Songsmith

7

They rode the sun down that day, not halting to make camp until the stars glimmered against the deep purple of the late-evening sky. For most of their hours in the saddle Alon held Monso to a ground-covering jog, but whenever they reached stretches of high moorland where the footing was good, he let the Keplian run. When they finally stopped, they were high in the foothills, with the true mountains looming over them like fortresses of ragged stone.

After they dismounted, Eydryth moved around their campsite in a stumbling, dreamlike state, helping Alon rub the stallion down, then forcing herself to eat, knowing her body needed the food. Sleep claimed her the moment she crawled into her bedroll.

The travelers awoke before dawn to a drizzling rain. Heads ducked beneath the hoods of their cloaks, they hastily swallowed mouthfuls of damp journeybread, breaking camp while it was still dark.

Leading the Keplian, they started out. As they reached the crest of the nearest hillock, breathing heavily and slipping in the mud, Alon halted, turning to look back along their trail. After a moment he nudged Eydryth and pointed.

The girl squinted in the misty rain, narrowing her eyes until she made out what her companion was indicating—the dull red glow of several campfires, far behind them.

“We have nearly a full day’s start on them,” she said, but the aching lump of fear was back in her throat, nearly choking her.

“They will gain on us today,” Alon said grimly. “They will be covering gentle slopes, while we will be climbing in earnest before the day is out.”

“Is there another pass we could take?”

“Not that Monso could traverse… not for many leagues,” he replied. “However… there is a chance that the witch will not be able to climb these eastern mountains. There is a mind-block set upon those of the Old Race, concerning these mountains and Escore. Lord Kemoc Tregarth was the first to discover it. But now that everyone knows of Escore, it may also be that the witch can overcome the effects of that ancient sorcery, since she knows that the spell exists.”

Remembering her resolve that he and Monso should leave her before they risked being recaptured, Eydryth gave her companion a sidelong glance. “If there is a nearby pass that is only accessible to those traveling on foot, perhaps it would be best if you directed me to it. Then you could go on to the other pass with Monso.”

A muscle in his jaw tightened, and he did not look at her. “Why?”

She took a deep breath. “Because from this point on, Monso will only slow us down. I know you will not abandon him, but I have no wish to be caught because I have held back to stay with you two.”

The wan light of early dawn made Alon’s unshaven face appear even more drawn and haggard as he gave her a long, measuring glance. “Do not concern yourself unduly,” he said finally, in a tone that held the barest touch of sarcasm. “When we begin to hold you back, then it will be time enough for you to go on alone, Lady.”

Fighting back an urge to apologize, to blurt out that she was only doing this for his own good, Eydryth nodded, no longer meeting his eyes. “Very well,” she said, keeping her voice cold and hard with an effort. “But I shall be the judge.”

“And jury-of-peers, and no doubt executioner, too,” he said, giving her a crooked, mocking smile. “But for now, we must go.”

They went on, afoot much of the time, stumbling upward over rocky slopes dotted with scrubby firs and prickly gorse. The songsmith walked blindly, barely noticing her surroundings enough to pick her path. Alon’s last remark had disturbed her greatly. She had heard beneath the mockery a note of bitter pain; her words had hurt him more than he would ever reveal.

He is lonely, she thought, remembering how pleased he had been to have someone to talk with about Monso and Steel Talon. At the thought of the falcon, she glanced around, but saw no black speck outlined against the sky.

“Where is Steel Talon?” she asked, struggling not to gasp out the words. “I have not seen him since he and Monso made the thrice-circle.”

“When I awoke this morning, I saw him perched in a grove of these scrub firs,” Alon replied. “He seldom flies when it is wet, preferring to catch me up later. He will find us, never fear.”

Eydryth nodded, wishing that she had such a choice available to her. A trickle of chill water found its way down the back of her neck, through the soaked hood of her cloak, making her shiver.

Finally, about an hour before sunset, the rain slackened, then stopped, and the sun came out. Alon promptly halted in his tracks, beside one of the stunted scrub oaks. Pulling off his cloak, he hastily shook the water off a limb and spread the garment to dry.

