a cloud.

  He drew his cloak about him, and pulled the hood over his head to shade his face from the sunlight.

  Without thinking, she lifted her hand and drew the hood back again.

  He flinched, then sharply raised his hand to bring the hood up again.

  “What are you doing!” he growled.

  Luthiel stumbled back in fear.

  “I only wanted to see your face in the light,” she whispered.

  She almost walked away right then. But something kept her.

  “Does it hurt you?” she asked.

  When he turned his eyes toward her again there was madness in them.

  “Yes! It hurts! It feels like fire!”

  She reeled, shuffling back.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” she said.

  The madness seemed to fall from Vaelros’ eyes as soon as it had come on.

  “No, it is I who should be sorry. Please forgive my outburst.”

  Luthiel didn’t know what to do. She felt both afraid for and of him. He seemed to be vacillating between humanity, warmth, death and madness. It was a terrifying thing to watch.

  “It’s alright,” she said.

  What can I say? she thought. There must be something. Her hand roamed to the Stone at her neck. She wondered what he would look like under its light. He’d already asked to hear her song. If she used the Stone maybe she could find some way to help him. But could she chance it?

  “Vaelros, can I keep you to your word?” she asked.

  Vaelros looked at her for a moment. Something seemed to flash across his eyes—eyes that were drinking her in the way a parched man might drink water.

  “No, I’m afraid you cannot.”

  His response jarred her, both with its bluntness and its honesty.

  Now it was her turn to become angry.

  “Are you saying that you are unworthy of trust, Lord Vaelros?”

  He let out a sigh.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I’m trying to,” she replied.

  “There are many things in this world, lady, that are better if they stay hidden from the light of day. I am one of them.”

  “If I can’t trust you, then why should I sing you the song?”

  He lifted a gloved hand, opening it, palm-up, beneath the sunlight, letting its brilliance play over the dark metal.

  “Because, lady, of all last year or the year before I can only remember a few days. The rest is all a cloud of endless nightmares and terror. But since hearing the song, the dark dreams have fallen away somewhat.”

  Luthiel couldn’t find her voice for a few long moments.

  “Are the others like you?” she whispered.

  “Worse,” he said. “When they heard the song, it drove them into a frenzy. They called the wolves. We rode long and hard, trying to hunt down its source. They were going to murder whoever sang it. But they never found her. All they found were some tracks beside the river Rendalas. Tracks that led into the Vale.”

  “And did you—did you want to murder the singer?”

  His fading eyes found hers again.

  “No, no. I wanted to thank her. You see, the song helped me, made me feel alive again. For a few nights, there were no nightmares.”

  “Then why did you ride with them?”

  He tore his gaze from her and stared at the ground.

  “Because I am compelled.”

  “What compels you?”

  He looked at her again. This time his eyes were both longing and suspicious.
He looked left and then right. His face bled from one expression to the next. To Luthiel, he seemed a man at war with himself.

  Then, with a shaking hand, he undid a clasp at the neck of his armor and reached his hand beneath. Slowly, trembling, he drew out a long, black chain. Fastened to the chain was a box of some strange, dark metal. The metal was etched in runes the color of blood. Reminded of her dream, she shuddered.

  Vaelros held the chain with the box in front of him. His hand trembled and the box swayed before them.

  Luthiel reached a hand out to touch it, but Vaelros drew it away before she could.

  “This compels me.”

  “A box?”

  “No, the thing in the box.”

  “What is it?”

  “A Stone, blacker than pitch.”

  “Why don’t you just get rid of it?”

  Vaelros laughed. “It’s not so easy.”

  Mechanically, his hand put the Stone back beneath his armor.

  “Is it a Wyrd Stone?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re not supposed to look like that, are they?” she said, remembering Mithorden’s words about the lost Stones and recalling Leowin’s words about how Elag was trying to make her own Stone darken.

  “Every one I’ve seen looks like that.

  “Except Merrin’s. Hers looks like a patch of the ocean under moonlight. She keeps it hidden. But I think Zalos knows.”

  “I don’t think they’re meant to look like yours. How does it compel you?”

  He brought his hand to his face. There was sweat streaming from his forehead.

  “It kills me faster if I don’t follow it. It kills me more slowly if I do. If I die, I become its creature—like the others.”

  Luthiel took his hand in hers. She wanted to give him some comfort. But she was also afraid.

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “My grandfather.”

  She shuddered.

  “Zalos,” she whispered.

  “Yes. Lady, could you please sing the song now?”

  Luthiel nodded.

  “Of course,” she said. But she thought for a few moments about the darkness in Vaelros’ Wyrd Stone. Leowin’s voice came back to her:

  I saw him trying to use it, over and over again. But so long as he held it, it darkened. He was doing it all wrong. He needed to sing to it and then give it away freely to the right person before it would work properly. Instead, he kept it locked in an iron box and never let even the dimmest light touch it.

  “Vaelros, if you give me your Stone, I think I might be able to help you.”

  It was amazing the change that came over Vaelros. Fear flashed in his eyes and again, his face seemed sunken, dead. But within those eyes, the conflict still raged. With a trembling hand, he reached within his shirt and drew the chain out once more.

  He held it tight, seeming unable to let go.

  Without realizing what she was doing, she snatched it out of his hands.

  His other hand clenched at his sword hilt, trembled there, but made no move to draw it.

  “Poor warrior, weary of the long road and of wasting shadow, rest your hand a while,” she said. Something in the quality of her voice seemed to calm him. Still, the struggle went on behind his eyes.

  She turned her attention to the box that held the Stone. There was a catch on its side. She worked the catch but the box wouldn’t open. She tried again. Nothing happened.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” he said in a quavering voice. But his eyes still held her and there was light in them when he looked at her. His body was hunched, though, and he pulled his cloak about him as a man caught in the grasp of a death-chill.

