by A. F. Dery
Far off in the distance, peaks forever snow-capped seem to kiss an endless dove-gray sky, the edges made fuzzy with the fine mist of what must have been clouds. Further down those distant slopes, she could see bright, vivid splotches of deep green that must have been forest. Her heart yearned for it suddenly with a pang, remembering the trees and heat and sunlight of Ytar, so unlike this pale, frigid place. At least, she thought, trees are everywhere the same.
Kesara quickly turned her attention back to Lord Eladria, whose long legs had taken him well ahead of her. He did not even glance backwards, simply expecting he would be followed at the same brisk pace he had maintained without falter since he’d risen from his breakfast table. Not that anything had managed to get consumed except his tea. Servants and soldiers both cut them a wide path, making signs of respect as their lord passed and eyeing Kesara with mingled curiosity and suspicion.
Kesara’s legs burned as she had to practically run to keep up with him, but she dared not complain. Their conversation had gone far better than she could have hoped, and she had even managed to stick quite scrupulously to the absolute truth, though even the memory of his reaction to her concerns about her freedom made her skin prickle with goose flesh. He had turned as cold and still as the stone his Keep was made out of, his deep brown eyes seeming somehow to burn in his face and his thin, bloodless lips drawing back from his very sharp, very white teeth. His words had been civil enough, his tone even and quiet, but she could sense the fury lurking just beneath and it had made her heart pound. Still made it pound, unless that was simply the exertion of her almost-run behind him. She had felt like a very small, very helpless rabbit that had just been cornered by something big, brawny, and full of teeth. She had been, for a moment, honestly afraid that she would have to tell him everything to spare herself whatever his anger would bring, that it might be the only way for him to understand what was at stake for her and that she had meant him no offense. She couldn’t even understand quite what had gotten him that upset. Surely things were not so very different here?
But he had seemed to return to himself- or rather, the same Lord Eladria who had first greeted her at the table- when he’d decided they must see this “Graunt.” Relieved that to see that his anger had diminished, she had kept her mouth shut since, but her mind was racing with the possibilities. Who was this “Graunt” and how could he, or she, or they be so important that the Dread Lord of Eladria himself sought their approval about keeping her?
Keeping me! Kesara snorted to herself. It was so easy to fall back into the old ways. Already she found herself bristling at the thought he might not decide to accept her offer, an offer she knew she should not be making. It was terribly reckless. What was she thinking, to have even made such an offer? This was hopeless, she admonished herself. It could never end well!
But at least it is my choice this time. I want to help him- to help him. I just wish I knew why when he scares the unholy hell out of me. Besides, it’s not as if I offered to stay for the rest of my life. I’ll just keep on until I figure out what to do...if he’ll even have me for that long.
And she refused- absolutely refused- to be the slightest bit disturbed at the thought that he might opt otherwise.
So absorbed was Kesara in these resolutions that she nearly ran into him a few minutes later when he suddenly stopped at the end of the outer courtyard where it met the mountain. She looked around in surprise, wondering why they had stopped here. Not for the first time and surely not for the last, she rued her woeful lack of insight into Eladrian culture. For all she knew, “Graunt” was Eladrian for “mountain spirit” or some such thing, and he was about to address the sheer wall of solid rock before them. She wondered if she ought to curtsy at it or something.
But Lord Eladria pressed against the stone and to her astonishment, a doorway appeared with a metallic grinding noise.
“What sort of magic is this?” Kesara sputtered, wide-eyed.
Thane shot her a dark look. “We do not treat with such things around here. This is just a machine. A...neighbor of mine installed it. There are gears, you see, that move the stone away.” He motioned to her and she came closer, peering into the open doorway. Sure enough, she saw large gears and some sort of pulley just behind and to the side of the stone slab that had moments ago been part of the mountain wall.
“How does it work?” she asked. “What makes those ropes pull them?”
