“Dair?” he whispered.
I nodded hugely. But horses nod for any number of reasons, including flies, and Frain looked doubtful.
“If you are really Dair,” he said, “paw with your right front hoof three times.”
I did it promptly. I was not proud when it came to pleasing him.
“Now the left, twice,” he ordered.
He still did not believe me! I pawed hard, annoyed. I laid back my ears at him and rolled my eyes. Frain stared at me a moment longer, then began to laugh, loudly and a bit wildly. “Dair, a horse!” he whooped. “I must be losing my mind—well, why not? You make a ridiculous horse. Your mane is nothing but bristles and your hair sticks out in all directions as if it is trying to be fur.”
I reared back and wheeled away from him, affronted. He came after me at once, still snickering but contrite. “Dair, don’t be angry,” he soothed. “I’m sorry—I am just surprised, that is all—here I stand, apologizing to a horse!” A fresh fit of merriment swept him up, but he sobered at once when I snorted at him. “And full of humble gratitude,” he added. “Please don’t be angry. I’ll get my things ready at once.”
He hastily broke camp. He placed one blanket on me, folded, by way of saddle, and put the other over my rump with the packs slung on top of it. “How am I to mount you?” he asked, still with mirth in his voice. “I am as weak as a newborn pup.”
We managed it with the aid of a stump. I bowed to my foreknees to receive him. Then I straightened, and he laid his head on my neck as we worked our way through the trees. All my anger left me at that touch. I went as softly as I could, trying not to jostle him. As soon as we reached an open space I eased into a trot, as wolflike a trot as I could make it.
“Such gaits!” Frain marveled from my back. “It is like riding smooth water, sitting on a gray cloud. Even the packs lie steady. Dair, you wonder, you make a superb horse. I am so sorry I laughed at you.”
He had been laughing at himself or at fate, I saw that now. I trotted on contentedly. Being a horse was not nearly as satisfactory as being a wolf—horses think of uncouth things, rivalry and grazing and sore hocks and submission and mares, and I felt all the nervousness of the prey, the grass-eater, I who liked meat—still, there was the power of my massive body to be enjoyed. I wanted to spook, to fling up my head and run, but I knew Frain would not have been able to deal with that. He was still very weak.
When we camped at dusk I was pleased by the journey we had come. Frain did not have much to eat, but he seemed hopeful. I grazed distastefully. Horses are like humans, they need always to be filling their bellies.… I hoped I would not be eating grass for long. And indeed, the next day before noon we found the road that snakes up from Jabul. It was only a gravel track, really. We turned left on it, northward. By nightfall, I thought excitedly, we might be at my mother’s dwelling, at Maeve’s house in the haunt.
I sped along eagerly with Frain nearly asleep on my back. We were careless, both of us. We should have known we would meet robbers on this main road. And I was a horse, yet! They wanted me.
They were quite close before I scented them. I snorted to warn Frain and sprang into a gallop, hoping to run past them before they could attack us. But I felt Frain losing his seat. The proud fool, why would he not hang on by my mane? I had to slow down. The robbers blocked the road, six burly men of them with weapons. I wanted to rear and attack them with my forehooves, but I was afraid of throwing Frain. I could do nothing. One of them grasped me by the forelock, and two of them dragged Frain from my back. He had his knife out—that was why he had not clung to me. He struck at them. But they were used to knives and in no awe of a one-armed man, and perhaps his effort was not of the best—they laughed at him. Laughed, at Frain!
Fear left me. With sudden, stormy force rage rushed through me instead. In an instant I was a wolf, and I turned on the man who held me and sheared off his hand above the wrist with one snap of my powerful jaws. The outlaws fled, screaming. My eerie change alone probably would have been enough to unnerve them, but in fact I was huge—as big as the horse, Frain told me later, whether from wrath or from haste in the changing. I bounded after my human prey, caught up with them in a single leap, slashing at their rumps and snarling as if they were so many deer.
“Dair!”