  “Then how does it work?” she asked.

  “You must use my name.”

  “Vaelros?”

  “My proper name.”

  “And what is your proper name?”

  “Vaelros Morithingol,” he whispered.

  So that is the second name of Zalos—Morithingol, she thought. It is strange that no-one knows this. But Luthiel, remembering Mithorden’s words about sorcerer’s names wondered if it was by design that his surname was kept secret.

  She held the box in her hand and whispered as much as chanted the name—“Vaelros Morithingol.”

  With a ‘snick!’ the lid snapped back. A cold mist poured out of the box. Wreathed in the mist was a perfectly round Stone. It was black. Blacker than any thing she’d ever seen before except, perhaps, the face of the dark moon.

  Then, she started to sing her namesong.

  The sunlight fell on it. Some of the cold and the shadow seemed to melt away. A touch of color returned to the Stone. It seemed a swirl of black and violet.

  But it was brief. For within Vaelros’ Stone, the gloom gathered again. From out of it a tendril snaked, touching her on the neck.

  A song she heard

  Of cold that gathers

  Like winter’s tongue

  Among the shadows

  It rose like blackness

  In the sky

  That on volcano’s

  Vomit rise

  A Stone of ruin

  From burn to chill

  Like black moonrise

  Her voice fell still…

  Luthiel choked, her song ended. Her ears filled with dissonance that rose from the black Stone like flies from a corpse. Vaelros stiffened, and his hand jerked back toward his sword’s hilt.

  His eyes hollowed as they followed her.

  It compels him, she thought.

  She turned her eyes back to the Stone.

  There is my enemy.

  The dirge rising from it was overwhelming. Her hand was going numb with chill. Despair fell on her. It seemed pointless to even breathe.

  In a gesture that seemed futile, she raised her hand to her neck and lifted Methar Anduel from its pouch.

  Blackness rose from Vaelros’ Stone. Tendrils oozed out of it clutching at her like spider legs.

  But her eyes were on the tiny spark at Methar Anduel’s heart.

  What now? Even her thoughts seemed faint—like a gentle voice in a loud room.

  Sing! The voice commanded. Sing or be lost!

  She opened her mouth. In response, the dark song grew louder until the sound was so violent it rattled her teeth. Against it stood only the gentle voice.

  The black Stone trembled as if in anger—

  Down! Down! Deep you go!

  Tumbling, descending!

  Foolish life ending!

  —came its song.

  There was a fluttering in her chest and her eyes became dim and clouded. The world spun about her and she had the brief sensation of falling. But the gentle voice rose up to answer it.

  In the depths a light will grow

  A silver shine no shadows know

  Like wings unfolding in the sky

  That circle round a gleaming eye

  Faintly, she realized that the voice was her own. Heartened, she sang out stronger. Light returned to her eyes and the vertigo faded. There were more words to the dark Stone’s song. But her song covered them. It rushed from her like wind—building at the last into crescendo.

  Turning darkness all away

  Even depths will know their day

  For every shadow has its end

  In light!

  Life will return again!

  Silence. For an instant all was still.

  Then, upon an impulse, Luthiel touched her Stone to Vaelros’. When the two met a ringing rose up like the distant tolling of bells. The tendrils lifted from Vaelros’ Stone like smoke.

  Vaelros, who stood before her with his sword half drawn, collapsed to the ground. With a hacking cough, his mouth opened. Black smoke oozed out and with it came the trickle of old blood. He gasped, took a deep breath and hacked again, this time vomiting a gout of the black stuff. It splashed into the lake where it spread through the water like a cloud.

  She sang on. Now the words were ones she couldn’t unders
tand.

  Vaelros’ Stone grew warmer. The wisps rising off it were changing from black, to grey to white. Finally, there was no smoke at all and the color slowly returned until it blazed with golden fire. In her hand, it looked like a small sun.

  She was finished.

  The light shone on for several heartbeats then faded.

  There was another sensation of dizziness. She clutched a nearby tree for support. But it soon passed.

  Vaelros slowly stood and wiped his mouth. His face was flushed and pale but very alive. The darkness in his eyes melted away. With his left hand, he unclasped his cloak and flung it from his shoulders, letting the sun fall upon his face. For a moment, he winced but then the shadow was completely gone and he spread his arms as he looked up into the sunlight sky.

  “It is so warm—almost as warm as your song in my ears.”

  He looked upon her with eyes no longer filled with desperation, but with wonder. He took a step forward and then came to his knees before her.

  “I forsake everything that I was gladly. For sunlight has again come into my world and her name is Luthiel. Take me with you and I promise I will do all I can to serve and protect the fairest of all ladies to ever walk upon the face of mother Oesha.”

  Luthiel smiled at him and laughed.

  “Stand up, Lord Vaelros, kneeling does not become you.”

  She helped him to his feet placing the Stone in one of his hands. Raising both Stone and hand to her lips, she kissed the Stone and then curled his fingers around it.

  “You and it are free from the darkness in dreams now. Use it well and in your own way.”

  The look he gave her was one of reverence.

  But then, a hollow cry rang out from Ottomnos. It was the howl of seven wolf voices. But to Luthiel is sounded like the onrush of the winds of winter. There was a clamor in the courtyard accompanied by the harsh bark of command.

  At the sound of the wolves, something seemed to break within him.

  “Luthiel!” he cried out as if in pain.

  Before she could do anything, his arms were around her. It was as though he could barely stand without the support.

  The wolf voices cried out again. Among them, she could hear the hollow calls of the riders.

  “Vaelros! Vaelros!” they chanted.