Son of Avonar

CHAPTER 8

“Aeren, who are you?”

The young man had turned away, not seeing what he had done and not hearing my urgent question. He was furiously launching rocks down the hillside.

I took a deep breath and went to take a closer look at the knife.

Jacopo croaked, “Don’t touch it! Oh, demonfire, Seri. There’s no crack there, no opening.”

“It’s all right, Jaco. It’s done.” But it was not all right. My eyes had not deceived me. The blade was firmly embedded in solid rock.

“Aeren,” I called again. Flushed and agitated, he dropped his stones and joined me beside the spring. I pointed to the knife, and he shrugged his shoulders, not surprised at all. What in the name of the stars had I stumbled onto? It became even more impossible to deny what had happened when Aeren yanked the knife from the stone. No mark, no slot, no chip marred the stone, and the weapon itself was neither scratched nor bent.

As I staged at the uncompromising evidence, the trees began to thrash in a rising wind, and shadows raced over the ridge top, draining the warmth from the wavering sunlight. Afternoon storms were typical of summer in the region, though drought had kept them rare the past four years. Yet no storm of nature’s making had ever afflicted me with such profound unease. I shuddered with the sudden chill and found myself looking over my shoulder and scanning the horizon. Stranger still, although the sun’s disk hung just over the hilltop, and the evening sky was unmarred by haze or cloud, neither my body nor Aeren’s nor Jacopo’s cast a shadow.

Aeren grabbed my arm and Jacopo’s, and, before we could question or protest, dragged the two of us down the slope toward the wood, shoving us roughly into the thick brush under the trees and motioning us to silence. I crouched low, and soon the entire physical substance of the world was reduced to the dusty twigs beside my nose and Aeren’s muscular arms, pressing me into the thicket. Dread seeped into my bones. Time twisted in a knot and turned in upon itself. The wind stank of smoke and ash—the scent of soul-searing desolation…

The weights lifting from my spirit and my back told me when the shadow had gone. A beam of sunlight pierced the forest roof, stinging my eyes. The still air smelled properly of hot pine needles and dry leaves, and a jay’s raucous chattering roused the other birds. Jacopo and I reacted as one.

“Aeren, what was that?”

“What madness is this, Seri?” I had never heard Jacopo afraid.

“I don’t know, Jaco,” I said. “I don’t know.”

A frowning Aeren paid no attention to my question, but urged us down the trail toward the cottage, casting frequent glances toward the ridgetop. I had no mind to argue with him. Whatever we had experienced, I wanted no more of it. But by the time we reached the meadow and the cottage, the event was already fading into insubstantial memory, a lingering revulsion like the taste of spoilt milk. What had really happened besides a cloud passing over the sun?

Aeren himself was of far more interest to me. One language I had not tried with him. I knew only a few words, for most were long buried in the depths of history, and I had believed no one still living in the world could understand them.

“Aeren, J’Ettanne y dise?”

Though he shook his head, his face came alive in a way I had not yet seen. I tried a few more words, and he recognized some, but not all, as if this was a language of which he, too, knew only fragments. Did he mean that he was not J’Ettanne or that he didn’t know? I couldn’t seem to make my question clear. One more thing to try. I formed a question in my mind with absolute clarity, sweeping aside every other thought and concern until the words stood alone like stone pillars in the desert, and then I took Aeren’s hand and laid it on my temple, inviting him, with the gesture Karon had taught me, to read what was inside. He yanked his hand away and shook his head angrily, then rapped his clenched fist rapidly against his brow. So he couldn’t do it, but he knew exactly what I meant.

I could hardly contain my excitement. Excitement—how strange it was. I should be terrified. No one could get wind of this or all of our lives would be forfeit: Aeren’s, mine, Jaco’s…

The old sailor sat on Jonah’s bench beside the cottage door, staring at the horizon, his wide hands braced stiffly on his knees. I sat down beside him and laid my hand over his gnarled fingers. His skin was cold.

“Jaco, I’m so sorry. I’d never have gotten you involved if I’d suspected this.”

“Can he truly take our souls? Was that what he was doing up there? Evil, Seri. I’ve never felt such evil.”

“I’m not sure exactly what happened up there. The first part, when he did the magic, yes. When you felt prickly and alive. But what came later—the stink, the feeling of snakes slithering up your back—that was outside my experience. But I swear to you that sorcery itself is not evil, and, though he is surely dangerous—wild, half-mad, I think—I don’t believe Aeren means us any harm.” A sorcerer… one of Karon’s people… How in the name of all gods had he happened to come here? “I’m not sure what to do.”

