The Bitterbynde Trilogy (52 page)

Then a blade glittered, cold and bright. With a mighty heave and a gut-wrenching surge of propulsion, Imrhien felt herself being thrust up into the air and the sunlight, gasping and choking. All was confusion for a time, until her head cleared and she found herself outstretched on the shore. Beside her lay Diarmid, his body racked by spasms of coughing and retching. Kneeling on one knee close by, the Dainnan wiped his dagger clean. Water streamed from his clothes and dripped from his occult hair.

“When you have both rid yourselves of your lungs,” he said, “perhaps we may resume our voyage.”

Diarmid's wits returned in full immediately after this ordeal. He and Imrhien were left with no other legacy of the encounter but aching purple bruises around their wrists—the imprint of the Fideal's fingers—and thin weals about their throats. For it had been the Fideal herself, none other, who had tried to lure the man toward his doom. Of all ancient eldritch things that dwelled in water, and were the bane of men, she was among the most feared.

“I was too easily gulled,” Diarmid berated himself.

“She is powerful, the Fideal,” said Thorn.

“Yet I should have known. When I first sighted her she was sitting on the surface of the lake, combing her hair. I thought her one of the Gwragedd Annwn, then doubted and came away. But I could not forget.…”

“Forget now.”

The Ertishman looked at the Dainnan with a mixture of respect, dread, and wonder. “To slay such a wight is beyond the power of mortal men, Longbow.”

“The Fideal lives.”

“You did not slay her?” Diarmid was taken aback.

“Only did I sever the waterweeds that held you both submerged. With the dagger I slashed them. The Fideal is of the weeds, the weeds are of the Fideal. But she lives on, to bide in Mirrinor or perhaps to travel along the secret subterranean waterways that flow beneath Eldaraigne until she finds some other pool or tarn to haunt. During untold lives of Kings she has bided in her sequestered retreats of ooze. Mayhap she will leave them soon and, like the rest, be drawn by the Call from the North. Who knows?”

For five days more, the
Waterleaper
clove the meres of Mirrinor. Many strange sights and sounds came to the voyagers, but they avoided further peril until they reached the farthest shore. Leaving the trusty vessel beached among crab-apples and firethorns, they stepped ashore on marshy ground.

Brilliant yellow flowers peeped from acid-green turf. Ahead of them, to the west, lay a tumble of low hills that curved around in the south but dwindled in the north. The sky was softly veiled from the brink of the horizon right back across Mirrinor. A soft breeze sprang up and ran naked among the grasses.

“Mirrinor's edge,” said Thorn. “From here the land begins to rise. A day's walk shall take us well into Doundelding. Once through that region, we shall be almost at the gates of Caermelor.”

The sound of the city's name rang like a death knell in Imrhien's skull. Thorn would be claimed by the city, and rightfully so. He was a King-Emperor's man, one of Roxburgh's warriors. For Imrhien, then, Caermelor would mean the termination of color, passion, and light, and no matter what else it offered, their journey's end must bring days as desolate as wastelands, doomed to be scoured eternally by hungering winds.

9

DOUNDELDING

Secrets Under Stone

Precious stones, buried bones, roots and rivers, caverns cold
.

Clay and sand beneath the land, silver, tin, and shining gold
.

Dig and sweat
—
don't forget
—
danger lies in sunless halls
.

Miner brave dig your grave, far below the mountain's walls
.

“W
IGHT
W
ARNING
”

A long and winding path of stepping-stones led the travelers across the boggy ground to the foot of a hill, where it petered out among groves of stunted walnuts, ten or twelve feet tall. Through the leaves a dark fleck could be seen high above, circling. The goshawk Errantry was never far away. The ground underfoot became rough and stony.

After a time they reached the top of the hill. Round pouches of green velvet hung from the boughs of the walnuts; some had split into segments at the lower part, releasing the stone-like fruit within. Peering out through the gnarled trunks, the travelers could see across the folds and valleys of a gray and rocky region, rather barren. It was scattered with piled boulders like crouching monsters and misshapen mounds and indistinct forms resembling pointing fingers, which might have been towers. Yet it was not an unlovely land.

