The White Hart

by Nancy Springer

  The night bird sings

  Of asphodel;

  The day bird wakes

  And flaps his wings

  And cannot fly

  And lifts the cry

  O Tutosel, Ai Tutosel!

  The night bird sings

  Of Vieyra’s spell,

  Of Aftalun’s

  Sweet hydromel

  And dark chimes of

  The wild bluebell

  In reaches of high Tutosel.

  The dawn bird wakes

  And lifts his wings

  And cannot fly

  And sadly sings

  O Philomel,

  O mortal’s knell,

  O Tutosel, Ai Tutosel!

  All very mysterious and rather melancholy. The ringing of a bluebell signifies death. I took some surreptitious and superstitious comfort in the fact that it was not the season for those flowers. I sensed even then that the Lorc Tutosel were as seductive and treacherous as that strange bird of their name. Still, we rode gently on their cool, tree-shaded slopes; we slept soundly in their heather—and even though they cozened me to my death, years later, I look back on them with longing and delight.

  We made our way eastward toward the Coire Adalis, the Deep of Adalis, where the river Chardri plunged back to the flood beneath. The mountains grew wilder and steeper by the day, and we edged upward on their slopes, for we hoped to pass well above the horrible chasm at the foot of Aftalun, tallest peak in all the encircling ranges of Vale. Frain looked daily for Aftalun, and he longed to climb to the very top of Lorc Tutosel to see what lay beyond. But we never came near those awesome heights. We traveled just above the tree line, scrambling along crazily tilted slopes of shale between thickets and patches of heather, leading the horses most of the time. Cliffs soared above us, and sometimes a nasty drop yawned below as well. Tirell nearly came to grief on such terrain.

  We were all walking separately because we were nearly out of food and each of us was on the lookout for game. Frain was down among the trees, hunting rabbits or whatever came his way, and I had an arrow at the ready for grouse. Where Shamarra was, perhaps Eala knows. She wandered off every day and returned to us at night with nothing to show for it, calm and aloof, seemingly quite careless of our company. Even the black beast was friendlier. It slept curled close to Tirell each night, except when Tirell was wakeful and skulking about, when it would nestle next to Frain. It never came to me for comfort, or to the lady.

  But on this day, as I was saying, a grouse went up with a sudden clap of wings, as they always do, and I shot my arrow and missed. I watched the bird go, muttering. Just as it reached a cliff far above me I saw it falter in the air, and a stone rattled down. The bird flopped and fluttered at the edge of the cliff, and Tirell ran toward it with reckless speed, stooping for another stone. He must have been very hungry, or else lusting for the kill. As he reached his prey he slipped and sped neatly over the edge of the cliff, sending the shale flying, shouting hoarsely. He caught hold of the treacherous rock with both hands, and there he hung.

  I don’t know how long it took me to get to him. It seemed forever, and I know I climbed as I had never climbed before. I was gasping for breath and streaming sweat when I reached him at last, and his straining face looked white as death. He had not cried out after that first scream.

  I got him by one wrist and hauled him up until he could lie on his gut with his long legs flailing the air. He rolled and wriggled his way to safety, and we both lay panting.

  “Where is that accursed bird?” he wheezed.

  It was gone, of course, and I never found my arrow either. I gave no reply. I was too old to find my wind so quickly.

  After a little while Tirell sat up and looked at me with no expression at all on his pale, handsome face. I lay back and met his stare, still puffing, hoping for thanks but not really expecting as much—not from him.

  “So, Fabron,” he said slowly, “you no longer entirely hate me.”

  I had almost forgotten by then how I had hated him at first, when my wife was newly dead and my son newly found and dreams of revenge and glory floated like a mist at the back of my mind. His perception startled me, since I had not judged that he knew, he who seemed to go through his days in his own haze of dreams. Shock and guilt stabbed me, but I did not bother to turn away from his gaze. Let him see.

  “No, I no longer hate you,” I replied equably. “Though Eala alone knows why not. You are cold and bitter enough to turn spring back to winter, Tirell.” He had not titled me, and I returned him no title.

