by Sean Russell
“The paint,” he managed. “It is aflame. We have to beat itwith sodden shirts.”
Three men-at-arms ducked under immediately. A dull thumpingsounded on the hull. When these three returned, three more went out-not ashirker among the group.
“I think the smoke is not so thick,” one said as hereturned, and Toren felt his hopes rise. Perhaps they would not be baked afterall.
But it seemed a long time, even so, before the air began toclear, and glimpses of sunlight heartened them. They were a bedraggled lot whenfinally they washed ashore upon a narrow strip of mud and sprawled upon thegrass. Smoke still filled the sky, drifting up in great, molten clouds. Theair, however, could be breathed without promoting spasms of coughing. One of A’brgail’sKnights called out, and Toren sat up to see the other boat, overturned, menclinging to it. It was brought ashore with some effort.
Dease was not there among the smoke-stained faces, thoughEber, his white beard dirty gray, crawled out onto the bank.
“But where is my son?” he rasped. “Is he with you?”
“No, but he was with my mistress,” Orlem Slighthand said. “Hewill be safe. Don’t waste a moment in worry.”
A head count turned up two others missing besides Dease-oneof A’brgail’s Knights and a Renne man-at-arms.
The tall man from the wildlands was soon up, assessing thedamage to the boats. Most of the gear was lost, though weapons and some othernecessities had been tied to the thwarts, and these had not been jettisonedwhen the boats were overturned.
Toren was on his feet, but Slighthand had assumed controland was seeing to the men, tallying their weapons and tools-a natural leader.He stood overlooking the boats with Baore.
“Can they be put to rights?” Toren asked, feeling small betweenthe youth from the wildlands and the giant.
Baore tugged at his sparse beard, thinking. “I will take aday to make them somewhat riverworthy. Some of the pitch melted out of theseams, and the paint is gone. The wood is scorched black in places, but not toany depth, luckily. We might find some of our oars washed up along the bank;otherwise, we shall have to fashion them with an axe. They’ll be rough, butserviceable.”
“I’ll lend a hand,” Orlem said. “I’m not a stranger to wood,though I’m no shipwright.”
Toren waited until Baore had gone off a few steps, then saidquietly to Orlem, “What has become of Elise? The old man is worried to thepoint of distraction about his child.”
The giant crouched and ran his hand over the blackened planking,rapping it with a knuckle. “The fire was not natural,” he said in his deeprumbling voice. “Caibre created it to destroy us-to destroy Sianon … Elise.I cannot say what other snares he might have left to catch her. Caibre wasbrutal and cunning. I only hope she was equal to his art.” The giant glancedback up the river. “I don’t know how long we’ll be safe here. The fire isspreading south. It will soon catch up with us. Whoever has skill with wood orboats should lend Baore a hand. A meal would hearten the men-at-arms. I don’tknow if we have a bow that can be used, but Baore has hooks and line. If thereis a fisherman among us-other than Baore, who cannot be spared-then we shouldset him to finding food.”
Someone called out and pointed. Toren stood to find Elise,her golden hair awash, swimming toward them.
Eber sat watching over his sleeping child. The child who hademerged from the river sickly pale, his lips blue-looking too much like a nagarfor anyone’s liking. But he was alive and sleeping gently as though nothing hadhappened, his natural color restored. Eber kept glancing over at Elise, who satapart, wrapped in her Fael cloak. She might have saved Llya, but Toren thoughtyou would not know it by the looks Eber gave her-as though she had violated hisson in some way or turned him into a monster.
He had been kept alive within the river, Torenthought, kept alive in its dark depths. Many a man among themwould have chosen death instead. Toren was not sure what choice he would havemade. He was as disturbed by the arts as many of his less-educated men-at-arms.
The nobleman looked up into the night sky. Tendrils of darkcloud wafted over, blotting out the stars-smoke. It appeared to be growingthicker, and Toren feared the north wind was carrying the fire down upon them.He wondered what had become of his cousin. Had he been consumed by the fire?Poisoned by the smoke, for certainly they had only survived beneath theprotection of the boat, and even that had been a close run thing. Poor Dease.He seemed to Toren to have been afflicted by ill luck since he had been struckby Beld. His whole manner had changed, as though he blamed himself for Arden’sdeath. Guilt seemed to consume his life’s fire. And now he was gone. Lost tothe unfathomable river.
