Everran's Bane (25 page)

Beryx deliberately shut his eyes. Fengthira broke into a chuckle and caught her breath. “Rest easy. Wilt not hit me again.”

Distrustfully, he opened his eyes. She flicked the pebble without moving her hand, in a green flash he hurled it back, but this time it rebounded even more fiercely and too swiftly for him to stop. “Ha,” said Fengthira as it thudded into his ribs. “Mayst save tha lamentations for thaself.”

he said when he opened his eyes.

Fengthira smiled briefly. “Untie him, harper. Everran, look here.”

As I slipped the last knot he stepped away from the post, rubbing at his right wrist, then at each successive bruise. “Hast learnt axynbr'arve,” said Fengthira. “Pick up tha mess.”

He eyed her a moment, before he turned. His eyes flashed. One by one each missile flew back to the table, and he looked round to Fengthira with a small triumphant smile.

“That,” she said, “was worth a bruise or two.” She scanned him. “If my lydel thought tha stank, had best alter it. The pair of you. Hot water. And shave. Lookst like a hedgehog with green eyes. Then sit out there and let harper play with the aivrifel. No, canst not go on now. Wilt be little use to Everran if I kill thee in the breaking yard.”

She vanished, leaving us to boil the kettle and shave in the spring's mirror and then strip down. As we scrubbed, Beryx said apologetically,

I was shocked at his loss of flesh: every rib showed, even the big spinal muscles had wasted to reveal the vertebrae, and his shoulders were pure bone. With the beard off his face looked worse, gaunt and drawn, a mere frame for the intensely, abnormally vivid green eyes. They were no longer just striking. They were compelling, fascinating, the very irises seemed awake, they had that constant weave and dance of light in a green flowing stream...

Somebody jerked my arm. Beryx's face snapped from the green, looking almost appalled. “Stop what?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. he answered curtly, and turned away.

I watched his averted profile: clean mouth, springing nose, jaw made more emphatic by the loss of flesh, the long-lashed eye. Only, I thought with a sense of loss, it was no longer safe to look at that. It was a wizard's now.

Before I had felt out two chords on the aivrifel he was asleep, and he slept like the dead the whole afternoon. Fengthira came once, looked, nodded, and went away. Overhead the clouds passed, heavy woolpacks that dappled Eskan Helken with shadows slow and dream-like as the shapes in Fengthira's inner world.

I began to make a song for it: all minors, which the aivrifel favored, dwindling cadenzas, single mysterious chords, till the very structure grew tenuous and I had to pull it together with one of those gifts that come when you are seeking something else. A gem in its own way, an elfin, haunting motif like the shadow of remembered joy. I looked up to see Fengthira with its echo in her eyes.

“Ah,” she said. “Hast understood what it will mean.” And cut off my questions by prodding Beryx. “Wake up, Everran. Sleepst like a hedgehog, too.”

* * * * *

The next two days were largely a reprise. They played Thor'stang, wrestled mentally, robbed Fengthira's hive with Beryx keeping off the bees, threw pebbles and failed to hit each other, all to my boredom and their great delight. The third morning we came in to find the fire out cold and Fengthira sitting with folded hands by the hearth.

“Wryviane,” she told Beryx. “Must light it if tha'd eat. Go on. T'will be easy enough.”

I brought twigs and shredded grass and bigger sticks. Beryx stood before the hearth as a fighter does, four-square, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet. He drew a breath that seemed to go forever. Then without any warning his eyes lashed and a jet of flame went roaring up the wall. “Whoa!” shouted Fengthira. “I said light the fire, not burn down the house!”

They did not work that day. It was humid, enervating, the clouds had thickened, and by noon there was a darkening boil in the north that presaged a storm. We watched it from the verandah. Or at least, I watched it, for Beryx was looking at Fengthira instead.

She turned to answer his thought as she had so often answered mine. “Yxphare,” she said, “comes from my line. Scarthe's my own gift. But tha'rt Heagian. Flame-tree. So fire-work comes easy to thee. Tha springst from Th'Iahn, who was one of the greatest aedryx ever made. Not born: he came late to it, like thee. One day, mayst use Phathire for the tale. Berrian was eighth generation, across the blanket to a Slief Manuighend concubine. Slief Manuighend is what tha callst Heshruan Slief. T'was all Heagian country once. Berfylghja and Tirien were their offshoots, as Tyrwash was from Hazghend. No, not the Hazghend tha knowst. Thine are corsairs, no more. Hazghend was the line of Vorn. In tha Tirs was its tower. Stiriand and Histhira were in Holym. And Havos was in Bryve Elond.”

She glanced away to the storm. “The first Fengthira brought them Maerheage blood. She was got by Maerdrigg's eldest son, that was killed by his brother Vorn. There's Maerheage in tha line too, but that's another tale. They were all cross-bred, the old Tingrith, just like Quarreders. And yes, I am the last of my line. I came here after the Sorcerer hunts.”

“Ah,” she smiled with irony as we both sat up with a jerk. “Six of tha generations past. Pure aedryx are like dragons: they live long, unless th'are killed.”

No wonder, I thought, that she had “thee'd” us both like boys. But she was measuring the storm as Ragnor had the sea, a known, conquerable element.

“I'll teach thee Wryvurx,” she said. “May come in useful. That will miss us, but t'is coming this way.”

They climbed Eskan Helken's north wall, and for a long time I watched them, two tiny tense figures in wildly blown robes against the crescendoing storm. It seemed impossible they could master such a tumult of the skies. But slowly, slower than the cloud-shadows' motion, I saw a change in the heavy bruise-black of the storm wall, that makes Gebrians spit because the rain is going past: an arch appeared in it. Then it became a black mountain piled above a white-mouthed cave, as the rain front pivoted head-on to us, and that white slowly climbed to fill the sky, while the horizon shortened under its feet. When thunder and lightning were simultaneous and the first drops blew through that gusty, eerie light, they came down, Beryx wet enough to have stayed there, Fengthira quietly satisfied.

It was a splendid storm. The towers poured such cascades it doused the fire, the thunder drove the lydel under Fengthira's arm, and we all had to hide in the rock chamber till it passed. “T'will feed the spring,” said Fengthira, “a full three moons.” She eyed the sopping house. “Find some kindling, Everran, and light the fire while I see to this.”

She gave me no orders, but thinking of the garden I took a wooden spade out to the irrigation channels, which were in predictable choked or broken ruin. While I worked, the storm bellowed off southward and the light cleared to that still sweet aftermath of dry-land rain, leaving a tender cerulean blue sky to the north, and overhead, a sunset spectacle to rival Hethria's. The entire side of Eskan Helken turned the color of golden wine, which pools and wet leaves shot with scintillance, all framed in deep, burnt-gold rock, and overhung first in lurid scarlet, then by a purple gloaming shot with lights of silver and royal crimson. As splendid but less transient than the meteors in Maerdrigg's maerian.

As the image came to mind I straightened up, content with my labors, and turned: and Maerdrigg was at my back.

I do not think I thought. There was no time. One flash of recognition, one paralyzed reflex to cry aloud, and I had been sucked into the depths of that milky, gold-shot fire.

A voice was speaking overhead: clear, ringing as a trumpet's does, as did Beryx's spoken voice, but not his mental one. “Helve,” it was saying, with soft, impersonal, dispassionate power. “Helve, Maerdrigg. Imsar math.” It did not pronounce the words with Fengthira's impulsion, but gravely, almost sadly, like the unanswerable decree of a Sky-lord himself.

I opened my eyes. Beryx stood over me, looking across me to something else. I knew what it was. I kept my eyes on him until his stance eased imperceptibly, and I knew Maerdrigg was gone.

As I got up his eyes shot wide in relief. “Thank the Four! You're all right! I thought—”

Then we both gasped. I said stupidly, “You said it aloud.”

He did not answer, but looked past me, and I saw Fengthira standing among the sodden corn.

“Ah,” she said. This time the quiet in her voice was a farewell. “Hast broken the Command. And I laid it on thee in Phare. T'would have held against all but this.” She came slowly forward. “I thought t'was safe for him alone. Then I heard him cry. But tha wast quicker. Wilt often be quicker, now.”