  He grunted in reply, got to his feet, and reached down to help me to mine. I took his hand gladly. It was not thanks, but it was a gesture of friendship such as I had never known from him, and well worth the sore back I suffered for days afterward. We took a while to catch our horses and then went on our way. But we had no supper that night. Frain had lost arrows too.

  “Such cunning hunters,” Shamarra remarked cattily.

  We went hungry the next day also. But the third day, when still nothing had seen fit to blunder into our clutches, she met us at dusk and gave us marvelous fruits to eat. Each was as round as a sun, ruddy as a westward sun, firm and filling as bread but juicy and sweet.

  “Red fruits! The food of the gods!” Frain exclaimed, only half joking. He ate greedily, and I did the same, ecstatically gulping as many as I could hold. But I noticed that Tirell ate only a few, and those grudgingly. I wondered what ailed him.

  For the next several days when we bagged no birds or rabbits we had fruit, which was better anyway, to my way of thinking. Even the horses and the beast had some, for we were finding no water on these high slopes. Within a few days we left the trees and even the thickets far below us. We could look out over them to where the Chardri made a great silver flow and a green corridor across the sere land, where slaves worked hard pouring water from the river on the crops. No freeman would set foot in the river for fear of death, but slaves could be driven.… We sighted Aftalun at last, a great peak, and we could see where the Chardri roared into a gaping blackness below sheer cliffs.

  “Aftalun has two faces,” Frain said, studying the mountain.

  It did indeed. A rugged line divided two vast stony surfaces, one in light and one in shadow. The peak resembled the jutting edge of a blunt and massive axe.

  “They both frown,” Tirell complained. “We can see water, even hear water, and yet we can get none.”

  We listened. It was true; we could hear the distant thunder of the deep.

  “It is a strange world,” said Tirell. “Well, let us go on.”

  It was rough going. We walked along ledges or slopes scarcely level enough for footing, leading the horses, and often we had to twist and turn and retrace our steps to find a way forward. After a few days of this, Shamarra had no more fruit to give us. We were all plagued by hunger and thirst. But the worst trial, I think, was not the thirst or even the fear of falling, but the Luoni. Like great, dirty-colored birds they clung to the rocks with their wrinkled claws, turning toward us the heads of emaciated women. Long, drab hair streamed down around their stubby wings. Wherever we went they sat above our path and watched us with their rolling, sunken eyes. They did not threaten us; they did not even cry out or speak. They only watched us, but I have never felt so tormented. Once I came upon one clinging to a rock scarcely a spear’s length away, staring at me sideways out of her craterous face. I stared back defiantly because I was afraid, and I longed to kill the foul thing, but her human head prevented me.

  We spent the nights on slopes and ledges, scarcely sleeping for fear of falling and for unreasoning fear of the Luoni. Even Tirell did not stir during those nights. Finally we came to the edge of the shadowed face of Aftalun, where the roar of Coire Adalis sounded directly below us and the Chardri ran at us like a glistening road out of the west—and we could not go on.

  We cast about for a whole day trying to find a way. Aftalun would not let us pass. Sunset came, its bloody rays streaming down the Char
dri, and we stood confronting a blank, curving wall of rock, standing on a ledge scarcely wide enough for the horses. Frain and I stared hopelessly at each other. We had found ourselves on that same ledge half a dozen times before in the course of the day, to no avail. Those accursed Luoni watched us silently from above.

  “It’s a cave,” Tirell said suddenly from behind me—we had got out of order on the jumbling slopes. “Go on in.”

  For the first time I seriously doubted his ability to lead us. “It’s only the shadow of the rock in this harsh light, Tirell,” I explained patiently. “The sun strikes across it slantwise—”

  “Exactly,” he roared, “and it won’t last another minute. Get on in, I say!”

  I opened my mouth to protest again, but Frain simply walked into the shadow and disappeared, leading his horse. I must have blinked ten times before I followed him. He stood waiting for me just within, and he spoke to me as I entered to encourage me. The cave seemed bigger on the inside than the outside. I stood comfortably beside him, and I heard Shamarra stop beside me.

