Lark Rising (Guardians of Tarnec) (7 page)

I MET NO one; I walked freely on the path, and quickly. When the sun had left the sky, I’d reached the far pastures, a good advance in my journey. With that as reward for what I considered a brave beginning, I scouted farther on for a place to sleep, choosing, at length, a wide, flat boulder that bordered the path. I spread my cloak on it, making certain an edge of it still touched the path. Sir Farrin’s warnings were not to be taken lightly.

I’d shared heartily in the midday meal; I’d not waste my provisions. I broke off some nearby spears of wintergreen and chewed them instead, enjoying the soft settling of dusk. Finally I lay back, luxuriating in the heat releasing from the boulder. There were the last, floating notes from the birds as they turned to sleep, and the little humming of the stone at my back—simple songs of harmony. Then the night sky grew
enormous, bountiful with light—shooting stars so close that I felt they brushed my cheeks as they whizzed by. A tiny shrew crept up onto the stone, and then two more, and they snuggled into my sides, pleased at my opportune presence—they could sleep safely in the open and enjoy with me the grand spectacle. The moon rose high, nearly at her full mark. The stars bowed and dimmed at her summit, and our little world was bathed in silver, the color of Evie’s hair. I realized, suddenly, that I’d forgotten to learn of Raif’s feelings for my cousin.

A pang of homesickness, a sigh. The little shrews snored softly, and then I too was asleep.

The journeyman Harker was there in my dream, standing in the cobbled square, laughing out fortunes. I was cross at his ill-placed humor, that he’d taken me from my chores, and I looked to the others to see if they enjoyed his performance. The audience was small this time, four of us only. Four girls who encircled him, watching his deformed body writhe in glee as he gasped for breath and claimed we were doomed. “You suffocate!” he giggled to the ragged-thin girl with the moon-pale dirty face. “You beg for life far from home!” to the taller one in sturdy trousers with hair that shone red-gold. “You drown in sorrow,” he cried out to Evie.

Evie!
I called to my cousin, but no words came out, and the girls faded from sight. Harker sneered and wagged his finger at me as if that were my fault. “If you warn, you lose!” He turned and limped across the square. I stamped my foot at him. “You did not tell my fortune, old man! Do not go!” And he
shook with laughter at my vexation. “You need no fortune; you already see!” Then he hopped up and down and pointed at me, calling out like a tattletale, “One is here! One is here!” And in response the cobblestones beneath him cracked wide open in a violent shudder. The seer lunged back then and cowered in awe by the gaping hole, shrieking, “She comes!”

From deep within the crevasse, up to the broken stone rose a woman. She was tall, and cloaked, and beautiful, with ebony hair lushly tumbling over her shoulders and dark, dark eyes that searched around as if she couldn’t see. Light radiated from her breast, silhouetting something she held out in front of her, a heavy-looking sack. She might have stayed staring like that, but Harker suddenly leaped up, crying, “Mine! Mine!” and jumped for what she held in her hands.

He missed. With a terrible shriek, he was gone. “Harker!” I cried, and ran to the edge to watch him fall. He must have brushed the edge of the sack, for it tumbled after, spilling its contents: books, with bindings open and pages fluttering like birds, followed the man into darkness.

Unobstructed now, the light from the woman pierced the gloom and poured over me. I looked up and gasped: her eyes had fixed on mine. Eyes black, and empty.

“There you are.” She smiled. It ruined her beauty. “There you are.” And then her smile yawned open and more open until, terrible and grotesque, it widened larger than the crevasse and just as brutally deep. And I was dragged up from the earth and sucked into this frenzy of nothingness.

It was still dark. There was still time before dawn. I was on the boulder by the path, shivering and sweating both at once. Slowly I pushed myself up from the stone, bringing one of the sleeping shrews with me. She let me rest my cheek against her soft fur, and I sat there for a time, hugging my knees into my chest, laying my head on my folded arms with the little shrew tucked in between. Her tiny heart was purring rapidly, mirroring my own panicked beat.