The bard considered urging him to continue on, but her feet and her muscles hurt so from all the climbing that she said nothing, only sought out another tree to hang her cloak.

“Dare we build a fire?” she wondered aloud. “All the wood is so wet it will surely smoke.”

Alon shrugged. “The witch will know our whereabouts whether we have a fire or not. And I for one”—he pulled off his sodden leather jerkin—“would rather have the warmth.” He rubbed his jaw, then grimaced. “Not to mention hot water for shaving.”

Once the fire was kindled, reluctant and smoky even as Eydryth had predicted, the songsmith pulled off her own jerkin so her tunic could dry; then she drew her sword from its place of concealment. “Time for your first lesson,” she announced solemnly.

At the look of astonishment on Alon’s now smooth-skinned features, she smiled thinly, pointing with the tip of her blade to the one he wore. “Go on, draw it. Learning the basic stance and one or two moves will warm you up and loosen muscles stiff from walking in the rain.”

“But…” He hesitated, then shrugged and obeyed.

Eydryth surveyed his drawn weapon with a practiced eye. “A general-issue sword, but the Estcarpian smiths know their craft. Double-edged and pointed… you will learn to use either point or edge. First of all, hold it out in front of you… so.”

When he obeyed, she inspected his hand, touching the back of his wrist lightly, running her fingers up the length of his bared arm. “Good strength,” she said. “I am not surprised, seeing that you can rein in Monso. Now place your feet like this…” She moved into position, right foot ahead of left, crouching slightly. “Yes, that’s correct, now bend your knees a little, thus…”

Brow furrowed with concentration, he obeyed. “Good,” she said. “Shoulders a bit forward, right more than left, eyes front, good…” She faced him, her own blade out. “You must learn to let your body think for you, while keeping your mind calm and detached so it can plan your next move.

“Look not at any one area, but rather let your eyes take in the entire form of your opponent. Not only his blade, but also the movement of head, shoulders—the entire torso. Eventually you will learn to note the placing of his body without having to think about it, and then you can begin to anticipate an opponent’s moves from small shifts in his carriage, or from the way his eyes move. The eyes often reveal the next tactic even before the wrist or body knows what it will be.”

“What do I do with my left hand?” Alon asked, concentrating grimly on holding the sword in the correct position.

“For now, just hold it so,” she demonstrated. “It will help you balance. In time I will teach you to use your left hand, with a cloak wrapped around it, or with a dagger, to parry strokes.”

“Is that how you fight? With a sword and dagger?”

“That is my preferred style, yes,” she said. “Now put your blade back in its sheath.”

Her student looked rather relieved to have gotten off so easily. “Are we done?”

“Hardly. But I have no desire to have you cut me should I miss a parry. The scabbard will make a good protector.” When he’d obeyed, she said, “Good. Now… back into position.”

Alon did so, grunting a little. “My legs will be stiff from this.”

“No doubt,” she agreed. “Now let me demonstrate a basic lunge and a basic parry for you to practice tonight…”

Quickly she shifted her weight forward, her sword driving before her like a steel wind. The point halted just touching the fabric of the tunic covering Alon’s midsection. With a startled gasp, he leaped back, wide-eyed. “Have a little caution, I beg you!” he sputtered. “You… you could have spitted me!”

“Certainly,” Eydryth agreed calmly. “But I did not. Watch me again.” She demonstrated the lunge while he looked on. “You must learn to feel the force and direction of the blade as though it were a part of your body, controlling it precisely. Your blade moves first, propelled by your wrist and arm. Your body follows, and then, last of all, let yourself step forward. Now, you try it…”

His first attempt made her shake her head reprovingly. “Concentrate, Alon. The steel is an extra length of arm for you now, and you must treat it so. Again.”

Again.

And yet again.

Finally, on the young man’s dozenth try, his teacher nodded, satisfied. “Better! Now try to touch point to this.” She suspended Monso’s feed bag over a branch. “Aim for the center buckle.”

It took him nine attempts to touch blade to the target.

“Good! Much better!”

Alon’s tight-jawed concentration broke into a wide grin. “The next time we are accosted by soldiers, my lady, you will not stand alone!”

