Age of Myth (19 page)

Moya, Roan, Brin, and Padera looked at one another.

“Come again?” Moya said.

Persephone nodded toward the mystic, who sat cross-legged on the floor between a stack of flat stones and a battered basket stuffed with dusty pinecones. With Minna's head on her lap, Suri appeared oblivious to everything around her, playing intently with her string again, a spider-like pattern forming between her fingers.

“Suri came to me a while ago saying she saw signs of a terrible catastrophe, something worse than any famine. I didn't think much of it at the time.”

“But then the Fhrey burned Dureya and Nadak,” Moya said.

Persephone nodded. “Suri told me the old tree could help. Would answer questions and is the oldest tree in the forest. And she
is,
too, huge and ancient.”

“How's Magda doing, anyway?” Padera asked. The old woman was fanning the fire beneath the water sack.

“You know about the oak?” Persephone asked.

The old woman nodded. “Melvin and I, we first…um. We were
married
under her leaves. Beautiful spring day. Songbirds filled her branches and sang to us. A good sign.”

“Probably a sapling back then, eh, Padera?” Moya grinned.

“Hard to tell,” the old woman replied. “Sun hadn't been born yet.”

They all laughed, except for Roan, who paused in her plucking to study the old woman with new interest.

Raithe and Malcolm returned, carrying an array of gourd jugs hanging from a pole.

“Into the large skin over there.” Padera pointed.

“So you actually spoke to this tree?” Moya asked.

“I asked questions,” Persephone clarified. “Suri told me what the oak said.”

Roan, who was making a little pile of wet feathers at her feet, stopped plucking. She stared at Suri. “You understand the language of trees?”

Suri nodded without looking up from the web between her fingers, tongue sticking out as she worked the string thoughtfully.

“And what
did
it say?” Moya asked.

“A bunch of gibberish, really,” Persephone replied.

“Not gibberish.” Suri spoke for the first time. “You asked Magda for answers; she gave them. Problem solved.”

“But none of it made any sense,” Persephone said.

Suri shrugged. “Not Magda's fault you can't understand. She kept it simple for you. And she was right, but she always is.”

“She was right?” Persephone asked, confused.

Suri nodded.

“What
exactly
did she say?” Padera asked.

Persephone shrugged. “Something about…” She looked at the mystic. “Suri, do you remember?”

“Welcome the gods. Heal the injured. Follow the wolf,”
Suri recited without looking up. “Can't get much simpler than that.”

Persephone spilled some of her tea. “That's right! For the love of Mari!
Welcome the gods!
”

Everyone looked toward the roundhouse's open doorway, where the evening sun cast a patch of light across Roan's floor mat. For Persephone, the light looked a little more golden, a little more magical than it had a moment before.

“I just got a chill,” Moya said.

Padera looked at her. “More clothes might help. Oh, wait, I forgot who I was talking to. How about we try this instead. Less jawing and more work will warm you up. Get off that swing and cut up a bowl full of potatoes and set them in the sack to boil.” Then the old woman turned to Suri. “You staying for the meal?”

“I invited her,” Persephone said.

“That's fine, but it's gonna take a while,” Padera explained. “Any chance you could help Persephone discover why Sackett, Adler, and Hegner tried to kill her yesterday?”

Persephone looked at Suri. “Can you do that?”

“I'd need bones,” the mystic said.

“Got a dead chicken right here.” Padera pointed at the bird Roan held. “Or do you need to kill it in some ritual?”

“Bird die today?”

“Wrung its neck an hour ago.”

“Should be fine.” The mystic pulled a loop around with two fingers and grinned to herself.

Raithe finished dumping the water, set the gourds down near the door, then turned and surveyed the interior, looking for a place to sit. “You're certain it's all right, us staying here tonight?” Raithe asked. “Might be a bit cramped.”

“We'll make room,” Persephone said, then put a hand to her forehead. “Oh, I'm sorry, Roan.”

Roan, who was still only halfway done with the chicken, paused. “What for?”