That smile. I’d seen it before, when I touched Ruber Minwl’s severed hand. That horrible gash of mouth opening from malevolent sneer to ghastly void, swallowing me whole. What had old Harker said before?
Drown in madness.…
 If dreams were foretelling my destiny, which end would it be? Slain by sword or pulled into oblivion?

I could not dwell on such thoughts or I’d be trapped by them. I gently moved the little shrew from my chest, picked up my pack and cloak, and began to walk.

Hours went by in a blur. The path wound along the side of the far pastures; grass for a half league or two, across a rolling landscape. Dawn came, bringing the sun over the grass, coaxing forth its sweet scent. My feet tripped across the dirt, swiftness without joy—but at least I was quick. It was buoyant and beautiful to the east and south; Dark Wood hung heavy along the west. North was the unknown. I concentrated on the sunshine polishing my right cheek, and the path dividing the green and the blackness.

Well before the noon hour, I reached the Niler marshes. It
was the end of my knowledge of the route, but I plowed right through the trail of muck and scythed reeds, fiercely determined. I would finish this task. I would finish it and not care beyond anything except returning home.

Somewhere I knew I was being silly. Troths were more real, more threat, and yet I was scared of dreams. A young man to kill me. A lady who would swallow me whole. Or even what the seer said:
You will cry for mercy
.

“I am a ninny, Quin,” I muttered aloud as if he were still there. And yet …

The thing that gnawed through rational thought was what I had not admitted to Raif, to Quin, not even to myself: I’d read old Harker’s energy. He’d not told a false tale.

Like some grim joke at that acknowledgment, I was suddenly thrown to my knees—a shock from the earth shaking beneath me. There, in the middle of the Niler marshes, with its already weak ground and soggy hillocks, the earth was rocking and bumping, heaving me up and tossing me back—bounced like a child on a blanket. I screamed out loud, thinking of Harker falling into the darkness, fearing the mud would tear open and drop me too, or the dark lady would reach from beneath and swallow me down. And so I wrenched myself up from the squelching muck and ran. Even as I stumbled, fell, and regained my footing, even as the earth calmed and straightened and behaved as if I’d merely imagined its shudder, I ran, not stopping. Never mind the Troths. I was like those gaping villagers of Dann, spooked by things that might not be real.

I broke through the end of the marshes in a rush, thudded across the harder ground, and stopped, gasping for breath. Before me spread the broad scape of the Cullan foothills and the northern border of Dark Wood, with the sun’s rays glinting on its frayed edge. Quiet, wide-open, and simple, and showing me as the fool chased by her own shadow. I staggered a few lengths on, to hunker down by a boulder that jutted like a tooth from the earth, gathering into the stone as if it were a mother’s embrace and letting the coolness of its surface seep into my body while I reclaimed my breath and raged at the cruel joke played by sending me on this task.

The wrong person had been summoned. Raif had scoffed at Harker’s display, Quin had made us laugh; neither would need to grovel at the foot of this stone for support. Not any from Merith would behave as I—even Cath could have gathered her scattered wits for this journey. But instead, here I was, the chosen, a scared and silly girl. Had I been born as anyone else, not plagued by the Sight, not afraid of my own thoughts and senses; had I been born a stoic Healer, even … I put hands to my temples, wondering if I too could drag out the awful feelings in the way Grandmama could with her bay dust. But it simply made my head thrum, and I dropped them listlessly and lay gazing at the pale sky.

I would lose time. I had to move on. With little desire to leave the solidity of the rock, I forced myself up and then promptly sat back down, dizzy—I’d forgotten to eat. I fumbled open my pack and spread the parcels of food, washed my
muddy hands with the water from my flask. It was a feast without pleasure; my body was ravenous, but I had no appetite. A portion was gone quickly, remains of bread, cheese, and nuts scattered for the birds and little creatures, the flask of water emptied. I stood up and surveyed this new territory. The Cullan foothills were the smallest offspring of the Myr Mountains: ripples of gray stone pushing up between short grasses, with few trees or shrubs to offer protection or catch the wind. I’d hurry. I wanted this over and done.

