Godbond

by Nancy Springer

  She slept, and I held her, keeping very still for fear of hurting her.

  So silent, the night. Empty. None of the good creature sounds anymore. Only the hollow-sounding wash of wind up the mountainslopes, wind in the distant fir spires, coming off the yet more distant sea. And the softer waft of Tassida’s breathing. And then, distant, as if carried on the breath of wind, very spiritous, very low, a chant. Words, chanted in an eerie mode, pitched at intervals I had never heard. Uncanny as the voice was, at first I thought it was the shades of the dead singing on the wind, and my arms tightened around Tass. But then I felt the slight movement of her chest, her throat and mouth. It was she, Tass, singing in her sleep in a spiritous voice, like a child destined to be a shaman.

  Over and over she sang the chant, her eyes never opening from sleep, sang the song out of the past so softly that only my ears could hear it.

  Two there were who came before

  To brave the deep for three:

  The rider who flees,

  The seeker who yearns,

  And he who is king by the sea.

  Two there were who came before

  To forge the swords for three:

  The warrior who heals,

  The hunter who dreams,

  And he who is master of mercy,

  He who has captured the heart of hell,

  He who is king by the sea.

  After a while I dozed, still holding her in my arms for warmth, and I scarcely stirred the whole night, even when sleeping, for fear of hurting her.

  At dawn, when we awoke, Tass knew nothing of the song she had sung in her sleep, and when I recited it to her—I could not manage the weird intervals, but I remembered the words—her face went tight and her lips trembled with fear, though she did not move or protest or try to stop me.

  “I have never heard it before,” she whispered when I was done.

  “What does it mean, Tass?”

  “I don’t know. How should I know?” There was none of her former spleen in her denial.

  “You are the seer,” I reminded her gently.

  “Not so, Dan,” she retorted. “You are the visionary. The hunter who dreams. You tell me what it means. I am only the rider who flees.”

  “Horseback rider,” her name meant. And Kor was Korridun, “king by the sea.” The two who came before and forged the swords were Chal and Vallart. And I wordlessly gazed at Tass, for my courage was not the equal of hers, and I could not say any of this.

  “What does it mean?” I murmured finally, though more to myself than to her. “What are we to do? Tass, are you strong enough to come to Kor with me?”

  I hated to ask it of her. The riding would be agony for her, the jarring of her broken arm a constant agony, even on smooth-gaited Calimir. Even lying where she was, she would feel weak and sick for a few days, until the shock of the injury had passed. Still, I knew that if she willed it, she would undertake the journey, and finish it white-faced and proud, without having uttered a plaint.

  I looked at her for an answer, and saw that her dark eyes had gone wide, were staring past me, at—

  “A bird,” I whispered, dumbfounded.

  Perching at no great distance, in the bare lower branches of a fir, a small, dark bird with pointed wings, perhaps a swallow or a storm petrel. I could not tell which, for it was but a dark shape against the dawn sky. But I think perhaps it was the petrel, for I thought of the sea when I saw it.

  “Well,” I said softly to Tass, “it is an omen of hope for us, if only one such small creature lives.”

  She said as if she scarcely heard me, “I cannot go.”

  I looked at her, and saw in her eyes again the sheen of fear. The old, bone-deep fear.

  “Why?” I protested, meaning why again, still, that outworn fear? But she took my query otherwise.

  “Because I am not a total fool!” she retorted with some of her usual mettle. “I would be in a faint before half the day had passed.”

  Nor would I urge her or question her further. Any such urging or questioning would only have driven her farther from me. As gently as I was able I laid her down out of my lap, and then I got up, very stiff with lying so still and holding her, lying against the chill rock, and I went to Calimir and began to take his gear off him. And the small, dark bird still perched in the dead branches of the fir.

  “What are you doing?” Tass demanded. “Take the horse and go.”

  I shook my head. She had never let Calimir be loaned away from her, I knew that. And how could I leave her, hurt as she was? Her face was pale, her broken arm swollen and bruised the color of stormclouds.

