The Eye of Night

by Pauline J. Alama

  Across the length of the dead men's bodies, the outlaws sat staring at our fallen enemies in a sort of uneasy mourning.

  “I never thought I'd see such a day,” Wilgar said. “To think I should have to kill Kelman with my own hands!”

  “And I Heregar,” Lok lamented. “Remember, Warfast, the time he wrestled you for a jug of ale, and no one could declare a winner?”

  Warfast nodded. “My ribs still ache at the thought.”

  Wilgar groaned, “Why couldn't he have joined us?”

  “They must have a proper burial,” Lok said.

  “They will,” said Warfast. “We will wait till nightfall, in case any others are on the hunt. You,” he addressed me, “what's your name? As you're a priest, you might chant a prayer over the grave.”

  “I was a priest,” I corrected. “I left the Tarvon Monastery after six years, initiated but not fully consecrated. But I can serve in the place of one, if you choose. As for my name, it's Jereth, son of Garmund.”

  The outlaw chief made a sound of surprise. “Fitting. That man—the second to your left—was named Garmund.” He pointed to each in turn: “Nevan. Garmund. Kelman. Heregar. Will you remember their names for the rite?”

  I shuddered, but only said, “I will do them all the honor I can.”

  “Good,” said Warfast. “They were old comrades of ours. I was sorry to become their enemy.”

  “For my part,” I said, “I am sorry our flight brought them to your door. And I thank you for refusing to buy peace with our lives.”

  The man waved that away. “As for that, I doubt Heregar would have kept his promise to leave us be. Either he was for us or against us; if I could not persuade him to join us, I knew he would kill us. But I did not know which until he asked me to hand you over. The Heregar who once fought beside me would never have proposed such a dishonorable bargain; in that, I had my answer.”

  “You were a guard, then, once,” I said. “How did you come to leave them?”

  “No, stranger,” Warfast said in a sharper tone, “I'll answer no questions. You know enough of me already: my name and one of my strongholds. If I were as ruthless as some believe me, you would be dead. I think it's you three that owe me and my men some answers, now that we've rescued you from men we once called brothers. And what I'd most like to know now is how three such scrawny little vagabonds can cause so much trouble.”

  “Does that surprise you?” Hwyn spoke. “Bees killed the giant Bleobis, that no warrior dared face. A mouse gnawed the hangman's rope and saved Saint Gueneos from death. A loose pebble betrayed the great army of Kettra, and turned back an empire. And mere words killed the tyrant Ryons, when the taunting of an old woman drove him to such fury that his heart burst. It is the small end of the chisel that cleaves the stone, after all. So small things and small people may sculpt the world, once they find the spot where the gods wait to strike a blow.”

  Warfast squinted at her curiously through the darkness. “Who are you?”

  She shrugged. “A minstrel, a scullery maid, a beggar, sometimes a thief at need. A scrawny little vagabond, as you say. I am called Hwyn.”

  “And do you withstand the hammer-blows of the gods, little Hwyn?”

  She hesitated, as if embarrassed by the audacity of her own words. “I am still moving into place for the blow.”

  “Is that what brought you to Kreyn?” Again she hesitated. Warfast continued, “Did you really deface Lady Goldifer's chapel?”

  I could hear the grin in her voice as she answered: “We burned it as empty and barren as her seeming piety.”

  “Did you indeed? Well, it's time someone stripped off her fine mask. It's almost worth being caught up in your defense to hear that news,” said Warfast. “I salute you, Hwyn—and Jereth—and your fair friend, what was her name again?”

  “I am the Lady Trenara of Larioneth,” said Trenara regally.

  “Are you really?” laughed Warfast. “How came you here, Your Ladyship?”

  Trenara did not answer, but walked toward him, skirting the dead bodies with all imaginable grace. When she reached out to touch his face, he leapt back as if unused to being touched. “What is it?”

  “You have kind eyes,” she said, and stroked back his hair.

  “Ah, Warfast, you have all the luck with women,” said Lok, “and we're left lonely as monks.”

  “Poor boy,” said Trenara, and as gracefully as she had gone to him, she left Warfast to put her arms around Lok.

  Warfast seemed almost as relieved as Lok at this abrupt shift of attention. “Moontouched,” he murmured. “What a strange lot you are! Why have you come here? You're not from Kreyn; your accents make that unmistakable. What did you want with burning Lady Goldifer's chapel?”

  “We didn't exactly plan it,” said Hwyn. “We came seeking a sign. That was the one given to us.”

  “Visionaries!” Warfast exclaimed. “I am a plain man of action , and if I could penetrate Kreyn Hall, I would act to more purpose.”

  “What would you do?” asked Hwyn coolly.

  “I'll ask the questions,” he snapped, as if she had touched a sore point. “What made you comè seeking signs and wonders in Kreyn, of all places?”

  “It was a mistake, I confess,” Hwyn said. “I had heard of an oracle there that I hoped might tell me what lay at the end of my journey. But I should have let it alone. It mattered little: I already know which way I must go, and what will happen there is in the gods' hands.”

  “Where do you go, then? What do you journey toward?”

  “We go north,” said Hwyn, “into the Land of Troubles.”

  Warfast laughed. “Of course: to the very place all the world flees from. Why north?”

  “Why did you leave your hometown and make your stronghold in the wilderness?” Hwyn said. “Times of trial call for bold journeys; you know that. Not all of us can flee from trouble if any are to overcome it in the end.”

  “You could see plainly enough in the guards' enmity why I had to leave and gather my forces outside Kreyn,” Warfast said. “Your cause is less clear. What battle are you gathering forces for in a land more desolate than this?”

  “Why do you ask?” said Hwyn, a note of challenge in her voice. “Are these idle questions to pass the time till dark, or will you do something with the knowledge? If my answers are bold enough for your heart, will you join us? Will you come away from this barren place where you no longer have a task to do?”

  I stiffened and half raised my head from her lap: what was she thinking?

  “What's she raving about?” Wilgar almost echoed my thoughts. “You wouldn't leave here!”

  “No, of course not, cousin,” said Warfast. “Hwyn, what in the Wheel of the World makes you dream I would even think of joining you?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “But since I drank prophecy from St. Fiern's Lake, when I-don't-know speaks so loudly in my ear, it is usually for a reason. And you have let on more about yourself than you believe. You rebelled against the one who calls herself Guardian of Day.”

  “Her mother put on no such airs,” Warfast muttered.

  Hwyn nodded agreement and went on: “What would you say if I told you that night is falling—the night of the whole world?”

  “What do you mean?” Warfast said. “That Goldifer is destined to fall, as night must follow day?”

  “Nothing so particular about one petty ruler,” she said. “But the world is changing, and many in high places will be shaken down. Some great change is coming down from the North— whether for good or ill may depend on how we rise to meet it. Heavy hammer-strokes are coming: are you in the right place to sculpt the stone?”

  “Why? Where else should I be but here? Kreyn is my heart and the hills about it my bones. What might I shape in the world beyond it if I left all this behind?”

  “What can you shape here if you never leave?” she countered. “How long have you been here? How long since you've been able to so much as chip the stone toward the shape you
hoped for? Does the Guardian of Day still fear you? Or does she rather stir the people's fear of you to tighten her hold on them? Haven't you fallen a long way from your oath to the gods?”

  “What do you know about me or any oath I may have sworn?”

  “Perhaps nothing, perhaps much,” she said in a softer tone. “Shall I tell you what I guess? I think you've turned so far from your intention that you no longer recognize your face in the water. It takes no guessing and no prophecy to know why you left: your adversary named it the Laws of Antir. Goldifer's intransigence turned you from guardian of law into outlaw. From rebellion you turned to robbery by degrees, never meaning it to become your life. Over the years your band has dwindled, some slain, some gone by the roads you dare not take, for to leave this countryside now would be to confess all has been for naught. Ye t somewhere in the depths of your heart you envy the ones that leave; maybe you even envy the dead, for you ache so for times past that each turn of the World-Wheel seems only to drag you further away from your heart. You cannot bear to see that you must go forward to go back; to return to Kreyn you must leave it behind.”

  “Silence, doomsayer!” roared Wilgar and rushed at us. I sprang to my feet and stood before Hwyn to defend her with what little strength I had.

  Warfast grabbed Wilgar's arm, saying, “Cousin, I'll deal with this.” To Hwyn he said, “Who are you to speak this way to me? If not for me and my men, the guards would have spitted you and your two friends like rabbits for roasting. You've acquired a costly taste for walking into the halls of power and flinging sand in the faces of the mighty, all in the name of some coming hammer-stroke of the gods that will not defend you, that did not defend you today—”

  “Perhaps it did,” she mused. “Perhaps it found you to defend us.”

  “Bright Goddess's back-end!” Warfast exploded, “Was there ever such a presumptuous, infuriating, bold-faced little creature since—since—” He waved a hand in place of words, as if unable to think of any example to league with Hwyn. “Who are you anyway to tell me what I have done, what I would do, what I dare not do, or what the gods, if they still live, would have me do? What right have you to weave my life into your own strange designs?”

  “Forgive me,” Hwyn replied quietly. “You asked me what I knew of you, and I told you what I guessed. But perhaps I guessed badly.”

  The outlaw stopped where he stood as if her words were a stone wall he could not pass. “Very well,” he said sullenly, and stalked away to the far end of the cavern, till he tripped on something: a tangle of arms, legs, hair, bodies. “Lok, what are you doing there?” he sputtered.

  Hwyn, realizing who the other half of the tangle must be, called “Trenara!” in disapproving tones. The lady disengaged herself delicately from Lok's embraces and went to sit by Hwyn's side, a conciliatory arm around her shoulder. Displaced from my favored spot, I went off in the corner to rest my aching head till nightfall and the burial. Around me, my companions and our hosts were nearly as silent as the waiting dead.

  After dark, Warfast woke me to help carry the four bodies to their burial place. It needed two trips, for two of us had to carry each one, and Hwyn was too small to pair with another bearer. Lok and Wilgar between them carried one body, Warfast and I another, while Hwyn and Trenara waited in the cavern. I was led out a different passageway than the one we had entered, longer and steeper. As Hwyn had hoped, it did lead to the far bank, to a place high above the ravine. From there we trekked across little rises and falls to a sheltered glade that Warfast had chosen for the grave. We set down the first two bodies and returned for the other two, and for my companions. Hwyn and Trenara were given spades to carry in our grim procession.

  We dug one grave for the four in the rocky earth of the glade; it was hard labor, and though the mountain wind made even a summer night chilly, we were all soon sweating. Hwyn did her part with a strength surprising in one so small; Warfast even remarked on it. Only Trenara took no part in the work. Instead she crouched near the dead men, softly singing a weird, wordless tune. The sound startled me, and I realized that I had never heard her sing before.

  “What's she doing?” said Wilgar.

  “Maybe she's trying to sing the burial chant,” I said. “She must remember some funeral from among her own people.” The others looked at her uneasily, and I could hardly blame them: in the wild land by night, with the moon half veiled by gathering clouds, her white face and solemn dark eyes looked ghostly, and her mournful voice woke echoes of fearful dreams. I had more reason than they to be displeased by it; it was long since I had sung any kind of rites, and I thought that with Trenara keening in counterpoint, I might forget what to do.

  I needn't have worried about that, at least. When the grave was dug and I stood poised on the rim of crumbling earth, Trenara was as still as the others, awaiting my chant. I looked down at the four bodies stretched out beneath me, and it all came back with a force more than memory. My family's sodden, fish-belly-white bodies had been stretched before me thus, in one joint grave from which only I was missing. I had not sung that service, of course—I had only entered the Order after it was done—but every word, every gesture of it was scarred into me.

  I picked up a handful of earth from the grave, marked east by the position of the moon, and held out the earth in that direction, like a gift. “Rising God, righteous one, open our eyes.” Then to the south: “Bright Goddess, beauty's light, console us.” To the west: “Turning God, traveler, guide our steps.” Finally, to the north, where I remained: “Hidden Goddess, hearth of the dead, give us hope. Hold these, our lost and broken comrades: Nevan, Garmund, Kelman, and Heregar. Heart of the world, cherish them, children of your womb.”

