What Came From the Stars (17 page)

The Lord Mondus went to his chambers, dark and empty.

So he did not see the two who walked slowly
toward the Reced in that early light. One wore the robes of a Councilman of the O’Mondim, and one was small and took two steps to the other’s one. Both were hooded and both walked firm of purpose, so that the O’Mondim who felt their coming pulled back and bowed as they passed.

The two came to the doors of the Reced and there, for the first time, the small one hesitated—but only a moment. For the doors were opened to them by the O’Mondim guards, and they must enter. And when the doors closed behind them, they crossed the Courts of the Ethelim, and the Great Hall of the Reced—as it had been called in that time before the fah filth of the O’Mondim had spread—and they passed through narrow halls, and still narrower, until they came to the spiraling stairs that rose to the Seats of the Reced, upon which only servants walked. And there, more than a few of those servants drew back, afraid at the sight of a Councilman.

And so Young Waeglim and Ealgar climbed upward.

And upward.

And upward.

And in his heart, Young Waeglim hoped that none might be sitting in the Seats, that they might pass unchallenged to the Tower.

But deeper in his heart, Young Waeglim hoped that
the Lord Mondus might be waiting for them there, or any of the O’Mondim, for the heat of vengeance was flaming.

As for Ealgar, who had seen the Leaping of the Waves so few times, he walked as if in his dreams, wondering at what he saw around him, and wishing that he might have seen it in the high glory days of the Valorim Ascendant.

So they came to the top of the stairs and to the Seats of the Reced.

And there they did not find the Lord Mondus.

But they did find Fralim the Blind and Naelim the bane of Ecglaeth.

Young Waeglim let drop from his shoulders the robes of Remlin. Then Fralim spoke: “Who is...?” Those were his last words.

But Naelim was mighty in arms and hard in spirit. He would not call for aid, but fell upon Young Waeglim himself. And the striking of their orluo was terrible, and the blue sparks that flew from the blades lit the Seats to the eyes of Ealgar.

Heavy were the blows of Young Waeglim, but heavier still were the blows of Naelim. More than once, Young Waeglim was forced to the tiles of the chamber, and thrown down so that the orlu of Naelim missed only a little—and sometimes, it did not miss. The heart
of Young Waeglim began to fail him, and it seemed that the triumph of the faithless Valorim and the O’Mondim might be complete.

Then did Ealgar’s dreams come upon him, and Ealgar gripped the gyldn his mother had given him, and he came to the two, when Young Waeglim was held to the floor by Naelim’s knee, and Naelim had raised his orlu, and Young Waeglim saw the end of all things. And Ealgar took his gyldn in both his hands and drove it deep into the back of Naelim the bane of Ecglaeth, so that Naelim turned his eyes to Ealgar and did sweep his orlu toward him. But Ealgar was the quicker, and the blade passed over him.

And Young Waeglim felt his strength return with his anger, and his weakness flee as his despair faded. His hand gripped his orlu with its earlier strength, and battle was joined. Never had there been any like it in the Seats of the Reced. The blue sparks shone brightly, brightly, and flew against the gliteloit of the room, shattering them all, so that the eyes of the Lord Mondus opened in his room far below, and he called to Saphim the Cruel and to the O’Mondim guard, and together they rushed to the Seats of the Reced.

And there they found the two O’Mondim Councilmen, both ended, and the door to the Tower where lay the Forge of the Valorim, bolted strong.

The O’Mondim took up the Seat of Naelim and began to batter at the Tower door, pressed on by the fearful anger of the Lord Mondus. And the only sound in the Seats of the Reced was the battering of that door.

Until a new sound came.

The Lord Mondus walked toward a shattered glite and looked down.

The sound was of battle, far below.

The Reced was under siege.

The Ethelim had come.

On a Saturday late in November, Mrs. Lumpkin drove to the Peppers’ house again. Tommy heard her yellow Mazda honking from the bottom of the dune. When he opened the door, she waved for him to come down, and he went back in to get his coat since it was starting to snow, and by the time he got down to her Mazda, she was waiting by the open trunk of the car, and she was a little ... prickly.

