Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

Try as he did, Olias could not Hear what the creature was saying.

  Ylem was in front of him again, hooves pressing against Olias' shoulder in a gesture of blessing. Then, releasing a triumphant crystal cry, the creature spun around, its tail snapping in the air, and sailed atop the fountain back out to sea, diving downward and disappearing beneath the waters—

  —but not before Speaking one last time to Olias.

  :Take care, Olias, and realize if you can that you are not the only one in this place who has known soul-sickness and grief. Keep your anger near. You will need it—but not for the reasons you may think.:

  For several moments afterward, Olias could only kneel there, shaking.

  Then a voice, a small, quiet child's voice asked, "Are you all right?"

  Olias looked up as L'lewythi placed a hand upon his shoulder.

  "Are we speaking in my language, or in yours?" asked Olias.

  "Can you understand me?"

  "Yes."

  "Then what does it matter?"

  Olias struggled to his feet, gasping for breath. "Where are we?"

  "In the Barrens of my world," said L'lewythi, pointing first to his head, then his heart, then spreading his arms in front of him. "I made it, I dreamed it. Do you like it?"

  Olias rubbed his forehead. "I... I don't know. But so far, what I've seen has been... gods...."

  L'lewythi, now looking more like an overgrown child than ever, laughed a child's laugh, grabbed Olias' hand, and led him away from the cliffs. They stumbled down a sharp slope toward a pampas of richly green grass leading to a field where tall corn stalks brushed back and forth through the air. To Olias, everything smelled like lavender—which to him had always been the scent of his mother's skin, left there by the soap she bought from a local tradesman.

  They moved toward the entrance to a grove, but as they neared it, Olias saw there were no trees beyond the few dozen that rose before them, arranged in two opposing rows, between which stood a stained glass archway.

  Olias slowed his steps.

  Something about this was familiar, but he didn't know why.

  The trees were as tall as a castle's tower, each with a thick black trunk. The branches of each tree were obscured by onion layers of bleak blue leaves which collectively blossomed into human faces, each one turned skyward and staring up through milky, pupilless eyes. Every face wore the pinched, tight expression of concentrated grief, and as the wind passed through the trees, the faces opened their mouths and moaned deeply, steadily, mournfully.

  L'lewythi looked upon them as if they were old friends.

  Olias whispered, "They sound as if they're in pain."

  "They are, but they're used to it. They're Keening-woods, and this is what they do."

  Keeningwoods, thought Olias.

  And then: the Forest of Sorrows!

  Looking backward, he began to see a pattern. L'lewythi had taken various parts of Valdemar and transposed them into this place the same way a skilled musician would transpose one theme into another. The Barrens could very well have been L'lewythi's version of the Border—Ylem's uncanny form attested to that, and Ylem itself could very well have been based partly on the legends of the Border's creatures, and partly on the Companions, the sea taking the place of Companion's Field, and here the Keeningwoods replaced the Forest of Sorrows.

  It both made sense and did not.

  Of course a child like L'lewythi would have to build upon things he already knew, and who in Valdemar didn't know of the Companions or their field, or the Forest of Sorrows, or countless other beings and places? (Some part of him shuddered inwardly at the thought of what a child might do with the concept of the outKingdom or the Pelagirs.)

  Pointing toward the Keeningwoods, Olias asked L'lewythi, "Why do they make such an anguished sound?"

  "To remind all travelers that there are only three things that really matter, people you love, your memories, and sadness." Such a wistful look in his silver eyes as he said this!

  They passed under the Keeningwoods and through the archway, emerging on the threshold of a resplendent stone city where a raucous band of black-winged children flew past them, all smiling and greeting L'lewythi by name.

  "They're my friends," said L'lewythi. "I like having friends. Even if I had to... make them up...."

  Just outside the city, they came to an ancient bridge made of sticks and bones. When they reached the middle, L'lewythi stopped and pointed over the side.

