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“Perhaps I should look past it,” I heard myself whisper. “To… to see if it is safe?” The thought of sending one of my selves to the other side of the barrier was almost as terrifying as being trapped in this hole while an entire city shivered overhead. We could not hear Nithraen’s death-agony, which was perhaps the only mercy the day offered to that beautiful place.
A short silence ensued, almost embarrassed, while the men glanced at each other. “No need,” Efain said, finally. “Though I thank you for the offer, my lady. You are indeed brave.”
Liar.I was merely cringing-grateful they had not accepted. Arn glanced behind me, though there was little enough to see, then turned to the silvered drawing and settled herself, the wicked leaf-shape of her spear’s very tip glittering coldly.
She did not ask where the door led. Perhaps, like me, she was not certain it would open.
Neither Foolish nor Hardy
We won upon the stony beaches of Nar Aemil, and when the Sun rose we drove the Enemy into his iron pen. We won the Dag Nariae-li, after which our tears were like rain. Dag Jinar, Dag Gaesion, a score of other battles leading to the Liar’s Truce, all victories. We kept the Long Vigil after Dag Skalda-en-kar, and met every egress from Agramar with swift vigilance. We won on the Day of Ash, and though it was cruel, we won the Battle of Falling Ice as well. So many victories, bought with so much sorrow—and yet, having carried every battle, we have somehow lost the war. The Enemy is beyond us.
—Unfinished Saga, attributed to the Crownless
Asteep wooded hillside, a frozen stream at its foot under snowy starlight—it sounds simple enough. Also upon the hill was a hidden cleft snugged among tumbled boulders and the strange yellow grass of winter in Nithraen, thin threads of green lingering at the heart of every blade. The trees, their giant golden leaves holding fast instead of dry-fallen, rustled uneasily as Efain stood at the end of a short corridor between moss-grown rocks, a pool of deep shadow behind holding his companions as well as Arn and me.
The door was closed at our backs, invisible once it had sealed. We no longer needed the Elder lamp, and I finally saw the trick ofextinguishing one by watching carefully as Efain did so. Kolle had always jealously guarded that small bit of weirding; the Northerner was not nearly so cautious.
After that was done the scarred Northerner tested the cold breeze, his eyes closed while I strained to hear past snowbound quiet and a trickle of running water—music indeed after the tunnel’s complete, unnatural silence. Tiny hard flakes whispered past the leaf-roof; whatever vastseidhrheld snow and the worst of the cold at bay in the land above Nithraen was weakening, if not yet broken.
Even withvolva-sharp ears, I could barely hear a distant pounding, like thunder so far in the distance it seems imaginary. Enough starglow filtered into our almost-cave to show Arn’s expression—she heard nothing, and shook her head slightly at my inquiring look.
I could say I was overjoyed to be out of devouring darkness, not to mention breathing free air, but such words could not ever express the sheer depth of my relief. My knees were not quite steady, so I leaned against the round back of a moss-coated, massive granite egg, my gloved hands already numb with cold but unwilling to peel themselves from its support.
Thank you for not crushing me.The thought, somewhat incoherent, nevertheless met a sleepy stirring inside the boulder. It had stood here for a long while and not crushed anyone, but was glad enough to be spoken to.
I was stillseidhrenough for that, at least.
“Nothing,” Efain finally muttered. “My lady Minnow, should we meet a war party, we will hold them while you take your ladyalkuinewest into the Wild. If you follow the setting sun and cross the Lithak, then aim for the outstretched arm of the mountain looking like a hooded man, you may well reach the edges of Dorael, and—”
“Perhaps.” Arn did not think much of these instructions. “Or I may take my Solveig south and east, returning us to Dun Rithell.”
“You are neither foolish nor hardy enough for such a journey.” Efain beckoned us forth with a swift, irritated motion. A faint puff of stonedust shook free of his black mantle, and though his scars had flushed the rest of him was deadly pale. “Come.”
There was no path from the hidden door; we simply filed downthe hill and turned what had to be west at the stream-edge. The water’s margin held growing feathers of slush—not frozen yet, but only a matter of time.
My overboots were glad of the change in terrain. I pulled my gloved hands into mantle-sleeves, feeling very rumpled indeed. The deep circular warming breaths would not seat themselves properly in my lungs; I could have blamed the fine floury dust. Arn paced just behind me; now Gelad had rearguard, and the Northerners moved very quietly indeed.
The silence of a wood upon a winter night is rarely complete. Even if no animals are about night-hunting there is always the wind, and the trees’ slow breathsong. That night there was also the hiss of small ice pellets falling, and when the breeze shifted a faint, distorted howling rode its spiked back. I pulled my hood up, after making certain Arn had arranged hers as well.
Weather cleared, the threat of snow retreating slightly as we crept along; the ice falling now was shaken from branches instead of sky. The cold intensified, a deepcrack freeze approaching—so named for its habit of making trees in a forest’s far cold reaches explode as if struck by lightning. It is the weather Lokji rules, that mischievous, contrary, high-horned son of the Allmother. A good sign, since he often worked against her eldest child’s plans.
He does not like mischief not of his own making, nor cruelty to the innocent.
Or perhaps it was a bad omen instead, since he had often aided the Enemy’s party, thinking himself fighting for freedom, during that unfilial divinity’s first rebellion before there was a world or anything living to inhabit it. Or so the sagas say. No god is so great they are without a mistake or two, even the Allmother by whose grace we are made—for what else are suffering and malevolence but errors, even if their eventual end is far greater than we may compass?
Soon I was fully occupied with the deep, circular breathing to stoke my body’s inner furnace. Broad leaves began to fall, each one coated with clear, heavy ice; the night was full of tiny groans, the snapping of foliage from branches, and occasionally a greater wave of sound as the wind pushed another cargo of freezing over the lands of Nithraen.
Efain halted at intervals, his tousled bare head upflung; shieldmaidslove the cold, but the two-skinned Northerners did not seem to even feel it. The distant pounding and weird howling from a violated Elder city vanished after a long time of steady movement. Glancing at the sky was disorienting, for the stars here were different than Dun Rithell’s.
The Elder Roads had brought us far indeed, and I could not find a friendly light in the heavens.
We followed the stream’s wandering for some time until its curve bent far to our right, intent upon its own business. Winter had been denied too tight a grasp upon this land, but in the end, the frost always wins. The groaning and creaking around us intensified, and when ice-freighted leaves hit the ground no few shattered with small, forlorn tinkles.
At least I was now certain we were not dead and trapped in one of Hel’s many halls or countries. The comfort was short-lived indeed, though I was still utterly grateful to be out from under so much rock and earth. I had never been uneasy at close spaces like Ilveig our kitchen-queen—who disliked even a cellar with its door carefully propped open, turning pale and accomplishing any task in the depths quickly—but after that night I never bore them comfortably again.
Efain halted once more, and after listening intently, turned to face the rest of us. We huddled at the foot of yet another hill, sheltered from the wind but not for long. I realized dawn was tiptoeing, grey and hushed, between the forest’s wooden pillars.
It had not been morn in Nithraen after all, but dusk. Now the night and the city itself were both broken—though I was still somewhat confused, and hoped the foul invasion could be dispelled. The Elder were mighty warriors, were they not?
