B007IIXYQY EBOK (23 page)

They moved into a loping canter when they came to the grassy avenue that separated her family’s field of einkorn wheat from the pine forest. The close, moist pine smells embraced and comforted her. A soft white ground fog lay contentedly on the forest floor; the trunks of the trees were pale, slender stalks rising, smooth and bare, from dreamy mystery. Pools of blackness remained, the lingering tidepools of night. Occasionally she saw the flick of white that she knew was the tail of a doe, and for an instant she fiercely envied all forest creatures. They, too, have destinies that bring them to suffering and death—but it is their good fortune not to know them.

By noon she was miserable and wet—they were forced to avoid the common river-fords because these were places where ambushes were likely to be set; twice they swam their horses across flooded creeks. As they traveled, their ranks became less distinct, and when she could do so without attracting much notice she rode near Decius and besieged him with a fresh volley of questions about warfare. That night they made no fires and dined on rations of dried venison and hard rye bread. She slept with her head pillowed on moss, blanketed by the sky’s soft black, cradling a fire-hardened spear at her chest like some child at the breast. She begged Fria to send her sleep without nightmares of Arnwulf’s soulless body and Hertha melting in flames.

On the second day of steadily journeying southward, as the sun found midheaven, the pathfinder slowed. Auriane heard Witgern mutter a curse, and understood why—this was no place to pause; the country was too exposed. The pathfinder shaded his eyes, staring bewildered at Fallen Pine Hill. A lightning-struck tree he employed to find his way was gone without a trace. He frowned. Auriane sensed fear and confusion in his jerking movements as he looked from side to side.

Had he turned too soon after the three willows at Red Fox Lake? Or had some witch temporarily thrown the land out of joint?

Witgern and the pathfinder exchanged sharp words. Then they led the company into a thick elm wood, down a narrow, twisting path edged with smooth stones.

At once Auriane sensed something disturbing in this wood. It seemed to hum with secret life. It was a place where gnomes might venture out in the light of day, where the galls on the trees were watching eyes, birds peered at you with intelligent interest and you knew an ancestor’s soul was imprisoned within. Desolate faces appeared just out of sight, and when you turned, they vanished. Those spiraling branches above—surely they came alive at night and struck like serpents. She heard a Companion behind her mutter, “Pathfinders do not get lost. Wido’s had a sorceress bewitch him. There’s enchantment about, I say.”

The horses seemed to confirm this; Auriane’s gelding tightly bowed its neck, fighting the reins with nervous snorts, while its coat darkened with sweat. Then came a rushing of wind that sent the boughs high above into a frenzied swaying dance; it was as though the wood itself erupted with rage at the intrusion. At a turn in the path Auriane saw, half hidden in the trees, a lichen-covered stone tall as a man and carved with rune-signs traced in blood. And as they traveled on, suddenly all about them, hung from every bough, were myriads of bronze chimes shivering with each wind-breath; their thin ghostly chorus filled her with an aching, dreamy sadness.

I remember this place.
What am I saying? I’ve not been here before. Yet somehow…it is all familiar as an owl’s cry, as a night wind bearing the scent of yew fires….

From somewhere came a desolate screech that could have been human or cat. They passed a divergent path; a short distance down it was a gnarled oakwood gate that hung open as if inviting them in. And beyond the gate, mounted on an elmwood pole, was a richly carved wheel with thirteen spokes, the number of moon-cycles in a year; surely in the dark of night this baleful thing turned moonwise on command and caused the dead to speak prophecies from their graves. It was a certain sign some great seeress had settled in this wood.

Witgern and the pathfinder lashed their mounts with switches, anxious to get beyond this place, but the terrified beasts managed no more than a nervous, high-headed canter hardly faster than a walk.

Then the horses behind began to collide with those in front; Auriane could not see round the bend in the path but guessed the two lead animals had been brought to a halt by some dread thing barring their way. For the first time she felt a fear that was immediate and sharp.

Witgern and Maragin fought to turn their mounts about, but their horses were wedged among others and soon it was impossible for anyone to move. Maragin, the roughened veteran of a hundred battles, was in a position to see whatever was there. When Auriane saw badly concealed terror in his face, she felt all her muscles tense for flight.

Then a voice called out from beyond the bend in the path; it was strong and supple as vines, masculine and feminine at once.

“Halt and be at peace! Come forward, Auriane.”

Auriane was numbed by the sound of her name. All gazes turned to her. She found she could not move.

All at once she recognized that voice.
Ramis.

It cannot be. So I’m to be taken by Ramis, rather than Wido’s men or the Governor’s soldiers.
This
is a menace no one counted on. It’s hardly better. At least the world of day is one I know; I know nothing of the world of night.

The next voice she heard was Witgern’s. “Auriane, stay still!”

There was dark silence. Then Ramis spoke again.

“Choose, child. You cannot obey both of us.”

She has many apprentices to serve her—why can’t she let me be? Have I not troubles enough? Why is this wretched woman so greedy for
me?
Mother knows her well; she is not to be trusted.

Auriane dropped to the ground, her fire-hardened spear upright in her hand.

I could run. But then she might do harm to us all. Better to threaten to kill her if she does not let us pass.
Kill her?
With this miserable weapon? She probably reads these thoughts as I think them.

Slowly Auriane threaded her way through closely packed horses, coming round the crook in the path; she halted beside Witgern. At the sight of Ramis, the last of her courage drained out of her. She felt she faced a powerful blast of wind.

Ramis was astride a milky white mare; the beast was turned broadside to them so that she blocked the path. The sorceress regarded her with a look that was faintly amused, cool and intimate at once. The passing years had changed her little; the bones of her face asserted themselves more boldly through the flesh, emphasizing the curve of her brow, the commanding arch of her mouth, the cold passion in those eyes, those wells of thought a hundred lives deep. She had the look of some serene androgyne, a creature all mind that preserved just enough flesh to keep alive. The very air about her seemed to ignite and shiver with unseen fire.

