Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 22

The hands released him, all but one, which searched his torso with wickedly sharp jabs. Its breath, made pungent by a sulfurous tang, tickled his face. Those claws scrabbled up his right arm and gave it a hard pinch, twisting the skin so he yelped. Blood welled where a claw had sc.r.a.ped through the skin. A cool pressure twisted onto his arm. At once, the hounds were all over him, licking and nosing him. The creature a.s.saulting him had vanished.

"Adica?" His throat hurt, and his back ached. Utter darkness hemmed him in. He couldn't hear anything except for the wind.

A lamp flared.

Adica lay beside him, looking half stunned.

Their enemy glared at them from the other side of the chasm, a dreadful fissure out of whose depths boiled that searing wind, which shot straight up toward the cavern's hidden ceiling. The flame trembled and steadied as the captain sheltered it with a hand. Of the dozen warriors still able to fight, six had bows, which they had readied and nocked with arrows during the blackness. White Feather barked a command. Alain threw himself over Adica's p.r.o.ne body. They shot.

None of the arrows made it across the fissure. The blast tore them away, spinning them up toward the ceiling, lost to sight.

"Hei! Hei!" shouted Kel, a call for help.

Alain jumped up, wiping the sting of the wind from his eyes. Beor and Kel clung to the edge of the fissure. Alain dragged them up. In a strange way, the blasting wind helped him. Beor had lost his torches, and his injured shoulder still bled, but.he could walk. Kel's slashed pack dangled dangerously. They hadn't any weapons, but on the flat plateau between them and the bridge a few spears lay scattered. Kel hurried, limping, to gather them up as Alain knelt beside Adica, cutting the rope that bound her hands. Shaking her head and wincing, she got to her feet.

The fissure had split the ground in such a way that they could no longer reach the larger pa.s.sageway toward which they had originally been heading. Instead, only a single, smaller tunnel opening offered escape from their section of the cavern.

White Feather shouted something very much resembling curses, but there was nothing he and his men could do. His proud face twisted with thwarted anger; a livid cut ran from lip to chin, and a bruise mottled his left cheek. Blood dripped from one ear, dribbling down to stain the leather armor that protected his shoulders. He wore a breastplate of beaten bronze incised with a vulture-headed woman, fierce and commanding. With a snarl, he turned his back on his enemies.

One archer masked^wilrra-bearVface loosed a second arrow, but the wind caught the arrow and lifted it high until it was lost in the cavern's murky heights as wind roared. They couldn't leap the fissure, and the chasm had fractured like a trident into three creva.s.ses, slitting the cavern's floor into tiny islands surrounded by gulfs of wind. The most youthful of the warriors made as if to cast his spear, but a companion restrained him. After a brief conference, they walked cautiously across the length of floor left them, hauling with them three comrades too injured to walk, and crossed into a small tunnel so low that most had to duck as they entered.

" Kel swore furiously. As the lamplight faded, Alain looked to see that the bridge over the first abyss had split down the middle, each half dangling down the face of the chasm.

They were trapped in the middle, caught on a narrow ridge poised between two creva.s.ses.

White Feather vanished down the small tunnel, and his light with him. Blackness descended again. From out of the fissure boomed a throbbing like a giant's reverberant footfalls, each one as loud as a thunderclap. The wind ceased in the next instant.

Rage barked as if surprised, and then all was still and utterly dark.

IER hands smarted as blood rushed back into them. She flexed them as she took steadying breaths in the darkness. Free, but not yet safe. Still, it was better than being trussed up as a captive of the Cursed Ones.

"Hallowed One, can you speak?"

"Beor, how came you to follow me? What happened at the village? Who else was taken?"

He stood to the right of her, panting in the way of a fighter trying to overcome the pain of his injuries." One of Weiwara's infants was stolen, but the foreigner won it back. Nay, Hallowed One, no others were taken. Only you. It was all a feint."

"To get me."

He grunted to show his agreement.

"We're trapped." Kel's voice cracked, hitting a boy's pitch before sliding down again.

"Adica."

She couldn't see Alain, but she felt him as she would have felt a roaring bonfire. He stood about an arm's length from her. Instead of answering, she extended her hand into the blackness and, searching, found his arm. He squeezed her hand. That was all. The darkness in the cavern was so absolute that she could not even see his face.

Or was it?

Light rose gently, with the gleam of magic in it. At first she couldn't see where it was coming from. Kel swore.

