Songsmith

3

“And they simply allowed you to depart? Without following you?” Avris, arms wrapped around her knees, was still crouched in her hiding place, a hollow beneath the roots of a long-overturned oak. She gave her companion a skeptical glance. “I cannot believe it!”

Eydryth, who was sitting on the slope above her, pulling on her tall brown boots, grinned cheerfully at her companion. “When I said I wasn’t followed here, it wasn’t for lack of their trying. I had three shadows, sure enough, when I left the Citadel, and only one of them was my own. But I lost both of my tails in the marketplace without overmuch trouble. They were expecting to trail someone who knew nothing of their presence, and thus they were careless.”

The songsmith slipped her battered brown leather jerkin on over her full-sleeved green tunic. “It is good to get my own clothes back,” she said, busy with front lacings. “I refused a skirt, and the only guardsman small enough so I could fit his off-duty garments made but an indifferent habit of bathing.” She wrinkled her nose as she rolled the cast-off clothing into a bundle. “Tomorrow, when we can move about freely, we must wash these, and oil the boots, so we may sell them in some town far from here. How do those things I bought you fit?”

Avris gave her a mock glare of impatience as she smoothed the front of her faded red tunic. “As you can plainly see, they are fine! Now, by the Mercy of Gunnora, finish your story!”

The minstrel shrugged. “There is little more to relate. Just to be safe, I holed up to wait out the night, and left the city when the gates opened at dawn. There were guards looking for me there, too, but I used the last of the witch’s coppers to bribe an old man to let me hide under a blanket in the back of his farm wagon. He balanced two crates of pullets atop me, and, next to me, tied his newly weaned bull calf. The poor thing was bellowing loudly enough to rouse a dead man from his grave, so the guards were not very thorough in their check—they waved us through as quickly as possible.” Eydryth dug a finger in her ear,with a grimace. “I am still half-deafened!”

“So we are safe?”

“For the moment, yes.”

Avris laughed aloud exultantly as she scrambled out from beneath the root-shadowed “cave” to stretch her arms wide beneath the green-gold spring leaves. “Free!” She whirled around in sheer exuberance. “I was so worried about you… that I have only just realized—I am free! Free!”

Eydryth smiled at her. “The feeling of being free, with the open road before one, is indeed a heady emotion. But curb yourself, sister. The hunt for both of us is undoubtedly up, and we must not allow ourselves to be recaptured. They would go very hard with us, I think.”

The witch stopped, then nodded, some of the light fading from her eyes. “You are right. I am fortunate that you have some experience in these matters. How best should we do this?”

“I think it would be wisest for us to travel by night, until we are at least two days’ ride from Es City. And we will not head directly for Kastryn, for that is what they will be expecting us to do. Instead, we will circle around Es City, cross the river, and travel northwest for a day or two.”

“But how will we reach Kastryn?”

“Then we will circle to the northeast, and come on Kastryn from the north, instead of the south. It will add many days to our journey, to be sure, but it is the wisest course.”

“If only we had horses.”

Eydryth grimaced, thinking of her mare, Vyar. “If only we did. But horses would also make us more conspicuous, and without them, we can hide more easily. Have you money?”

“A few coins. We lived a monastic life in the Citadel, and seldom needed it.”

“Well, can you sing?”

Avris grinned. “I can try.” She raised her voice in a few measures of "The Riving of the Border.” She had a clear, if thin, soprano.

“You will do well enough.” Eydryth nodded. “We will practice before we must earn our supper.” The songsmith yawned suddenly, widely, until her jaws nearly cracked. “And now, while I can, I must sleep, since I dared not close my eyes last night. We will eat and rest by turns, standing watches, and set out after sunset. Are we agreed?”

“Agreed.”

It was afternoon before the witch touched Eydryth’s shoulder to rouse her. The songsmith awoke immediately, as her father had trained her, sitting upright in her cloak with a seasoned warrior’s alertness. “You let me sleep too long!” she exclaimed, seeing that the sun’s rays were already slanting from the west.

“I was not tired, and you needed your rest,” Avris said. “I slept last night, for I was too weary from my spelling to stay awake, even if the Guardian and all the other witches had been ranged around this grove.” She smiled. “Fortunately, they were not.”

