The dromond’s captain, Morag, had been a sailor since she was old enough to walk a deck; she knew the Bay better than the rooms of her own house (“Hardly surprisin’,” Thorn heard her husband mutter, “since she spends more time on the damn water than she does a’ home”), but the absence of the Wyrrn had left her uncharacteristically edgy, and cautious.
“Anyone but Maulroon had asked,” she told Thorn, “I’d na’ ha’ waited.” Her square-cut Islander features would be considered plain by those whose only interest was cosmetic. Sun and sea had textured her skin, which paradoxically made her emerald eyes gleam all the more brightly, and years of hard work in the worst kinds of weather had left marks that no amount of makeup would hide.
“I’m grateful.” He threw the bones, gathered them up.
“Been an age since I was home.” She meant the Cascani Archipelago, a scattering of rugged seamounts that began two days’ hard sailing up the coast and stretched beyond the Ice Lands in the far north. Hard country begetting fierce people, rovers and raiders respected by all the Domains and feared by more than a few. “Visit’s long overdue.”
“Maulroon said much the same.” Another shake of the bones in his cupped hands, another fling onto the polished teak of the cabin roof they were sitting on.
“Don’t have his knack for spottin’ a storm, but I learned early to follow his lead. I’ll be through the Gate with the sun.”
“When will you be back?”
“Y’ prob’ly know better’n me.”
“Thanks to these, you mean?” He twirled a bone between thumb and forefinger, shook them out again. “Don’t mean a blessed thing.”
“Fortune ladies in the market, they all say dif’rent.” Morag’s smile told him how much faith she had in such assurances.
“The High Aldwyn gave them to me. He was a true wizard, the shaman of our vale. Didn’t mean anything for him, either, but they looked impressive when he needed to buttress some pronouncement or other.”
“Fake then, are they?”
“Does the crown make the King any more or less a monarch? The Power comes from within, he used to tell me. Sometimes the wielder needs a talisman to focus it through, like say Cherlindrea’s Wand. Others, it’s the audience that needs something, an anchor for their faith.”
“They’d rather look to those wee bits than their sorcerer?”
“He has the tools”—Thorn’s smile matched hers—“he must know his business. Saw a man once, wore the finest set of steel made. A blade of wonder, molded plate armor that gave him the body of a God. Put that sword in his hand, he couldn’t find the wall of a barn from the inside to do it damage. Yet the finest knight I ever knew, and the finest friend I found in a crow cage.”
“Myself, Nelwyn, I like a world where things are what they seem.”
“No less than I, shipmaster.”
“So where’s y’r girl fall in all this, hey?”
Thorn looked up and over, suddenly conscious of Ryn’s eyes, not for the first time during the voyage. The Wyr listened more than he talked and watched more than he listened, reminding Thorn disconcertingly of himself; when he spoke, it was all surface, glib and for effect, mainly to make those around him laugh. In truth, he said very little.
Their gaze met, and Ryn lit out for the masthead, apparently taking on himself the role of lookout, as though that had been his intention all along.
“The grace of a cat,” muttered Thorn, not without some admiration, “and twice the self-possession.”
“Makes y’ want t’ kill ’im, somewhile,” Morag noted in partial agreement. “Good wi’ crew, good wi’ cargo, well worth his wages.”
“But still only a seaman?”
“Freelancer.” The way Morag said it, that was a dirty word. “Never stays on one ship long enough to make a proper place for himself. Works when he pleases, which is damnably rare. Masters an’ mates have t’ be more constant, like a good harness team. He has too much wanderlust in his soul.” Then, without beat or pause: “Y’ ne’er answered my question, Drumheller, about y’r girl.” Her accent produced a word sounding more like “ghel.”
“No. I didn’t.” But the captain wasn’t about to take no as that answer. “She’s the stuff of legend.” That provoked a rude comment. “A dozen Realms, shipmaster, of flesh and spirit, sunlight and Veil, mortal and immortal, all claiming aspects of this life, this globe for their own.”
“Been that way always, Nelwyn, so what?”
“Some races grow older, others grow up. We begin to crowd each other.”
“It’s a big world, man.”
“You speak reality, I mean perception. In the Barrows, you hear complaints of too many Daikini; among the Daikini, why do the Veil Folk insist on placing cages about the limits of our lives? Maulroon said there’s the stench of change in the air, that scares people. Too many”—and he smiled without humor—“are casting bones…and seeing only bones.”
“An’ yon girl’s”—thrust of her jaw toward the still-distant skyline of Angwyn, dominated by a flat-topped needle of a tower—“going t’ make a difference?”
“According to prophecy.”
“Which is fine, assuming that’s a contract all the parties feel bound by.”
He heard, but he wasn’t really listening. It was planting time, in memory, the hardest days of the year, that saw him up before dawn, in bed well past sunset, working his plow up one furrow and down the next, turning the earth, sowing seeds, a part of him wishing his growing power could do this work for him, or provide for his family without any work at all. A true temptation—wave a hand, speak the right words, and fill the house with gold enough to last a score of lifetimes.
“And cast away all this?” he remembered muttering, caked with dirt and sweat, as he muscled the plow around to follow the pig that pulled it.