Alain was glowing.

Nay. An instant later she saw an armband the color of bronze, wound three times around Alain's upper arm. This object glowed. By his expression, Alain was as surprised as she was. He fingered the armband cautiously, twisted it, and grimaced in pain when it would not come off.

"There's an old story told by the grandmothers," said Beor in an odd tone, "that the Wise Ones give precious gifts to those who aid them."

Alain turned away, hiding his face as he examined the strange armband. The breeze blowing up from the fissure, light and cool now, stirred his linen tunic. From the back, with his fine black hair and his slender build, he might have been a cousin of the Cursed Ones-but he was not. He had felt human enough to her, by the birthing house in those moments before the Cursed Ones' raid, when she held him close and kissed him.

"Rope," said Kel. She looked over at the sound of the youth's voice and saw him beside the fallen bridge, staring down into the gaping chasm with his expression painted with overflowing youthful frustration. He held salvaged rope from his pack. With his gaze he measured the distance between the posts on either side of the chasm. Beor limped over to test the strength of one of the bridge posts. She crossed to him at once and made him sit so she could examine his wounds. H/had several, chiefly cuts in both legs and a deeper injury to hjxleft shoulder. Someone had thought to put a compress and alength of loosely woven cloth for wound-binding into Beor's pack. She used herbs from her own pouch to make a small charm, and bound it in with the compress and the cloth.

He grunted his thanks, no more.

Kel had a funny lopsided smile that betrayed his fear, although he wanted to look brave." Will the Wise Ones kill us for trespa.s.sing in their territory?"

"Surely they could have killed us by now," said Beor, "if they meant to. How did it come about that they fought with the party who kidnapped you, Hallowed One?"

"I do not know. At first I thought the white-feathered one, he who was the leader, meant to take us to the loom."

Both Kel and Beor looked shocked." Surely the Cursed Ones do not know the magic of the looms," said Kel, voicing what Beor knew better than to speak aloud." Isn't that the only power we have that keeps us free of their dominion?"

"So I have always believed," murmured Adica." In any case another party ran up to the stones, perhaps as a decoy. White Feather and his soldiers dragged me into the queens' grave, and there, as you found, was a tunnel built by the Wise Ones who live under the hills."

Beor coughed judiciously, as might a person who meant to step from hiding out behind an armed adult." I never heard tell stories of a pa.s.sageway leading beyond the graves of the holy queens."

"Truly, neither did I. It may be that the Wise Ones attacked White Feather and his party simply because they trespa.s.sed. The Wise Ones are not our allies, to come to our aid."

Kel said nervously, "I wasn't sure they really existed."

At once, Adica drew a complicated spell in the air to ward off bad luck." Do not speak so! Just because you have not seen something does not mean it cannot exist! Have you seen the ocean, as I have? Nay, you have not. Have you seen your j mother's mother, may her soul be at rest on the Other Side? Does that mean she did not exist, to give birth to your mother, who in turn gave birth to you? The elders were not fools, to tell stories idly. Listen to their words, and do not close your ears to what they have to say!"

He bent forward, touching his forehead to the ground in apology, fearful of the spirits that always eddied around her, smelling death." I beg your pardon, Hallowed One. Do not curse me!" He was almost weeping.

She felt immeasurably ancient, watching his young face, even though they had been born in the same season, the same year. He wasn't even old enough to grow a proper beard, although fuzz shadowed his jawline." I won't curse you, Kel. You were brave to rescue me."

"Nay, it wasn't my idea," he said, and added defiantly, "nor even Beor's. It was Alain. We only followed him."

Alain gave up fiddling with the armband and, turning, paused when he realized that they were studying him. The grandmothers told many stories about ancient times. Adica had always supposed that some were true and some were not, and yet now Alain faced her wearing an armband woven of magical substance. She had always known that the Wise Ones who live under the hills existed, but she-who had seen so much!-had never seen them nor had she believed the tales about the potency of their magic. She had witnessed their magic today: light without flame and the ability to split the very rock. Truly, what she had seen awed her, for she did not understand the root of their power.

Yet here also stood Alain, wearing an armband forged and shaped by the Wise Ones. She had seen him fighting, when she had had time to look. Nothing had touched him. He hadn't hesitated. Nor did he seem afraid now, watching them with a puzzled expression on his face, as if he expected them to ask him a question. The armband's light cast strange shadows on his face, but somehow it only made his eyes seem brighter and more sweet.

