The Stone of Farewell (89 page)

After receiving a quinis-piece, which immediately vanished into her dress, Ielda poured them each a bowl of thin soup, then procured from somewhere a jar of beer that she said her man had brought with him from Falshire where they had previously lived. Seeing that jar hardened in Deornoth's mind the notion that her husband was dead: what man could live in this Godforsaken hole, yet leave beer so long undrunk?

Josua thanked her gravely. The three of them passed the jar around several times before thinking to ask Ielda if she would like some herself. She accepted with a gracious nod and took several healthy swallows. Her children discussed this among themselves in a strange pidgin language consisting mostly of grunts, a few recognizable words, and repeated cuffings to the head and shoulders.

The pleasures of company and conversation soon began to work on Ielda. Reserved at first, before long she was holding forth quite knowledgeably on everything there was to know about Gadrinsett and her fellow squatters. Untutored, she nevertheless had a sly wit, and although the travelers were chiefly interested in finding the way to their destination—Geloë's instructions had not been very precise—they found themselves enjoying Ielda's imitations of her various neighbors.

Like many of Gadrinsett's other inhabitants, Ielda and her family had fled Falshire when Fengbald and the Erkynguard had burned down the city's wool district—a punishment for the resistance of the wool merchants' guild to one of Elias' less popular proclamations. Ielda also explained that Gadrinsett was even larger than Josua's folk had first guessed: it continued for a way down the valley, she said, but the hills loomed high enough that the camp fires at the far end were blocked from view.

The reason it was the stopping place for so many, Ielda said, was that the land beyond the spot where the Stefflod and Ymstrecca joined was ill-omened and dangerous.

“Full of fairy-rings it is,” she said earnestly, “and there are mounds where spirits dance at night. That's why those folk that live in the Thrithings leave us in peace—they wouldn't live here anyway.” Her voice dropped and her eyes grew large. “One great hill there is where witches meet, full of terrible warlock-stones-worse even than Thisterborg by Erchester, if you've heard tell of
that
evil place. Not far from it is a city where devils once lived, an unholy, unnatural city. Terrible magicks is what that land across the river's full of—some women here have had children stolen away. One had a changeling left in return, pointed ears and all!”

“That warlock-hill sounds a fearsome place indeed,” Josua said, an expression of great seriousness on his long face. When the woman looked down at her lap, where she was mixing flour and water in a bowl, he caught Deornoth's gaze and winked. “Where is it?”

Ielda pointed into the darkness. “Straight that way, up the Stefflod. You're wise to avoid it.” She stopped, frowning. “And where are you going, sirs?”

Deornoth chimed in before Josua could speak. “Actually, we are traveling knights who hope to lend our swords to a grand task. We have heard that Prince Josua, the younger son of High King John the Presbyter, has come here into the eastern lands, where he plots the overthrow of his wicked brother, King Elias.” Trying not to smile, Deornoth ignored Josua's irritated gestures. “We have come to join that noble cause.”

Ielda, who had stopped kneading the dough for a moment to stare, made a snorting noise and resumed her labor. “Prince Josua? Here on the grasslands? That's a clever joke. Not that I wouldn't like to see something done. Things just haven't been right since old Prester John died, bless him.” She made a stern face, but her eyes suddenly gleamed wetly. “It's been hard for us all, so hard ...”

She stood abruptly and laid out the flattened balls of dough on a clean heated stone at the edge of the fire; they began to quietly sizzle. “I'm just going to see my friend,” Ielda said, “and find out if she has a bit more beer we can borrow. I won't tell her what you said about the prince, because she'd just laugh. Watch those cakes close now while I go—they're for the children to eat in the morning.” She got up and walked out of the circle of firelight, dabbing at her eyes with a dirty shawl.

“What kind of foolishness is this, Deornoth?” Josua asked crossly.

“But did you hear? People like this are waiting for you to do something. You are their prince.” It seemed so obvious. Surely Josua could see?

“Prince of what? Prince of ruins, prince of empty lands and grass? I have nothing to offer these folk ... yet.” He got up and walked to the edge of the camp. Ielda's children peered out at him, a cluster of white-rimmed eyes gleaming in the darkened doorway.

“But how will you gain anything without folk to follow you?” Isorn asked. “Deornoth is right. If Fengbald now knows where we are, it is only a matter of time until Elias brings his full anger to bear on us.”

“Suspicion may keep these people away from the Stone of Farewell, but it will not keep Earl Guthwulf and the High King's army at bay,” said Deornoth.

“If the king on the Dragonbone Chair is going to bring his armies down on us,” Josua replied hotly, throwing his hand up in a gesture of frustration, “a few hundred Gadrinsett-folk will be no more than feathers in a gale against them. That is all the more reason not to drag them in. We few at least can vanish into Aldheorte once more if we must, but these folk cannot. ”

“Again we plan to retreat, Prince Josua,” Deornoth replied angrily. “You are tired of it yourself—you said as much!”

The three were still arguing when Ielda returned. They broke off into guilty silence, wondering how much she might have heard. Their conversation, however, was the last thing on her mind.

“My cakes!” she shrieked, then pulled them off the hot rock one after the other, making little cries of pain as she burned her fingers. Each cake was charred black as Pryrates' soul. “You monsters! How could you? Talking all your high-flown nonsense about the prince, then letting my cakes burn!” She turned and smacked ineffectually at Isorn's broad shoulders.

“My apologies, goodwife lelda,” Josua said, producing another quinis-piece. “Please take this and forgive us ...”

“Money!” she cried, even as she took the coin, “What about my cakes? Will I give my children money to eat tomorrow morning when they are crying!?” She snatched up a broom of bound twigs and swung lustily at Deornoth's head, almost knocking him off the rock on which he sat. He bounded quickly to his feet and joined Josua and Isorn in full retreat.

