The Betrayal

by Pati Nagle

  All Highstone was gathered in the circle, the theyns mingling with the populace. Stonereach blue and violet flashed everywhere, accompanied by the colors of lesser kin-clans and autumn colors bright in the evening twilight.

  The circle was decorated with flowers and harvest bounty: sheaves of ripe grain from the valley farms to the east, baskets of apples and grapes from mountain holdings. Minstrels played softly from the dais at the eastern side of the circle. They ceased as Lord Felisan stepped toward them, with Curunan bearing the Alpinon banner before him.

  The governor walked to the easternmost point of the circle and raised his hands skyward. All fell silent.

  “Ældar of the east, guardians of the air, we bid you welcome. Be with us this Evennight and watch over our celebrations.”

  Solemnly he paced the perimeter of the circle, pausing again at the south to greet the ældar guardians of fire, the west to greet the guardians of water, and the north to greet the guardians of earth. Eliani watched and listened, knowing that someday, as governor, this would be her duty. Strange to think of herself addressing the high ældar. Those brightest of the spirits, guardians of the physical world, seemed remote to her.

  Returning to the east, Felisan stepped onto the dais and raised his outspread arms. “Citizens of Highstone, friends, neighbors, and honored guests, welcome to this joyous celebration of Evennight. From now to Midwinter, each night grows longer.”

  The setting sun touched the Ebons as he spoke, and all paused to give honor to the west. Eliani did not look at the sun for fear of hurting her eyes but fixed her gaze on the mountains a little to the side. As the sun dipped below the horizon, golden rays streamed upward around the mountain peaks.

  Felisan's voice broke the silence. “May we rejoice in the bounty of our harvest, may we welcome the repose of the coming winter, and may we all keep the creed in our hearts and in our deeds. Blessings to you all. Let the celebration begin!”

  Music sailed forth, bright and lively. The throng in the public circle resolved itself into rings, one within the other, for the dance of greeting that opened every feast day celebration. Luruthin led Eliani into the dance.

  “Thank you for wearing my gift.”

  “I thought it would go well with Heléri's handiwork.”

  “It does indeed.”

  Beryloni and Gemaron were beside them and clasped hands for the turns; Eliani and Luruthin merely crossed wrists. Most found touching hands too intense, for the palm was the strongest locus of khi. In some places, such as the high court in Eastfæld, Eliani had heard that dancers did not touch at all but held their wrists a handspan apart in the air. She thought it would be difficult to dance so, without the aid of a partner to balance.

  As they made the final turn of the dance, Luruthin's wrist slid against hers and his fingers brushed her palm, leaving it tingling. She looked at him, and his smile told her it had been deliberate. She smiled back, but only slightly. She had fond memories of their time together, but there had been pain in the meantime, and she was not ready to try again.

  The rings shifted and brought them to face new partners. The revolution of the dance began anew. Twilight glowed blue now, above the mountain peaks, and the first stars were beginning to shine.

  A flash of pale hair caught her eye. Turisan was dancing past in the outermost ring. He moved like a catamount, smooth as silk yet with strength beneath the surface.

  “—beautiful this evening, my lady.”

  Eliani looked back at her partner with a hasty smile. “Thank you, Firthan. You look very well yourself.”

  “You are too fine to be warden of the Guard.”

  “Say that again at the next sword practice.”

  He smiled. He was kin to her, and also a friend from the Guard. She liked him but feared that he liked her too well. She felt a sudden wish to shed her lovely new gown and return to her leathers. She was more at home in them, and safer in the saddle than in this dance.

  Turisan was breaking fast the morning after Even-night, recalling the previous evening's festivities, when a knock on the door disturbed his reflections. He took a sip of tea spiced with sunfruit and clove to clear his throat.

  “Come.”

  The door opened, and a Stonereach—the theyn who had been named Eliani's nextkin—looked in. “Good morrow, Lord Turisan. Forgive the intrusion.”

  “Theyn Gharinan, yes? Will you join me?”

  The Stonereach entered and closed the door. “Thank you, but I have already broken fast.”