  Beneath the clear, stilled surface of the turquoise water was a series of evenly spaced, hollowed boulders, each with a transparent sheet of glass attached to the front. Inside each of the boulders—which weren't boulders at all, Olias saw upon closer examination, but glass spheres like those within L'lewythi's strange pipe, only covered in moss and isinglass—sat a claylike lump. Some were shapeless blobs, others more human in shape, some were skeletal, others so corpulent their forms could barely be contained. Still others were merely hand-sized, featureless fetuses. All of the figures huddled with knees pulled up tightly against their chests.

  None of them seemed complete. Their dark, sunken eyes stared blankly at the floating weeds and golden fish swimming by.

  "You see them?" asked L'lewythi. "Don't they look safe?"

  "No," whispered Olias. "They look imprisoned."

  "Oh, no, no, I'd... I'd never do anything like that. I don't like feeling lonely, and I know that they feel the same way, so I made sure that the water is filled with stories and music to keep them company."

  "Why do you want them to feel safe?"

  "Because it's... it's nice to feel that way. I don't want them to be lonely. Lonely is cold. I don't like the cold. There's so much cold, sometimes. Don't you ever feel cold?"

  "Most of my life."

  "That's sad."

  "No, it isn't. It's just the way that is. Your Keeningwoods weep; I feel cold."

  "But not here?"

  Olias shrugged. "No, this is... this is fine." He looked down once more at the beings in the water. "How long will you keep them this way?"

  L'lewythi stared down at his feet. "I guess... I don't—I mean, until...."

  "Until when?"

  "Until I decide what to make out of them."

  Olias stared at his companion, then said, very slowly, very carefully, "How did you come by this power? I've heard of no Herald-Mage who possesses such abilities. What... empowered you?"

  "I don't know. My dreams, I guess. I dream a lot. Sometimes... I don't have a mother or father. If I ever did have, I can't remember. Mostly I live in the stables of my village. The grooms there are kind to me. They make sure that I have food and blankets." He stood a little taller, a little prouder. "I sweep up after the horses. I do a good job, the stable-master says so. I have a fine feather pillow. The stable-master's wife made it for me. She says I'm a nice boy, and it's a shame the other children won't... won't play with me."

  Olias almost laughed at L'lewythi's referring to himself as a child. Perhaps in his mind, yes, but his body was that of the strongest armsmen. A child's mind in a warrior's body.

  But... a stable-hand? Gods! Were they in a place such as Haven, a boy with L'lewythi's Gifts would be treated with the deepest respect and awe. No one would dare think to make a Gifted one sleep among the horses.

  "L'lewythi," said Olias, slowly and carefully, "why were you made to sleep in the stables?"

  "Because no one would take me into their home."

  "Even though they knew of your powers?"

  L'lewythi stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the ground and shook his head. "I never... never understood why I could do some of the things I could—can do. I thought they might be bad things, some of them, so I never... told anyone. I never showed them."

  "But certainly there must have been..." Olias sighed, puzzling for a moment over how to say this. "There must have been people in your village who suffered, either from sickness or injury. Children, gods save us! Certainly there must have been children who fell ill and
might have died if—"

  "Oh, yes! There was one child, a little girl, who became so sick with fever that no one thought she would live if a Healer were not sent for. But I made her better."

  "How, if no one knew?"

  A bird—strangely metallic in coloring—flew overhead at that moment, and L'lewythi waved his hand toward it. Its wings went limp and its body began to plummet toward the ground, but a few seconds before it would have struck the earth L'lewythi waved his hand once again and the bird—wrenched from its trance—frantically flapped its wings and, screeching, flew away.

  "That's how I did it," said L'lewythi. "I can make people sleep, or not see me. That's how I got into the little girl's bedroom and made her all better. Everyone in the village, they said it was a miracle, a blessing from the gods."

  "And anytime someone in the village needed healing, you... you made them sleep or not see you?"

  "Yes."

  Olias nodded his head. "Did you cast this spell over only those you helped, or did you—"

  "The whole village."

  "Everyone?"

  L'lewythi nodded his head.

  "That way I'd be sure no one could see me."

  "Ah."

  "I like helping them and no one knowing. It gives me nice dreams sometimes, and sometimes when I feel lonely, I'd think about the little girl and smile. And it's nice in the stables, really, it is. I like it."