“Unlike some people, I don’t have all the time in the world,” Mrs. Lumpkin said. She pointed. “Take this out of the car and bring it to your father.”

Tommy took out the wrapped canvas. He knew what it was.

“Tell him I never want to see it again,” she said. “And tell him I’m not paying for it.”

Tommy took it back up to the house and slid it into the front hall closet.

The snow swirled around the dune.

Everyone said they had never seen so much snow fall on the New England coast in November. At first they were gentle snows, covering everything with a deep and soft fleece. And the air was cold enough to keep the snow dry, so the flakes blew easily north along Water Street and down the beaches toward Tommy’s house, where they passed through the field of yellow flags with not even a ripple.

But as the month went on, the squalls of snow grew heavier. In the mornings, the sky would darken as Tommy and Patty headed into school, so that by the time they reached the first grade door, the sky was almost black with clouds holding a whole lot of wet snow. By the time Tommy got inside the sixth grade door, the clouds were starting to split and splatter big wet globs of snow—not just flakes—onto William Bradford Elementary School. Then the day would get darker and darker, and snowier and snowier, until by the time school was finished, the buses were sloshing through hubcap-deep snow, wipers running frantically across windshields but not doing much good at all.

Finally, Mrs. MacReady persuaded a distracted Mr. Zwerger to cancel classes for the last week of November, since the storms seemed like they weren’t going to give in, and the bus drivers weren’t going to put up with snow past their hubcaps, and there was so much weight on the roof of William Bradford Elementary that Mrs. MacReady wasn’t sure the building would hold up and she preferred not to be in the main office when the ceiling came crashing down, thank you very much, because that was not what she was paid to do.

At home, the Peppers kept a fire going in their fireplace all the time. Mr. Pepper set up his easel and worked at canvases of stormy seas. Patty spread out on the rug, her books all around her. But Tommy watched through the front windows as the falling snow thickened and thickened into wild sheets that came up from the green ocean, whose waves he could see only when the wind took a deep breath before letting it out again and shrieking the snow toward the Peppers’ house.

Tommy watched. It was just like the wind the faithless Valorim had called up at Brogum Sorg Cynna, before the battle, when they sent it screaming into the eyes of the Valorim with thundering from the clouds as loud as ten thousand trempo, so loud it had struck fear even into the hearts of the Valorim, and they had been driven back by the sudden onslaught of snow.

The fah O’Mondim.

Until Elder Waeglim had defied the O’Mondim. Elder Waeglim and his companion Bruleath. Bruleath of the Ethelim. And with the Art of the Valorim, they had raised a wall of ice to turn back the O’Mondim, a wall that...

“I’m going outside,” said Tommy.

Patty looked up.

“In this?” said his father.

Tommy put his coat on and warmed his hands one last time by the fireplace.

“I’ll just go down toward the shore a ways.”

His father stepped back from his canvas and cocked his head at the perspective. “You’re sure, Tommy?” he said.

Tommy listened to the shrieking wind. The house shook with it.

“I’m sure. I won’t be long,” he said, and headed outside.

“Be careful, then,” his father called.

Immediately, the snow was so thick, Tommy felt it pushing hard against his chest.

His chain felt very warm.

He ran down toward the beach, through the yellow flags—he might have trampled on two or three—and came to the water’s edge. The waves were milky green and yellow, and they crashed through the snow so loudly that it was hard to know whether he was hearing thunder or the waves.

He backed up a few paces and began to gather the wet snow on the beach into blocks. They formed quickly and easily in his gloved hands, and when he pressed them, they turned into clear and hard ice. He set the first row all along the length of their land—the yellow flags gave him the boundaries. The waves pounded, and they almost reached up to him until he turned, pulled his chain out from under his shirt, held it out toward the water, and pushed the waves back.

He set the second row, and then the third—all clear ice. Each block gripping the others around it. But the wind so terrible that it drove up beneath his coat and he started to shiver so badly that his hands shook. He wondered if his eyeballs could freeze.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth rows done. Quickly.

