Yondering

by Robert Reginald (ed)

  They sat, unmoving and unspeaking, until a scraping on the rocks behind them aroused them both. They turned.

  A figure was climbing onto the rocks. Kynne recognized him immediately—Seton, whose sixteen summers gave him an edge in age and consequently in height and weight over Kynne. Kynne did not hate Seton. Indeed, he felt a grudging admiration for the older boy, always just beneath the surface of his emotions. But he could never consider him more than a potential enemy, at best an irritant, at worst a symbol of all that Kynne had lost. Seton was apprenticed to his father. During Growing Time, he sailed on a small wooden vessel along the northern coast of the Lesser Pillars, fishing and trading at other villages. He was already respected by the elders and had built his own stone cottage during the Dark Time just passed. He was an adult. He was tall and strong and handsome—all of the things Kynne felt that he was not.

  Seton glanced at Alinor before settling himself on the crest of the boulder. Kynne was forced to look upward to see him.

  “Well, here’s the hero. I heard all about your great adventure when we came in with our catch. And I couldn’t go back out and face the dangers of the unknown tomorrow without first seeing the man who kills…with words.”

  Seton’s voice cracked with laughter.

  “Please,” Alinor said softly. “It’s not right to mock him, Seton. His life has been hard, and now…don’t laugh at him.”

  Somehow the impersonality of her appeal—her reference to him, as if Kynne were not present or were in a strange manner not the same kind of being as Seton and Alinor—somehow that impersonality stirred him as nothing had before. He glared at Seton.

  “I killed the wulf. I and no other. It was not already dead. It struck at me and raked me with its claws. And I killed it.”

  “Of course, of course,” Seton answered smoothly, his face twisting with the effort, “and I caught a fish this morning that breathes air and sings.” The barriers could no longer hold and Seton burst into cold, cruel laughter.

  In the distant north, lightning flashed, a single vicious streak etching into the opalescence of the Veil. The storm was nearing, sweeping before it a wall of rain. The rumble of thunder blended with Seton’s laughter, a dark counterpoint to his thin, high tenor.

  Kynne stared at Seton, his own face contorted with rage. He longed to speak words that would crush the other in his pride, but the words would not pass over his trembling lips. He longed to strike a telling blow with his balled-up fist, but his muscles locked in immobility. He longed to reach deep within himself and kindle again that single spark of blue flame, then reach outward, stretch his hand toward Seton, and….

  At his side a muffled gulp exploded into laughter as Alinor, caught in the contagion of Seton’s laughter, joined him in unabashed enjoyment of Kynne’s discomfiture.

  “Oh, Kynne,” she struggled to say, “you look so…so… funny, sitting there…like a…storm cloud.”

  She could speak no more.

  Kynne stared at Alinor, seeing in her his dreams, and watching them disintegrate. She did not believe him. She did not care for him at all. She was as bad as all the others, using him when it was to their purpose, then ignoring, casting him out.

  He surged to his feet in a single, fluid movement, like the rolling of the breakers crashing against the base of the boulders as the storm front raced closer.

  Almost of its own volition, one hand flew up from his side, pointing in anger and frustration at Seton, still slightly higher than Kynne even when the younger boy was standing. Even as Kynne stretched outward, he turned inward, deep into himself, searching for the key which would release that single spark, that blue light, that killing power to reduce Seton to….

  He hissed in horror. Both Seton and Alinor had suddenly ceased laughing and were tensed and withdrawn, cowed by the awesome seriousness in Kynne’s eyes. And his hand was trembling, searching out a target like a bee searching in the wilderness for the single rhiam bloom that would justify its existence. His fingers wavered, pointed as if they were hungry for Seton’s life.

  With a hoarse cry of outrage, Kynne leaped from the boulder, landing hard in the rising water. His knees almost buckled with the shock of the impact, but held. Thigh-deep in the retreating swell of a wave, he half-ran, half-floundered toward shore, unmindful entirely of the thin ridge of dry rock still struggling to connect the boulders to the shore. He slipped twice on the smooth, wet rocks. But he reached dry land without serious injury. He stopped, breathed heavily, and looked backward.