Maybe she understood then that he was not quite like other people. Some unnameable quality separated him from the rest of humankind, perhaps because he had walked on the path that leads to the land of the dead. Except he had stepped off of it. He had come back to the land of the living. He had been touched by a power outside any she understood.

She loved him.

One of the dogs brushed up against her legs and leaned into her so heavily that she staggered sideways, half laughing because her heart was beating so hard already/The other dog, standing at the edge of the light, whined softly^nd padded a few steps away into the blackness, down trie-rjdge^toward the far wall of the cavern, made invisible by darkness.

"I think we must follow the spirit guide." Her fingers still hurt as she collected three spears and two arrows from the floor. It was hard to really get a good grasp on anything, but her legs worked well enough.

As Alain moved, the light s.h.i.+fted, and together they walked cautiously along the ridge of stone, a creva.s.se gaping on either side.

The dogs had found an opening. This tunnel lay low to the ground, an easy height for the Wise Ones or for dogs, but Alain had to bend almost double to follow the dogs inside.

"I don't want to go in there," said Kel.

"Come." Alain's voice echoed weirdly out of the stone pa.s.sageway.

Kel smiled weakly, and went after him.

"Go," said Adica to Beor." You're wounded. Carry what you can. I'll bring up the rear."

Beor had many flaws, but arguing when he was wounded and their party possibly trapped was not one of them. They crept forward through the low pa.s.sageway with the dogs in the lead.

The pa.s.sage struck straight, only a few smaller tunnels branching off. In time, the ceiling lifted and they could walk upright, although never more than single file. After some time Beor tired, and they rested, sharing drink and food. They walked again, and rested again. The loss of Kel's provisions hurt them; they only had enough to gnaw off the edge of their hunger, not to satisfy it.

They spoke little. Beor had enough to do to keep going, and the silence and darkness frightened Kel too much to break it with words. Now and again Alain whistled softly under his breath. At intervals he would call lightly ahead to the dogs but otherwise he, too, remained silent.

Adica worried. Would the Cursed Ones stumble upon them, here in the dark? If they knew who and what she was, then had they kidnapped her six comrades as well? If there were not seven to cast the spell, then the spell would fail and the Cursed Ones would spread their empire of blood and sacrifice and slavery across all human lands.

Worst of all, did they understand what the human sorcerers meant to do? Had they learned the secret of the looms? Humankind could never triumph if they lost the power of the looms. These troubled thoughts distracted her. She didn't hear the scrabbling behind her until it was too late. An object, then a second, fell heavily at her heels, knocking her forward. She cried out just as Alain exclaimed out loud ahead of her. A dog barked, and Alain's light vanished.

She whirled with her spear raised to face the threat from behind, but nothing stirred in the black tunnel. Finally, hearing Beor question her, she knelt. Feeling along the floor, she discovered their lost torches, the ones that had fallen into the creva.s.se., A moment later she realized she could see her hand as a pale blur.

"Hallowed One! We've found a way out!" Kel called from up ahead. She gathered up the torches and followed the sound of his voice. He was helping Beor up a rugged slope of rock. At its top, light bled through tree roots. By getting purchase with one foot on the rocks and grasping the stout tree roots in a hand, she was able to drag herself up into a dense copse. The light hurt her eyes despite the protection of leaves. By the position of the sun she judged it around midday, but they had been so long underground that she supposed an entire day and night had pa.s.sed since the raid. She gulped down cool, fresh air.

With some difficulty, they got the hounds out and helped Beor climb out as well. Finally, they all lay on a hillside in the cover of the trees, panting. She wanted to laugh, out of relief, but dared not. Their enemies might be lurking nearby. Kel took a spear and went scouting, and after some time returned triumphantly with an escort of six astonished White Deer tribespeople.

"We're nearby to Four Houses!" Kel exclaimed, and with Ul-frega and her companions as an escort, they walked to the safety of the other village. A healer tended to Beor. A Swift was sent to Queens' Grave to deliver the message that Adica had been found. The Four Houses folk knew how to lay out a good feast: freshly killed boar and venison, pears and apples stewed into a potage, bread, and barley porridge sweetened with honey. Beer flowed freely, and the tale was told at length, and then a second time when the most experienced of the Four Houses warriors asked for more details.

What weapons did the Cursed Ones use? What of these clubs borne by the Wise Ones? Did the under hill people have eyes, or were they blinfd? Was it r/ue they could not speak? Had the foreigner been enchanted by the Wise Ones, or was he simply a sorcerer himself, hdarding great power? Could Four Houses take one of the bronze spears in exchange for the hospitality they had shown to the Hallowed One this day?

In return, Beor scolded them for their unfinished palisade, and Kel gained a circle of admiring youths who wanted to hear all about his heroic efforts. Alain sat quietly. He was too strange a figure to be fawned over, nor did he seem to care that he was left alone to attend to his food. Certainly he had become accustomed to being stared at. Now and again Adica caught him looking at her, and each time her heart beat a little harder for thinking of what might yet come to pa.s.s. For her own part, she waited with mounting impatience for the return of the Swift. The youth returned in the late afternoon: a large escort would come from Queens' Grave tomorrow to escort the Hallowed One back to her own village. The Walking One known as Dorren waited for her there; he had brought a message from Falling-down.

She pa.s.sed a fretful night and in the morning paced restively while Kel and Alain helped the Four Houses villagers raise the log walls of their palisade and Beor rested. At last the escort came, overjoyed to see her and flush with the news that none of the injured people at Queens' Grave had died in the attack or caught a festering infection in their wounds. The march back to the village pa.s.sed swiftly, and in the village itself, still marked by the recent battle, roasting and baking went on at a great rate in preparation for a celebratory feast on the morrow.

Dorren waited on the bench in the council house, sipping at beer. How eagerly he greeted her!

"Hallowed One!" He could not touch her. Standing beside the table, he contented himself with turning his mug around, and around again, with his good hand." I bring a message from Falling-down, but I feared I came too late when I arrived here and heard the news of the attack." He glanced past her and flushed, eyes widening with surprise, as Alain entered the council house." This is the foreigner. Just as Falling-down predicted. He saw this one in a dream."

"Did he?" A knot curled in her gut. Falling-down had the gift of prophetic dreaming, and if he spoke against Alain's presence, then even Mother Orla might go back on her agreement.

"He saw a foreign man stumble weeping through a gateway of blue fire, with two hounds at his side. There was a creature beside him, with flaming wings, one of the G.o.ds' servants."

"He came here through the loom. The Holy One brought him."

"Truly, Falling-down did not know whether he had had a vision of the past, or of the future. He said I must journey here to look at this foreign man myself, and to bring you a message."

Adica did not look again at Alain. She did not need to. She knew exactly where he stood in relation to her; she felt him take the mug of beer offered to him by Mother Orla's granddaughter, Getsi, and thought perhaps she could taste the bite of it on his lips as he drank." What message?"

Dorren composed himself, going still as he brought the words to his tongue. She saw, in his face, the qualities that had attracted her to him, gentleness, intelligence, and wit, but somehow he seemed, not diminished, but set in shadow, now that she had seen Alain. When Dorren spoke, he did so in the singsong voice used by most Walking Ones to deliver their memorized messages. His good hand wove little pantomimes as he spoke, each one helping him to recall.

"Falling-down of the Fen tribe speaks these words to Adica of the White Deer people. Shu-Sha of the Copper people sends this warning to her sisters and brothers." His hand fluttered like a crane, which flies easily and which because of its alert disposition cannot easily be surprised." The Cursed Ones have discovered that we are leagued against them. They may strike at any time, from any direction. Be vigilant." He made the sign for a hawk, striking unexpectedly." Horn believes the Cursed Ones know the secret of the loom and h.o.a.rd it until they will strike all at once against each one of us, but Brightness-Hears-Me speaks these words in disagreement: a man may see holy blood come forth from a woman, but that does not mean he can make it come forth from his own body. Two Fingers has seen disturbances in the deep places. Beware above ground and below, for the Cursed Ones have the power to strike from any place. Fortify your dwelling places, and make fast your houses. Retire to the wilderness, or ring your encampment with charms. Do not walk the looms except in dire need. If the Cursed Ones have unraveled the secret of the looms, then no person who walks the looms will be safe frorn them. Send the Walking Ones if there is need for a message. Be like the griffins, who watch their eggs carefully against the lion: Guard yourself well until the day that is coming, when we will act."/ She gaveJiim-'fieace to drink after he finished speaking, but she could not stop from s.h.i.+fting restlessly from one foot to the other, waiting for him to down the mug of beer. When he had recovered, she spoke." Yet the Cursed Ones struck here. If they had wanted slaves, they would have carried off many, yet they only took me."