Eydryth smiled tolerantly at his enthusiasm. “Now for the first of the parries. Cross swords with me, so.”

Once in position, the songsmith made a small twisting motion with her wrist, and Alon’s hand was suddenly empty. He stared from it to his sword, lying on the ground, and sighed. “I see that I have much yet to learn.”

She nodded. “But you are doing well, for the first time. Now… again for the parry. This time, keep your wrist flexible, not stiff, so you can follow the motion of your blade and keep hold of it. Then it will be your turn to try…”

By the time the lesson was over, the light was fading rapidly, and Alon’s tunic was wet now with sweat, rather than rain. He hung it up to dry, then pulled on another shirt. “I will be back presently,” he told Eydryth and started back down their trail, out of sight.

The songsmith began making camp, shaking her head over the dampness that had invaded her bedroll, even through its tallow-soaked covering. Unfastening the saddlebag, she took out the meat jerky and her small cooking pot. Simmered in water with crumbled journeybread to thicken it, the jerky would make a hot, though tasteless, meal.

It was full dark by the time Alon returned. Eydryth had let the fire die down to coals, so she could make out his form only as a dark blot against the yellow stars that marked the camp-fires of their pursuers.

“They are closer,” she said, eyeing the distance between them measuringly as Alon sat down with a weary sigh. He murmured a quick thanks for the plate she offered him.

“If they can keep up their pace, by this time tomorrow they will be almost upon us,” the bard observed as she spooned up the last of her own meal. Hesitantly she bit her lip, then declared, “Tomorrow morning we had best go our separate ways, Alon.”

“No,” her companion said flatly. “They cannot possibly catch us tomorrow. The rocks will slow them, as today they slowed us.”

“If not tomorrow, then surely the day after. We must part, so that I can go on faster alone!”

He turned his head to regard her, but she could not read his features in the faint light of the campfire. “If they are closer tomorrow night,” he said evenly, “I will do as you say. Fair enough?”

“Yes,” Eydryth said, feeling her throat grow tight as a harpstring. “Alon… I… I am grateful to you, for trying to aid me. I… I wish you well.”

He made no reply.

They reached the first slope of the mountain pass by the next evening, but Eydryth took no joy in their accomplishment. On the morrow they would be fortunate to make half the distance they had covered today, and a detachment of guardsmen, with no horses to lead over the thin, stony soil, would have no trouble catching them.

Turning to scan the rocky hills over which they had so laboriously toiled, Eydryth frowned, puzzled. There was no sign of the witch and her troop. When she pointed this out to Alon, her companion suggested that perhaps their pursuers had lost the trail.

“But she can follow us by her witch-jewel,” Eydryth argued. “You said so yourself.”

“The use of the Power wears hardly upon the user,” he said. “She may have weakened, finally. Or, it may be that she could not force herself to travel this far east.”

The songsmith shook her head slowly, remembering the Estcarpian woman’s determined expression. “If she had to be tied upon her mount and led, she would not give up. It is more likely that they are camped tonight in one of the valleys instead of on top of a ridge where we could see them.”

“We have lost them,” Alon insisted. “I scanned our path frequently today, and there was no sign of them. I believe that tonight we may rest without fear.” He turned away from her, calling back over his shoulder, “I will be back presently.”

Steel Talon had brought them a rabbit earlier that day, so Eydryth busied herself skinning it and putting it into their cooking pot with several handfuls of vegetables and a few pinches of herbs. Then she took her sword out of the quarter-staff and practiced with it, lunging and parrying with an imaginary opponent. At last, sweating and panting, she halted, only to see last rays of the setting sun hang over the mountain peak towering above her, then vanish.

Still Alon did not return. He must be delaying deliberately, she thought with mounting irritation. It is grown too dark now for a lesson.

Scowling, she strode off down the slope, determined to give her errant pupil a lecture on the importance of daily practice if he wished to achieve any proficiency.

As she walked, however, she was struck by a sudden thought. What if he has been captured, and I am now marching into a trap?

The songsmith began moving with a scout’s caution, shifting her weight with care on the stony ground lest she send a pebble skittering, taking advantage of every boulder, every scrap of concealment her rugged surroundings had to offer.