It was Frain. I stopped at once and let the robbers run off, turned to see him standing in the pathway and looking down at an outlaw’s severed hand, his face ashen. One glance at him and I was myself again in human form at last—I could not have been otherwise.
“That does not help as much as you might think,” he said as if I had done it on purpose to reassure him. “There’s blood on your mouth, Dair.”
That which is honorable in the wolf is less so in the man. I winced and turned away, trying to cleanse myself with my hands. All that happened was that the blood got on them, too.… Frain limped over to me, sticking his knife in his belt, walking shakily.
“Never mind,” he said. “You were magnificent.”
We had better get away from here, I said.
I fetched our packs and we strode off at the best pace Frain could muster. The track soon turned to a trail and wound its way up a slope. I saw tall pines rising ahead.
We’re almost there! I exclaimed. Frain probably heard it as an excited whimper.
In another moment I sensed the haunt. I felt it as a heaviness in the air, a slight chill. Trevyn had told me about haunts. The souls whose silent presence I sensed were those whose passions bound them to earth, who for whatever reason could not fly. But passion itself was purged from them by death, and they in themselves were nothing, only formless reflections—
Frain stopped where he stood with a gasp of terror, and I saw the fear-sweat running on him like rainwater.
“What is it, what thing is here?” he cried wildly. “I cannot go in there, I can’t go on!”
Why did the bodiless shades undo men so? Trevyn had told me about the panic fear, the blind eyes, the madly running legs. He had not thought that I would feel it, as indeed I did not. But Frain dropped his pack and turned back the way we had come. He stopped before I had to catch hold of him. Twenty paces behind us four of the robbers had gathered, whispering to each other and pointing at us.
“Great Adalis,” Frain groaned.
They would not come any closer to the haunt. And within it was safety. If only I could tell Frain that! I could have seized him and carried him in, he was so light and frail by then, but I was afraid he would hate me for it. I wanted him to welcome my touch someday.
Come on, I urged him—a whine.
He trembled. He looked at the brigands and at me. Then with a wild cry of despair or defiance he turned and ran into the pine forest and the haunt.
He lurched from side to side as he ran, staggering and struggling. He always ran awkwardly, leaning to one side because of his withered arm, but this was a struggle of a different sort. It wrenched my heart to look at him. He was in pain, he seemed scarcely able to breathe. Yet he kept on. I followed close after him, not daring to touch him. Up the steep, winding path we went, with Frain panting all the way and letting out gasping, grunting sounds, strangling sounds, animal sounds.… Tall trees closed around us and our enemies were shut from sight. Then Frain fell.
It was not that he stumbled or fainted. It was more as if he had been knocked down, stunned by a powerful, unseen blow. He lay with lidded eyes and a face gone corpse white, his back arched with the effort to rise, every muscle taut. He clawed his way a few inches forward. He still needed to fight, to struggle onward.… I grasped him under the shoulders and pulled him upright, supporting him but letting him stand. Once again he staggered forward with the blind courage of a hurt thing. I could see a rooftop ahead.
Just a few more steps, I told Frain, though of course he could not understand me. Just a few more steps—
The chill left the air. Warmth of welcome was all around us—we had come within the charmed circle, and the spirits were our frie
nds and strong protectors, our bulwark against any harm. The forest ended as well and we stood at the edge of a clearing. Frain felt the change. He opened his eyes and sobbed once, then nearly toppled. I put both arms around him, trying to steady him.
“Dair.…”
He laid his head on my shoulder and wept. In all we had been through I had never seen him weep so. I held him as best I could, patted at him, tried to comfort him, making useless, throaty sounds. I could have wept myself. “I have seen that face again,” he choked, “and it is hideous, hideous!”
It was as Trevyn had said. He was far braver than we could know or understand; for what he faced was fearsome. After a while he quieted, leaning against me, accepting my concern, my clumsy attentions and my love. Finally he straightened, the tears still streaking his face. He raised his head to meet my eyes. He reached up to touch my brow. He had never done that.