The path was rough from here on, harder to follow. Dirt and trodden grass wound its way between expanses of green stubble and tumbles of boulder. I trudged on, the small hills growing steeper, a monotony of green and gray with few birds and even fewer animals. At each gap, I paused, looking into the little valleys and wondering if any of these held the single rowan tree. The sun fell west; my shadow changed sides. I was scrabbling by then over wide swaths of cracked rock and moss, utterly alone on these hilltops, pushing ahead, thinking the next hill will be the last … then the next.

Sometimes gorse had grabbed hold in boulders’ crevices and spurted tufts of yellow buds, brilliant on the gray. In one place I spied the sweet purple blossoms of minion. Grandmama would dearly love to have a rooting of these to start in the garden. “The most healing of herbs,” she would say. I hoped I’d remember where I saw them when I returned.

I had a funny image, then, of these elderly Riders escorting me on horseback to Merith. Their long, white beards would
flow back along the horses—horses, in my imagination, had fanciful tails and manes that streamed back as well. I would hardly be able to see forward for all the hair.

That made me laugh, a welcome relief.

On and up, on and up. One more hill, and then only one more again, I kept promising. They were big enough to close in my view; I hadn’t yet glimpsed the hills of Tarnec, let alone the Myr Mountains. I stopped once more to take some bread from my pack and refilled my flask from a trickle of stream etching a rock. I took a swig of the honeyed mead. I was aching but I was closer, I knew it, and felt the thrill of accomplishment surge through and carry me forward.

The air had cooled and a breeze picked up. My shadow was now twice my size. I paused near the top of a hill, for I heard a piercing shriek from far away, and turned back to look—an eagle soared high above in the distance. I watched him drawing nearer. Then, with one stroke of his powerful wings, he swept over me and away, as I, in turn, spun around and began to run up the last of the rise. Eagles nest in the hills of Tarnec; I knew I must be near. If I could crest this slope, perhaps—

And then I was at the top, mouth open with the awe of what lay stretched out before me. The ground sloped down and away, offering the expanse of distance: the hills of Tarnec shot up from the earth, matted in the deep green of fir and eucalyptus; beyond and behind them were the ashen, sheared crags of the Myr Mountains. The tips were tinted in gold and pink—I think it was the snow catching the dying sun. They took my breath, those mountains. They began far beyond the hills, yet they
loomed over all, forbidding one to cross. I remember someone once said to me—was it Daen Hurn?—that you did not climb over the Myr Mountains, you went through them.

I dragged my gaze from the gray and looked downward. A little valley was created between the slopes—these last of the Cullan foothills—greenest of green carpeting, with three streams pooling around a scattering of boulders into a smallish, icy-clear, oblong pond. Snowdrops dotted the hills like sprinkles of faerie dust. They were blooming late, for certain; perhaps the sun shone a bit differently here. Perhaps there was magic at work in this sweet valley.

Perhaps there was. Bren Clearing. The rowan tree stood stark in the center like a beacon, immensely tall, young leaves of green gently sweeping the sky in the breeze. The path led straight to its roots.

In a moment’s breath, exhaustion was gone and I was flying down the hill. My hair tugged loose from its braid, but I did not pause to set it right; it felt glorious sailing free. My feet hardly touched the trail; the rocks I think I leaped over, gleefully. The scent was young clover and fresh-cut hay and spring rain all at once. There were songbirds too, nesting in the rowan tree, which spread its canopy wide for all.

And then, in a radiant welcome, the sun sank below the top of the rowan and beamed out through its leaves like golden arms reaching to embrace me. I laughed and opened my arms wide in turn.

The boulder hid him, but I was too enraptured to have paid attention anyway. The hair did not even tremble on my
neck—or if it did, I did not feel it. I raced down the path with face to the sun, so that when I rounded the great rock that curved the trail, my eyes were too dazzled to even rightly see. But then I stumbled in shock as a smell seared through my nostrils.