It was thus that she came upon her companion as he knelt on the stony ground, chanting softly. In one hand he held a swatch of black horsehair, which he was sweeping over a distinct hoofprint in a patch of loamy soil. Straining her ears, Eydryth caught snatches of what he was chanting, and realized it was that arcane form of the Old Tongue.

As she watched, tight-lipped with angry realization, Alon fell silent. He rose to his feet, arms held high, and suddenly the hoofprint, a scrape on a rock caused by a horse’s metal shoe, and a mound of horse droppings all glowed violet—

—and vanished.

Mist rose out of the ground and began coiling down the hillside, snaking along their back trail. The songsmith knew instinctively that it would erase all traces of their passage as it flowed over the earth.

Alon stood for a moment more, arms raised; then he sighed audibly and his shoulders sagged. Magic does indeed wear hardly upon the user, Eydryth thought bitterly, her cheeks hot with fury and shame, remembering how she had confided in him about growing up in Kar Garudwyn. How could I have been such a fool as to not realize the truth?

Only a moment did the young man allow himself to rest; then he trudged back up the slope, obviously hurrying as fast as his tired legs would take him.

Eydryth let him draw even with her hiding place, then stepped out, barring his path. “I see now why you were so confident that the witch could no longer trail us,” she said, her voice pitched low despite her anger.

He halted and stood staring at her for a long moment, his face a pale oval in the last glow of twilight. Finally he said, “I am sorry. You are right to be angry.”

“By the Sword Arm of Karthen the Fair, I certainly am!” Eydryth hissed, so furious that she found she was trembling. “I trusted you, and all the while you were doubtless laughing at me up your sleeve! The great Adept—for you are no simple village Wise Man, or one who merely dabbles in arcane lore, that much even I can tell—the Adept, companying with the poor Powerless songsmith, using his magic to protect her—” She swallowed, the taste of anger like bile in her mouth. “Well, I can protect myself from now on! I don’t need you!”

“I know that,” he said, quietly.

His ready admission took her aback.

“You assumed without asking that I had no Power,” he reminded her. “I did not lie outright.”

“You allowed me to believe what was not true,” Eydryth flared. “That is the same thing!”

“You have the right of it,” he agreed, wearily. “But… Lady… by the time I realized what a mistake I had made, I was in too deep to extricate myself gracefully. I knew you would be angry, and I did not want to hurt you.” He hesitated, then continued, in a low voice. “And yesterday, when you began saying that we must part, I knew that if you were to learn the truth, then you would indeed go your separate way— and I did not want that to happen.”

As he spoke, Eydryth heard a note in his voice that broke through her ire. Her face flushed again, but not from anger, and she could feel her heart pounding, as though she had been sprinting. “I did not want you to risk falling into the witch’s hands again on my behalf,” she said awkwardly. “That would be poor repayment indeed for your aid.”

“And my lack of truthfulness was poor exchange for your candor,” he said. He stepped closer to her in the darkness. “I can only say that I am sorry. I was wrong, but the thought of never seeing you again was…” He hesitated. “… not something I wished to contemplate.”

Eydryth backed away in confusion, half of her struggling to find words to answer him, half not wanting to hear any more.

“Shall I go, then?” he asked, with an undercurrent of sadness in his calm tones. “Must we indeed part?”

Mastering her conflicting emotions, Eydryth managed to say, levelly enough, “If you are certain that the witch has been foiled in her hopes of finding us, then I see no reason why we cannot continue on to the Valley of the Green Silences.”

Silently he nodded, and they walked together back to the place where they had made camp.

The smell of stew tantalized the travelers when they reached the place where Monso waited, cropping determinedly at the scrubby clumps of grass nestled between the rocks. Alon fed the Keplian, then they sat down to their own meal.

When they finished, Eydryth gazed at her companion across their campfire and said, quietly, “You know my story, Alon. I feel I have the right now to know yours. How came you to be in Rylon Corners, racing Monso? A man with your abilities…”

She saw lines appear around his mouth as he grimaced, then he said bitterly, “It is true, most Adepts spend their days in other pursuits than cheating at horse racing. But believe me when I tell you that until I encountered you, and we were captured, I had not used magic in more than a year.”