“They’ll arrest you if they find out, little girl. They’ll finish what they started. You can’t let him stay.”

“What they’d do to me is not half what they’d do to him, and the way he is, I’m not sure he would even know why.”

Aeren roamed restlessly across the meadow. I caught up with him, determined to get some explanation. “What was up there?” I gestured toward the hilltop.

He picked two blades of grass, one green and healthy, one brown and withered. Holding the green blade in the fingers of one hand, he passed his other palm over it, leaving only the withered blade exposed. That was clear enough. When he pointed to the trees and the cottage and folded his arms over his head, I gathered that such were places to hide. When I pressed him further, he shrugged and walked away.

The J’Ettanni language had denned no simple word for sorcery. It had been no more necessary than for other men to have a word for what it is that makes them get up in the morning, set one foot in front of the other, or inhale and exhale. But for my own safety and Jaco’s, I had to teach Aeren the difference between sorcery and other actions. He demonstrated no sense that there was anything unusual about what he had done and no understanding of the dreadful consequences if others saw such things.

I caught up to Aeren again and persuaded him to follow me. Taking a large rock from the stream, I demonstrated that I could not make my knife penetrate the stone. He was surprised. Stars in the heavens, where had he been? When I handed him the rock and my knife, and indicated that I wanted him to try it, he looked puzzled. But with a shrug, he stabbed my knife into the rock with no more effort than if it were a lump of cheese.

Though I had been prepared for it, my heart crashed against my ribs. I took Aeren’s hand and made him look at me. “Sorcery,” I said. He frowned and gestured for another word. I pointed to the rock and said its name, and I pointed to the knife and did likewise, but I pointed to them joined and said, “Sorcery.”

What else could he do? He was not a Healer; I would have seen the scars. Karon had borne so many. Lifegiver, his people had called him. I dragged Aeren to the garden and showed him the bean vines that had wilted in the heat. “Can you make them grow?” I asked, miming my words as I spoke. “Make them healthy like the rest?” He thought what I wanted was ridiculous, but I insisted that he show me. He brushed his fingers over the plant, touching leaves and stem gently. A few of the leaves took on a deeper green, and for a short distance the vine became thicker, but most of the plant remained limp and withered. After only a short time he ripped the vine out by the roots, threw it down, and ground it beneath his sandaled foot.

“It’s all right,” I said, trying to remain calm and keep him the same. I retrieved the vine and pointed to the leaves he had changed, saying again, “Sorcery.”

That piqued his curiosity. With his eyes narrowed, he bade me come to the fire ring in the dirt near the cottage. He piled up tinder and kindling in the ring of blackened stones, and then he blew softly across his palm and passed his hand over the little mound, staring at it intently. After a few moments, a smoky tendril curled upward, and then another joined it, and another until a tiny flame poked its head above the dry stuff. Though the flame went out almost immediately, Aeren looked satisfied and gestured to me that he wanted the word.

“Sorcery,” I said, and he smiled with a brilliance that dimmed the day.

So the first hurdle was done. He knew what kind of things were sorcery. Now to convince him that he mustn’t do any more of it. As I tried to explain, he acted puzzled, like a child suddenly told not to walk after being so praised for the accomplishment.

Poor Jacopo watched all these activities uncomfortably. Though they had known the crimes of which I had been accused, I had never discussed sorcery with Jacopo, Anne, or Jonah. Why distress them? I had fought my battles and lost.

But on this strange afternoon, I stepped back into the fray. I cared nothing for anyone; I would not cross a road to save a life. For ten years I had believed that human beings were the most despicable of creatures, vile, murderous hypocrites who would slaughter their own. Even the J’Ettanne, who so piously celebrated life, had taught their children that their destiny was to die, refusing to lift their hands to stop it. Yet in the end I was as bad as the rest of them, manipulating others, endangering lives to serve my own ends. I pressed a mug of ale into my only friend’s hand and told him that my curiosity and my hatred were going to put him in mortal danger. “I’ve decided what to do next,” I said, my cheeks hot, my limbs so light they might have belonged to someone else entirely. “I’m going to find this man who’s searching for him.”

I owed the J’Ettanne nothing, but Aeren was a sorcerer and Darzid was hunting him. I would kill Aeren myself before I allowed Evard to burn another man.

* * *

Though Aeren was clearly unhappy about my decision to leave the valley, and Jacopo grumbled endlessly about my decision to venture my mission alone, I bade farewell to the two of them early the next morning. Grenatte was five leagues to the south, but I had walked it before. I followed a narrow track across the meadow, and when I reached the intersection with the main road just south of Dunfarrie, I found a surprise—a skinny, grimy figure perched on a pile of boulders waiting for me.