  “Go on!” Tirell grumbled from the rear.

  “Likely it will drop us into the deep in a step or two,” I whispered. I was trembling with the strangeness of the place. Utter darkness surrounded us, even though there should have been sunlight just behind. I did not dare to turn and look. “Make a light, Shamarra,” I begged.

  “I can’t,” she said flatly, with no trace of self-pity in her voice. I don’t think any of us realized how exhausted she was.

  “Let me pass,” said Tirell scornfully, and I felt his hard hand move me out of his way. We all walked along, following each other’s sounds. The floor did not seem to slope.

  “We’ll go off the edge in a minute,” I pleaded. “Can’t we stop here, light a fire, and maybe sleep? There seems to be room enough.”

  Tirell barked out a laugh. “In this hole? I’d as soon sleep on the ledge!” He pressed on. But soon, to my astonishment, I realized that I could see in a dim way. We were all walking through a kind of featureless gray expanse. After a while it occurred to me that there was nothing to prevent us from riding—no walls, no roof—so I got on my horse. Frain and Shamarra did likewise. Tirell continued to stalk afoot.

  I saw more clearly every moment. By some marvel we were not inside a mountain at all. Or if we were, the mountain was as big as the world inside. We rode across a broad countryside lit with a muted, pearly glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, showing no roof, no dome of sky, no encircling mountain wall—I felt as if I could float away into the misty light. Still, I grew less afraid of going off an edge into the deep; falling seemed likely to be of no consequence in this country. The land looked soft and gentle, like down pillows on a tufted bed. The trees and grass seemed fluffy as fur. I saw comfortable-looking thatched houses and people and cattle and everything necessary for prosperity, but all hazy to my eyes, like a dream. I do not remember sounds, or any colors at all.

  I do remember the castle. I remember watching it grow nearer during what must have been hours, even days, of riding. I was no longer troubled by hunger or thirst, and I cannot recall any weariness. I never tired of looking at the castle. It entranced me with its shimmering intricacy; it shifted like a structure of leaves in the directionless light, puzzling my smith’s eye. I sensed pattern, but I could only trace change as I drew nearer. The place was immense and the color of moonlight.

  From within the castle seemed as boundless as the countryside. Servants met us, blanketed our animals and took them to stable, welcomed us with every courtesy. They led us to a great hall, to a feast. Guests thronged around the tables, decked in jewels and robes and making merry. I remember a starry sparkle of gems and a lulling hum of talk. But I must have been more tired than I realized; the people seemed to ripple together before my eyes, all the colorless color of water. In his fair linen Frain floated swan-like in their midst; Shamarra’s hair and gown formed a waterfall of silver and sunny gold. Tirell’s black figure stood like a lance, shocking my bleary eyes. A pool of silence grew around him. He stood and stared at the dais, and I followed his stare, saw a king rise to give us welcome.

  He stood twice the height of any man I had ever seen, massive, his great, muscular arms folded across his broad bellows of a chest. He verily seemed to shine in that muted place, golden, like a sun. I felt half afraid of him until I saw his face crinkle with smiling cheerfulness, his eyes that were merry and wise and very old although his body was that of an arrogant youth.

  “Welcome!” he cried. “Come, seat yourselves and drink and feast. All that we have is yours.”

  “Filthy old cripple!” Tirell shouted back. “I bow before no living man!”

  I gaped, and Frain turned as if he had been struck. The reply made no sense! But the giant on the dais seemed in no wise affronted.

  “Why, I am no living man,” he declared. “Lady Shamarra, Prince Tirell, Prince Frain, Fabron king of Vaire, you are very welcome. I am Aftalun, first god, then first man, then first to taste of death, and I rule death here. I am king of the dead, and here we hold our revels. All that we have is yours. Drink and eat!”

  “Drink and eat!” Tirell roared. “I would as soon eat the red mushroom of madness! Aren’t you the ass who built that bloody altar?”

  I tensed unhappily, feeling sure it would come to fight now. But Aftalun only mildly turned his eyes.

  “Why, yes,” he replied. “But then I was a man, intent on strife and glory. Now I am a god again, and I say rest, drink, and eat.”

