Illengond Page 5

  “So be it,” Dhan replied. He looked up at the sky. Stars were popping out like distant glow-bugs on the trees of Ravenwood that he used to watch from the towers of Citadel staring out across the great river on warm winter evenings when he was a child. When he lowered his eyes a few seconds later, Thimeon and the young Ceadani woman were already walking away into the darkness.

  The prince turned and started giving orders to his officers, who had escaped serious injury in the battle. While his men relit torches and retrieved other supplies from the packs left at the top of the trail, the prince walked over to where the merchant Lluanthro still lay on the ground in the care of his servant and the officers Rhaan and Banthros. Rhaan had almost finished splinting Lluanthro’s leg while Banthros held a torch. The merchant looked pale, but Rhaan said none of his other injuries were serious.

  Jhaban brought another torch over. Dhan turned and looked up at the merchant’s young servant, who had stood silently watching. The boy had not gone unscathed in the rescue of his master. A dark blue welt stood out on his forehead and a long shallow gash ran along his right shoulder.

  “Let me look at you,” the prince said. “Kneel down here.” The boy sat down and the prince knelt beside him. “Forgive me. What is your name?”

  “Rammas,” the young man answered. He winced as the prince pulled his torn shirt aside and looked at a deep and bloody gash.

  “That was a brave thing you did,” the prince said. Rammas grinned, but the grin turned quickly to a groan when the prince touched his wounded arm. Dhan called his scout-major over. “Rhaan, see to the young man’s arm when you’ve finished with the splint. It will need a bandage. And some salve if we have any.”

  “We have no healing ointments with us, unless the people of the village have some,” Rhaan replied. A wry smile spread across his face. “They didn’t permit me to have them in the dungeons of Citadel, and I didn’t think it a good idea to stop and ask the surgeons for some while we were escaping.”

  Despite the gravity of their situation, Dhan couldn’t help but laugh. The warmth he felt for these officers who had gone to prison and risked death out of loyalty to him—loyalty and tremendous moral courage—only grew by the day. If Citadel had more men like Rhaan willing to oppose the king, it would not be in its current state. “Do your best,” he said.

  As the prince rose and stretched out his own sore limbs, he noticed a yellowish red glow emanating from the ground several dozen yards away. His pulse quickened as he remembered the fiery breath of their foe. But this glow was softer. He left the wounded men in the care of his officers and went to investigate.

  5

  OF SHAPING AND SPEAKING

  The glow grew brighter by the second. Dhan had taken only a few steps toward it when he saw that it came from a cleft in the ground. He continued across the burnt grass toward the source of the glow. A flat boulder, thirty feet across, rose a few inches above the level of the lawn only a dozen strides or so from the steep cliff face walling in the valley on the south. A six-foot wide gap split the boulder. Thimeon and the young Ceadani woman stood on the rock, their faces illuminated by the glow.

  As Dhan approached, the glow solidified into a torch rising up from the cleft. An arm followed holding the torch, and then a face. And then a second torch. And a third. Dhan now saw a staircase carved into the cleft. As he crossed the last twenty yards of lawn, twenty or more of the folk of Gale Enebe emerged from the cleft in ones and twos. Several bore torches. Others carried bandages or other small bundles, along with large steaming earthenware flasks.

  “How did they know to come?” Thimeon asked the Ceadani woman, just as Dhan arrived to stand beside them. “I remember a long climb from the village.”

  The young woman gave no answer, but simply raised both palms with the sort of expression suggesting that Thimeon should have known—that his question was foolish.

  “Of course!” Thimeon replied, almost at once. He turned to Dhan, as the villages continued to file past them and walk out into the meadow with their torches and bandages and flasks. “Prince,” he said, extending an open hand to point at Cathwain. “Let me introduce to you Cathwain, granddaughter of Chal-char. She is one of the gifted.”

