The Hidden Stars Part 9

"It is likely that I am the one the furiadh recognized," Faolein admitted with a sigh. "It was so long ago that we met on Phaorax, and we have both changed so much, I never thought he would see me to know me again."

The horses and pack mules had bolted during the attack, and had yet to return. Faolein sent out a spell to call them back, but soon realized they were still too agitated to respond. "They have run so far and in such a panic, they may not return at all," he told his companions. "It is hard to speak to them at this distance. And impossible to calm them."

"We would be fools to walk back the same way we came, with our enemy, very likely, on the road following us," said Ruan, speaking between clenched teeth. "So long as we are afoot and he and his men are mounted, the advantage will all be theirs."

Faolein nodded wearily. "Speaking for myself, I don't fear Goezenou very much. But I think of those other galleys we saw, and I wonder who else came with him into Mere. To meet two or three Furiadhin in this lonely place-I must admit that I dread the outcome if that was to happen."

"We are five days' march from the fortress at Saer," said Ruan, apparently retaining a clear mental picture of Faolein's map. "Perhaps less, if we leave the road and cut across country."

"That would be best in any case. On the road, we are too exposed."

All their food and supplies, all their bedding and extra clothes, had been lost with the horses and mules, except for some leather flasks that Jago had filled at the stream shortly before the wyvaerun attacked. Fortune, or the Fates, had been with them in that much. Otherwise, they had only those things they carried on them: armor and weapons for the Prince and his men, Faolein's staff and the contents of his pouch, some packets of medicinal herbs that Sinderian kept in a pocket of her cloak. They had also the Prince's heavy purse, still weighted with the High King's gold-but much good that was likely to do them, without a town in sight. If they wished to eat, they would have to forage, and so early in the year the land would not have much to offer.

Before they set out, they each knelt on the bank by the stream and took a long drink. There was no saying how soon or how often they would be able to refill the flasks. The country they were about to travel, the spa.r.s.ely wooded hills to the northeast, was higher and drier than the marshy ground they were leaving behind.

They abandoned the road, scrambled up a slope where the scree slipped and slid dangerously underfoot, pushed through scrubby bushes of heather and broom until they found what looked like a path. A game trail it might be, for it was very narrow and rough, winding through the trees and the waist-high brush; and once, bending low in a patch of moonlight between the trees, Sinderian spotted the hoofprints of a deer pressed into the earth.

Faolein called up a tiny breeze to cover their tracks; he would not keep it up long, for the lledrion itself might also betray them-magic left its own trail, even if that trail was difficult to detect. "It is possible," he said, "that Goezenou and his men will be distracted for a time following our horses."

"If they bother with us any further at all," said Sinderian, putting a hand to her head, which still ached fiercely. "It is one thing to call up a flock of wyvaerun to harry us, another to turn aside from their own road-particularly if they are in any sort of hurry to go somewhere."

"Somewhere meaning Skyrra, seemingly," muttered Jago, under his breath, trudging along just ahead of her. "But what if they are heading for Saer the same as we are?"

Faolein considered that in silence for several minutes before he spoke. Glancing back over her shoulder, Sinderian saw him rake his fingers through his beard, then shake his head. "It is the next large settlement, yet I hardly think they will choose to go there. Or that they would be welcomed inside if they did. Where the loyalties of our sometime ally the Duke of Mere lie now is a matter for debate, but the same can hardly be said of his liege man Goslin of Saer. He'll have no dealings with Ouriana or her Furiadhin. He lost his two sons and all three of his brothers in the war.

"And Saer," he added, "is a place they would find it difficult to enter without an invitation."

Letting his breeze die down, the wizard went ahead of the rest, edging past Sinderian, Jago, Aell, and the Prince, who had been in the lead before. Ruan fell back without demur, and took a place at the rear of the party, behind Sinderian.

She tried to ignore his presence, though he walked so close behind her. He moved so lightly, she could not even hear his booted feet striking the hard earth, but she was keenly aware of him all the same: his bright eyes and glittering golden torc, his watchful posture, the way he kept his hand on the hilt of his sword. She was as sure of those things as if she could see him, flowing like quicksilver through the dappled moonlight.

