“Now you may have to make all the decisions yourself. I hope not, for your sake as well. What will you do first?”
“Take others to see it. Start thinking how to make it workable— we should grow our own food, for one thing, and not have to transport it from here. There’ll be plenty of work, hard work, to make it feasible.”
She nodded. “There’s something else: you need to think which mageborn to move first, and whether you want to gather them somewhere before you take them. Supplies for the first year or two, until your crops take hold…”
“Supplies, yes.” Luap grimaced. “Well—I did it for Gird; I ought to be able to do it now. But I don’t even know how many mageborn there are, or how many will come.”
But the familiar rhythm of planning comforted him in the days following, as Arranha grew sicker, the swelling worse. He began making lists: seed grain, vegetable seeds, tools for farming and tools for making tools. He knew of no mageborn smiths… could he hire a smith to set up there? And if he could, with what could he pay a smith’s high fees? He found a master smith, and began asking the necessary questions; smiths were notoriously slow in giving answers. He went back to his lists. They would need a few looms— with skilled craftsmen and enough wood, they could easily copy the pattern looms. He paused, thinking. He had never worked wood himself… and that forest was very different… did that matter? Another question to ask a craftsmaster. He needed to know more about the skills of the people he would take—how many mageborn could weave, cook, plough, reap? So far as he knew, the work that needed doing—the work that would keep them alive—had never been done by magery.
Several times a day he checked on Arranha, who was unfailingly cheerful but visibly weaker each visit. To his surprise, others with no mageborn blood at all also visited. Rahi delayed her return to her grange and scoured the archives for anything on herbal treatments. Dorhaniya worked her way up the hill and arrived breathless and faint; Luap was afraid she would have a fatal attack as well. He insisted that she stay overnight in the palace; Elis agreed, and the next day Luap hired a cart to take her home. The men who had listened to Arranha’s many lectures on light and wisdom came to stand by his door, peering in shyly but unwilling to intrude on a sick man.
Luap felt a deep guilt he could not explain. He knew it had not been his fault: the boy would have bitten anyone; he had been mindlost if not possessed by some evil. He knew it was not his fault Aris was gone—Rahi had confessed that she and the Rosemage and Arranha himself had connived at that. He knew it was not his fault that he lacked the healing magery. But he felt guilty nonetheless… somehow it was his fault—his fault that Gird’s dream had not come true, and his fault that Arranha suffered for it. In reaction, he felt that his irritation was pardonable when one of the scribes made a mistake or spilled the ink. He got a morbid satisfaction out of scolding someone he would not ordinarily have scolded, and then lashing himself for being short-tempered.
He clung to his lists, and shared them with the Rosemage and Rahi. The Rosemage pointed out that he should require the mage-born to pay their own way, if they could: he was not a king, so he could not be expected to fund the expedition. Some of them were still wealthy; nearly all of them had something to contribute.
“They’d better,” Rahi said lazily, leaning back on the cushions of a bench in the scribe’s room. It was late night, and the scribes had long since ceased work. “If they don’t have something to contribute, they’ll starve.”
“More than skills: money,” the Rosemage said. “Clothes, tools, dishes, all that.”
Luap had a sudden panic. “How are we going to transport all that? Either we have to take it to the cave, and try to stuff it in the chamber; or we have to take it into the High Lord’s Hall— that doesn’t seem right.” He had a vision of the chamber choked with boxes, bags, sacks, bales of household gear… of the mess creeping across the floor of the great hall. Yet it had to be done: they couldn’t make everything out there.
“It will work,” the Rosemage said. “You don’t have to do it all yourself.”
“No, but—” But it had been his idea, his plan, and his place… his dream, in place of Gird’s. If it came true, it would be his responsibility; he could not deny that. Gird had known, Gird had not started a war and then gone home to twiddle his thumbs and watch how it went.
“Scary, isn’t it?” asked Rahi with surprising understanding. He looked at her, and she smiled. “Back before you joined, that very first battle, Norwalk Sheepfolds… remember it from the archives?”
“Of course,” Luap said. “Were you there? I thought—”
“No, I wasn’t there. But it scared Gird—what he’d started. He wanted it; he thought it was the only way. But when it came, when he saw what it meant, that he could never go back and things would never be as they were, that scared him. And I thought that was what you were feeling.”
“Yes,” said Luap. “I suppose I am. I believe we have to do it, that it’s the only way.” The undefined warning the elves had given rose from his memory; should he tell them about it? No, for he could not tell them what he did not know himself. “If I’m wrong— if I forget something—”
“You can always come back for it. You will be coming back quarterly at first anyway, to report to the Council and check on the new Archivist.”
“That reminds me.” Luap rummaged among the scrolls on his desk, glad to be distracted with something more pleasant. “I think we should keep a copy of the records out there, as well, and a copy of my records there should be transferred to Fin Panir each year. You know we found that mice and damp had damaged many of the old scrolls. This way, we would have complete records in two different places.”
Rahi snorted. “You would have all the world scribes, if you could. Think of the hours of work—”
“Yes, but good records are important. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to clear up the land disputes of the past few years, for instance. And if we had better records of the early mageborn invasion, we might know more about what happened to the magery, and why the transfer pattern is graved in the floor of the High Lord’s hall.”
“Very well, but you’d best take more farmers than scribes or you’ll be hungry”
“What are you going to do about Aris?” asked Rahi suddenly.
“Do? We can’t find him; we have no idea where he’s gone. We can only hope he comes back before Arranha dies.”
“I didn’t mean that: I meant about taking the mageborn away. Do you think Aris will go with you?”
“Of course he will,” Luap said. “He’s mageborn—more mageborn than I am. He has the most useful of mageries.”
“And Seri?” asked Rahi.
Luap shrugged. “She’s welcome, of course; I said that before. I don’t think it’s the best place for her; I doubt any without magery will find it comfortable. But we all know how attached she is to Aris.”
The Rosemage stretched and grinned at him. “Yes—though you did your best to separate them, didn’t you?”
Luap felt his ears getting hot. “I thought it would be easier later, yes. Evidently you two don’t agree, and I’m willing to admit I was wrong about them. So I suppose I’ll have a peasant-born Marshal as well as a mageborn healer—”
“—And Marshal,” Rahi said. “Aris will probably pass the Council when Seri does.”
“Is he keeping up his drill that well? I wasn’t aware. Two Marshals, then, one of each. That should convince the more stiff-necked on the Council that we’re being well watched and not up to mischief.”
The Rosemage scowled. “Nothing will convince some thickheads. And they may not want to let Aris go; he’s become very popular. If he does much healing on this journey, he will be under pressure to stay here. If Seri supports that—”
Luap shivered. “I hope not. Though to tell you the truth, if only he and Seri come back in time to save Arranha, I would trade that for having him in the new land.”
Chapter Eighteen
The light strengthene
d, spread around them. “Well met, kinsmen!” came a ringing cry, so like the iynisin that Aris flinched. Then he realized that this held the true music.
“Elves,” whispered Seri. “But we aren’t their kinsmen—”
“Those are,” Aris said, fighting for breath. The aftereffects of healing clogged his mind; he wanted to fall in a heap and sleep. “The iynisin—” But the elves were dropping lightly down from above now, bringing their own light, in which their expressions showed clearly: astonishment and consternation.
“But you’re not— ‘ said the first, then his mouth shut in a straight line.
“Who are you?” asked the next, after a similar look and recoil. “How have you made that light? Is this some new human magery? Are you in league now with the dark cousins?”
Aris had not known he could make such light, and now he did not know why it vanished, with a sudden shifting of shadows. “I am mageborn,” he said. “But—”
“I am not mageborn,” Seri interrupted. “I am a Marshal-candidate, from Fin Panir, and I have no idea why the light came.” She still burned with it, brighter than their elflight but as steady. “But we are not in league with those creatures; they attacked us as we camped.”
