A Flame in the North, page 42
“They are not robes to be folded in a closet, my lord Heavy-hand.” Daerith cocked his dark head. “And my lord Aeredh is right; these latecomers have shown so much bravery those who hide in corners might well be ashamed to hear of it.”
“No doubt.” Floringaeld now sounded a little less welcoming. “I never thought to hear you defend Secondborn, my lord Loremaster. Perhaps you should stay with them.”
“Taeron will want to see the son of Tharos.” Aeredh sounded more as if he were in command than this Floringaeld, but I did not care. It seemed he would set me down soon, and I was occupied with the question of whether or not I could stand.
It did not seem likely.
In the end, we were carried or hurried into a long low room behind a hidden door, for there were such chambers tunneled alongside the Passage for the guards standing in unceasing vigilance. Aelflame gleamed blue in a great hearth; the sudden cheerful warmth was like a blow. I tried to swallow small pained sounds as my gloves and mantle were stripped by Elder hands and the blood returned to my extremities, Aeredh’s grasp upon me shifting but not loosening. A tiny, marvelously carved flask of smooth white stone was produced and held to my unresisting lips. The cordial it contained burned all the way down. It was red as summer sunlight through tight-closed eyelids, and tasted of small bitter herbs growing upon sunny slopes when the heat is as deep-cloying as oil, winter only a distant dream.
I choked upon it the first few times, my body refusing even so healthful a potion. But Aeredh patiently held the flask to my lips, and finally I was able to drink. Melting ice streamed from my mantle as well as Arn’s; we dripped upon the floor as if the river had returned. One of the point-helmed Elder had some skill as a healer; he bent to aid Eol, who had been laid upon a beautifully carven stone bench near a table crowded with implements, jars, and other things.
We had surprised them at a meal, perhaps. I could not tell.
I was placed upon a graceful wooden chair near the fireside, my seidhr-bag a sodden lump in my lap, Arneior lowering herself with a sigh onto a stool set nearby. She had no difficulty drinking and indeed took down quite a few flagons of Elder winterwine, each draught returning a bit more of her strength. She was pale, her freckles glaring no less than her dark eyes, and kept her spear closed in a hard grip. Any Elder who approached as if to take it from her met with a level look and the unheard sound of brushing feathers as the Wingéd Ones shone in her gaze.
It is always best not to try a shieldmaid’s temper.
Aeredh argued politely with Floringaeld and his lieutenant for what seemed an age. Finally, the Elder attempting to aid Eol gave orders for him to be propped up, and another small whitestone flask was produced. Efain massaged his captain’s throat to help the drink go down, and the healer Gaercis announced the heir of Naras was in no danger of dying.
“Strong, this one,” he added. “What made the wound? His kind should heal more swiftly.”
“A nagàth’s blade, broken in the flesh.” Daerith produced the shard from the lich’s sword for examination, and when the tale of it drawn free was told in swift words many of the Elder looked solemnly at Arneior and me.
Aeredh’s hand had healed, of course, but there were still thin white lines upon his palm and fingers where Arn’s spearblade had bit. “My own fault,” he admitted, mildly enough. “’Tis dangerous to touch a miracle while it is wrought, and the shieldmaiden is the lady alkuine’s sworn protection.”
Arneior’s spear-haft bumped my knee. I was occupied in staying upright, but our gazes met.
My voice scraped like the bottom of a cask during a hard winter. “Are you…”
“Well enough,” she husked in return. “You look draggled and half-dead. What say they?”
There was no need to pretend incomprehension now. “Eol will live.” A great hot feeling poured through me as I gave voice to the news. I had, finally and at long last during our journey, succeeded at something. Or at least I had not failed completely, though the credit no doubt belonged more to the care of the Elder after my treatment of the wound, or to whatever restorative they had dosed him with. “And they are impressed by your temper.”
“As every man should be.” Her grin was a shadow of itself, but a scalding passed through me.