"Then what Shu-Sha fears is already coming to pa.s.s," said Dorren." We had heard no report of any disturbances when I left the fens, but by the moon I would say that three days pa.s.sed while I stepped through the looms."

"You must return quickly to see if anything has befallen Falling-down. Tell him what happened here, and let the Walking Ones take this story to my sisters and brothers, so they can know the danger that awaits us."

"Those words I will carry back to Falling-down. What of our allies, the Horse people?"

"The Holy One sometimes visits this place at the full moon. I wait for her then." Dorren nodded. She looked back, wondering at the silence behind her, to see Alain listening intently. His expression burned with frustration as he shook his head and, with a grimace, set down his cup.

"Let me sit with him until it's time for me to leave," said Dorren." I can teach him some of our language. The Walking Ones who taught me gave me certain secrets to help me learn the languages of our allies more quickly."

"Truly, do so, and I will be grateful."

He glanced at her oddly." Is it true that the Holy One sent him to be your husband?"

She had to look away. Dried fish and herbs hung from the beams; smoke had gathered in the rafters." I bow to the Holy One's will." Would they think it unseemly if they knew how quickly she had fallen under Alain's spell? Would they suspect that the Holy One had used magic to bind her to the stranger? Not everyone trusted the Horse people and their powerful shaman, but she did. No magic had influenced her. Sometimes pa.s.sion took people so: like a hawk, striking unexpectedly.

Dorren examined the council house thoughtfully before addressing Mother Orla with respect." Where is my apprentice, Dagfa? She does not attend the Hallowed One as she should."

"Her mother stopped breathing just as the barley harvest came in. She had to go back to Muddy Walk to help lay the path that will lead her mother's spirit to the Other Side. Your old teacher is too crippled to walk all the way from Old Fort, and his other apprentice has gone to learn the language of the Black Deer people."

"A strange time to do so when one is needed here with the Hallowed One at all times," said Dorren with a frown." Send a Swift to fetch Dagfa back. Her sister can draw the final spiral herself. When I am gone, Dagfa can teach the foreigner, so he can learn to speak. Falling-down would not have dreamed of him if he were not important. What if he brings a message from the Other Side? What if the G.o.ds have chosen to speak through him, but we cannot understand him?"

"So be it," said Mother Orla, acknowledging the truth of his argument.

Yet Alain could communicate, even if not always in words. That evening when Adica led Dorren up to the loom Alain came with her, although no common villager dared witness sorcery for fear of the winds and eddies of fate called up by magic.

She had spent the afternoon with Pur the stone knapper, repairing her mirror. He promised to make her a new one, but meanwhile he had glue stewed from the hooves of aurochs by which he could make the mirror whole again, good enough to weave the loom this night.

When she met Dorren and Alain again before sunset, Alain greeted her very prettily, although it was clearly easier for him to parrot the words Dorren had taught him than to understand her reply. They left the village and walked up through the embankments to the tumulus.

"I remember my father toiling on these embankments," said Dorren." He believed that such fortifications would protect all the White Deer people from the incursions of the Cursed Ones, yet how can they if the Cursed Ones have learned how to walk the looms?"

They paused to look back at the village below, .the houses with their long^ides facing south to get the most warmth from the winter sun, thegarden plots denuded except for the last leafy turnips going to seed^ a restless mob of sheep huddled together for the night. Adults swarmed around the outer palisade, raising logs." Each village must protect itself," said Adica softly, "until that day we are rid of the Cursed Ones."

Dorren looked away from her quickly, remembering the fate laid on her.

Beside her, Alain knelt to dig a hand into the soil." This is called 'earth,'" he said, sounding each word meticulously, although he couldn't reproduce the sounds precisely. He gestured toward the nearest curve of the embankment." This is called 'wall of earth.'"

Dorren chuckled." You will learn quickly with a good teacher."

"A good teacher," echoed Alain, wiping his hand off on gra.s.s.

They reached the loom as night fell. The circle of stones stood in silence, as they always did. She set her feet on the calling ground. Dorren knew to stand to her right side and, after a moment, she got Alain stationed to her left, although he seemed as likely to wander right into the loom itself.

Clouds covered part of the sky, which made the weaving more complicated. Since the Grindstone lay concealed by clouds, she would have to weave a gateway by means of the Adze and the Aurochs, whose hulking shoulders she could use as a weight to throw the gate open to the west.