  As I sang, I could hear under my voice a soft sobbing. It moved me to think the outlaws could feel such grief for long-ago comrades who had become their mortal enemies. But as I continued the invocation the sobbing grew louder, and I realized it came from Trenara. In the wan moonlight, only a sliver of white face showed between the dark wings of her hair; I could not see her tears, but her whole body shook with them. Hwyn reached up to clasp her arm, trying to soothe her, but Trenara wept on. Only when the last chant was finished did she surrender herself to Hwyn's comforting arms. “Peace, Trenara. It's done; long done, no doubt. What memories wring your heart?” But Trenara could not answer.

  I kissed the handful of blessed earth and sprinkled it over the bodies. Then, my role as priest done, I took my part with the spade to fill the grave. After the last spadeful of soil was packed firmly over them, we returned to the cavern to gather up our few belongings as Warfast and his men also made ready to leave. They had the guards' horses, secured while I'd been busy about my wound, so they would have much the easier trip.

  “Which way will you travel?” Warfast asked us.

  “North into the hills,” said Hwyn.

  “It's a hard land, that way; it doesn't stoop down to a humanlike height till the Graves of the Mountains, miles away, and even that stretch is the hardest flat land you ever want to see.”

  “But no one will hunt us there,” Hwyn said.

  “True enough,” Warfast admitted. “If that's what it must be, then take the upper passage, the way we went out to the graves, and—”

  Wilgar interrupted him: “Are they to pay no fee for their protection?” There was a note of triumph in his voice as though no matter what came of this question, he knew he would win the game he was playing.

  “Hold still, Wilgar,” said Warfast irritably.

  “We have taken protection-money from better ladies than that half-wit, from better priests than that skinny beggar. Why should these three give nothing?”

  “We have nothing,” I said. “If we had even food, we would have offered it in gratitude.”

  “And for this we killed Kelman, Heregar?”

  “I am more sorry than I can say that our flight brought them to you as enemies,” I said. “But what you have lost, no fee could restore.”

  “Peace, friend
. I'll handle this,” said Warfast to me, and then turned to Wilgar: “Cousin, you know I took up their defense not for pay but for common enmity to Goldifer and common defense of our safety. And what the priest says is true: harassing these travelers for gold they don't have won't ease your heart. Let them go.”

  “Oh, yes, let them go,” Wilgar sneered. “They have seen our stronghold; they know the lower passage and the upper passage; they know our names and our story. And you will let them go. You trust them.”

  “I doubt they'll go crying our names to Goldifer,” Warfast said. “What other danger is there?”

  “Are you sure they have not robbed us?” Wilgar said, as if exploring every door till one broke open. “The women were alone in the stronghold while we carried the bodies uphill. Plenty of time for opening sacks and coffers and lightening their load. Will you not even search them before you let them go?”

  “Don't be absurd, Wilgar,” Warfast said. “The fine lady's too moontouched to pick up ready money off the street in broad daylight.”

  “But the other is crafty enough,” said Wilgar. “She admitted herself a thief.”

  “Oh, that was crafty indeed,” Warfast sneered. “Would she say so if she meant to steal from us?”

  “If it puts you off your guard now, then yes, it was crafty of her,” Wilgar persisted. “But you will not suspect her, oh no. You hold her above suspicion. What is she, your love? Your heart's desire? Have you and Lok been away from women so long that at the first sight of them you must dote like sailors just ashore, one on a fool, one on a freak, and let them play you for the biggest fools of all? Will you let this little woman twist you around with her riddling words, telling you what you are and what you must do?”

  “Enough!” Warfast said. “Hwyn, you can see we'll have no peace from this hothead until his suspicions are satisfied. You'd best turn your pockets out to set his mind at rest, or I won't answer for his actions.”

  I froze, and I could see Hwyn hesitating: if she resisted, she'd increase Wilgar's suspicions, most likely even set Warfast on his guard. But dared she show the Eye of Night?