The Song of Andiene (16 page)

Her joy was inconsistent with her grim plans, but it was no less real. This man, slight in stature, was easier to drag up the beach. When she laid his fingertips to his throat, she could feel his heart beat, though feebly, but his skin was cold as the dead. His hands had been tied behind his back in hard seaman’s knots. She touched the ropes lightly and they uncoiled like snakes and fell from him.

“No seed nor root of healing,” the Gray One had said. But she did not remember that; she gave no thought to healing, merely holding the man in her arms and desiring him to live, with all her strength and will.

Presently, his breathing became deeper and slower, his heartbeat stronger and slower also. He seemed to have almost passed into normal sleep; his skin was warmer to her touch.

Nighttime was near. She built a fire and laid him close beside it. He would need food. She had no time to wait patiently to spear a fish. Again, what she had to do shamed her.

She followed the gorge upward. It was dry as though no stream had ever run over the rocks. A flash of white caught her eye; she called softly and the dappled grasskit turned to look at her.

She called it to her in the same way as the dragon had called her to him. She caught it and killed it with a blow to the back of the neck, skinned and cleaned it with the dagger she had taken from the dead man, and went in search of another.

***

Syresh, once a soldier of Nahil, now a prisoner of Nahil and named a traitor, woke from his cramped dreams of coldness. The ship—the ship had gutted itself on the rocks. If he had been free, he would have died. His mail shirt would have dragged him down through the green water.

But they had stripped mail and weapons from him. The salt waves had held him up and carried him to land. He looked at his wrists with a sort of bleary-eyed wonder. The rope-marks were red, but the bonds were gone. He raised his head. The light of a fire, the smell of roasting meat, he was painfully hungry.

There was a youth tending that fire, his back turned. A shock of pale hair, coarse seaman’s clothes, baggy clown’s clothing meant for a man twice his size.

Syresh sat up, awkwardly. The other one whirled around, eyes glinting like some watchful animal. He did not speak.

A lost one from some earlier wreck? Those pale eyes and narrow bones spoke of noble blood, half-bred at least. “Were you on the ship?” Syresh asked, knowing the answer, but hoping to put the boy at ease.

“No,” said the other one. There was a watchful pause, then he glanced down at his clothes, and seemed to feel the need for some explanation. “I took these clothes from one who had no more need for them.” His voice was clear and childish, but his gray eyes belied his voice, staring dangerously at Syresh, daring him to speak some word of distaste.

He did not. He used all the courtliness that he knew. “My name is Syresh, Mareenfil, Tarefile, born of Mareja, and I ask you a great favor—that I may share your fire and eat your food this evening.”

“You may,” was the short reply, as the stranger turned back to the fire. No name was given in return. Though he had spoken more humbly to this vagabond dressed in dead man’s clothes than he would have to a nobleman of his own rank, the honor of the courtesy seemed lost on the other one.

“And I thank you for freeing me from my bonds,” Syresh went on. “Believe me, I was no common criminal. The king, may he rest well, has a quick temper, and is fast to suspect his loyal servants of traitorousness.”

“The King, may his soul rest well,” the youth said dryly. “And may his body rest well in the deep.”

“Is he drowned?”

The other one’s lips curved a little, a secretive smile, a womanish smile, Syresh thought. “I walked the length of the beach and saw no sign that any but you came to land alive.”

“But his ship did not founder.”

“What!” The other one’s lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl.

They kill the messenger that brings ill news
, Syresh thought, but he spoke quietly. “They brought me on deck when the storm struck. And it was no springtime storm. It was woven of witchery. It was as though the world divided—the king’s ship went sailing on in sunshine, and our ship went into the night of the storm, split on the rocks and sank.” He looked at the stranger in sudden fear and speculation. “How do you know of this? How would you know that the King’s ship was near?”

He stared at the youth, terror awakening, and he struggled to his feet, too weak to run or fight, but still defiant. Though he had no weapons at all, the other was armed with no more than a small dagger—and those frightening eyes.

