Nightwatch....XD

[Samira]

<First of all, forgive meh because some chapters have quotes before them and some I haven't put a quote to yet. When I'm done the entire thing I'll be sure there's a quote before each chapter. For now, just bear with me, k?>

PREFACE:

This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began.

– C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

She was nearly running through the woods, glancing around her, delighted with the green lights filtering though the trees, the golden sunlight speckling the plants, the birds singing, the soft dirt and moss under her bare feet. Her golden hair was wild about her shoulders, with bits of bark or leaves stuck here and there in the long blonde curls. Her clothes were old, torn in places, dirty from her careless abandon in the woods that day.
She didn’t care. She felt free; free from her life, free from her fears. Free from him.
The thought passed through her mind swiftly and she did nothing to stop it coming in or to hold it leaving. It wasn’t a welcome thought, but it was gone in a moment. With that thought, others followed.
She could tell him she’d gone to bathe. Most likely he would believe her if she stopped by the stream and took care to stay clean on her way back, but then again he might not.
If he ever knew I was in the woods again…
She took her mind off the thoughts, pushing them effectively to the very back without disturbing any of the other thoughts lying dormant there. She’d learnt to do that a long time ago.
She knew she was hard on herself, knew she had a lot of things in her mind that she’d have to sort out one day, but in her life she couldn’t do that right now. That would let out emotions, and emotions had nothing to do with her life; they never had. They would only complicate things.
She ran on.

Suddenly a thought came to her, and she turned it over a few times, almost as if she was rolling a new food around on her tongue, deciding if she liked the taste or not. Most new thoughts were slightly stale to her; the ones she knew were useless. But she liked this one. I could run away, refuse to go back home. He wouldn’t like it, but what would it matter? She wouldn’t be there to take the abuse. She would stay somewhere else, somewhere away from her fears and her troubles. She had long since learnt to rely on herself.
Yes, she liked that idea. She would run away.
She turned a little and headed west, directly away from her home, her life, her fear. Her master.

So caught up with her own thoughts was she that she never noticed the tall stone arch, the moss growing in the cracks and over the stone, the intricate carving over the top of it. She never saw the crumbling, steep stone steps beyond, the steep drop. It was almost an amphitheater of stone, set in the midst of the forest, decaying and crumbling with the green of the growing moss and lichen taking over. It was so out of place, yet fit in so well with the rest; but she never noticed it, never even saw it. She was looking up at a tree, smiling at the song of a bird, when she stepped off the edge, and found herself falling.
Only then did she see the crumbling ring of stone, the collapsing arches all around, the steep steps, and the hard stone ground rising up to meet her, much faster than she’d like it to.
Everything seemed to pause for a moment before she landed; time hung suspended in space, and everything in the universe held still for just a bare moment, waiting… waiting…
She had time for a piercing scream before she was aware of a dull thud, a sickening crunch. She cringed inside as she realized the sound was her body hitting the stone. For a moment everything was silent, numb. Then she was aware of a sound of screaming and crying, a terrible sound that tore into her ears, but as if it came though a deep fog, or over a wide chasm.
She felt no pain for a moment, the shock of her fall blocking it out. Then she felt it, the sharp, piercing pain shooting through her, coming from everywhere and nowhere, and spreading from every part of her body and to every part. It felt like fire running in her blood, a terrible burning, devouring flame. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her whole body was set with flames, throbbing, pulsing, shuddering, convulsing. It hurt, burned.
She realized the screaming was coming from her own throat, and she tried to stop, tried to grit her teeth and be rid of the pain, but it wouldn’t leave. Then the pain came stronger and stronger, and she gave up and let it wash over her in wave after wave of terror before merciful blackness covered her…

Part 1: THE GIRL

CHAPTER 1:

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Consciousness came slowly, beginning in the very back of her mind, and she felt the chill of the cool breeze brushing over her, like gentle fingers.
That gentle, innocent breeze first awakened the pain inside her, and in a moment it was strong, a rushing tide of fire coursing through her.
Then she heard the soft whisperings of the leaves moving in the trees, the gentle hum of insects, and she could smell the freshness of the earth and the air.
Then she opened her eyes, slowly, and for a moment everything was dark. After a bit she could see a large full moon, high above her, hanging suspended in the velvety blackness of the sky. Around it the stars wheeled; she could almost see their motion, like an eternal dance, infinitely slow and majestic. By the pale light of the moon and stars she could see tatters of shadow, like a drawing of shadow on darkness. She was at the bottom of what was almost a stone amphitheater, ringed with tall, crumbling arches and dead trees. She could see the bare arms of the trees reaching up against the sky, like skeletal fingers grasping at a faint hope.
Then she saw the motion around her. Silent, black-robed forms, hidden deep in their dark hoods and cloaks, surrounded her, moving slowly, seeming almost to glide rather than walk.
Who am I? Where am I? Where does the pain come from? She felt a wave of shock, almost panic, when she realized she could remember nothing at all. She didn’t know her name. She didn’t know where she came from, who her family was, what had happened, how she had gotten here, or the answers to any of the numerous questions flooding her mind.
But only for a moment. Then the pain washed over her again, so strong she gritted her teeth to keep from screaming; doing so gave her a violent headache. She tried to move and the pain worsened, shooting through her. She heard a subdued, but persistent moaning, and realized she was making the noise. She tried to stop.
“Hush, be still,” she heard a soft, silky voice say. She realized one of those black figures was talking to her, standing just beside her. She realized she was lying not on the stone ground but on a sort of stretcher held by four more of the dark… things. She felt a dry, cool hand gently probing her leg. Pain shot up it again and she whimpered. The hand moved again and she felt cool fingers brushing across her eyelids and heard soft, strange words. The pain eased a little.
“Shhh…” the sibilant voice said again. “Sleep deep… the Nighthingych keeps you… warm and safe… sleep deep...” Over and over the words repeated, in a kind of chanting rhythm, on and on. She let the words wash over her in gentle waves of warmth, soothing her, until she felt wrapped in them, drifting on and on through a warm sea of comfort, and then it closed over her and she slipped into a deep sleep.

When she woke up, it came all at once, and she knew she was awake, but her eyes opened slowly, as if uncertain they wanted to see whatever there was for them. She was in a large, soft bed of dark wood, covered with white blankets edged with gold. The bedding over her was so smooth that it seemed to have not been slept in.
The room she was in wasn’t large, but a comfortable size, built of irregularly shaped stones fitted together smoothly and painted white, and with beams of the same dark wood as the bed crossing over the ceiling and down the walls. The walls were interesting; the stone was so unevenly cut, and yet every piece fit together with the next one so perfectly. The white paint was unmarred and clean.
Against the wall to her right she could see a large chest of light amber-coloured wood bound with gold. She wondered what was in it briefly, before her eyes moved on about the room. Next to the chest was a tall dresser. It had a sort of runner on the top, made of thin white fabric and edged with white and gold lace, long enough so that it hung down the sides of the dresser; but besides that the dresser-top was bare.
There was a large window set in the wall across from her, with cut panes of clear crystalline glass set in it, held in place by strips of lead, and morning sunlight streamed in it, playing like golden fingers on the white walls and shining on the dark beams, bringing out the rich tones of the wood. There was a white cushion on the window-seat, lying in the corner as if someone had recently sat there. Despite the friendly look of the cushion in the window, the bright whites and golds and the deep wood, the room seemed unoccupied, a room belonging to some other person; absent, perhaps. It seemed somehow too clean, too fresh; it wasn’t a room meant for her. Her eye traveled on.
By the bed were three chairs, one next to the pillow on her right side, and the other two on her left, one at the head and the other next to it, almost as if three people had taken them and sat with her while she slept. They were comfortable-looking chairs, made of a silvery wood, with deep seats and rounded backs, with low, curved armrests. There were cushions in them of gold and red and white, and she wondered who had sat in them.
In the last wall there were two doors. One of them was rather small and nondescript, and she supposed it must be a closet of some sort, probably a privy. The other door must be the door to the world outside her room.
For some reason, she studied it until she could see each individual line in the grain of the dark wood. It wasn’t an ornate door, but rather plain, though very large. The handle was gold, but instead of being carved intricately, as she somehow felt it should be, it was smooth and plain, obviously meant to be serviceable, not decorative. She took an instant liking to the door, strange as the feeling was. It was while she was examining the door so carefully that it opened. It happened in stages, she felt. First she saw the handle moving. Then the door was moving forward, and then she could see a crack between the door and the stone frame, and after that it opened all the way and a dark … creature … came in. She had no other word for it.
Her visitor – probably her host, too, she realized – was a small, wrinkled figure with pale skin and white hair wrapped in a black cloak and a deep black hood. Bright, black eyes twinkled out at her from the shadows of the hood and the old, faded mouth was twisted into a strange semblance of a smile in the pale face, giving the creature a friendly, almost comic look. She could find no fear in her for this old creature, which she felt must be friendly. She lay still, waiting for it to reach her. It moved smoothly, gracefully; she thought it might be one of the creatures she had been surrounded by last night. Its walk was somehow confident, but ginger; as if it tested the ground to be sure it wouldn’t break under its frail weight. She almost got the impression of a very old woman, perhaps a grandmother, looking down at her kindly, gently; to be sure she was well. A thin, bony hand reached out, covered with pale, wrinkled skin, and gently brushed across her forehead and down her cheek.
She sat up carefully, trying to remember what the pain was from. It wasn’t as bad as last night – if it had been last night. Rather, it was quite lessened, and not so sharp and furious. But it was still there, a constant burning ache, and very insistent that she notice it. Every little move, every twitch of a muscle, brought it on fiercer.
She felt helpless, and somehow she knew it was not a feeling to which she had accustomed herself in that dark, blank past that she could no longer remember. She wanted to moan, but something inside her refused to be seen as weak, so she held it in. That same silky voice, smooth as honey and somehow just as sweet, made her think that this was the same creature who had sung her to sleep. It murmured a few singsong words half under its breath before speaking louder.
“Much better; the illness is gone,” it said, its dark eyes shining. “Long sleep and warmth have helped. And the Ongi-kanp of the Nighthingych,” it added a little slyly. She still couldn’t remember anything before waking up in that amphitheater, in the dark, with the terrible pain. She wondered vaguely what Ongi-kanp meant.
“Where am I?” she managed. She realized it must have been quite a while since her last drink; her lips were dry and her voice was a bare croak. As if reading her thoughts, the creature put one thin, pale hand into the dark cloak and drew forth a small flask.
“Drink,” it bade her softy, holding it out to her. She took it and drank gratefully before handing it back. It was not water; it had a mellow taste, and she had the feeling that if sunlight were liquid, this would be its form. She realized an intense hunger.
“Can you tell me where I am?” she asked again. A smile softened the old thing’s face further.
“The Intayeni, place of the Nighthingych.” She couldn’t remember ever having heard those words before – but then, she couldn’t remember much. It was one question answered, at least. She was very hungry, but she wanted to ask another question first.
“And…” it felt very foolish to ask, but she thrust her hesitation aside and asked anyway. “Can you tell me who I am?” It laughed then, shaking as if it might blow away in the wind.
“We have yet to present you with your name. It can wait until the ceremony.” She sighed and rolled over again, ignoring the pain and hunger as best she could. Suddenly a much more urgent pain hit her – she felt a strong need to relieve herself and said as much, her face flushing at mentioning something so crude to the little old creature. The wrinkled face crinkled even more and the eyes twinkled as it lifted the girl from the bed and carried her to the privy.
She was struck by how strong the creature was, despite its frail appearance, and then realized that she wasn’t much weight. Then she realized that she had to be carried, so weak was she. It was a vulnerable feeling, and not one she enjoyed. When she was ready, the creature carried her back to bed and left her.
Days passed into weeks, and she spent much of the time in bed. She lost track of the time, with nothing to tell night from day beyond the light from the window. Out the window she had a pleasant view of a meandering stream and a young, green wood; sometimes she saw a nondescript bird in a tree.
The creature would come in every day, sometimes twice a day, and keep her company for a while, though it said very little beyond answering questions and giving one-word commands: ‘drink’ it would say, thrusting a flask into her hands, or ‘eat,’ handing her a wooden tray of mashed something-or-other and ground meat. It also checked her over thoroughly with its ancient, capable hands, muttering to itself in some foreign language and often almost humming sing-song words; she wanted to laugh at those times. It sometimes pressed a cool, dry hand against her skin, and she would feel a tingling feeling, and the pain in that area would ease. Every day her pain grew less, and every day she sat up for longer, though sometimes the light hurt her eyes and gave her a headache; then her companion would give her another drink of that mellow liquid and the throbbing in her head would cease.
One day the creature began teaching her to walk all over again. Her injuries had kept her abed long enough that her legs were weak. She could stand only for very short periods of time at first, and then only leaning on her withered companion for support. But as the weeks passed, she grew stronger, and with time she could walk about the room on her own for short whiles.
She realized she had slept much longer than she had thought that first morning. It had been partly a drug-induced sleep, she learnt, to help her regain her strength and give her body time to heal while she rested. And also to give the physicians time to work on her. From a few things her companion said, she gathered that there had been a difficult time in keeping her alive and more than a few sleepless nights of worry on her account. She wondered if she should feel flattered. That was the day she learnt what Ongi-kanp was. It was the drug used to make her sleep for so long – weeks at a time – without the need of food or water. That long sleep was also the reason for her terrible thirst and hunger when she awoke, however. There wasn’t much more that she learnt from her long time abed.
She wasn’t sure even as to her own identity and her personality. In moments of ironic contemplation, she wondered if she was a nice person or if she was mean and petty. Did she have a temper? Surely she had something of the sort, because every time that helpless feeling came on her, she felt a surge of hot anger. Was she liked or despised?
Someone wanted her cared for, because she could fault no part of the wizened little creature’s care of her; but nobody gave her answers, and whoever wanted her treated so gently certainly had no regard for her mental state, leaving her for hours at a time in the room by herself with nothing to amuse her and questions running through her head.
After hours of questioning meditation, she was never any closer to answers. She felt sure that somehow, if she saw something familiar, she would know it, but nobody gave her clues. There was nothing at all familiar about this room or her cloaked caretaker. She felt sure she had no idea what the little creature was.
She discovered over time that there was a sort of second part of her mind that knew things; when it pleased, it would give her answers and hints as to what she was, who she was, where she was, what she was doing there, how she came to be there – but only when it pleased, and she seemed to have no control over it. Still – she found herself no closer to answers, and more came up with every hour she lay abed.

CHAPTER 2:

“I am going to read books about bones and muscles, but I am going to write a book about Magic. I am making it up now. I keep finding out things.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

How long it took her to heal, she wasn’t sure, but one day, after what seemed an eternity of lying in bed most of the day, for days on end, the ancient creature who tended her told her to stand up, and this time laid out some substantial clothes. She’d been dressed in a loose, thin nightgown of some comfortable white material, changing, when the little commanding black figure bathed her every few days, into another exactly the same.
Now she stood and watched as the wrinkled white hands laid out what must have been a semiformal outfit for her. There were close-fitted black leggings as well as a tight undershirt and shift – everything was so well fitted that she guessed they must have taken her measurements as she slept. Over that she wore a long, dark grey gown belted at the waist with a black belt, and over all was a robe; not like the ones worn by the other she had seen, her wrinkled caretaker and the mysterious silent creatures that night when she had first awakened, but a short robe, only to a little past her knees, and not so voluminous as the others. It had wide sleeves to her elbows, so that her grey-clad arms came out beneath, but no hood. The clasps holding it in the front were plain wooden clasps, and instead of black it was blue-grey.
Somehow she knew the differences were deliberate, to set her apart from them... but for what? The frail-looking creature helped her into soft brown boots; they went only halfway up her calves. Then the creature began combing through her long white-blonde hair; but after tying back a few thin strands from her face, it left her hair hanging free down her back, where it hung to her thighs. She brushed a finger through it absently, feeling for some reason that she rarely left it so free, though she couldn't remember and wondered why she thought so. Who am I? she wondered, not for the first time. She had yet to learn why she had been so painfully injured when she woke; she didn't know where she was. It's all too confusing, she decided after a while, and put it out of her head.
Then the creature gave her another drink of munin, that warm, golden tasting wine she had drunk that first day, when she was so thirsty, and during the past – how long had it been? – whenever she'd had those terrible headaches; funny, they had come less and less often.
Feeling somehow strengthened and braver, she followed the creature, for the first time leaving the room that had been both her prison and her sanctuary. It was an odd feeling; glad to be out of the room, glad to be freed from her confinement to the bed. And yet she felt frightened in some way, to be leaving her safe place, frightened of what would happen next.
She tried to keep track of the halls they went through, the doors they passed, the sights out the windows – every window seemed to look out on a different view and time, even those side by side. But she lost all sense of direction and could only rely on following that confident, quiet creature, which walked through as though following a marked trail.
The halls crossed and re-crossed, like a maze, always winding back on itself, and yet never quite the same. Eventually the creature turned from the hall and opened a door.
All the doors were different, as if their appearance gave some indication of what lay behind them, to those who could read it. This door was especially large; double doors, actually. They looked to be of wood, but somehow she knew they weren't, that they were only made to seem that way. They were of something much more solid, she felt, something as adamant as Earth, Fire, Water, or Air, something strong and something that had no human feelings: neither mercy nor revenge, neither love nor hate, only truth; that door, she felt, knew her as surely as anything had ever known her, the moment she passed through it, more surely than even she knew herself. She felt that it allowed her to pass, that it could have held her back, kept her from going beyond – beyond what? She didn't know.
Then the thought came to her. Earth, Fire, Water, Air – the four Foundations. How she had known she couldn't seem to see. What had put them in her mind that way? What had made them so perfectly ordered so she recognized the Foundations and thought them before she was conscious of it?
As she passed through the door, she could almost hear; or so she thought, the spinning of the earth and the singing of the stars. And then it passed. Somehow her situation worked itself out in her mind as she followed her black-robed guide. It all came down to a few basic facts and questions:
She knew the place where she was at was called Intayeni, the place of the Nighthingych.
She knew she was dressed differently from all the others she'd seen, and that it was to set her apart.
She knew she was go to a special place in this giant maze of a stronghold – Stronghold? Where did that word come from? she wondered. Yet she knew as soon as she thought it that it was fitting.
She had been in great pain and had many injuries, which had been healed by her ancient companion, and possibly others. Those who had occupied the chairs beside her bed, perhaps?
She had been saved for a purpose.
Then her questions began:
What, or who, was the Nighthingych?
What exactly was Intayeni and what was its purpose?
Why was she set apart so markedly?
Where and what was the place to which they were going and why?
What was her pain from and what had caused the injuries?
Why had she been saved and healed so carefully?
Who – or what – was the creature, the only one she'd seen since waking up that night in the stone ring?
Her most disturbing thought came when she thought not of the many questions she had, but of the things she knew instinctively. Sometimes words or answers would come into her mind unbidden, and she would know beyond question whether they were true; more often than not they were. What was it? How did she know things, understand things? What was this second mind within her? Or, more frightening, was the second mind really her first mind, a mind she didn't recognize or seem to control, and the other part was new? It's just too confusing, she told herself again. She resolved to ask more questions later; come to think of it, she didn't even know the name of her little companion.
They were in a huge room now, the vaulted ceiling high above them – Not the ceiling, she thought, for soon as the thought came, she knew that the velvety darkness above was not the ceiling, but the midnight sky, with stars peeping through like lights glimmering from some other world. At least now I know what time of day it should be, she thought with a sort of bitter humour. And she knew just as surely that all round them were silent figures, some small like her guide and some tall and lordly, all robed in deep black cloaks, all watching her with gleaming eyes, though she couldn't see them; she could feel their presence around her like rustling leaves in a dark forest. And they were all ancient, older than ancient, and yet young; timeless and ageless. They simply were. They lived apart from the circle of time.
And then she was standing on a platform, above the rest, and her guide was gone, and she was alone, alone, alone. A feeling of loss came over her and she felt like a lone tree in a windstorm, and she felt helpless. Then she heard a deep, commanding voice, and the feeling left her and was replaced by one of awe and comfort. The words it spoke were foreign to her, but they were smooth and warm, and almost tangible, as though she could stretch her hand out and catch them, and hold them close to her for always.
Then the voice spoke in words she did not comprehend, though she felt she understood them, and she felt her cloak being removed from her shoulders by gentle hands, and then replaced by a different one, longer and hooded and deeper, and if it had sleeves they were very wide and hidden in the innumerable folds, and very long. She also noted that the cloak was a different colour, dark red instead of blue-grey, and the clasp was silver. She was still set apart, but it was a different sort of set apart; she liked this better. She then wondered that she could tell the details of her cloak in this dark, but could not see the black robed creatures all around her, though she felt their presence as surely as she had felt anything in her life; but something deeper inside her did not question.
And then she knew the words the voice had said, and they gave her a sweet feeling. The voice had named her. She was no longer nameless, though she may be without a past and without a future and confused of the present; she had a name and she was.
“I am,” she whispered to herself. No longer was she without an identity, and this gave her an existence she hadn’t had before. But then she almost laughed. She did not know her name…
Did not know, until all the figures began chanting, their voices as different as the leaves of the trees, some deeper, some light, some mellow, some harsh. But they all were soft somehow, smoother than any she had heard before, and they blended together as the lights of the stars and moon melding into the soft luminescence of the of the black night; and yet instead of making her feel rustic and coarse, they made her feel a part, special … set apart – the words came to her, supplied once more by that second person within her, that different mind and heart, and for once she didn’t question anything, reveling only in her new name.
Morega… Morega… Morega… The name began quietly, a bare echo in the great assembly, then growing louder and louder, until all around her the voices pressed, her name reverberating in her ears, her mind, her heart; her very being trembling with the sense that this was her name, and it belonged – it to her and she to it.
Morega… Morega… Morega… Until she felt that she herself was being moved about from creature to creature, and she felt their cool hands brushing against her body, strong hands, withered hands, young and old, small and large, and the sound of the name continued, rising and falling, and the air was thick with it. Something inside her jumped every time a hand brushed against her, and she knew they were filling her with something; some empty place in her was being filled by warm … something. She stopped trying to think about it and just let it continue.
Afterwards she never knew how long she stood in that place, surrounded by the black robed figures, being filled and content, reveling in the feeling of belonging, in the feeling of the knowledge that she was, that she existed, that she had a name. She never remembered knowing it was time to leave, or leaving, for that matter. The long trip through the maze of halls must have happened, and she must have once again been following her ancient guide, but she never remembered. All she ever remembered of it was passing back out through that door, the door that knew her.
Morega… she heard; some part of her, that extra mind that grew stronger daily, told her that the door itself, and the very foundations of the place, were speaking to her, speaking of her; making her name more real than it had been before; making her more real than ever before. And then it spoke long words that she did not understand; and yet it took no time at all. The words seemed to be putting into her mind, that other mind, the full understanding and knowledge of whom she was, what she was, and what her purpose must be; yet it was beyond her comprehension. All she could understand now was the deep, strong voice that she heard, and yet did not hear, that both shouted and whispered, rough and smooth at the same time, that adamant voice that spoke to her inner consciousness, and to her heart, more than to her ears, saying over and over,
Morega… Morega…
And then it had passed. She never remembered undressing, never remembered slipping into the white nightgown she had slept in before, never remembered falling, exhausted, into bed; but she must have, for she woke, and her first conscious thought, her thought even before consciousness, was that she was named. She was. And it was only after that thought that she remembered the dream she’d had during that sleep, and yet when she remembered it, all of it was as clear as the morning sunlight streaming through the window and playing over every detail of the room.

She saw a tall, lean, dirty man in a stained, ripped shirt and filthy, patched breeches and heavy boots with holes in them. His eyes were glazed over, but hard and cruel, and his unkempt hair and beard were scraggly and long. His coarse features were set sharply, jagged in his face. He held a whip in one hand, and he leered at her with a perverse delight. He raised the whip, and she tensed, waiting for the blow. He swing; she heard the tip of the whip crack in the air as it came down – and the scene changed.
Suddenly she was standing, tense, in the same long, deep red cloak she had been given during the naming. Her knees were bent, her feet spread apart, and she knew she was waiting. In one hand she held a long blade that shone green and gold, the black handle in her hand felt as if it were made a part of her, as if it melded with her hand and the two became one. Then a figure swept down on her, a silver-cloaked figure on a black fire-demon of a mount, and she raised the sword above her head. The thing came lower, faster, giant wings like a bat’s beat the air; flame singed her as she stood, waiting for the thing to drop the final few yards. The shadow of it filled her vision, she heard a crackle, a shrieking laugh, felt its weight – and again the scene changed suddenly.
She saw grey, shadowy figures moving slowly about in a chill white mist. She was lost, struggling to find her way through, and her legs were mired down. She could hear the shrieking and the helpless cries of the others around her. Everything was mist and shadow; veiled; and she could understand nothing. Even her vision was muddled, and her movements were infinitely slow. Every motion made her feel more claustrophobic; she was suffocating slowly, dying in this pale, dark mire. The ghostly figures around her were closing in now, like wandering spirits, restless, searching… and they had found her; they were coming, closer, closer, and she saw their eyes, burning, green and gold and red and blue and dark, dark, dark, like empty pits burning in their eye-sockets… they were closing in, closer, and closer; she couldn’t escape; she could feel them now, cold and clammy all around her…
And then the dream passed into darkness and she slept deeply until morning woke her.

Morega had the strangest feeling that she had seen something from the past, or the future, or something of the sort; something from that other half of her, the half that understood and gave her answers. It was remembering something form the deepest of ancient times, something entirely incomprehensible to her, or it was seeing something that was to happen, sometime in the far future. Why, she wondered, has it been shown to me?
And then the door opened and the little black figure she had grown accustomed to was walking in, laying out clothes for her, dressing her, combing her hair, muttering in that strange, silky language that Morega had yet to understand any of. She was dressed differently than before. In place of the brown boots and grey dress, she wore black boots, knee-high, and black leggings and a black tunic. Over all was placed the deep, wine-red cloak from the naming. Around her neck the bent creature placed a red pendant that seemed to flame and go from red to gold, flickering and dancing, whenever she looked at it. It was held somehow on a chain of gold, with a strange black ribbon wound through it. The stone was heavy at first, but it seemed to nestle down and make itself comfortable on the front of her tunic. Her long hair was left mostly down, as before, but now the sides were pulled into braids, and the top was pulled into braids, and they were all braided together down the back. When she looked in the mirror, she was struck by the fascinating look of her sun-gold skin and white-blonde hair contrasted with the dark red of the cloak and the black of her tunic, leggings, and boots; and she saw how the fiery pendant made the blues and greens in her eyes spark. Something tugged inside her, and she knew this was how it was meant to be; yet something was missing… Ignoring the feeling, she turned to the creature beside her and suddenly asked the question she had never dared before.
“Who are you?” her voice was soft, questioning. She heard the faint sound, like dry leaves in the wind, which she had learnt was laughter. The creature’s bright, dark eyes peered up at her from the pale, withered face under the black shadows of the hood.
“Who am I?” it asked slowly, in that silky voice that Morega could never quite get around. “Who am I?” it repeated again. Then it laughed once more and its words seemed to form into a strange sort of chant, an incantation in her mind.
“I am ancient.
Old One, they say of me; yet I am ageless
I have seen the years come and go,
and I watched the forests grow.
I saw the earth when it was young and green,
and I saw the Darkening.
1 watched Intayeni as it was built
from tears of sorrow and cries of terror,
and from gentle words
lost forever,
and from the sacrifice of the worthy.
I am She who first began it
and Her who saw its height
and splendour,
and perhaps I am She
who will see its downfall and ending.
I am called Miracle Worker by some
and by others the Shadow of Destruction.
To some I am Hope and Life
and to others
Despair and Death.
The grey shadow follows me
and goes before me,
and the light is on either side
surrounding me.
Above me and below me are Air, Fire,Water, and Earth.
I see the universe as it spins
and as it waxes and wanes.
I watch the seas of time washing over it all,
and I see it all come and go.”
And then its voice lost the rise and fall and cadence of the chant and settled again. It sounded almost sad as it continued. "Perhaps such things were meant to be. Perhaps the courses of time have changed the Fates of the Beginning." Morega listened, half under a spell, to the riddle of words her companion formed and worked. She couldn't understand them; they were quite beyond her comprehension; but she saw before her mind's eye vague shadows of the things of which were spoken: green life and golden maturity; bright perfection of youth and darkness falling; war and peace; sacrifice and sorrow, but also happiness and abundance; beginnings and endings; risings and fallings; light and dark, and the adamant foundations of the universe. The creature stopped and peered again into her eyes, with a strange light in its face.
"Do you not know me… Luavin?” And Morega started at the name. She knew it somehow, somewhere in the back of her mind, she had heard it before… and yet it gave her no answers, and the helpless feeling came on her and she wanted to throw something. She refrained from any violent actions, but her eyes narrowed and she studied the old creature sharply. Something in its tone alerted her to something – she couldn't quite grasp what, but it was something – but then the creature laughed again.
"No, I mean you no harm. But do you not know me?" it persisted. Morega suddenly felt that second mind rising again, and something like awe filled her, though she knew not the cause. When she spoke her voice was hesitant.
"Lady... Yuemod?" she hazarded, not knowing where the words came from. The creature laughed, delight shining in her eyes.
"Yes, yes... yes," she said one more time, more to herself now. "It will work. Very good. Yes; you may call me that. Very perceptive," she added, sounding cryptic again. And then she went off into more mutterings.
"And..." Morega began quietly, hesitantly. Yuemod laughed again.
"And I am a Shadowspinner," she said, confirming something that was in Morega's mind; she couldn't know what. Morega was silent. Something in that other mind, the one becoming more prominent day by day, something knew who Yuemod was, and what a Shadowspinner was, yet everything seemed to be in a veiled part of her mind, somewhere she couldn't quite go or see. Shadowspinner. Just the word made her tingle all over; excitement, she thought, and something else... fear, perhaps, or apprehension. She was filled again with anger and at the same time a burning curiosity – she wanted to know what it all meant, and yet the suspense was almost entertaining... Yuemod had a gleam in her eyes as if she knew exactly what Morega felt and thought, and what it all meant.
"Why do you call me Luavin?" Morega asked suddenly. Yuemod smiled wider; her pale, wrinkled face had a strange look in it – Like a Seeress, Morega thought.
"Because it is who you are. Luavin... Do you know what that means?" Morega shook her head silently, fingering the fiery pendant. "Then you are not ready to know. Come; we have work to do." The conversation was effectively closed. Morega followed Yuemod, thinking that she was getting to know the wise Shadowspinner already. She knew very well that if she said a thing more about their conversation, Yuemod would give her a vague, slightly reprimanding look that said that nothing had happened.

CHAPTER 3:

Yuemod led her through the halls once more, and Morega thought once more that it would be a bad thing if she were ever turned loose here; she would certainly lose herself so badly that she doubted if she would ever be found. Then she laughed to herself. Someone would undoubtedly find her eventually, just in passing. But she and Yuemod never passed anyone in the halls as they walked. Yuemod led her eventually through a door; it was smaller than the one they'd passed through before Morega's naming, but she had again that feeling that it could have stopped her passing but didn't. Instead of passing into another room, Morega found that they were outside, in a warm, grassy field. It was very large, and around the edges she saw thick trees, green and gold; but beneath them was shadow. Yuemod led her out to the middle of the field, and then left her. Morega waited, feeling strangely calm.
A while later – she couldn't tell how long she waited, with the golden sunlight streaming around her, and the green grass beneath her seeming to breath vitality – another black robed figure appeared. This one, rather than small and bent and withered, was tall and straight and looked strong. Beneath the deep shadows of the black hood the face appeared white like bone, and smooth – almost hollow, with high cheek bones and deep sunken black eyes, cold and flat like a serpent's. His lips were thin and his nose was hooked like an eagle's. His forehead was high and from it grew black hair. Morega watched him, still calm. Somehow his appearance didn't frighten her. When he spoke, his voice was a raspy half-whisper, and there was no emotion in the cold sound.
"Morega," he said. She dipped her head slightly, once, to acknowledge her name, but she said nothing and her eyes remained fixed on his. "I am called Master Nazghard.” Still she said nothing. "You shall learn the mastery of the weapons of steel beneath me." He paused, as if waiting for a reply. She gave him none. "We begin," he said then, "with the sword; the basic weapon most common." She watched as he drew a long, shining blade from within his cloak. He turned it in the sunlight, watching her face as the blade moved between them.
"This is Ghunhua,” he said then in his dead voice. Then Morega spoke for the first time.
"What does the name mean?" A faint smile played at Nazghard's mouth. "Ah... so the child can speak. Ghunhua means Bloodstreak. She is a beautiful blade, is she not?" It was the most expressive speech Morega had yet heard him make.
"Perhaps," she said cautiously, hoping her face stayed closed to hide the mixture of feeling inside her. "May I ask the reason I am to be trained in the use of steel?" He laughed, a hissing, rasping laugh that caused a cold shiver to run down Morega's spine.
"So that when the testing time comes you live through the ordeal. A noble ambition; I'm sure you must agree." The cynical expression on his face made Morega think that he saw some irony in it.
"I'm sure many should prefer life to death; under the circumstances I'm left with little room for an opinion." Her voice was quiet; she wondered if he would think her impertinent. Instead he laughed once more.
"Of course not. You've no choice at all in the matter; or in many others. Shall we begin?" She said nothing and he began explaining to her the history of swords.
"Swords are a relatively ancient weapon," he said. "They began in the Steel Age, when the first wars and weapons began. Swords were introduced by the Khanstaeins of the South and spread to the rest of the world quickly, earning a reputation as a deadly weapon with innumerable uses." Morega raised one eyebrow.
“An exaggeration," she murmured. Once again she steeled herself as that dry laugh rattled over her.
"Indeed. But that is not the point. I continue; during the Dark Times swords grew to be all but extinct, an antiquated weapon of little use beside the more powerful Maghreu.” Something told Morega that she knew what Maghreu was, but she couldn't pull it out of the all-knowing second mind within her. Nazghard proceeded, and she found she'd missed some of his words. "... centuries swords were used only as symbols. Then during the Light, swords..." His voice trailed away into a steady stream of rasping syllables, all running together. Morega was unaware of anything much after a while. Everything she saw was a bright glare with lighter and darker places, and a black blur was Nazghard. There was a ringing in her ears mingled with the never-ending sound of his dry voice; her muscles all ached and she felt like a stone statue, standing forever in that one position. "...Is that clearly understood?" Morega inclined her head a little, not sure what she was supposed to be understanding and not caring. Nazghard picked up his steady flow of words and Morega continued to stand still, numbed and hoping she wouldn't be expected to know it all; something in the back of her mind put her at ease, but it was all muted and vague. Sometime as he talked Nazghard had put his sword back in its place, concealed within his black robes. He spent quite a while longer giving her the details of the sword's history. Not once did he mention its use or let her see Ghunhua again, and Morega wondered if the only mastery of sword she would learn from him would be names of people and swords and times when swords were used. Long before Nazghard tired of talking she was hot and weary of standing. She once moved to sit down, but Nazghard's cold eyes stopped her and the deathly chill of his voice warned her not to meddle with this man. Not a man, her other mind thought numbly.
"I have not given you leave to move," he told her. "Remain where you are." She did so. When he finally stopped talking it was high noon. Morega was forcing her eyes open now; the sunlight that had seemed so friendly before was now glaring cruelly against her eyes and raining heat down against her exhausted body. Her legs were stiff from standing so long in one position and her rigid back ached. She could feel sweat dripping down her body inside the black clothes – curse Yuemod for making her wear black of all colours – and she knew her hair that had been so nice and silky earlier was now matted from the sweat. Her mind was numb and all she could hear now of Nazghard's cold, dead, rasping voice was a continual murmur of unintelligible sound; yet that second mind within her seemed to have retained it all and knew exactly what he said – moreover it seemed to understand it all. When he stopped something inside told her she could relax now; but her body was so stiff that she couldn't and all she could do was stand there dumbly. Nazghard smiled that cold smile again.
"You may go; tomorrow it will be your turn. You will recite back to me all that you learnt today." With that he turned and left. Morega barely turned her head to follow him with her eyes; a tall, straight black figure, robe moving just a little around him as he walked with long strides to the door and left her. For a moment she reminded herself that the next day she would have to know it all. It didn't bother her much in the numb state she found herself in. She finally forced her legs to move and walked wearily to the door. Just as she reached it, the door opened and Yuemod poked out her wrinkled white face, framed by the black hood. When she saw Morega, she hurried out.
"Food is waiting with a bath," she said gently, and taking Morega's hot, sweaty hand in her cool, dry, wrinkled one she drew her inside. Inside the hall was dark and cool, a sweet relief to Morega's hot body and burning eyes. She wanted to slump down there, but Yuemod pulled her on for a ways through the maze of halls until they reached a large shady hall, with a faint cool breeze blowing through it, though Morega couldn't find the source. There were flames burning low in wall sconces set about the room, and it gave the room a friendly look. What captured Morega's attention most, though, was the metal tub set in the middle of the floor. It was made of some dimly glowing metal; bronze perhaps, she thought. It stood up on short legs carved at the bottom like lions' paws, with the claws out. For a brief moment a roaring filled her head and she saw the golden head of the lion, with the thick mane tossing about it like the rays of the sun, and the tub was the lions body, crouched and ready to spring, tail swishing ominously – and the next moment it was just a tub again. Morega blinked and glanced at Yuemod; the old Shadowspinner gave no indication she had seen anything, though she watched Morega with hooded eyes gleaming; and Morega attributed it to nothing but her eyes being tired from the sun. The tub was filled with clear water; beside it was a thick drip-towel.
Morega slipped her clothes off wearily and was about to sink into the tub when a weight tugging at her neck reminded her of the flaming pendant hanging there on the gold chain. She fingered it a moment; it seemed hot to the touch and for the space of a thought she fancied it pulsated under her fingers, breathing and living with a heart pounding with... something – Power, perhaps?
She shivered involuntarily and slipped the chain over her head, dropping it on top of the rest of her clothes piled on the floor. As it fell, she almost fancied time stopped, and she watched it, the heavy stone hanging down first and the chain floating on the air as it followed. And then it landed; she thought she heard a low, heavy thud as it landed on the soft pile, and the floor beneath her seemed to shudder, waves of something rippling out from the fallen gem. She dragged her eyes from the dancing flames lying on the black cloth of her clothes and pulled the ties from her hair before dropping into the water. It wasn't cold, but it was cool and she let it close over her face, looking up through the blear of the water's surface.
Everything in the room seemed distorted by it; she saw Yuemod bending over her, but the pale, wrinkled, kindly face was leering at her hideously and the sharp black eyes were snapping; the flames in the sconces danced and took on forms. Elf people danced across her vision, mingling with pixies and strange mixed creatures she had never seen or heard of before, even in dreams. She sat up quickly, blinking the water away. Everything was normal again. She sighed and caught her breath. The cool water had refreshed her and soaked away the sweat.
"Come," Yuemod said then, pulling her hand up and drawing her out of the water. She shivered for just a moment as the air hit her wet body; then she walked across the room to another tub like the one she had been in a moment ago. She couldn't remember having seen two tubs before; but maybe she had missed it. This one was steaming, and she sank down and let the hot water work the kinks from her muscles. She didn't know how long she stayed in the tub, rubbing soaps over herself and through her hair. Once Yuemod knelt by the tub and worked something into her hair; it was red and smelt bittersweet, like some sweet memory gone forever or something good tinged on the borders with sorrow. The smell made Morega want to weep, and she went back under to hide her tears. Yuemod looked very understanding when she came back up. When she finally got out, Yuemod wrapped her in a fluffy yellow towel and dried her hair gently. It retained the bittersweet scent.
Then she dressed once more in black leggings and boots and her deep red cloak; but now she wore a gown once more in place of tunic; a long black gown that made her golden-brown skin seem fairer. Her light hair was entirely free, hanging long down her back in damp curls, slightly darker than its normal colour from the water. The red cloak contrasted with the black of her clothes and the gold of her hair to make a threefold beauty. And the fire-gem sat again nestled against her breast. She didn't know if the throbbing, pounding she could feel was the stone or her own heart beating. Yuemod was silent as she led Morega to a low table and seated her on a mound of dark pillows. There was a plate heaped with food before her; a welcome change from the mush of meat and something-or-other that she'd been fed up till now. Yuemod worked with her hair, braiding it and twisting it and fastening it somehow without pins, as Morega ate with relish until she was filled before sitting back against the pillows.

{to be cont}

[Samira]

CHAPTER 4:

Then he saw the young moon rising; under its thin light there loomed before him a black wall of rock, pierced by a dark arch like a great gate. It seemed to Frodo that he was lifted up, and passing over he saw that the rock-wall was a circle of hills, and that within it was a plain, and in the midst of the plain stood a pinnacle of stone, like a vast tower but not made by hands. On its top stood the figure of a man.
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

When she woke the hall was empty and dark. In the dim shadows she could just make out the table and the rounded edges of her pillow-bed. Morega realized she must have fallen asleep, comfortable after the bath and the good food, and tired from her morning with Nazghard. She sighed and stood slowly, feeling the weight of her cloak around her and her braided hair piled on her head. She shook out the folds of the black gown and took a hesitant step forward. Her boots were silent on the floor and she put her hands out in case she might run into something. The shadows were thick around her and that other part of her mind pushed forward a single word. Shadowspinner, it said. She wanted to laugh at how preposterous it was. What was a Shadowspinner anyway? Yuemod, it said then, and she remembered that Yuemod was Lady Shadowspinner, and surely this must be her doing.
"Lady Yuemod," she called out hesitantly, hoping for some answer. "Are you in here?" There was silence. Her voice sounded thin and alone in the shadowy mist around her. She walked on, hands still out to catch herself if she fell or ran against something. Occasionally she called out again, but there was never an answer and she never seemed to find a wall or a door or anything to let her know she was actually in a room, not just walking over some endless shadowy way. It grew chill and she pulled her cloak closer about her. Sometimes a wind stirred, and something inside knew she was no longer in the hall but outside.
After a while, though, she ran up against something low; a stone, she thought, that she had stumbled against. She nearly tripped, hop-skipping over the obstacle before she caught her balance. She turned back curiously; it was the first difference in the flat, barren-seeming land of mist and shade. Looking down she could barely make out a long shape lying at her feet through the darkness. She bent and ran her hands along it to see what it was.
To her surprise it moved and she found it was a person. She felt it catch her wrist in one hand and she could now make out the shape much better. It was a man; he had been lying on the ground, but now he sat up and looked at her as she did him, trying to see each other's features. Morega could just make out a prominent jaw and a bent nose – it must have been broken at some time. His hair was just to his shoulders and it looked as if it has been tidy at one time; but lying on the ground had put it out of sorts. He stood, and she saw that he was quite a bit taller than she was; her head missed his shoulder by a good three inches. He still held her wrist, gently but firmly; it didn't hurt; but she knew she would never have it back before he was ready to let her.
"Who are you?" he asked, as if he had every right to; perhaps he did. His voice was a little gruff and sharp, as if to warn her not to meddle with him, but there was a kindly ring in it somewhere, and she felt he was a fair man, and felt herself put a little at ease.
"My name," she began; but something inside made her think better of it, and he stopped. "I need not tell you," she continued then, hoping not to sound too impertinent and hoping he wouldn't notice the hesitation between her words. She made out a slight movement and faintly saw through the dim shadows that he was smiling
"Need you not? Perhaps it's wise of you; perhaps less so. What is your business in the Shadefields?" The Shadefields, Morega thought. Is that what this is? She glanced about her. I can well understand it, she added to herself with a wry smile.
“My business is my own, I should think. But perhaps you can help me; I'm searching for a place... Intayeni, they call it. Do you know it?" The man started violently at the name.
"Intayeni?" he whispered. "Since when is that name common knowledge and spoken lightly? Or do you use it as a byword?"
“Are you such a judge that you can say how common or lightly the words are spoken? If I speak it as a byword, will you be the keeper?" He chuckled, but the sound was less of mirth than of sad irony.
“I know the place. Yes,” he added more to himself, "I surely know it... better than I could wish." Then abruptly: "Are you one of the Nighthingych?" Morega laughed.
"I suppose not; what is the Nighthingych? I've heard it mentioned, but gotten no answers to my questions."
"Then I suppose I shan't tell you; remember, I know nothing of you," he said, his voice grave.
"And I know nothing of you," she returned. "And yet I've told you quite a bit more, it seems, than I ought!" He laughed.
"Calm down. Perhaps you have; I think you've chosen your confidence better than some could, though. How did you get here? Not many seek out the Shadefields." She turned a little and looked about at the thick shadows. She felt almost as if while she stood with another living being she clung to safe ground, an island, perhaps, or a life boat, wrapped in stormy grey sea; but if she were to move off, or he to go, she would drift once again blindly in a sea of shadow, cut off from everything else.
"I didn't seek it; I was lost. How do you reach Intayeni? I must get there; please... I beg you – take me there if you can by any power." He was silent a moment. If Morega could have seen inside his mind, she would have been very shocked to find that he was thinking of the time long ago when he had said much the same thing to a man he met in the shadows – a man who had not taken him back. At last he sighed.
"I can." Morega's heart leapt hopefully.
"And...?"
"I will." He sighed again and his voice was heavy. Morega felt a little of his gloom and said nothing. Still holding her wrist, the man began walking, taking rapid strides. Morega wondered in which direction they were going, and how long it would take. She wasn't sure if she could keep it up long; she was hard pressed to meet his long steps and his speed.
"How did you come here from Intayeni, then, if you didn't seek it out?" he asked after what seemed a long while.
"I was asleep, in a cool hall," she began, a bit breathless from his hurried walk. "When I awoke, it was all shadow and mist, and I was quite alone. I was wandering about in search of some way back when I stumbled over you." The man laughed bitterly.
"And how many can say the same? Know you how many others have been lost in just such a way, without any hope at all? You've been strangely fortunate; but keep from this place if you can. It isn't a place for people of your sort." What is my sort? Morega wondered curiously, and almost asked, but it didn't seem the right moment. Her companion had settled into a brooding silence again.
After what seemed a very long time, when Morega felt she could go no longer, he stopped. Before them rose a high, dark wall. The man reached forward and found the door. He pushed it and it swung open. Behind it was a darker spot, a black hole that almost frightened Morega. It seemed for just a moment to be a black mouth, opening to swallow her if she stepped inside...
"There." His voice sounded just as heavy as before. "I've brought you safe, have I not? I take my leave now." He released her wrist, and turning he would have vanished again into the shadows, but Morega called out, almost in desperation.
"Wait! Who are you? What are you called?" The man laughed.
"You never gave me your name, did you? I shall give you mine in exchange for yours." Morega hesitated a moment.
"Your real name? Truly?" The man seemed surprised. Indeed, it was a while before he spoke.
"Yes; my real name," he said at last. "And to show you I mean you no ill will, I shall give you mine first and trust to you to hold up your end." Something felt very relieved inside Morega at those words.
"Fair enough," she heard herself saying. The man laughed, and a moment later she saw him leaning against the wall; a deeper shadow in the shadowy, misty emptiness. "What is your name?"
"I am called Aedn; now who are you?" Morega hesitated just a moment; but that second mind pulled forward and told her two things; one was that she had given her word and must tell her name, and the other that the man spoke the truth and she had nothing to fear.
"I am named Morega. I thank you for bringing me here," she said, realizing just how grateful she was. Aedn laughed.
"Certainly; and if ever we meet again, Nya Morega, though I doubt we should be able to recognize each other, mention your name to me and I am your servant." Morega wondered what response was due.
"I am greatly indebted to you, Aedn Kom," she said after a moment, knowing it was only that second mind which gave her any ability to comprehend what she had just said, much less what Aedn had said. He seemed to sense something of this, for he laughed a little and gave her shoulder a squeeze before moving away through the shadows. She wondered what he did out in the Shadefields; the desolate, dark, barren Shadefields. She shrugged and took a few steps forward through the open door. It shut behind her ominously, and all was dark.
Shivering, she moved forwards tentatively for a ways. It was dark, dark, dark; she could see nothing at all. She closed her eyes for intervals; the dark was so complete that they strained and ached if she did not. She felt as if she'd been walking for hours, and the dark must go on forever. Someone had put out the sun and the world would be forever dark now.
Just as she decided to go back and search the Shadefields again for Aedn, she saw a glimmer of light far ahead, and she walked towards it. When she looked away from it, she felt lost again, and very small and frightened, but when she looked back at it the world went steady; so she kept her eyes focused on the light until she reached it.
A moment later she was standing, breathless, inside the door in the little room where she'd bathed and eaten and slept; the air was warm and comforting, and she found that one hand was closed tightly over the fire-gem, and when she opened her hand it burned, and she gasped with pain.
"Took a little journey of your own, did you?" Morega started at the voice, but smiled as she saw Yuemod coming towards her from across the room. She didn't miss the gleam in Yuemod's eyes.
"I suppose you had something to do with it, Lady Yuemod?" The bent old Shadowspinner laughed.
"Perhaps, perhaps. But later. First we need to look at that hand of yours." She led Morega to a stool by the table and knelt before her, holding her burnt hand gently in cool, dry ones. There was an angry red ring on it, pushing up through the flesh, the skin burnt off and blackened at the edges; clear liquid and blood oozed out. The fire-gem at her breast pulsated and throbbed hot through her tunic against her skin; it hung heavy from her neck and she suddenly wondered if she should have the strength to take it off should she try.
Yuemod said nothing as she looked at the burnt hand; her face gave no indication of her thoughts. After a moment she reached into her cloak and took out a plain black vial. She let a few drops of some deep red liquid fall out in the centre of Morega's palm, inside the burnt ring. Morega wondered vaguely why the burn was ring-shaped; the pendant was shaped like a teardrop of flame. The red liquid spread over the burn and Morega instinctively tried to shut her hand at the flaming pain that came with it. Yuemod patiently held her hand open while Morega clenched her jaw and watched in horrified fascination as the burn began to froth and wave up and down, faster and harder, boiling and bubbling. After what seemed at the same time to be ages and yet but a moment, it slowed and settled, and the burnt ring became nothing more than a white scar ringing the centre of her palm. The red liquid that Yuemod had poured onto it had disappeared with all other traces of the burn. Morega tore her eyes from the scar and looked up at Yuemod. The Shadowspinner's face was as unreadable as always. Morega's eyes moved back to her hand, and she traced the scar with one finger. All pain was gone; her hand was cool now.
"It'll stay always, won't it?" she asked quietly. Yuemod nodded, looking suddenly weary. Her eyes weren't as bright as usual and her face looked worn and grey.
"Yes; always. Some days it'll pain you; some days you'll nearly forget it – never quite, though; it'll stay there in the back of your consciousness; you'll understand after a while. Some days you'll hate it and try your best to hide it, and some days you'll take immense pride in it and show it easily; after you get to understand it, you'll see. It's a burden, Morega-Luavin. Nobody can take it for you and nobody can lay it on you unless you are willing." Morega frowned.
"I don't understand you, but I don't see that I was given much choice in the matter this time, was I?" Her last words showed suddenly how vulnerable she felt, and she remembered those first days, weeks, months, lying abed, sick, in pain, not knowing who she was or where she came from or what her purpose was, or even what had caused the injuries she suffered from. Yuemod sighed.
"You had more choice than you know; but not much. Still not much. It's never much at the beginning. There are a lot of things you have no choice about anymore," she said, and her voice was very quiet as if she had more to say that she held back. Morega said nothing, her eyes once again on the scar that marked her palm. She touched her palm briefly to the fire-gem, and she felt a strange current go through her, and the flame in the gem grew brighter for just a moment.
"Lady," she said quietly. Yuemod nodded briefly. "What does Nya mean?" Yuemod smiled.
"It's a title of respect, much as Lady is, but lesser; and yet greater in some ways." Morega nodded, not really understanding. "And Kom?"
"A high title for a man; you've nothing to do with such high folk, though," the old Shadowspinner replied sharply.
"Oh." She could think of nothing better to say. Yuemod stood.
"It's getting late; we should go." Morega stood, still silent, and followed her back through the maze of halls. Somehow they made more sense now, but she still knew she would be lost without Yuemod. She glanced out the windows as they passed. The scenes were dizzying; every window a different view, at different times of year and day, and different types of scenery. One window looked out over a quiet green valley, where it seemed to be about dusk; the window directly beside it saw a bare circle of stones standing up out of the sea, with the waves pounding against them and the full moon shining down on it all. In one she saw a smiling young woman rocking a child to sleep in a sunny room, and in the next she saw men killing each other on rocky cliffs strewn with blood and carcasses, with birds wheeling overhead. As she looked out the windows the fire-gem pulsed against her scarred hand; she remembered Aedn, that mysterious man who rose up out of the shadows at her feet.

CHAPTER 5:

Morega's days settled into a sort of routine after that; a blur of exhaustion and wonder and bewilderment and fear, learning new things and relearning old things, seeing good things and bad; sometimes wishing to hang on to the memories forever, other times hoping to forget them in blackness. Yet through it she felt she could remember every day individually; every experience, every sight, every sound, every thought stamped onto her memory irrevocably. She learnt more of the sword from Nazghard; she never touched the sword herself, only saw it once at the beginning of the morning. He would draw Ghunhua, reminding her again about his special sword.
"This is Ghunhua, Bloodstreak," he would say in his dead, rasping voice. And Morega would say nothing, but stare at the sword, away from the Steel Master's cold, flat eyes. Then he would begin talking, and as he talked he would sheath the gleaming blade, and his voice would draw Morega's eyes irresistibly to his pale, hard face. He would talk for hours, until the sun was high in the sky, repeating an endless litany of names – people, ages, swords, wars, places – and Morega would half-listen, knowing that the second mind, which was quickly becoming more and more prominent in her, would store it all and pull it back up the next day when Nazghard would demand her to recite back to him.
Powers help any person who asked Morega about swords; she couldn't show them any swordsmanship for all the offering in the world, but she could talk their ears off telling them, she felt, of every sword, swordsman, sword maker, Steel Master, and skirmish, battle, or war of any repute at all, be it large or small, since the beginning of time.
After her lesson Nazghard would walk inside – he always came out after her and went in before her – and she would watch him and do her best to work up the strength and will to move her stiff limbs to follow him. Yuemod would meet her there and lead her along to the dim, cool room where she would bathe and eat. She never fell asleep again after that first time. After eating, Yuemod would lead her along back to her room where they would sit on the bed and Yuemod taught her languages.
Never anything intelligible, mind you. She would rattle off in some language and Morega would repeat after her. Yuemod stopped her always after a few words to correct her pronunciation, or remind her of meaningless syllables she had skipped. Morega was always exhausted by the end of these sessions. Somehow that all-knowing second mind never pulled up during her language lessons; she had to struggle through it all on her own. She recited endless rhymes in gibberish, feeling like an idiot, bored to death without any meaning.
After her languages were over, she would undress again and go to bed. Every night before sleeping, Yuemod did a sort of ritual over Morega, passing her hand above her head and saying strange words while Morega drank a sip of the munin Yuemod always seemed to have with her.
Morega found that no matter what position she lay in, she always drifted off to sleep with her hand clasped around the fire-gem, and when she woke her hand would be warm from it and she could feel the gentle pulsing of the pendant against her scarred palm.
The day came at last when Nazghard let her actually lay her hands on a sword. She had broken the usual routine the day before, at Nazghard's command, by spending the entire day, from the cool dawn to the chill evening, standing in the field, from cool morning breeze through the hot, glaring day, to the cool night winds, reciting back to him every lesson he had taught her over the countless mornings past. It surprised her how relatively little it was to recite back to him; much of it, she realized, had been repetition. But whatever the matter, she had learnt her lessons well; she recited it all back to him and the cold Steel Master could find no flaw with her recital. She had no lesson in languages that day. She fell into bed exhausted that night, and woke feeling extremely refreshed. That morning when she walked out the door into the field, Nazghard was waiting for her. He had a very satisfied gleam in his cold, black eyes, and his pale face was twisted into what might have been a serpent's version of a smile; it made Morega feel decidedly cold inside, and she thought he looked rather sinister.
"Morega," he said, giving her his usual greeting.
"Master Nazghard," she returned. They said it every day; she wondered at the senselessness of it; they knew each other's names well enough, and they could both quote the next lines that would follow.
"This is Ghunhua, Bloodstreak," he said. Morega stared at the sword as she always did. She thought by now she must have memorized every gleam of sunlight on it, every soft breath of wind as it moved, every mark on it and every contour of the blade and handle; but she knew better than to question the Steel Master. She had done it once, and had received a look to set her spine shaking. The memory involuntarily came to her mind of the dream she'd had, just after her naming, and of the evil, slovenly man who had cracked the whip at her in the nightmarish dream.
"If you ever so much as touch her without my express permission, you'll have her blade to reckon with," the Steel Master was saying as she returned her attention to him. "Meanwhile, you may as well learn the handling of the weapon," Nazghard finished, and reaching again inside his cloak, he drew forth another blade, just as long as Ghunhua, but with a lighter look; the blade wasn't of such dark metal as Nazghard's blade, and it had almost a red glint, whereas Ghunhua's blade had blue flashes when it shone in the sun. The handle, too, was paler, a gold, compared to the black of Nazghard's grip. The Steel Master held the handle of the sword towards her, and Morega reached out to take it, hoping she held it properly. The sword felt awkward in her hands; she remembered for the second time that morning the dream she'd had, and she thought of how the sword had felt in her hands then.
It had been a different sword; of that she was sure. It had been heavier but felt weightless, darker but looked bright, and she had felt it as a part of her. This sword was an awkward extra, unaccustomed. But she remembered how the grip of that other sword had felt in her dream and tried to fit her hand to the handle that way. After a moment she got it, and her fingers settled easily around the sword. Nazghard, who had waited with strange patience while she sorted out her grip, nodded.
"Yes. Hold it that way; keep your wrist firm, but not locked – no, not so tight; you have to be able to move it. You hold a sword, not a hammer." Morega adjusted her grip a little and tried to do as he said. They spent the rest of the morning working on how to stand and how to hold her sword. By the end of the morning her muscles ached and she still wasn't sure she'd ever done what Nazghard wanted.
"Good," he said, surprising her. "Now adjust this –” He reached out and put his hand around hers, moving her fingers and her arm slightly. "There." She was glad when he stepped back again. His hands were dry and cold and felt dead. For a moment everything was dark and shadowy and cold; she was drifting in the shadows, drowning in them. She was alone, and dead, blood-curdling shrieks resounded in her ears… She shivered involuntarily and almost cried out before realizing that it was warm and sunny and she was sweating in a golden meadow with a sword in her aching hand. Her whole arm ached, burning all the way up to her shoulder. Nazghard looked at her for a moment longer before nodding briefly.
"The sword," he rasped. Morega felt bumbling and awkward, half asleep and hardly conscious.
"Oh, the sword," she muttered, turning it in awkwardly and nearly slicing her side as she tried to hand the handle to the Steel Master. He laughed at her again, his raspy, dead, cold laugh making her shiver again, and she almost fancied, as he passed her on his way to the door, that as he left, a cold wind followed him; and it felt just a little warmer after he had gone inside. She wondered why.
She walked to the door very slowly. As she opened it, Yuemod's face peered out of the dim, cool interior.
"You're tired." It was a statement, not a question. Morega nodded, reaching one hand to lift the hair off the back of her neck. Her tunic and leggings clung to her; her boots were hot and her cloak hung just a little too heavy and warm today. She would have sworn the thick folds were deliberately stifling her. The burning fire-gem throbbed at her breast and she rested one hand around it protectively as she followed Yuemod to the familiar room where she bathed and ate every day.
Today Yuemod watched her knowingly as she rubbed her sore arm, and after she had bathed, the old Shadowspinner sat her down and gave her a long massage, from the tips of her fingers to the middle of her back. When she had finished, Morega ate as she always did, her arm still rather sore, and feeling strangely loose and unnatural, as if her arm had been taken away and some strange new member set in its place.
The language lessons were exhausting today; more so than ever before. It was as if for the first time she realized how pointless the endless syllables were. Why was she never told what they meant? Why must she repeat them so, ever on and on and on, without pause? It seemed today as if she spoke every phrase a hundred times, corrected infinitely on every inflection. When at last Yuemod was satisfied with the day’s lesson, Morega wanted nothing more than to tumble into bed, and she was almost too tired to undress and pull her nightgown over her head. She was asleep before Yuemod had finished the soft murmur of strange words.
When she awoke, her arm was stiff, though her hand was warm, and the pulsing vibrations from the fire-gem seemed to be waking the sore muscles, ever so slowly. By the time she stood out under the morning sun, on the dewy grass, her arm had loosened up until it was only slightly stiffer than it ought to have been, and still sore. In Nazghard’s cold face she almost fancied she saw a sort of cruel amusement, as they exchanged their daily greeting. Again, however, instead of sheathing Ghunhua, he drew out the other sword, the one she’d used yesterday, and handed it to her. She adjusted her grip again, trying to match the blade in her hand to the blade in the dream, and she thought that perhaps she was quicker to find the proper grip today. Again they spend the morning going over her grip and her stance and a few shiftings of her feet. Again she was exhausted and sore beyond belief when Yuemod took her in to eat her noon-meal. The languages were as cumbersome as ever, and again she fell into a deep sleep almost the moment her head touched the pillow.
For days they went on like that; but something inside Morega knew that she was growing stronger. Days and days of standing all morning without so much as twitching, and days of standing for what must have been hours, crouched in some defensive position or other, her arm extended in front of her with a sword that seemed to grow heavier and heavier; always doing everything she could to keep the point from wavering; it all made her strong. She would grit her teeth and steel herself as wave after wave of fire rushed through her arm. But somehow it grew easier as time went on.
And then came the day that Nazghard, sheathing Ghunhua beneath the scorching noonday sun, smiled his cold, thin smile.
“You’ve learnt the preliminary basics,” he said, his word seeming to rattle against each other in the silence. “Tomorrow you shall begin to learn the active use of a sword.” And then he was gone, his black cloak sweeping round him as he went through the door, and Morega willed her muscles to move and her legs to carry her through behind him to where Yuemod waited, as always, to take her into the cool, dim room and bathe her and feed her.
Today, however, there was no bath waiting for her. She saw no food on the table, but Yuemod gave her another sip of munin – she was never allowed more than a sip, and she never tried to take more. Her scarred hand closed tighter about the pendant as the room began to swirl around her through a shadowy mist. She called out and heard Yuemod’s whispering laugh, and then it was all gone. She was lost again in mist and shadow.
She moved forward uncertainly. She had a vague sense that Aedn would help her as he had before if only she could find him. She called his name, softly at first, and then more urgently. In place of the heat and fatigue she had felt before came a cold chill and a sense of hopeless helplessness that seemed to strangle her. She pulled her cloak closer about her and clasped the fire-gem tightly in her scarred hand. Its tear-drop shape seemed to meld into the oval scar and become one with her hand.
"Aedn," she called again, and noticed her voice had taken on a piercing quality, not particularly loud, but somehow with a sound of passing through all hindrances. "Aedn, I need you," she cried out, desperately; still nothing happened. Once more she called his name, and then a despair settled over her and she gave up and sat down on the cold, hard earth beneath her.
A moment later she saw a tall shape moving towards her out of the mist. His eyes seemed to gleam dark in the shadows. Her hope returned to her.
"In the Shadefields again, Nya. You could have given me an easier bit of it – I had a long way to come without that dragging," he said with something akin to amusement in his voice. Morega was uncertain as to what he meant, but he continued. "I trust you've kept out of mischief since our last meeting?" She laughed.
"I suppose so. I haven't had much time for anything but work," she added with a smile. Aedn grinned.
"What kind of work do you do?" She wrinkled her nose.
"Long hours of standing perfectly still listening to a... Actually I'm not sure what he is; not a man... Anyway, listening to him recounting all the history he can think of about swords and who makes them and who made them and who used them and who invented them and who changed them and who did this, that, and the other, and what the dates were and other strange things; except that some days ago – I can’t recall how many – we got out a sword and I held it – he's a very strange Steel Master – and now I spend hours and hour crouching still with a sword in my hand. Or sitting perfectly still listening to strange noises; I suppose they're words but I don't understand them; and then quoting it back, syllable for syllable and every accent and tone the same until I think I must be losing my mind." Aedn laughed.
"And how did you end up in the Shadefields again?" She shrugged.
"I took a sip of munin and everything swirled into mist and I ended up here," she said, still uncertain exactly what had happened. Aedn looked shocked; what she could see of his face through the misty shadows, at least.
"You mean," he said slowly, "they sent you here without directions or a plan or – or anything?" Morega hesitated uncertainly.
"Who do you mean, they?" she asked. Aedn ran his hand through his hair.
"The Night-watch of Intayeni; whoever's teaching you; you know," he said as if it should be obvious. Morega was slightly stung by his tone.
"No; I don't know. Who?" Aedn grew agitated.
"You don't know? You don't know. How do you not know? You mean they didn't tell you?” He seemed to be speaking half to himself now. “What are they thinking? Is Chanhir still High Watcher? No, of course you don't know; they aren't telling you anything, the fools. I see I'll have to forgive you the rough trip; those lunatics haven't told you anything and you couldn't help it." Suddenly he stopped, staring at the gleams of flame shining through the cracks between her fingers; her scarred hand still clasped the fire-gem.
"You don't even know what that is, do you?" he murmured quietly, touching the back of her hand gently. Morega looked up, extremely puzzled by his behaviour.
"What is it then? It's just some sort of a fire-gem; it burnt me once – see?" She showed him her scarred palm and he gasped softly and ran his fingers along the raised, white mark.
"It's not just any fire-gem, Nya Morega. This stone–” he reached his hand towards it, but kept an inch or so between his finger and the stone– "this stone is the Zanhua, a stone of immeasurable value and Power. Never," his voice had sunk as he spoke, "let anyone take it from you, for any reason. That is the means by which you summoned me – not something to be laughed off." Morega did just that, but the sound was hollow; something in his voice rang true.
"I summoned you? I called your name, yes; but your being here was a coincidence. My stone... The fire-gem had nothing to do with it." Aedn shook his head slowly.
"No. It had everything to do with it. I wasn't even in the Shadefields; I was on the Seacliffs of Sharn when you summoned me – some eight hundred leagues hence. You must believe me," he added, almost desperately. Morega shook her head hopelessly, not wanting to believe him.
"No; I can't. Why would she not have told me?" Aedn looked up sharply.
"Who?" he demanded. Morega felt miserable; she knew very well he spoke the truth, yet something inside couldn't accept it.
"Lady Yuemod; the Shadowspinner," she whispered. Aedn paced a few steps before speaking again.
"I knew it," he muttered finally, stopping abruptly and then stalking back to Morega. "Yuemod – always tampering with the balance of things. What has she done now..." His voice spoke of annoyance and the words that followed were harsh; yet there was a soft edge of fondness in his tone. He turned back to Morega. "I suppose it's she teaching you those long litanies in the Old Tongue?" Morega nodded, feeling small.
"If that's what it is; yes," she replied, wishing she understood more, not sure she wanted to. Aedn resumed pacing for a while longer. Suddenly he turned back to her.
"And the Steel Master?” he demanded sharply. “Who's that?”
"Master Nazghard," Morega whispered, remembering that darkness of the morning. She heard Aedn suck in a sharp breath. His pacing stopped and he tensed.
"Nazghard!" He hissed the word out, and spat as if the sounds of the word had fouled his mouth. "I might have known. Those two together – what I would give to let him taste my steel!" And he drew a bright, gleaming blade from within his cloak. It shone in the mists with its own light, glowing green and gold. Morega stared at it, transfixed by the sight. In the light of the blade she could see Aedn's features clearly, and the mists seemed to roll back from him a bit and curl around his feet as if in submission; he seemed taller, and she felt just a little smaller, yet safe somehow.
"Insfhar!" he cried, his voice ringing; and the sound of his voice rolled around Morega, uttering strange words she had never heard before and didn't understand. His hair fell back dark on his green-cloaked shoulders and cloak and hair seemed to blow in a wind that Morega couldn't feel. His bent nose and set jaw line stood out against the misty darkness and his eyes glittered dark blue in the shadows of his face. His tunic and leggings were grey and his boots were brown; the arm holding his sword out was strong and his entire being had a look of some long-gone age, a legend of Power.
The words still rolled around Morega like a sea, flowing and ebbing; and after a while she began to understand them, words speaking of golden ages long past, of fierce battles, victory and loss, the sorrow following, of rejoicing and mourning, of life and of death. They spoke of fiery sunrises of glory and smoky, bloody sunsets of ruin, of the risings and fallings of the earth; they spoke of hopelessness and despair, of pain and suffering and torture; yet always there was a strong chorus of hope rising around her, of joy and promises and truth fulfilled, of sweetness and rest and peace – sometimes faint and sometimes almost lost under the tumult of the rest, but always there, now stronger and now weaker, but always running amidst the rest. Morega listened in wonder to the words, amazed she understood them.
Suddenly Aedn laughed and sheathed his sword again. The words dropped into silence and the light and glory seemed to vanish, as if a dream had ended. "There; have I scared you?" he asked kindly, studying her face. She shook her head.
"No, only startled me. It's a beautiful sword," she added softly. He smiled. "Insfhar has never let me down yet," he said, resting his hand lightly on the handle of the sword in his cloak. Then he looked searchingly at Morega through the shadows.
"Have you a sword, Nya Morega?" She shook her head, almost wishing she'd kept the one Nazghard had taught her with. But her second mind rejected the idea as soon as the regret entered her head; that sword had felt all wrong to her. Good enough to learn on, certainly, but it wasn't the right sword for her when it really came down to what mattered. It didn't extend the right way, didn't connect with her. She remembered how the sword in her dream had been a part of her, how the steel had seemed to flow from her heart and down her arm, so that the sword seemed almost to have grown to her. She shook her head again. Aedn smiled, seeming to guess her thoughts.
"Ah; so you've a sword, but not the right one." His voice was so matter of fact that Morega thought for a moment that she must have spoken to him and mentioned it at some point. But she knew she hadn't. What was this man? He had guessed her thoughts quite accurately.
"Well, yes; that's exactly it," she said a little hesitantly. Aedn laughed and took her hand.
"Come along," he said, moving off in a different direction than that from which he had come. "We'll find your sword and then we'll see how well you use it." Morega felt his eyes on her as he said those last words, and she shrugged a little uncomfortably.
"Actually, I haven't really done much with a sword before. I mean, I’ve held one every day for days, but never done anything with it; but before that..." She stopped. She had held a sword before – used one, too. She had a vague memory of it; and suddenly she was back in her mind; back to a day in some other time and some other place. A man was coming at her with a whip, and an evil-looking dog was growling as he rounded her from the other side. She saw herself reaching into her boot and bringing out a long knife. As the man came forward she threw the knife hard and it landed in his belly. He stopped short, astonished, and slumped to the ground. She had a blur of memory of the days following – nursing the man back to health. And another memory, of fighting the same man, this time with a long sword; he was coming at her – "Are you alright?" Aedn asked with some concern. She nodded, but Aedn had stopped walking and was looking into her face carefully.
"You shouldn't go probing the past just yet; it'll hurt you more than teach you, you know; at this point at least, it's better to leave it alone. You have certain... gifts... that could do things to you." Morega met his eyes, not exactly sure what he meant.
"I'll not try to remember, if that's what you mean," she said carefully. "But I can't see how I can help it; it just comes on and I can't stop it; you understand don't you?" Aedn nodded, resuming his walking.
"Yes," he said as Morega kept up with him. "I know what you mean, but when it comes, start thinking of something else, deliberately. If anything, quote those long lectures of Nazghard's; you know – all the histories of the sword and all that; it usually helps. Goodness knows I've done it often enough," he added very softly, almost to himself, and fell into a deep thoughtful silence. Then he seemed to remember Morega's presence and said, "If that doesn't work quote the Ancient Tongue, whether you understand or not. You'll come to understand; you understand quite a bit already – what I quoted earlier." And only then did Morega realize that those words that she had understood – not understood, just known – were a long portion of that bothersome litany that Yuemod had taught her, syllable by syllable. She laughed a little, but somehow she knew Aedn was deadly serious. She was right. He turned again as he heard her laugh, stopping in his tracks.
"I mean it, Morega; it could kill you not to," he said in a quiet, but very serious voice. Then he smiled a little and kept walking.
"How old are you, anyway, Nya?" he asked suddenly, almost curiously. Morega frowned, suddenly remembering that she wasn't sure.
"I think..." She couldn't think. The brain that knew jumped forward almost noticeably. "Sixteen," she said firmly. "Or seventeen – I don't seem to be quite sure. My name-day was ... perhaps a year or two ago? But that was at Intayeni, and time there – it isn't quite the same, is it?" She realized she was talking over it all aloud, but it didn't bother her. Somehow she trusted Aedn. "Well, anyway, that was when they gave me my name of Morega, but somehow I seem to have had another name, long ago – before Intayeni. I wonder how I got there anyway? First I was hurt, and it was outside, at night, and then I woke up inside, and after that I was sick and hurt for a long time, and then I spent a long time on lessons everyday, and now I'm here, and – I'm still not sure how old I am. Or of anything. Do you know, Aedn?" He laughed, and Morega realized how silly she must have sounded.
"No, I don't know," the man replied, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "We'll find you some answers if we can. After I do something about Yuemod and Nazghard, the upstarts," he added in almost a growl, clearly not friendly to whatever it was they had done.
For a while as they walked he kept her entertained with strange stories of his past, and the things he had heard and seen, but after a while he grew quiet and walked a little faster.
"What –" Morega began, but he cut her off with a motion from his hand and an urgent tightening of the hand that held hers.
"Whatever you do, don't stop moving," Aedn's voice came softly to her through the shadows her eyes could not penetrate. She wondered at his words, but kept her mouth shut and resolved to keep walking through the fatigue and numb exhaustion – she couldn't think what else would stop her walking forward.
The shadows were deeper in places, and sometimes the mist was wrapped so thick about them and the shadows fell so close that Morega couldn't see even a trace of Aedn and she knew he was there only by the constant pressure on her hand. Once or twice it occurred to her to be frightened of the impenetrable grey world in which they wandered on, always at a steady, long pace. Something said that she should fear, that the blind stumbling on though a silent world should stifle her, make her panic. Somewhere she knew that normally she would fear – and that she had been somewhere like this before, but there it had been really dark, close, so silent her ears ached... she couldn't get out of that place... But this place roused no fear, panic, or hysteria in her. She laughed at the thought. Hysteria – she couldn't think she was very prone to hysteric fits or fainting, or the vapours, or whatever it was that girls were supposed to have. I wonder what I know about polite society? The thought startled her – she had never considered it; certainly she had little occasion or need for such a knowledge where she had been, seeing only two other living beings in however many months or years it had been.
Her musings were going off in that direction when a sudden shriek drew her up short. She stopped. Aedn growled impatiently and drew Insfhar with his right hand, the one not holding to Morega. He kept walking, pulling her along with him. He moved a step away from her, to the right, but kept her hand tight within his. She wanted to ask why, but she didn't. They walked on.
A black shape moved across her line of vision and Aedn turned his body to follow it, walking faster and still in the same direction. A chill ran down Morega's spine and she shivered involuntarily. Something black, something dark and deathly was surrounding them. She wanted to stop, to hide, to cower down on the cold earth until the chill shadows had passed.
Everything was cold, and the air was perfectly still. Every sense was numbed to her, or else there was no sound, nothing but shadow, no scent on the dead air; when she opened her mouth she could taste nothing but the damp mist and shadow. No sense of anything – anything at all, good or bad or indifferent – came to her except the penetrating, numbing, cold sense of fear. It chilled her, stiffened her, made all her muscles tense.
That ... whatever it was ... had them surrounded. She could feel it in the air. We're going to die, she thought numbly, and then tried vainly to shake off the cold. Aedn stood stationary at last, clearly realizing that they were hemmed in. His grip was still firm on her hand; hers was weak and limp and only stayed where it was because he held it there. She felt numb and exhausted. She wanted to sleep.
When the shape came up again it didn't pass by. It moved forward and she heard a strange guttural noise that sounded almost like laughter. A garbled sound followed, mixed in with a few weird clicks and squeaks. She could see its silhouette through the shadowy mist. It looked like some form of a twisted cat, but with wings sprouting from its shoulders, and a long brushy tail hanging behind it. It was tall, and it frightened her. She wanted to move closer to Aedn, but couldn't find the strength to make a move.
When Aedn began speaking the same mixed, guttural language, she perked up a bit, but not much. The words seemed like several different civilized tongues that had been put into hash and then recycled to be a new language. It was unintelligible.
After a while the sounds stopped and Aedn turned to her with a grim smile.
"It seems we've found ourselves traveling companions," he told her in a too¬-calm voice. She shivered again and stepped closer to him almost without realizing it. He smiled reassuringly.
"No worries – the Wereahls saved us, or so I deem. The rock ahead of us has sunk down and the mire has come up so that we might have found ourselves up to our eyes in muck before we saw what happened. Thank the Powers we encountered them. They'll keep us safe – as safe as one ever is in the Shadefields. We can accept whatever they give us until they lead us out again and we part from them." Morega wasn't comforted by his surety.
"How," she began, but stopped when her voice broke. She regained herself. I'm just tired, she told herself severely. Surely he's as exhausted as I am, and he puts a brave front up – the least I can do is hide the fear and keep strong. "How do you know we can trust them? Aren't they shadow-creatures of some sort? And won't they try to harm us? I don't like them." Her voice was steady that time, and she made herself stand straight. Aedn shrugged.
"Yes, they are shadow-creatures of a kind; you aren't likely to find much else in the Shadefields. But Wereahls are loyal, to each other at least, and if they say they'll do something, they usually do it. They don't harm or kill for pleasure, and they don't eat humans unless they're starving, and then they would have attacked first and spoken later. What gain could they have by leading us astray? I think it will be safe." Morega glanced around, and suddenly something else occurred to her.
"If the way is sunk in mire, how to they propose to take us out safely?"
"Wereahls have paths that none know but them. We can be sure we'll be as safe with them as anywhere else. Can you trust that?" Morega was silent for a time, but nodded.
Soon she found herself led forward and placed on the back of one of the largest of the beasts. She saw that they were much like what they had seemed; large twisted cats, with short, stubby faces and huge, luminescent eyes. They were long and tall, and their tails were the length of their bodies. Their tails were long and bushy but the fur that covered their bodies was short and thick and coarse. Morega was perched between the wings, with her legs hanging down in the hollow between forelegs and neck. She didn't want to touch the batlike wings, but was obliged to hold to them with her hands to keep on the Wereahl's back. The wings were long; the bone structure covered with webs of skin, and hooked claws at the ends of the bones. She felt Aedn mount behind her and his arms reached around her to grasp the base of the wings to keep himself on, and she felt safer.
The Wereahls moved quickly and silently. Some loped along on the ground, ranging about but always staying in a loose group and always moving in the same direction. Others circled about in the air, paws tucked up to their bellies and tails twitching behind them. They stayed low enough that Morega could still see them with relative clarity, but she shuddered and blessed everything sacred that their particular mount chose not to cavort above the ground.
His stride was smooth and steady, and she soon accustomed herself to the rocking motion of riding. With the wings on either side of her, the beast's head before her, and Aedn behind her, she felt safe and protected, and she soon began to doze, slumping back against Aedn.
Morega wondered vaguely once why she followed him so easily, why she blindly kept to his every command; but something in her second mind told her it was right. Really, she added to herself with some amusement and surprise, it's not much of a second mind anymore; it's more in control of me, more forward, than the other one. That first mind does keep popping up with questions and uncertainties though. I wish it would stop. But the uncertainties were always somehow in the back of her brain, something that could easily be pushed away by anything going on at the time; and she trusted the new mind, the forward mind, more than the old one at the back.

{to be cont}

[Samira]

CHAPTER 6:

After they had been going quite some time – quite some time, but it could have been minutes or hours or days; even years; she couldn't tell anything in the Shadefields – Morega realized the shadows and mist were quite a bit thinner and lighter than they had been before. A while after that she could see the sun peeking through, like a pale candle burning dimly but steadily away at the now-ragged shadows. The intermingled mist was vanishing quickly, growing ever thinner as they traveled further and further.
The Wereahls had never stopped moving, all through the long journey, and she had dozed for much of the time. It hadn't rested her much; it had been a sleep only of exhaustion, not comfort or relaxation, and she had been tense even in her sleep. Now her muscles ached, all of them, from walking so far, and from holding to the Wereahl as they traveled. Behind her Aedn had slept some, but not much; light naps off and on. He hadn't been able to catch more, though he was exhausted, because he had nothing on which to lean back and could hardly rest forward on Morega. Still, they both felt somewhat more rested than they should have been if they had kept walking.
Though the air was clearer, it was thinner. Even with her numbed senses, Morega could tell that the air wasn't nearly as thick as it should be. It made her feel giddy and light-headed, and her chest felt as if it might explode. She asked Aedn, and he said it was because they were higher. They had been climbing steadily for quite some time, she realized after she thought about it a bit. Most of the Wereahls had taken to the air, flying high now, so that they could glide with little expenditure of strength or energy. It was easier, Aedn told her, than running uphill for so long.
Morega felt sorry for their own mount, but the feeling stopped when it, too, called something back to Aedn. He called back to it and gripped tighter, sliding forward a bit. Morega followed his cue and held on with a stronger grip. Suddenly she found that they were up in the air, high above the ground. For a while she was afraid, but only for a short time. The solid body of the beast beneath her, and Aedn's presence behind her gave her a secure feeling, and she soon she began to enjoy it.
She looked down and saw dark shadows and grey mist beneath them. For endless miles it seemed to stretch away behind them. The mist was thinner ahead of them than it was further back. She could see through it to the grey rock, now mixed with brown earth, rising from the bare, flat stone that was the ground of the Shadefields. Ahead of them she could see high mountains, grey and brown and green in some places. The Wereahls were flying perhaps a thousand feet above the ground, just above the top of the shadow and mist, and they flew at an upward slope, keeping to roughly the same distance above the rising ground. As they went the mountains grew always clearer and less misty, the bare grey stone becoming earthier, and there were growing plants now.
She also began to like the feeling of flying. The rocking motion which had accompanied the loping along the ground was replaced now with a smooth ease. She could almost have closed her eyes and imagined herself sitting still on a statue of a flying Wereahl, except that at intervals the great wings beat again to keep them up and they twitched at times, catching air currents or changing direction, or doing something else which Morega couldn't guess at because she had never been a Wereahl and had never learnt all the details of flying. It was very comfortable, and after she had gotten over the novelty of seeing the ground so far beneath her and feeling the wind in her hair after the still Shadefields, and after she had stopped fearing it, she settled back to doze again.
When Morega awoke, they were high in the air over the mountains. The tops of the mountains were rocky and snowy and craggy, with cliffs and ravines and outcroppings of rock. Morega shivered. It was colder up in this higher air, and harder to breath. It was the cold wind that had awakened her. Aedn felt her shiver and leaned forward a bit.
"Are you alright, Nya Morega?" he asked quietly. She glanced back and managed a smile.
"Yes. It's a bit chilly up here though." Aedn laughed and agreed.
"Quite, though I've been colder. We'll be landing soon; the sun's going down behind us, though you can't see it," he replied. Morega managed to catch a brief glimpse of the setting sun behind them, in a splendour of red and gold and pale lavender. Something inside her was vaguely uneasy that they were going east; somehow it seemed to her to be the wrong way; but she shook the feeling off. She turned back forward and studied the Wereahl's catlike head. Its ears were pointed, rather triangular, and stood up on the top of its head. The nose itself was too short for her to see it, rather stubby and square. It was a colour mixed somewhere between grey and dun, mottled rather than solid. The ears were tipped with white.
Aedn was right – they began to descend in a few minutes, gradually at first, and then, as if the Wereahls had suddenly decided by silent mutual agreement, they began to circle as they dropped, much faster than before, and in a short while they were all on the ground again, standing on a large stone ledge. In the narrow ravine below Morega could see a thin stream of water tumbling down energetically from the heights, and green grass and scrub bushes grew along the bottom and sides of the ravine. Behind them was a sheer cliff wall of dark rock, overhanging in places and rough enough that, along with the dark colouring, Morega couldn't have told whether there might be handholds in it or even caves.
She was ready to dismount from the Wereahl, but Aedn stayed where he was, and she waited for his cue. Suddenly – so suddenly that Morega would have toppled, had Aedn not held her in place – the Wereahls began to rise again, this time moving straight up the cliff face until they were about halfway up, and then they turned and seemed to fly right into the rock face.
A hole opened up before them and they went in a narrow crevice in the rock. One might have passed it by, thinking it was just a narrow fissure. It was narrow enough that the Wereahls had to fold their wings in, which meant that they performed a strange sort of dance going in, one after another, first reaching their forepaws into the crack, then folding their wings, and scampering in agilely before they had a chance to fall down because their wings had stopped beating. Morega and Aedn were forced to duck their heads and bend over their mount's neck for a ways, until the passage broadened, and all of a sudden it was wide enough that hundreds of the beasts could have fit into it, and in the dark, the roof might have been any distance above their heads, but it felt very spacious, and Morega could touch nothing when she stretched her hand upwards. She couldn't see much of anything; it was far too dark. Behind them she heard the rest of the Wereahls that had come with them, pulling into the small entrance and scrambling along the passageway, making almost no sound at all except the faint click of claws on the stone, and then coming out into the spacious cavern where they were now. One of the Wereahls made one of their loud noises, a haunted wailing sound, and lights sprang up about the cavern.
Morega could see now that the roof above her was perhaps fifty feet above the floor, and the walls were at least twice that distance apart from each other. The light was from golden-glowing spheres around the walls, somehow held about ten feet above the floor, and they shed light enough to illuminate the entire room in a soft glow. At one end of the huge room was what seemed almost to be a raised platform of black stone, rough-edged, but smooth on the top. It was at the back of this platform that the largest and brightest of the light-globes was suspended.
Morega's attention, however, was held by something quite different than the cave itself. As they stood there, near the passageway out, she could see that they were surrounded by a veritable living sea of Wereahls, and on the platform, as if on a royal dais, stood the largest of all; one to whom she instinctively knew all the rest must answer. It was towards this beast that they were being born, slowly but steadily. The mass of furry bodies parted for them as the Wereahl on which they sat walked toward the leader. When they reached the foot of the platform they stopped, and Morega felt the strong body beneath her sink to the ground, head bent in submission. The great cat-like beast on the platform opened its mouth, showing a set of sharp, gleaming teeth. Morega shivered. Then they seemed to hold a sort of council, as if the leader asked questions, and their mount answered, and then the leader gave instructions. It seemed an eternal time, while Morega's mind wondered if they would be killed or eaten or hurt. Then she sat bolt upright as the leader spoke again.
"Welcome to our stronghold, Aedn Kom Urswahl,” the beast said, and Morega was shocked. The voice was low, with growling undertones, husky, but it was very clearly a female voice. "And welcome, Nya Morega-Luavin; under the protection of your friend we welcome you." Morega took only a moment to understand that in some strange way the Wereahls would accept her because she was under Aedn's care, but not otherwise. She wondered what Kom Urswahl meant. The Wereahl continued.
"I am Sinyuk Qiem Yarric, ruler of the Wereahls, in your tongue." Aedn touched the back of his left hand to his right cheek.
“Do the same," he murmured to Morega in a low voice. "It's a gesture of respect for the Linjum.”
Morega now wondered what Linjum meant, but she had no time to question. She did as he said. A deep rumbling seemed to fill the entire hall for a moment, as if thousands of giant cats were purring. It was a strangely relaxing sound, and Morega let her fear drop.
“Mikyin has pledged our help to you. For his word we will protect you and give you safe passage out of our lands. We will shelter you here for the night. When your strength is gathered once more, your journey will commence. Until then be easy.” Again that rumbling filled the hall; Morega felt it vibrating in her feet, traveling up her legs, through her body, until she felt she was almost rumbling with them, the sound permeating every part of her.
“We accept any help you can offer us,” Aedn told the great Wereahl courteously. His voice reached Morega as if from a distance, and she realized she was tired, and hungry, and she wanted to lie down because she was going to fall asleep in a bit. She heard their voices continuing, but it all seemed to go into a fog around her. It was so lovely and warm here, and everything seemed so friendly, the rumbling going through her, the voices swirling around her, wordless, yet comforting. She was drifting away on a warm sea... She was leaving them all behind... Aedn – come too... she said. No, she wasn't speaking, she was only thinking. But he could hear her, couldn't he? It's so soft and warm... No more fear or cold or walking... Come too... Come too... come... too... come...
Aedn finished with the polite negotiations that courtesy demanded, feeling like he could sleep for years. He trusted the Wereahls with anything. He could rest without a care here, for the first time in so long. He saw Morega nodding off in front of him and let her lean back against him once more. From the brief tender glance that Sinyuk spared, she noticed as well. He saw some Werekits in the corner, sleeping in a pile of soft furry bodies and folded wings, contained by several mature Wereahls on guard, their large bodies blocking the young ones from any harm or mishap. He envied them for a moment. He spoke the words mechanically, words that he knew by heart.
He could vaguely sense that Sinyuk understood, and when it was all over, he tried to stand, to go somewhere to sleep. A soft growl and a low cry from Sinyuk kept him in his place. He allowed Mikyin to bear them a while longer, to carry them to a comfortingly dim corner. Mikyin dropped once more to his belly as Aedn and Morega tumbled off onto a soft pile of robes prepared for them. Aedn closed his eyes after one last glance around at the sea of Wereahls that surrounded them. A feeling of peace and comfortable nostalgia filled him, the feeling of being home again. He was asleep within five minutes.

CHAPTER 7:

So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.
A.A. Milne, The House At Pooh Corner

Morega was awakened by the sound of crying. It sounded almost human, and she looked around, her eyes searching almost instinctively for a human child. A pair of glowing gold eyes met hers. She started and pulled back before studying the creature before her. It looked like a miniature Wereahl, except that its wings were very small – too small in proportion to its body – and its fur was soft and almost fluffy. It was only about eight inches from nose to rump, and its bushy tail flicked behind it curiously. The tiny creature's head was tipped to the side, large eyes fixed unblinking on Morega, giving it a comical air of consideration.
"Who are you?" she asked it gently, reaching a tentative hand out towards it. It didn't back away or flinch; rather, it leaped forward, catching her hand between two little paws – Morega bit her lip at the bite of sharp claws – and pounced on it, as if her hand were the prey and it the hunter. For a while it waited, eyes still studying her attentively, crouched low over her hand, rear end up and tail waving as if it were all a game. It began licking her hand, running its teeth over her fingers until it tired of it. When it released her, she stroked its soft back gently.
"It's a Werekit," Aedn said quietly, sitting up behind her. "I imagine it got away from its mother somehow. We'll have company soon," he added, glancing up towards Sinyuk's platform. Morega smiled at him.
"I must have fallen asleep last night," she said apologetically. "Was I a bother?" Aedn shook his head.
"I was right behind you. I was surprised you lasted as long as you did. It was your first real sleep since leaving Intayeni, and we've had a longer trip than you would think." He stretched his hand out toward the Werekit. It growled playfully and pounced on it.
“Siulik will be a great hunter someday, if she learns to hide her playful nature." The voice startled her, and Morega looked up to meet the dusky green eyes of Sinyuk Qiem Yarric. There was something strange in the ruler's voice, a sort of pride, mixed with disinterestedness, and there was some reproof, as if she took pride in what the Werekit would someday be, as if it was a personal accomplishment, and yet as if she saw it only as a future hunter, not as a Werekit of the present. It seemed almost as if she saw the playfulness as a drawback. Morega didn't know what to say. She dipped her head respectfully to Sinyuk, her hand still stroking Siulik. No response seemed necessary, as the great feline spoke again.
"She seems to have taken a liking to you, youngling. It would be in your best interest to nurture that preference. Come and take the daymeal with me." Morega's mind was still spinning, trying to take in what Sinyuk said and trying to understand her meanings. Aedn accepted for both of them.
"With honor, Linjum," he said in a low voice. The Wereahl's eyes looked almost teasing.
"I thought we had reduced it to Sinyuk, Kom Urswahl," she replied. Morega would have thought she sounded playful, but the leader of the Wereahls seemed too stately and composed for playfulness.
"So we had," Aedn replied; his eyes were twinkling mischievously. Morega tried not to stare in shock as the regal Wereahl rolled her gorgeous eyes.
"Come. And you," she added, turning her gaze on Morega, "may carry the kit and drop her at her comer as we pass." Morega nodded once more and scooped the tiny bundle of fur and claws up in her arms. With a yawn, Siulik curled up against her rumpled black tunic and closed her eyes to sleep. Morega stayed close to Aedn as he followed Sinyuk through the cavern. Part of the way across, they came on a little cave off to one side, the entrance blocked by large Wereahls. Inside it a pile of Werekits tumbled about together. At one end lay several females nursing their kits. Low sounds came from their throats, as if they were having a quiet conversation as they fed their kits. It was here that Sinyuk had Morega let her little friend go. One of the guarding Wereahls moved a bit so she could step through and place Siulik on the floor. The Werekit looked up at her a moment, let out a few shrieks and growls, and then ran to join the rest of the tousling kits. Morega smiled and rejoined Aedn and Sinyuk. She found that they had been watching her closely.
"I would do all in my power to encourage Siulik's attachment, if I were you," Sinyuk said, her voice holding again that strange intensity that was almost nonchalant. Morega waited for her to say more, but the Wereahl seemed finished. Aedn gave Sinyuk a sudden look of understanding.
"Why?" Morega asked at last. Sinyuk glanced back at her and stepped around a sleeping Wereahl.
“Because a bloodmate would be a great asset for you, with the right influence,” she said simply, as if it should be obvious. Aedn smiled bitterly.
"She knows nothing except the shihkma they taught her, Sinyuk," he told the Linjum casually. Morega stifled a laugh at the word he had used. It was very raw, but Sinyuk didn't even blink as Aedn continued. "You'll have to spell it out for her." Sinyuk gave Morega another penetrating look before turning forward again. They were coming out the end of another passage, and Morega saw that they were in a smaller room than the other, and much lighter. Instead of the yellow light of the light¬globes, her eyes drank in the crystalline beauty of sunlight, filtered through a thick curtain of water – a waterfall – outside a wide opening in the wall. The sound of the water, for some reason, was very faint, the light babbling of a brook instead of the roar and thunder it should have been. The air was damp, but not unpleasantly so, and it smelled fresh. Around the edges of the window the stone was wet, the water showing flashes of bright colours in the black stone that weren't visible on the dry places. Sinyuk tipped her head towards the waterfall-curtained opening.
"The East Window," she told her guests. "A wonder of beauty known to only a few. One of our ancient Linjum, who still had more Power than we do now, cast a spell to keep the water outside this room and to keep the sound low. If you were to stand out on the cliff-side, you would be very near deafened by the sound of the waterfall. We still have enough Power to keep the spells fresh, but we could never reproduce such a powerful spell." She led them on into the room to a low table of wood and brass set in the centre. More soft robes like those they had slept on were piled on the ground around the table, and Morega found it more comfortable than sitting in a chair. Sinyuk said a few strange words; her eyes fixed on the East Window, and then turned back to her guests. At a low growl, several black Wereahls came forward holding platters by means of handles, which they held in their mouths. Morega was surprised to note how neatly it was all done. There was no drooling or salivating on the platters or the food they held, and none of the platters slipped.
"Now I'll explain what I was saying before," Sinyuk said after they had begun eating and the black servers had gone again. "In ancient customs, when humans and Wereahls lived side by side, young Werekits sometimes had a sort of prompting towards a certain human. If the human was willing, which they usually were, the two would become bloodmates, constant companions closer to each other than to anyone else in the world. Usually they died together, but sometimes –” her eyes took on a sad, almost haunted look– “sometimes one died and the other lived on. With the blessings of the right people, Wereahls and humans both, most bloodmates could achieve things that nobody could do on their own. It can be very rewarding. It hasn't been done in a very, very long time, but Siulik seems to have the right signs of prompting." Morega took a sip of wine and considered what Sinyuk was saying.
"We only just met this morning,” she reminded quietly. Sinyuk only shook her head.
“That doesn’t signify. It isn’t a matter of knowing the other, but of the inner workings.” Morega thought a while longer.
“Did you ever have a bloodmate?" she asked suddenly. Sinyuk stared at her quietly for a long moment.
“Yes,” she replied finally. Her catlike face was hard to read, almost expressionless, but Morega was already starting to recognize a little. Her face looked sad just now, the luminescent eyes focused somewhere beyond the room, unseeing past the bright flow of water. "Yes. He was a great man…” Morega waited for more, watching Sinyuk’s furry face. No more seemed forthcoming, so Morega said tentatively,
“How did he die?” Sinyuk shook her head sadly.
“He didn’t,” she replied, her voice a soft growl. She turned her clear gaze on Aedn. His face was inscrutable. “Our Power was always close; it began to become dangerously entangled. We made the decision to split. Sometimes I can still feel bits of his Power, but otherwise every trace of our former bond is dissolved.” Morega frowned.
“Are you saying that could happen again?” she asked. Aedn shook his head. Sinyuk was the one who spoke.
“No. My Power and his were always closer than normal, and even before we became bloodmates, there was as strong bond between us. In some ways there still is.” Aedn spoke after a moment.
“I’ve forgotten what we were initially speaking of,” he said, subtly changing the topic. There was a haunted look in his eyes that he almost covered, but Morega could see it. Sinyuk spared him a glance.
“We weren’t. That was all polite chitchat. I meant to speak to you of your plans from here. Where were you going, Aedn?” He shrugged.
“I hadn’t solidified any plans. Getting out of those accursed Shadefields was my thought. It’s easier to think in clearer air. Perhaps my thinking is wrong, but it seems someone at the Torenmach might offer the most hope at this point.” His dark blue eyes studied Sinyuk from a deceptively calm face.
“If I understand correctly,” Sinyuk said cautiously, “this is the … Morega-Luavin seekhelmin … is she not?” Morega looked form one to the other, unsure of what it was that they were saying. She felt as if she was listening to somebody else’s conversation, and it was quite difficult to understand. Aedn nodded, glancing at her.
“Yes,” he said simply. Sinyuk’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Morega’s face. Morega studied the shining dark brown of her fur. The Wereahl’s green eyes turned back to Aedn. She let out a stream of strange sounds. Aedn frowned. He replied in the same wailing, haunting tongue. It continued for a while before they stopped and stared into each other’s eyes for a while, a strange sort of communication passing between in their look.
“We need to talk, Aedn,” Sinyuk said at last. “Really talk.” His expression was at its usual set, contemplative and passive, yet with a sort of covered power.
“I don’t want Morega left alone,” he replied. Morega glared at him.
“Don’t treat me as a child, Aedn. You obviously have things to discuss. I’ll be fine,” she assured. His chose not to remind her that she was a child. His eyes appraised her concernedly.
“Wereahls can be vicious,” he said mildly. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.” She stared at him, knowing that what he said must be an excuse.
“You’re a man of contrasts, Aedn Kom,” she said at last. “Please don’t concern yourself on my behalf.” He began to reply, but Sinyuk cut in.
“If you must continue this debate later, do so, but at the moment, allow me to put you at ease.” She turned and let out a sharp call. A moment later a tawny Wereahl stepped through the door. Sinyuk tipped her head and the other moved forward and sank submissively beside the table.
“Yasmik,” Sinyuk introduced, nodding at the Wereahl. “He will be your companion, Morega, whenever you need. He can speak your tongue and he will answer questions and tell you whatever you wish.” She turned to Aedn. “Does that satisfy your concerns?” she asked quietly. He nodded.
“Completely. Thank you.” He looked hard at Morega. “I would suggest stopping by again and seeing Siulik if you can,” he told her gently. “It might be very entertaining.” She laughed.
“You mean you want me out of here so you can talk about me without feeling bad,” she clarified with a laugh. “I think I’ll take your suggestion, if I have Sinyuk’s leave?” Aedn raised one brow at the familiar name, but Sinyuk smiled.
“Yes. Feel free to go wherever you wish; Yasmik can stop you if you begin to cross bounds,” she added, glancing at the large, dark-eyed Wereahl that waited patiently beside her. Morega smiled and stood. The Wereahl rose to his feet and Morega followed as he padded out silently.
When they were gone, Aedn turned his gaze on Sinyuk and for a long while they looked into each other’s eyes. Aedn was the first one to speak.
“It’s been a long time, Sinyuk Qiem Yarric,” he said at last, his deep voice low.
“A very long time,” she agreed. “I didn’t expect to see you again.” For a time they were silent again.
“This is going to stir up something interesting,” he said after a bit. “ Will the balance be disturbed?” Sinyuk’s eyes grew troubled.
“I don’t know,” was all she answered. She turned away from him. “How did you come by the girl?”
“She found me in the Shadefields. They’re using her, Sinyuk.” A dark glint came into his eye. “Using her just the way they used me. I’m not letting it happen again. I’m taking her away from Intayeni, somewhere where the Circle can’t find her. They aren’t doing her any good.” Sinyuk’s eyes met his determined gaze with a cool, understanding light.
“Is this about her freedom, or your revenge, Kom Urswahl?” she asked gently. He stared at her for a moment.
“Both,” he replied evenly, and then he turned and looked at the sheet of water covering the East Window. “They took away my chances for a normal life. They thrust Destiny in my face and gave me no choice.” His eyes turned back to her face. There was a sort of lost desperation in his voice as he spoke. “I didn’t want to become what I am, Sinyuk. I wanted to be a normal man, not a legend; not a hero. I don’t want to be feared and respected. I just wanted to live my life as any other man is allowed to live. Can’t you see it? They’re doing the same thing to Morega. Some oracle spoke of Luavin, and they decided Morega must be the promised one. They’re going to shove her into a fate she doesn’t want.” Sinyuk frowned as Aedn stood and walked to the window. He leaned against the wall and stared at her.
“How do you know she doesn’t want it?” she said very quietly. He turned and looked out at the cascading water.
“She should be allowed to know if she does before it’s thrust upon her,” he replied, not turning back. Sinyuk sighed.
“Aedn, sometimes we change and shape our future. But sometimes the future is shaped for us. The first Fate sets the canvas on the easel and prepares the paint. The second Fate paints our lives. There’s only so much we can do to change the way things are, Aedn. And when it’s all over, it’s done. You cannot change what happened to you. And when the third Fate washes the brushes and takes the canvas down, your life is over. You can’t change the way you were raised and trained. You can’t say that your life would have turned out any differently if they had left you to grow up. Aedn, you are your father’s son, and even your mother gave you a part of herself. You cannot change who you are. You have to do the best with what you’ve been given.” He was quiet for a very long time, staring out at the curtain of water streaming over the rock.
“She deserves to know who she is,” he said quietly at last. “She deserves the time to discover herself. She doesn’t need them to shove greatness in her face. You can’t possibly understand how it feels. The loneliness, the uncertainty, trying to live up to all their dreams of salvation. I don’t want that for her, Sinyuk. She deserves a better life than I’ve had.” His eyes flicked back to the Linjum’s face. There was understanding in her eyes, a clear pain that he recognized.
“It’s stronger than I thought,” he whispered. “You can feel it, can you not?” Sinyuk dipped her head slightly.
“It occurs this way every time. Stronger than we expect.” Her voice was a low, throaty purr. Sudden anger flashed in Aedn’s eyes.
“I can’t even control my own Power,” he said bitterly. “They never taught me control. You see how they’ve done shamefully by me; they gave me too much Power, too soon, and never taught me to wield it properly. You see the hold I have over it; I taught myself to hold everything with an iron grip, because they would not.” Suddenly he seemed to droop, the fire gone out of him. “I’m sorry, Sinyuk. My lack of control is what bleeds through to yours. We might have done great things together, you and I, if not for their meddling. I’m sorry.” She moved from her place and slid up beside him with fluid movements. She rose on her hind legs enough to rest her paws on his shoulders and lay her great head softly against his face. It was a motion of consolation and affection, somehow infinitely regal. Aedn rested his face against hers for a moment before she dropped back down to the ground.
“There is nothing to apologize for, Aedn Kom. You are who you were trained to be. And the girl?” He shook his head.
“I’d hoped you might help on that score; you know I trust your counsel.” Suddenly she began pacing up and down the room.
“You’ll need to go to Horqan in the Machin at the Torenmach – he’s the Sorcerer who presently occupies the tower. Once you’ve rested a while and explained things to Morega – ” she paused and gave him a hard look, which he received without so much as blinking– “I’ll give you what help I can. We’ll see you on your way through the mountains, but we cannot go the whole way with you. My people have problems of their own just now,” she added grimly, her eyes hardening.
“Westronae raiders?” he hazarded. She nodded briefly.
“And the Morwae worms from the Garthain Machlim.” Aedn grimaced and then smiled a little.
“And you have a kit to care for,” he prompted. She met his eyes with a short laugh.
“Yes. Siulik is mine. All that remains of Swylas.” Aedn’s face took on a look of curiosity and something else – horror, perhaps, or grief.
“And Swylas?” he asked, very softly. Sinyuk turned her eyes out the window for a long time.
“As I said – we have troubles with the Morwae.” Aedn’s eyes hardened momentarily.
“She’s beautiful,” he told the Linjum quietly. There was a proud flicker in the dusky green eyes that met his.
“A great compliment, coming from you,” Sinyuk acknowledged with a twitch of her tail. “Someday I’ll tell her you said that.” And then, turning round to face him squarely: “But this is neither here nor there. We’ll give you what we can and provide a temporary escort.” A faint longing showed itself in her eyes. “I would come with you the whole way if I could,” she said softly. Then she flicked her tail again. “Until then you stay with us and rest.” He agreed with a faint smile that meant nothing or anything – or everything. They left to find the girl.

Morega and Aedn stayed with the Wereahls until they had completely regained their strength. It might have been days or weeks or months in the caverns in the mountain; Morega could hardly tell the passage of time. The caverns were larger and more extensive than she realized at first. During their time under the mountains she explored miles of the vast network, and never reached the end. The first cavern was the largest, the only truly enormous room of them all, but some of the others were very large as well, and some of them were small, so that she and Yasmik wriggled though on their bellies.
There were rooms with basins in the floor, filled with water. Some of them bubbled hot and some of them just steamed; some were cool and comfortable and others were so cold as to send sharp needles of pain through you when you touched the water. Some of them, far from the main caves, were frozen over, and underneath them a blue light shone with an ethereal glow, turning the ice into crystal, and the little pockets of frozen air into pearls, deep below the surface. Morega couldn’t see to the bottom. She slid across them a few times, for fun, but there was a sort of queer atmosphere about them, like the inside of an ancient cathedral, and she felt oddly intrusive. She only went a few times to the icy caves.
She asked Aedn to teach her the Wereahls’ strange tongue in which he seemed so fluent, but he refused with a smile on his face. Yasmik was more compliant, teaching her words and phrases, and laughing as he told her that she sounded terrible. She couldn’t master the strange sounds, screeching and guttural and mixed; they tied her tongue in knots. Yasmik was, she discovered, a good companion, showing her around and answering questions. He found as much amusement as she did in swimming in the pools, and he showed her other diversions in the caves. In one cave there was a long, smooth slope that dropped steeply, and then curved gently at the bottom to straighten out. The only way to reach it was to ride on Yasmik’s back, or to attempt a great climb from the bottom, but having attained her goal, she found great pleasure in the thrilling drop to the bottom. The slope was wide enough that she was relatively sure to stay on the slide itself.
There were other ways to amuse herself. In some of the rougher caverns Aedn taught her to climb, knowing that she would need all the strength, endurance, and perseverance it would teach her. Yasmik climbed with her as well, flying just beneath her in the event that she should slip. Sometimes they got to the top of a hard climb and they would roll over, Morega on her back and Yasmik on his side, and he would tell her old tales that were purred to the Werekits at nights.
The Wereahls, being intelligent creatures, had their own games and competitions. Their physical sports were beyond Morega’s capacity, being mostly the sort that necessitated flying, but their games for the mind were of the sort she could enjoy. Puzzles and mazes and curious word-problems. Sinyuk and Aedn conspired together to teach her all they could through her activities, and while they rested, they also strengthened her and taught her mind to be sharper. She even learnt bits of the Wereahl’s strange, difficult language, though Yasmik assured her to the last that she sounded truly awful. She spent time with Siulik as well, tousling and running and sometimes just lying together.
“Is she saying something?” Morega would ask whoever was nearby – Aedn or Yasmik, usually – and they would laugh and shake their heads.
“Only baby talk,” they would reply, and she would smile and stroke the kit’s back. One day she suddenly sat up and said, somehow certain, though she knew not how,
“That was talking.” Aedn was sitting nearby, and he looked up and nodded.
“Yes,” he replied sounding pleased; “she said a word which doesn’t translate into the common tongue; it means someone who isn’t a Wereahl.” Morega tickled Siulik’s belly approvingly.
“Teach me that word, Aedn Kom,” she said hopefully. He laughed then.
“You know full well that I won’t teach you the Wereahl-tongue, Nya,” he replied almost laughingly, but she pleaded, and he seemed only half-hearted in his resistance, and he taught her the word, and said she sounded better on that word than any of the others she attempted to slaughter; but Yasmik informed her, laughing, that she sounded quite as terrible as anyone he’d ever heard.
It was a sad day that they left. Sinyuk brought Siulik to Morega, and the two bid each other farewell, the little Werekit seeming subdued, as if it understood the parting, and Morega finding suddenly that she’d grown extraordinarily attached to the little creature. Siulik repeated again her one word – the word that meant not-Wereahl, and Morega laughed shakily through a sudden film of tears that she refused to let fall, and repeated the word in her terrible accent. And then Morega bid farewell to Sinyuk, in a quiet voice, knowing instinctively that a display of the churning emotions within her would not be welcome, though it would be endured. Only her eyes showed how she had come to like the great Linjum, and the green, catlike eyes that regarded her showed a sorrow as the Wereahl bid her goodbye gently, touching her shoulder once with a great paw.
Aedn’s farewell took place after Morega had left with the Wereahl escort, quietly in the room before the East Window. It was a poignant moment, but both kept their words brief and their emotion in check. Only their faces betrayed them; only the strain of feeling that passed between them where their Power merged. Aedn had asked one Wereahl to stay back to carry him on so that he might catch the rest once he had taken his leave. They caught up swiftly, and he didn’t look back to the cliffs as he left. He didn’t see the pain on the feline face that looked out unseeingly from behind the thick curtain of water that flowed over the stone.

CHAPTER 8:

The time it took for them to pass far beyond the caverns of the Wereahls passed quickly for Morega, watching the passing rocks and trees as they glided over the mountains, taking breaks now and then for a bit to drink or a bite to eat. The journey was smooth and easy, now soaring in the air, bracing at the great batlike wings; now loping easily across the ground, watching the earth roll away beneath her. As for Aedn, he never noticed the way it went. His mind was busy on other matters and he held onto his position on his mount’s back by habit, while his thoughts roved endlessly and he saw none of what they passed.
Morega and Aedn each rode a different Wereahl – there was no need to burden any one particular creature with the weight of them both – so that conversation was difficult, even if he had been in the mood to talk; and as the Wereahls had no need of conversation, the trip was passed in silence. They reached a sheltered place by evening, a spot in the rock hollowed out underneath by running water long ago; water that had since changed its course with the shiftings of the earth, leaving an indentation in the cliff’s face, dry and on the leeward side, away from the wind, so that it made a perfect resting-place for the night. Morega slept almost immediately once she lay down, surrounded by Aedn and soft, warm, furry bodies of Wereahls. A feeling of peace and security stole over her, and she slept deeply the whole night through, until the dawn brought the movings of the Wereahls, awakening her. Aedn slept soundly as well, but his sleep was filled with strange, twisted dreams, and he spent the night puzzling in his deep subconscience, how to sort out the twisted turnings of both his life and that of his self-appointed ward.
The next day came and their journey continued. It was much the same as it had been the day before, and they went on for another two days, with the mountains passing beneath them on their journey north and the air growing cooler as they went. It was less temperate here, not so mild, and by the fourth day of their journey, Aedn had taken hooded coats of thick leather, lined on the inside with soft fur, from his pack and given one to Morega, putting the other on himself. She was grateful for the warmth it provided and buttoned it on underneath her cloak, wrapping the cloak tight around her body over the coat and pulling the hood low. There was a perpetual wind, and their escort fought against the cutting edge of cold that the hard wind threw at them. It blew from the northwest, cutting across their faces and trying to push them off their course.
By the fifth day they had come to the end of the mountains, and found themselves resting for the night in the foothills, just on the northern edge of the mountains. From here they would have a day’s walk to find a road that led to the Torenmach, or they could take a more direct route and cut west across the hill-country until they reached the gates of the fortress.
“The difficulty,” Aedn explained quietly to Morega that night, “isn’t so much deciding whether or not to follow the Road; we shan’t. The difficulty is to keep a good margin between the High Road and the base of the Kash Gharenas. If we stray too far to the south, we lose ourselves in the treacherous mountain-borders, and if we stray too far north we come within dangerous distance of the Road. The Road is the true southern border of the Kash Loman, and the warring tribes have raiders on the Road. If you see here,” and he drew a rough sketch in the dust, “we’re here, in this narrow valley between the Kash Gharenas, the southern mountain range, and the Kash Loman, the northern range. Those mountain-peaks you see over there are the Kash Loman, and they’re full to the bursting point with clans and tribes that are constantly warring, though they sometimes hire out as mercenaries to Thronam or the Westronae raiders, or even as far south as Khanstae and the Komlandar Freefelds. Their highwaymen see the Road though the Kash Valley here as their personal property and extract a heavy toll from anyone they catch traveling it. So our goal is to keep south of the High Road and north of the Kash Gharenas, and then catch the tail end of the Road into the Torenmach.” Morega nodded, wondering vaguely if she was meant to commit it all to memory, just as she had Nazghard’s lectures and Yuemod’s litanies.
The northern border of the mountains was as far as the Wereahls would escort them. The one who appeared to be more or less the leader explained in their strange tongue that their own problems in other areas prevented their being spared past their own borders, and he wished them every good fortune before they left and went back to their caverns. Yasmik said goodbye to Morega fondly, and she ran her hands one last time through his thick, scruffy fur and did her best to pretend it didn’t really make such a difference that he left; and he laid one paw gently on her shoulder and whispered one last time, with a twinkle and a playful purr, that her accent in his tongue was atrocious. And then the whole party of twisted felines flew up and away and disappeared southwards. Morega turned away slowly and hoisted her pack, and Aedn smiled encouragingly as he turned and led the way westward.
This journey would be longer, though they hadn’t so far to go as they’d had coming through the mountains, because they’d been on Wereahls through the mountains and they were on foot now; and also because through the mountains they’d been in the Wereahls’ territory, and now they were picking their way through borderlands and avoiding the Road.
The first day seemed to go forever. Morega followed Aedn as he strode through the hill-country, his long legs eating up the ground. She did her best to keep up, but his stride was easily twice hers; and after a while she fell further and further behind. Suddenly Aedn turned around and the look on his face was almost comic as he realized how far behind she was. He turned and walked back to meet her with a wry chuckle.
“I suppose I’d best keep a bit slower, hadn’t I?” he said apologetically. “Sometimes I forget I’ve anyone but myself to keep care for.” After that he went slower, matching his stride a little closer to hers.
“Who are you, Aedn Kom?” Morega asked suddenly, shifting the pack on her back and looking up at him curiously.
“Who am I?” he repeated, thoughtfully. “You know my name.” Morega rolled her eyes.
“How enlightening. A name tells me nothing; I know my own name – the name I was given – but I have yet to learn who I am.” Aedn smiled a little, not saying how much one could know from a name, had they enough experience. Experience – or the memory of it, at least – was something Morega lacked.
“What is it you want to know about me, little one? My occupation? My family? My home?” She laughed.
“Something more than I know now would do; after all, how often does one meet a man lying on the ground in the Shadefields and then follow him through entirely different countries with no knowledge either of the man or of the course set or of the purpose of such a pilgrimage? It seems to me that I must deserve some understanding more than I have.” Aedn was silent for a while, walking on, glancing now at the sun above or to the left and right, seeing, she could only suppose, landmarks and guide-posts that she couldn’t read.
“I ought to be a man like any other,” he said softly after a time. “Courses of Fate – or courses set by those who would move Fate’s hand for her – have made me what I am now.”
“And what are you know?” she asked. Aedn kept walking, and she began to think he would never answer and that the subject had been closed, when he glanced at her and spoke again.
“Have you heard of the Age of Prophecy?” Morega nodded.
“Yes; but only vaguely. Nazghard,” she said dryly, “had little use for it, because the sword wasn’t prominent enough for the age to merit much of his attention.” Aedn chuckled.
“The Age of Prophecy was named, not surprisingly, for the abundance of prophecies during those years. Everything from crop predictions to prophecies for the end of the world. Not surprisingly, many of them were never fulfilled, or were shown to be entirely wrong or unfounded. Some of them, however have survived because they were believed to be true visions that would one day be fulfilled. One such prophecy – the sort that had to wait a few centuries to be seen through – is called the Oracle of Shadow, and it predicted the Shadow Ages.” Morega interrupted then.
“When were the Shadow Ages?” Aedn’s steps stopped and he stared at her a moment, and then he turned and kept walking.
“We are in the Shadow Ages now, Nya Morega.”
“Oh.” Aedn took three more steps before continuing.
“The Oracle of Shadow had the people worked up for a bit, and then they forgot it as some other wondrous prophecy caught them up. The general populace was reminded of the Oracle of Shadow when a second vision came from the same Seeress, this one concerning the one who would, according to the vision, rescue the world in general from the darkness of the Shadow Ages. That made everyone content, because now they all knew that if the first prophecy came to pass, there was all likelihood that the second would as well, and they would all be rescued before too long had passed and life would go on its merry way once more.” There was a steep drop before them, about twenty feet down the side of a hill that had suddenly turned stony. Aedn halted and began looking around, walking to and fro beside the edge, looking for a simple way down. There wasn’t.
“Can we go around?” Morega asked. He shook his head.
“Look around you; we’re in a gully here. We’d have to climb the side to get around, and later on we’d have to climb back down. Here’s where you find the good of all your time with Yasmik; any rock-climbing you’ve learnt is going to save you now. Follow me down and take your time.” And he turned and began lowering himself over the side, his feet moving about until he found solid holds for them. Slowly he disappeared from sight; first his chest and then his shoulders and then his head went down below the top of the drop, and she watched as he methodically searched out foot- and hand-holds, making his slow – oh, so slow – way down. Once he’d gone a ways, he turned to look back up at her.
“Start down now,” he called. “Legs first.” Morega went on her belly and slid her legs over, clinging to the ground with her fingers until she found solid rests for her feet. Then she moved one leg, trying to find the next step down. “A little left,” Aedn said reassuringly. “An inch down – there.” And then the other leg, and once she’d gone far enough, her hands too. And so it went, moving slower than she’d ever thought possible, Aedn going first, picking his way down, and then Morega, trying to find the places he’d found already, following the directions he called up.
And then suddenly her hand-hold broke loose. A small shower of stones and dirt rained down on Aedn and Morega felt herself slipping. She cried out with surprise and sudden fear as she tried to catch hold of the rock face again. Her fingers scrabbled against the hard stone for a moment and then her arm slipped and her fingers closed around the throbbing fire-gem.
For a moment she seemed to hang suspended in space while the earth turned apart from her.
And then she had caught some edge of the rock in her hand and she was pressed close against the cold stone, breathing hard, her eyes closed, heart pounding, thanking everything, sacred and otherwise, that she’d caught hold of something solid.
“Are you alright, Morega?” Aedn’s voice came up from below, and she nodded shakily. She heard Aedn draw a long breath beneath her, and then he said, in a steady, firm voice, “If you can reach to the left a bit,” and she nodded and slid her hand to the left and found the protrusion he saw. Her heart was still under the delusion of its being a drum, but she followed what he said, moving her hands and feet almost mechanically, each time dreading another slip, and each time finding a solid grip, until suddenly she found herself at the bottom, and she stepped back from the cliff, still shaking. She lifted her eyes and stared at the place they’d come from. It wasn’t so high as it was steep. Aedn let her stand still for a moment, and then she felt his fingertips brush her shoulder gently, and he was turning away already.
“Come along, Nya,” he said softly. “We’ve got too far to go before nightfall.” She turned away and followed his broad back, the green cloak moving with his steps, shaped strangely because he carried his pack under the cloak. Walking on the ground was warmer than flying on the Wereahls, though not by much. They didn’t wear the thick coats anymore – Aedn had stowed them away in his pack and they were cold only in the mornings; walking soon warmed them. After such a climb and such a fright, Morega found herself perspiring.
Her legs ached with every step. Aedn looked compassionately down at her from time to time but didn’t slacken the pace. They stopped early that night, before sundown, because Aedn had found a place he liked and didn’t like to chance walking long after dark trying to discover a better one. A small fire was built and Aedn proved his skill in cooking – he made a sort of meal with what he had in his pack. Dried stewed meat wrapped in oiled cloth, hard bread, and some bits of plants and leaves that Morega didn’t know, all in a pan of water over the fire.
“It would do better with salt and pepper,” he said, “and some other things we haven’t got.” He smiled apologetically, and Morega laughed.
“I’m hungry enough to eat anything,” she assured him, rubbing her sore legs. His face was compassionate.
“You’ll have hardened in a few days,” he assured her. And Morega grimaced at the idea of the ‘few days’ of pain before her muscles were properly strengthened. “And,” Aedn continued wryly, “with any amount of fortune we shan’t have to climb cliffs again.”
The next morning they woke cold and stiff and had only cold leftovers for breakfast. Morega didn’t ask what their noon meal would be – she dreaded hearing that she would have to eat the same. This day was worse; everything ached before the day’s march even began. The sun rose after they’d been walking for some time – far too long, in Morega’s opinion. It began to warm them slowly, and the exercise began to heat them, and before too long they were at least comfortable temperature-wise. It was longer before her muscles loosened some and by that night she was ready to give up on ever reaching their destination. Aedn brought out another strange plant – he picked them as they walked, if he noticed something he liked; and into the pack they went, to be brought out around the fire at night and have their uses proven. This was a strange weed, roots an all, with tall stalks and tiny white waxy flowers hiding under broad, dark leaves like shy maidens behind their fans. Morega watched, only half interested for exhaustion, as he put the entire thing in the pot of water and set it to boil in the fire. After only a moment or two a bittersweet scent rose from the pot and Aedn took it off the fire and dipped a cloth into the water, handing it Morega.
“Wash with that while I fix the even’meal.” Morega turned away with the pan and cloth. There was a stream behind the hill to their backs and she went there, glad to shed the clothes she’d worn for far too long and let the cold water wash over her before sponge-bathing with the sweet-smelling water. It did help, somehow; something of the sweetness seemed to seep into her muscles and bones and soothe them. When she came back Aedn looked up and smiled, taking the pan. He emptied the water and sent her to fill it again from the stream, keeping the wet plant in his hand until she came back. He put the plant back in the pot and cooked it with their even’meal. It gave only the faintest tinge of flavour to the food, something not unpleasant that Morega couldn’t quite grasp. Aedn looked ruefully at the bedraggled plant when they’d finished.
“I suppose that’s the end of usefulness for this wenna,” he said grudgingly before shrugging and tossing it into the fire with a sigh of, “Ah, well.” The smoke rose strangely blue and gave off a light scent of something Morega couldn’t grasp.
Morega asked Aedn to tell her the stars as they lay and looked up at the sky.
“Do you know them?” She couldn’t see his nod in the dark.
“My mother taught them to me,” he replied at last. “From before I was old enough to understand. She’d point up at the heavens and whisper their names to me. She didn’t know them in the common tongue; only in the ancient words of the Isles. The Uerghmat,” he said, pointing up at a bright cluster. “In the common tongue it means spider. There’s an Old Ciringath tale about it. If you watch closely, over time, you’ll see that Uerghmat always follows behind Saleya, there.” He pointed at a different constellation. “Saleya is the heroine of many a story; she was a faerie, so the stories run, who took it in her head to become a warrior. The fey folk wouldn’t allow it, and so she left and joined the Shileakh army, dressed as a man. So runs the beginning; there are more tales than anyone could ever hear in a lifetime about the things she did among the Shileakhi soldiers. Anyhow, one tale introduces Uerghmat; Spider. As things go on, he becomes her great enemy, in her mind, and she always runs from him, because of something an oracle said at some time or other concerning creatures of the spider variety. Poor Uerghmat has important news to tell her and keeps following, always trying to catch her to tell her.” Morega chuckled.
“What is his important news?” she asked curiously. It was Aedn’s turn to laugh.
“None of the stories ever say. He’s in a lot of them; on the edges, just barely mentioned. And in the sky, he follows her still. And there–” he pointed a different direction, “are the Khrae Trinde; the Three Maidens. There’s a story about them too, but I never liked it, so I didn’t bother to remember it.” He yawned. Morega didn’t ask any more questions, and he seemed to have finished the subject.
The days passed on, and each night she was a little less sore, each morning a little less stiff. The cold was lessening a little each day, though very, very slowly, and not so that Morega could notice it. The sudden thought to ask what time of year it was occurred to Morega one day as they walked and when she asked Aedn he laughed, but his eyes had a strange grave look to them as he smiled at her.
“It’s the fourth month,” he replied, “and this far north that still means almost-winter. But it’s warming, slowly. You’ll see.” She muttered that she hoped he was right, and hurried to catch up with his long strides. She was tired of wearing the same clothes day in and day out, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. She had no other clothes. They were worn by now, and dirty, though they’d been washed while they were with the Wereahls. Her boots were dusty and her tunic stained and she knew she needed a good wash – a luxury she hadn’t had in what felt like ages, though she supposed, counting back, that it had only been a couple of weeks. Far too long at that, she thought distastefully, wrinkling her nose. She’d given up trying to fix her hair; it did what it liked and that was that. Aedn had found a bit of leather and she tied it back behind her head with that and let it tangle as much as it liked, the entire length of it down to her thighs. She was glad she couldn’t see her reflection – though somehow, something inside her thought perhaps she was used to being dirty and tired and ill-kept. She put the thought away.

[Samira]

CHAPTER 9:

The attack came entirely unexpected, some seven days into their walk, just past sunrise. Morega was thoroughly sick of the meager, repetitive food and the constant walking through monotonous landscape. Hills, hills, more hills, covered with grass and low bushes, and, in places, trees. Mountains to the south, mountains to the north. Sky above. Endlessly. Just now they were passing through trees, a larger stretch of them than they’d seen before, when a sudden twang from the trees ahead and a dull thunk behind her made her stop. She’d felt the breath of air from the arrow as it whizzed past her head. Something inside her felt that she knew what she ought to do, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. The look on Aedn’s face persuaded her not to say a word. Another arrow hit a tree near him. He fingered it for a bare moment.
“Kash Loman renegades,” he breathed to her as he stood close beside her. “They oughtn’t to be so far south. I don’t recognize the clan-mark.” His fingers brushed over a strange notch running round the shaft. A moment later a man stepped out before them. He wore a wolf-skin over his shoulders as a cloak, with the head still attached and resting on top of his own head, so that above his dusty copper face and dark eyes was the toothy snarl of a wolf, with empty eye-sockets and ears still pointing up as if listening. There was a strangely twisted crossbow in his hand and a quiver of arrows over his back, and at his side was slung a thick wooden staff, carved over with strange symbols. Behind him, in a half-circle around Aedn and Morega, she saw more men like him, wearing cloaks of different furs, but none with the same unique headgear as the man who seemed to be their leader. Each man carried a bow and arrows and a staff, and some had spears. All the weapons were pointed ready at Morega and Aedn.
“I am Tli Klam,” the leader said imperiously. “They call me Yur.” Aedn dipped his head submissively and Morega followed his lead. “You are now ours,” the man continued. “And march to our drums.” Aedn lifted his head and looked into Yur’s face. Yur inclined his head graciously.
“You may speak,” he said, as if handing out a great favour.
“Most magnanimous,” Aedn murmured. “Where will you take us, great Tli Klam?” Yur smiled and shrugged one shoulder noncommittally.
“First within Tli Klam’s walls, and then–? To Thronam, perhaps, for the salt mines, or Westronlands for their use. Perhaps even we sell you to the icemen of the Kierlapi. What can it matter to you?” And with that the subject seemed closed. It matters a great deal to me at least, Morega thought dryly. He turned his back on them and said something in a bored tone in a strange, clicking language. Instantly several of his men sprang forward to bind their hands. Their bonds were tight, Morega’s hands at her front and Aedn’s at his back, and their bound hands were then tied to a tether between them, and then it was stretched to one of the men, who tied it about the staff hung at his side. And a moment later they were off, walking away through the trees, moving north this time, instead of west.
Their pace was a trifle slower, perhaps, than the pace Aedn had been setting – necessity, she thought irritably, because of their hands being bound so. Even so, they covered the ground at a healthy rate and it was the work of only a day’s march to reach the High Road between the southern and northern mountain ranges. Morega was exhausted, more than ever before on their long trek. All day she’d been going along, stumbling with no way to catch her fall herself, though the stoic renegade warriors unfailingly caught her and set her to rights before she’d a chance to so much as slow the party down. Aedn was tethered in front of her, and his strides were quicker than hers, so that the line between them was constantly tugging at her, urging her to a quicker pace and throwing her off balance. There had been hardly a word said all day; Aedn was perfectly silent and she saved her breath for her tired lungs. The clansmen seemed content to go hours at a time without speaking a word or making the slightest sound. Once in a very long while Yur would pause and make a short remark in their strange tongue, and some one or other of the warriors might reply. Once they stopped and had what seemed to Morega a very long discussion, all in strange clicks and guttural syllables, while the warriors drank a little and ate something. She and Aedn were given a strange, burning drink and then they were off again.
The sun was setting when they reached the Road. It was Morega’s first glimpse of anything of the sort; at least since whatever catastrophe had wiped her memory clean. It was very wide – four wagons could pass easily abreast, Aedn had told her once – and paved with worn reddish paving-stones, each as long as Morega was tall, and half as wide. They were cracked and, in places, chipped from long wear. The grasses and weeds grew up at the sides and poked curious heads and fingers through the cracks, smiling at the sun and giving the Road a look of peaceful age. It had been there for a very, very long time, and Morega somehow felt that it was a content road, lying for leagues and leagues across the world, seeing the ages pass by. She wondered who had built it, in the long-ago days of the world.
The clansmen didn’t seem to take her cordial view toward the High Road. They stood still in the bushes for a long time before hurrying out and across the Road. It was only a short while before the Road lay once again bare and silent through the Kash Valley, with no sign to tell that the raiders had just passed with their captives.
Yur and his men seemed to relax a bit once they got into the folding hills and winding ravines on the north side of the Road. Home turf, Morega thought a bit bitterly. They chose a nicely secluded place in a rocky ravine for their camp that night. It was a narrow branch of the ravine that led off behind a large boulder. One would never have known it was there. It widened just past the entrance and opened up into a flat place with a bit of a river that made a small bend above ground before diving back to the subterraneous ways it knew best. Aedn and Morega were left bound, but allowed to sit down, still with Morega’s front facing Aedn’s back. They were fed a strange flat bread that Morega found singularly bland. It had what seemed to be a paste made of cheese and meat baked into the middle, though, and that bit tasted savoury and fresh. She ate hungrily, doing her best to hold the round loaf in her bound hands. Aedn didn’t fare so well as she. His hands bound behind him, he had to rely on one of the clansmen to feed him hand to mouth, a task which the young warrior appeared to despise. He did his duty with a sort of hateful efficiency before turning his back on them and eating his own dinner. They have to keep our strength up, Morega thought with a wicked silent laugh, or they shan’t get the price they want. The thought seemed degrading, but it rather pleased her to know that their captors had no choice but to keep them in good health. One of the clansmen was left on first watch, and the rest bedded down. She and Aedn, she supposed, were expected to sleep where they were. She turned over as well as she could and lay on her side on the hard ground. Aedn did the same after a time, and she pitied him, because his position had to be worse than hers. After a time she fell asleep, cold and weary.
She woke once during the night to find that a rough blanket had been thrown over her as she slept, and another over Aedn. She fell back asleep wondering what the near future would bring.
They were wakened roughly before dawn’s soft fingers caressed the sky, and given another flat, round loaf of bread. After they’d finished the bread, they were given another swallow or two of the burning, vile brew they’d tasted the day before, and then the march began again. It was far too much like the day before, except that they made their way through ever-thicker foliage and ever-steeper ground. There were more rocks the longer they went, and they got bigger. The mountains grew nearer and nearer until Morega realized they were no longer among the foothills but into the mountains themselves, going up steep trails that she could not see. Their captors seemed to know their way well enough, but every now and again they would grow even quieter than before, their eyes darting here and there restlessly for what seemed a long way; and then they would relax and their eyes would meet and pass some sort of silent communication Morega couldn’t catch. After the second time, Yur turned back with a look on his face that was half pride and half contempt.
“Trast Klam’s territory,” he said, a faint trace of boasting in his tone, indicating that he spoke for the benefit of his captives by carefully enunciating the words in the common tongue. At his words, every man in the group spat contemptuously over his shoulder. “Tli Klam’s greatest enemy. We kill them when we see them. They know not we pass through their places.” And Morega understood then why they had gone so silent. A shiver ran unbidden down her spine. Should they be caught in enemy territory, what would be done with them? She had no doubt the clansmen would be killed, or at least taken captive; but what would be done with captives already taken? Would they simply pass through the hands of different captors before being sold, or would they be killed as well? She shook her head clear of the unpleasant thoughts and focused her attentions on walking without stumbling over the rocks and roots on the uneven ground. At least their captors hadn’t taken their packs or searched their belongings. Morega herself had nothing of value save the fire-gem that throbbed comfortingly against her skin inside her stained tunic. The night before she’d managed to slip it inside her neckline so that it shouldn’t be so easily noted. She rubbed her fingers over the scar on her palm; it missed the stone’s heat. She had so many questions she wished she could voice. Always more questions, she thought wryly. Never more answers.
A short sound from Yur brought the entire party to a halt. He said something in his own language, and one of the men came by Aedn and Morega and tipped the skin of burning drink to their mouths. Morega steeled herself and drank as much as she could stand, knowing she needed the vile brew, detestable as it was. Yur was having a soft conversation with one of his men; a man who was noticeably shorter than the others, and wiry, with a long scar running across his face from one temple to jawbone on the opposite side. Morega hated to think what could have caused such a scar. He seemed to be Yur’s favourite of the men, or at least his most trusted or most able. He was the one with whom Yur conversed the most, little as that was. Aedn seemed to think the same thing; as the man with the drinking skin passed by, Aedn twitched his head at him.
“What do they call you?” he asked. The man turned and stared a moment. “You speak the common tongue,” Aedn pressed. At last the man dipped his head faintly, laying one hand on the carved staff at his side.
“They call me Kar,” he replied reluctantly. His accent was thicker than Yur’s, but still clearly understandable.
“What do they call him there?” Aedn continued. “The scarred one talking with your leader.” Kar turned his head and glanced briefly at the scarred man with Yur.
“They call him Sataas,” he replied in a lower voice, and turned quickly away, plainly finished speaking. Morega wished she could see Aedn’s face, to try to guess what he was thinking. The conversation meant nothing to her. She knew two more names now, but that seemed hardly helpful.
Yur snapped a quick command and they were on the move again. Their camp that night was in a tiny clearing in the middle of a deep thicket. They were on their feet again before the dawn. Morega’s feet ached and her knees and ankles were tender from twisting and tripping too often. Her hands felt numb and her wrists were chaffed from the ropes that bound her. She could only assume that Aedn was in as much discomfort as she – more so, perhaps, because his hands were behind his back. It felt awful to be glad to see anything in such a situation, but she could hardly have stopped the surge of relief, tempered with some anxiety, that flooded her when she saw the walls rising before her. They seemed to be made of entire trees, growing so close to each other that their trunks rubbed together. The tops were lopped off, and the stump shaped into a spike on top. The branches still grew around the trunks, woven together over years of growing so close. She stared in amazement at the palisade before her.
“Tli Klam’s walls,” Yur said proudly. And then, with unconcealed scorn: “Far better than those of Trast Klam.” His men spat in unison over their shoulders. Morega found it almost amusing, in a vague sort of way. Her fear of what would follow, however, took all but the barest hint of a smile from the thought. The way into Tli Klam was a gate cut into one of the largest trees, straight through the centre. Hardly useful for moving armies in a hurry, she thought, smiling at the involuntary picture that formed in her mind of hundreds of men trying to march through the tiny doorway together. Still, I’ve no doubt it’s useful for keeping armies out, if it comes to such things. They got through the gateway and Morega looked curiously around the town that met her eyes. Wooden houses everywhere, some two storeys high. There were pens filled with animals in places. Cows and goats and pigs and horses and sheep and mules. There were chickens, too; they ran loose through the streets, along with dogs of mainly two varieties – tattered, half-starved mutts, or large, lean hunting-dogs – and a goodly number of cats. In one wide open place there was what seemed to be a great unlit bonfire, waiting for the flaming torch to set it blazing properly. There were people, too. Copper-skinned children dressed in leather or skins or rough-spun clothes chased dogs, cats, chickens, and each other through the streets. Women working at various jobs looked up as they passed. The men they saw gave them hardly a passing glance. At the centre of the town she saw a building entirely different from the rest. It was built of stone and had two storeys, judging by the windows; but it was long enough to seem low. Standing from the thatched roof was a tall spike with a flag flying from it, rather tattered and weather-worn. It was green, with a strange symbol in blue worked in the centre.
Morega hadn’t time to wonder about the standard; they were hurried into the stone building. In a great smoky hall that smelled of animals and fires and long-past food, they were brought to a halt. There was a dais at one end, and there was a great wooden throne placed upon it, and there was a man on the throne. He was overweight and his eyes were half closed as he sat; he seemed to be dozing. He wore a wolf-skin cloak just as Yur did, and he, too, wore the head above his own. As they stopped in front of him, two of the clansmen forced Aedn and Morega to their knees on the stone floor. Morega turned her eyes downward and studied the rushes strewn over the floor. Around her she heard the language of the clans, moving quicker and slower – though usually quicker – until it came to an abrupt stop, ending on a sharp syllable from the old man on the throne.
Aedn and Morega were hurried out of the great hall and back through the village for a short way until they reached the only other stone building in the town, as far as Morega could see. This wasn’t a proper dwelling place. It was immediately evident that this was the prison in which they were to be kept. There were small windows, about five feet up and barred. Even had the bars been off, it would have taken a child much smaller than Morega to scrape through the small space. The door was thick and sturdy and the lock appeared formidable. Doing her utmost to feel optimistic, she noted the thick straw on the floor. It was Kar who cut their bonds for them and left them with only one hand tied still – with a tether still between them. He closed the door on them without a word and Morega listened as the lock turned. It was a long time before either of the captives spoke.
“Our plans,” Aedn said at last, “have been altered.” Morega suddenly found his words far more amusing than they ought to have been. As she listened to the half-hysterical laughter bubbling from her throat, something inside her, at the back underneath the layers piled on from the past few days, told her to stop it, that she was not thinking clearly. But it felt good to let go of all reserve and just laugh. Far louder and longer than she ought to have, of course. Her half-hysterical laughter changed to sobbing soon, from exhaustion and pain and confusion, and she was surprised when she felt the tears falling down her face and heard the wrenching sounds coming from her throat. Aedn said not a word, but watched her with compassion on his face until she had stopped and lay on the straw silent.
“I’m sorry,” she said after another long pause. “I’m not certain what came over me. Have you any idea what’s going to happen after this?” He nodded thoughtfully.
“The old man on the dais,” he said slowly. “He is Tli Klam – the head of the clan. Yur is his nephew, next in line for the seat. He has yet, I gather, to fully prove his right to be Tli Klam. They don’t seem to get on very well.” Morega waited a moment for more.
“You understand their speech?” she said when he didn’t continue. Aedn nodded.
“I’ve had my share of dealings with them, I suppose,” was his only answer. “They’ll keep us here for at least a month, I think, until the next trader comes through. I can’t say more until they’ve said more. We’ve got a few points in our favour – they’ve not taken our packs or Insfhar or anything else. Besides that, they haven’t yet discovered that I understand the clan tongue. Your fire-gem is another thing they aren’t aware of. Nor have they any idea who we are. Travelers trying to pass unharmed through the Kash Valley. With any passing glance from Fortune we can keep them uninformed as to our identities.” That made Morega laugh again, but this time it was only a short flow of amusement.
“I don’t even know my own identity,” she returned with her first true smile in days. “If they find out who I am, they’ll know more than I do.” Aedn smiled tightly.
“And we’ll keep it like that,” he said very quietly, so that Morega wasn’t certain whether he spoke to her or to himself. After a moment he shook himself a little. “Well, Nya Morega,” he said with a pleasanter smile. “Rest up while you can; soon you may not be so fortunate. Besides – we’ve absolutely nothing else to do.” And with that he turned and lay down, closing his eyes as if he hadn’t any other care in the world.

CHAPTER 10:

Morega stood looking out the tiny window. She wasn’t sure any longer whether they’d been here a few days or a few weeks. They were cared for well enough; food twice a day and a separate privy, at least. Usually it was Kar who brought them their meals. He never said anything, but there was a look in his eyes that was somehow friendly, or at least alive. It was better than the callous carelessness in everyone else’s eyes – as if they were furniture, to be noticed only when useful and looked through the rest of the time. Aedn always spoke to him when he came in.
“It reminds him we’re people too,” he explained when Morega asked why. “It reminds him we’re more than animals or fixtures.” And so every time Kar came in, Aedn greeted him pleasantly and carried on a light conversation with the clansman’s silent presence. Besides their punctual meals, it seemed as if they had been forgotten. Nothing was done with them. The privy opened off one side of their cell and had no windows or doors besides that joining it to the cell. To relieve her boredom, Morega begged stories from Aedn. He knew a lot of them – old tales his mother had told him, mostly, he said.
“Prison will make you lazy and flabby,” he told her one day, and proceeded to make her jump up and down for what seemed an endless increment of slow-moving time. He gave her a few minutes rest before having her sprint from one wall to the other and back again, over and over. It was exhausting, but it was a variation from the constancy of their imprisonment.
So now she stood, staring out the window at the town. There wasn’t often much to see. The same women, weaving or churning or doing any number of menial tasks. Men going here and there about their business. Children playing. Sometimes fighting thingys. But today there was something different.
“Look,” she said to Aedn, who joined her at the window. “What is that called?” She was watching a young girl, no more than her own age and perhaps less. She was a beautiful girl, with long, shining black curls falling thick down her back and laughing dark eyes flashing from her smooth coppery face. She was small and delicate-seeming, and she wore a long red skirt, all flounces and trails, and a billowy white blouse. There were little gold hoops in her ears and a sparkling jewel studded at one side of her nose, and she wore gold bracelets on her arms and ankles. It was an appearance very different than anything Morega had ever seen before – that she knew of. But that was not what interested Morega the most. It was the girl’s activity. She was within a large circle drawn on the ground, and she was leaping about, all long legs and spinning skirts and flying hair and slim arms. There was a rhythm to her movements; it was in the clink of the bracelets on her arms and ankles, keeping rhythm with every step and flick. Aedn smiled.
“That must be Tli Klam’s Bailerina,” he answered.
“That word doesn’t sound the same as the rest of their language,” Morega murmured. Aedn shook his head.
“No; it’s an old Ciringath word that means dancer. I think every clan has a Bailerina. She has no other name. She works magic with her dancing – that is why she dances within the circle.” Morega watched the Bailerina for a while longer.
“What kind of magic?” she asked Aedn. He watched a moment longer before answering.
“I don’t know what she’s capable of. Most Bailerinas are used mostly as soothsayers, or to work magical blessings over clansmen before they go out into danger. I’ve often thought that they could do much more. I don’t think any but they truly know.” Morega wondered silently how long it had taken the pretty girl outside the window to learn her dance-magic. It couldn’t have been very long, she mused, studying the girl’s face and arms. She’s no older than I. The girl ended her dance with a sharp snap of her fingers and an accented clink from her ankle bracelets. She stepped onto the perimeter circle with a graceful, swaying step, and carefully walked the circumference, one foot placed exactly in front of the other, until she reached the end. Then she performed a quick pirouette. She picked up the green hooded cloak lying on the ground and put it on, covering her bright skirts and dark hair and leaving her delicate face a shadowed mask under the hood. She walked away, hips swaying and a sort of lithe rhythm to her steps.
“Have you any idea what’s to become of us, Kar?” Aedn asked indifferently when Kar brought their meal that evening. Kar, of course, didn’t answer. “When’s the next trader due?” Aedn continued, still without eliciting any response. Kar set down the tray with their dinner on it and stepped back. “Has your Klam any idea where they mean to sell us? Hmm? The Westronlands? Thronam? The Vales? Khanstae?” Kar turned to leave. “Does he mean to leave us forever in here?” Aedn pressed. Morega was surprised to hear Kar’s voice, quick and low, before the door was shut and bolted behind him.
“Tli Klam has more to worry about now than you, pricsa.” She turned to Aedn and saw a satisfied gleam in his blue eyes, and he looked up at her from his place on the straw, giving her a smile, one eyebrow quirked up in a way that almost made him look devious.
“He – he spoke,” Morega said, knowing the inanity of such a statement even as she made it. Aedn nodded briefly.
“Our dear captor is beginning to break, Nya. He cannot see us as anything less than people, just as he himself is. And we’ve got decidedly good news. If Tli Klam has more to worry about than us ‘pricsa,’ we’ve got a heady chance at something beyond these four walls.” He looked around wryly at the stone prison walls.
“What does that word mean?” Aedn was beginning on his meat.
“Which – pricsa?” he said. Morega nodded silently, coming to sit near him and poking at her own food. “It’s not a very nice word; rather raw. But,” he went on almost smugly, “it shows that we’re breaking through to him. He answered us and he swore at us – and clansmen don’t swear at anything but people. They rather pride themselves on their colourful vocabulary; wasting it on anything less would be a drop to their pride,” he finished with a dry laugh that made Morega smile.
Morega couldn’t tell what had awakened her later that night. She lay still, looking around in the dark, her eyes searching for anything new, though, of course, there wasn’t.
“Hst – klo trebtik abka ptirep?” Morega didn’t understand the words spoken out of the darkness. She saw a slight movement and knew Aedn had been waked by the low whisper. She saw his eyes flicking around in the faint glimmer of moonlight that slipped through the window bars. She waited.
“Kapra ptirep kri,” Aedn’s voice said, low in the darkness and faintly threatening. His movement had been so swift that Morega had hardly noticed. One minute he was lying on the straw, taut and drawn, watching the moonlit shadows; the next moment he was by the window, one hand between the bars. Morega sat up cautiously. Aedn’s hand was like a steel trap around a scrawny neck. Above his large hand, there was a small face; not a frightened face, but a face with an expression of curiosity and, Morega fancied, a sparkle of mischief. There was a quick conversation between them, in low, short phrases, and then the boy was gone. Aedn turned back to Morega.
“Quick – the packs. On with your cloak. We’re out tonight,” he said urgently, putting their packs to order as he spoke. Morega did as he said without questions. It was not five minutes before they stood in the centre of the cell together, packs on under their cloaks. Morega’s fingers closed instinctively over the Zanhua. The cloth of her tunic between her scarred palm and the hot fire-stone felt in her mind like a grit of sand in a boot; but she dared not take it out until she was certain she could be safe wearing it openly.
The door swung silently open and a small shape stood in the doorway – the silhouette of a child. It turned abruptly and Aedn followed. Morega followed close behind Aedn, and the three of them hurried out. Any watcher might have seen three silent shadows, moving like the wind dancing on moonbeams from the shade of the prison to the shade of the walls, darting here and there, never following a straight course for more than a few steps. And then the three shadows disappeared, melting into the living trees of the palisade.
Morega didn’t understand how they slipped out. One moment they stood pressed up against the rough wood, and the next they were on the other side, the walls of Tli Klam against their backs, with the wild mountain forests before them. Aedn turned a piercing gaze on the child beside him, but said nothing. The child was still a heartbeat longer before setting off silently through the trees.
Morega later did her best not to think about that mad dash through the trees. The moon was more than a sliver but less than a wedge, high above them, over the treetops. It shone down in little patches and speckles, creating strange shadows and dancing beams of silver among strange forms of twisted darkness. The boy ran on unerringly, unhaltingly, silent as the shadows that danced around them. Aedn followed, long, swift strides keeping the child easily in sight. Morega followed behind, half-gasping for breath, her lungs burning, stumbling over low plants and creeping vines and stones and roots. The run went on seemingly forever. There were no breathers, no pauses for drinks. The child seemed to have the endurance of the stars as he went on, silent and quick. Morega felt the sweat running down her face and down her back. Her legs felt like jelly beneath her; she waited with dread for the moment when they would give out altogether and drop her to the ground.
She didn’t know how long they went on. She found that she could go much longer than she had thought. Every time she felt her knees give, she found herself taking one more step, and then another, and going on and on for the next little bit until she felt knees collapsing again. Somehow she caught herself each time and went on again, keeping Aedn’s dark green cloak in sight, her vision blurred with exhaustion.
She didn’t notice when the silvery moonlight disappeared and the entire woods turned to grey pre-dawn. Even the waking of the sun, the pink tinges throughout the trees, didn’t stir her from her exhausted stupor. She ran on like one in a trance, not noticing her legs moving anymore. Her world had become focused to one point. It had shrunk until there was nothing left but burning lungs, burning legs, burning throat, burning eyes. She woke a bit when she realized that the golden sunlight was all around her. Morning, she thought dimly. She didn’t realize the child had stopped until she nearly ran into Aedn. The boy had crawled under a bush and she saw his bare brown feet disappearing into the green. Aedn followed, and Morega followed Aedn. The bush covered the entrance to a green hollow, a dip in the ground surrounded by big bushed, whose branches met and tangled together overhead to form a cool green pocket in the land. Morega slithered in on her belly and put out just enough effort to get her pack off before rolling over and lying still, breathing hard. She lay like that for what seemed forever, and then crawled back up to the entrance to let her stomach heave up its contents. She came back feeling awful, but strangely relieved. Aedn gave her a sympathetic glance and handed her a long, leafy sprig of something green and yellow.
“Chew it,” he said in a low voice. “It’ll help some.” She put it in her mouth and spent a while persuading herself to expend the energy to move her jaw up and down. She studied the boy through half-closed eyes. He was small and thin, with a shock of matted hair, the colour of which she couldn’t quite tell through the dirt. His pointed face might have been dusky copper colour or simply dirty. He had an impishly turned-up nose and shining dark eyes. Morega fell asleep wondering who he was.
She awoke to see Aedn’s eyes appraising her carefully. She looked around and saw the boy sitting a little apart, and Morega was very surprised to see a third figure seated cross-legged beside the boy. It was the Bailerina she’d seen dancing – was it only the morning before? The night seemed to have stretched into eternity; it felt as if their time in the prison must have been years ago. The slight girl wore her cloak and over the bright skirts, but her hood was down and her dark curls spilt over the green. Her eyes were dancing and she was laughing just then, presumably at something the boy had said. Her gold earrings glinted in the green light that filtered through the woven branches over their heads.
“Why,” she croaked, and Aedn handed her a water-skin and she drank gratefully before continuing. “Why is she here?” Aedn smiled as Morega pushed herself up to a sitting position.
“Ask her yourself,” he suggested, tipping his head towards the two sitting together.
“I am called Bailerina,” the girl said without waiting for Morega to formulate a question. Her voice was low and clear and somehow not what Morega had expected. She spoke with just the barest trace of an accent, but her accent wasn’t the same as the other clans-people Morega had heard. “I was Tli Klam’s,” she went on, “but he will get along without my service.” She laughed lightly. “You need me more, Nya.”
“How did you know about us, and why are you helping us?” Morega said. It was the boy who spoke then.
“Bailerina knows much,” he said, his voice the young pitch of a child, with the same bits of accent as Bailerina’s. “You need us, and we need you; so we shall travel together and help each other so long as we can.” Morega felt that she was once more finding questions she had no answers to, as she had been for as long as she could remember, and it frustrated her. She didn’t like the helplessness that stole over her tired self, and she fought down the urge to break something. It was a simpler task because there wasn’t much at hand that could be broken.
“Who are you?” she asked the boy. He flashed her a grin and she saw he had all his baby teeth yet.
“They call me Demen,” he replied, rolling over onto his stomach. Morega smiled at the sight of the grass stains on the back of his brown tunic. “Most people don’t like me much – that’s why I took to Baile so quick; she liked me first.” The Power-dancer smiled.
“Demen is a special child,” she said. “He frightens many people; but only because they cannot understand him.” Demen shrugged his thin shoulders.
“Where are we going?” Morega asked then, looking to Aedn, trying to find something she could understand somewhat. Aedn glanced up from whatever he had been doing in his pack and then looked to Demen.
“I haven’t got it quite straight yet; care to explain, young one?” Demen nodded and plucked a few pieces of grass.
“First we have to get out of the clan areas, which means we’re going west, and then south through the Woodland, because we need what they have and what they know. Then we decide where to go from there. It all depends on Morwenna.” And with that Morega had to be satisfied. She tried to ask who Morwenna was, but her questions were put off skillfully by the other two, and Demen would only grin delightedly and say nothing.
“When are we leaving?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“When twilight peaks,” Aedn answered, closing the pack and leaning back. “Four hours. Eat and get what sleep you can – but we’ll keep a slower pace tonight,” he added encouragingly. Morega nodded and did as he said, taking the dry wayfare he handed her and closing her eyes again. When twilight closed on them, she would have to run again. She tried to put the disheartening thought from her mind as sleep overtook her.

CHAPTER 11:

They were a very long time crossing through the Kash Loman range. Morega found it most trying the first four days. This was partly due to the sudden demands on her legs and lungs and heart. Everything ached worse than ever before for those first few days. She was in constant pain, which would not be expelled even by Aedn’s ever-plentiful supply of strange plants. He would have her chew them, or boil them and make tea, or have her bathe in water in which he had soaked them, or he would wrap them up in leaves and have her sleep on them. They invariably helped some, but not enough. She was also exhausted for the first few days because of the complete change in schedule. They ran through the night and crept into some hidden hollow when morning’s light began to illuminate the trees around them. They would eat and drink and then sleep through the day. For the first few days, Morega could not sleep properly. Exhausted though she was, her body was certain it was time to be waking, not sleeping, and she slept fitfully. After a bit, though, she adapted and slept soundly.
Sometimes Morega would wake to hear the others talking; sometimes only Demen and Bailerina, or Aedn and Demen, but mostly all three of them. Once she woke and looked around to find that Bailerina had disappeared entirely. They were in another green pocket like the one they’d slept in the first day. In a few minutes, the dancer appeared, rolling headfirst down the slope of the grassy bowl to come to a stop, upright at the bottom, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling.
“The clans are warring,” she announced with a sort of wickedly delighted laugh. “All of them together. And the oaks are waking a bit. We are not followed at all; Tli Klam is too busy killing off Trast Klam as quickly as it possibly can. And the rowans have better news – Wanaelas seeks our coming.” This seemed to please Demen immensely; he let out a gleeful laugh and rolled somersaults round the side of their hollow for a minute or two before coming back to settle down once more between Morega and Bailerina.
“Are the trilliums waked yet, Baile?” he asked, with a note of special hope and longing in his young voice. Bailerina smiled at him fondly.
“Not a one yet, but they stir, deep down,” she told him. Morega was still trying to put together the significance of what she’d said and was wondering who Wanaelas could be. Aedn smiled at her puzzled expression and answered her unspoken question.
“The plants know more than anything else around, usually,” he said softly. Demen nodded brightly.
“Yes, and they trust Baile more than anybody, don’t they?” Bailerina nodded a little absently. She sometimes dipped into sudden reverie, as if her mind had been called away abruptly by an irresistible summons.
“Who is Wanaelas?” Morega asked. Aedn only smiled and turned away, and Bailerina seemed not to notice the question. Demen’s face took on a surprisingly grave expression and he plucked at the grass before him as he answered.
“He’s the rowan-child,” he replied seriously. And that was all he would say on the matter, so Morega filed the name away with all her other questions.
After that, Bailerina often disappeared for a time and returned to tell them what news she could coax from the trees and vines. The trilliums appeared somewhere into their journey; Bailerina suddenly called up to Demen to halt their run, and then she led the way back to a little circle of washed silver in which were three tiny flowers, each with three white petals glowing in the moonlight. Demen dropped to his stomach and put his hands round the trilliums protectively, an expression of unspeakable tenderness over his features as he cradled their magical beauty and simplicity between his dirty fingers. He crooned soft words that Morega couldn’t make out, and she stood silently with her other companions. It was a strange moment, that. The four of them so incongruous, the mysterious man, the strange dancer, the girl with no past, watching together a boy no more than a child, and yet so different from any other child.
After that there were trilliums everywhere. Under the green trees, peeking out from the grass, waving in light breezes. None of them ever trod on a single one of the simple white flowers. The other three were careful to keep their steps away from the blooms, but Demen seemed to have an innate knowledge of where to step and where not to. It wasn’t that he took care, but that his feet seemed to instinctively keep away from harming the flowers he loved.
“Why does he love them so?” Morega whispered to Bailerina once, as Demen paused to stretch out beside a patch of the trilliums. The dancing girl smiled a secret sort of smile.
“The same reason I love the oak,” she replied, her melodic voice distant. “The same reason Wanaelas loves the rowan and Morwenna loves the beech.” Morega didn’t understand, but she didn’t ask again.
The mountains were difficult at times. Demen led them through the lowest places he could, the valleys and woodsy slopes; but there were times when they had to climb higher. Sometimes they climbed trails so steep they had to use their hands to pull themselves upwards. Once they crossed on a ledge so narrow Morega might have refused to cross had she seen it properly in sunlight instead of in the shadow of the night sky. Morega began to notice, however, after they’d been going for far too many days – she had lost proper count – that they seemed to have left the steepest of the paths behind them. They were moving downwards more than upwards now, and the tallest of the mountains seemed to be behind them. Aedn confirmed her thoughts.
“A few days more,” he said as they filled their water-skins at a stream, “and we’ll see the last of this range.”
“Aye,” Bailerina agreed, “and with a tender glance from Lady Fortune, we meet Wanaelas at the eastern marches of the Woodland.” Morega found her interest and curiosity growing each time Wanaelas was mentioned. She found herself fascinated with guessing who and what the mysterious name might turn out to be. A rowan, she thought sometimes, and yet a person too, with white blossoms and autumn-coloured berries and green eyes. Other times she imagined a tall man, with hair the colour of the woods and eyes the colour of berries, with a tall wooden staff. Sometimes she imagined a child like Demen, who loved the rowans as Demen loved the trilliums. Only, she thought with an amused smile, I expect Wanaelas is cleaner.
The day she realized with a start that they were completely out of the mountains she was surprised. She hadn’t really noticed the progression from the lowering mountains to the foothills, but suddenly they were in rolling swells of woodsy land. She hoped for a slackening of the pace, since they seemed to be out of the immediate area of the clans and nearly to their destination. Demen, however, had other ideas. He pushed the pace quicker every night. Once again, Morega’s legs and lungs ached every day and Aedn gave her more plants to chew on.
And then came the day she saw a change up ahead. There was a clear strip before them. The trees gave way and there was nothing but grass and flowers as far as she could see in either direction. It was perhaps a hundred yards across, and on the other side the woods began again, but it was a different wood. This was abundantly clear. The trees were very different. They were tall and their trunks seemed to shine with a faint silver sheen where they disappeared into shadow. Their leaves seemed edged with gold, even in the silver light of the moon, and beneath them were creeping vines and grass and flowers; but there were no bushes or brambles except in a few places.
“The Feylond Woodland,” Aedn told her quietly as they paused at the edge of the Loman trees. “One of the places of which I have very little knowledge. You’ll have to direct your questions to Demen; he seems to know quite a bit.” Demen glanced up at him and grinned.
“I don’t see Wanaelas,” Bailerina murmured. Demen studied the trees across the grassy space carefully and then shook his head.
“No matter,” he returned and darted across the grass, running quicker than Morega had seen before. Bailerina looked into Morega’s eyes, smiled that secret smile once more before running across after Demen. Aedn turned to Morega and lifted an eyebrow before offering his hand. She smiled and took it and they ran across together.
Demen and Bailerina were waiting just inside the line of silvery tree-boles. They were glad to be in the Woodland places; Morega could see that at a glance. Their eyes were shining and they were both smiling, and they passed loving hands over the trees in tender caresses as they passed. They were no longer running. All haste seemed forgotten in their joy at being in the silver wood. They meandered among the trees, weaving in and out, pausing sometimes to simply stand quite still before a tree, both hands against the silvery bark, fingers splayed and eyes closed. Aedn’s face was unreadable as he followed, brushing his fingers against the trees as he passed. As for Morega, she felt as if she had entered a dream. Everything she saw seemed strange and she could have sworn there was music in the air; not singing and somehow that knowledgeable mind within her rejected the idea of its being any kind of instrument. It was the very air itself, she felt; the moonlight and the starlight and the trees and the flowers; not singing, but simply living, and thereby creating the music that wrapped round her until there was nothing but her beating heart and the soft magic of the music enveloping her.
She remembered only a distant vision of the following time – minutes, hours, days; it was all one to her, though in the morning she saw it must have been only a few hours. There were soft hands helping her out of her travel-stained clothes, and sweet scents rising from cool basins of water, and there were the curious amber eyes in a golden face that gravely laughed at her as she tried to comprehend everything. Her senses were so overwhelmed by their sudden assailants. Every smell, every sound, every feeling and taste and sight was so new and strange and somehow overwhelming in its simplicity and purity. She slept before the rosy sunlight kissed the tops of the trees, and she slept until nearly dawn the day after.
Soft sunlight and dappled shadows danced over her playfully when she opened her eyes. She was lying on what seemed to be a couch of living trees, their branches bent down and woven together beneath her. She was no longer wearing her black tunic, and her red cloak was no longer fastened properly around her; the silver clasp was undone, but the cloak was still beneath her. She was wearing a long gown of silver and white, and the Zanhua was nestled comfortably at the hollow of her throat where it belonged. She noticed in a hazy, contented way that the trees whose branches were twined together beneath her were rowans, two on either side, with their branches beneath her and meeting together again over her head to create a pretty little canopy above her. It would have seemed a beautiful bier for a dead one, had it not been so truly alive. She sat up slowly, trying to remember what she could. She was fairly certain she’d been asleep for a long time. She had vague memories of waking to golden noontime sunlight, very briefly, and again waking to cool starlight, and she could remember nothing else of their walk through the silvery Woodland except for impressions of silver and starlight and soft music and ethereal lights.
“Waking at last, I see,” she heard from somewhere nearby – off to her right, she thought, on the other side of the rowans. It was a man’s voice, a cool tenor, lighter and clearer than Aedn’s low, half-husky baritone. He came in sight presently; not tall, but lithe and muscular. His hair was a ruddy autumn colour and his eyes were the colour of the rowan leaves around her, the amber colour of the ones that were dying to make way for the new green ones – the trees in which she lay seemed to be experiencing spring, summer, and autumn all at once. His tunic was nearly exactly the colour of the rowans’ bark, but a bit richer, and it set off his ivory skin very nicely. He was smiling at her, and she knew instinctively that this was Wanaelas. He offered a hand and she took it, and he helped her to her feet. She turned back and picked up her cloak and clasped it on; feeling the familiar folds around her somehow gave her confidence to face this enigma.
“You are Wanaelas,” she said softly. His face grew grave instantly, and he made a courtly bow. His smile returned as he straightened and his eyes twinkled and turned green as he offered her his arm. She laid her hand on it and he led the way off through the trees.
“Aye, so I am. And you are Morega-Luavin,” he returned. She dipped her head, wondering again what Luavin meant. It seemed to be attached to her, and it seemed that everyone knew who she was except she herself. Wanaelas gave her a piercing look that seemed to read her thoughts, but he only said, “How do you like my woods?” Morega looked around her in silent wonder at the trees. They were mostly rowans, but there were also others interspersed throughout – the mind inside her, that mind that seemed so totally unconnected to her, came forward with answers for her. Oaks, it said, and ashes and beeches and maples and a few willows. And there were more all around her – more that her knowledgeable mind either couldn’t or wouldn’t name. Their trunks still seemed to glow faintly silver in the sunlight, and their leaves still seemed edged with gold. They were all experiencing the same confusion of seasons as the rowans she had slept in; she saw some with completely bare branches, but more covered with an oddly harmonious mix of tiny green spring-buds, full dark summer leaves, blossoms and fruits and berries, and a wild riot of autumn flame-colours. The ground was soft green grass sprinkled with flowers – trilliums, she knew, and more that she didn’t. Purple and blue and red and yellow and white and pink; but this time her other mind stayed silent where it was.
“It’s magnificent,” she whispered, wishing she could think of the words to truly describe the woods. It made something inside her sing. The music she’d heard as they came through in the night was gone, though; but the wood was still quite alive. She could nearly feel the life around her, growing and maturing and somehow joyful and content simply to be. Wanaelas seemed to understand exactly how she felt. He led her in silence through the trees to a place where there was a silver cloth spread over the grass. On it Morega saw urns and pitchers and bowls and goblets, and around it sat Aedn and Demen and Bailerina. Walking towards them under the trees from the opposite direction came a tall woman Morega had never seen before. Her hair was the colour of sunlight and her eyes were the colour of the sea, and she wore a faint smile, as if she had some private amusement of her own that the world could not share.
Wanaelas seated Morega at the edge of the silver cloth, beside Aedn, and sank down beside her on the other side. They all waited for the woman to reach them. She remained standing when she did, her pale green gown blowing gently in the light breeze. She rested her eyes briefly on each of them, and Morega could not read her impenetrable expression. Then the woman lifted her eyes and raised her chin a little, looking far out through the woods. She spoke soft words that Morega could not understand, and Demen and Bailerina and Wanaelas moved their lips along with her; but they were silent. Then the woman sat down, between Demen and Bailerina. She reached out and took a silver goblet in her right hand and a pitcher in her left and poured a steady stream of clear water. She handed the water to Morega, who took it without looking at it, her eyes still on the woman as she poured water for each of the others in turn. Nobody drank until the woman had poured water for herself and lifted the goblet to her lips. That seemed to be the signal; they all drank then, and then set their goblets down to fill bowls with fresh fruit and warm white bread. They ate in silence for some time. At last the woman set down her goblet after a long drink and spoke.
“The forces are marshalling, Aedn Kom Urswahl.” Her voice was clear and cool and somehow infinitely wise. “It is a difficult task you have undertaken, and your enemies are seeking you.” Her eyes were on him with a piercing intensity that left Morega grateful to have them directed away from her own person. Unfortunately the relief was short-lived; a moment later the eyes seemed to lay open her soul. It seemed an age, but could only have been a fragment of a second before the powerful gaze was turned back on Aedn and Morega was left breathing deeply, somehow certain that something had happened, and trying to grasp at just what. “She needs to know,” the woman was saying. “She deserves to know everything.” Aedn didn’t answer. Morega wanted to turn and see his face, to try to guess his thoughts; but her eyes seemed riveted to the woman’s face, and she found she couldn’t tear them away from the power in those eyes. “Will you tell her, Aedn Kom?” the woman asked, and Aedn did not answer. After a long time Wanaelas shifted, but the woman did not even look his way. “No, Wanaelas,” she said softly. “This task is his, and he chose it. It must be his now to carry it. Aedn, will you tell the girl what she must know?” After what seemed a very long time, Aedn suddenly dropped his head.
“Aye,” he said very softly, so that Morega hardly caught it. The woman turned her eyes back to Morega, but they were less penetrating this time; cooler and more reserved.
“I am Morwenna,” she said. “Now hear your story.”