  "I'm sure you're a fine stable-hand." Surprisingly, Olias found that he meant it.

  "But the other people in the village, they don't... they don't talk to me. The other children tell me that I'm too big and... and ugly, and no one wants to play with a foundling—that's what I am. It makes me feel... feel bad sometimes because I don't know where I came from or... or anything. So when I finish sweeping at night, I like to dream, even when I'm awake. And if I dream hard enough, the dreams, they sometimes come out of my head and become real. And the people in my dreams, they're always my friends. Except for Gash—you don't want to meet him. He's mean. And he always wants me to tell him what he is. He says that if I can ever do that, if I can tell him what he is, then he'll go away and never come back. I try to guess, but I'm never right, and then he destroys things. Don't be scared, though, because he's never come around these parts."

  Oh, you poor, simple-minded thing, thought Olias. Has the world treated you so wretchedly that even in your dreams you invent one who torments you, who makes you feel so alone and sad and worthless? Gods—did you do so out of choice, or has your heart been so brutalized that you simply think it's natural for someone to abuse you?

  Unable to find the words which would adequately express what he was feeling, Olias reached out and placed his hand on L'lewythi's shoulder.

  Smiling, L'lewythi placed his hand atop Olias' and asked, "Are you... do you like it here?"

  "Yes, L'lewythi. I think it's very nice. I think it's splendid."

  The boy's face beamed at this mild praise. "Really? Would you like to see more?"

  "Very much so, yes."

  "Are you... do you want to be... I—I mean—"

  "Yes," whispered Olias. "I will be your friend."

  He could have swum a hundred raging rivers then on the memory of L'lewythi's smile. How strange it was, to feel an attachment after so many years done; how strange to feel some of the soul-coldness fading away.

  But somehow, here in L'lewythi's odd world-within-a-world, it seemed... right.

  How strange, to feel affection for another human being.

  How strange, indeed.

  Dear Father, dear Mother, what would you think of your boy now if you could see him? Lost in a place that doesn't really exist, befriending a simpleton in whose hands his destiny evidently rests?

  What would you think?

  5

  Once over the bridge the land became flat and hard and dusty. As they walked beside one another, Olias and L'lewythi spoke of their childhoods, of games and tales and small wonders, of the animals they'd played with and the places they'd seen, and it seemed to Olias that, as they spoke, some part of the world sang a song of rejoicing, of second chances and hope renewed, a Bardic ballad of two lifebonded friends meeting for the first time, and of the simple, untainted glory of learning to trust.

  "I can see why you like it here so much," said Olias. "It must be difficult for you to leave."

  L'lewythi touched his head, then his heart. "I don't leave, ever. It's always here, with me. Even when I'm gone."

  The abstract wisdom in those words caught Olias by surprise. Could it be that L'lewythi was not as dim as people thought?

  They came then to another section of the shoreline. The sea lapped at the edge of their feet, playfully, as if acknowledging their new bond and giving its blessing.

  They came to rest on a large boulder, worn down by time, sea, and the seasons until its shape bore a humorous resemblance to a giant king's throne. Lying back, Olias allowed the sea mist to anoint his face, and felt even more at home.

  "L'lewythi?"

  "Hm?"

  "Could you please tell me what happened to you—I mean, who... who hurt you? Who tied you to that horse?"

  L'lewythi stared out at the sea, then looked down at his hands. "I... I don't know why I can do these things. I just know that I can. I play my glass pipe, and the music brings me here. It's so nice here, everyone's so good to me, they're... they're happy to see me. No one in Valdemar treats me this way, that's why I come here all the time, that's why I made this place, so I could go somewhere where people would be nice to me."

  "I know, I understand that much, but—"

  "I didn't mean for it to happen!" he shouted, eyes filling with tears. The sudden violence of his emotion shocked Olias, who was so startled he nearly cried out.

  As L'lewythi spoke, his voice became louder and even more childlike. Beneath every word his pain, deeper than Olias had imagined, came snarling to the surface. It was the panicked voice of a child, lost in the night, hands outstretched in hopes that someone kind would take hold of him and protect them from the darkness and pain and make the fear go away, a pain that asked, in its own way: Please, please show a little kindness, a little tenderness.