She pulled the black veil down over her face, lowered her head, set her jaw, and forced herself to concentrate on the uneven path before her.

For many hours they kept on moving, plodding through that stony, slanted country-always, it seemed, uphill. At last, in the cold dark time between midnight and dawn, they came to a hollow sheltered on all sides, where Faolein thought they might safely camp for what remained of the night.

Aell and Jago and the Prince threw themselves down on the ground. Sinderian wrapped herself up in her cloak, stretched out with a sigh on the coa.r.s.e, moon-silvered gra.s.s, and was almost immediately asleep.

Faolein made a small smokeless fire. While his companions slept, he kept watch, his staff at his side, feeding his fire with twigs and bits of bark and dried moss.

It was a clear, starry night, and the wizard was very much aware of the immense waxing moon overhead-westering by then, but not to set for another hour. It was a weight upon the sky, upon the hills. Under its influence, the earth rumbled from time to time; only the smallest tremors for the moment, but as the moon continued to grow these would increase in power and frequency. In another day or two, when it was quite full, there might be earthquakes, this whole region was so unstable.

Sitting cross-legged by his fire, Faolein felt himself drifting off, despite his best efforts to stay awake, and caught himself just before he slipped away. He was unutterably weary; age, it seemed, was finally catching up with him. He could remember a time, eighty years ago when he was in his prime, when he could walk all day without fatigue, when sleep was a mere distraction, and one that he could, as often as not, easily dispense with. He ached to the very bone; if he could only lay his head down, close his eyes, and rest for a moment- As the darkness swept over him he felt it: a light touch at first, then a deeper and more insidious probing by another mind. He struggled against it, fought his way free, came up out of that bottomless well of sleep and black magic gasping and fighting for air like a drowning man.

Then he sat by the fire, trembling with reaction and horror. When at last he felt strong enough, he left his seat, crept past the others where they slept, and bent over to wake Sinderian.

It took no more than his dry fingertips brus.h.i.+ng her face. She sat up at once, muzzy with sleep but obedient to his word, gazing up at her father with bruised dark eyes. It cut him to the heart to have to disturb her when she so clearly needed rest and healing, but the danger was simply too great.

"We ought to set wards with our enemies so near," said Faolein, very low. "He-they-whoever is on the road-he hasn't forgotten us. He is seeking us through the night."

"Who? Who was it you felt, out there in the darkness?" she whispered back. Gathering her feet under her, she clasped the hand that he was offering her, letting him pull her up so that they stood shoulder to shoulder. "It was never Goezenou who frightened you so. Who else is there?"

Remembering that brief, terrifying contact with a clear, cold, powerful intelligence, Faolein shook his head. "I would rather not say, rather not guess. To say or even think the name when he is trying to find us-" As his voice trailed off, he saw the pupils of her eyes grow large with fear and speculation; reflexively, she signed a beanath. "Turn your thoughts in some other direction...but don't let down your guard for a single instant."

While Faolein wove ropes out of gra.s.s and used them to bind sheaves of heather into a kind of primitive lintel, Sinderian gathered sticks and placed them on the ground around the campsite so that they formed a perfect square. Then she hunted up a large flat rock to serve as the corridruis, the door-stone, or threshold.

Hallowing these structures with fire and with water, with herbs of great virtue and protection, they set the charm with care. But it was only makes.h.i.+ft, and the boundary they had established would only continue to exist because they willed it so. Whether or not it could withstand a determined a.s.sault by a mind as powerful as the one that Faolein had detected earlier-that was by no means certain.

And when the wards were in place, when Faolein resumed his seat by the fire, and Sinderian cast herself down in her former spot on the ground and tried to rest, the most she could achieve-the most she would allow herself-was a light, fitful doze.

In dreams one was vulnerable. So long as they remained under threat from without she dared not give herself up wholly to sleep.

The moon set. In another hour, the fabric of night began to fray, and a pale-hued light shone through. The tops of the trees on the crests of the hills turned to fallow gold; dew glistened like drops of silver in the gra.s.s. Faolein woke the Prince and his men. Breakfast was water and a handful of sloes, not quite ripe, which Sinderian gathered from bushes on the slopes of the hollow. Then they set off walking again.