It was pure relief. My fingers and toes burned with fresh blood, the pain slightly ameliorated by the red drink. I was beginning to believe we had survived, and might not even be frost-kissed upon some numb extremity or another.
The vision of burned, shattered Dun Rithell rose before me again. I gripped the chair-arms, wishing I had enough strength to send one of my subtle selves flying to truly see. I hoped we would be left alone someplace warm and quiet to rest so I could perhaps dream of my mother; I was selfish enough to wish for comfort, though dreaming of others is to reassure them upon waking.
Some further discussion waxed and waned; I simply sat where I was, breathing as deeply as possible. There were no orukhar or liches trying to murder us, no monsters threatening life and sanity both, there was no snow or ice or wailing wind, and the light, while blue, was also powerful and clear like moonglow upon Tarnarya’s white hood.
I am no stranger to the cold paleness of winter, but at that moment I longed never to see ice again.
Finally, it was decided. Aeredh, Daerith, and scarred Efain—for it seemed ill to the Elder to decide the fate of Secondborn without at least one present to hear doom pronounced, and Eol was in no fit condition to attend royalty—were to be taken to this king Taeron, and the rest of us would be held awaiting the result of that meeting.
I might have insisted upon accompanying Efain, for I was the ally to the house of Naras, was I not? But I was too weary, the world a moving tapestry hung before my senseless, blinking gaze. There was some small excitement when a Guard of the Passage loomed nearby and gestured, as if to take Arn’s spear.
“Cease,” I heard myself say in the Old Tongue, sounding much like my mother when tired of her children’s wrangling. “She needs it, for she is sworn to my defense. And you are all men.”
“I had half forgotten you speak our tongue,” Soren said, and though he had unbuckled his sword-belt, he had not yet placed the blade in an Elder’s keeping. “She speaks truth, my lord Aeredh, though it may well pain our pride.”
A short silence followed, during which Aeredh gazed steadily at Floringaeld, Arn stiffened, and the feather-brushing of the Wingéd lingered close about us both. I would not have put it past my shieldmaid to brawl, even in her condition. And I would have aided her all I could—which was not much from a chair, true.
Yet I would have tried.
Floringaeld studied us both for a long moment. “Leave the women their single weapon, then. It does no harm—though if you seek to strike one of my guards, Flame-hair, it will go ill for you.”
“Not half so ill as for any who seek to injure my Solveig.” Though she slumped upon a stool, one hand grasping her spear and the other clasped about a silver Elder goblet, Arneior managed to look near-regal. “Are you finished talking every matter to death, my lords? My volva needs rest; we do not complain of hospitable poverty, but ill greetings by great lords well able to care for travelers is another matter entirely.”
“Sharp tongues have the women of the South.” The corners of Floringaeld’s mouth twitched upward.
Aeredh laughed, and though the sound was weary, it was also full of grudging amusement. “That is a truth indeed.” Faint smiles were evident upon the wolves of Naras, and even the Elder of our group who would not accompany Aeredh handed over their weapons without demur.
Waterstone
Who can tell from whence doom springs? Did it have its source in the Crownless’s burdened return, or earlier with the son of Hrasimir? Did it come from the arrival of Maedroth, or of the sojourn of his mother with Ganaetir the Silent? Further back the woe may be traced, to the Enemy’s great theft, or to his betrayal of the Allmother before the world was made. Who, then, shall we blame? Even the Wise cannot say.
—Naciel Silverfoot
I could not walk properly, swaying like a drunken warrior, my bag bumping my hip. Arneior was hardly better; though she managed without aid she could not brace me. She needed to use her spear as a walking-stave at intervals. Afterward she would not speak upon it, for the act galled her.
It fell to Aeredh, having given his sword to Floringaeld, to put his arm over my shoulders once more. “It is as it must be,” he said softly. “Their secrecy is necessary, for the Enemy would dearly love to destroy this place even as Nithraen. As much as he hated my father, he fears Taeron more.”
