Night of the Eye

by Mary Kirchoff

  Easeful the forest, easeful its mansions perfected.

  And light upon light, light as dismissal of darkness,

  Beneath these branches no shade, for shade is forgotten

  In the warmth of the light and the cool smell of the leaves

  Where we grow and decay no longer, our trees ever green.

  Here there is quiet, where music turns in upon silence,

  Here at the world’s imagined edge, where clarity

  Completes the senses, at long last where we behold

  Ripe fruit never falling, streams still and transparent.

  Where the tears are dried from our faces, or settle,

  Still as a stream in accomplished countries of peace,

  And the traveler opens, permitting the voyage of light

  As air, as the heart in repose this lasting day.

  Easeful the forest, easeful its mansions perfected

  Where we grow and decay no longer, our trees ever green,

  Ripe fruit never falling, streams still and transparent

  As air, as the heart in repose this lasting day.

  “That was … perfect,” breathed Guerrand. “It was as if you captured the essence of the forest.”

  “I didn’t, but Quivalen Sath did.” Guerrand recognized the name of the renowned bard, though he had never heard this song. “It’s called, appropriately enough, ‘The Bird Song of Wayreth Forest.’ I’ve known it for years—it was a particular favorite of a bard who spent a great deal of time at the inns along the King’s Road back home. Growing up in a near-desert, I never really thought I’d have the chance to sing it in a forest, let alone here.”

  “The desert? Where’s that?”

  “The northern Plains of Dust, in the east,” said Lyim. “It’s not far from the lands of the Silvanesti elves.”

  “The closest I’ve ever been to an elf was the one with us in the tower,” remarked Guerrand. The second the admission was out of his mouth, he wished he could take it back. He didn’t want the other mage to know what a sheltered life he’d led.

  The road forked once, and they bore left. After some time they came through the edge of the forest. Ahead lay a village, a cluster of huts on the west side of the path.

  “Windkeep,” announced Guerrand, pushing their pace. The two red-robed mages hastened past the wondering eyes of the children of the small village. Just south of the last hut, the road forked again, the southerly path leading into rolling land of intermittent forest. The westerly branch skirted fields of nodding, golden grain to the south, and tall, wild grasses to the north. Guerrand turned to the westerly path.

  “How far is this Alsip, anyway?” asked Lyim.

  “It’s at least a five-day hike to the coast.” Guerrand squinted toward the sun, low in the sky now. “If we hurry, we can make Pensdale before darkness falls.”

  “Five days?” Lyim stopped in his tracks. “That’ll use up nearly a third of the time we have to get to Palanthas!”

  Guerrand stopped and shrugged his red-draped shoulders. “I know, but there’s nothing to be done about it. We haven’t horses, only feet.”

  Lyim tapped his chin in thought. “Yes, but maybe we can make our feet move faster.” He slipped his pack from his shoulder and rummaged around in it. Pulling a thin book from the depths, he licked the ball of his thumb and flipped through the pages. Stopping on one, he ran his finger down the edge until he found what he was looking for. Lyim read the paragraph with great concentration, tapped it once, then closed the spellbook with a decisive snap.

  Lyim replaced the book in his pack and retrieved something he held in his closed palm. Parting and pushing back his robe, Lyim slipped a small knife from a leather strap on the inside of his left thigh.

  “What are you doing?” asked Guerrand. The other apprentice appeared to be whittling on a fuzzy piece of root, his eyes closed in concentration. “Lyim, what spell are you casting?”

  Before Guerrand could press him further, Lyim’s eyes flew open. A satisfied smile raised his perfectly shaped lips. “There. It’s done.”

  Guerrand frowned; he could scarcely understand Lyim, he spoke so fast. “What’s done?” His own voice startled him; it, too, was impossibly fast.

  “The haste spell.” Lyim replaced the pack on his shoulder. “This way?” He snapped his head toward the southwest. “Hurry now, the spell won’t last forever.” With that, Lyim set off at a run and within heartbeats was a crimson blur.

  Guerrand found himself running at an impossibly swift speed after the other red-robed apprentice. The wind whistled past his ears and whipped his hair as if he were on horseback. This is what it must feel like to be a horse, thought Guerrand. He felt anxious, restless, driven, as if he’d drunk too much chicory. He had to run to release the energy.