  “Have some tea, then. It is excellently spiced.”

  “That I will accept. By its scent, that is Heléri's special festival blend.”

  “Lady Heléri makes teas?”

  “She is an herbalist of high repute. Her teas are prized as far away as Eastfæld, where she could name any price if she chose to trade them. She does not, though. She prefers to make small quantities of high quality and for the most part shares them only with her kin.”

  Turisan glanced at the cup in his hand. “I am honored.”

  “As well you should be.”

  Turisan raised an eyebrow. Gharinan grinned and sipped his tea.

  “I called to invite you to join us riding out today, if you are so inclined.”

  “I was hoping to see more of Alpinon. Thank you, I accept.”

  “You came on foot, I believe. Lord Felisan's stables can lend you a mount.”

  From what he had seen of Alpinon's horses, the mount would be humbler than what he was used to, but he smiled his thanks nonetheless. To show disappointment in Felisan's hospitality was unthinkable, not to mention that his father would consider it unforgivable.

  He liked these folk. Their realm might have little grandeur that was not made by nature, but the people of Alpinon had few pretensions, and he valued their open friendliness more than any elaborate arts.

  Gharinan stayed for as long as it took to drink two cups of tea, then took his leave, bidding Turisan to meet them in the public circle. Turisan wasted no time getting into his leathers. As he walked out to the circle, he was gratified to see that the party would include Eliani.

  The half-wild forest girl he had met two days previously was back, looking far more at ease in her worn leathers than she had in her silks. Turisan could not help smiling at the difference.

  The mount he was given was small but sturdily built. He had brought his hunting bow and saw that the others carried bows as well. In Southfæld, all guardians went armed whenever they rode. Apparently it was so in Alpinon as well.

  Eliani led them northwest on a steep road out of Highstone. The morning was brisk, a sharp breeze rising from the chasm to the east and north of the city, the whisper of the river far below.

  The party rounded a ridge that revealed a prospect of the long, deep chasm stretching before them into the mountains. On the opposite cliff a high waterfall cascaded around two rock outcrops, forming a treble veil of white against dark rock. Turisan halted, compelled to admire it.

  Drifts of pale mist moved across the plummeting water and billowed in clouds where the three streams struck the rocks far below and became one again in a wide pool. From this the water emerged into the Asurindel, the river that flowed eastward past High-stone.

  Eliani reined in her mount beside Turisan's. “The Three Shades. This is the fairest prospect of them. There are other views, but only this takes in the whole.”

  “Beautiful. Are they the highest falls in your mountains?”

  “There are higher but lesser falls. These are the largest and best known.”

  Beyond her, Gharinan leaned forward to look at Turisan. “Have you heard the legend?”

  “No. Will you tell it?”

  “It is said that three sisters were handfasted to three brothers of Stonereach, who then went off to the Bitter Wars and never returned. The sisters climbed the cliff beside the falls—you can see the path there—and kept watch for a year and a day. When their lords still came not, they leapt over the falls and perished on th
e rocks below.”

  Luruthin nodded. “Another version says they remained by the falls until they faded into the mists. One is supposed to be able to hear their voices in the rush of water, lamenting their lost loves.”

  “A sad tale. Has it any basis in truth?”

  “That is doubtful”—Eliani's voice was dry—“considering that few couples are blessed with one offspring, let alone three.”

  “Davharin and Heléri had three.” Luruthin looked at Turisan. “Our elders. My mother told me of the shades. When I was younger, I spent many nights seeking them by the falls, and though I never heard their voices, I once saw pale figures flickering in the water.”

  Turisan gazed across at the falls again. “That path is still in use?”

  Eliani made a sound of derision. “Mostly by very young lovers in search of a trysting place who do not care how wet they become.”

  She turned her mount away and started up the trail. The two Stonereach males exchanged a glance, and Gharinan favored Turisan with a smiling shrug.

  They fell into line again, following Eliani westward along the canyon's rim. Numerous small streams crossed the path, seeking their way down to join the river. Some steamed and left sulfurous deposits in their beds.