Its slopes rolled away toward a jumble of low hills, mauve-hazed, among which one mountain stood out higher than the rest. Steep was its peak, gaunt and sharply pointed like the tooth of a predator.

“There rises Thunder Mountain,” said Thorn, “and its utmost pinnacle, Burnt Crag. A perilous place, especially when storms gather about the heads of the hills.”

On the hilltop they stooped to gather walnuts from the ground, which they cracked with stones, stowing some in the pouches for later. Diarmid raided some of the sticky outer casings for any contents that had not yet been spilled.

“Whence came this?” He stared in surprise at the dark brown juices staining his fingers.

“The green purses of the walnut render a dye that is well-nigh indelible,” Thorn explained.

Halfway down the slope a spring ran out of the hillside. They drank from it, Thorn refilled the water-bottle, and the Ertishman pointlessly washed his hands.

“I have heard tell that mining men dwell in the far west of this land,” he said, shaking dry his stained fingers, “and only in the far west, for in all other regions, Doundelding is empty of human life. But it is said that the whole length of this land is riddled with hollow galleries and caves from one end to the other.”

“Then it is said truly.”

“It is also told that these underground tunnels and chambers are the province of many strange creatures. Should we not strike north for the Road?”

“We walk aboveground, not below it, at least, for now. At this time, the Road is most perilous of all. With the passing of unseelie forces toward the north or northeast, many more than usual are crossing it. Since the Road is a traffic-way for Man, their ancient enemy, it has become a focus for their malevolence. My knowledge is that few caravans are getting through unscathed. Here, we are south of the Road. Already many things that would wreak mischief and harm will have departed from this place.”

“What summons them, sir?”

“I cannot say.”

“Might we not entrap one and make it tell us—one of the petty wights?”

“That I have done—aye, and the not so petty also. Yet they themselves do not know what calls, only that they are beckoned northeast, out of their caves and pools and ruined keeps, and they must go, in troops or alone, causing harm to any Men they encounter along the way. If the migration continues, in a few months the southern lands will he empty of all but the most witless or stubborn or puny of unseelie wights.”

“Then Men shall walk free of fear at last!”

“Until the malevolent tide now mustering in Namarre finally bursts its banks and spews forth, united, led by a commander.”

“But surely no wights have ever submitted themselves to a leader?” questioned Diarmid. “To my knowledge, they have never, as a race, formed an alliance. The trooping wights obey the orders of their own Chieftains, the Hounds hearken to their Huntsmen—but eldritch allegiance extends no farther than that.”

“Yet once it did,” replied Thorn, “but that erstwhile Lord of Unseelie is now no more than a shade and can never rise again. It seems that another has arisen who has mastered the wicked ones, whether they will or no. Whether wight or wizard I cannot say, but he must be a mighty one indeed.”

By evening the travelers had reached a grassy dell. A silver fox ran across, paused and looked at them for an instant, then raced on into the darkness. Birches pressed in, patterning a black lacework against pale sky. Here they made camp. Lacquered beetles medallioned the ropy roots and trunks, reflecting in amber the glow of the campfire. Some way off, a crow croaked harshly.

Moonrise came early. Beside Burnt Crag the night orb came up like a copper cauldron and seemed to hang suspended over the hills, at the lip of the horizon. It was then that the music started up—thin music like the piping of reeds but backed by a rollicking beat made by rattling snares, and the deep thumping thud of a bass drum—music to dance to under the face of the moon.

And, in a clearing not far from the campsite, were those who danced to it—a circle of small gray figures moving awkwardly, without grace.

Thorn laughed softly.

“Come—let us see the henkies and the trows,” he said. “They might bring us joy this night.”

Diarmid demurred, but Imrhien stepped out bravely beside the Dainnan, and they walked together to join the dance.

The quaint, dwarfish folk were silhouetted against the towering shield of the rising moon, black intaglio on burnished copper. Some capered in a bounding, grotesque manner, others danced exquisitely, with an intricate though uneven step. From tales told in the Tower, Imrhien knew a little about trows and henkies. They were relatively harmless seelie wights, and their dances did not lure mortals to their deaths in the way of the bloodsucking baobhansith and others. Whether they would take offense at being spied upon was another matter.