  Against the backdrop of the oncoming storm two figures, highlighted by the diffused light of the Veil (now saffron in late afternoon), picked their way carefully along the spine of rocks. Alinor came first, followed by Seton, whose arm was wrapped protectively around her in a gesture at once solicitous and possessive. She seemed not to mind. Neither glanced toward Kynne.

  And so it was finished. His final link to Myvern snapped in the horror of his instant of murderous rage, in her single outburst of unguarded laughter, in her turning to Seton instead of to him. There was nothing more to keep Kynne here. He had no place, no right, no life.

  He turned his back to the couple and began the long, slow walk toward the high path winding behind the village.

  * * * *

  He made only one stop before heading southward into the lower ranges. Hanging in a corner near his cot had been a long robe, coarsely woven of gray, undyed rhiam, with hood and matching tie. He did not remember receiving it or who had given it to him. It seemed that he had possessed it always, although only in the past few seasons had he grown enough to wear it. Even now there was room for a few more inches in height, for a greater expanse of shoulder and chest, but the robe nearly fit. On an impulse he swung down from the high path, crossed the center of the village (mercifully deserted because of the oncoming storm) and slipped into his room just long enough to grab the robe and shrug into it. It was his. It could not be taken from him, as Alinor had been, as his bounty had.

  His shoulders tingled as the rough fiber pulled across them, almost as if the skin had been lightly burned. He pulled the robe closed and cinched the belt tightly around his waist.

  Then, warmly robed against the stiff winds pulling down from the north, he headed south into the unknown, away from the familiarity of Myvern and the coast of the Lesser Pillars.

  He traveled for three days, drinking clear water from cold streams spilling from the upper ranges in their slow, tedious way toward the ocean. At first the streams tumbled northward, toward Myvern; later they flowed southward, toward the great plains of Heartland, the Jamison River, and ultimately the ocean near Los’ang. He ate little—an occasional rhiam pod nearing ripeness, or a handful of edible greens straggling in thin, rocky soil. But largely he fasted, sustained by the impetus of his drive toward the south, an impetus he neither understood nor cared to analyze. He moved as if in a trance, wrapped in the folds of the gray robe.

  * * * *

  By the middle of the third day, he had entered a tiny valley perched below the western crest of the Lesser Pillars. The valley was only a few hundred yards across, a shallow pocket scooped from the flanks of the mountains. A small lake—pond, actually—partially filled the bottom of the valley. It was only inches deep but clear and cold, spilling into a sinuous stream that contoured beyond sight to the south. He walked slowly down the gentle, grass-carpeted incline toward the water, barely noticing the stands of ranyawood trees sentineling the ridge. He walked to the lake, knelt, pulled back his robe, and dipped one hand into the water to drink.

  Cold and freshly sweet, the water seemed to quench thirst and allay hunger. He drank once, deeply, then again, then sat back on his heels, one hand drawing idly in the wet sand.

  The shifting shadows of midday wove curious forms beneath the thick-set ranya trunks, rippled beneath rhiam undulating in the soft breeze. He felt at peace for the first time in days…no, that was not true. For the first time in Cycles, he realized. He had not thought of his dead parents, of his lo
st home, of Alinor…or any of the things that had so concerned him for most of his life. He was alone, isolated, yet sufficient unto himself, without needs or desires.

  Except perhaps sleep. The day was unseasonably warm for this late in Harvest Time. Soon, the Dark Time storms would sweep across this valley, perhaps piling snow in its exposed meadows, drifting it against the ranyas and covering the leafless rhiam plants that marched single-file along the stream bed. The soaring peaks of the Lesser Pillars would turn dark and gray, then white, and perhaps the Veil of Heaven would lower as it sometimes did, cutting off all access to the upper ranges, forming an impenetrable barrier of fog and power beyond which no one could pass.

  Perhaps….