Orlem, Baore, and some others slid the first boat into theriver to groans and halfhearted cursing. Toren walked over to see if he couldlend a hand in any way, though he had no skill as a woodworker or shipwright.
“The seams have opened up from the heat and from losing muchof their pitch,” the young giant from the wildlands announced. “The other isno better. The planks will take up after a while, but I don’t think we can bailfast enough to keep them afloat, now.”
Elise rose up from the shadow where she rested. She strodedown to the water where the boats lay and stood looking at them a moment, hermanner more imperious than Toren remembered. The shy girl of memory was gone,replaced by this woman who unsettled everyone-frightened them, in truth.
“Carry the other boat down to the water,” Elise ordered, andshe shed her cloak, letting it slide to the ground in a pile.
The other boat was borne quickly down and hissed over themud as it splashed into the river. Without taking notice of anyone, Elisecontinued to drop her clothes onto the riverbank, and in a moment she hadsplashed into the water. There, she spread her arms and seemed to hum, herpalms flat on the surface. At intervals she scooped up a double handful ofwater and splashed it into one boat or the other. The water where she moved herhands appeared to become faintly green and luminescent, as Toren had once seenin the wake of a boat on the open sea. The planking of the boats took on thisgreenish cast and glowed softly. The water in the boats receded, appearing todrain through the cracks between the planks, and in a moment the boats werebobbing gently upon the waters, glowing as though bathed in faint greenmoonlight.
Elise came out of the water, where Orlem immediately wrappedher in a cloak.
“Load the boats,” the giant ordered as he supported Elise,who appeared weak, her knees wobbly. Orlem bent and scooped up her clothing,bearing her up the low embankment. In a moment the two returned, Elise dressedand tightly wrapped in her cloak, her gaze cast down and shoulders slumped,like one overwhelmed by fatigue.
The men-at-arms stood about the boats, no one wanting tostep into a craft that had been bespelled. Toren could see the men, lookingdown, none meeting Orlem’s eye. Toren stepped forward and shoved the first boatout into the water, scrambling aboard and taking up one of the oars that hadbeen found adrift. A’brgail followed, taking up an oar himself. Eber set Llyadown in the bow of the other boat and climbed aboard after him.
Orlem turned to the men-at-arms, who still hesitated on theshore. “There will be no harm to any of you,” he said reassuringly. “Do notfear.” He pointed to the north. “But you will be hard-pressed to outdistancethe fire on foot through this dense forest. Any who cannot bear to encounterthe arcane arts might be better taking his chances with the fire. Before thisjourney is over you will see arts enough, that is certain.”
Reluctantly, and with many a measuring look to the north,the men climbed into the boats, taking their places, shipping the oars. Theyall appeared apprehensive but in a moment they were in the current and strikingout for the south, in the wake of Hafydd, who had tried to kill them with fire.They were silent boats passing beneath the stars, and still very faintlyaglow.
Toren looked back, seeing tendrils of smoke reaching out towardthem, but thinning and breaking apart before they could come so far. He dug inwith an oar and thanked the faint stars that he had not been washed up at Death’sgate. Not yet.
Thirty-one
They traced a small tributary down from the hills andfollowed its turnings through the forest. A silent company: four men, onebeneath a crowd of crows, and a Fael who was neither young nor old.
Late in the afternoon of the third day, they rode out of thewood into river bottom: gardens surrounded by tall lattice fences made ofsaplings covered the open valley. In some gardens, men and women bent overtheir plantings, but all rose to see the strangers riding through. Silently,they watched the outsiders pass, their looks apprehensive, though not hostile.
Half an hour brought them up to a small village, the housesof honey-colored stone, weathered and worn, the roofs densely thatched. Therewas no sign of paint. The door planks were weathered gray, window sashes thesame. But everywhere there were flowers in pots and long troughs, climbingvines and trees in blossom. It was as though the flowers had escaped thefenced gardens and were invading the village, and overgrowing it slowly. Menand women emerged from doorways at the sound of horses. They too staredsilently at the outsiders. Children were captured by their mothers and sentquickly inside.
