Chapter 3
Old Friends, Old Enemies
Peshtar: 7th-8th of Winter
THE TRAVELERS reached the timberline on the western slope of the Ebonbane around noon of the 7th of Winter. There they paused to eat some of the provisions that Cleppetty had hastily shoved into their packs, which, up until now, had been frozen solid. The Arrin-ken's influence still shielded them from the worst of the mountains' chill.
Coming down through snow and rock, they could see the Central Lands spread out before them, still splashed here and there with autumn color. Jame thought once that she even glimpsed a flash of the great River Silver a hundred leagues away. She rode the Arrin-ken, her unshod, stockinged foot thrust into one of Marc's mittens, while the Kendar walked beside them and Jorin bounded on ahead. They came down among the pine and ironwood of the upper slopes. Scarlet birds flashed against the dark green needles, making Jorin bleat with excitement whenever Jame spotted one.
For the most part, though, she didn't notice. Her thoughts kept going back to that strange series of predawn encounters, and especially to the changer Keral. He had spoken as if he knew her, as if he had played his cruel games with her before. Then, according to him, his half-brother Tirandys had interfered by teaching her how to fight back.
Jame shook her head in wonder. It was like falling into some old, half-forgotten song. Both Keral and Tirandys were of the Master's own generation, which should have passed into history millennia ago and would have if it weren't for the Fall. At the heart of the Master's treachery had been four blood-kin Highborn. From the Knorth had come Gerridon himself and his sister-consort, Jamethiel Dream-Weaver; from the Randir, Gerridon's maternal half-brother Tirandys and Tirandys' paternal half-brother, Keral. The Knorth had also produced Glendar, who had led the remains of the Kencyr Host to Rathillien. Jame vaguely remembered that Tirandys had had a full brother—a twin, in fact—named Terribend, who had tried to oppose Gerridon but failed. No one knew what had become of him afterward.
But if Terribend was an obscure figure, Tirandys certainly was not. He had been obsessed with honor. The keystone of any Kencyr's honor is his fealty to his lord. Tirandys was torn between loyalty to the then-Lord Randir—a third or bone cousin— and Gerridon Highlord, his blood-kin half-brother. Blood told. When Gerridon fell, Tirandys felt honor-bound to follow, even though he knew it would lead to his own damnation. Many others followed his example, including Keral. The story of that bitter choice was told in an ancient lay called "Honor's Paradox." Other songs, equally old, hinted that Tirandys was also influenced by his love for his half-sister, Jamethiel Dream-Weaver.
And this was the man who, Keral had suggested, was Jame's instructor or Senethari. If so, she must have known him quite well, but now his name only set up a kind of hollow ringing inside her and a vague sense of loss.
At that moment, the Arrin-ken abruptly sat down, and Jame, caught unprepared, slid off rump first into the melting snow. It was dusk now. Below lay the mountain town of Peshtar.
Here I leave you.
"You really won't come to the Riverland with us?" Jame coughed, one hand on her sore throat. She tried again. "All these years up here alone. . . . Don't you ever get lonely, ever feel the pull to return?"
The great cat sat like a stone, staring past her into space. In the depths of winter, I hear the distant thoughts of my own people ringing like crystal in my mind. There are so few of us left, so very few. Yes, I feel the pull, but our time has not yet come. Someday, someone will call us. His massive head swung back to Jame, eyes amber pools of light in the dusk. It might even be you. My name is Immilai, the Silent One. Yours, I already know. Fare you well, my children.
He turned and melted into the shadow of the trees, taking the last of the day's warmth with him. Jame shivered, wishing that she hadn't abandoned her mountaineer's jacket, stiff with dried wyrsan blood though it had been.
"Now what?" she demanded.
"New boots," said Marc firmly, "and supper and a real bed. You'll like Peshtar, I think. It's a friendly town."
They went down the slope toward the city gate. Peshtar was surrounded by a high palisade with sturdy wooden bastions at each corner. Its walls formed a rectangle about two hundred yards wide, the sides angling sharply down the mountain. Inside, a jumble of one- and two-story buildings raised sharp roof-lines against the sunset. The gate was closed. Marc pounded on it until a small panel opened and a man peered out.
"Here, now, what do you want? It's past sundown."
"Not quite, surely. We're travelers from Tai-tastigon in search of lodgings for the night."
The man turned his head and spat. "You think I'm softheaded? No one crosses the Ebonbane at this time of year. This is the Black Band's night in town, and their full quota came in hours ago. Whose man are you?"
"My own, unfortunately. But I'm not . . ."
"A wolf-head, by god, and his fancy boy." Jame gave him a baleful glare. "Well, now, by rights I'm not supposed to let folk like you in at all, but for a small sum, say, ten golden altars . . ."
"Talk sense, man. That's the price of a good horse."
"Well, then, sleep in the snow for all I care." The panel closed with a bang.
"Friendly, huh?" said Jame, through teeth that had begun to rattle together with the cold.
"Ah well, never mind. There are other ways to convince the man." Marc unslung his war-axe. He braced himself and took a good swing at the gate. It boomed, but didn't even score.
Inside, they could hear the man laughing. "That's iron-wood, you fool," he called.
"Indeed?" said Marc placidly. "And this is Kencyr steel." He swung again, this time leaving a dent along the grain. "Did I ever tell you, lass, how we used to lumber ironwood in the forests near my old home? "Crash! "A fair-sized tree would take a week to cut with the lot of us working in shifts. "Crash! "Then we would trim it, drill a hole in its bore, drop live coals into it until it kindled—"Crash!" . . . which usually took several months—and haul it down to one of the great Riverland keeps to set up as a fire timber in their subterranean halls. "Crash! " A prime piece of ironwood will burn for generations, and rare good warmth it gives on cold nights like these. "Crack!" The axe wedged in the board. Marc carefully worked it out, raising splinters around the gouge. The panel popped open again.
"What the hell . . . ouch!"
In trying to see the damage, the gatekeeper had incautiously stuck his nose out between the bars, and Jame had seized it.
" 'Boy,' huh? Marc, what's the usual gate-fee?"
"It used to be a silver crown."
"Right. Here's one. Now, friend, it's up to you where I put it."
Inside, the bar dropped, and the gate opened. The gatekeeper stared at the axe gouge, rubbing his nose. "Who's going to pay for that?"
"You, probably, unless you want to explain your special rates to the City Council. Come along, lass."
They entered the town.
Peshtar smelled overwhelmingly of resin and rot. Everything there seemed to be made of wood: the houses with their ornate carved façades, the steps, even the narrow streets, whose grooved boards zigzagged through the city down the steep incline of the mountain. Marc led the way between two buildings, down a precipitous staircase with moss-slick treads. The noise of the main thoroughfare rose to meet them.
"What was all that about Black Bands and wolf-heads?" Jame asked.
"During the summer, Peshtar caters to the caravan trade," Marc said over his shoulder. "In the winter, though, the brigands come in from their camps for a bit of fun, one band at a time. The City Council insists on that, and on a reasonable degree of order. The merchants and innkeepers here are very proud of their independence, although I doubt if they'd like to see it put to too severe a test."
They emerged on the main street. After the silence of the Ebonbane, the uproar made Jame flinch. The narrow way seemed packed with burly, raucous men. Inside the low-beamed taverns that lined the street, brigands drank and gambled while dancers undulated
on tabletops and occasionally fell off. The noise and stench were terrible. Jorin pressed against Jame's knee, nose wrinkled, ears back. All that he heard and smelled flooded her senses, crashing in on top of her own impressions.
"This is orderly?" she shouted up at Marc over the din.
"More or less, for this part of town."
Just then, a man blundered drunkenly into the big Kendar and drew a knife, muttering something about Marc's recent ancestry. Marc knocked the blade out of the brigand's hand, picked him up by the slack of his filthy jacket, and began to shake him. Nearby ruffians started to clap as if beating time for a dance. The faster they clapped, the faster Marc shook, until he had shaken the man half out of his clothes and several teeth entirely out of his head. Then he deposited his dazed, erstwhile assailant in a convenient rainbarrel. The other brigands cheered.
"You enjoyed that, didn't you?" Jame demanded as they went on.
"Oh, moderately. At least it was one way to deal with the man without having his friends turn on us. We masterless wolf-heads have to be careful."
His voice dropped as he spoke, and Jame silently cursed the gatekeeper for having reminded her friend of his status. He had been a yondri-gon, a threshold dweller, at East Kenshold, until the old lord died and his son turned all the aging yondri out. Damn their god anyway for having made the once independent Kendar so dependent on the Highborn, and double damn the Highborn for taking such ruthless advantage of the fact. She wondered, not for the first time, how Marc would react when he learned that she herself was a pure Highborn and not the quarter-blood Shanir bastard that he assumed.
He looked down at her, a twinkle lightening his momentary depression. "That explains one term, at least. Now, as for 'fancy boy' . . ."
"That part I got."
He chuckled. "Yes. Well, right now 'odd' would be a better word for you than 'fancy.' In case you've forgotten, you're still wearing my mitten on your foot."
Throwing back her head to laugh, Jame saw a man in a second-story window staring down at her. Or at least she thought he was. A black hood concealed his face, but his head turned as she passed. His right hand rested on the window sill. The thumb was on the wrong side. Then the two Kencyr turned the corner, and the man was hidden from view.
They found a cobbler's shop on one of the stairways. The little craftsman turned out to be a Tastigon, which was fortunate, because none of his ready-made boots were anywhere near the right size. Jame put on a pair of fine black leather. Her feet felt lost in them. The cobbler stroked the boots with a tiny image of his patron deity, trying to invoke the god's power all the way from his temple in Tai-tastigon. Jame considered helping, but then remembered the kindling spell; with her luck, she would probably shrink her feet instead of the boots. The craftsman's charm finally worked, however, leaving him exhausted and Jame shod. She gladly paid him twice what he asked.
Then they found an inn several streets below the main thoroughfare and bespoke supper and a room.
Jame looked around the common room after they had been served. Of the handful of customers there, most were townsmen, stolidly eating their suppers. How different it all was from the habitual uproar of Res aB'tyrr. Jame sighed and reached for the bustard wing that she had saved for last. It was gone. From under the table came the sound of Jorin cracking bones.
Marc had been staring into space with an absent frown. "I've been thinking about Lord Cat," he said in answer to Jame's questioning look. "He said that there was trouble brewing in the Riverland. It would be best to find out what, if we can. I've a mind to make some inquiries."
"Now?"
He smiled. "No, firebrand, in the morning. Maybe you can go at a dead run from now until the coming of the Tyr-ridan, but this old man is tired." He rose and stretched, all his joints creaking. "I'm for bed."
Their room was at the back of the inn. Asleep that night on a goosedown pallet, Jame dreamed that she was trying to explain her bloodlines to Marc. He listened, his expression unreadable.
"So you think your father was the exiled Ganth of Knorth, not just one of his retainers. And your mother?"
"I don't know. One day our father brought her back out of the Haunted Lands. After Tori and I were born, she simply walked away, back into the hills. No one at the keep ever saw her again."
"And you think that Torisen Black Lord, a man at least ten years older than you, is your lost twin brother Tori?"
"Yes. Time apparently moves more slowly in Perimal Darkling than in Rathillien . . . Marc, Father taught my brother to hate the Shanir. Tori didn't raise a hand to help me when Ganth drove me out of the keep, and now I feel myself being drawn back to my brother. Marc, I'm frightened. What will happen to me in the Riverland, among my own people? What will I do if "you drive me out too? I can't help it if I'm a Highborn, Marc. Promise me it won't matter, please."
"Yes, my lady." He was drawing back, expressionless. She tried to reach out to him, but her rich, heavy garments anchored her to the ground. "Wo, my lady. Of course, my lady . . ."
Jame woke to the Kendar's gentle snore. Jorin stirred in her arms, then nestled his head under her chin and, with a sigh, slept again. Below in the street, a man passed by, drunkenly singing a love song. His voice seemed to go on and on, growing ever fainter and more off-key.
On the edge again of sleep, Jame thought that someone sat beside her bed, just out of sight.
"What is love, Jamie? What is honor?"
She tried to turn toward that quiet, sad voice, but her head wouldn't move. "Who are you?"
"Someone best forgotten."
With a sudden effort, she broke the bonds of sleep and turned, but, of course, no one was there. Jorin protested her abrupt movement. She lay back and stroked his golden fur until his sleepy purr faded into a faint snore. Damnit, she knew that dream voice just as she had known Keral's. While the changer's accents had stirred a sense of loathing, however, this voice suggested a feeling of precarious security. Someone best forgotten?
No. Someone who had comforted her once and now sounded in need of comfort himself. Someone who had called her "Jamie."
She stirred uneasily, stopping herself before she woke Jorin again. Her encounter in the Ebonbane with Keral had apparently cracked the wall that sealed off her lost years. A few good memories might seep through, but how many more there must be that were best left in darkness.
She lay awake a long time, thinking, and then slipped unaware back into a light, dreamless sleep that lasted until dawn.
In the morning on the eighth of Winter, Marc set out before breakfast to ask his questions. Jame went with him, hoping that the crisp mountain air would clear her mind. She remembered the previous night's second dream, but little of the first, except that her mother had been in it. That was strange in itself. She hardly ever thought about her mother, perhaps because there was so little to remember. Her clearest memories were of the stories her mother had told her, although Jame must have heard them at a very early age. Old songs, bits of history, descriptions, especially one of a vast, picture-lined hall with a big fireplace and rich fur rugs spread on the cold, dark hearthstones. . . . Jame remembered that hall as if she had actually seen it. Odd, the things that stick in a child's memory.
Then she noticed that they had turned westward toward the quiet lower end of town.
"Who down here would know anything about the Riverland?" she asked as they clambered down yet another alley stair. "Anyway, it's just occurred to me that even if whatever it was the Arrin-ken foresaw has already happened, surely the news wouldn't reach Peshtar this quickly."
"By ordinary means, no; but the last time I was in town, some thirty years ago, a remarkable old woman lived here. Ah. There's her lodge now."
Before them across the street was a building so low that it seemed half sunken into the ground. The door posts and lintel were carved in high relief with intricate, serpentine forms. On the walls in either direction were painted a series of ovals with circles in them, rather like a multitude of crude faces wit
h gaping mouths.
"Thirty years is a long time. Suppose she's dead?"
"Women like Mother Ragga are like oak roots: the older, the tougher." He knocked on the door. It opened a crack. Bright, feral eyes peered out at them from about the height of the Kendar's waist. "May we see the Earth Wife?" he asked. "I've brought her a present."
The door flew open. A ragged, skinny girl stood frozen in the doorway for a second before bolting sideways out of sight. Behind her, the darkness moved.
"Present!" croaked a hoarse, eager voice. An incredibly dirty hand thrust out of the shadows, age-swollen fingers crooked. "Gimme!"
Marc detached a small leather sack from his belt. It was snatched from his grasp, and the lump of darkness retreated with it at a fast waddle. Ducking under the lintel, Marc followed with Jame and Jorin at his heels.
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