“Well, sleep now,” Eydryth said, taking food from her pack and breaking off a chunk of journeybread. “I will guard.”

“No, I am not tired. Now that I am breathing free air, I feel as though I will never be weary again.” The two girls shared food in companionable silence, until Avris spoke again: "May I ask you something, Eydryth?”

“Ask away,” the songsmith said, after swallowing a bite of dried apple.

“Why do you hate the rowan so?”

Eydryth could feel her body stiffen; her face become a hard, expressionless mask. “That is a long story,” she said, finally.

“One that you would prefer not to tell? If so, I will understand,” Avris said, her gaze holding nothing but friendship, sympathy. “But we have an hour or more yet to wait, and I do not ask from idle curiosity, believe me, sister. I sense a great hurt within you… and sometimes, such hurts may be eased in the speaking of them to another, one who truly cares.”

Eydryth sat in silence for several minutes, forgetting the food in her hand, lost in memory. Finally, she stirred. “It happened years ago,” she whispered. “And it is something I have never spoken of, except to those who shared those days with me. And you may not want to call me ‘sister’ after you hear what I did.”

“I doubt that,” Avris said, steadily. “You could never do anything truly wrong, Eydryth. I know that.”

“Not so,” the songsmith said, her voice grown husky. She cleared her throat. “You must understand that I grew up in a far land… across the sea. You have probably never even heard of Arvon.”

“No, I never have,” the witch conceded. “Does it lie near that land of many Dales, the one the captured soldiers of Alizon spoke of?”

“It lies west of High Hallack,” Eydryth agreed, nodding. “Beyond the Waste. Arvon, like this Escore you speak of, is a very, very old land, unlike the others settled by humankind. It abounds with uncanny places, and strange beings. Creatures out of legend, many of them. Such as the demons called Keplians, shaped like beautiful horses… and the web-riders, those fell creatures with many-jointed legs, that weave webs, then cast them onto the wind and ride them, in search of prey…”

“I have heard of such in Escore,” Avris told her. “And do you also have the Flannan, the mosswives, the Scaled Ones, and the water-people, the Krogan?”

“No, I have not heard of them,” Eydryth said. “But there are the Winged Ones, who have the heads of birds and the bodies of men or women, whose blood means death if spilled on living flesh, and who will fight even when beheaded or dismembered…”

Avris shuddered. “Praise Gunnora, I have never heard of such in Escore! If I had, that land would prove no refuge at all!”

“Fortunately, their numbers are small, and appear to be dwindling,” the songsmith said. “But not so for the Thas. They are a constant danger.”

“Thas?”

“Dwellers below ground who tunnel as naturally as some creatures walk. They are ugly—” Eydryth shuddered at the memory. “Small, wiry bodies, with bloated stomachs, covered with scraggly, rootlike hair. But the worst thing is…” She trailed off, then swallowed hard. “… their faces… from their faces, you can tell that they… they used to be of humankind.”

“How dreadful!” Avris cried. “Yes, I have heard of such, now that I hear them described. Lately they have been seen— and smelled—lurking around the fringes of towns near the mountains. Logar reported in one of his letters that they were attacked by several of the things, as they slept. One man was pulled down into the earth, never to be seen again.”

The songsmith shook her head. “Your people had best ward their borders well,” she said. “The Thas are cowards, who prefer such tactics to open battle, but they are deadly.”

“Go on with your story,” the witch urged.

Eydryth grimaced at the reminder. “I was hoping you would forget.”

“If you do not wish to tell me—”

“No, it is just that it is difficult to speak of…” The minstrel shrugged. “So. I grew up in Arvon, in an ancient citadel called Kar Garudwyn. Time out of mind ago, an Adept lived there; its very walls are still steeped with sorcery. I was born of a strange union: my mother, Elys, was the daughter of a woman from overseas—Estcarp—and my father, Jervon, was a soldier, one accustomed to the command of men, not magic.”

“An odd mix,” Avris commented. “But they loved each other?”

“More than life itself,” Eydryth said, matter-of-factly. “They defended each other’s backs through many a battle, against human enemies, as well as those born of sorcery. They were comrades and friends long before they knew each other as man and woman.”