“This is a land that is not!” he said, in sudden fierce understanding. “We were well out from shore, on a plain smooth coast.” He stared at the high cliffs rising in steps before him. “There is no place like this. There is no land to the west … no land to the edge of the world … except … ”

The stranger smiled, speaking softly. “Once I heard an old, old song: ‘Wide and deep is the water that lies between the Nine Kingdoms and Dragonsland, yet a toddling child might cross the straits dry shod, if the Gray Lord willed it so.’ Did they teach you that?”

Syresh shuddered. “What kind of creature are you?”

“Whatever kind I am, I saved your life. I drew you from the waves and warmed you with my own blood’s warmth. Either accept the gift, or throw yourself back into the sea,” the stranger challenged him.

This castaway knew the nobleman’s code. That was a galling discovery. Syresh had dreamed of swearing fealty to some lord, noble of mind as well as birth. To be forced to swear one’s life to a lostling on an unknown shore was a bitter draught to swallow.

But as he studied the stranger’s face, he saw a look of honesty, and power beyond all reckoning. His eyes were cold, but less cold than the sea that rolled its great waves ashore behind him.

Syresh made his decision. He tried his best to kneel gracefully, but his legs gave way; he staggered and almost fell forward onto his face. He was aware of the laughable sight he made, wearing bright silks dulled and stained by the mud, faded to a rainbow medley, the marks of felon’s bonds still red on his wrists. The thought stung his vanity.

“You saved my life; it is yours,” he said. The words almost choked him. Though life was precious, he would not swear unconditional service to a dark magician on this unknown shore. He put reservations in his oath that were not commonly set there.

“I will serve you as long, and well, as my conscience allows, and if ever I cannot serve you, you may ask for the return of your gift of life, and it will be granted.”

The other one showed no anger at the conditions, though his eyes were knowing. Syresh went on with the traditional oath. “I am your liegeman. My hands are your hands, my voice is your voice.”

The other one showed no pleasure, neither did he give his name. Instead he asked a mocking question. “And what of the King? Did you swear him no oaths of fealty? You wear his badge.”

Syresh winced at the reminder, and spoke earnestly to his new-found liege lord. “I swore no oath of this kind. I spoke the common ones only, that all men do. And all oaths were broken when he set those bonds on me. When we lowered anchor in Mareja, he would have had me killed, a traitor’s death, and yet I swear, I was never disloyal, not in deed, word, or thought.”

“You have earned your traitor’s death now, in swearing to me.”

“So I had guessed. So be it.” He reached for the other one’s thin hand and touched his lips to it. Then he stared at the gold ring that weighed that hand down.

“Where did you gain this royal ring, my lord? The same place you got your clothing?”

“Are your oaths broken so soon, Lord Syresh?”

“No, but where? Did the King indeed drown in the storm? His son is young and was not with him. None other in all the land would wear this. Are you royalty of some other kingdom? You speak with the voice of Mareja.” He reached out and turned over the stranger’s hand. On the wide gold base of the ring, ARNM was etched. Whose insignia was that? He turned the hand to the sunlight, so that he could see the thumbprint pattern etched in flesh and metal alike. The same. This royal signet had been made for the hand that wore it.

And then the riddle’s answer came to him. Tears blinded him. “Andiene Rejin-Neve Mareja,” he said. “The lost one. Rightful lady of our land.” He blinked away the tears and looked at her in wonder. “Indeed, I have chosen my liege better than I knew,” he said.

“Lord Syresh, you are tired.” She spoke with more gentleness now. There might have been tears glinting in her eyes too, but he did not dare to look to see. “Let us eat,” she said.

They ate roasted grasskit wrapped in salt-crisp seaweed and sandray leaves. After their meal, they sat by the dying fire, both silent. Syresh was burning with thoughts, speculations, questions, but it was for his liege lady to speak first.

At last, she broke the silence. “In that other land, did any suffer for my escape?”

“Many died, my lady. Many still die. The King … ”

“Do not call him that!” Her voice was fierce as the summer sun.