“So you put the guards and the witch to sleep?”

“I directed my Power through the beasts, yes.”

“I should have guessed,” Eydryth said, then in a burst of honesty admitted, “Perhaps I did guess—but I did not want to let myself see what lay plainly before my eyes. Duratan and Nolar… they knew, didn’t they?”

“I believe so.”

The songsmith stirred the dying fire with a branch until it blazed up, then tossed the stick into the glowing red heart of the coals. “From living in Kar Garudwyn, I know that it is no small thing to ignore one’s Power. The Gift will out, no matter what. Why had you given up using your magic?”

“Because I killed my best friend with it,” Alon replied.

She stared at him, shocked. Silence held between them for a little while; then Alon sighed and said, “It is a long story. I know not who I truly am, or what my parentage is. I was fostered by a Lord Parian, for he believed me to be the son of a slain kinsman of his. Whether that story was the truth, I know not.”

He paused, and Eydryth asked, “Why do you doubt that tale?”

“Because Yachne told Lord Parian that I was born to his kinsman, but there was no other evidence to support that tale. And Yachne…” He hesitated. “I never trusted her, though she cared for me and raised me for my first dozen years.”

“Who was this Yachne?”

“A Wise Woman, of that I am sure. She appeared at Lord Parian’s keep with me as a babe in arms, telling him the story of who I was and how I had been born. She claimed to have been my lady mother’s servant.”

“And she had the Power?”

“Yes. In many ways, I believe, she lessoned me subtly in its use from the time I could walk and talk. But I do not believe that she ever had any warmth or liking for me—only for what she thought I might be able to do for her.”

Eydryth thought of what a barren existence he had evidently led—without true kin, or caring—and felt her heart tighten within her. “Perhaps,” she ventured awkwardly, “this… Yachne… felt true affection for you, but had difficulty showing it. That is often the case with certain people.”

Alon shook his head decisively. “Even by the time I was a lad of twelve, I knew better. She never acted like a mother, or an aunt, or even a fond teacher. She taught me as though she had a use for me, and I feared the day I would be put to that use.” He stared bleakly at her across the yellow flames. “I learned from her, but I did not love her—though she never abused me or treated me with anything but a rather aloof kindness. She took very good care of me, but always I feared her more than a little.”

“Did you worry that she meant you harm?”

“No…” He hesitated. “But I never wanted to be a dagger for her honing.” Alon smiled wryly, but there was pain in his eyes. “However, I know with certainty that that is what I was to Yachne. That is all I was to her.”

“So what set you free of the Wise Woman and Lord Parian?”

“There was a raid by one who was in league with a powerful Dark One. Everyone in Lord Parian’s keep was killed, save for me. I managed to conceal myself from the raiders.”

“By sorcerous means,” Eydryth guessed, and was not surprised when he nodded assent. “Everyone was killed?” she continued. “Yachne too?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I never saw her body, but I have no reason to believe she was spared. If she had still lived, it seemed to me, she would have come to my rescue. I was valuable to her, after all,” he finished, with a bitter grimace.

“And then?” Eydryth prompted, when he fell silent once more. “What did you do then?”

“I made my way to Escore, and, as I told you, I was fostered there by Hilarion and Kaththea. But several years after I came to live with them, they had a child of their own… then, two years later, another.

“By that time I was near-grown, and Hilarion had taught me much of what he knew. They would have had me stay, but I was restless to see the land where I had been born—if Karsten was indeed that place, since I have no way of knowing. And I felt that my foster-parents should be able to raise their children without distraction. So I set off with Monso.”

Resting his elbows on his knees, he leaned his chin in his hands, staring intently into the dwindling fire, as though he saw events from the past pictured there. “Once on the other side of the mountains, I encountered Jonthal, Steel Talon’s master. I’d had a Falconer friend, Nirel, when I was a child, so I spoke to him, where I was cautious in speaking to other men. We became friends, and soon we were leading parties over the mountains from Karsten and Estcarp into Escore. Jonthal handled the business, and I rode with the travelers to protect them from the dangers that had been unleashed following the Turning… the Thas and the Grey Ones, mostly.”