Beryx did not speak. She nodded at him.

“Hast the strength. Knowst the arts—all save a couple tha'lt find at need, and some that are no use now. Hast missed the aedric snare. Art a good lad, Everran. Th'art strong, and I pushed thee to tha limits, and tha never showed an ounce of vice. If tha kicks, tha dost not strike or bite.” A curious compassion showed in her eyes. “Everran will be lucky in thee. No, no Yxphare. Tha'lt manage for thaself.”

Beryx moved his left hand quickly, opened his mouth. She shook her head and walked away.

* * * * *

When we came down the cleft for the last time, she glanced up at the sword on its ledge, then at Beryx, and shook her head. “Ah. Wilt not need that again. Art thine own weapon now.”

She rode with us to the valley's end, and as we reined in she turned to Beryx, saying, “I little thought to use this again, but...” She held out her left hand.

Hesitantly, his came to meet it, and she turned it so her thumb pressed the vein inside his wrist. “T'is the aedric way.”

Beryx drew a breath. “There's nothing you'd take,” he said, “if I had it to give. But I told you once, you'd find a welcome in Everran. This time, it's true.”

Fengthira laughed at him with one of those quicksilver transformations into gaiety. “Guard tha harper well,” she said, “if tha'lt make truth of that. Luck!” She waved. Then the gray mare came round on her hocks and cantered away, the rider not looking back.

Leaving Eskan Helken, we struck south-west in as direct a line for southern Everran as is possible in Hethria. When Beryx turned that way I had gulped, which earned me one quietly ironic look. “Don't worry, Harran,” he said. “I know where I'm going.”

Hethria was in full bloom, fields of unknown, exotic flowers. Water often lay on bare claypans, and beasts ran from our very feet. We were so short of food that in a day or two we had to hunt. Beryx said, “I don't like this, but... So we'll make it a gambler's shot.” He summoned a wyresparyx in bowshot, then let it go, and I managed, with some help I think, to put an arrow in its skull. The skinning was gruesome, but the flesh tasted a little like fish.

Our next camp was a permanent water which we shared with huge flocks of gweldryx, jewels of lime-green and gold, crimson and azure, gold and azure, or emerald, crimson and gold together, their only blemish an unfailingly raucous voice. As I yearned for a closer look, one splendid crimson and cobalt-winged specimen swooped across the water to my very feet. A lime and scarlet followed, an emerald and azure stipple-winged, a violet-cheeked... they stood in a row, lifting their wings, turning their heads from side to side. Then they exploded into a cloud of wings, a shattered rainbow in flight.

Restored to myself at last, I turned to find Beryx with amusement in his look. “Yes,” he said. “The only trouble with birds is that they see one eye at a time.” He crossed his eyes and moved one each way so comically that my dawning comprehension turned from fear to mirth.

After that a bird or beast which took my interest would often come closer, even put itself on display. I did not think, or rather, I hid from thinking, what the prelude to these kindnesses would have to be.

In Eskan Helken, Everran had seemed a mere premise, like zero in figures, accepted by the mind, not physically real. But as those red towers sank in thought as they had on the horizon, Everran rose in their place. I wondered what the dragon had done. I counted the months: three now since we left. It would be winter, we should have to find warm clothes if we were going, as it seemed, into the hills of the south.

Tirs made me think of Sellithar. I had forgotten Fengthira ever gave me a command, I had even forgotten why. I saw our farewell in Maer Selloth, when she kissed me with stoic composure and said, “Take care of yourself.” And then I found myself thinking of Sellithar when she shared my bed, as a man thinks of a lover and not his love, with a hot pang of longing imaging her body, her limbs, her breasts—

I glanced up across the fire to find Beryx watching me and did not have to wonder what had lightened and crystallized those green eyes, I knew my thoughts had been shared.

Could I have run into the sand like water, I would have run. Horrified, shamed to my soul, terrified, I tore away my eyes.

There was a dreadful pause. Then Beryx said in a rush with a shame that seared deeper than my own, “I'm sorry, Harran, I didn't mean to do that... It was—when someone thinks with, with—loudly—you can listen before you know, and I—” he turned away.