Springwar (14 page)

“So no one knows I’m here?” It was safer than confronting what Avall was still barely able to comprehend.

“No one but me—so far. But I’ll have to report you at some point. I’d rather have my facts straight when I do.”

“Where am I?”

“You truly don’t know?”

“I’m too weak to play games, Myx.”

Myx nodded warily. “On that I agree. And on the fact that you’ve been in very cold water a very long time. Unfortunately, the nearest source of that much cold water is
the Ri-Eron, which is a shot away—across empty land. And if you’d come that way, the lookouts would surely have seen—”

“I’m in a tower,” Avall announced abruptly. “It fits. Your garb, these quarters, the quality of light: sunlight on expanses of snow. The question is, which tower?”

“Drink some more.”

Avall wanted to refuse, but the idea was suddenly insanely appealing. He finished the cider—under his own power—and extended the mug for more. Myx scurried off to oblige. Avall scooted higher in bed, tugged the fur coverlet close around him. Birkit fur, he noted, with a shiver of revulsion. He knew things about birkits no one else did—more things he dared not think on now.

“Eron Tower,” Myx conceded.

“The one at the top of the gorge?”

“There
is
only one Eron Tower.”

Joy welled up in Avall so forcefully he would’ve started from his bed had Myx not restrained him.

“You haven’t told me how you got here,” Myx reminded him, with a forcefulness that was almost, but not quite, a threat. “I’ll have to explain your presence, and craft-kin or no, I
can’t
explain it.”

“I don’t know myself.”

“You were wet. You weren’t frostbitten, however, or frozen—beyond your hair.”

Silence.

“The only thing that makes sense …”

“What?”

“Is that you simply appeared out of thin air.”

Avall rolled his eyes in mock dismay, even as his heart gave a twitch. He truly did not know himself—but even if that notion was preposterous, it also had an insidious sort of logic.

So people didn’t spontaneously … place-jump. They didn’t talk mind to mind, either. Or travel to the Overworld.

Except that
he
did—with the assistance of a certain magical gem.

A gem that had, apparently, mustered a desire from somewhere to save him.

And delivered him into friendly hands a stone’s throw from his goal.

“I have to leave,” he cried.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind! Not until I have answers. Besides, it’s almost dark and starting to snow again.”

Avall couldn’t resist a contemptuous snort. “I have no fear of the weather—not any longer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I know you’ve been outside, if that’s what you’re getting at. I saw your clothes; I saw the frostburn on your face and hands. I saw scars on your neck. You’ve got secrets—but not as many as you’d like.”

“I’d prefer to have none,” Avall flared. “But I don’t have anything like as many answers as you think I’ve got, either. For instance, I truly have no idea how I came here.”

“But you have suspicions—you have to.”

Avall nodded slowly.

“It would seem,” Myx ventured, “that we need each other.”

“Meaning?”

Myx shrugged. “You need care, for one thing. Anyone who sees you here will ask the same questions I have. And some of them will be people who won’t take kin-claim, sketchy as it is, as rationale for silence. Eight, man, I could keep you here and starve you and make you tell your tale that way!”

Avall almost laughed aloud. “No you couldn’t! You have to have friends here; you’d have to keep them away, and anything you did to that end would look suspicious. On the other hand, you need me to remain discreet, so as not to cast aspersions on whoever was on guard tonight, who’s almost bound to be a friend of yours.”

Myx nodded slyly. “My bond-brother, actually. He’s the reason I didn’t raise the alarm first and ask questions later.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Of course! I haven’t yet because by the time I got through tending you, you’d come around.”

“You could’ve called someone when I showed up! That’s what I’d have done.”

“Would you? You walk in your room and find a near stranger in a puddle of water on your floor, unconscious and maybe dying? The dead answer no questions. And no one’s up here but me; they’re all on duty or at supper.”

“Which means they’ll be looking for you.”

Myx shook his head. “I’m known as a bit of a hermit. And I’ve not felt well of late.”

Avall took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was tired. So tired. And confused—easily as confused as Myx. But he was also close to the goal he had set however many days ago it had been. He hated to delay now. If he could only travel a few more shots. Or send a message.

But there was no one here he’d trust with one, and in any event he could navigate the distance himself in little longer than it would take to find a messenger, send him off, make the necessary connections and decisions, and return with someone Avall
could
trust.