“Paulo! What are you doing here?”

“Not my idea.”

“I wondered why Jacopo found it so urgent to go down to the village last night. How much did he pay you to tag along?”

“Secret. Promised.”

“And what are you supposed to do? Protect me from highwaymen?”

The boy straightened his back. “Might. I know a bit.”

“Of course you do, but it’s a very long way.” I didn’t want to shame the boy, but I failed to see how he could walk so far with his twisted leg.

“Done it before. Faster’n you.”

I grinned. “Think so? Well, we’ll see then.” I started briskly down the road, Paulo scampering along beside. Jacopo was no fool. Having an extra hand, a pair of youthful eyes, and a trustworthy messenger was not a bad notion.

“So Paulo, does your gram know where you are?”

“She’s down drunk again.”

“Oh.”

His father had been hanged for thievery when Paulo was small, and his mother had disappeared only months after, leaving Paulo to be raised by his grandmother when she was sober and the rest of the village when she was drunk. He had no trouble keeping up. I thought it would be exhausting to twist with each step as Paulo had to do, but he seemed tireless, and though his body was far from perfect, his hearing was excellent. After an hour of good progress, he halted abruptly. “Horses. Wagon. Behind.” He cocked an eye at me. “Jaco says maybe you want to be private.”

“That’s true,” said I, “but I don’t hear anything.”

“Four or five of ‘em. I’ll swear on horseflesh.”

He was so sure of himself that, despite feeling a bit foolish, I motioned him over behind the sprawling blackberry bushes that lined the roadway. He promptly began stuffing berries in his mouth while I crouched itching and sweating in the prickly thicket. About the time I was convinced that his warning was only a ploy to get a rest, the boy put a purple-stained finger to his mouth, and I heard the jangle of harness.

Two heavily armed men rode and two equally tough-looking women walked beside a wagon driven by a hard-faced boy about Paulo’s age. Their cargo was barrels of the type commonly used for sugar—a valuable load. Dangerous. I allowed the party to take a substantial lead before setting out on the road again.

“I’m glad you’re here, Paulo.”

The boy trotted ahead of me. “Best keep up!”

The road stayed close to the river for a while, then angled southwest, passing through a trailing remnant of the great northern forests before breaking out into the rolling grasslands of southern Leire. I disliked the few-league passage through During Forest. The giant oaks and ashes grew together so thickly that they blocked the sunlight, leaving their lower branches bare and brittle. Little grew on the forest floor to disturb the ancient piles of rotting leaves and tangles of fallen trees. We had been walking beneath the grim forest canopy for almost an hour when Paulo stopped again.

“Riders. Three of ‘em close behind. And there’s men in the woods up ahead. Quiet.”

My skin crept. Highwaymen. Paulo and I quickly retreated into the shelter of a lightning-split oak, settling ourselves carefully so that no breaking twig could betray our presence, and so that we could not be seen from the road. Then we watched.

The three horsemen wore priests’ robes, two of them in gray, one in black with a heavy gold chain about his neck. Their horses were richly caparisoned with red and gold, blazoned with the rising sun of Annadis. Intricate decorative goldwork hung from the bridles, jingling softly as they passed.

I had little use for the priests of Leire, resenting all the years I had listened to their drivel. They taught that the Holy Twins had no interest in the daily trials of mortals, only in deeds of honor and glory that reflected their own. Priests of Annadis had sanctioned what was done to Karon and my son. I was not interested in gods who found honor or glory in such doings. And for the common folk, honor and glory meant working themselves to exhaustion, paying the exorbitant temple fees and royal taxes without complaint, and dying cheerfully in the king’s everlasting wars. No surprise that village shrines all over Leire were neglected, and the great temples deserted except on high feast days when the priests gave out alms.

The highwaymen slipped out of the trees and blocked the way of the hooded travelers just as the riders passed our position. “Hold!” commanded a short, stocky man. He wore a yellow rag tied around his head and carried a long knife. His four companions were variously armed with a cudgel, a spear, a dagger, and a crossbow, cocked and ready. “Dismount.” The priests obeyed in silence. Two of the outlaws caught the reins of the horses, while their companions stood guard on the hooded priests.

The stocky man examined the horses carefully, running his hand down the withers of a well-formed bay. “Such fine beasts are not the usual for traveling holy men. And such trappings…” He jingled the gold link work dangling from the bridle, and then strolled up to his victims and ran his eyes up and down the still figures. “Turned out quite grand for priests, are we not?” With a swift movement of his knife he snatched the gold chain about the neck of the priest in black and deftly twisted it about the long knife blade, leaving the point of his blade at the man’s throat. The three priests stood perfectly still and perfectly silent.