  Dust kicked up by Lyim’s fleet heels stung Guerrand’s eyes and made him choke. He angled off slightly to avoid Lyim’s trail of dirt. He felt none of the usual side effects of running, like a stitch in the side or cramped legs, or even labored breathing. Adrenalin drove his legs up and down with the even, measured pace of a long-distance message runner. Guerrand got a mental picture of the bird’s-eye view of the two young mages sprinting down the road like fleeing deer, red robes hitched up, packs slapping their backs.

  Guerrand craned his neck around to look at the village of Windkeep receding in the distance. They had traveled perhaps a half league in mere minutes. At this rate, they’d pass Pensdale and make it to the coast in two days, instead of five. He’d seen more magic in these—he still didn’t know how many—days, than in all his years before. He wondered if his awe for it would ever fade. This haste spell was simply amazing! Guerrand resolved to ask Lyim to teach it to him the first chance they had.

  They had not been running long when Guerrand noticed he was closing the gap with Lyim. He pushed himself harder, as if it were a game, until he was nearly abreast with the other apprentice. Abruptly the incredible feeling of energy drained away, and he was seized with the very pain in his right side he’d been surprised not to feel before. His feet slowed to the last kicking, dragging steps of a marathon runner and he stopped, clutching his side. Guerrand bent over double, and the breath rushed from his lungs in great heaving gulps. Sweat popped out in beads on his forehead and between his shoulder blades. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath for long minutes.

  Finally, Guerrand stood, red-faced, and gave Lyim, who was similarly distressed, a questioning glance. “That’s it?” he gasped. “That’s all the longer the spell lasts?”

  Lyim looked rueful. “I believe so, yes.” Wincing, he rubbed the stitch in his own side.

  “By the gods, I feel awful!” Guerrand dropped to the ground in a heap and put his head between his knees to keep from fainting.

  “Um,” muttered Lyim awkwardly, “that would be because you’ve aged a year.”

  Guerrand’s sweat-drenched head snapped up. “What did you say?”

  Lyim scratched his temple. “The haste spell ages you by a year … because of sped-up maturation processes,” he explained stiffly.

  Eyes dark with anger, Guerrand looked over his shoulder to Windkeep, still visible behind them, then back to his fellow apprentice mage. “You took away a year of my life for half a league?”

  “I’d never cast the haste spell before and wasn’t really sure how far we’d get,” Lyim explained sheepishly.

  “So you thought you’d just try it out on me?”

  “At least I did something,” he said with a sidelong look at Guerrand. “I still think it was a good idea. I could see in your face you thought so, too, until we stopped running.”

  “That was before I knew the price!” Guerrand poked Lyim in the shoulder. “Don’t ever cast a spell on me again without asking me first.” They fell into an awkward silence, catching their breath.

  After a time, Lyim withdrew a waterskin from his pack, took a pull, then handed it to Guerrand in a conciliatory gesture. “Now what?” he asked, wiping his mouth while Guerran
d took a swallow.

  “Now we walk to Pensdale,” said Guerrand, standing. “With a little luck, we’ll be there by Highmoon.” He dusted off his robe. “I have no desire to make camp out here in the grasslands. There’s scarcely even a tree to be seen.” With that, Guerrand eased the cramps from his calves, then set off down the road again.

  “Am I supposed to tell people I’m now twenty years old?” he called over his shoulder, presuming that Lyim was following.

  “Tell them what you like,” the other apprentice called back, following at his own pace. “Your date of birth hasn’t changed. You simply feel a year older.”

  The muscles in Guerrand’s legs throbbed. “Boy, do I ever.”

  * * * * *

  As luck would have it, before long the two apprentices met up with a farmer from Hamlet who was driving his wagonload of potatoes to the port of Alsip. Stopping in Pensdale for the night, they agreed to stand guard atop his lumpy produce while he slept at an inn, in exchange for a ride to the coast in the morning.

  Trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable, Lyim raked a mound of the tubers as flat as possible. “A bed of potatoes! Somehow I expected life as a mage to be a bit more luxurious.” Lyim jabbed his shoulder into the mound, then frowned and sat back up.

  “At least it’s not dung.”

  Lyim tossed Guerrand a grudging glare, then gave up on the potatoes in favor of the narrow buckboard.

  In the morning, the farmer and the mages continued on toward the coast. The pace atop the swaying wagon seemed agonizingly slow, yet was still faster and less tiring than walking. Lyim occupied his time sleeping, or staring vacantly over the side of the crude wagon at the passing grasslands.

  Guerrand studied his meager spellbook, making notes in it with a small quill pen and clay inkpot he’d brought from Castle DiThon. He was anxious to begin addressing the deficiencies in his magical education. His penmanship was poor under the best of circumstances, so Guerrand took his time forming the letters in the teetering wagon. The naturally laborious process was slowed even further by the need to recap the inkpot after each dip of the quill to prevent ink from sloshing out.

  Guerrand noted down his reflections on Lyim’s haste spell. In spite of its poor performance yesterday, I can see how useful it might be in the right circumstances, he wrote. I will still ask Lyim to teach it to me, after he’s had a few days to forget my angry reaction.

  I think of Kirah constantly. I trust she’s found my note by now, and I pray that she forgives me. It may be years before I can return to Thonvil. I wonder, did Quinn experience the same kind of homesickness when he left on crusade?

  It was dusk when the landscape beyond the horses’ heads sloped gently down to the blue Sirrion Sea. The small fishing port of Alsip came into view, cradled between green, grassy hills and sun-streaked azure water. The sun, sitting on the line between sea and sky, sent orange-red rays toward the heavens.

  Guerrand shielded his eyes against the glare. He’d been so intent on reaching the tower at Wayreth, he hadn’t spent a second looking at Alsip. Heading downhill, they rolled by the first row of houses and passed a noisy inn. Being a port town, Alsip was perhaps twice as large as his own village of Thonvil. Like the outlying buildings in Thonvil, most of the homes and shops here were built primarily of wattle and daub supported by pitch-stained beams. Flower boxes adorned every window on every level. The night was warm, and little smoke rose from the sea of chimneys surrounded by thatch. It was well past suppertime, and cookfires had likely been reduced to a minimum until the breaking of fast in the morning.

  Guerrand turned his eyes toward the harbor. Numerous skiffs, small fishing boats, and even a midsized coaster bobbed in the gentle waves there. Pointing, Guerrand directed Lyim’s attention to a masted ship as the wagon rattled into the unwalled village. “Looks like we may be in luck, Lyim. There’s a merchant ship docked.”

  The farmer turned his head. “That’s the one I’ve been hurrying to meet. Ingrid, on the Berwick line. Looks like I’ve made it just in time, too. I’ll take you all the way down to the wharf if you like, since that’s where I’m headed. I could even introduce you to the mate.”

  Guerrand shrank at the name of the ship. It was obvious Anton Berwick had christened it after his daughter. “We’d appreciate that,” he managed to say. “Let’s just hope it’s headed north and looking for hands. A merchant is far more likely to be traveling as far as Palanthas. It would really slow us down to have to hop from coaster to coaster, waiting in port.”

  “You seem to know a lot about traveling on ships,” remarked Lyim. “Were you a sailor?”

  “No!” Guerrand laughed. “Let me assure you, it’s newly acquired knowledge. I spent nearly two weeks on a ship getting to the tower. Before that, I was, uh, well, let’s just say I nearly married into a shipping family.”

  Guerrand left it at that, having divulged more than he’d intended. He thought it likely that either Cormac or the Berwicks were looking for him; if they’d put up a wanted poster, he might be recognized on one of their ships. It was better that Lyim knew nothing of it and couldn’t accidentally betray his identity. He thought about that for a moment.

  “Perhaps you should call me Rand from now on,” he said, aware that the request sounded incongruous. He needed it settled before their voices reached the ears of villagers. “My friends do.”

  Lyim lifted one eyebrow in mild surprise. “Sure,” was his only vague comment, his attention already on the buxom maids scurrying home for the night on the darkening street. He called to one suggestively. The young woman glanced at him in his odd robes, reclining on the swaying mound of tubers. She ducked her head and scurried away, leaving high, tinkling laughter in her wake.

  “Damn!” cursed Lyim. “I’ve never had a woman laugh at me before.” He tugged angrily at his robe and brushed at some dried mud from the hem. “If I weren’t on this lumbering potato wagon, I’d—”

  “You’d be walking in the grasslands by Pensdale, where there aren’t even any women to look at.”

  “That might be better than the indignity of—” Lyim scowled and waved his hand at their conveyance “—this! I tell you, I’m just not used to this kind of reaction from women!”

  Guerrand could believe it of the flawlessly handsome man. “You’re losing sight of the goal, Lyim,” he said gently. “We have little more than a fortnight left to get to Palanthas. This wagon has been a godsend.”

  Lyim was only marginally pacified. “Well I, for one, will be grateful to get off this godsend.”

  Removing a potato that had been lodged in the small of his back for too long, Guerrand had to agree.

  * * * * *

  “Yer in luck on two counts, lads,” said Guthrie, the mate on duty this night. The farmer had just concluded his transaction, received payment for his produce, and left for an inn, happily counting his coin.

  “Palanthas is a port o’ call for the Ingrid. We’ll make it in three weeks, if Habbakuk’s luck shines on us. We’ll also be needin’ at least two more hands by mornin’.” He bent slightly and spit bright yellow nut juice onto the deck. “Lost four hands to the salt-sea blight this last trip on the far side of Enstar Island.” Guthrie shrugged and spat again. “Truth be told to all but their mothers, they weren’t much good anyways. Only a weaklin’ gives in to that sickness.

  “Ye look like sturdy lads, though.” The mate pinched Guerrand’s bicep through the fabric of his robe. “Ye’ll need to take off these gowns. They’ll just weigh ya down durin’ a gale. ’Sides, Captain Aldous distrusts anyone in a robe—thinks they’re dirty users of magic.” The mate squinted at the two men closely, suddenly suspicious. “Ye wouldn’t be dirty users of magic, would ye?”

  “Absolutely not!” cried Lyim. “We’re, uh, novitiates in a religious order to, uh, Gilean. The coarse-spun robes symbolize our dedication to a simple way of life. We can take them off instantly, if they make Captain Aldous uncomfortable.” To demonstrate his honest intentions, Lyim loosened his r
obe and began slipping it over his head. “There!” Frowning, he nudged Guerrand, who was watching him with eyes agog.

  “Oh, yes,” muttered Guerrand. He, too, removed his robe and began to roll it to a size that would fit in his pack. Looking in the leather sack, he caught sight of the shard of mirror and remembered with a start that Zagarus was still inside and had been for days. He certainly couldn’t release him now, with the mate and Lyim watching. Closing the flap quickly before Zagarus could squawk, he resolved to make an opportunity the second the negotiations were over.

  “Well, then, that be settled,” said Guthrie. “Ye can get started on yer work straight away.” He kicked an empty wooden crate forward and nodded toward the wagon upon which they’d ridden. “Start loadin’ these spuds so’s we can get ’em on deck and the farmer’ll get his cart back by mornin’.”

  “Now?” gulped Lyim. “You want us to load potatoes yet tonight?” He looked wistfully toward the well-lit inn the farmer had entered.

  “Do ye know another way to get ’em on deck by sunup?” asked the mate, weatherworn hands on his hips.

  “Yes,” Lyim muttered under his breath for Guerrand’s ears alone.

  Afraid that the impulsive apprentice might be driven to a foolish display of magic, Guerrand grabbed a handful of potatoes and tossed them into the crate. “We’ll happily get right at it, Guthrie, sir.” He tossed another armload of spuds into the box. “Be done in no time.”

  “Gentle now,” warned the mate. “We don’t want to be bruisin’ the stock afore we sell it.” He watched Guerrand for a moment until satisfied with his touch, then walked up the gangplank and boarded the ship.

  “Happily, sir,” mimicked Lyim, at last joining in. “I didn’t know you were a bootlicker, Guerrand. You don’t seem the type.”

  Guerrand looked about anxiously. “Remember, call me Rand.” He glared at the other apprentice. “And I’m not the type, Lyim. But I had to do something to reassure him after your gaffs. We’re going to be on this ship day and night for more than a fortnight, and the mate can make our lives very easy or very difficult.” He arched a brow. “I know which of those I’d prefer.”