“For being rude. This is your place, not mine. I shouldn't have spoken on your behalf.”

Roan tilted her head, then looked to Moya.

“Forget it, Seph,” Moya said, shaking her head with a sympathetic frown. “I'm still trying to convince her it's okay to sleep in the bed. Every night she curls up on the floor mat.”

“The floor mat?” Persephone looked over at a thin sheet of reeds that, being daytime, was rolled up and out of the way. “Why?”

Moya looked to Roan.

Roan rolled her shoulders. “It's Iver's bed.”

“Iver's dead,” Persephone said. “You understand that, right? It's your bed now.”

Roan offered only an embarrassed grimace.

“See?” Moya sighed in resignation.

Roan let the half-plucked chicken droop so that the bird's neck brushed the ground. “I've always slept on the floor.”

“But you own this place now…everything, including the bed, is yours,” Persephone said. “You could at least sleep in one of these hanging chairs. These are very comfortable, by the way.”

Roan stared at her, breathing faster, her eyes tense, her hands wringing the chicken's legs.

“Relax,” Padera told her. “Calm down and give me that bird before you ruin it.” Padera took the chicken back from Roan. The old woman finished plucking the second half of the bird in a pair of minutes. Once stripped, she chopped off both feet and pulled the crop and gizzard out of its severed neck.

“Roan,” the old woman said. “Go to my house and bring back a bag to collect these feathers. You can save them and make a nice pillow. You'll find a couple in the back next to dear old Melvin's clothes box.”

Roan nodded once more with fierce conviction, the welling panic forgotten in light of the new task. She headed for the door but halted abruptly before stepping out. “Whoa!”

They all looked over and saw that Roan had nearly run into the giant who had arrived with the Fhrey. He was standing in front of the roundhouse, blocking the entrance as he bent down and peered in.

Persephone scrambled to her feet, and Raithe moved to her side. The giant didn't say a word. Didn't look at the rest of them. His eyes were fixed on Padera, who worked at removing the chicken's viscera.

The old woman peered up through her left eye, a hefty scowl on her collapsed mouth. “You're blocking my light.”

The giant glanced down at his shadow and shuffled over a step.

“It's easier for you.” The giant's voice surprised Persephone. She expected a loud booming roar, but his words were soft. “Your hands are small. There aren't birds big enough for me to clean that way.”

Again Padera looked up, this time focusing on the giant's hands. “You need a hook.” She glanced toward Roan. “My Melvin's hands were too big for delicate work, too. Roan can make one that even your paws could manage. Can't you, Roan?”

Roan, who'd been looking at the giant with as much wonder as the rest, narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow. She wound a lock of hair, put the strands in her mouth, and chewed. Then she shocked everyone by walking up to the towering brute and grabbing hold of his right hand. Tilting it up to catch the sunlight coming in through the door, she studied it and placed her own hand against his palm. The difference was striking; Roan's looked like a doll's. The giant said nothing. Roan muttered to herself, nodded, and then scurried to the back of her house, where Iver's workbench was buried beneath a pile of assorted sediment.

The giant watched her for a second and then turned his attention back to Padera and the chicken. “Stuffing?” he asked, struggling to see.

Padera nodded and raised the chicken up in the air. “Filling her with bread and thyme.”

“Garlic?”

“Of course.”

“Butter?”

Padera scowled.

“Okay, stupid question. I don't always have access to any. What about pepper?”

Padera did her one-eyed glare, this time sucking in both her lips. “Do I look like a Dherg queen to you? Do you think Drome bestows great riches upon me? And before you ask, I won't be adding saffron, gold, or emeralds, either.”

The giant lifted his shirt. Beneath was a line of pouches on a long string. He opened one, pinched some of the contents, and held out his hand.

Padera waddled forward, and the giant sprinkled a dash into her palm. One brow went way up.

The giant grinned.

“What's your name?” Padera asked.

“Grygor.”

“Grygor, would you care to stay for supper?” Padera asked. Looking back, she added, “I think we're going to need more chickens.”

