“Lok could not stop speaking of Trenara,” Warfast continued, his eyes sliding uneasily to Ethwin, who looked down, shamefaced. “He said he would never love another woman, and he should never have let her go. It was Lok that discovered you had left your water-skins. I let him go after you with them; I even gave him some food to give you; and I said to myself, I will never see him again, for he'll follow that lady to the world's end. But he did not find any of you.”
“And we dared not go back,” I said, “for fear you had meant your parting words.”
“I know,” said Warfast. “I'm sorry. I never meant it to end that way, and for a long while I tormented myself with the thought of you three hapless fools dead of thirst in the mountains. But I knew that if Lok had not found you when the trail was fresh, I could not find you when it was cold. Or at least, so I told myself at first, when I still thought we would forget.
“Wilgar was my first worry. He never recovered from having seized that magic stone; he kept slipping off into dream, forgetting where he was. I could not take him on raids anymore; he'd have been butchered. He stayed at the camp like an invalid.
“As for me, I kept turning Hwyn's words over and over in my mind, till I had to admit every word was true. I had long ceased to trouble the Guardian of Day. Where I was, I could only harm the land I had loved, and make a mockery of the Laws of Antir, for which I had sacrificed all I had. The only thing I could do for Kreyn was to leave it.
“I told my men that I had resolved to disband our gang, for the good of the city we had left. I told them I had met a prophet and seen a mystery that would not let me ignore the truth. But only Lok and Wilgar understood, having seen for themselves. In the end we had to fight our way free, for the others would not have let us live, knowing their strongholds. It was only then that I understood what I had done by refusing to flee when my insurrection failed. In the old days, I'd had a band of reluctant outlaws, honest men roused to fight by intolerable injustice; over the years, the best had fallen away and the worst remained, the ones that loved battle for its own sake or for what it could gain them. I had loosed this monster on the land I loved; and I no longer had enough loyal men around me to put it down.
“Far outnumbered, we fled for our lives with little more than the clothes on our backs and the horses under us. We lost our pursuers deep in the Hills of Penmorrin. I had long known there was a tribe of herdsmen somewhere in the hills, for a few of them had come to trade woolen goods in Kreyn when I was young. We kept watch for signs of human presence till we found our way to Folcsted by St. Arin's Lake. There they welcomed us, needing hands for the harvest, which was bigger than they had expected. I was overjoyed to find among them my lost comrade Paddon; he was one of the best of my men in the old days, and his desertion had cut me deep. But we did not lodge with him, for we were adopted into the Linden Clan, brothers to Ethwin, who you see here. Now, lad, it's your turn.”
Ethwin nodded and took up the tale: “I told them all about the strange things that happened that summer, with Trenara and Hwyn and you and the Eye of Night. And they told us what they'd seen. They said they'd stay for the harvest, and then when it was done, they'd try to follow the trail of wonders left in your wake. But winter came upon us early, and by the time the work of harvest was done, they could not think of leaving.
“As the Night of the Hidden Goddess approached, Night— you remember her, the acolyte; she's a priestess now—Night had a vision that all the goods of the Folc should be brought to the Hall of the Dead on the first night of the feast, when the Paths of Mystery open.
“At first we doubted her, but night after night, she kept dreaming the same dream. Then Mother Halred persuaded half the Folc, and Father Anlaf most of the others. There was a storm of preparation after that—no time to prepare a proper feast, for we were busy building more wagons to move grain and a new barn to store it in, close to the Assembly Stone. And the flocks had to be driven up the mountain as if it were summer, into the biting wind. But all the while, some said it was a trick of the priests to put all our possessions in their hands.”
I raised my eyebrows, and Ethwin read my face right. “Yes,” he said, “as you may well imagine, my father was chief among the doubters. None of the Linden Clan's possessions were moved except a few things my mother and I brought in secret.