  As soon as Thimeon mentioned prince, the young woman’s eyes opened wide, and she began to blush. Then she lowered her head, straightened her arms at her sides with her palms spread, moved her right foot backward and bent her left knee in an act of courtesy. But when the prince heard the word gifted, he involuntarily stepped back a pace, half expecting her to suddenly burst into flames or sprout wings. Did she have some strange power to defeat Daegmons? Was she the reason they had won the battle? He stood staring at her for a moment, while she remained still with her head bowed, until Thimeon laughed. “You need not fear, prince. Her gift is that she can speak to others over great distances, without using an audible voice. She speaks mind to mind.”

  Dhan shook his head. “It is a strange wonder. It makes little sense to me. How do you hear without sounds?”

  It is not so difficult, Cathwain replied. Her answer was so clear it took the prince a moment to realize that she had not moved her lips.

  “Cathwain helped me to set up this trap for our enemies,” Thimeon said. If he had heard Cathwain’s thoughts, he showed no sign of it. “While she was inside and we were outside, we spoke mind to mind—not because of any ability of mine, but because of her gift.”

  Dhan was over the initial shock of hearing her voice in his head. “You can do this over great distances?”

  She looked uncertain. “I think so. I do not know if distance means anything to this gift. I called to Thimeon many days ago, and he heard me from far away. I could hear his answering thoughts. But I must concentrate my thoughts on some idea of the person I am speaking to. If I am looking at a person, and I see their face, then it is easy to speak with them. It matters not whether I know them. To speak with somebody far away, however, I need to think about them. I need to have a picture in my mind.”

  Dhan nodded. The last of the procession had passed by and the torches disappeared in the direction of where the battle had taken place. “Come,” Thimeon said. “The people of Gale Enebe are here to take care of us. We will stay for a few minutes with them in this sacred space they call their Gathering Place—their Sanctuary as we might call it in our tongue. Though it has been defiled, it is still holy. We will drink with them, and then we must find rest while we can. Our journey does not end here.”

  Dhan nodded. He was still trying to make sense of this young woman’s gift, and the strange experience of hearing her thoughts in his head. “Should we take council together?” he asked. “I mean all of us, and not just you and me.”

  Thimeon took a deep breath. “Yes. We should. Though there is little to discuss. I think our plan is clear. Or at least mine is. We have rescued Gale Enebe at least for a time. We may rest this night in their care and keeping, but in the morning I must continue north.”

  Dhan’s band, along with the folk of Gale Enebe, ate a small meal together around a fire. In addition to the flasks of a spiced and strongly scented drink of fermented herbs, the villagers had also brought loaves of flat bread with dried fruit and nuts. Their leaders apologized for not having more food to share, but their people had been under siege for many days supporting a large population of refugees from other villages. There was little enough left, they said, and what they had would have to last through the winter. Thimeon replied that they were gracious and hospitable, and what they offered was already a blessing to his folk.

  An hour later, Dhan and Thimeon and the rest of their followers left the dwindling fire and descended the stairway following their hosts. As Cathwain had told them, many of the homes of Gale Enebe—the caves and balconies along the outer walls of the village—had been destroyed by the Daegmon. Dhan had seen it earlier in the day. But there still remained large caverns deeper under the mountain that could
shelter the company in warmth and safety.

  Whether the strong drink or merely his own fatigue influenced him, Dhan remembered little of the long descent. He awoke the following morning lying in a wide cavern about the size of one of the smaller banquet halls in his father’s castle at Citadel. A half dozen torches lined the wall, providing enough light to make out the faces of those closest to him. It looked as though their entire band was there, still asleep on the floor around him. Jhaban lay just a few feet away, his hand on his sword beside him. On the other side, the bulky duke purred loudly. The prince looked around. On the wall near him were two smaller doors opening into dark tunnels. Between the doors steam rose from a hole in the wall, and a small but steady stream of hot water flowed down into a sink carved into the wall.