“Don't come 'round here any more!” she shouted after them. “Swords-for-hire indeed! Cake-burners! The prince is dead, my friend said—and your talk can't bring him back!”

Her angry cries slowly faded into the distance as Josua and his companions stumbled back to their horses and made their way out past the fringes of Gadrinsett.

“At least,” Josua said after they had walked a while, “we have a good idea of where the Stone of Farewell lies.”

“We learned more than that, Highness,” Deornoth said, half-smiling. “We saw how your name still inspires passion among your subjects.”

“You may be the Prince of Grass, Josua,” Isorn added, “but you are definitely
not
the King of Cakes.”

Josua looked at them both disgustedly. “I would appreciate,” he said slowly, “going back to camp in silence.”

“It is not
a road that takes us there,” Aditu said sternly. “It is a sort of song.”

Simon frowned in irritation. He had asked a simple question, but in her maddening Sithi way, Jiriki's sister had once more given an answer that was no answer. It was too cold to stand around talking nonsense. He tried again.

“If there's no road, it must still be in some direction. What direction is it, then?”

“In. Into the forest's heart.”

Simon peered up at the sun to try and orient himself. “So, it's ... that way?” He pointed south, the direction in which he had been traveling.

“Not quite. Sometimes. But that would more often be when you wished to enter through the Gate of Rains. That is not right at this time of year. No, it is the Summer Gate that we seek, and that is a different song altogether. ”

“You keep saying a song. How can you get to a thing by a song?”

“How... ?” She appeared to consider this carefully. She inspected Simon. “You have a strange way of thinking. Do you know how to play
shent?”

“No. What does that have to do with anything?”

“You might be an interesting player—I wonder if anyone ever has played with a mortal? None of my folk would ask such a question as you did. I must teach you the rules.”

Simon grumbled his confusion, but Aditu lifted a slim-fingered hand to halt his questions. She stood very quietly, her web of lavender hair trembling in the breeze, everything else still; in her white clothing she was nearly invisible against the snow drifts. She seemed to have fallen asleep standing, like a stork swaying on one leg among the reeds, but her lustrous eyes remained open. At last she began to breathe deeply, letting the air out again with a chuffing hiss. The exhalations gradually became a crooning, humming sound that hardly seemed to come from Aditu at all. The wind, which had been a cold-fingered push on Simon's cheek, abruptly changed direction.

No, he realized a moment later, it was more than just an altering of the wind. Rather, it seemed that the whole of creation had moved ever so slightly—a frightening sensation that brought on a moment of dizziness. As a child he had sometimes whirled himself around and around in a circle; when he stopped, the world would continue to reel about him. This dizziness felt much like that, yet calmer, as though the world that spun beneath his feet moved as deliberately as the unfolding petals of a flower.

Aditu's wordless, airy drone solidified into a litany of unfamiliar Sithi speech, then trailed off into silent breathing once more. The drab light slipping down through the snowbound trees seemed to have gained some warmer color, an infinitesimal shift of hue that leavened the gray with blue and gold. The silence stretched.

“Is this magic?” Simon heard his voice shatter the stillness like the braying of a donkey. He immediately felt foolish. Aditu swung her head to look at him, but her expression showed no anger.

“I am not sure what you mean,” she said. “It is how we find a hidden place, and Jao é-Tinukai‘i is indeed hidden. But there is no power in the words themselves, if that is what you ask. They could be spoken in any language. They help the searcher to remember certain signs, certain paths. If that is not what you mean by ‘magic,' I am sorry to disappoint you.”

She did not look very sorry. Her mischievous smile had come back.

“I shouldn't have interrupted,” Simon muttered. “I always asked my friend Doctor Morgenes to show me magic. He never did.” The thought of the old man brought back a memory of a sunny morning in the doctor's dusty chamber, the sound of Morgenes mumbling and musing to himself while Simon swept. With that memory came a fierce pang of regret. All those things were gone.

“Morgenes ...” Aditu said musingly. “I saw him once, when he visited my uncle in our lodge. He was a pretty young man.”

“Young man?” Simon stared again at her thin, waiflike face. “Doctor Morgenes?”

The Sitha suddenly became serious once more. “We should delay no longer. Would you like me to sing the song in your tongue? It could cause no harm that is worse than the trouble we are already brewing, you and I.”

“Trouble?” Confusion was piling on confusion, but Aditu had taken her odd stance once more. He had a sudden feeling that he must speak quickly, as though a door were being closed. “Yes, please, in my tongue!”

She settled on the balls of her feet, poised like a cricket on a branch. After breathing measuredly for a moment, she again began to chant. The song slowly became recognizable, the clumsy, blocky sounds of Simon's Westerling speech softening and turning liquid, the words running and flowing together like melting wax.

she sang, her eyes fixed on the icicles that hung like jeweled pennants from the branches of a dying hemlock. The fire absent from the muted sun now burned in their scintillant depths.

Aditu's hand drifted out from her side and hung in the air for a long moment before Simon realized that he was expected to take it. He grasped her fingers in his gloved hand, but she pulled free. For a moment he thought he had guessed wrong, that he had forced some unwanted, oafish intimacy on this golden-eyed creature, but as her fingers flexed impatiently he realized in a rush of confusing feelings that she wanted his bare hand. He pulled his leather mitten off with his teeth, then clasped her slender wrist with fingers warm and moist from their residence in the glove. She gently but firmly pulled her wrist away, this time sliding her hand against his own; her cool fingers curled around his. With a head-shake like a cat awakened from a nap, she repeated the words she had sung: