“I didn’t mean . . .” she began.
“I know what you meant, little sister.” He smiled knowingly. She could have hit him. “Well there’s nothing for it now, poor girl.” He gave her a look of mock pity. “Well, Zephy, it wasn’t me brought in the Urobb! What did you want me to do, demand to be taken? By Eresu, this is a blazing damned time to turn into a giddy woman!”
She stared at him, wishing he wouldn’t tease. She was awash with uncertainty, confused at her own sudden feelings, and needing him to talk to.
“Why couldn’t you just dally around like the other girls? Great flaming Urdd, Zephy, why do you have to make things so serious?”
“What will they do to him?”
“I don’t know. Lock him up—and the miner, too—for a few days.” His eyes were red and tired. She daren’t ask anything more.
She held her tears until Shanner was asleep, then she dissolved into a misery she didn’t understand and only wanted to be rid of.
*
Few Cloffa had seen the Landmaster’s quarters, except the serving girls who lived there. Though most Burgdeeth men came into the Set to train with the Burgdeeth Horse, their drilling ground was the enclosure itself where the mounts were stabled, not the sumptuous apartments. And Thorn had not seen even the drilling ground, for Dunoon men did not serve in the Horse. He was taken, now, through the parade ground, past the stables, and in through the thick double doors.
The ceiling of the room he entered was as high as the winged statue in the square, as tall as three floors of a common house. Around its upper third ran a balcony with a carved railing, where a fat young girl was standing with a dust cloth in her hand, looking down with curiosity. Below the railing, the walls were wonderfully smooth and were painted with scenes in colors beyond imagining, scenes of the gods, of the Luff’Eresi flying in the clouds. But there was something strange about the pictures, something . . . They were ugly! The Luff’Eresi were not beautiful like the statue in the square: they were heavy, with bold, cruel faces, their wings leathery and thick and their horses’ legs common and hairy. Their eyes were cold and cruel, and they held men in their hands, men as small as toys. They were flying with them and tossing them into the sky, they were . . . they were eating them! Appalled, Thorn stood frozen, staring.
A Deacon jerked him rudely, and Thorn tore his gaze from the paintings to see the Landmaster watching him.
“Those are your gods, Thorn of Dunoon,” the fat man said sarcastically. He gave the picture a proprietary glance, and his mouth twisted in a caustic smile.
“Why have you brought me here?” Thorn demanded. “What do you want of me?” If he were Oak Dar he would have been more subtle, his father could be very politic, but Thorn could squeeze out nothing but sore anger. “What Covenant have I broken against the Landmaster? What crime have you invented for me, to be dragged here like a trussed pig?”
The Landmaster swelled at Thorn’s insolence, his bald head and round stomach seeming to grow tighter; he motioned to the Deacons, who lined up on either side of Thorn. Thorn wished he could laugh in the crude ruler’s face, but his sullen fury was too great.
“You have defied the Covenant of Primacy. Or are you so ignorant you don’t know the Covenant of Primacy, goatherd?”
“Primacy! What has primacy to do with letting a poor Urobb miner say his piece?”
“Primacy entails that all news of Ere come first to the Landmaster, Cherban! You had no right . . .” Thorn stared at him with interest. The man’s cold demeanor was pretty thin. “You had no right to bring any news of Ere to the people of Burgdeeth! False news it was, and upset them unduly, goatherd! Take him away. Lock him where the Urobb was; we’ll see how the whelp likes cow dung and gutter-water for supper.”
Fury blinded Thorn. As he was forced at sword point through the Set, even the beauty of the inner gardens and fountains could not cut through his anger.
The cellhouse stood alone on the opposite side of the Set. As Thorn was thrust through the door, he spun around to see the Urobb miner coming toward him across the parade yard, led on a long rope by the Kubalese on his dark war horse. Kearb-Mattus’s crude laugh rang across the Set. “I’m taking your friend to Urobb, Cherban, as fast as my horse can gallop. If he can run faster, he might be alive when he reaches his homeland.”
Thorn gripped the door bolt helplessly as the Kubalese trotted off, Squally running behind.
*
It was five days that Thorn languished in the Landmaster’s jail; the floor was deep in filth, water was brought only once a day and that little enough, and the food was cold mawzee mush gone sour, not fit even for pigs. For two days he did not eat at all, then when he did eat, the food came up again. But on the third day, before dawn, he woke in the near darkness to see a silent figure standing outside the bars. Fear gripped him; but it was a small figure. He rose and went toward it, and could sense a quiet urgency beneath her stillness. Was it a girl? Or a young boy? The light was better on the basket: and the smell of food made his mouth water. But the hands holding the basket—yes, a girl’s hands.
He could barely see her face as she handed the basket and waterskin through the bars: dark eyes, dark hair pulled down inside her collar, and wearing something baggy and shapeless. “I can’t leave the waterskin or the basket,” she whispered. ‘They’ll find them. Take the food out, it’s in a napkin. Hurry!”
He reached out to do as she told him, felt her hand brush his. He glanced around the courtyard, but could see nothing else in the darkness. “How did you get in?” He put the basket down. “Zephy? Is it Zephy?” She was trembling.
“I slipped through behind the men coming to drill for the Horse. I put on Shanner’s clothes and walked behind him. He didn’t know, no one noticed. I—I have to go back so I can get out when the horses go through. I tried to come yesterday but there were Deacons by the gate.”
He took the napkin, drank deep of the fresh water then emptied the rest into the crock the guard had left.
As he finished he reached through again and took her hand, and a strange, quick feeling touched him; he felt her sigh rather than heard her, and the only thing he could think to say was, “Why? Why did you come?”
“It’s going to be light soon, the drill is making up, the torches are already lit” She reached hastily for the waterskin and basket. He touched her hair once, then she was gone into the shadows along the wall.
He stood staring after her, then put his strange feeling down to hunger, and turned eagerly to the meat rolls and mawzee cakes and bread. Why had she bothered about him? If she were caught . . . He had felt she was trembling almost before he touched her. Fear, he guessed. Fear . . .
He was unwilling to leave any food judiciously for later, afraid it would be found. He drank the rest of the water, too, and when the Deacon came with his sour gruel at mid-morning, Thorn threw the bowl in his face.
She came the next morning. He was awake and waiting for her, though he had supposed she would not come again. He heard the early morning grumbling of Burgdeeth’s men, then saw her dark shadow slipping along the wall. He heard the horses nicker and the sound of hooves on the cobbles, but he was aware only of her, close to him. “There’s only salt cow meat,” she whispered. “The goat meat is gone.” He knew, again, that she was trembling. The torches flared on the other side of the Set. He took the napkin and waterskin from her, then held her by her thin elbows, so she stepped closer and stood looking at him. In the near-dark the sense of her was strange and heady. He couldn’t ask, today, why she had come.
When she did not come the next morning, he tried to feign sickness so the Deacon with the key would come and open the cell—surely he could overpower one Deacon. But it didn’t work; they didn’t care if he was sick; they didn’t care if he died there. He was ashamed he could not devise a way to escape. He thought of Zephy again and hoped she was all right. Then on the fifth day when she had not appeared and his hunger was worse than before, he looked up to see Oak Dar striding acr
oss the Set Like a conquering lord came the Goatmaster, with the Deacons trailing sullenly behind.
It all happened in an instant The lock slid back, Thorn stepped out of the cell. By Oak Dar’s eyes he knew to say no word. He strode off by his father’s side in silence, and only when they were through the gate and free at last did Thorn turn to stare at him. “What did you have to do? You didn’t bargain for me?”
“I bargained,” Oak Dar said shortly. “I bargained all of Dunoon for you.”
“You did what?” Then he saw the laughter behind his father’s eyes. “You bargained what?”
“I bargained all of Dunoon. I told him if I did not take you home with me, there would be not a goat carcass nor a hide come to Burgdeeth and not a man or animal on the mountain in any place where Burgdeeth would ever find them. I told him they’d be living on their milk cows, for all Dunoon would furnish their meat.”
Thorn roared with laughter. “But how did you know I was there?”
“A little Urobb miner slipped into Dunoon bruised and bleeding, with a rope still around his waist
“Squally! How did he get away? He must have cut the rope.”
“He did just that—after killing that Kubal’s horse with a stone and slipping the Kubal’s knife out.”
“He didn’t kill the Kubal?”
“No, the fool.”
“Squally had better make himself scarce. If that Kubalese finds him . . .”
“He’s gone up over the Rim into Karra; no Kubal would be fool enough to hunt a man there.”
No sensible man would hide in the high barren deserts, either. And behind Karra the mountains were utterly unknown. Thorn felt a wave of sadness for Squally.
They made their way quickly through the whitebarley field to the river. Above them the mountain was washed with low rain clouds; Thorn thought he had never seen anything so welcome or smelled such a scent as the tang of damp sablevine that blew down to them. Cloud shadows lay dark against the bright pastures on the slope, and to his left over the highest peaks, something in the heavy clouds moved so he caught his breath—but then it was gone. He stood willing it back but it did not come, and at last he caught up with Oak Dar, eager to be home. As they climbed above Burgdeeth he glanced back once, feeling some disquiet; the clouds were very low so that even Dunoon was covered; and they lay down over Burgdeeth’s fields behind him.
*
Zephy knew when Thorn was released because Meatha saw Oak Dar striding into the Set and ran to tell her. By the time Zephy got to the square, Thorn and his father were going up through the whitebarley field toward the river, sun and shadow striking them. Thorn didn’t look back, he didn’t turn to see her standing there.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said fiercely, turning away from Meatha’s sympathetic gaze. She went back to her field alone, picked up her abandoned hoe, and set to work. Had Thorn felt nothing for her then? Had the way he looked at her meant only that he was glad to be fed? Her angry hoeing made the dry mawzee leaves rattle, and she knocked a grain pod to the ground so it split open to scatter its precious store. She looked up the mountain and saw the two figures, dark against a patch of sun. Thorn did not pause, and her longing was terrible. Was he looking back in her direction? Well he couldn’t see her anyway here among the crops in the cloud shadow.
Here in the cloud shadow?
The shadow was moving! Not drifting, moving! It was alive! She stared upward, reached upward as the wings swept above her surging against cloud and sun wings lifting—the beautiful Horses of Eresu, their necks stretched in flight, their wings knifing and turning the wind. She reached, loving them, searching for a god among them . . .
But they were gone in a cloud so suddenly, in the rising wind. Gone.
She saw them once more, a darkness surging over the Kubalese hills and vanishing quickly. She stood staring, her pulse pounding, her whole being enflamed.
And on the mountain, Thorn and Oak Dar stood frozen with the wonder of the flight as the dark cloud moved over Burgdeeth and receded beyond the Kubalese hills.
Part Two: The Runestone
From the Book of Fire, Cloffi.
In the beginning there was order upon the land and men were obedient. But mortals grew covetous: they lusted after the powers of the gods, and their blasphemy spread to infect many. They rose in violence against the gods; and they laid siege to the holy city Owdneet and all was evil upon Ere.
So the Luff’Eresi made the earth to tremble. They made fires to spew from the mountains and rivers of fire to cover the land.
Few men survived the Fire Scourge, and those few went in fear to the south. This was a time of shadow when cinders fell from the sky, and the sun shone only dimly, and the minds of men were dark. There were few flocks and few seed and few women to husband. But still men made further evil; men sinned, and in sin the women conceived Children of Ynell; and these changelings could speak with closed mouths, and they could see visions invisible to men. The gods’ powers were usurped; and the gods were sore angered. And to appease the gods, men burned the Children of Ynell in sacrifice.
Then on the Eve of Harvest, when men were standing in their cut fields, one black cloud came covering the sky. And a voice cried out, “You have sinned. Kneel down.” And the men knelt in their fields. And the voice said, “You have taken what is ours. You have incurred the wrath of the Luff’Eresi. Your fields will die, and you will be hungry. You must bring a tithing of your crops: and you must burn your fields after harvest to propitiate the Fire: and nevermore will you sacrifice what is ours to sacrifice. Henceforth you will bring the Children of Ynell to the Death Stone, for the Luff’Eresi to kill as we see fit.”
