"T-Tapiau?" whispered Elof. "It served me well, yes, and I have not forgotten. But I… your voice has changed…"
It has not. I have no voice, or I have all voices within my domain. When last we met I spoke in that which is nearest to me, the secret voice of trees. But there are many others, and not all can hear them, or understand. But you have tasted the blood of the worm. Look up.
Mutely Elof obeyed, squinting into the high branches. He found himself meeting the beady gaze of one of the little green birds, bobbing and twittering among the leaves just above his face. Elof returned the look incredulously; one tiny bird could hardly produce that vast voice. Then another chirruped, and another, and in the shifting harmony and discord of their voices he heard a higher music take shape, a clear ringing line, expressive as a song, that grew more distinct as more and more of the little flock took up the song. Then, like a chorus in sudden unison, they were forming words.
You touched the tree, as before, and your thoughts are strong. Well, would you know more
?
Elof felt the shiver of apprehension once again. Roc's sleeping giant had awoken, and turned a cold eye hither. It might be better if he appeared not unduly curious. "Whatever you see fit to tell, Lord of the Forest…"
There is nothing to conceal. Did you doubt the folk of Lys Arvalen? Yet as they name themselves, so in veriest
truth they are. You see and speak with the very men and women of the ancient realm of Morvan, who fled it at its fall, a thousand winters past.
Elof felt coolness pass over him, a breath of great wonder and great fear. "Then, Lord of Trees, since it is you who says this, my doubts are at an end. But how came this marvel to be?"
Through my will. In bitter distress I found them astray in my realms, and I gave them shelter. They honor me as the Preserver, and well they may. For all but alone among the ancient Powers am I, in holding true to my primal trust. I take the part of all that lives, of life itself To the wasting Ice, to the renegade Powers whose domain and weapon it is, I am sworn and bitter foe. So long ago I gave thought to the survival of men, and set aside this land as a haven for them. Here they find a safe refuge not only from the Ice, but from disorder, from disease, even from death. And from all else that the fleeting years may bring. Here they may live wholly as they wish, free to do as they will, save where it would injure or endanger another. Though few would wish to, when they are relieved of their own needs and fears. What more could men wish for, than that?
Elof shook his head, barely able to take in what he was being told. "Lord of the Forest, it is hard to imagine…"
Very well, then. I charge you, tell all I have told you to your companions, to your lord. You came seeking a new home for yourselves and your folk, a harbor and a refuge against the menaces the Powers of the Ice unleash in the world. Tell them they have found it! Tell them that they need search no further, least of all into the east, long dead and decayed. Within the wide realms of the Forest, greater even than your own lands, there will be room for all. I bid you stay among us, and in due time, when plans have been laid and preparations made, all your folk also. Tell the lord Kermorvan!
And with that, as suddenly as it had come, the voice was gone. The little birds bounced and chirped no less eagerly than before, hopping and squabbling like living emeralds among the leaves, shrill heralds of the growing dawn. But the unison note, the chime of meaning, had vanished from their cries. Elof, his head still ringing with what he had heard, sat down on a bench beneath the tree and watched them a moment, enjoying their antics. He was rising to return to his bed when he heard light footsteps come into the hall, and became acutely conscious of himself, half-naked, armed like some lurking outlaw; he did not want these proud lordlings to find him thus. He stepped over the bench and crouched down.
Two figures crossed the hall, but close entwined, a tall man and a woman speaking in soft voices. He recognized neither, though they might well have been among the crowd he had met. Gray forms in the gray light, they stopped before a door and there embraced and kissed, briefly, almost passionately. The woman leaned back in the man's embrace, and raised her arms above her head. He touched her fingertips with his own, and ran them very lightly down her arms to the shoulders of her robe. That he parted, laying bare her breasts, tracing their contours with his fingers which cupped and caressed in a smooth, slow gesture. She turned then, a door opened, golden light spilled out across the gray stones and they were gone.