  Someone handed me a cup of mead, and I gulped it down. It was the sweetest I had ever tasted. I took no further notice of Tirell’s sulkiness. I sat at a table and devoured fine wheat bread and crisp, hot pork and poultry and sweet red-gold fruits such as Shamarra had given us. Frain sat beside me, smiling.

  “Eat more slowly,” he cautioned. “You’ll get a bellyache.”

  I turned to reply and nearly choked. Just beyond him sat a courtly, winsome woman—Mela! Smiling, coifed, and crowned with a graceful circlet, she did not look much like the queen Frain had seen. Indeed, he seemed not to recognize her as she passed him dishes in solicitous and motherly style. I struggled out of my seat, knocking the bench awry, and blundered over to her.

  “Mela!” I cried, tears trickling. She glanced up at me in amazed sympathy.

  “Why, good sir, whatever is the matter? You must be exhausted. Here, let me help you.” She rose and got me by the shoulders, guided me back to my seat. A good thing, for I was tottering and I couldn’t say a word. “You’ll feel much better soon,” Mela assured me. “Here, have some more of the hydromel. It must be hard, so hard, to have come here through the darkened ways.”

  I took a huge swig of mead to please her. “You don’t remember,” I sputtered through it.

  “Remember?” Her clear eyes, so much like Frain’s, frosted over with thought. “The flight with aching wings and burning lungs, that I remember. And the dive—I was too frightened to dive, but I had to. After that, nothing but liquid light and ease.… Your way has been far harsher. What is your name, good sir, and how do you come to know mine?”

  “Fabron,” I told her. “I—you—never mind.” She was all that she had ever been: generous, beautiful … And more—she was at peace. Though words unspoken filled me with an urgent ache, I would not disturb that peace, not for anything. Not even to show son to mother. Mela deserved such peace after what I had done to her. I turned to warn Frain to keep silence in case he had heard me call her—

  I don’t think he had heard a word. He sat staring at the dais. Tirell was up there, seated between Shamarra and another maiden, glowering fiercely. Shamarra ate coolly and daintily in the place of honor by Aftalun’s side. Tirell seemed not to have touched his food. All looked much as usual in regard to those two, so I wondered what had riveted Frain’s gaze so.

  “Mylitta!” he gasped. “Right by Tirell—and he doesn’t know her!”

  The other maiden was a plain, pert lass with
all the warmth of summer in her smile. She sat serenely observing the assembly with occasionally a humorous glance at the sullen figure beside her. She offered him viands as courtesy dictated, and he answered her with snarls that abashed her not at all.

  I swallowed. “She doesn’t know him,” I said to Frain.

  “I suppose not. We’re truly in the realm of the dead,” Frain murmured. “I know Aftalun said so, but I didn’t understand.… Fabron, Tirell must never know, never, that he sat by her side and glared. It would break his heart for good. Promise me.”

  “Of course,” I told him. “Have some more of this excellent mead.”

  I felt suddenly quite content. I sat and conversed pleasantly with my dead wife. How nice that she could not remember what a bastard I had been! She listened to me with friendly interest, and I talked and ate until warm weariness overcame me. After a while someone showed me to a chamber and I slept. Frain to the contrary, I suffered no bellyache. I never felt any ache of any kind in that place, not after that first feast.

  We stayed for days, I suppose, though there were no days and nights, only sleeping and waking. There were many amusements to take up the waking time, and of course meals, as many as one liked, and luxurious bathing. But I spent much of my stay in Aftalun’s realm with my wife. We became good friends. We would walk about together. She showed me the sights of the castle that never seemed to end, and we listened to music in every courtyard. I loved her with all a youth’s passion, but I did not woo her. My flesh was quiet those days.

  When not with Mela I was to be found with Frain. Aftalun did not neglect his guests. He spoke with us when he could, and I found him to be a marvelously amiable fellow in spite of his immense strength.

  “I thought Acheron was the land of the dead,” said Frain as we sat with him one day. The same question had occurred to me: How could there be more than one deathly realm?