SEVEN
Burgdeeth did not talk of war at first, but then people began to whisper. Even when Zephy had slipped into the Set with food for Thorn, her danger had not seemed so great, her possible discovery so shattering, with the thought of real danger raw in her mind. And she could tell Mama was worried and upset. Though in spite of it, Mama was as friendly with Kearb-Mattus as ever.
No one ever expected war, she guessed. Certainly the men of Urobb hadn’t expected it as they spread their nets; how could they know they would be dead in the morning? Everything we do is hinged on war, she thought. If we’re not attacked; if there’s no war in Cloffi; if life goes on at all.
Would the prayers at Fire Scourge help? Could they help, as the Covenants taught? Would the gods intervene? Zephy didn’t know, she felt she didn’t know anything. But Fire Scourge, the most dramatic supplication of the year, when the cut fields were lit with the long line of torches and the gods propitiated with fire, would such a strong supplication help Cloffi?
The volcanoes had stopped war twice in Ere’s history. But then it was the sacred cities themselves that had been attacked; no wonder the fires spilled forth.
Do I believe that? She thought suddenly. Do I really believe the gods made the volcanoes erupt to stop the attacks on their cities? Do I believe the gods can do such a thing?
If the gods are real, why do they let war come at all? And why did they let their own cities be attacked in the first place?
After Fire Scourge the fields would lie black and burned-smelling until the snows came to cover them. She felt so unsettled—as if life were taking a turning she could not prevent, nor yet hurry, and the waiting was unbearable; yet the finality would be worse. She remained edgy and cross even when she and Meatha managed to slip into Tra. Hoppa’s kitchen. All three felt too oppressed by the fate of Urobb to have lessons. Tra. Hoppa looked very tired.
Meatha clung to the old lady, fearful and wan. “It makes you feel so trapped, Tra. Hoppa. How could we escape, really? If the attack comes so suddenly, from all sides, the way it did in Urobb . . .”
“You could go to the mountain,” Tra. Hoppa said sternly. “You don’t think they’d search all the caves. Those mountains are honeycombed with caves.”
“But you—”
“Never mind about me. I’m a wily old thing. And i
f you can’t get to the caves, slip into the tunnel until you can get away.” She grinned at them. “You two can outsmart a few clumsy Kubalese soldiers if you keep your wits about you. Though we may be in for some difficult times. If Urobb had had the strength and determination of Carriol, Kubal would never have attacked her. Nor would Kubal threaten Cloffi now, if Cloffi were strong. But strength can only begin inside, with its people, and with Cloffi as she is now . . .”
“How could anything ever begin with Cloffi’s people?” Meatha said bitterly.
“It would take those who truly cared.”
“No one cares!”
It won’t happen, Zephy thought desperately. War can’t happen to us. The light from the window cut across Tra. Hoppa’s gray hair and made her wrinkles, as she turned, show plainly. It was strange to think of Tra. Hoppa as old, for she was nothing like the old ladies of Burgdeeth. It was as if all Tra. Hoppa’s life lay in stages there inside, still to be seen and touched. The other old women of Burgdeeth seemed to have retained nothing of their pasts but the bitterness.
When they left Tra. Hoppa, it was quickly, for the Horse had begun to drill on the road beyond the grove. Such a drill outside the Set was most unusual. “I suppose the Landmaster has taken some heed of the defeat of Urobb,” Tra. Hoppa said bitterly. “At least the Horse is doing more than their usual playful sparring. You must go by the tunnel, they can see all over the housegardens from that road.”
The tunnel was as old as Burgdeeth. It began in the plum grove where the old prison had stood, and ended beneath the sacred statue. It had been the means of escape for the Children of Ynell who had, as slaves, built much of the original town of Burgdeeth. They had dug the tunnel secretly at night and, when they cast and erected the statue, had made a hollow opening in its base to join the tunnel opening. Only Tra. Hoppa knew of the tunnel, and she had learned of it in Carriol: the secret had been well kept from the landmasters of Burgdeeth. “It will be wanted one day,” she had said once, “as it was wanted before. It might be needed several times before Burgdeeth is free.”
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