Eydryth took a final bite of the journeybread, then passed the cake over to Avris. “We shared Kar Garudwyn with my parents’ closest friends, the Lord Kerovan and the Lady Joisan. They were as father and mother to me also, and I loved them dearly. Also, there was Sylvya, who was our friend and teacher. She was from the Old Times, and had powers such as had not been seen since the very ancient days.”

“Sylvya,” Avris repeated, trying the alien sound of the name on her tongue. “Was she of the Old Race, too?”

“Partly, but also in her was another, nonhuman heritage. But she loved all of us children as though we were her own.”

“Children?”

“Joisan and Kerovan had—have—two children. Hyana, their daughter, is nigh unto a year my elder. She is a quiet, deep-eyed girl, possessed of such innate Power that I doubt many of the witches in your Citadel could equal her, even when she was naught but a girl-child. But she makes no show of such strength, only uses it to help others. She can farsee, and her foretellings are such that no one can afford to ignore them.” Eydryth’s face darkened, and she lapsed into a brooding silence.

“And the other child?” the young witch prompted, when the songsmith showed no signs of continuing.

“Firdun is five years younger than I. He also has Power, but there is nothing quiet about Firdun! He was one of those children whose life one constantly fears for—you may know the kind. If there was but one apple tree in the entire orchard with a rotten limb, that is the tree Firdun must climb, and that would be the limb he chose to rest upon.”

Avris chuckled. “I know very well. I have a cousin who has such a daughter. Have you brothers or sisters, Eydryth?”

The songsmith shook her head. “I know not,” she whispered. “My mother vanished nine years ago, when I was but ten years old.”

The witch was puzzled. “ ‘Vanished’? You mean, she left you and your father? Does she still live?”

“I know not,” Eydryth repeated. “She did not leave us willingly, she was taken. Some Power from the Left-Hand Path swept her from our very midst, even as she lay resting in her chamber one afternoon.”

“How did it happen?” the witch asked, her grey eyes intent on Eydryth’s. The songsmith could feel her compassion, as tangible as a warm hand laid upon her shoulder.

“It was my fault,” the bard said, past the tightness in her throat. “My fault. You see, when my mother discovered she was again with child, Hyana, who was eleven, did a foreseeing for her, because she sensed a troubling in the land.

“During her foreseeing, she saw that the child—she told us it would be a boy—would be a final link in a chain that would unite those of the Right-Hand Path in Arvon against the forces of the Dark. The outcome of that conflict, Hyana told us, was not clear, but she knew that my unborn little brother was to be a crucial piece in a very deadly game whose first move had not yet been made.”

Avris nodded, wide-eyed.

“So we took all care that my mother would be protected. She stopped walking outside the citadel without escort, and never descended the ramp leading to the valley alone. She even gave up her rides on her smoke-colored mare. Unless she was in her chamber, Jervon, my father, or Lord Kerovan always accompanied her, armed and ready.

“And for those times when she needed to rest alone, Sylvya and the Lady Joisan devised a protective spell to surround her chamber. They braided a rope, using twigs from the rowan tree, lacing it with scarlet yarn, the color of protection. They rolled it in valerian, pennyroyal and mullein, chanting as they did so. Finally, they placed the rope around the ceiling inside the chamber, then bound the two ends together with a strip of scarlet silk, above the outside of the door. Within that room, no spell would work, no Power could enter.”

“But something did enter,” Avris guessed. “How?”

“Because I have no Power,” Eydryth said, “and I was too proud to admit that I could not manage without it. With his mother and father so worried about my mother, I was set to watch over little Firdun. Born of a father and mother who both have Power, the gift was strong in him almost from babyhood. He played tricks on me, the kind of tricks such a child would play. He could cloud my mind, so that I could look full at him sometimes, and not see him. Once I went to wake him from his nap, only to find an adder coiled on his pillow, fangs dripping venom—but even as I gasped, it vanished, and he sat up, giggling…” She shook her head, remembering.

“If only I had admitted that the boy was too much for me! But I was five years his elder, and I was ashamed to say that I could not control him. One day, as I sat there, telling him the tale of the Hungry Well—which he loved, as it was a true one, and his father was the hero—I turned, only to find that he had left my side.”

Eydryth pounded a fist against her knee. “If I had gone for his parents, or Hyana, or even my father, somebody he would have listened to—! But, instead, I searched for him myself, only to find him before the door to my mother’s chamber. He was staring up at the rowan.”