It was a late evening, the night of the Cataclysm (though who was to know it then?), the moon waning as he sat beneath a shade tree by the house, muscles too stressed and weary to propel him inside, when he glanced upward to find the High Aldwyn standing behind him. He didn’t think the old Nelwyn could move so stealthily, or that he could be caught so unawares.
“You’ve not gone to Tir Asleen,” the Aldwyn said, without preamble. He meant, for Elora Danan’s birthday.
“No.”
“You were invited.”
“I have responsibilities.” A wave of the hand to encompass his fields.
“Are you wizard, then, or farmer?”
There was some beer left in the jug, though nothing of supper to eat; Thorn poured a mugful for the Aldwyn and invited him to sit. It was a lovely night, the sky a breathtaking tapestry of stars, its vault more crowded, each shining more brilliantly, than he’d ever noted before. The air was warm without being sultry, leavened by a gentle breeze that brought with it a myriad of scents from his wife’s garden by the house and the woods beyond.
“I am what I am,” he said at last, because while he knew in his heart he was the one, he refused to concede that it meant he could no longer be the other.
“Ah”—the Aldwyn nodded sagely—“a lawyer, then.”
“Is the answer so important?”
“If you’re not true to yourself, how can you be true to your power? And the responsibility that comes with it?”
“I am being true.”
“You’re godfather to Elora Danan.”
“I was husband and father long before.”
“When you were a farmer. Not a wizard.”
“What do you want here? What do you want with me?”
The Aldwyn held up a scrap of cloth. It was frayed all around the edges, like something stripped unfinished from the weaver’s loom. As Thorn watched, the threads all appeared to tear away, one from the other, unraveling before his eyes and fading away until all that remained in the Aldwyn’s outheld hand was empty air.
“The fabric
of our world no longer holds,” was the old Nelwyn’s quiet pronouncement. “Our world, young wizard. The world of Makers, and Doers. It wears through, it tears, it ceases to be.” There was a hollowness to his voice, as though the Aldwyn had looked into the Abyss, to behold something so awful that he could no more express it than comprehend it, except in vague, oblique generalities. Because to even attempt to do so would be more than any living mind or soul could endure.
“We Nelwyn are a small folk, we take up very little space—in the land or the scheme of things—content to do none harm, in hopes that the same will be returned to us.” The Aldwyn’s tone, the ravaged nature of his eyes, made plain his fear that those days were done. “If such is no longer sufficient to protect us, then we have no business making this place our home.”
“What are you saying?”
“The farmer has his path, the wizard another. Each offers its joy, each demands a price.”
“Why are you telling me this, I made my choice.”
“I know.” The Aldwyn leaned over to pat his hand lightly, and he snapped it back, close to his body, as if he’d been flashed by an open flame. “I just wanted to remind you. I’m sorry,” he said, at the last, as a call from the house distracted Thorn. His wife, concerned because of the lateness of the hour, wanting him to come in to dinner and to bed.
When he looked back, he was alone, with nothing to mark the Aldwyn’s presence save that scrap of cloth he’d held. There wasn’t a mar on it, he held a perfect handkerchief of finely woven cotton, hems neatly closed, emblazoned with his own sigil.
Later that night came an explosion in the sky so great that all the village thought the world was done. Strange lights, fierce winds, a display no one would ever forget.
Thorn saw none of it. Bare moments after waking, he was struck by a pain through his heart so great he was sure he would die of it, that stretched his jaws as wide as they would go and peeled lips from teeth as though he were a beast gone mad. He made no sound, his lungs were as paralyzed and frozen as his heart. He couldn’t move, either, just sat upright on the side of his bed with eyes wide and face twisted into a monster masque, like the kind the children made for trick-or-treat hauntings. Kiaya, snuggled close beside him, knew nothing of this, even when he threw aside the covers and hobbled to the window, graceless as an ancient. There was a faint acrid tang to the morning twilight that made the mist off the river seem more like the smoke of some great fire.
He knew Tir Asleen was gone, as surely as he knew the fact of his own life. He knew his friends were lost to him, as he knew his family soon would be.
The High Aldwyn met him at the door.
“Everyone’s afraid,” the old Nelwyn said, by way of greeting.
“Except mine,” was Thorn’s reply, “and that’s because they don’t yet know. Can you feel? The earth…” His face worked as he tried to wrap words around concepts far vaster than they were designed for. “By all the Blessed Powers, it’s so badly hurt it can’t even scream.”
“Nor could you.”
“What’s happened?”
The Aldwyn bowed his head, stubby fingers working the knotted braids of his beard as though they were worry beads. “I don’t know,” he confessed at last. “And glad I am of it.”
“I have to.” And then, in that same numbed voice, with the false calm that meant the hurt and grief hadn’t yet set in, “I should have been there.”
“And add more graves to the boneyard; now there’s a worthy ambition.”
“I was supposed to be there.” His voice faltered, becoming that of a schoolboy making excuses. “It’s just, the harvest took longer than I thought. I knew the others would understand, I hoped Elora would as well.”
He stepped over the threshold, looking at his fields, the trees that framed them on one side, the river that did the same on the other, the house that formed the centerpiece of the setting, and—he’d believed until this moment—his life.
“I thought it was a dream,” he said, after filling his lungs to bursting with air that tasted deliciously sweet. He looked back to his teacher. “I was at Tir Asleen last night, I rode there on the back of a dragon, I thought it was a dream,” he repeated.
“They represent the greatest of powers, dragons do, the quintessence of all that is magic,” the Aldwyn said. “To see one, that’s either the greatest of blessings, or of curses.”
“I have to go,” Thorn said.
“No,” came from the other and in the shadows of the morning twilight he no longer appeared old to Thorn’s eyes, but eternal, as if some primal force of nature had been suddenly made flesh. “You don’t.”
“I have a responsibility…!”
“To hearth and home, above all else, that’s the Nelwyn way. We are small folk, we live small lives, we work small magicks.”
“I can’t think like that.”
“Our strength is our community.”
“I have—” Thorn began. “I guess I have…a larger vision of what that community is. The dragon showed me the true face of the world,” he explained.
“His world. It doesn’t have to be yours.”
“How can I deny what my eyes have beheld? What heart and soul have learned? A friend is a friend; I turn my back on one, I turn my back on myself.”
“Noble sentiments. They will cost you.”
“They already have.”
“You should have been content with parlor tricks.”
“Better then to have never been born. I’m a wizard.” His mouth worked a few moments longer, but nothing uttered forth. He’d said all there was to say.
“Your family will be safe, you need have no worries on that score.” But when Thorn framed his next question, the Aldwyn held up a hand for silence. “Best you not know the how or wayfore. In your ignorance lies our sanctuary.”
The old Nelwyn held out a hand, a belt with two fair-sized pouches attached, Thorn’s traveling kit, plus a satchel stuffed with clothes. Thorn couldn’t help a glance over his shoulder, back into the house, and with it almost went a thought to his wife, to call her to his side for a final embrace.
“Are you farmer or wizard?” the Aldwyn challenged, and there was nothing gentle in his voice, nor any mercy either. “If the one, then bind your fate to us. Accept the pattern of our ways, as they have always been…!”
“No.”
“Then you have no place here.” His words had the force of a ritual pronouncement, his mien that of a magistrate passing sentence. “And the longer you tarry, the greater the danger to all you hold most dear.”
“Tell them I love them,” Thorn said as he took the belt.
“If they remember nothing else about you, young wizard, that will ever remain.”
“Damn my eyes,” he heard loudly from Geryn to break his reverie, in a tone that mingled wonder and disbelief. He blinked hurriedly, his eyes overflowing with tears, and was silently grateful when one of the brownies pressed a kerchief into his hand. He knew without looking that it was the square the Aldwyn had given him, and thought it fitting as he wiped his cheeks and blew his nose. He’d never looked at those memories before; he’d locked away that whole portion of his life, thinking that by denying them, he might also deny what had happened, or at least deaden the awful pain. He’d opened this huge void within his heart and used it like a rubbish pit, for all the parts of himself he felt he couldn’t bear, ignoring the fact that time was turning it and him to rot. As Maulroon had made plain, he’d been killing himself inside, while going through the motions of existence, in the ultimate hope that death might someday claim him altogether. Building such walls around himself that neither friend nor force could ever again do him harm.
Imagine his surprise to discover that the pain could be borne, and that with it as a balance came memories of joy.
“Not only was I mad,” he muttered to himself, “I was a fool.”
“An’ us, hey,” cheered
Franjean, “we’re witness to both!”
“My life, then, is complete. What’s Geryn nattering about?”
Before the brownie could reply, Morag called out to the Daikini.
“Hoy, Trooper!” She spoke quietly, the same volume she’d used with Thorn at her side, yet Geryn—all the way across the deck and staring at the approaching shore—snapped his head around as if he were a fish snagged tight on her line.
“Ma’am!”
“Dunno how it is on horseback, but when y’ ride the waves, y’ be careful wi’ y’r words. There’s Powers a’plenty to hear a curse like that an’ give y’ wha’s asked f’r. E’en though it’s na’ hardly what y’ want.”
“Powers I thought too great to bother with the words of a mortal,” Thorn mused.
“Aye. So I used t’ think m’self. But I tell y’, Maulroon’s friend, there’s a wilding loose that bears no love to anything that breathes.” Thorn sensed no specific meaning to the term she used, it may have been a force or a person; all that mattered to Morag was that it was trouble. The big woman shook her head. “Mayhap na’ anything at all but me own willies. Tell me when it’s safe, I’ll tell y’ when I’ll be back.”
“ ‘I like a world where things are what they seem.’ ” He offered her own words back at her.
“So, bucko, wha’s the fuss then?” she demanded of Geryn, who bridled at the appellation. “Why’re y’ soundin’ y’r mouth?”
“That column of horse along the shore road, are they who I think?”
“Aye,” Morag told him, swirling a whole host of negatives through that single word. “Thunder Riders.”
“Here?” Thorn noted dryly. “These days, it seems, everybody is a long way from home.”
Shadow Moon Page 12