Crowheart’s winged army swarmed from roof to roof, scoldingthe silent villagers, who shrank from them visibly.
“They are a friendly lot,” Fynnol said to Tam.
“I don’t think they see outsiders often,” Tam answered. “Likeour own people.”
In a few moments Alaan had led them down to a much largerriver, where boats were drawn up on the shore. The crow army settled on thegunwales and on the ground, cawing raucously.
“Baore would like to see this,” Cynddl said. “These boatsare hollowed-out logs.”
Alaan dismounted and raised his hands, palms out, to threemen who were carving designs into a newly made boat. None of the men answered,but only stared, the nearest stepping back.
“Do nothing sudden,” Alaan said quietly to his companions. “Drawno weapons, even if a crowd forms.” He turned to the three men. “I’m Alaan. Ivisited your village once before.”
“We remember you,” one of the shipwrights said. “But thenyou traveled with a whist. Now you bring a company of enchanted crows.”
“You need not fear them,” Alaan said, and smiledreassuringly. “We’ve come to trade horses for a boat.”
If Alaan had proposed “diamonds for dung,” he could not haveprovoked a greater reaction.
They had not taken the best boat in trade-it was too largefor their company-but very nearly. Horses, it seemed, were rare and highlyvalued to the villagers, and they were only too happy to provide a boat andwhatever else the outsiders wanted. It was pretty clear to Tam that the man whotraded for the horses thought he’d taken terrible advantage of the outsiders,and he couldn’t have been happier about it.
The traveler divided the company into two watches, and eachwatch paddled turnabout for the rest of the afternoon, driving the boat south.They were, Alaan told them, on the River Wynnd, or one of its “many branches,”and had a good distance to go. The sun plunged into a range of blue hills, andthe stars appeared among scattered clouds that looked like plaster scraped overthe sky.
“The moon is waning,” Alaan said, “so the night will bedark. But the river is broad and lazy. I think we should try to make some leaguesby morning. We’ll give up paddling, but we’ll have to stand watches. I thinkthe greatest danger will be getting swept up to the shore and running aground,which will slow us-something we can little afford.”
Alaan organized three watches for the night: Tam and Fynnol,Cynddl and Crowheart, and Alaan by himself.
Tam drew the middle watch and made a place for himself tosleep, laying out his bedding and clothes on the floorboards, worn smooth byuse. Settling on his back, he gazed up at the stars, the tar-black sky. Themoon appeared late, drifting up from the eastern horizon, a thin silvercrescent, like the night’s earring.
He thought of Elise Wills, who, Alaan said, was on the riverbefore them. He couldn’t forget the night they had lain in the grass, a softrain falling upon them, though he had hardly noticed. Her kisses had been soknowing, yet at the same time she seemed as awestruck as he by what washappening.
She is both ancient and young, he reminded himself. Heclosed his eyes and felt desire course through him as he remembered Elisemoving beneath him, remembered her cries of pleasure, choked off lest they bediscovered. With these memories drifting through his mind as he fell asleep hewas surprised to be wakened later from a very dark dream.
“Your watch,” Alaan whispered.
Tam could barely make out the traveler in the darkness. Themoon had drifted into the east and was aground, and tilted oddly, on a smallisland of cloud. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off thenightmare. He’d been drowning, but not in water, in some dark air.
“There is cloud in the south-quite black,” Alaan said. “Perhapsa storm coming in off the sea. Be a bit wary. The river can becomesurprisingly rough in a storm.”
Tam roused himself and stood, surveying the night world: theshadow river, glittering here and there with stars and ribbons of moonlight;black embankments and vague hills; stars still thrown high against the night.Here and there floated thin ovate clouds, but in the south Tam could see thegathering storm Alaan had spoken of. Yet it did not look quite right to him.The clouds were dark, but high and thin, tingeing the stars nearby so that theyappeared almost crimson.
“Wake me if there is any trouble,” Fynnol whispered.
Tam prodded his cousin with a toe. “Up, lazy Fynnol. Thereis a sorcerer adrift on the river. We dare not sleep.”