“ ‘Don’t touch it, Firdun!’ I shouted. He gave me an impish grin, then his little hands clenched, and his chubby face grew taut with effort. Even as I watched in horror, the ribbon came untied, the rowan rope fell apart. The protective spell was broken.”

“And your mother?”

“I screamed, because I knew how vital that rowan rope was. In moments my father was there, and Lady Joisan. They burst into the room, only to find my mother gone… She had disappeared without a trace.” She took a deep breath, controlling her voice with an effort. “There was only a stench left behind. The scent of evil. Have you ever smelled it?”

Avris shook her head.

“It is an odor of such foulness, I cannot even describe it. No one who ever once whiffs such a stench can mistake it for anything else…”

“You searched for her?”

“Of course. My father nearly went mad with grief—he rode for weeks, barely stopping to rest his horse, sleeping in the saddle, forgetting to eat for days at a time. Lord Kerovan and Lady Joisan rode with him, leaving Sylvya to watch over me and Firdun. Hyana retired into her room and spent much of her time in trance, searching, emerging gaunt-eyed and thin… but there was nothing. Nothing. For more than a year we searched, and found nothing.”

“But what happened was not your fault!”

“So my father told me,” Eydryth said, bitterly, “but if not my fault, whose? You cannot blame a mischievous child of five for such a happening. And even Firdun, young as he was, understood that he had done something terrible. From that day he changed, becoming much quieter, more biddable. He never gave me another moment’s trouble…” Her mouth twisted in an ironic grimace. “But the damage had already been done. And it was my fault.”

“I do not agree,” Avris said. “You were naught but a child yourself.”

“A proud child, who was so ashamed to have none of the gift the others had, that I did not admit my fault, did not summon aid,” Eydryth maintained, stubbornly.

“But that cannot be the end of your tale,” Avris said, crumbling a rotted acorn shell in her fingers. “You said that your father was hurt.”

“That happened when I was thirteen,” Eydryth said, nodding wearily. “We would go out and search in good weather, riding to villages, asking, looking for any Wise Man or Woman, or any Summoner, who might have heard rumors, felt a troubling… any who might scry for a vision of my mother.” She caught Avris’s questioning glance and explained, “Scrying is a means of seeing the past, the future, or things far away.”

“I have heard of such,” Avris said. “How is it done in your land?”

“By gazing into a bowl filled with liquid… water, ink, wine…”

“Did scrying work?” Avris asked.

“No more than anything else,” Eydryth said wearily, resting her forearms on her upraised knees. “ Arvon is a wide land, but we searched for a week’s ride and more in each direction. Once we even dared the Grey Towers, and asked the Pack Leader of the Weres, Hyron, if he had heard aught of Elys.”

The songsmith shivered at the memory. “And, let me assure you, there are few in Arvon who would even venture to ride within the shadow of that grim fortress’s walls, let alone pass through its front gate. Especially to ask the whereabouts of a witch. The Weres hate women of Power, and have for time out of mind.”

“Why?”

“Only they know the reason behind their prejudice.” She stared unseeing through the trunks of the oak trees, out at the road they would soon be following. “But my father asked them, and they answered. Even the Weres, with all their strange powers—they who tread the border between the Light and the Dark, between humankind and beast—even they could tell us nothing of my mother’s fate.”

The songsmith lapsed into silence again, memories crowding her mind. “It sounds a hard life,” Avris ventured, finally.

The bard shrugged. “I suppose it was, but at the time, it did not seem so. My father taught me much as we companied together, even as he and my mother had done… swordplay, and scout-lore, the planning and execution of battle. How to hunt, fish, and live off the land. If it had not been for the reason of our search, those would have been happy days, sleeping beneath the naked sky, riding my good Kioga mare every day…”

Eydryth smiled wryly. “In the winters, when we were forced to shelter in Kar Garudwyn, I returned to the schoolroom. There, I learned dutifully enough, but the space within four walls was never my favorite place to be. I loved traveling. A fortunate thing, I suppose, since I’ve had to do so much of it.”