“Then on the Night of the Hidden Goddess, the Paths of Mystery opened and Halred and Night led us all in, with all our goods. Most of the people had never been in the Paths of Mystery before; they were naming the dead around the Assembly Stone, and the dead appeared around them: it will be talked about forever. We landed in a dream of the Valley of the Linden when it was first settled, in the time of St. Arin, and held the holiday rites there. And Night became a priestess, too, with all the vows.
“After that, people went back to the clan houses for the meal, because we always believed if you eat anything in the Hall of the Dead you will never leave. Of course, there were always a few of us guarding the fire by the Assembly Stone. In the small hours, I was keeping watch with Halred and Night—talking about Hwyn, in fact, and all of you, and the strange events of the summer—when we heard a terrible noise and saw black wings cover the sky. We waited for it to pass, but it just stayed dark, and we couldn't just sit there forever.
“Night and I took torches, lit them in the ritual fire, and went down the hill to gather the Folc together. Halred stayed to watch the Gate of the Mountain for any sign that might guide us. Besides, someone had to be there to calm people when they arrived, and Halred would be best at that.
“When we came to my family's house at the bottom of the valley, we saw that the lake was rising fast, unnaturally fast. We herded all the people and the livestock up the hill to safety, but we lost the grain in the Linden Clan's barn.
“By the time we all reached the Assembly Stone, we could see what Night's dream had meant. The lake was taking the valley; we'd have to stay in the Paths of Mystery till the waters fell again. The grain and stock we had moved there would feed us while we were there, so we would not have to eat the bread of dreams and be lost among the ghosts.
“We lived in the mountain all that Longest Night, lit by the suns of days gone by. When we left, it was for the Valley of the Red Oak, for even by last summer, the lake had scarcely given up any of the Valley of the Linden. Still, they say one day we will live there again, and live well: where the lake has been, the soil it leaves behind is black and rich. And herbs are growing there that no one has ever seen before: Halred, Day, and Night are in raptures studying them.”
Warfast cut in, “Lok is studying them too—or maybe studying Night. I'm not sure whether he's turning into her acolyte or her husband.”
Ethwin objected, “The priests of the Folc have never married.”
“Maybe not,” Warfast said, “but many things have changed since the Longest Night. Ethwin, you've left out the crux of the matter. When the Folc had to flee to the Paths of Mystery, everyone was amazed to see Ethwin more at home there than the priestesses. And some of the ghosts there bowed to him, calling him King of the Folc and Lord of the Land.”
Ethwin grimaced. “My father loved it, you can well imagine. Halred hated it; she was very put out at the ghosts. And I—gods help me, I don't know what to think of it. I am the great-great-grandson of Arinlaf, who united the four clans of the Folc to save them from dwindling away. He promised to share the headship with the elders of the other clans, each ruling one year in four, so they could live together in peace. Should I undo what he did, putting the other clans under me? Should I make Guthlac of the Red Oak my subject—after all the times I came sulking to his house from a fight with my father, and he made room for me without grudging?”
“The other clans would not submit easily,” Warfast told me. “There was dissension and fear. And I, who started a war in my own land, could well warn them what would follow if they fed this blaze. The lad is too noble-hearted to let himself be the cause of strife.”
Ethwin shrug
ged, blushing. “Jereth, you told me once about the Mirror of St. Fiern, and I thought it might answer my questions: Should I be king? And if not, can I even go home again without tearing the Folc apart?”
Warfast nodded approvingly. “I honored the lad for his doubts. I had seen the costs of avoiding such questions—in Goldifer and in myself. And I could not let this boy, who'd never seen a town of a dozen houses, wander lost in the wide world by himself. Besides, I had questions of my own for the Mirror of St. Fiern. I offered to go with him. Odd companions though we may be—a bitter old rogue like me and a fresh-hearted innocent like Ethwin—nonetheless, I have never met a man I could trust more wholeheartedly. I could not ask for a better companion on whatever road the Mirror might show us. But we found no Mirror to ask. And here we are.”
“And I am as ignorant as ever,” Ethwin said. “I don't know what it all meant, whether I can even go home again.”
I considered. “It may not mean anything, but for what it's worth, the Hidden Goddess asked you to come with us.”
Ethwin raised his head from his cup, eyes wide. “She did! Oh, if only I'd listened—”
“Now, mind, it may not have meant anything,” I repeated. “When she said this, she did not even know who she was.”
But Ethwin paid no heed. “I felt I should have gone with you, but I thought it was only my selfish desire to see the world. But I could have been useful. I could have hunted for us all in the wild, protected the women from their enemies. Maybe if I'd been there, Hwyn would not have died.”
“No,” I said. “Don't even touch that thought. You could not have saved her. Not even the Hidden Goddess could save her.”
“Tell us,” said Warfast, with a gentleness I would not have expected in him.
I told them all, ending, as they had, with questions: “I still know nothing. What did Hwyn die for? Why were the Holdouts of Larioneth not spared? If the goddess warned the Folc of the coming flood, why should she not warn these people who did her homage and loved her without reservation? Did she herself not know what the waters of birth would do to them? And what did she give birth to at the Rim of the World, in the depths of the sea?”
“Your questions make mine seem small,” said Ethwin. “But at least I think you have solved one of mine. The Hidden Goddess would not have urged me away if the Folc needed me as their king. I will not return to my home; at least, not until years have passed and I can expect the madness to have died away. I will stay here, learn from the priests and the other pilgrims, and see which way opens to me.”
“And you?” I said to Warfast. “What will you do? Go back to Kreyn?”
“I don't know,” the outlaw said. “My heart always turns to my homeland, but I have not been good for it. I will remain here till the Mirror of St. Fiern shows itself, and then ask it my questions. If the saint never shows her eyes again, I will know she has answered no.”
“What about you, Jereth?” Ethwin said. “Now that we've met again, will you stay with us to unearth the Mirror? You won't go back to Berall, will you?”
“I have to,” I said. “I came here in a ship I built, with a crew I trained, scarcely able to clear the port without my help. They will never reach their home without me. I can't leave them to fend for themselves. But I'm overjoyed to have seen you again, alive and well after the Longest of Longest Nights. I hope you find what you seek; and I hope it answers you better than it ever answered me.”
I lingered with Ethwin and Warfast while we stayed in St. Fiern's Town, and treasured their company. And yet, strange to say, I felt impatient to return to my ship, and relieved when the Order of St. Fiern told my crew it was time for us to leave. Only when the familiar bother of keeping a ship afloat filled my mind did I breathe easily. Even on board, I fretted over the slowness of our return, as though I had left a kettle boiling or a task undone, uneasy until we brought the ship in to the Berall harbor, which people had already begun to call Jereth's Landing. I ought to have longed to stretch out my stay in St. Fiern's Town, where I had found friends, but every time I talked to Ethwin the thing I could never tell him burned in my mind: that I was not sure whether to love or hate the Hidden Goddess, after all that had happened, all the losses that could never be justified. Besides, the dead Mirror buried in the earth made this pilgrimage seem as bleak as my first, when I had seen nothing but darkness.
When I had foreseen the Longest Night.
Somehow it did me no good now to know the vision had been true. An unreadable prophecy is worse than none. Only Hwyn had been able to read it for me; without her, I was once again as I had been, uncertain where to go or what to do, driven onward by a vague sense of unfinished work, hounded by unquiet dreams.
The dreams, at least, she could not have helped me with. The spirit who haunted me was not one she could face in life. Del son of Devon—her grandfather—grumbled ceaselessly in the edge of my consciousness. I tried ignoring him as the idle production of my brain, but he was too insistent to be my own fancy: why should I dream more of him than of my own father? At last, as Berall prepared to celebrate the Feast of the Upside-Down God, the second anniversary of its downfall, I too faced an unwelcome necessity. I could not ignore the ghost. On the eve of the festival, alone in a gleaned field at night, I summoned him.
He didn't appear in a cloud of fire, but he almost might as well have done so. “What do you want of me?” he raged. “Why do you hold me here, conjurer, ruffian?”
“I might ask the same of you,” I said, “when dreams of you make sleep a curse to me. Why won't you leave me?”
“Leave you? It's you that bound me. But by all means, take the high ground, priestling: banish me, summon me, come between me and my kin—”
“And a good thing I did come between you,” I countered, growing hot in the face. “Someone had to protect her.”
“Protect her! Where is she, then? Dead, I'll wager. Lost somewhere in the North. She must be dead: else you would be with her, and I would not be near you. Fine work you did, protecting her,” he snorted.
He hit so close to the heart that at first I could make no answer.
“What did you want with Yana anyway?” Hwyn's grandfather demanded, “a pawn for your sorceries?” I knew that he meant Hwyn, and at the same time, I knew that it was not her name.
“I loved her,” I said.
“Love! You led her to her death somewhere in the barren North.”
“What do you care? You used her, beat her, broke every bone in her face—”
“Should a man not discipline his own flesh and blood? And how she needed it—wild as she was, idiot child of an idiot.”
“She was a prophet, old man,” I said wearily, “one of those that the gods ride hard. If there is a new world around us, she died in childbirth of it. And I was only her follower.”
This time it was the ghost who could not speak.
“Leave me now,” I said. “You have no need to haunt me for your granddaughter's death; she chose her own way.”
“I don't haunt you. You haunt me,” said the ghost. “I am bound—bound to your name. Did you forget?”
Bound to my name? Of course! The truth struck me ungently, full in the face. Hwyn had warned me there would be a price. I had not forgotten, but neither had I understood what I was doing, for all her warnings. Still there might be some advantage in the accident. “If I hold you bound, then—I command you, tell me your granddaughter's true name.”
“Yana daughter of Anya. She had no other,” said the ghost. He did not know it, then.
“How did you know she was dead?” I asked.
“You banished me from her presence. While she traveled with you, I did not see you, though I felt your name like a leash at my throat. When all the dead moved onward, I could not follow them, for your name stopped me. I was drawn to you instead.”
“Then you do not know where she is?” I scarcely dared ask.
“How could I? I am banned from her sight, bound by your name.”
I closed
my eyes. He still hovered before my sight, under my eyelids. What a fool I was not to have grasped it! I had conjured with my name twice, once to call Conor to Berall, to strike at that town and its lord; and once more to banish Del son of Devon. In the end I had bound myself to Conor, to Berall, and to Del. The bond to Conor had become one of friendship. My bond to Berall had drawn me to it against my will; some of it might have been released when I told Renn that I revoked my curses, but enough had remained to keep me here when my heart was so far away. My bond to Del, more than all the others, had remained and festered like a wound continually galled, never cleaned or poulticed.
“Del son of Devon,” I said, “by your name and my own, I, Jereth of World's End, son of Garmund the Sea-Trader, release you from all bindings and forgive you all quarrels between us, by aid of the Rising God, giver of the Gift of Naming. May your name return to you. Be free.”
When I had spoken the last words he faded from sight—without forgiving me his captivity, without conceding the smallest particle of his conviction of righteousness, but that did not matter anymore: I too was free. I turned toward the roofs of the town. “People of Berall, I release you from any bindings and any curses I have not yet released, in my name, Jereth of World's End, and with the help of the gods.” Then I walked down toward the sea and sat on the sand, feeling strangely empty.
The sea rushed in, the sea rolled back. The roaring of it struck my heart like a blade. Against my will, the realization broke on me that I loved the sea—that after all it had done to me, all it had taken from me, I still always crept back to it like a faithful, beaten dog. It held my birth and my life and my beloved dead; it held the birth-waters of the Hidden Goddess; and I was not big enough or strong enough to go on hating it. But my anger—at the sea, at Del son of Devon, at Berall, at the gods themselves— had been such a solid thing to hold onto in the shipwreck of my life that I did not know how I could survive without it. Ashamed of my own weakness—as if the emptiness in my heart must show in my face—I did not want to meet another human creature. Instead of returning to the temple, I stretched out on the sand beside my cruel lover, beside the sea. In time I slept.
The Eye of Night Page 53