“In truth…” What must be the leader of this group appeared now, striding down the slope and around to confront them. Elflight, Aris realized, cast none of the harsh shadows his magelight had thrown; its radiance softened the shadows of Seri’s light, though it did not dim its brilliance “You say you were attacked, by many?”
“Yes.” Seri said. Aris glanced about but saw no bodies. He thought he had killed at least one of those he struck from behind… had they carried them away?
“If you were attacked,” the elf leader said with such perfect clarity that it seemed an attack of language, “then why do we see blood only on your blades and clothes, while you stand unwounded? Or are you such mighty warriors that you can without danger engage a party of iynisin which might daunt even our band? For that matter, where learned you that name, which is not commonly used by mortal men?”
Around them now were the elves, all armed for battle as he had never seen elves: terrible and grim they looked, in the light of their magery. He saw some of them look at the trees the iynisin had cursed, and knew they would not forgive such an injury. He heard the cries of one who found their horses, and sang the news to the leader in that elvish tongue he had not learned. They will not believe us, he thought to himself. Here we are unhurt—they will believe we were with allies. His heart contracted. The elves had never loved or trusted the mageborn, and with good reason.
“Aris healed us,” Seri said. She wiped her blade on a hanging shred of her tonic. “If you look, you will see he could not heal our clothes.” Then she looked more closely at the smear on the cloth. “By—it has silver in it, this blood! Or is it your light?”
“Let me see,” said the leader, stepping closer to her. He held out his hand for her sword; she handed it over as if to a Marshal, hilt first, across her fist. His brows rose, but he took it courteously, then looked closely, then sniffed it. “Well,” he said. “It is indeed iynisin blood, lady, so whether it came from a quarrel among friends or a meeting of enemies, we give you thanks for it.” He passed the sword to the others, each of whom examined it. The leader looked at Aris. “You healed, she said. You have the healing magery of your forefathers?”
“Yes, sir,” Aris said. He held out his own blade. “And though I fought with less skill, I did spill some of their blood.” His blade, too, the leader took and examined, then returned it, as another elf handed Seri back her blade. Aris wiped his own, and sheathed it, under those watchful eyes. When he looked up, the elf spoke.
“So you would say that you and this lady were beset by iynisin, and fought them off, and you with your power healed your wounds?”
“That is what happened, yes.”
“A mageborn and a peasant together? A peasant with the power to call light? And it happens that iynisin come upon you in this place?”
Aris had no chance to answer; Seri broke in. “Yes, that is true. We came from Fin Panir, to—” She stopped, and glanced at Aris. What they had been discussing was no business of elves. The elf waited, brows raised.
“Seri and I were friends before we came to Fin Panir,” Aris said. “Before Gird died. I came to ask him to allow me to use my magery to heal, and he granted that, but put us both in training there. We have little time together—”
“So you rode a day’s journey away to find privacy?” The elfs question implied only one use of such privacy.
“No, we’re on a longer journey.” Aris gestured to his pack, which one elf was examining with care. “I have been granted permission to travel, and test my healing in other places; Seri is my—well— supervisor. The Council wishes a peasant-born to make sure I don’t misuse my powers.”
“They let a friend have this right?”
“I’m a Marshal-candidate,” Seri said. In her voice was the certainty that a Marshal-candidate would tolerate no misdoings from anyone, least of all a friend.
“And his lover.”
“No.” Seri shook her head. “We have never been lovers; we don’t need to be lovers.”
“Ah. Rare in humans, though I have heard of it. Well, then, young mortals who are not lovers, can you explain how you called upon yourselves the malice of iynisin, or why you called on us with your light? We thought it was elflight, and you beleaguered elves: we came to your aid. We had seen magelight before— ” Here the elf looked at Aris. “We would not have come for that, but this light—” he gestured at Seri, “—is something we do not know and mixed with yours might be elflight.” This time more gently, he asked her. “Are you sure you do not know how you called it?”