Midmorning found them in country more heavily wooded than before; the trees drew together in thickets, birch and cowan and ash, their branches tangling overhead. The ground underfoot was thick and fragrant with fallen leaves. There were broad pathways weaving between the trees, and the occasional scent of woodsmoke, as plain a sign as they could ask for that the land was inhabited. But whenever Faolein smelled smoke he turned aside to lead his companions down some other pathway. He had no wish, he told them, to approach any village or settlement, to meet anyone before they came to Saer, where they might be sure of finding allies.

As he walked, staff in hand, Faolein let his senses go wide: sight, hearing, scent, touch, and that other, extra sense. He moved through the world as only a wizard can, in communion with rocks and hills, wind and water, trees and gra.s.s, yet always apart from them, uniquely himself. Squirrels chattered in the branches overhead; tiny brown field mice and shrew mice went scurrying for their nests under the roots. Red foxes in their dens peered out with bright, inquiring eyes. Nowhere could he detect any threat. He could almost believe that they had eluded their enemies, that they were not being followed, had it not been for that stealthy touch he felt in the night.

Sinderian walked a little apart, her head still aching. At times, she felt muddled and stupid, and there was an occasional giddiness, when the landscape reeled-though whether that was lack of sleep or the head injury she could not be certain. Such injuries were difficult to heal, and dangerous work for a healer not in full command of her faculties. She had done all that it was safe to do under the circ.u.mstances; nature must do the rest.

Her feet hurt. Her boots had never been meant for walking; she could feel every rock, every pebble, through the thin leather soles, bruising the flesh. Her pulse beat with a sullen, irregular beat, and there was a st.i.tch in her side, a sharp, tearing pain, which grew steadily worse the longer she walked.

She gritted her teeth. All those weeks of soft living on Leal, and I'm fit for nothing. Prince Ruan was right, though I'd die before I told him so: I bitterly regret embarking on this hopeless enterprise, this journey where things have gone wrong from the very beginning.

They took a path leading downhill, where the trees grew denser. Sinderian began to smell water, and soon they came upon a trail-scarcely worth the name, it was so steep and treacherous-where a damp trickle began to follow their course down the slope.

The trickle met other rills, and finally became a stream at the bottom of the hill. Ferns grew there under the trees, along with hart's-tongue, pennymint, and stinging nettle. White-flag, spiky purple iris, and golden marsh marigold sprang up where the ground was boggy along the margin.

"This will be Ceriolle, which flows into the Saille," said Faolein. "If we follow its course, it will lead us to Saer."

Little fat silvery fish, no greater than the palm of a hand, swam in the shallows, and Prince Ruan proved surprisingly adept at catching them with his bare hands. "They make poor eating," he said, pa.s.sing one over to Aell, who wrapped it in green leaves to keep it fresh, "but I fear we can't afford to be too dainty in our tastes." Sinderian wondered, absently, where he had lived that he had eaten such fish before.

In another hour, they came to a place where a mossy stone bridge curved over the stream. The stonework was very old, the weathered granite of the bal.u.s.trades crumbling away, but the bridge was solid underfoot, and they crossed over safely in a single file. Higher up the hill, the Prince spied the evidence of some ancient delvings.

"There will be Gnomes living somewhere hereabout," he said. "They are a peaceable, hospitable people-"

"Too peaceable," replied Faolein, with a worried frown. "I would not expose those kindly little folk to the furiadh and his men-not for the sake of hospitality we can live without."

At erien, when the sun sent shafts of golden light down between the trees, the wizard suggested that they stop and rest. Without waiting for a further invitation, Sinderian sank down where she was, leaned her back against the trunk of a tree, and closed her eyes to shut out the light.

She listened to the sounds of the others setting up camp: gathering firewood, preparing Prince Ruan's fish and some edible roots for cooking. She felt utterly dislocated from her surroundings, floating like a soap bubble on the wind, sick and bodiless. But she came back to earth at the Prince's approach, the crackling of leaves underfoot, the soft sigh of his breath as he sat down near her. When she opened her eyes again, he was perched on a fallen log about three feet way, watching her intently.