  "S-s-somet-times, when I'm asleep, sometimes the dreams, they come out of my head and I can't make them do what I want because I'm asleep and I don't know that they've come out! I d-don't mean for it to happen, but it just happens sometimes. It's never been a bad thing before, but the other night... I was so tired! I'd worked hard and... and I was so tired! And when I fell asleep, Gash came out—and he's so mean! He hurt a lot of people in the village. He burned down some of the other stables and killed the horses, and th-th-then he, he started killing everyone. I woke up when I heard the screaming, but it was too late. I couldn't stop him from killing everyone because I was asleep! That's never happened to me before. When I woke up, Gash went back into my head, but he'd been so mean by then. And the people, they knew that it was me that had brought Gash into the village because a... a Herald was there, and he said he sensed that Gash had come from me. He... he tried to make them all understand, but they didn't. They all came after me and they... they hurt me! I mean, I've been hurt before—some of the other stable-boys, they like to hit me and call me names—but this time it w-was different. The Herald tried to stop them but there were too many. They hurt me for so long, and they screamed at me, and some of them even laughed like they were enjoying it. I tried to tell them that I'm not a bad boy, I'm not, I didn't mean for it to happen, but they wouldn't listen to me, they just kept hitting and spitting and then they burned me and... and..." He doubled over, clutching at his stomach, the sobs racking his body—deep, soul-shattering sobs as the grief and fear and confusion dragged rusty steel hooks across his body all over again. Then he fell backward, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees, convulsing.

  Olias climbed over to him, taking L'lewythi in his arms as the boy wept even harder, his next words coming in broken bursts: "I didn't
... mean to h-hurt anyone... I d-didn't... I didn't...."

  "I know," whispered Olias, stroking L'lewythi's hair. "I know."

  "I j-just wanted them to know... I wouldn't have... have done any of it... I wouldn't have dreamed another world l-like this if... if I could just tell Gash what he is, he'd go away, you see? And th-then m-maybe I could have a friend... just one, that's all... just one friend—"

  "You have one now. I will be your friend for the rest of our days, L'lewythi. There, there, take deep breaths, deep, there you are, hold onto me, that's it, hold on, I won't let go, I won't leave you alone, ever, I swear it on my parents' graves, I swear it! You'll never be lonely again, never—and no one will ever harm you from this day forward, not while I'm around... it's all right, shhh, there, there, go on, go on and cry, that's right, let it go, let it go..."

  He leaned down and kissed L'lewythi's sweat-soaked forehead, then brushed back his hair and held him even tighter, rocking back and forth, feeling strong—and it was good to feel this way for someone after so long. The sudden rush of affection was dizzying, almost overpowering, but he didn't care. He could protect this boy, this sad, gentle boy who wanted nothing more than acceptance, something Olias himself had secretly wished for since the day he buried his mother—but instead of trusting others he had foolishly chosen to hide his loneliness behind a scrim of anger and bitterness.

  It was then that Olias looked behind them and saw the wall of stone, an ancient ruin nearly overgrown with moist red vines. Sculpted into the wall was a woman's face. Her eye sockets were empty, raven-black ovals, and her mouth, opened as if calling out for some long-lost love, was the entrance to a cave. It was a face which held so much unspoken pain and grief that her expression alone would have been enough to move even the hardest of hearts, but that is not why Olias' eyes began to fill with tears.

  The face was that of his mother.

  Turning away, he stared into the distance and realized that they had walked a straight path since leaving the Barrens. He knew this because he could still see the Keeningwoods from here. As he stared at them, they seemed so much closer—at least in his mind's eye—and his troubled heart grew even heavier, for now all of them wore his father's face—and not the face he'd known as a child, not the robust, labor-reddened, strong face of a hearty man. No, this face was the same one he'd put on the day of his defeat by Gwanwyn and never taken off, even in death. This was the face of a broken-hearted, disgraced man whose value had been diminished even in his own eyes.