So love still endured among immortals! Elof smiled. He had it in him to feel embarrassed at his intrusion, and yet he could not. In the embrace, in the caress, there had been something so detached, so formal, that it seemed almost ritual, symbolic, far removed from the intricacies of passion. It was beautiful, as a dance was beautiful; yet it held as little involvement. He could not caress any fair woman so dispassionately, let alone one he truly loved. To touch Kara thus… The idea ran molten silver through him, quickened his breath; it disturbed him bitterly as he clambered the weary stairs back to his room. But at least his mind was no longer churning over the marvels he had been told. And from the moment he cast himself down on his bed he slept long and deeply, and dreamed, so far as he remembered, not at all.
Chapter Six
- The Snow on the Forest
Kermorvan took what Elof had to tell him with great calm. "It could not have been otherwise. I should have trusted what my heart told me. They are too real, too alive, these great folk of old." His eyes shone bright as a child's. "And it is given to me to walk among them, to speak with them, to dwell with them…"He shook his head in sheer wonder.
"To dwell with them…" Elof echoed him, his voice even and quiet. "You trust Tapiau, then? You are determined to do as he wishes?"
"Hardly!" said Kermorvan hastily. "Not so soon! Many questions must yet be answered. But how will I do that, save by staying here awhile? I dare not neglect such a chance, I would be failing my folk if I did. And on the face of it, this place is truly fair."
Looking around, Elof had to agree. It was late afternoon, for all the travelers had slept far into the day, himself longest of all. The warm sun shone golden on the walls of stone and wood, and even he found himself admiring their noble symmetry, the graceful sweep of the shingled roofs above them, and the richly colored carvings and reliefs that covered so many of them, hitherto hidden by the darkness. High about the outer walls coursed carven tangles of foliage like petrified creepers, delicate yet strong, their intricate coils ensnaring graceful harts whose lifted heads strained forever after leaves that would never bend. All around this tower's winding stair a dragon wound its coils and clasping wings, only to throw back its head in agony near the summit, where a warrior's sword had pierced it through; by contrast, about the balcony crowning the tower the heavenly bodies danced a graceful sara-bande. Round the inner walls of the great court itself immense sweeps of painted waves arose in low relief. Across them silhouettes of proud ships glided, a fleet of great majesty with the sunrise behind their sails. But on the rear wall a gale seemed to sweep through the grain of the wood; the waters were storm-tossed, breaking against the very eaves, the sky dark with clouds. On all the angry ocean one shape alone was seen, a tall dark figure battling with the ragged sail of a small boat.
However unwillingly, Elof was in sympathy with Kermorvan. He of all men could not easily seek out evil among such evident craft and care and love of fair things. And his first fears had received a sharp setback, as a group of Guardians appeared to bring food. They no longer seemed so weird to him, so unnatural; their long limbs and strange hands and feet were simply different, shaped by and for their tree-borne lives as he would shape his tools. As well hate the sleekness of a seal because the sea shaped it, or the large wise eyes of the duegar in the shadows under stone. And among the Guardians he was startled to see their old folk, and their children. These were of all ages from infants to youth, and very fair in their fashion. The sun ran molten bronze in their hair and their freckled skins, and set green lights dancing in their wide eyes. They were livelier than their elders, and a merry word could often win a shy smile, as Tenvar soon found out. And through them the adults lost some of their reserve, and would talk. To Elof the childlike quality Ko-rentyn had mentioned seemed more an alert but unformed intelligence, verging on the animal in its disregard of all but things immediate or imminent; even the oldest, with lined faces and graying hair, seemed no less casual and heedless than the young. The coming feast was all they cared about, at which they would be both servers and guests; they seemed to find equal delight in both, and would talk of little else in their harsh gusty voices. So ere long Elof left them, and went to lie in the shade and clear his troubled mind. That the Guardians should have children and grow old accorded very ill with his first wild guesses about this castle, and left him muddled and unsure.