“Sorcerer be damned,” Fynnol whispered in exasperation. “Whathas he to do with me? Let me sleep … just a little more.”
Tam prodded him again, this time not so gently.
“Tamlyn!”
“Up, or it’s a bowl of water next.”
“Ahh!” Fynnol rolled up and sat digging knuckles into hiseyes. “There. Satisfied? You have ruined my perfectly lovely dream. I shallnever have another like it.”
“I’m sure you will have many like it,” Tam said.
“No, I was so … adored. By everyone. Women wanted toshower me with favors-if favors can said to be showered. My every remark wasrepeated over and over. I could not go anywhere but people were courting me. Ah… it was a lovely dream.”
“Better than mine. I was drowning in some dark … air. Ican’t explain it. I was so glad to have Alaan wake me.”
Fynnol stretched his arms out. “Let us hope my dream is prophetic,and yours is not. Ooh! I’m sure this bed is much harder than the beds in mydreams. But then the beds in my dreams were padded with comely women, so I didnot properly notice the mattresses. Hmm … Perhaps another visit to thatwondrous place is in order.”
“Not for three hours, at least. We are on watch. What do youmake of these clouds in the south?” Tam could hardly see his cousin in thedarkness, but was sure he turned to look down the river.
“They seem the ordinary type of clouds. You know, high inthe sky, obscuring the stars. Admirably doing their job, I would say.”
“Yes, but they seem a little … odd to me.” Tam shrugged. “Perhapsyou are right. Ordinary clouds. Alaan thinks it might be a storm coming in offthe sea.”
“We could use a little rain, Tam. I haven’t had a bath orlaundered my clothing in days. Do you notice how much we have come to be likethe animals? Bathing when the rain falls or when we are forced to ford a river.Eating what we can catch. We have become a pack of men. Soon we shall havereverted to the wilds entirely-like the wild men of stories we heard in our youth,appearing one day out of the forest, unclothed, unkempt, snarling and gruntingour idea of wit.”
“Worse things could happen,” Tam said distractedly, a shiverrunning up his back.
“Yes. We’ve seen it,” Fynnol said, suddenly serious. “Ishall never look at a river the same now that I have gazed across the finalriver and into the darkness beyond. Nor will I ever fall asleep withoutthinking of the claws of Death’s servant snatching me up. If not for SlighthandI w
ould dwell in the darkness yet-whatever that would mean. Do you ever wonder,Tam, what lies beyond the final gate?”
“Anyone who is not a fool must wonder at sometime or other.But it is a futile endeavor. Even Alaan does not know.”
“Or so he says,” Fynnol said softly.
Tam looked at the shadow of his cousin in the dark. “What doyou mean?”
Fynnol hesitated a second, perhaps wondering if Alaan’s evenbreathing meant he was asleep. “I felt there was something odd in hisconversation with the swan lady. If stories are to be believed, she livedbefore Death made his kingdom. Back in the age when he was just a sorcerer.Death once loved her, Alaan claims. If anyone knows what lies within Death’skingdom, it is Meer. And who is Alaan but her grandchild-or at least Sainthwas. There seems to be a quantity of family knowledge-kept from meremortals-but known to the descendants of Tusival.”
Tam had not thought of that before, but had to admit thatthere was some ring of truth to it. He remembered the woman they had seen,changing into a swan and back, but beautiful and youthful still. How long hadshe been living there, in that dying wood? How long did it seem to her, tosomeone who did not die? “Did she seem mad to you, Fynnol?” Tam asked.
“No … no, not really. Not in the way that I’ve seenmadness, though I can’t claim any great experience in that matter.”
“She did not seem mad to me, either.”
The Valemen fell silent, the river spinning them slowlybeneath the stars.
“Do you see that cloud?” Tam said. “Is it not drawingnearer? See how much more of the sky it blocks.”
Fynnol stared a moment at the sky. “I think you’re right,though there is precious little we can do about it. We might find a hospitablebit of riverbank in the dark, but we’re just as likely to find cliffs or aswamp. Maybe even a wood of stone trees, as we did before. Who knows what thisriver will offer next.”
“You’re right. We should stay our course till we have somelight, which is still two hours off at least.”