  “There is food,” she insisted. “Look.” She gestured toward one of the bags. Within it I found dried berries, biscuit root, groundnut and pine seeds. Not answering Tass, I sat down and gave her biscuit root and berries to eat. She had to be ravenous, after traveling for days as a wolf with no meat. I myself gulped at the food. But she lay still and watched me.

  “Take Calimir and go,” she commanded when I was done. “To Kor. Forthwith.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Dannoc,” she said sharply, “don’t be a blockhead. I have food, and Marantha by me.” She caressed the sword, which I had laid by her side. “Arm or no arm, I can take care of myself.”

  “Ytan has arrows and bow,” I reminded her. “He need not come near your sword to kill you. I do not know how badly he is hurt. What if he comes back?”

  “He will want to come near enough to ravish me,” she retorted. Then, intensely, “Dan, what is the use of such talk? We must risk it!”

  She was quite certain. But I was not nearly so certain.

  “Tass,” I requested once again, very softly, “come with me.”

  “I cannot! I know what I can do and what I cannot do.”

  “Tass,” I said in a low voice, telling her what I had not wanted to say, “we must both come to Kor, or it is of no use. Unless the three of us are once again together, it will be of no use. All the old, true songs speak of three. The fruit, sundered into three. The swords.…”

  I could scarcely explain, for my mind shrank from what I was saying. It was a new thought, and as fearsome as Mahela’s doom, and a thought worthy of a consummate fool. Tassida’s brows drew together as she heard me faltering. “What is this thing you are telling me?” she demanded.

  “The pomegranate of the god, ripped apart. The three stones, sundered from each other …” Perhaps for all time, though I would not say that. Despair, edging its way into my words. Tass must have heard, or heard something of my uncertain, unspoken thoughts, and her face grew very still.

  “You cannot wait until I am well enough to ride,” she told me softly. “Dan, how can you say it will be of no use if you can go to your bond brother and be by his side?”

  “But if I leave you here without a mount, there is no hope.”

  “‘Horseback rider’ though I may be, I can walk, as you have walked. I have not broken my leg!” Fire in her voice, blazing into a yet more burning ardor. “Dan, you should have been with him yesterday, a tenday, a season ago! Please, trust in me and go!”

  How could I trust her, when I had seen the fear still lurking in her eyes? Brooding, as the dark bird brooded in the shadow of the fir.… Yet I had to trust her. It was for her own sake that she pleaded, as much as for Kor’s and mine. But still I could not have left her if a thought had not come to me.

  “If I set Calimir loose when I come to Seal Hold, will he find his way back to you? Will you come to us then?”

  “Of course! He is wise, and I have found some small courage. I give you my word. Go, quickly, Dan!”

  Still I hesitated, wishing I could believe her. So often and often she had fled from us before.

  She saw my doubt and did not seem to blame me for it. “Dan!” she begged.

  “What can you swear by,” I asked her slowly, “that I will believe you?”

  “On our swords,” she said at once.

  I felt Alar stir in the scabbar
d at the words. I drew her out, laid her on the stone by Marantha, and of their own will the two blades crossed. Jewels glowed, their colors blending to make the color of sundown. At the juncture of the blades a pure white light shone out, white fire like that within the fruit Vallart had torn open with his hands. I stared, dazzled, but without a moment’s pause, before I could stop her, Tassida placed her hand there, palm down, so that the light glowed blood red through her bone and flesh. She gave a small cry of pain, but did not pull away, and she turned her eyes to mine.

  “I will come to you and Kor in greatest haste,” she told me fiercely. “I swear it. May these swords smite me if I do not. Dan, go!”

  “Are you all right?” I whispered.

  She lifted her hand and laid it against the side of my face. Swordlight faded, Alar slipped back into my scabbard. Tassida’s hand was warm, unhurt.

  I lingered only to kiss her, then vaulted onto the gelding. The dark bird spread its knife-pointed wings and flew away before me, toward the sea, toward Seal Hold. And Calimir took me at reckless speed down the Blackstone Path toward Kor’s Holding.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nothing, I knew, could ever truly save time, or make it up, or turn it back. But Calimir bore me so swiftly toward Kor that it almost seemed as if the steed could make up for all the lost time, and my heart filled with gratitude for his help, this marvel among horses, Calimir the swift, the surefooted, the beautiful. He fed himself by browsing upon low branches at the trot, the canter, without breaking stride, snapping off the leafy twigs quickly with his teeth and carrying them in his mouth until he had eaten them. We traveled dusk and dawn, bright day and moonlight, and his smooth stride never slowed.