“Dair,” he said, “thank you, ten thousand times thank you. I owe you more than I can say. I have never had such a friend.”
I wanted to fall at his feet in my gratitude. But he needed me beside him just then—and as he spoke my mother came out to greet us both.
INTERLUDE I
from The Book of Suns
Now it is said that fire and water are elements that exclude one another, that never meet. But I tell you, People of Peace, that in the One all things meet, and I will tell you a tale of a thing the One has done.
It is said also that the sun is a great golden man, or a stallion, or a chariot or a fiery wheel. All these things may be true. But I tell you the sun is a great golden swan. By day it flies, and by dawning and dusk it floats on the surrounding ocean, and by night it dives deep, for it must swim the dark flood that lies beneath. Arrowswift, arrow-straight it swims from the west unto the east where it rises to fly again. And the sunswan is made of fire, but the flood does not quench it.
And it is said yet once again that the moon is a swan as well, a silver swan that floats on a river of stars. And so indeed it is. But it is true as well that the moon is a comely woman, and a jewel, and a pearly ship, and a white deer, a hart. And the moonswan is made of white fire.
Now in those Beginning days moonswan and sunswan were one. For the One lived in perfection then, encompassing all things, male and female and all their passions, all loves and hates. White fire and bright, day and night were One. There was no rift then, no shattering of essence into multiplicity. But where there is life there must be movement, and the movement circled and quickened until it gathered itself into a tide and surge which broke the surface of that entity. And that which was moon burst free, sundered from the other part, and ran as a white hart across the heavens. And the sun pursued it as a lost love.
Up, ever upward to the navel of heaven they ran, golden stag and white hart. And down into the deep they dove, golden swan and argent, and swam full circle, and up streaming into the high heaven again they flew. And when moon found it could not outstrip the sun, the white hart turned and pierced him with its sharp horns, and the sunswan fell spiraling down and down until it fell to rest on a high and hidden place of earth. I am torn, swan cried, torn self from self. My own flesh and form has betrayed me.
The wound was not mortal, but blood ran out of it and stained some fiery feathers red. Sunswan moistened them further with tears, for he felt doom and all the strife and sorrow of mortality in his wound and in a new thing that was coming over earth, a strange dark presence called night. And moon had sworn that thenceforth she would ever be at opposite reach of earth from him, night-swan to his day, dusk to his dawn. So the sun wept. But as he did so he set about to make something, a marvel that would in end time bring her back to him.
With his great bill he plucked the feathers from his wounded breast, feathers of fire. And that fire was wet with blood and with dew of his tears and with salt water of the flood. Such petals as never were he fashioned there, petals made of flamefeather and water of the flood. With them he made a flower like no other flower that has ever been seen, his own child born of his flesh and of the conflicting elements, as alive as he was. He washed it in the pure waters of that place, waters that welled from the navel of earth itself, and it blazed ever brighter.
Now, he said, you will serve to purify with fire the one who will come to find you. And you will confer on that mortal the power to bring all things back to One. And may that day come soon.
He taught the flower to hide in earth until the time had come. But that day did not come soon, and it has not come yet, nor will it come until the dawning of the days of the final age, when the tide has turned back to primal truth. And still the flower hides. It comes forth only in the dark night of that one day a year when its parent sun is in his fullest bloom and power.
Now you ask me, who is this one who will come? A hero of greatest stature, you are thinking, perhaps one of the Sun Kings who have been promised to you. For the final age is drawing near, and you can feel that. But I tell you, Fair Folk, my first children, this passing will not take place as you expect. He who plucks the fire flower shall not be the strongest one, but the one who needs it the most. And a scion of the Sun Kings shall aid him.
book two
MAEVE
Chapter One
I am Maeve, mortal woman, soul now, speaking to you from the stardark realm. I was Moon Mother when I lived; she lived in me, as she has in many others. She, an aspect of Alys All-Mother who is at one with the ineffable One.… Fertility was my function. Trevyn was Very King, even though he was hardly more than a boy when I knew him, so I went to him and conceived Dair—I went to him the seven nights of the swelling moon. Then when he brought the magic back to Isle I was there, I was a wolf that worships the moon, and I bore him a lupine son.
I was rather expecting that Dair would come to me, but I was not at all expecting Frain.
Old Dorcas, my servant, brought the news to me that strangers were standing in the meadow. She came running into the room where I was at work packing some things for my journey—more about that later. She was very excited and rather afraid, for strangers came seldom. So I went on out and there was Dair, buck naked and beautiful. I suppose I ought to say that I was a matronly sort, my body thick, my clothing drab, my hair pulled back in a bun and streaked with gray; I am sure I surprised Trevyn very much by giving him his son. But I have always known beauty when I see it, and my son was supremely beautiful. I knew him not only by that but by his amethyst eyes. I hurried to him and embraced him.
Mother! he exclaimed, returning the embrace. It was only a growl, but I understood him well enough.
“What makes you think I am your mother?” I teased.
Your eyes—they are the color of violets in shadow.
“Yes.” I hugged him and let him go. “Who is this other one?” I asked.
Frain. The tone said “Friend.” The fellow stood by Dair’s side, pale and plainly shaken. He was a winsome youth with auburn hair and an earnest, searching look; it was not until later that I noticed the crippled arm. I extended my hand to him, speaking to him in Traderstongue, for I could see he was a foreigner. There were no redheads in Tokar except slaves.
“You are very welcome here,” I told him, pressing his damp and trembling palm. “Let us go in and have some tea.”
Dorcas had the kettle on, for a wonder. It was mint tea, quite strong; it brought tears to the eyes. Dair and I talked all in a warm rush, remembering each other, remembering Trevyn; how was he, his wife, his child? And Isle—Frain sat and sipped his tea and listened to us. Gradually his tight shoulders relaxed and the color came back into his face.
“I wish I could talk to Dair like that,” he said to me.
We had been speaking the Old Language, of course, and Frain was not one of the special few who remember it. I shook my head regretfully.
“The Elder Tongue was born in me and in Trevyn,” I told him. “It is not a language that can be learned or taught. Unless …” I let the thought drift away. It was not yet time to speak of quests a
nd journeys. At that moment the plain, close kitchen, the low dusty rafters and wooden table that I had been so willing to leave seemed to me the dearest things in my life. Home. For thirty years this squat little house had been my home.
“He is so much wiser than I am,” Frain said. “He senses danger and runs boldly in the dark, while I blunder into peril and shy from mere phantoms.… What was it that frightened me so? I had to be led in here like a child by the wild man.” He gave Dair an affectionate glance.
“Shadows,” I said. “Shades of the dead. Not a hero in ten thousand could have come in here. You are a rare one, Frain.”
“But I had not thought I was afraid of the dead,” he protested. “I have met them before. In Vale, souls fly up as birds. The Luoni harry them to deprive them of their afterlife. Then they must dive and swim—”
“So what is there to be frightened of?” I asked.
“A lot! People in my country are afraid of anything that flies, of the night, the screams of the Luoni, and they are afraid of flowing water. They say the rivers have boneless hands that will pull a person down. But I never saw them, and I was never afraid of noises in the night or birds or water until—until that last time.” He stopped, suddenly pallid.
“Go on,” I said. Fear has to be met.
“I looked into Shamarra’s lake and I saw that face,” he whispered.
Then he saw it again today! Dair put in excitedly. I waited, wanting Frain to say that for himself.
“Well, the shades are like the water, in a way,” I remarked when he said nothing more. “They are fluid, formless, colorless. They themselves are practically nothing. Anything they cause you to see is a reflection.”
Reflection of what? Frain should have asked. Perhaps he did ask himself and could not sit still for the answer. He got up, looking bleak, and I knew better than to pursue.
“Let me find you something to eat,” I said.
“There’s a little food in my pack yet,” Frain muttered, “wherever I left it—oh, Eala, it’s down beyond the trees.”
The Book of Isle Page 99