The Dainnan did not try to conceal their approach but moved openly across the turf. Tall against the moon's flare, graceful and lithe as a wild creature, he seemed at that moment to belong more to the eldritch night than to mortalkind.

The dancers, engrossed in their fun, did not seem to notice the arrival of visitors—the pipers continued to pipe and the drummers to drum. Not as stocky as dwarves, these wights ranged in height from three to three and a half feet. Their heads were large, as were their hands and feet. Their long noses drooped at the tips, their hair hung lank, stringy, and pallid. Rather stooped was their posture, and they limped to varying degrees. Imrhien was reminded of club-footed Pod at the Tower—Pod the Henker, he had named himself. All the wights were clad in gray, rustic garb, the trow-wives with fringed shawls tied around their heads. In contrast with their simple clothing, silver glinted like starlight at their wrists and necks.

The Dainnan turned to Imrhien and swept a bow worthy of a royal courtier.

“Lady, shall you dance with me?”

She wanted to run and hide, but she stood, unable to move, ashamed. It came to her with full force how ugly she was, how unworthy. Besides, she could not dance, did not know how. But could she deny him? In an effort to purchase time, her hands formed a sign.

<>

“It is more difficult if you wait for the music to stop. We shall not dance as they dance—the gavotte is more suited to this rhythm; do you know it? In the gavotte, couples must move together without making contact. Follow my lead.”

His voice, his glance, were compelling. With hammering heart she followed him into the circle of movement. Were it some spell of the trows or some memory rekindled, suddenly dancing seemed easy. Her feet skipped almost of their own accord. She lifted her ragged skirts above her ankles and found herself stepping to the music as lightly as if her toes were not touching the ground. The knot of anxiety that had bound her now sprang apart and was thrust aside by an upwelling of joy. This sequence through which Thorn led her was a courtly dance of dignified gestures, although not slow and ponderous. It was a dance of curtsying and exchanging places with one's partner and pirouetting in a stately manner. Soon the little gray folk were imitating the two tall figures in their midst, producing their own limping version of the gavotte. Imrhien would have been inclined to smile at their antics, had her heart not been filled with terror and joy in the knowledge that she danced with Thorn.

The melody and rhythm altered, and the tempo increased. Another dance had begun as soon as the first had ended, without even a pause for the traditional courtesies. Imrhien stood aside with Thorn to see what sort of choreography the trows were practicing this time. A musician struck up energetically on a fiddle, as though he meant to saw it in half. The music moved on apace. One small trow-wife stood apart from the others, gazing at the revelry. She could be heard singing a pathetic little song to herself:

Hey! co Cuttie an' ho! co Cuttie
,

An' wha'ill dance wi' me? co Cuttie
.

She luked aboot an' saw naebody
,

Sae I'll henk awa' mesel, co Cuttie
.

The trow-wife began to dance alone, if “dance” were the correct term for it. Her limp was so pronounced that she seemed only to be staggering about, teetering on the edge of balance.
I know how she must feel
, Imrhien thought sympathetically,
scorned and outcast
.

Forcing her heart to slow its pelting, she signed:

<>

Thorn laughed. “Who could dance with such a clod-foot?”

<> The girl was indignant now, astounded at his inclemency.

“What must be, is. Her plight is her own.”

<>

“Why submit to fetters when one might be free and joyous instead?”

<>

Thorn bowed with a flourish, but when he looked up she saw bemusement in his eyes. As she hastened forward, Imrhien wondered whether it was life at the court or life in the wilderness that hardened men so.

She approached the trow-wife and held out a hand. The wight turned her funny little face up to Imrhien's, then reached up a big, bony paw to rest lightly on her arm. They began to sway in time to the music and then to step, the trow-wife clumsy and the girl agile, then Imrhien pulled her into the whirling circle. New life entered into the other dancers. They bounded higher and higher, giving little yips and yelps of excitement.