Lord Eladria bared his teeth in what she was presuming contextually was supposed to be a smile and she fought back the urge to run. “Just the momentum from it being pulled. Someone without the necessary strength would not be able to get it to work at all” and he gave her a very meaningful look before stepping further into the mountain.
Kesara gave the strange mechanism another long look and followed him down what appeared to be a hallway carved from the stone. She could see the chips and dings in the rock from the chisel and touched one wall surreptitiously as she walked past. It felt smooth and very cold.
The hallway ended in a large, open cave that resembled nothing so much as a gray dome hung with heavy, colorful quilts and laid with thick carpets in jarringly mismatched colors. Kesara was amazed to see a large fireplace built into one wall, a fire crackling merrily within and sending tongues of dancing orange light against the walls. A large black cooking pot was suspended over the flame but she could not guess at what might be within it. She smelled nothing but the fire itself and the mingling odors of many herbs, some of which hung from a wooden rack of some kind at the side of the room. Furniture sat about in a haphazard sort of way, as if placed within and forgotten about by a child, a table here, some chairs over there, what looked like an empty wooden barrel just sitting in the middle of the floor. The one placement that made sense to her was a larger-than-usual rocking chair placed near the hearth with a small table beside, and in that chair sat who she assumed must be Graunt.
She could only see the back of Graunt from where she stood gawking in the doorway, and at first thought her to be a very large and very old woman, seeing long graying wisps of hair poking out over the chair.
Kesara watched with wide eyes as Lord Eladria strode up to the rocking chair and knelt before it, touching his forehead briefly to the arm that rested at Graunt’s side. “Good morning, Graunt. How have you been faring?”
Kesara saw Graunt shift a bit in the rocking chair and heard a snort, then an oddly low and gravelly voice answered, “Better’n you, I suspect, my boy. You have brought me a rabbit for my stew?”
Kesara frowned a little at that but Lord Eladria did not even glance in her direction. “Not this time, Graunt. But I did bring you a visitor. We are in need of your wisdom.” Again he lowered his forehead as if in obeisance.
“Of course you are,” Graunt huffed. “If you call a rabbit a visitor. Look how small and pale it is.”
Kesara started. How could Graunt even see her when she was facing the fire?
“But no fur, and little meat,” Lord Eladria said in soothing tones.
Wonderful, just wonderful, Kesara thought. He’s consulting a raving madwoman. Maybe he’s mad, too. Maybe “Mad Lord” was already taken so they had to settle for “Dread.” She tried to keep still, feeling the hysteria bubbling up inside her and nipping at her idle feet.
“It is so nervous,” Graunt remarked, sounding amused. “Old Graunt will not eat you today, little rabbit. What kind of riddle are you, that my boy brings you to me? Or have you finally decided to do your duty by your country, boy, and make me a Great-Graunt, hmmm? I should choose a woman with wider hips, were I you, but I’d have to check her to be sure of it.”
For a moment, it seemed the Dread Lord was as speechless as Kesara herself was at this sentiment, then he stammered, “Y-you know that is not what I am about, Graunt-”
“Yet it ought to be. Look at you, soon to be into your fourth decade and not even a bastard to show for it,” Graunt sniffed.
Lord Eladria’s disfigured mouth twitched. “I am so sorry
for the disappointment, old mother,” he said meekly, looking for all the world like a massively overgrown chastised schoolboy.
“Ha. Don’t ‘old mother’ me. You know damned well you aren’t sorry!” But Graunt’s voice was amused. “One of these days, my boy...”
His Lordship made a noncommittal noise and Graunt snorted. “Well, then, little rabbit, if you’re not here to be examined for breeding, then you might as well tell me your name and let us get on with this little visit.”
Kesara hesitated from where she still stood in the doorway, unsure if she should approach. As if reading her mind, Graunt said slyly, “Best come here into the light, though you may well regret not speaking to the back of my head when you had the chance.”
She must be disfigured like the Dread Lord, perhaps some relation of his, Kesara thought to herself, inwardly bracing herself for that possibility as she walked quickly up to the chair.