Tommy came around to the other side of the wall so that his back was no longer to the waves. The wind followed and blew at his face and iced his breath.

The seventh row, up to his chest. The eighth.

His hands were freezing. He really, really wondered if his eyeballs could freeze.

He stood and looked back at his house. He thought, Elder Waeglim and Bruleath of the Ethelim at Brogum Sorg Cynna!

Quickly he set the ninth, then the tenth row in place.

Then he began the eleventh. The row that would raise the wall above his head. The thrygeth row.

He lifted the first clear block.

And the wind powered out of the sea and across the beach. Tommy looked behind him. He could almost not believe that his house was still standing—but it was, the wood smoke streaming away from the chimney with the force of the terrible wind.

Tommy put the block in place. Through the clear ice, he saw the waves begin to roll like Chaos toward the wall, almost reaching it.

Quickly, another block, and then another, and another on the thrygeth row.

A wave galled itself against the wall, throwing its green foam upward.

Another block. Quickly, another block.

The waves fell back.

Another block. Another. And another.

The wind roared once, twice more. Again.

Then the wind stilled.

Another block. Another.

The wind held its breath, then let it out again, then held it.

Another block.

So quiet. The snow coming down softly now, in dry flakes.

Another block.

In the quiet, Tommy reached down, pressed his next block into ice, and set it in place. The eleventh row was done.

Thrygeth.

He took off his gloves, and with the chain, he carved into the wall the images of Elder Waeglim and Bruleath, standing shoulder to shoulder at Brogum Sorg Cynna, facing the O’Mondim storm in defiance.

And when he finished, Tommy looked behind him again toward his house. Except for one or two missing roof tiles, all seemed well. The wood smoke was rising straight up in the new calm. And the sun was suddenly there—hazy, but there—and the sounds of the waves had calmed to a quiet lapping. Tommy smiled, and he turned to look again at the sea.

But when he looked through his wall, he saw, on the other side of the clear ice, standing in his dark suit, his hands in his pockets, Mr. PilgrimWay.

Mr. PilgrimWay had never seemed so large.

They stared at each other through the ice.

“Tommy Pepper, you were not at Brogum Sorg Cynna,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

Tommy put his gloves back on.

Mr. PilgrimWay came close to the wall of clear ice. His face almost touched it. “I could take the Art from you,” he said.

Tommy shook his head. “You would have taken it already if that were true.”

Mr. PilgrimWay stepped back, smiled. “Very good,” he said. “In my world, you might have risen to the Seats of the Reced.” He looked behind Tommy at all the yellow flags. “It will not be long before this land is taken from you.”

“Maybe,” said Tommy.

“Certainly,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. “It will be the loss of one of the things those you love hold most dear. It will be the loss of what your mother held most dear. But I could be at the Planning Commission meeting, Tommy Pepper. You know I can be persuasive. If you want your land, I will speak and give it to you. And afterward, I will only want the Art of the Valorim. And then I will depart with the O’Mondim sand, and you will never hear of us again. A fair agreement, especially since the Art of the Valorim was never meant to come to you.”

Tommy looked up and down the beach. He looked back at the house, where Patty was reading by the fireplace, where his father had started to paint again.

And on the other side of the ice wall, Mr. PilgrimWay drew his own pictures. The story of Hengaelf and the Long Woods of Benu, gone for his folly. Of Wig and the Plains of Arnulf, and how he foolishly lost the Plains to the Arnalt. The tale of the raging of the Rignaulf and the destruction of the fruitlands of the Valley of the Denvelf, so that all that was left was wrack and ruin and havoc.

“One who would have risen to the Seats of the Reced would not be so foolish as Rignaulf,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

Tommy felt himself almost nod.

“Doesn’t your land mean more to you than a world that lies beyond even the farthest stars you can see?” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

Tommy put his hand against the thrygeth wall.

“Or would you betray your mother again?” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

The night of the next Planning Commission meeting came, dark and metal cold. It was snowing again, lightly. Wisps of snow snaked along the road as the Peppers drove into town.