Except, he realized suddenly, he had no idea how much time had passed between then and now. They—he, Rann, and Div—had been attacked. There was only one reason for that attack. Therefore someone from Gem-Hold had the same reason for reaching Tir-Eron that he did.

“What day is it?” he asked abruptly.

Myx grinned at him. “Why should I tell you? Why shouldn’t I trade information for information?”

“Because information can get you killed,” Avall replied flatly. “Because what you already know can put you in debt to a very powerful craft and clan, and earn you some very powerful enemies as well. I’ve nothing against you, but I make a better friend than foe—and nobody needs enemies.”

Myx gnawed his lip. “Can we make a deal?”

“Maybe.”

A deep breath. “I won’t say anything to anyone except my bond-brother, and I’ll swear him to bond-oath. You stay here
tonight. And tomorrow night—or sooner, if we can—I’ll help you get away from here.”

“I sense conditions impending.”

“You’re no fool. Neither am I. There’s a mystery here, and if I’m going to be involved, I want to be on the right side—or at least the winning side. At the very least I want you to promise me—when you can—to tell me the truth about everything.”

Avall regarded him steadily. “If the King or The Eight do not bind me with vows that supersede it, I will do that thing. In a year and a day, I will do it.”

“Good,” Myx grinned. “Now … I’ll go seek my brother.”

Avall wanted to rise to stop him, but when he made to do so, his muscles failed—not so much from weakness as from pain. It was as though every fiber were laced with ice. It would be a long time, he suspected, before he was free of pain again.

And he wasn’t certain he had a long time. He had to get word to Eellon, Chief of his clan, about a certain revelation. And it truly was something he was better equipped to deliver in person. Never mind that Eellon was among the few with sufficient influence to silence whatever random speculation might emerge from what was even now transpiring.

But in spite of himself, he almost slipped into sleep again—or unconsciousness—though he did hear the click of a key in the lock when Myx departed.

As soon as he was alone, he took a deep breath—it was like breathing fire—cleared his throat again, and pushed the coverlet away. Another breath, and he got his feet over the side. Two more, and he could sit up. Darkness swam behind his eyes, and for a long moment he thought his body had erupted in flame. He closed his eyes, tried to regain some control over his breathing, then recalled what his masters at War-Hold had taught him long ago, information which Merryn had drilled into him endlessly in later days: that pain was not truly real, and could, at need, be ignored.

The deepest breath yet, while he tried to think on something else entirely, and he managed to half lunge, half fall
across the space between the bed and the window, so that his fingers found the hard, cold stone of the sill.

He faced west.

The sun was all but gone now, but he could see the mountains that masked it: a saw-toothed bite from the horizon. He’d been among those mountains not that long ago: a simple goldsmith, newly married, happily engaged in crafting a war helm for the King, while working in the mines one-quarter of the time.

Where he’d found the gem that now thumped heavily against his chest. Opal but not opal; ruby, yet not that, either. Red, but with a sparking heart like crystal fire.

He reached for it, but that upset his balance, and he had to slap both hands back on the sill. It was darkening out there as he watched: the last of the sunlight being sucked down by the endless shots of snow that lay between him and the forests. Forests that themselves covered half the distance between here and where he’d so recently been. Shots he’d traversed by a means no one should’ve been able to effect.

Unless they had access to what he had little choice but to call magic.

The magic of this gem.

The weight of that knowledge caught him unaware and made him gasp. For a moment he wished he’d died in truth, so that he would no longer have to bear this terrible burden of responsibility. He closed his eyes—to conjure darkness or escape it, he had no idea.
No
, he told himself, firmly. He had two things yet to accomplish,
then
he could rest. A day, at most. Half that if he pushed himself to the limit. In fact, he realized, he could probably do one of those things right here.

If he was strong enough—and had appropriate gear.

A quick look-round showed nothing obviously useful, and he knew he hadn’t the strength for a search. It wouldn’t take much. A cut in his hand: merely enough to draw blood—maybe not even that, were it not for the distance involved.

He saw nothing. But then sense caught up with desire, and he recalled that his gear was still in the room. He slid down the wall, then crawled on all fours across the thick
sheepskin throw rug to where his snow breeches lay clumped before the fire. Myx, reasonably enough, had undressed him in haste, and spared no time for niceties, so that Avall’s belt was still attached to his breeches, and his knife to the belt. He found it, worked it free, and lay there panting, listening for Myx’s return, mustering strength for that final trek to his bed.