Her smile faded; then she sighed. “But the journeying with my father ended, too. One day, he came to me as I sat playing the hand-harp Lord Kerovan had given me (after he had discovered it in an ancient storeroom in Kar Garudwyn). Jervon was excited—more hopeful than I had seen him for months. He told me that he had learned of an ancient ‘Seeing Stone’ located in the north. It was said that any who had the courage to climb up the cliff to peer into this Stone would behold his or her most-desired sight. We set out that very afternoon.

“It was a long ride. We passed several villages, but as our way took us further and further north, they became fewer and fewer. The country was nigh, and, save where rivers and streams ran, grew steadily more arid—my father told me it was beginning to resemble the Waste in High Hallack, the land he and my mother had originally come from. Finally, there was but one more settlement, a small town surrounding the old, old sanctum of sorcery called Garth Howell. A place where those with the Gift of Power journey to learn how to harness and develop their innate talents.”

“Like our Place of Wisdom.”

“Yes. Except that in Arvon it is an accepted fact that men as well as women may hold the Power. Both sexes are accepted as students. We asked directions at Garth Howell, and they pointed us to the northwest. But the lay sister who kept the gate secretly warned Jervon, saying that the Stone could be dangerous.”

“But he did not heed her,” Avris guessed.

“No, he did not. We rode, and two days later, we reached the Seeing Stone… a great cliff of crumbling ocher rock. When we reached there, late in the afternoon, it seemed to loom like something alive and malevolent. And it was strange…”

“How so?”

“One moment I was gazing at an ordinary cliff, but then, when the shadows began stealing across the scree, I made out hollows, and protrusions… and I realized that the entire cliff-face had, at one time, been one giant form. Possibly a female form, for I thought I glimpsed the mounds of pendulous breasts, but the face… that was not a woman’s.”

“What did the face look like?”

“I don’t know,” Eydryth admitted, softly. “Wide, too wide to be human. Lipless, I believe. There was still the hint of teeth visible, as though she… whatever she was… as though she smiled. Not such a smile as I would like to see on a living countenance, Avris. But her most distinctive feature was her Eye. There was only one. A wide, dark pit above what might have been a nose.

“My father was off his horse almost before I could bring Vyar to a halt, and heading for the cliff. I flung myself down, and ran after him, calling to him to wait… wait. But his face was as set as a man who has received a mortal wound, his teeth clenched within the stubble of his beard. He thrust me aside, ordering me to wait… and then, he was climbing.”

Eydryth drew a long, shaky breath. “How he found finger and toe holds on the cliff, I know not. But he moved as steadily as a spider may on a stone wall. In moments, it seemed, he had reached the Eye. I saw him lean forward, his head and shoulders almost disappearing into the opening. A moment only he remained so, then—” She shook her head. “He screamed my mother’s name once…” She swallowed. “… in a voice I can still hear in the worst of my dreams. Then his grasp loosened, and he fell.”

“Down the entire cliff?” Avris gasped.

“No. His body caught on the tiniest of ledges, near the figure’s shoulder. He lay there, unmoving.”

“What did you do?”

“Climbed the cliff myself, anchored our ropes with spikes, then lowered him in a sort of harness I fashioned from his swordbelt and mine.” Eydryth looked away. “He had a lump on the back of his head, but I do not believe it was that which caused the problem. It was that cursed Eye—the backlash of that ancient Power. When Jervon awoke, he was as he is now, mind-crippled.

“He eats when food is placed before him, stands and walks when tugged by the hand, sleeps when led to his bed. He never speaks, never smiles… except faintly, sometimes, when I played and sang for him. And so he has been, for the past six years.”

“How dreadful!” Avris whispered. “Oh, Eydryth, I pray that Lormt will hold some answer for you.” She put out her hand, squeezed the older girl’s fingers. “But I cannot see that you are responsible for any of what happened. To climb that cliff and rescue him all by yourself—! You were brave, and more than brave, sister.”

The songsmith gave her a somber glance. “If I was, it availed little,” she said. “Many times I have thought that my father would have been better off if he had fallen to his death, that day. He was a proud man, a capable man. He would have hated what he has become. To see him as he is now, day after day, became such torture…”

Eydryth shook her head. “Eventually, I could stand it no more. I had to go looking for someone who might be able to make him whole again. And, truly, Avris, if I can find no means of healing him, I have promised myself that I will return home long enough to grant him a merciful death.”

The journey to Kastryn, although long and wearying, proved uneventful. After many days of walking the roads, of searching out taverns where they might sing for their supper and a bed in the stable, and, occasionally, if none such were to be found, bedding down on the edges of new-turned fields, the two young women arrived in Kastryn.

Eydryth glanced around the sleeping village as they threaded a silent way through backyards in the chill grey light of predawn. “It is larger than I thought,” she whispered. “Which house is Logar’s?”

“His father is the town smith,” Avris said. “It is that stone one, there, with the smithy beside.” She pointed.

“Stay here. Let me scout,” the songsmith ordered. “I think it has been long enough for all pursuit to have been given up, but better safe than sorry, yes?”

Avris bit her lip; she was trembling with eagerness, but she nodded. “If it is safe for me to come, whistle,” she said.

Eydryth shed her pack and slid through the shadows, over a fence, through a chicken yard, over another fence. She glanced both ways before crossing the wagon-rutted road, listening with all her being for the slithery clink of chain mail, the creak of leather as a dart gun was unholstered.

Nothing.

She scurried to the silent house, scouted the deserted smithy, then peered in the windows of the bottom floor. All the rooms were deserted. She waited, listening, until the dark grey had lightened sufficiently that her eyes began to discern the colors of the early-spring flowers planted in the window boxes.

Then, rising, she made her way to the front doorstep and whistled.

In a moment, Avris was there, shivering with relief and excitement. She knocked, softly but insistently, upon the door.

Finally, they heard a sleepy exclamation within, then the sound of feet. A young man, black hair tousled, his well-muscled body bare to the waist, swung the door open.

“Logar?” Avris breathed, pushing back her hood with trembling hands. “It is I…”

“Avris!” the young man gasped. “They came looking for you a fortnight ago! When you did not come, I thought you must be dead!” He stood staring at her as though wondering if she could possibly be real.

Avris smiled diffidently. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

Logar came out of his daze with an inarticulate cry. “Glad?” he gasped. “Glad—!” With sudden, fierce joy, he pulled her into his arms.

Eydryth turned away, leaving them alone in their happiness. She swallowed, feeling an odd pain within her, a loneliness different from any she had experienced before. You have a task to do, she reminded herself, fiercely. And you must do it alone…

As she had promised, Avris and Logar were married within the hour. Eydryth stood by the former witch’s side as Kastryn’s alderwoman joined the couple’s hands, then offered them sips from the same goblet, bites of cake from the same plate. Long before noon the couple had loaded their belongings into an ox-drawn wagon, and prepared to set their faces eastward, toward the mountains and distant Escore.

“Eydryth… sister…” Avris smiled tearfully as she embraced her friend. “How can I ever thank you for what you have done?”

“No need,” the songsmith said, returning the younger woman’s hug. “You have set me on the road to Lormt, and you know how much that hope means to me.”

“At least take this,” Avris said, pushing a small bag into the songsmith’s hand. “My share of our earnings. I will have little need of money where I am going, I believe. It should be sufficient for you to buy a mount, so you may travel more swiftly.”

“I cannot!” Eydryth protested. “You earned your share, just as I did.”

“Take it,” the girl said, closing the songsmith’s fingers tightly over the leather pouch. “I insist. Logar’s father tells me that there is a horse fair being held in Rylon Corners, the next town to the north of this one. A half-day’s good walk should see you there.”

“Well…” Eydryth smiled. “It would be good to travel astride once more. I thank you, Avris.”

“We must be going, dear heart,” Logar said, sliding an arm around his bride’s shoulders. “We will name our first girl-child for you, Lady Eydryth,” he promised, clasping the songsmith’s shoulder with a sword-roughened hand. Then he swung his new wife up onto the wagonseat.

The entire village stood waving as the oxcart slowly creaked out onto the northeast road.

Eydryth refused Logar’s mother’s offer of a bed, but accepted the goodwife’s bag of provisions. She headed out of Kastryn, taking the north road, toward Rylon Corners, and, beyond that, Lormt.

It was afternoon before the songsmith reached the town, but the bustle of the horse fair was still in full swing. She threaded her way through booths offering harness and saddles, brushes and tonics, charms and hoof-gloss… all products imaginable for the health, riding and beautification of horses. Eydryth sniffed the air, smiling. It almost smells like home, here, she thought. If she closed her eyes, she could nearly imagine that she was back in the Kioga camp in the Valley of the Gryphon, “talking horse” with Obred and Guret. She thought of Vyar’s glossy coat.