  He turned to the far wall, where a larger door let in more light. When his eyes adjusted, he saw Thimeon’s familiar silhouette standing next to the door. He held in his hand the book that glowed with power during the battle with the Daegmon—the ancient tome from the treasure chamber of Citadel, rescued by Borodruin and given to Thimeon’s keeping. Beside him was a smaller female form. The young woman. Cathwain.

  The prince rose quickly to his feet, ashamed that Thimeon had arisen before him. He slipped on his cloak and trousers and strode across the cavern. As he approached, he realized that Thimeon was reading aloud to Cathwain.

  In the hollow of All-Maker’s hand

  Guarded from the winds of rage

  From storms that shake both sea and land

  From fears naught else could e’er assuage

  The storms of life that terror brings

  Shall save from darts that would assail

  For we shall rest ‘neath greater wings

  That blow the hurricane and gale

  Several questions arose in Dhan’s mind, but he had no chance to ask them. Thimeon closed the book, slipped it into a pouch in his cloak, and turned toward the prince. They greeted each other with a hand clasp. “Come,” Thimeon then said. “Cathwain has something we should both see.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he and the woman strode out the door. A minute later the three of them stood on a balcony beside a pile of rubble, gazing northward out over the beautiful Ceadani Highlands. In the far distance, so bright and sharp it made even the clear azure skies seem faded, the triune crown of Illengond towered over the north.

  Dhan glanced to his right. The early-winter sun had already risen halfway up the horizon. He was dismayed. “We should leave. I should not have let my men sleep so long.”

  “We have far to travel and the need is urgent,” Thimeon said. “But they needed sleep. We all did. We will leave at midday. Meanwhile, Cathwain says there is something we need to see. Will you break your fast as you walk and come with me back to the Gathering Place?”

  Dhan agreed. Cathwain handed him a small loaf of meat bread and a mug of steaming goat’s milk and they turned away from the rubble of the outer village and started back into the tunnel. He ate his bread and drank from the mug as they retraced the previous evening’s steps in silence. Half an hour later and a little winded from the climb, the three of them stood atop the staircase at the scene where the battle had taken place. It was much as they had left it. The grass was still scorched and broken, but the body of their enemy was gone. The prince turned to Thimeon and gave voice to his questions. “You’ve been here already this morning? You knew what we would find? Is that what you brought me here to see?” The last question—the fear that stung him like a switch on the back—he left unspoken. Is our enemy alive again already?

  “I have not been here yet this day,” Thimeon replied. “But I am not surprised. I did not expect to see our enemy’s body still laying where we left it. My only surprise is that there is no stench. Maybe it is the holiness of this place that cleaned the air. But in any case, that is not why we are here. Cathwain has something else to show us. I think you should see it too.”

  Cathwain walked toward the center of the great lawn where the pile of rock that had once been Chal-char now stood. Dhan saw another man beside the rock, standing so still the prince had not seen him at first. Cathwain, two thirds of the way there, turned and motioned for the other two to join her, but then continued. Dhan and Thimeon followed.

  The man was about forty years of age. Though not as tall as the prince, he was two or three inches taller than Cathwain. He wore a simple Ceadani robe, with a brooch at his shoulder. He had deep contemplative eyes, and granite-colored hair pulled in a tail behind his uncovered head.

  “He has been waiting for us,” Cathwain said, before either Thimeon or the prince could speak. “Watch.” The man reached his hands toward the pile of stone that had once been Chal-char. He had long sensitive fingers, with well-defined joints and muscles. For a moment those fingers hung poised just above the rock. Then his hands begin to move—slowly at first, caressing the rock as a potter might caress clay. He hummed as he worked, his song keeping time to the movement of his hands. As the prince’s gaze dropped from the man’s hands to the stone, he almost shouted in surprise. The rock changed beneath his fingers. Without hammer or chisel or any other tool, he was sculpting the stone. Or molding it. It seemed to flow beneath his fingers.