“I can see how a party could travel safely under your protection,” Eydryth agreed. “No wonder you never needed to learn swordplay!”

“You have convinced me otherwise,” he said. “Now that we have no further fear of Estcarpian pursuit, I will practice daily.”

“Good,” she said. “But pray continue your account.”

“Jonthal always warned me that I was overconfident,” Alon resumed his story with a tired sigh. “But I laughed at his fears. One night in Kars, we were dining in a tap-house, when a boy delivered a message, saying that a prospective client wished to see us. Jonthal did not wish to go, as the summons had come from a part of Kars City where even the City Guards did not venture, save in force, but I insisted. We needed the money, and what was there to fear, I said? My Power would protect us.”

He laughed softly, bitterly, with such pain in the sound that Eydryth’s heart ached to hear him. “And it did not?” she prompted, when he sat in silence, head bowed.

“You have the right of it. We walked into an alley, peering at the doorways for the third one on the right, and they were upon us before we knew what had happened. Something kept me from sensing them, though my magic should have warned me. Hired toughs, four of them, armed with swords. Jonthal drew and engaged one, and I forced sleep upon the minds of two others. The fourth took to his heels. When I turned back to my friend, it was in time to see the cutthroat’s blade driving straight for his throat.

“With every bit of Will I possessed, I lashed out—and the Power went awry. I…” For the first time his voice faltered. “I will never know the reason why, but I must have made… a mistake. The force I unleashed struck Jonthal, while the assassin stood unscathed. My friend was dead before he struck the stinking cobbles of that thrice-cursed alley.” Alon stared fixedly at his hands. “I killed him.”

“You were trying to save him,” Eydryth pointed out. “If you had not struck, he would have died by the assassin’s steel.”

“Perhaps… or perhaps he might have parried it at the last moment. He was a good swordsman.”

“You did not harm him intentionally,” she continued earnestly. “It is not unknown in battle for a man to be slain accidentally by a comrade’s sword-thrust. Mistakes happen. What occurred was not your fault, and you should forgive yourself for it.” She sighed. “Guilt is a very crippling burden.”

He stared at her intently in the waning firelight. “You above all others should know, Lady. You are still blaming yourself for something that was in no way your fault.” Alon considered silently for a moment. “I will make a bargain with you, Eydryth.”

“What kind of bargain?” the songsmith asked warily.

“I will endeavor to forgive myself, if you will do likewise. You are not to blame for your mother’s disappearance, your father’s mind-clouding. You are, if anything, far less culpable than I.”

She bit her lip; then, slowly, she nodded. “Very well. I will try not to hold myself responsible, if you will do likewise.”

“Done,” he said, and held out his hand to seal their pact.

Eydryth reached out across the coals of the campfire, feeling the heat of them on her skin, to grasp his fingers tightly.

Since the travelers were no longer troubled by worries of pursuit, they climbed at a much more leisurely pace the next day. The snowcapped peaks towered above them, but the pass toward which they toiled was no more than a half-day’s journey away. As they climbed higher, frost rimed the rocks underfoot, and the last of the underbrush was left behind. Now only grey-green lichens grew. Monso could find no forage at all.

Gasping from the thin air, Alon and Eydryth halted long before sunset to camp when they found a nearly level ledge that Alon reported as the only campsite this side of the pass. After they had rested and eaten, Alon insisted on taking on his sword and practicing a few lunges and parries. Huddled into her cloak, Eydryth watched, now and then correcting his stance or movements. But the young Adept was making praiseworthy progress, and she told him so.

Finally Alon halted, sweating despite the chill air, and sank down onto his bedroll, gasping. “Enough for tonight, teacher?”

“Indeed yes,” she said. “Tomorrow—if either of us has the strength after making the final pull through the pass—I will demonstrate another kind of parry for you to practice.”

“When will I be ready to match blades with a live opponent as opposed to a brave feed sack?”

She smiled. “At your current rate of progress? Oh… perhaps another month.”