  “You have hot springs.”

  “Yes.” Gharinan glanced back at Turisan with a smile. “This runs from the largest of them. The Guardian's Reward we call it, for it is customary to rest there after a tour on patrol. You might enjoy visiting it when we return.”

  They rode on for a league or more, then Eliani led them down a trail that branched southwestward and widened, losing its definition as the dense forest opened out. Greenleaf trees of a variety unfamiliar to Turisan began to appear among the dark blue-green pines. They were slender, white-barked and decked in round gold leaves that fluttered in the slightest breeze. Soon the party was surrounded only by the golden-white trees, restless leaves ever moving, whispering together like raindrops, making the air seem to shimmer. A steady, gentle fall of dry leaves added to the flickering of the light.

  Turisan gazed up at the golden boughs, enchanted. “What trees are these?”

  Luruthin answered. “We call them firespear, for they thrive where older forests have burned. They are common enough, though they will not grow in the lower regions. Do you not have them in the south?”

  Turisan shook his head, gazing up at the white branches, watching the small rounded leaves tremble and dance. “I have never seen them before, there or anywhere. They should grow in Eastfæld with these colors.”

  “Not high enough.”

  He glanced at Eliani, then gazed upward at the canopy of golden leaves, inhaled their dry woody scent, and smiled. This was the sort of place he craved, blue sky crowning the glory of the gold-white trees, without a made thing in sight save what the ælven carried with them. Still smiling, he looked at the others and found Eliani watching him.

  “You have come at the right season. They are merely green for most of the year, and in another tenday they will be bare. Since they please you, let us take our meal here.”

  Lord Felisan's kitchen had packed cold meat, fresh cheese, bread, fruit, and nuts for them, with flasks of wine that they drained and refilled with clear water from a nearby stream. Turisan stretched out on the leaf-strewn ground and listened to the Stonereaches discussing their Guard, learning more about Alpinon from their conversation than any dry history might teach him.

  On his first evening he had tended to confuse the two theyns, both of whom had classic Stonereach looks, with green eyes and hair of reddish brown that they wore braided back in hunter fashion. He now knew that Gharinan had sharper features than Luruthin, who laughed more readily than his elder. Both were friendly, Gharinan somewhat more so than Luruthin. Eliani, though courteous, remained aloof.

  Turisan watched her cut slices of apple with her knife and take them daintily off the blade with small white teeth. She was pretty, he supposed. Rather wild in her leathers and windblown hair always falling across her green eyes.

  He rolled onto his back and gazed up through the sea of golden leaves at the brilliant blue sky. If only he could dwell in such places all the time. At ease, he allowed the firespear wood's khi to flow through him, drinking in the sensations of life beyond the bright signs of the Stonereaches and the less cognizant ones of the horses. The firespears were all connected, he sensed, sharing khi and even roots. They were almost one tree instead of many, and there was a spark of something unusual in their khi.

  Lying lazily there, he became aware of a darkness rippling through the forest's khi. He frowned, opening his eyes just as a streak of black whipped through the shimmering leaves overhead.

  He was on his feet and running even as he realized what it had been—a dart of the kind thrown by kobalen raiders. The heaviness he had sensed was the kobalen's khi. He should have recognized it, but it had been some years since his last encounter with kobalen.

  He vaulted onto his startled horse and urged it to turn as he freed bow and quiver, slinging the latter over his shoulder. The Stonereaches were with him, thundering down the slope, leaving the remnants of their meal scattered on the forest floor.

  Turisan glanced at Eliani and saw her eyes flash back at him—not angrily but lit with the fire of the hunt—and he felt a thrill of delight as they pressed forward. Ahead, shadows moved, lumbering clumsily, noisily through the wood. They were swift but no match for the horses, and soon their number could be discerned: six kobalen on foot, crashing downhill southward and westward.

  The two Stonereach males veered off to the right, leaving Turisan and Eliani to strike from the left. Turisan nocked an arrow and let it fly, missing his aim by a hairbreadth. Eliani's found its mark, and a grunting cry signaled first blood.