It meant little to me at the moment, for I was braced for a return to the killing cold and consequently loath to leave the fire. The guards did not take us through the door into the Passage but alongside its flow, through a tunnel much airier than Redhill’s many passages and lit with blue-burning lamps nestled in holders of carven stone.
I said nothing, and we walked for some time parallel to our former course, Eol still hanging between two of his men but sometimes attempting to move his wet boots. Aeredh glanced at me often, but the red drink was doing its work, and I could at least raise my chin—though I frequently staggered. A sweet breath streamed past us, full of green scent.
“It is not like an ordinary dungeon,” Aeredh continued. Perhaps relief was working upon him like mead as well. “And in any case it will not be long.”
He seemed to expect some answer. I wet my cracked lips, coughed, and managed to clear my throat. “As long as there are no liches,” I husked.
“Not here, no.” He did not laugh, though, and grew grave. “I pray you will never see another, my lady.”
So do I. “It seems unlikely, if you wish me to wield this seidhr-thing.” I could find no more breath for banter, wholly occupied with my faltering feet. A thin, forge-hot wire of strength ran through my bones, but it had to pull the rest of me along; I was a reluctant puppet at best.
Finally, there was a tall, broad iron door flanked by more hidden galleries, and a great iron key was produced. The lock did not grind, simply gave a soft sound of well-oiled parts. Golden mornlight burst through the widening aperture, bathing Arneior, Aeredh, and my own blinking, sodden self.
We had spent the night in the Hidden Passage, and a new day was come.
On the other side were easy stone steps descending from a platform cut into sheer mountainside—but even here, there were slits carved in the rock we had so recently been under, and behind them archers ready to pincushion any enemy so foolish as to attempt this narrow entry.
And it was not cold. Oh, it was not summer, nor was it spring, but it seemed a mild autumn day instead of the frozen wastes of the Wild. Arn gasped, I let out a harsh disbelieving breath, and Aeredh all but carried me over the threshold.
A vast green valley-bowl starred with shady copses and bright glitterthreads of running water lay amid high white peaks. The sun had not yet crowned the rim of the mountains, but enough winter dawnglow had risen to light Laeliquaende—such is Waterstone’s name in the language of its inhabitants, a dialect of the Old Tongue changed by degrees in their long solitude. Music there was from the vast valley’s streams, for it was carved by great cascades which retreated in the long peace after the Enemy was bound the first time, before he sued for pardon and used the Allmother’s forgiveness to wreak yet more havoc.
In the valley’s palm, the city lay. Shimmering amid the meadows, white spires rose—not just white, but every shade of paleness, from glistening pearls brought from the mouth of my own home’s river to the snow of high places, from bone fresh or old to the inside of sea-gathered shells, from bleached linen to the evanescent glitter of rainless clouds. The immensity of the vale made the city a distant dream, a toylike shimmer—yet Waterstone’s very size meant it was clearly visible instead of a mere glimmering speck.
A star—visible and steady both at morn and eve—burned through the rising dawn, peering just over the shoulder of a mighty mountain holding back a smear of deeper darkness. Maedroth they named the star, meaning the Watchful, and Aeredhe-il the mountain, meaning guardian.
“Behold Laeliquaende,” Floringaeld said, with soft reverence. “Here the Enemy does not trouble us. You are lucky to see this sight, Secondborn; not many of your kind have, and even fewer have left while living. You will be held in safety while our king Taeron judges your case.”
I could find no answer. To go from winter’s heart to this was a shock greater than the red cordial, an orukhar’s blow, or the snow-hag’s scream. There was movement upon the meadows—Elder, dancing or walking as the light strengthened—and from far away as the cool breeze shifted there was a sound as of many bells rung in melody as well as lifted voices.
Everything in Waterstone sings. The sun chose that moment to crown the mountains’ eastron rim, and the entire valley filled with gold, green, and white.