Graunt turned to her, grinning, and Kesara stumbled back a step, almost knocking into the kneeling Dread Lord. The woman was not disfigured, Kesara thought distantly. She did not look human at all. She looked like a great sack of skin as brown and rough as tree bark, sporadic wisps of thin graying hair shooting out in all directions from a scalp stretched tightly over an almost conical head. Tiny dark eyes, as round and bright as new buttons, had no whites at all. Where there ought to have been a nose, Kesara saw only a flattened lump like a bit of clay, and she wondered at once how the creature could breathe. Graunt’s grin was like Lord Eladria’s in that it seemed more of a caricature of a smile than the real thing, a forced curving of the mouth meant to imitate one, which revealed a jagged graveyard of very pointy teeth.
The realization that this was supposed to be a smile somehow jarred Kesara back into herself. Following Lord Eladria’s example, she curtsied as deeply as she dared without taking her eyes from the strange creature and murmured, “My name is Kesara, madame, and pleased to meet you.” She tried to smile but her lips felt numb.
Graunt let out a raspy laugh. “Well done of you, Kesara. You have seen horrors before in...Ytar, is it?”
“It is, madame,” Kesara replied, trying but failing to blink from where she was caught in Graunt’s beady-eyed gaze.
“Have you ever seen one such as I?” Graunt’s jagged smile somehow widened, which Kesara had not thought possible.
“Never, madame.”
“Have you ever seen one as deformed as my boy?”
“Oh yes, madame,” Kesara said, immediately calling to mind her first mentor.
Graunt made a strange face, her mouth bunching up almost to touch her lump of a nose and her little black eyes squinting into slits. “Were they uglier than this one?”
Kesara frowned. “Uglier?” She could not bring herself to look away from Graunt to see Lord Eladria’s expression at the unkind question.
“You think him handsome?” Graunt’s face relaxed into a parody of innocence as she blinked owlishly at her.
“Graunt-” Lord Eladria finally interpreted but Graunt held out one doughy, pointy-fingered hand and he immediately fell silent again.
“With respect, madame, I do not discuss persons present as though they are not there,” Kesara said stiffly, all the while thinking Please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me. She had no doubt whatsoever beholding this creature’s teeth that she really could eat her like a pork chop.
“Oh, that is fine and well, Kesara. If you will not discuss him when he is present, I can send him away.” There was something sly in Graunt’s tone now and Kesara felt her stomach plummet to the vicinity of her knees at the thought of being left alone with her, but she pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Graunt laughed again and finally broke her gaze, looking again at Lord Eladria. “Another time, perhaps. Sit, girl, and you’d better do as well, Thane. Then tell me why you seek my counsel about this Ytaren rabbit?”
Lord Eladria unfolded to his feet, startlingly graceful for one of his bulk, and pulled over two chairs from the other side of the room. Kesara watched him mutely as he nodded to one, not meeting her eyes. before seating himself gingerly in the other. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he seemed embarrassed. The odd thing was that she wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed about her, about Graunt, or about something else entirely.
Kesara took her seat as Lord Eladria said, “This woman can take away pain. I have never seen or heard of such a thing. She has offered me her help- she is, in fact, helping me at this moment- but I do not know what to make of it. Do you know anything about this, Graunt?”
Graunt’s dark little eyes were on Kesara again and she could not help but shrink a little from the piercing gaze, casting down her own eyes quickly for fear that she’d be trapped in it once more if she met it full on.
“I know little of Ytar,” Graunt said grudgingly after several long moments of this scrutiny. “I know this is not witchcraft; I would be able to taste that magic in such close quarters, if not choke on it. But I know not how she does what she says. Are you sure she does it?”
“Very,” Lord Eladria said firmly. “I have one of my headaches.”
Graunt’s eyes could have bored a hole through Kesara’s own head now, but she mulishly kept her eyes trained to the fire in the hearth.
“I think,” Graunt said slowly, “you had best leave us alone after all, Thane. There are words that need speaking that are not for your ears.”
Kesara suddenly felt sick but did not dare look up. She knows.