All that day long the travelers rested, eating and drinking as they would. Korentyn came to see that they had all they wished, but otherwise left them to themselves. They slept as well once more, and on the morrow rose again as late as they pleased. The Guardians showed them sweet springs and pools around the hillside beneath the tower where they might bathe. Though the water was cold as the rock it flowed from, it cleansed them of the taints of travel, and brought a tingling life back to stiff limbs. On their return their old garments were gone; laid out in their place was rich garb of the fashion the castle folk wore. Elof was startled to see the black tunic and hose of a smith laid out for him, the more so as they were heavily woven with thread of silver and gold about wrist and collar, a pattern of characters and symbols he found strangely familiar. Yet it was not until he ran his fingers over the meshed bullion that he remembered. He fetched from his pack the ancient crook-tipped rod of bronze he had once used as a cattle goad, and which he guessed must once have been something more. He stared in astonishment at the semblance of the characters before him; they were the same as on that rod, and in the same order. Only the arrangement was different, the pattern laid out round the collar and repeated in two halves at the wrists. Black distrust welled up in him once more; had he not set some of these characters upon the mindsword itself, that dark distortion of his inborn craft? Those characters had channeled virtues of compulsion and command. With narrowed eyes he stared hard at the broideries, but could see no shimmer of living light deep within them, nor could his fingers trace out in them the thrill of presence that lay within the rod. Which was, after all, as it should be; the more potent the pattern, the more bound it was to the material and shape it was meant for, and if transferred or copied it should be meaningless. Tentatively he lifted the tunic and drew it slowly over his head; he relaxed as he felt no influence, no trace of difference come over him. But in smoothing the material down, his fingers told him one more truth; it was not new, it had been worn before, and trimmed to his stature. What smith had passed that way before him, wearing about him as a token that strange patterning? And where was he now?
One by one the others of the company appeared in their finery, some uneasy, some, like Tenvar, positively strutting. But every head turned when Ils appeared in a billowing gown of white kirtled with silver, for nothing could have contrasted more with her habitual black jerkin and breeches or kilt; its flowing line lessened the square duergar frame, and set off her curly black hair and her sparkling eyes. Tenvar went so far as attempting to kiss her hand, before he caught the dangerous gleam in her eye and thought better of it. Only Kermorvan was missing, and Elof was about to remark on that when footsteps sounded on the upper stair. Into the gallery stepped Korentyn, about his shoulders tunic and heavy mantle blue as dark seas, and with him Kermorvan, clad exactly as he, but in green; about their heads were fillets of gold set with gems, about their throats collars like ropes of rare metals wrought and twisted. To Elof's eye those jewels shimmered and flashed like sunlit water; strong virtues dwelt in them, that wove about their wearers an enhancement of their kingliness and power. The Guardians hid their eyes as from the sun and made obeisance; after a moment Elof and the other travelers bowed also. And when at that night's dinner the two lords led the travelers down the steps into the Hall of the Tree, a loud fanfare and music of instruments heralded their coming, and the whole lordly company bowed as reeds to the imperious wind.
All the travelers were seated at Korentyn's own table, set now upon a high dais beneath the tree; on the right of his tall chair he placed Kermorvan, beside him the lady Teris, and on the left side Elof and Ils. There was much ceremonial about the dinner, but little solemnity; the talk was soon flowing merrily enough, not least with Gise and Merau Ladan holding forth on hunting. Only Elof was silent, gazing around at the bright folk of the court, trying to imagine the burden of a thousand years of memories in his own mind; was there enough of any man to fill such a space of lifetimes? It felt almost beyond his understanding, like so much else in this place, and that irked him. He could not accept it as blindly as the others seemed to; he must keep his distance from it, study it as dispassionately as some trial piece simmering at his forgefire. Then he would judge it, not before. But his dark thoughts were interrupted by Korentyn, pouring wine for him and smiling in his wise way which disarmed all ire. "Well, sir smith? This is very old wine, will you not try it? Your new garb becomes you well. I trust it is to your measure?"