That bright, brazen aliveness about her—what is its cause? Auriane wondered. Can one person be more alive than another?

The spear slid from Auriane’s hand.

Ramis’ mare half reared, snapping at the air, a horse-serpent with snaking neck and lashing tail, fighting the control of expertly held reins. Auriane moved back a step, realizing this was one of the sacred mares of the horse-groves, whose neighs and snorts were used for divination. They were said to be flesh-eaters. Disgraced warriors occasionally mounted one as an act of suicide. The hooves of the mares of the grove leave little of a man left to burn, it was said. Yet this one submitted, if barely, to the touch of those strong white fingers on the reins. “If the Mare does not kill you when you venture close,” Thrusnelda had once told her, “it is the surest sign you are destined to become one of the Holy Ones, and of high degree.”

Witgern seized Auriane’s shoulder in a powerful grip.

“No closer,” he said sharply, staying very still so he would not incite the viper to strike. Many of the men shielded their eyes, while others traced in the air the runic sign that gave protection against sorcery.

“Witgern, let her be.” Ramis’ voice was lilting, yet cold with warning.

“She is
mine to protect in the name of Baldemar,” Witgern protested.

“To
protect?
Now you amuse me. Can you protect her from misfortune? Or from her inevitable day of death? Stand aside, Witgern, these matters are not of your world.”

Still he did not release his grip on Auriane. And Auriane all the while felt her terror ebbing away, while an obscure excitement took its place. Some questing part of her rose up of its own will to sense and taste that cool fire about Ramis. It seemed then that Ramis’ very presence
was a strengthening draught. Do the others feel this? Auriane wondered. Has she bewitched only me?

Ramis took a pinch of some black powder from a leather pouch at her belt. “You know not yourself from another, Witgern,” she said. “Nor day from night. How can you know truly who is your enemy?” She flung the powder at Witgern.
“Sleep,”
she called out in a silky whisper.

Auriane felt Witgern’s hand ease from her shoulder. Had she cast a sleeping spell on him or merely made him think she had? Witgern slumped forward on his horse as though his bones had become soft, his one good eye glassy and sightless.

Murmurs and moans came from behind. Auriane wondered what Decius thought of this. Did he mock, or was he terrified as well?

Now she will drag me off to the dark caverns where she animates the dead. I will never again set eyes on my mother and father.

“Come,” Ramis said to her softly. “You wear your mother’s fear, not your own. Now bare your feet, and unbind your hair.”

“I will not.” It was a feeble protest, the last kick of a dying animal.

“As you delay, a party of Wido’s men approaches this place. Do as I command!”

Auriane pulled out the bone pin and a heavy mass of chestnut hair shuddered down. Then she unlaced the leather thongs that bound her calfskin shoes and shook them off. She had a sense that the earth was flesh, that her bare feet stood on the hide of a great beast.

“Never forget the power of hair. It is both a shield and a birth-string, binding you to earth. Now, my mare has taken a stone. Take it out!” Ramis held out a bronze hoof pick.

Slowly Auriane shook her head. “If you want to murder me, use spells to stop my heart, not that mare. I will not have my mother forced to look on what is left of me.”

Ramis smiled. “Perhaps you will not be so fortunate. The smoothest of lives is still more difficult than death, and yours is set to be anything but smooth.” Then her voice rose up like a gale.

“In you dwells a spirit old as mine. I command you,
give it voice!”

Auriane’s mind was erratic and wild as a cornered stag.

Bolt into the forest. Pick up that spear. Kill the horse. Kill her.

No, it is no use. She will not let us be until I obey her. Do it. Make yourself walk. Trust that she is not evil enough to make Athelinda a gift of your mangled body.

She moved toward the mare. The beast’s head came up sharply, ears flattened.

Then there settled over Auriane a strange luminous calm, a certainty that all that passed and all that had ever passed was, at its core, benign. Fear seemed to gently float out of her, leaving rich emptiness in its wake. Every sense feasted and knew contentment, as she had not thought possible in life; she swayed in an ocean of souls, feeling the close comfort of every being she had ever known, living or dead. The worm in the earth was beautiful as the lily; the weed by the path as necessary as the stalk of wheat. The sense lasted but a moment as she stroked the silken neck and felt the bunched muscles of the mare’s shoulders relax at her touch. It encompassed every sort of love. The thought—
the
mare is not my enemy—
came
to her, and she realized that the word
enemy
had been stripped of meaning—she groped for it but it was not there.

Swiftly she took the pick from Ramis, lifted an enormous hoof, and pried out the stone. The mare’s charcoal muzzle grazed her neck and agile horse lips pulled at her hair.

Then the enchantment was gone, leaving her with a fierce, bottomless hunger for its return, a lust deeper than any desire for an earthly lover.

Fears crowded back in. She looked, alarmed, at the stone. She heard several soft voices behind her cry,
“ganna, ganna
…
”
—a seeress’s apprentice.

She looked at Ramis. “Let me be.
I am
not
one of yours. This is base trickery. You have given the mare some draught.”

“Then why are her eyes so fiery? One of you!” Ramis called out to the company of warriors. “Come forward and stroke her neck. She is drugged.” Not one of them moved.

“Tell me, Auriane,” Ramis asked then, “how did you know which hoof?”

Auriane felt a jolt of unease. It was true. Ramis had not said which hoof.

“I…I do not know,” she said with bewilderment. Her voice hardened. “And I do not care. I’ll take my own life before I’ll go with you.”