The wall of Dahl Rhen was twenty feet thick, framed with wood, and filled with dirt. Grass grew on the top, but the constant traffic from men patrolling the wall had created a worn path that circled the entire dahl. After the evening meal, Raithe had walked the course from one side of the gate to the other, watching the sunset. The height gave him a nice view of the surrounding landscape. The expanse of the forest loomed to the west as a black outline with jagged edges. The eastern side of the dahl was gentle rolling hills of green. Even in the fading light, he could see the north–south road cutting through the fields.

Raithe walked with his leigh mor tied over one shoulder. The evening wasn't cold. Spring had let go of winter's hand and was reaching out toward summer. The transition was most evident in the sounds of crickets and the oscillating din of tree frogs, which was even louder on the forest side.

Traveling will be easier now.

Hearing the ladder's creak, Raithe turned and was surprised to see Persephone climbing up. Trotting over, he extended his hand to help her up. The act was instinctive, but after feeling her fingers, the intimacy of the moment struck him. Hands could be such expressive things; hers were incredibly warm.

“Malcolm said you were up here. He thought I should let you know I was heading over to speak to Konniger,” Persephone said as she reached the top. “But honestly, I don't think there will be any trouble.”

Persephone faced him with hands folded, still wearing her black mourning dress. Her head tilted down as her eyes looked up; that tilt made up his mind.

“Nice up here on a night like this,” she said. “I've walked this circle hundreds of times.”

“Not many places where you can see so far.”

“You haven't been to the top of the tower in Alon Rhist then, have you?”

He shook his head.

“But you've seen it, right? The tower?”

He nodded. “Dahl Dureya is near Grandford. The tower is hard to miss, but it's not like the Fhrey give tours.”

She looked north as if trying to see the great spire. “Did you have family in Dureya?”

“No,” he said, “not anymore. I used to have three brothers and a sister. Heim and Hegel died together in the High Spear Valley, fighting the Gula-Rhunes. They're buried there in a mass grave.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Don't be. I didn't like my brothers. Not even Didan, who was the nicest and closest to me in age. Even he was a bastard. Stabbed me in the hand once because I was playing with his new dagger. Held me down and put the point right into my palm and said, ‘So you want to know what the blade feels like, do you?' ”

She grimaced as if Didan's stab had just occurred. “How old were you?”

“Six,” he told her. “So yeah, I had some pretty awful brothers, but my sister and mum were terrific. Luckily for us, my father and brothers weren't around much. When they were gone, we'd stay up late, singing songs and telling stories. Kaylin, she was my sister, had an incredible imagination. Almost every tale had a ghost or dragon and a hero who rescued a beautiful girl. We'd be in the house around the fire with the winter gales shaking the walls, listening to her go on. She helped us forget how low we were on dung bricks and how cold the night would be. Kaylin could do that sort of thing with her stories, take you someplace else, someplace warm, someplace wonderful. Best times we had were when everyone else was off to war and it was just the three of us.”

Raithe stopped talking and gritted his teeth, feeling his throat tighten. He squeezed his left hand, the one Didan had stabbed.

“We tell stories here, too, but most aren't so pleasant. The heroes are usually lost in the forest and either eaten or sucked away into the spirit world forever. We tell them to keep children out of the forest, but it makes winter nights bleak. I think I would have liked your sister's stories better.” Persephone brushed back her hair and looked out at the fading light. “Malcolm says the two of you are leaving in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Raithe replied. “At least
I'm
going. Can't speak for Malcolm.”

“Why are you leaving?”

Raithe looked to the north again. “I don't think it's safe having the God Killer here, well, in any village, really. Best if I find a little out-of-the-way place of my own.”

“But I was hoping you'd—”

“Yeah, I remember what you were hoping, but I'm not keenig material.”

“You're a great warrior, and you have tremendous courage.”

“No. I'm just a stubborn Dureyan, which I guess is another way of saying
stupid.
You don't want a stupid keenig.”

“I don't think you're stupid. You're brave, kind, and decent.”