His face fell, and she hastily amended, “But you are learning faster than most, Alon! You must cultivate patience, if you hope to succeed.”

He scowled. “Patience has never been one of my virtues.” With a sigh, he reached for a piece of journeybread. Since there was no wood to be had above the treeline, they were making a cold supper.

Later, as they sat together companionably, watching the shadows of evening close in around them, he suddenly asked, “What song is that? It has a lovely tune.”

Eydryth started, not realizing she had been humming aloud. “I don’t know,” she said, feeling foolish. “What did it sound like?”

Alon produced a few off-key snatches of melody. Hearing him, the songsmith felt herself coloring and was grateful for the encroaching darkness. The words that accompanied the tune came unbidden to her mind:

“It is an old song from High Hallack,” she said, reluctantly.

“Hearing you hum it just now reminded me that I haven’t heard you sing since that day at the fairground when you serenaded Monso. Your voice is so fair… can you sing it for me?”

Eydryth shook her head. “I have forgotten the words,” she lied, crossing her fingers behind her back in a gesture suddenly recalled from childhood.

“That’s a pity. Please… hum it again, so I can remember the melody.”

Eydryth complied, grateful that he could not see her blush. You have no time for entanglements! she reminded herself fiercely.

That night, they bedded down side by side, sharing their blankets, as was customary between companions on the trail when camping fireless in cold weather. Alon slung his cloak over Monso’s back, then commanded the stallion to fold his legs beneath him so they could huddle together in the windbreak created by the Keplian’s body. Tired from the day’s journey, both travelers fell asleep quickly.

Eydryth awakened late that night to find the waning moon shining on her face and Alon snuggled close against her beneath their blankets. In his sleep he had flung an arm across her waist. The warmth of his breath stirred the curls at the back of her neck.

The young woman bit her lip, wondering how to extricate herself gracefully before he could awaken. She was acutely conscious of his body pressed against hers, his hand so close to her breast, even beneath the bulky layers of her clothing. Each breath he drew seemed to echo inside her own body.

As she hesitated, strangely reluctant to move, a glimmer of light caught her eye from a nearby mountain slope. Eydryth squinted, certain that she had been mistaken, but as the quarter-moon emerged from behind a bank of racing clouds, it was there again, shining brightly. The light beckoned to the bard, beckoned with a pure white light in the darkness.

What is it? she wondered, feeling it tug at her with an almost physical pull. She seemed to hear a strange music, high-pitched, uncanny—nothing that could be produced by any instrument or throat that she knew.

Wriggling gently out of Alon’s hold, she sat up, her teeth chattering in the cold as the chill struck her like a blow. The Adept mumbled something inarticulate as his fingers quested blindly, seeking after her vanished warmth.

The glow softened, waned, then went out as another cloud covered the moon. The songsmith stared, hardly daring to blink lest she lose the spot where it had been. Long heartbeats later, as the rag of cloud gusted past, it was there once more, shining… beckoning.

The songsmith heard a soft snort, then turned to see Monso’s head, an inky shadow against the light-colored rocks. The creature’s ears were pricked up. The glow of the unknown beacon reflected eerily in the Keplian’s eyes.

Hearing that high, eldritch music again, Eydryth turned to her companion and shook his arm impatiently. “Alon! Rouse you! Waken, please!”

He came to alertness quickly, as any wayfarer must learn to do if he is to survive long on the trail. “What is it?” he demanded, sitting up, then cursing softly in the cold and pulling the blankets up around his shoulders.

“I know not,” the bard said, pointing at the light and trying to repress her shivering. “Could it be some trap set by the witch?”

Alon handed over her cloak. “No… I would sense that one’s presence. This is… greater. Much greater. Not living, but still… it is of the Power.”

“What kind of Power? Surely not the Dark!” Eydryth protested. The light was so clean, so bright!

“I cannot be sure,” Alon said. “I can sense little about it. But if it is activated by the moon, then it must be of the Light. And… it is drawing me… it has the power to… to summon.”

“I know,” she said. “It has been calling to me, also. Alon, this is important, I know it is! We must go there—quickly, before the moon sets!”