  Within five days we had reached the region of cataracts and waterfalls, the many waters tumbling off the mountains toward the sea, and I felt breathless as I had not been breathless in the thin air above the tree line, thinking of Kor, seeming to sense his—whereness—ahead, if I did not too badly delude myself with hope that he was yet alive.…

  There came the turning of the trail from which one could see the headland, albeit from the distance of nearly half a day’s journey. Too far away to discern any folk, but merely the low shapes of the lodges, their timbers bleached and weathered and mossfurred nearly the gray-green color of the rock itself, and only someone who knew the place well would notice them. I slowed Calimir only a little to look—and then I pulled him to a sudden halt, staring.

  A darkness like a black fist gripped Seal Hold. The lodges, gone—unless my eyes deceived me, for in that murk it was hard to see truly. The cloud, whatever it was, whether smoke or brume, sea spume or a black storm of Mahela’s sending, curled around and over the place, shadowing it like a doom. Within that shadow I saw only odd glints, like sparks. Lightning? Or the greenish shimmer of devourers?

  I sent Calimir off at a speed that threatened to kill us both on the steep downward slopes.

  Kor, I mindcalled suddenly, though I had never attempted it at such an absurd distance before, Kor, my brother, I am coming.

  A heartbeat of silence, during which I wished myself dead because he was dead, the sea king was dead—

  Then far away I felt his mind hearkening, scarcely daring to believe what it had heard.

  I am coming, Kor! For what one laggard is worth.

  Dan!

  It was all in that single word, relief and joy nearly drowned in a desperation black as the storm pressing down on Seal Hold, and bitterness, and love. That unquenchable love of his—I could have wept, but because I knew he would feel weeping in me I bit on my forefinger instead, and lay flat on Calimir’s neck, letting his long white mane whip my face as I whispered and hissed him to yet greater speed.

  Dan, where are you?

  Coming. Perhaps a quarterday away. Kor, are you fighting?

  I sensed a tumult, perhaps laughter, perhaps anger or despair. Or equal parts of all three. No time for me to be afraid anymore, of feeling what he felt, of losing myself in loving him. What good had selfhood ever done me? Of what use was my name—whatever it might be?

  Is there anything left in the world but fighting, Dan? We have been fighting since dark of the moon.

  And it was nearly dark of the moon again. Kor had been fighting since the dawn the thunder cones had sent me hastening back toward him.

  Coming nearer, I could catch sight of the headland from time to time through the dark fir-spires that grew on the slopes below me. I could see movements within the murk, men and horses, Fanged Horse raiders, most likely. In the cloud I glimpsed the rippling flank of a devourer. Then lightning flared, glinting greenly off many blackstone knives.

  It was blessing far more than I deserved, that my bond brother was yet alive.

  Attend to the fighting, then, Kor. I was afraid he would be heedless, mindspeaking me, that my greeting would make him careless, that he would be killed before I could come to him. Be wary. I’ll say no more a while now.

  No! Dan! Panic in him. Be with me. Please!

  Something was wrong. Even more wrong than I knew. Mahela’s hand, perhaps, heavy on him, her poison chilling his heart.

  Are you in thrall?

  No. Just talk to me, brother, please. No questions.

  There was nothing I could say to cheer him or give him courage. No god riding with me, no savior, no worthy wisdom to comfort him, no solace, only a wanhope fool’s notion of three jewels. I thought wildly, with Calimir’s strong gallop pulsing under me, and found no hope but that Tass might come to us or else that we might die together. But I could not say those things until I had seen his face.

  It is hard for me to find anything sensible to say, I mind-spoke at last, when I am plummeting down past the waterfalls like a swallow. Were there any swallows left. For I deemed that the thing I had seen on the morning Tassida refused to come with me had been no proper swallow, or storm petrel either. But even Mahela could not be more than one place at a time. If she was ahead, beleaguering Kor, she was no longer with Tassida.

  Swallows had wings, Kor remarked with some small amusement, and you, I take it, yet have none.

  No. Therefore the rocks loom parlous hard of aspect.

  We found such slight things to say from time to time. Between times, I would hold onto Calimir’s mane and let my mind be with Kor, so that my bond brother could feel my presence. And though I was unaware of him, Calimir sped on. At intervals I would withdraw back into myself enough to look around me.

  I have come beneath the cloud now.

  The dark tendrils of it coiling like snakes of Mahela around me, and the black corpse-cover of it overhead blotting out the sun. Mutter of thunder ahead, and the sullen flaring of lightning. I felt a weight pulling down my heart, as manifest as the weight of a sodden cloak of wool would have been on my shoulders.

  Be canny, then, Kor told me. Enemies are everywhere.

  I slowed Calimir and turned him aside from the trail, letting him pick a steep path through the thickly-growing firs and spruces to the upper reaches of the headland. Devourers circled overhead as if waiting for spoils, and in the thunder din I began to hear other clamorings and roarings, the roars of Cragsmen, the shouts of warriors doing battle. More warriors than had ever hosted together in generations, since the wartimes before Sakeema’s peace. Then I saw—small wonder that the lodges had been leveled. Pajlat’s people and Izu’s Otter River Clan and a full twelve of Cragsmen were all mobbing the headland. Kor’s Holding had been turned to a hell.

  And intent only on coming to him, I leaped Calimir into it.

  Squeal and screech of Fanged Horse war mares clashing against curly-haired, blue-eyed ponies—yes, my people were there, though I did not see Tyee, I was not looking for Tyee, I had to find Kor. And I had forgotten there ever was a time when I had stood with lowered weapon before a dangerous foe. My sword was out, uplifted and shining in my hand. I pressed recklessly toward the midst of the battle, where I sensed Kor, and I heard the excited shouts of the Red Hart warriors as they saw me, but I
did not look at them. Dark, narrow-eyed Otter River fighters all around me, on foot—I kicked them out of the way, Calimir reared and scattered them. Alar took the head off a hulking blue-green Cragsman I myself had scarcely noticed—his club thudded to the ground beside me. A lash curled around my left arm—I caught hold of the ugly thing and pulled the man off his horse, then sent Calimir leaping onward, for there was a knot of the Fanged Horse brigands ahead, Pajlat himself among them.

  And facing them, alone but for his mount, Kor.

  Half mad with fear for him, I charged. And just as I reached his side, Calimir took a spear full in the chest, lunged forward beneath me a few strides, then fell.

  Ai, Calimir, horse without an equal, my haste had killed him! Tassida’s steed lay killed, and how was she to come to us? Briefly, crazily, I thought of the battle I had once envisioned, in which I was a young warrior, disgraced for letting his horse be slain under him. This, then, should be the time when Sakeema would ride into the combat on his mighty-antlered stag, stilling the spears and arrows with the power of his hands. But he did not.

  And I was standing on the ground in the midst of a hellstorm of battle, next to the legs of Kor’s yellow-dun fanged mare, and Kor was looking down on me with his well-beloved face gone gray as death. I can’t help you, he mindspoke me faintly, and he swayed as Pajlak’s lash embraced his back.

  Help me! Blood brown on his tunic, blood clotted and matted on his temples, in his hair, he looked as if he had been fighting forever, and he thought of helping me. He was all goodness—the scum, how could they attack him so unfairly! Anger for his sake welled up in me and burst out in a shout, a yell of rage, as the stone in Alar’s hilt flared with a blaze fit to dim the lightning in the black tempest overhead. I heard frightened curses all around me, and Pajlat and his men threw up their hands to shield their eyes from that glare. Pajlat was out of my reach, Mahela take him, I could not kill him yet—but already Alar had hewed her way through the closest one of his minions. I swung myself onto the fanged mare as the body fell off, turned the startled horse around and killed the next man. One more, then Pajlat—but my captured steed struggled against me, and in the next moment the Fanged Horse king had fled with what remained of his retinue pounding after him, down to their encampment along the sandy beach south of the headland.