Avoiding that arrogant gaze of his, her glance fell, as if for the first time, on the silver brooch fastening his cloak. It was simple and well made, set with gems of no great value, and its design contained two of the ordinary runes used in writing: the Tree Runes these were called, to distinguish them from the Wizard's Runes, which contained so much power. The runes on the brooch were aethin and piridwen-furze and spruce-set side by side as if it were a monogram or cypher.

"A and P," she said aloud, without even thinking. "Was it a gift?"

The Prince smiled slightly. "If you mean was this brooch a lady's favor, no," he replied coolly. And realizing that her question had implied something of the sort-and therefore suggested rather too much interest in his affairs of the heart-Sinderian felt the heat rise in her face.

"As for the initials, they are my own," he went on. "My mother, who is of the Ni-Fea Faey, named me 'Aneruian' for the hour at which I was born. It is a common practice among the Faey, to name their children for seasons and hours. But when I went to live with my father's people on Thaerie, they thought it strange that one so pale-skinned and light-haired should be called 'Midnight.' And so, to make more sense of it and me, they shortened the name by degrees: first to 'Ruian,' then to 'Ruan.' I've long since learned to answer to that name, but I could hardly mark my things with an R and a P, which is my grandfather's cypher.

"And now," he said, as Sinderian sat sifting leaves through her fingers, "now that I have told you so much about myself, may I ask you a question?"

She nodded reluctantly, having an idea what he would ask. But it was only a fair exchange; she could not, in courtesy, refuse him, having asked her question first.

"I see that you wear the color of mourning, though your father does not. Have you suffered a personal loss, or do you wear it as certain warriors I know-because they served at one time in Rheithun-in memory of a valiant people now enslaved?"

Because she was so very tired-surely that, for the pain was an old one-she felt the salt tears scalding her eyes. Resolutely, she blinked them back. "For both reasons. I did serve as a healer six years in Rheithun, and I was betrothed to Cailltin of Aefri. We intended to be married if"-her voice broke momentarily; she took several deep breaths, then went on-"when the war ends. But he died along with so many other brave men when the last fortress fell."

"You were there?" asked the Prince, leaning forward in his interest. "You saw the fall of Gilaefri-the executions after?"

Sinderian felt her face grow stiff, her throat go dry. "No," she whispered, feeling the old sickness, the old shame. She crushed a handful of leaves between her fingers, watched them crumble. "No, I wasn't there. I was on my way to the coast, shepherding a party of women and children."

The Prince sat back. "You have no reason to reproach yourself," he said, speaking more gently than she had ever heard him. "You couldn't have saved him. When the Furiadhin threw down the walls, when they put all the commanders to the sword, what could you have done, then, for Cailltin of Aefri-or anyone?"

She swallowed the hot retort that rose to her lips at the familiar plat.i.tude. She only answered, in a stifled voice: "I could have died with him."

"Which would have been some comfort to you perhaps, but none at all to the n.o.ble Cailltin. Whereas now you can live to avenge him."

Sinderian sighed and gave a dreary little laugh. "You would say so, of course. I've heard the Ni-Fea believe in revenge-that they will pursue a grudge as long as seven generations. Wizards, however, live by a different rule. To seek after vengeance goes against everything they teach us at the Scholia."

His strange eyes glittered in the shadows under the trees. "The Ni-Fea believe in justice," he said, with a light emphasis on the last word. "Though to those raised as you and I were, their ideas of grat.i.tude, fair recompense, and injury may seem exaggerated. But the desire for revenge in the face of some insult or injury-real or imagined-is no mere article of faith, no quaint cultural artifact. It is an inborn hunger, a fierce compulsion, the consummation of which may be postponed for a day, or a year, or even a decade, but never completely denied."

Sinderian bit her lip. She was tired and cross and on the defensive, as it seemed she always was in his presence. And she was not really interested, just at that moment, in the ways of the Ni-Fea, though she might have been curious any other time. Yet she was glad enough for the change of subject.

"And do you share that compulsion, Prince Ruan?" she asked, in her most offhand manner.

His face went very still. For a moment, his eyes were veiled by his silvery eyelashes, then a fierce emotion shone out. He was remembering something or remembering somebody. He spoke very quietly. "Half-blood that I am, I find the compulsion much less insistent, more easily suppressed, but it is still far from absent."

10.

It was a dusty, weary, and footsore party that came to Saer four days later. Emerging from densely forested country, they found themselves looking down on a pleasant valley and across a stretch of cultivated farmland, to the sprawling stone fortress built on and into rocky cliffs on the farther side.

Parts of Saer are old, very old, its ancient crumbling towers rooted in the native stone, castle and hill both weathered alike, so that even with the Sight it is difficult to see where the towers end and the unshaped rock begins. But there is more to the fortress at Saer than age. Faolein had said this was a place that Ouriana's servants would have difficulty entering without an invitation, and it was equally true for him and Sinderian. Before the present fortress, old as it is, a primitive hill fort stood where it stands now. Before the Empire of Alluinn, before Alluinn was even a kingdom, before wizards like Mallion Penn worked their wonders, there were those who practiced older magics, belonging neither to the Dark nor to the Light, but wholly dedicated to the Earth. These magics had their origin at certain powerful sites, and Saer is one of those places, where ley lines meet.

By the time Faolein and his companions came down the last rough slope to the valley floor, the sun had already set, and an immense hag-faced moon hung in the sky between two of the towers. Little grey bats flitted overhead; owls began to awake in the woods, filling the dusky air with their eerie, plaintive cries. The silver waters of the Ceriolle meandered across the bowl of the valley and disappeared in a slot between the hills to the south.

The wizard took a more direct route, when the path they had been following became a wide, smooth road, well marked with granite milestones. For all that, twilight had faded into night, the first stars had come out, before Faolein and the others finally stood in a circle of torchlight below the gatehouse, and he lifted his staff to knock on the stout oak planks.

But then he stopped, his movement arrested. Sinderian, who had walked at his side for the last mile, turned a worried glance his way, wondering what made him hesitate.

Half of his face was in shadow, and the lurid yellow torchlight on the other side emphasized every wrinkle and hollow. His shoulders were stooped and his back bent, as if in intolerable pain. But she knew without being told that it was no bodily hurt that troubled him now. His brow was furrowed, and his dark eyes gazed inward, as if he were caught in some terrifying dream.

She put out a hand to touch him, to share his thought, but he flinched away, a violent shrinking, which shocked her as nothing else could. Her father was a man of great reserve, shy and undemonstrative, but he had never in all the years of Sinderian's life rejected her own more ready displays of emotion and affection.

He had flinched from the mind-touch, too, as though what he saw was too terrible to share.

"What is it?" she whispered, the words catching in her throat. "What is it you sense here?"

Faolein shuddered from head to toe, took several harsh sc.r.a.ping breaths. Then, abruptly, he was himself again: he stood a little straighter; the look of horror was wiped away. When he turned his eyes in her direction, she knew that he was seeing her now.

"It would be well," he said softly, though loud enough that the Prince and the men-at-arms might also hear him, "if we did not reveal too much of ourselves or our business while we are here. Only enough to convince them to provide us with horses and the other things we need."

He lifted his staff again, preparing to knock, but this time he stopped when a voice hailed them from the walls. "Who comes at this late hour-and why should we admit you?"

"It is Faolein of Leal who asks to be admitted. Send word to your Lord. He knows me; he would not see his friend of so many years turned away at the gate."

There were sounds of movement up on the walls, a buzz of voices, a consultation too low to be rightly heard. Then the same voice that had addressed them before spoke: "We will send word as you suggest. Pardon us, Lord Wizard, if we keep you waiting a little longer."

It seemed a long wait to those standing famished and exhausted outside, but perhaps it was only minutes before chains rattled and they heard the sound of a wooden bar sliding to the ground. The gate swung inward, and a tall sallow man in robes of tattered brown silk stood within the firelit guardroom, bowing and welcoming them inside.

Faolein was the first to step across the threshold. "My daughter Sinderian," he said, beginning the introductions. "The Lord of Penraeth and members of his household," he went on, using the t.i.tle they had agreed on for the Prince. "We had the misfortune to lose our horses, or we would never have arrived at Saer like beggars."

The tall man in ragged silk sketched another bow. His dark hair was shorn straight across the shoulders, except at the very front, where it was longer and tied up in charm knots like a village witch or warlock. He wore a gold ring in his left ear. There was something indefinably foreign about him, though he spoke the local dialect without an accent. "Lord Saer greets you and welcomes you through me. As for myself, I am-"

"-Thaga," said Faolein, startling the man so that his head came suddenly up, and his face went from sallow to bloodless white.

Yet he quickly recovered himself. "Yes, I am Thaga," he agreed, with an ingratiating smile. "Sorcerer to the Lord of Saer. Not of your order on Leal, alas. I was trained...in a smaller school to the east, no longer in existence."

Liar and braggart, thought Sinderian. He wishes us to think that he studied in Alluinn, but he is by no means old enough. Either that, or he is wonderfully well preserved-but we would know if any wizard of great age and power had survived the disaster. The Masters at the Scholia would know.

For all that, he was no mountebank; he did have a gift; she could smell it and feel it. Her own power Sinderian drew into herself, kept it secret and close.

Thaga led them out of the gatehouse and into an unpaved courtyard with an odor of hay and stables, the scent of cooking. Goats bleated inside a wattle fence; cattle lowed in the shadows. Windows glowed with yellow firelight higher up. The sorcerer led the way up a wooden staircase, through a pair of high double doors, and along a pa.s.sage that took them inside the hill.

But Sinderian's attention was all on her father. What had disturbed him outside the gate? Whatever it was, it had pa.s.sed and gone. There was nothing in his face, in his movements, but what she had seen there her entire life. Climbing the steps, he had even tripped on the hem of his long cloak, but caught himself just short of a fall and continued on with unruffled serenity. Had she imagined what she saw by the gate? Or had she exaggerated what she did see?

For a wizard's Foresight is an odd, unpredictable thing. Ordinary people, even wizards without that particular gift, rarely understand how it can come and go, in bits and flashes, now muddled and unclear, now vivid but fleeting. Sometimes not remembered after, and sometimes more a hindrance than a help. Whatever it was that had troubled Faolein earlier, Sinderian knew it might not have anything to do with the here and now; it might be a warning of things days, weeks, or even months in the future.

As if to rea.s.sure her this indeed was the case, he gave her one of his rare, sweet smiles, reached out, and patted her hand with his thin dry one. One thing at least Sinderian knew: her father would never knowingly lead her into deadly danger.

They moved through a series of wide corridors and narrow pa.s.sageways. Sometimes they met people rus.h.i.+ng about at various tasks: carrying trays of food, or tall white candles, or firewood. When they spotted Thaga, these people ducked and bowed and drew back-more in fear than respect, it seemed to Sinderian.

Following after the sorcerer, she and her companions entered an immense, cavernous chamber carved out of the living rock, the distant ceiling upheld by pillars greater in girth than the tallest trees. The torchlit corridor behind them receded to a tiny speck of light; there was no illumination ahead of them; they navigated only by a dim milky glow which seemed to emanate from Thaga himself. There was no sound but their own footsteps striking the smooth stone floor, echoing off distant walls.

It was to a smaller, more intimate chamber that Thaga brought them at last, throwing open a door and leading them into a room bright with firelight. There were sheepskin rugs on the floor and tapestries in brilliant colors on the walls.

But Sinderian experienced an unpleasant shock of surprise when the Lord rose from his seat to greet his guests. It was not the man she had expected to see, not that doughty old warrior, Goslin of Saer, who had visited the Scholia on Leal twice during her lifetime. This was a much younger man, elegantly dressed and graceful in his movements, with b.u.t.ter-yellow hair and pale green eyes.

And seeing that Sinderian and the others were taken aback (but not her father, not Faolein, as she would remember later), he smiled a sad and gentle smile. "No one told you of my kinsman's death?"

"Perhaps we left Leal before the news arrived," said Faolein, neither acknowledging or denying. "But-when and how, if one may ask?"

"This winter just past. As to how-" The young Lord Saer made a little movement with his shoulders, not quite a shrug. "He was past eighty and in very poor health. His physicians and Thaga did all they could. But age and a lifetime of trouble and grief at last defeated them."