“Quiet lot, you are. Never met a holy man could keep from telling me how wicked are my ways, and how the Twins want my blood and my coin. Tiresome. Perhaps you’re not born to it.” He took another twist in the gold chain. “But you’ve prospered, nonetheless. Mayhap it’s time you shared a bit with the poor.”

I was prepared to see murder done—highwaymen had nothing to lose, being already condemned—but not in the way it happened. With breathtaking suddenness, the three horses screamed and reared, crushing one of the outlaws and entangling another in hooves and reins. In the ensuing confusion, the two gray-robed priests whirled about with blinding speed and precision, overpowering their guards. The one in black pinned the leader of the outlaws to the ground under the point of his own knife. With simple ease and no hesitation, the priest drove the knife home in the bandit’s chest, and then jumped up to join the larger fray.

It was over in moments. Three outlaws lay on the road unmoving. The two gray-clad priests held the two remaining highwaymen, pinning their arms behind them so cruelly that I expected to hear a bone snap in the sudden quiet. The priest in black approached the defiant captives. His hood had fallen back to reveal thin, light-colored hair and an angular face with jutting nose and brow. “You should have been more selective as to your prey, my little wolves,” he said evenly, his voice the more unsettling for its complete lack of emotion. And before the outlaws had a chance to savor a last breath, he whipped his knife across each throat. The two bleeding bodies were released and slumped to the ground.

The priest in black jerked his head around and stared into the trees, exactly in our direction. I dared not breathe until he pulled up his hood, turned, and clucked at his horse. A fallen highwayman moaned. The black-robed priest snapped his fingers. One of his fellows picked up the dropped spear and plunged it through the injured outlaw, pinning him to the road. The spear shaft was still quivering when the three priests disappeared down the road south.

“What, in the name of all gods, was that?” I shivered. The midday heat felt harsh and bitter. My mouth tasted of ashes.

“Filthy, bloody damn.” Paulo never had a lot of words.

We crept out onto the road. I told Paulo to wait for me while I stepped cautiously to each of the five men that lay on the hard-packed dirt.

“Are you loony?” said Paulo. “Get away!”

“I need to make sure they’re dead.”

“It’s only thieves.”

“They’re men.” Well, they had been men. Now they were all quite dead. Outlaws, yes, murderers themselves, no doubt, many times over. Yet I found myself with an odd sense of sympathy. If I had been empowered to choose the victors in that battle and entangle my fortune with theirs, I would have, quite irrationally, preferred to take my chances with the highwaymen.

As a child I had adored my family’s winter stays in Montevial. The crush of people and society in the city, the music and torchlight and carriages, even the spine-chilling sight of criminals hung up in cages or locked in pillories had been a thrilling change from our dull castle in the country. But now I found the stench and din of even so small a town as Grenatte made my head throb. Wagons of hay and wood rumbled noisily through the cobbled streets, and the walls of a blacksmith’s shop bulged with deafening clatter. A leather-aproned tradesman stood in the door of his shop, arguing loudly with a driver over a wagonload of hides, while a slack-mouthed girl drove a herd of bleating sheep through the square and yelled lewd insults at a man locked in the stocks and emitting a thready moan. The prisoner had evidently borne false witness; flies crawled on the bloody void where his nose had once been.

I sat tiredly on the stone steps that encircled the public well in the center of the town square, having bidden Paulo go to every inn in town, giving out the story that he had been paid to deliver a message to the person seeking a stolen white horse. The message said to meet the sender, a dark-bearded man wearing red, in the Green Lion common room at sunset, I had no intention of confronting the stranger right away, only to get a look at him. At the end of an exhausting day, my motives were far less clear than when I’d set out.

An army of beggars, the crippled remnants of Evard’s Kerotean war, groped at passersby on the peripheries of the square. The Kerotean campaign had been murderous. The Keroteans were a fiercely independent, religious people, sturdy warriors who believed their mountains were the fortresses of their god. Only the sheer numbers of bodies Evard had flung against the heavily fortified Kerotean cities had conquered them. Rumor had it that twenty-five thousand Leirans had died to take Kallamat, the city of golden-domed temples where butter lamps burned to the Kerotean god every hour of every day, a city perched so high in the mountains that men could not breathe the air. Evard had told his men there were chests of gold in every house in Kallamat, but no common soldier had ever seen a single coin of it. And the people of Leire had seen only these armless, legless, or eyeless veterans, if they saw any result at all of twelve bloody years.