“The usurper, then, he feared greatly. None knew why, except from confused tales of madness, so many and so wild that we could not guess which ones might have some speck of truth. But because of his fear, he killed any who might threaten him. He feared the grizanes; they are long gone from our land. He fears any with magic … ” and Syresh gave her a sidelong look as he remembered where he was. If tales were true, this land was but a wraith, a wisp of mist. If one word were spoken amiss, the solid rock, the firm sea-sand, would melt and flow to nothingness.

Andiene smiled. “So he has not gained much joy from what he won?”

“No. The city has not answered to him. It cannot, when you are the rightful heir. The bells ring by men’s hands alone. He walks like a man who sees treachery in every man’s face, his hand on his dagger hilt, afraid to turn his back away from the solid wall.”

“Good,” she said. “That will fit my plan well.”

He longed to ask her questions, but her silence was forbidding. At last she rose, and buried the fire in ashes. “There is a bed for you,” she said, pointing to the nest of branches, as she walked away to find her own sleeping place.

The leaves were soft; the branches were springy. Syresh did not sleep any less soundly because the land that bore him was fashioned of magic. When he woke, the sun was high. Andiene knelt beside him. “Up! We have work to do.”

He soon discovered what work there was on this barren strand, as the two of them walked along the shore, gathering the splintered boards that the sea had brought to land. The current had scattered the bones of the ship far and wide along the shore.

“What do we do with these?” asked Syresh, as he dragged another weighty plank back to the pile. Andiene dropped the plank that she was pulling.

“Rest a while. When we have enough that are sound, we bind them together with vines, and sail east. What, did you mean to stay forever in this land that is no land?”

“No, my lady, no, but I had thought that you could … ”

She read his unfinished thought. “I am no ruler over the waves, to tell them to part and let me walk dry-shod to the other shore. But I can call up a current that will drive us ashore in a safe land.”

“What land is safe for you, my lady?”

She answered with a question. “Why had the usurper set to sea?”

“To visit Daner Reji, in the north kingdom, Montrubeja. That king’s father sheltered him for many years, after your father drove him out. The forests are restless, so I have been told, so it seemed safer to go by sea. We were returning before the summer’s heat.”

“And what of the land to the south? With whom does that king stand?”

“Oreja sides with no kingdom that I know of. The lord of that land trusts no man. He watches and waits.”

“Would there be spies there, to send their stories north to the usurper?”

“Yes. As in all lands.”

Her voice was confident. “Then we will go there.”

So they gathered their wrackwood and built their raft. They were slowed in their work by the coming ashore of three more bodies—two sailors, and one, a nobleman, a comrade of Syresh. They took them and carried them up to what seemed the fittest place, a bare outcropping of rock, sheer cliff on the seaward side. It was a proper enough place to lay men to rest in a strange land.

With each new sight of death, Andiene grew more silent and remote. She did not speak of her past; she said not one word of the part she had played in raising the sorcerer’s storm. Syresh did not ask her. He was sworn to her service, better for him not to know.

The raft they built was nothing that he would have willingly have trusted himself to. The vines bound the planks loosely, so that they shuddered and swayed with every step, and wide gaps opened up between them, where any who wished could peer down into the sea.

Syresh tested it with his foot. “This will carry us to the other shore?”

“The sea would seem to be your doom, one way or another,” she said. Although her tone was light, there was steel behind the words, reminding him of his oath of obedience. He seated himself cautiously on one end of the raft. Andiene stepped nimbly through the water and climbed onto the other end.

She faced the land; Syresh looked out over the ever-changing sea.

“Say farewell to the land that sheltered you,” she said, and her voice was merry. He turned to look back, careful to keep his balance on the unsteady planks. He shaded his eyes with his hand. Nothing.

The cliffs were high, rising into the sky, terrace after stepped terrace. He should have been able to see them for leagues. But the sea stretched empty on every side.

Chapter 12

“The empty circle of waves, the bitter sea.” Syresh had heard the minstrels sing it. Easy to believe, as he gazed at the blank horizon, that there was no land to the west, no land to the east, that their raft would drive on and on over the never-ending sea.

But they reached the land at last. Syresh laughed with joy as he waded unsteadily ashore. He stooped to kiss the sand, and said: “If ever I set foot in a boat again, may I die the cruelest death that man can devise!”