  But right now the light was warm, the breeze gentle, the grass softly inviting. He slipped his robe off, rolling it into a tight bundle and laying back on it. He shut his eyes, feeling the warmth on his limbs and face. He grew increasingly lighter, weightless, drifting above the Lesser Pillars, beyond the Veil of Heaven, beyond Omne herself, into…into nothingness, for there was only emptiness beyond the Veil. He no longer felt the fragile push of grass blades against his shoulders and thighs, the softly giving moistness of earth beneath his heels. Nor did he feel the robe as it propped his head slightly. He drifted, and slept, and dreamed.

  And the blue light came.

  “Kynne,” it seemed to pattern from deep within his sleep.

  “Kynne,” it called without words, impelling and frightening.

  “Kynne,” it repeated a third time, a swirl of colors defying name, a sound of hue imperatively penetrant.

  He woke, still light-headed from his dreams, momentarily confused. He did not open his eyes. One hand dug into the damp soil, pulling up a clot of grasses, nodules of earth and small stones clinging desperately from exposed roots. The other hand snaked along his side to shade his eyes from the light—from the blue light that glared internally, blinding him as the Veil of Heaven never could.

  He fought, raging to himself, refusing the summons that the blue light represented. But he was not strong enough. Without knowing it, without feeling it, without understanding what he did, he answered. He pulled together faint strands of subliminal color-patterns wisping through his imagination, welded them into a single unit, and sent them spinning through the distances toward…whoever or whatever was calling him.

  “I am Kynne. Who are you?”

  The answer was instantaneous, startling in its swiftness and intensity.

  “I am Honna of Los’ang, Master Maker and Speaker for the Makersraad.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  The answer, while not actually surprising him, was stunning in its force. He had not, could not have imagined it, yet there it was, a spill of something not quite scarlet murmuring into his mind, transmitting words that were not words, colors that were not colors. He grew dizzy as he struggled to sort out the wildly synesthetic experience.

  “What do you want?” he repeated, dissatisfied with and afraid of the previous answer.

  This time there was no response, at least no pattern. Instead he felt an uncomfortable flickering in his chest, a momentarily querulous panic, followed by an uncontrollable shudder of muscles and nerves. He opened one eye, still shading it with a useless hand.

  There was a light above him, pinioning him to the ground. It seemed…his vision cleared—it was his hand shimmering in the same unearthly blue he had seen once before. The day was bright and the blue light muted, yet it easily overshadowed the daylight. He pulled his hand away, his eyes following it as if transfixed, until the light spread along his arms toward his chest.

  He burst to his feet, shook out the robe and pulled it around him in one frantic motion. The blue light disappeared beneath the gray fabric, leaving only his hands and fingers, tipped with the deathly glow, exposed.

  “No!” his mind screamed, pleading and threatening alternately with his unseen tormenter.

  “Not this. I would have killed with it. I do not want it—I refuse it!”

  His eyes screwed shut as he whirled in an agony of despair and fear, feeling ripple after ripple—each stronger than the last—course through him, pouring into him from some source beyond himself.

  And he remembered the wulf, dead at his touch. He remembered Alinor and Seton—their laughter, their touching, their union against him—and his fear disappeared, replaced by anger…terrible, crushing anger bursting through the Cycles-long barriers he had imposed upon himself.

  He lashed out as he had always wanted, needed to. Eyes closed against the light, he flung his arms about, thrusting them now earthward, now skyward, now across the narrow confines of the valley. He heard shattering and crashing, as if an earthquake were tormenting the Lesser Pillars themselves, yet his own feet remained steady and sure. Somewhere, off to the left, he smelled wood smoke, his mind absently registering the datum. And there was the faint crackling of flames.

  Still he lashed out, unmindful of his surroundings, of himself, in one great cathartic surge directed toward and against his world.

  He spun wildly, the gray robe fluttering about his calves and thighs like a giant insect first brushing him then enveloping him with its veined wings, flapping awkwardly away again, only to return, drawn by the irresistible blue light glowing through his body.

  Behind him, a great boulder loosened itself from its centuries-long seat and rumbled down the slope, crushing small brush and trees as it thundered past Kynne and shattered the calm of the tiny lake. Following it, clusters of smaller stones bounced from point to point in the path of the giant. One flew higher than the others, struck Kynne’s temple, and knocked him down.

  Even as he fell, his arm flew upward, fingers extended, to point toward the Veil of Heaven. His fingers pulsed just as his blood pulsed through a jagged wound in his head and stained the grass red. Above him, he seemed to hear a piercing song, broken and dying, as he fell into himself, into darkness.

  * * * *

  It might have been moments, or hours. He thought it was only moments, but could never be sure. But sometime, infinities later, he floated upward, out of the darkness toward a light. A gray-white light, clean and undefiled by any hint of blue. He tried to move his head, his arms, but stopped. There was pain.

  He turned, swimming back toward the darkness, entering it purposely, fearful but confident. The pain receded. He continued downward. Darkness surrounded him, blinded him, then began to fade. Ahead, there was a faint point of light, too distant to identify. He swam toward it, hoping…and disappointed. It was blue. He hesitated, almost turned back, then remembered the pain.

  The blue light drew closer without getting any larger. It was a pinpoint, a minute rend in the fabric of darkness. It was beautiful.

  He studied it dispassionately as he circled it, orbiting the single fleck perhaps two body-lengths from it (although he was without a body, he realized with a shock). Before, he had not examined it closely. The first time, he had known what it was, and had killed with it. Then he had hated it even as he prepared to call upon it to strike Alinor and Seton. He burned with shame at the thought, and the blue light flickered painfully as he remembered his arrogance and his unbridled hatred. Then the memory disappeared, to leave only a vague sense of emptiness and a stronger image of Alinor, whom he had loved, and of Seton whom (he could now admit) he had respected and admired.

  And the blue light strengthened.

  For…infinities again…the boy/consciousness was content to circle the point of light. Then he pulled himself closer, closer, swimming awkwardly through the vacuum. Still the light did not expand. It remained a speck, the merest reality of something not quite darkness, until he reached out and touched it as if with the tip of one finger.

  And merged with it….

  …passed through it….

  …into Omne.

  This time there was no pain.

  Even as he opened his eyes he heard a voice—his own yet not his own—speaking words he knew
and did not know. Words of Healing. He looked down at his hand. Blood stained the fingertips and flowed in cracked rivulets down toward his palms, as if he had pressed his fingers against the ragged cut in his temple, vainly struggling to stop the blood. His fingers searched for, touched the injury, remembering the configurations of the wound—the bruised bone and tissue, the flap of skin flayed back toward his hair…but finding only smoothness.

  He sat up and examined himself carefully. Boulders and stones lay jackstrawed everywhere around him, as if the mountains had tried to bury the valley by ripping its own substance and hurling it downward. His legs and hips were entombed with detritus. He knew that many bones had been broken. Somewhere, on the other side of the blue light, he remembered pain and numbness, itself painful though unfelt. Many broken bones, many.

  Biting his lip, he twisted slightly, turning his left leg a fraction within its casing of stone. It moved. And there was no pain.

  He pressed both hands against the grass that had been protected by his shoulders—the only green remaining in the circuit of the valley—and pushed himself upward. It was impossible, he told himself. The layers of stone were too crushingly heavy. But his body rose, loosening the covering of rocks just enough for him to slide free.

  Kynne stared for a moment at his legs, bare and smooth. They were completely unmarked. No abrasions, no cuts, no bruises. Unsteady, he hoisted himself to his feet and leaned against a nearby boulder. He touched himself to assure himself of his own reality. He felt the same as always. The tiny white scars on his outer thigh were still there, memorials of his past. He was the same…and was not.

  He looked around, examining the valley and the destruction he had caused.

  The ranyas were gone. They had stretched above the level of the rock slide and so had escaped being crushed. But they were dead and charred, grotesque shafts that tilted madly toward the Veil of Heaven, blackened and splintered. The lake had disappeared, obscured by rocks. Behind him, the cliff face—denuded of its original surface—rose charred and blackened as if it had been struck by living fire.