In less than half an hour, Paulo came streaking back through the late afternoon crowds, narrowly avoiding tumbling into the well. “Found him.”

“What was he like?”

“Dark. Small. Dressed fine.” Paulo screwed up his face thoughtfully. “He don’t fit.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but could garner no clearer explanation. “What did he say?”

“Tried to grab me, but I nipped off like you said.”

“You should stay out of sight for a while. Have you anything to eat?”

“Got a biscuit.” Paulo touched a limp cloth bag hanging from his belt. I was sure the boy never got enough to satisfy a growing appetite.

I dug into my pack and pulled out a small cloth bundle. “Here’s jack and cheese. I’ll get a room and we’ll see what comes. Jacopo did me better service than he knew when he sent you along.”

“I can do for myself. Innkeeper said I could sleep in the stables if I mucked out the stalls.” He hadn’t touched my offered bundle, though his eyes had not left it since I mentioned its contents.

“Go on, take it. I brought enough for both of us.”

Before I could blink, the boy grabbed the bundle and was gone. The light was fading as I shouldered my pack and made my way to the Green Lion. It seemed a decent enough place, with less grease and soot than most Leiran inns. A wide, flyspecked window looked out on the docks. I told the innkeeper that I was a widow, hoping to catch a skiff going south so I could return to my family in Deshiva.

“We’ve lost ten local boys to the war already this year,” confided the stout, bearded proprietor, who introduced himself as Bartolome. “No one can hardly work the land no more, for lack of hands to hold the plows. More widows like you than children. Don’t know who they’ll take next for soldiering. I’ve a hope they’re not desperate enough for fat innkeepers!” His thick, hairy fingers traded a mug of ale for a copper coin, even as he talked. Fat or no, I had the sense that he would not even need to see the coin to know whether or not it was genuine. “Shall my wife send supper up to your room? Ladies often prefer it when traveling alone.”

“No, I think I’ll sit in your common room. I’ve been alone too much and could use the sight of people.”

“As you wish. Becky there will see to you.” He waved at a barmaid and was soon deep in conversation with another customer.

Fifteen to twenty people sat in the smoky room: some lone travelers eating soup ladled from the common pot, a few laborers and tradesmen finishing the day with a tankard of the Green Lion’s ale, and a prosperous-looking couple with two small, neat children in stiff collars, casting surreptitious glances at the other guests. No one fit my quarry’s description.

I settled myself at a small table in the dimmest corner of the room, where I would be able to see anyone who came in the door or down the stairs. The ruddy-faced barmaid brought me a bowl of hot broth, thick with barley and spiced with pepper. The inn was busy; customers flowed in and out like a noisy, thirsty tide. Laughter blared from tradesmen sharing a bawdy story, some tankards were spilled, causing tempers to erupt and two men to threaten fisticuffs. Bartolome shoved the drunkards out the door, and the prosperous-looking family fled up the stairs.

As the light outside the window dulled, a man descended the stairs. I almost laughed. Paulo’s description had been so right. He didn’t “fit.” He had the look of a Kerotean— dark, almond-shaped eyes, straight black hair, and close-trimmed beard sculpted to a point—and he was dressed in the flowing trousers and colorful, brocaded vest of the Kerotean aristocracy. But his skin was the color of dried oak leaves, not milk. More significantly, his head would only reach my shoulder, and there lived no Kerotean aristocrat so diminutive in size, not even the women, who averaged a full head taller than me. Kerotean nobles killed any of their children that were defective in any way, including those born undersized.

The fidgety little man whispered to the landlord, and when the portly Bartolome shook his head, took a seat at a table not too far from me. His dark eyes darted about the room, and I concentrated on my soup. When next I dared look up, the man was sipping from a tankard of ale. Another mistake. Keroteans drank no ale or spirits of any kind. I had thought to observe the man for a day or two, perhaps question the landlord and servants about him, but my plan suddenly seemed foolish. Paulo and I could wrestle this fellow into submission if he gave any trouble.

But before I could make a move, everything fell apart. The stranger’s head jerked up and his eyes grew wide. My gaze followed his. Coming down the stairs were three robed priests, two in gray and one in black. When I glanced back at the table beside mine, it was empty, its occupant already halfway out the front door of the tavern. Judging by his wide-eyed terror, he wasn’t coming back.

To be this close… I could not lose him. Jumping up from the table, I dodged tables and benches, patrons and barmaids to follow the hurrying man. But when I pulled open the door, ready to dash into the night, I stood face to face with Graeme Rowan, Sheriff of Dunfarrie.