  Bowstrings thrummed as all four ælven struck and struck again, circling their horses around the kobalen, who snarled and swore but could not save themselves. The few darts they let fly were easily avoided. It was over in moments, the raiders a huddled heap pierced with many shafts.

  “Hold!”

  They all halted at Eliani's cry, horses stamping until soothed back to calmness. She dismounted and approached the kobalen. The others followed.

  Breathing hard, Eliani turned a scowling face toward Gharinan. “What are these vermin doing in the South Wood?”

  He frowned, matching her disgust as he gazed at the kobalen. “I know not, my lady, but they are done.”

  Luruthin nudged a kobalen with his foot. “This one lives yet.”

  The creature bled sluggishly from its wounds, dark liquid oozing into its fine black fur. Eliani stood over it and addressed it in its own tongue, a guttural language of coarse inflection. She must have learned it on patrol; what little of it Turisan knew he had acquired during his service in Southfæld's Guard.

  “What brings you so far from your sandpits, rogue?”

  The kobalen made no answer. Eliani touched the flights of an arrow lodged in its shoulder. It snarled but said nothing.

  “There is no plunder within leagues of here. Why came you hither?”

  Turisan saw its arm begin to move and loosed an arrow to pin the wrist. A knife dropped from the gnarled fingers, its blade of ebonglass, the black volcanic glass that kobalen shaped into weapons.

  Belated dread washed through him as he realized how close Eliani had been to danger. She glanced at him, then picked up the knife and examined it, its evil edge glinting in the sunlight. She turned back to the kobalen.

  “Tell me where you came from and why and I will end it. A clean death.”

  Turisan, watching closely, thought he saw a change in the kobalen's eyes. Hope seemed to lighten them, but an instant later fear chased it out.

  “My lady, I think you should see this.”

  Eliani straightened and went to Gharinan, who had begun collecting their arrows and searching the dead kobalen. Turisan hung back, keeping an eye on the survivor.

  He watched Eliani join Gharinan beside the body of a
kobalen. The theyn pointed toward its head, and Eliani crouched to peer more closely at it.

  “By the spirits!”

  She glanced up at her nextkin, then with the ebon-glass knife sliced the ear from the dead creature's head in one swift motion. Standing, she carried it to Turisan and held it out for him to see.

  Amid the black fur he saw a glint of gold. He took the severed ear, careful to avoid dripping blood on himself, and peered at the small hoop of metal that pierced it.

  “No kobalen made this.”

  He glanced up, and his gaze met Eliani's. She nodded, then looked over her shoulder.

  “Gharinan, do any of the others wear these rings?”

  “I have seen no others.”

  “Search them all.”

  Turisan stared at the earring. It was finely wrought, adorned with elaborate coiling scrollwork. Even had it been plain, it could not have been made by kobalen, for they had no skill with metals.

  Suddenly a pattern of seeming leaves wrought into the gold resolved into something else. Turisan's heart went cold.

  “This is script.”

  He turned the ear over to confirm his impression, then held it toward Eliani. She took it back and squinted at the ring.

  “ ‘Preserve.’” She looked up at him, her face gone pale. “Do you know of any reason an ælven would mark a kobalen thus?”

  Turisan shook his head. She had reached the same conclusion, then. If no ælven had made it, only one other race had the skill.

  “Alben.”

  A chill coursed through Turisan at the whispered word. He glanced up, opening to the khi of the wood. Reaching through the vast web of firespear, he extended his awareness past the chaos of the nearby slaughter from which all the woodland creatures had fled, past the edge of the grove, into the pines well beyond. Something dark lingered yet, but it was distant and he could not place it. More kobalen, perhaps. No doubt they already were fleeing westward.

  Luruthin hurried to Eliani, bow still in hand. “There is nothing else. They have food and water but no plunder.”

  Gharinan joined them. “And no others are marked.”

  Turisan looked at the handful of dark bodies. “They are too few for a raid. This was a scout.”