“Are you certain this is necessary?” Lord Eladria asked in a low voice. Kesara looked at him before she could stop herself, but his eyes were on Graunt, his expression grim.
“I’m not, but I suspect she is,” Graunt answered with a smirk. “Run along, my boy. I will send her out when I am through with her. We can catch up later.”
Kesara could sense Lord Eladria’s reluctance, see it in the slowness with which he climbed to his feet. He bowed formally before Graunt, a giant before a monster, and to Kesara’s surprise, the creature reached out a pointy hand and patted him on the arm with an almost maternal affection.
Then he left. Kesara’s heart was beating so hard she could hear her pulse in her ears and she sat perfectly rigid, her knuckles whitening where she gripped the sides of her chair.
“So it is just us girls, little rabbit,” Graunt said. Kesara had returned her attention to the fire, but she could hear the jagged-toothed smile in Graunt’s gravelly voice that she was missing.
“It is not often,” Graunt continued slyly, “that one such as myself sees a Mirror in her home. Often as not, such break when they see the likes of me!”
Kesara sat silently, hoping if she wished it hard enough, a hole would open up in the cave floor and swallow her whole. She doubted Graunt would be so merciful, given those teeth.
“O’ course, a Mirror might break to see Milord’s face as well,” the creature murmured. “His face, and all his troubles. You must be a gifted one, to be able to separate his headaches from all the rest and take only it. He’s never been quite right, you know- there is something wrong with his bones, as well as his brains.” There was plain concern in these last words and Kesara closed her eyes briefly.
“What...exactly...is wrong with him?” she asked. Her voice trembled and she hated it.
Graunt made a slight rustling noise that Kesara, who was still determinedly avoiding looking at her, interpreted as a shrug. “Some babes are born so, with missing limbs or too many toes or twisted lips. Thane- that is, our Lord Eladria- was born as he is. Bigger than even most of his kinsmen, but although he is a keen fighter and very strong, his joints do not handle his weight or too much exertion very well. He carries on anyhow, but his knees grow worse with each year. I have little doubt he will be lame by the time he sees his end.
“If you mean what’s wrong with his face, it is a deformity, nothing more. Could be something his mum did when he was in her belly, could just be a cruel trick of Fate, could be some dissatisfied god seeking
punishment for his dissolute waste of a father. Who knows?” Kesara heard more rustling and saw something move from the corner of her eye. Unwillingly, she glanced over, and again her eyes met Graunt’s burning black ones as Graunt leaned intently towards her. “My question for YOU is what your interest would be in him? It can’t be easy for you to be around him.”
“No,” Kesara said reluctantly. It was clear there was no escaping this when Graunt had called her by title. “But I have endured far worse than Lord Eladria.”
Again Graunt bunched up her face oddly. “I do not doubt it. Why do you aid him, girl? If you wished a bond, I am sure there were far more profitable and pleasant prospects back where you hail from.”
“I am not looking for that,” she said quickly, at last releasing the chair so she could wring her hands in sudden anxiety. “I left to escape that fate. I only wish to be left alone, to live my own life, whatever there is of it.”
Graunt snorted. “Then again I ask, why have you offered your services to Milford, hmm?”
Kesara didn’t know what to say. She still wasn’t sure herself. He had been there, he had needed her, it seemed so senseless that he should suffer when she was there and could help...that was all. Again she recalled the feeling of his eyelashes on her hand.
She pushed that thought away and said, “I don’t know. It just seemed to be the right thing to do at the time. And the truth is, I don’t mind...doing what I can do. I just don’t want to lose my freedom. I don’t want to be tied forevermore to someone who can murder me without repercussion.”
“I can understand that, girl, but the fact remains that there is more to it than that, isn’t there? You do get some choice in a bond, do you not? If you do not mind what you do...” Graunt’s voice trailed off and her eyes somehow grew beadier still, staring into Kesara’s. Kesara had to try very hard not to squirm like the worm on a fishhook that she felt like.