In that lessening of tension, with the elf’s change of tone, Aris felt exhaustion sapping his strength again. Only immediate danger could keep him alert now, after such a day and night, after the healing power he had poured out. He heard Seri’s explanation through a thick fog, and only realized he had fallen when someone caught him. Not Seri; he knew her hands. These were as alien as tree limbs: cold, strong, but not ungentle.
“—He’s like this after healing sometimes,” he heard her say. “Keep him warm— ” He could not argue, but he could hear what they said, as they wrapped him in a blanket and laid him aside, while the leader still talked to Seri, and one of them stirred the fire and set the kettle back on it.
He listened to the voices, their sweet chiming voices and Seri’s warm, practical peasant burr, comfortable as an animal’s shaggy hide. She said nothing about Luap, but talked freely about her own training, Aris’s training, the changes of policy that everyone discussed. Gird’s legacy had been a government with few secrets, its issues argued openly in every market in Fintha. When the kettle boiled, he was able to drink a mug of the hot herbal brew, which opened his eyes and let him see that Seri’s light had, at some point, gone out. Or back. She was telling the elf leader exactly what the iynisin had said, word for word as far as Aris could tell, and then describing the fight.
“I thought Ari had been killed; I’d been forced far enough away that I saw one sword go in—so I ran for the rockface. That way I had something at my back.”
The elf leader nodded. “Wise—and this is your first real battle?”
“Yes… in the war, we were too young to do more than camp chores.”
More raised brows. “You were too young to do camp chores, unless I read your age wrongly. But didn’t you know your—Aris?— could heal his wounds?”
Seri shook her head. Her braid had come completely undone, and her hair looked like a wavering dark cloud. “No—he’d never healed himself before. We thought it worked only on others. When I saw him get up, I was as surprised as the iynisin. More, because they hadn’t seen him; he came up behind them.”
“I know why we didn’t know I could,” Aris said. His mind had caught hold of its familiar net of thought. They all turned to look at him. “
It hurts—and the one time I tried it, that time I cut my hand on the sickle—”
“I remember,” Seri said. “He was cutting wild grass for Gird’s army,” she said to the elves.
“—I thought to try it and it hurt a lot. So I quit.”
“But it didn’t hurt me,” Seri said. “Or any of the others.”
“No, and I think I understand that, too. You see—”
“Not now, Ari.” Seri smiled to take the sting out of that. “You’re not all the way awake yet.” He was, but he wouldn’t argue with her. If she wanted him to think it out somewhere else than with elves, he would. He sipped the bitter brew again, and wondered where her light had gone, and even more where it had come from. She shouldn’t have been able to do that.
“What do you, young mortal, think of your friend’s light?” That was the elf leader, pointing to him. Aris, in the midst of another sip, almost choked, and put the mug down.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know she could do it—I never heard of anyone coming alight but mageborn, and not all of them. And as you saw, her light was not the same color as mine.”
“And you, she says, did not call light before: why this night, and not others? Did you never before need to see your way in the dark?” The sarcasm of the second question almost confused his answer to the first; perhaps Seri was right, and his wits lay more scattered than he thought. He hesitated, trying to gather them, before he answered, but the elves did not seem impatient. Only interested.
“We needed to see,” he said finally. “Other times—it might have been useful, but I didn’t really need it. Here—we felt the evil coming—”
“Did you call on the gods for aid?”
Had they? He could not quite remember. There had been a voice in his head—“Father Gird,” he said. His voice chimed with Seri’s, saying the same thing.
The elf leader frowned. “You’re Gird’s children? I thought only one of his children lived, a grown woman.”
“Not really his children,” Seri said, trying without success to smooth her hair. “But we called him Father Gird. Not to his face, it wouldn’t have been respectful, but with each other.”