I did not stumble upon the stairs, but only because Aeredh was there. My weariness was too great for words, or even for much surprise when a stone bailey swallowed us, and the men now made prisoner—both Elder and Secondborn—were led away through one door of a vast white building. Soren and Karas both turned back in the dark archway, whether to take one last look at Arneior and me or to grant us some comfort I could not guess. Eol made no sound as the shadow swallowed him.
At least the Elder would not let a wounded prisoner die. Or so I hoped, in the thick mud-soup my head had become.
My shieldmaid and I were led through another doorway, this one carved with two graceful trees bearing interlocking bough-crowns. Aeredh steadied me down another flight of easy stairs carved from porous bleached stone, and there was a hallway with a procession of vertical bars upon either side. Strengthening light filtered through high windows, and one of the cells accepted us. It was larger than our closet at Dun Rithell, though not so spacious as the apartments in Nithraen, and its water-room was not so private as it could be.
I could not even blush. There was a flat stone shelf along one wall, and though Floringaeld said bedding would be brought I stepped away from Aeredh and tacked unevenly for its shelter. Bare rock or not, all I wished for in the world was to gain some harbor.
Aeredh’s arm dropped to his side. He watched as Arneior followed me, my shieldmaid turned sideways and moving with terrible slowness, an exhausted warrior covering her army’s retreat.
When I stretched out upon the cold white shelf, I sighed. My grey travel-dress dripped, and I would probably take the ague or lung-blight from resting thus upon bare rock.
I did not care. Barred doors slid upon grooves in the floor, and when the slight sound of movement finished, Aeredh, Efain, and Daerith were upon the other side.
Free, while Arn and I were caged.
“I will return,” Aeredh said quietly, blue gaze burning through the bars. The metal looked powdery, thinly carved and entirely too frail to hold even a sparrow, let alone a volva and her shieldmaid. But the doors were of Elder make, and likely far stronger than they seemed. “As soon as possible.”
“And I,” Efain added darkly. He nodded to Arn, who returned a grudging movement of her own. She lowered herself onto the stone shelf near my knees, leaning upon her spear, and since her mantle had been taken wet ring-and-scale made a soft grating sound as her weight settled.
I turned away from the cell, from the white city and the green sward. I turned from the Glass, the Wild, the terror of the journey, the Mistwood’s choking silence. I turned from Redhill and the breaking of Nithraen, and everything in me longed for Dun Rithell. I did not feel my wet dress or the aching in every muscle; I curled around my useless bag and stared at the wall for a few moments, unable to believe we could at last cease moving.
I closed my eyes, and blackness took me. Arn leaned upon her spear as she slept sitting next to me, the picture of a weary shieldmaid.
Thus did we arrive in Waterstone, the hidden city of Taeron Goldspear, the High-helm. We did not leave for a long while, and though we did not know it our coming was as doom to the white towers and singing fountains.
That day, all we knew was imprisonment, and finally, my shieldmaid and I could rest.
The story continues in…
The Fall of Waterstone
Book TWO of Black Land’s Bane
Keep reading for a sneak peek!
Acknowledgments
This is a difficult undertaking, and thanks are due to several: to Mel Sterling, whose support never wavers; to Lucienne Diver, the best agent a weary writer could hope for; to Jennifer Parrack, pocket friend and beta reader par excellence; to Skyla Dawn Cameron, who listens with good grace and better advice; to my children, who love to put the quarter in; to Nivia Evans, Angelica Chong, and Bryn A. McDonald, for their weary patience; to Deangelo, who knows what he did.
And, last but never least, to you, my very dearest readers. As always, I will thank you in the way we both like best, by telling you another story…
… soon.
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meet the author
LILITH SAINTCROW was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Vancouver, Washington.
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if you enjoyed
A FLAME IN THE NORTH
look out for
THE FALL OF WATERSTONE