  The prince turned toward Thimeon, but the Andani guide did not appear surprised at all. He stood, quietly, watching.

  For several minutes this continued, then the man dropped his hands to his sides and his shoulders slumped. His face was beaded with sweat and his eyes showed fatigue. But there in front of him, where a short time earlier had stood a pinnacle of rock only vaguely shaped like a man, he now saw the finely sculpted features of a man’s head and face. An old man with friendly eyes and a slight smile.

  “Yes,” Thimeon said. “This is him as I remember.”

  The man turned to Cathwain and spoke for the first time. “Have I done him honor?” He asked in a soft voice. “He was your grandfather. I am told you knew him better than anybody.” Though he had a slight Ceadani accent, he spoke slowly and Dhan found his use of the trade tongue easy enough to understand.

  Cathwain appeared embarrassed. “I am still young. The other elders knew him far longer than I.”

  The man smiled. “It was the elders who told me that you knew him best. Maybe you do not know all his thoughts, but you knew him—his very heart and soul.”

  Tears trickled down the young woman’s face. “You have done well,” she said. She wiped her cheeks and turned toward the prince and Thimeon. “This is Gaelim. He arrived at Gale Enebe shortly after your first battle here. Like so many others, he came as a refugee from a destroyed village. His home was a day’s journey south of here at the edge of the great marshes. Not long after he arrived, we saw what he could do with stone.”

  The prince shook his head. So much that was unbelievable was proving to be true. “Now I begin to understand what you have been telling me,” he said to Thimeon. “Or if not to understand, at least to believe. These are the gifts that will enable us to destroy our enemy?”

  Gaelim put his hands back to the stone and continued to shape. Thimeon paused as though lost in thought, before he answered. “Yes. I believe so. Though not always in the way we think. Or not in the way I thought when I first heard of the gifts. Some of the gifts, to be sure, are useful in battle against the enemy. But others are for healing, or—like this—maybe for creating beauty. And maybe that is the most useful thing we can do to defeat the enemy. Make beauty. Bring healing.”

  Dhan wasn’t sure what Thimeon meant, but he felt too ashamed at his lack of understanding, and held his tongue. For a few minutes, then, the only sound was Gaelim’s humming. The stone statue continued to take human shape, as ripples spread down from the head to the neck and then the chest and shoulders. Dhan turned from the statue to Gaelim, whose face was set in concentration. What had happened to his village? What had he endured before coming here? He thought then of the r
efugees who had come—or tried to come—to Citadel over the past year. To say they had not been as warmly welcomed as the refugees in Gale Enebe would be to understate how poorly the king had treated them, refusing to give them any aid and calling their tales of the Daegmons “lies and myths”.

  A voice broke the stillness. “So you will still take us with you, then?” Cathwain asked Thimeon. She had a pleading expression and she lay her hand on his arm. The question surprised the prince. Clearly this conversation had started earlier.

  Thimeon looked uncomfortable. He gazed back at Cathwain as though pleading his own request. She continued. “My grandfather did not tell me at first. But I wondered, and I guessed. I heard hints. So I kept asking him. He believed that the Daegmons came here in part because of Gaelim and me. They came to destroy not just our village, but us. I do not want to be the cause of that again. If my gift can help defeat them—” she didn’t finish her sentence but simply raised her hands helplessly.

  “And I, too,” Gaelim said, without taking his hands off his work.

  Thimeon sighed deeply. “I will not turn you away. If the All-Maker has called you to join us, I have no authority to say ‘no’.”

  “But you are afraid for us,” Cathwain said softly. “I do not need my gift to read your thoughts.”

  Thimeon put both arms around Cathwain and embraced her briefly. “Yes,” he said. “But I fear for all of Gondisle if this battle is lost. If nothing else, what has happened here last night has made it very clear. You are no safer in Gale Enebe than you will be traveling with us. Yes. If you will come, we will have you. We have two spare horses. We leave at midday.”

  6

  LAMBSFLOWER