This close to the fire, its heat beat at him in waves, pain and pleasure so mingled he couldn’t distinguish them. He suppressed an urge to crawl right into the fire itself, and complete the thawing of his body, mind, and soul that way.

Or maybe the gem could do that.

Back to bed then? Or should he simply remain here, since whatever he did would be obvious. Here seemed as good a place as any, and was better use of time in the bargain. And with that, he found the knife and dragged the edge clumsily along his palm just enough to bring forth blood, then clasped his hand upon the gem.

Warmth lapped at him, stronger but less fierce than the fire, and it was as though he were being filled with …
himself
, it almost seemed: some vital component of his being that had dispersed and now returned. He felt stronger at once, and more energized. His breathing slowed and steadied, and his heart lapsed into a less frantic pace. Calm came with it. He closed his eyes tighter, and … wished.

Wished to see Strynn, to tell her he was all right. Wished to see Rann and tell him the same. And Merryn. He was inside himself and then he wasn’t, and that frightened him beyond reason. But then logic made him recall something he should have thought of earlier. And in that final moment before panic made him return to himself, he pictured another face in his mind. Eellon, who was very close by indeed. And who was kin. And with whom he was linked by affection as well as blood.

Almost he had it. Eellon’s face swam before his inner eye. But Eellon was engaged in dinner, and wasn’t paying attention to what disparate thoughts might come prying at his mind. And so he missed Avall’s frantic plea.

And then panic caught him again, and sent him roaring
back into himself. He had only sense enough to free his hand from the gem before darkness found him in truth.

“… nor is it to be assumed that a finite number of integers exist, yet an infinite number can be part of a greater infinity. For instance, when a man walks to his door, he faces an infinite number of futures. Go right, or left, or straight ahead, at any of a thousand angles, each of these also offers an infinite number of possible choices, yet each choice diminishes the number of ways his life may fall—yet there are still an infinite number. Frinol syn Meekon has this to say about …”

Lykkon syn Argen-a jerked his head up with a start, gazing blearily at the book propped on the desk before him. Wine cooled to his right in a cup Avall had made him for his last birthday—his nineteenth. A plate of meat morsels sat to the left, mingled with small loaves and various dipping sauces. It was all he had time for now, amid this mass of scholarship.

Perhaps, he reflected, he wasn’t cut out to be a Loremaster after all. Not if lore involved much in the way of mathematics. He liked
concrete
things—or history, which was
about
concrete things. But this! Abstract numerical theory that connected to not much of anything. That existed only to confound the minds of nineteen-year-olds, as best he could tell.

But he had to finish this treatise tonight. He had an exam on it tomorrow a hand after sunrise—which sunrise he suspected he’d be awake to witness.

Sighing, he rose and snared the wine, quaffing it absently even as he realized that was foolish. It would make him sleepy when he needed to stay awake. Oh well; it was getting dark anyway. Time to raise some light—and put on a pot of cauf. Pausing to stretch his lithe body, and to wipe an inky forelock out of his eyes, he sauntered to the fireplace, lit a splinter from the stash there, and used it to light two candles on the mantel, and two more to either side of his desk. That accomplished, he returned to the hearth, found the small
cauf-grill set there, lit it, then filled a pot with water and set it on to boil. Rising again, he started to return to the book, but concluded that a bit of exercise might better set his blood flowing. With that in mind, he doffed the long house-robe that staved off the random chills that found their way inside, leaving him clad in maroon house-hose and short-tunic. A series of bouncing steps brought him to the thick glass door that looked out on his balcony. A glitter of snow showed on the pavement beyond, and more mounded on the rail, while icicles as big as his arm depended from the rafters beyond. The door itself was frosted with rime, and his breath turned it white where he paused to look out on Tir-Eron—what he could see of it, beyond the crenulated roofs of Argen-Hall. Steam rose from the Ri-Eron, for the air above it was warmer than the water, and very dimly he could discern, on the opposite bank, the impertinent spire of Lore’s tower, which was the tallest structure in Eron Gorge, because some nameless Lore Chief years ago had got both a King and a Priest to agree that thought ought to come above all other things.