None of these animals, she thought, eyeing the horses around her, are the equal of the Kioga mounts… but I should be able to find something to bear me on my journey.

Eydryth wandered through the bustling crowd, running her hand over a flank here, lifting a forefoot there, occasionally opening an animal’s mouth to examine its teeth.

Her small hoard of coins would not permit her to purchase one of the fine, blooded animals, so she was forced to wander among the culls, scowling more and more deeply as she examined the mounts she could afford.

She had just finished examining the teeth of a rangy grey gelding while his owner, a whip-thin trader with most of his front teeth gone (Kicked out, most likely, Eydryth thought), smiled ingratiatingly at her. “You like him, bard? Seven years old, and sound as yon stone wall.”

The songsmith smiled grimly. “You mean, despite that curb on his near hock?”

“That little bump?” the man demanded indignantly. “Call that a curb? Why, I’ll eat his saddle if that ever gives him a moment’s shortness, by Volt’s Axe, I will.”

Eydryth sniffed inquiringly at the gelding’s nostrils. “Oh, I’ll wager he’ll go perfectly sound, all right—at least until that infusion you gave him wears off. What did you use? Black willow bark?”

The trader eyed her angrily. “You can’t prove that!”

“No, but I can show someone the file marks on his teeth. Not a very expert job, you know… anyone with half a brain will see right through it, and realize what you’ve done. Seven, hah! This horse is at least twice that!”

Without another word, the little man dragged the grey gelding’s head around and hustled rapidly off into the press of the fair.

Eydryth glared angrily after him for a moment, then shrugged. The fair was due to continue through tomorrow. Perhaps she should seek out some of the local farmers, ask to see their stock, rather than taking her chances with traders. There was always the possibility that she’d run into one of them who knew a trick she didn’t—and then she’d be burdened with a sick or crippled animal.

Still considering the livestock around her, the songsmith took out her hand-harp, then opened its case on the ground at her feet. While she decided what to do, she’d try earning a few more coins. Better to spend a little more, in order to get a far better bargain. Obred’s words ran through her mind: “Remember, girl, it takes just as many coins to feed a bad horse as it does a good one—so buy the best you can.”

She tuned the harp, running her fingers over the strings, humming under her breath to test her voice. Something suitable to the locale and the day, she thought, reviewing the songs she knew. Ah, I have it! “Lord Faral’s Race” will do nicely.

Eydryth softly began to sing:

A few heads turned, a few footsteps slowed, and several passersby halted to listen. Encouraged, Eydryth took a breath and swung into the refrain:

More listeners. The songsmith’s flying fingers picked up the tempo, strumming hard as she sang louder, more ringingly:

A coin spun into the case; another… then a third. Eydryth continued:

By now she had collected a small crowd, and the music of her harp was augmented by hand-clapping and foot-stamping. Occasional coins thudded into the case, providing an irregular counterpoint. The minstrel swung into the final verses, playing as though her fingers were charmed:

As she finished with a final sweeping chord, her watchers pelted the harp case with coins. “Another, minstrel!”

A little old man waved his battered straw hat at her. “You sing as sweetly as a brown wren, songsmith! Tell me, d’you know ‘Hathor’s Ghost Stallion’?”

Eydryth hesitated. “I think so… it goes like this?” she strummed a few chords, hummed a tune.

“That’s it!” the old man cried. “Haven’t heard that in—”

He broke off with a squawk of terror at the sudden drum of galloping hooves. The crowd scattered as a big black horse burst into their midst, heading for the field visible between two wagons. The grandsire tried to scuttle away, but tripped and fell.

As the horse swept toward them, Eydryth, without thinking, leaped forward so she was between the charging animal and the fallen man. The horse, a stallion, slid to a halt so violently that it half-reared.

“Steady, fellow!” Eydryth called, in a low, soothing voice. “Steady!”

The stallion’s ears flattened even further against its head; its eyes sparked red in the light of the westering sun. With an enraged scream it reared again, its deadly hooves slashing the air just above Eydryth’s head.