Here Begins the Adventure of Kerovan, Sometime
Lord-Heir in Ulmsdale of High Hallack.
I was one born accursed in two ways. Firstly, my father was
Ulric, Lord of Ulmsdale in the north. And of his stock there were
told dire tales. My grandfather, Ulm the Horn-Handed, he who led
his people into this northside dale and chartered the sea-rovers
who founded Ulmsport, had looted one of the places of the Old Ones,
taking the treasure sealed within. All men knew that this was no
ordinary treasure, for it glowed in the dark. And after that
looting not only Ulm, but all those who had been with him on that
fearsome venture, were visited by a painful sickness of body from
which most of them died.
When I was born, my father was already in middle years. He had
taken two ladies before my mother and had of them children. But the
children had been either born dead or had quitted this world in
their early years, sickly creatures one and all. He had sworn,
however, to get him a true heir, and so he set aside his second
lady in favor of my mother when it seemed as if he would get no son
of her.
My mother's lineage also laid me under a curse. She was the Lady
Tephana, daughter to Portal of Paltendale, which lies farther to
the northwest. There are those who even now make off-warding signs
at dalesmen from those parts, saying that, when our folk moved
thither to settle, there were still Old Ones, seeming like
ourselves; and that our people — the Borderers — entered into a
blood-mixing with these, the offspring therefrom being not
altogether human.
Be that as it may, my father was desperate for an heir. And
Tephana, lately widowed, had borne already a goodly child who was
now in his second year — Hlymer. My father was willing to forego
dowry, to close his ears to any rumor of mixed blood, and to
welcome the lady with full honor. By all accounts I have heard, she
was willing, even unto risking the curse laid on my father's family
by their treasure theft.
My birthing came too early and under strange circumstances, for
my mother was on her way to Gunnora's shrine to give offerings for
a son and a safe delivery. When she was yet a day's journey away,
her pains came on her very swiftly. There was no hall, not even a
landsman's dwelling near enough, and a mighty storm was brewing.
Thus her women and guards took her for shelter into a place they
would have normally shunned, one of those strange and awesome
remains of the Old Ones, the people of uncanny power who held the
dales in the dim past before the first of our blood wandered up
from the south.
This building was in good repair, as is often true of the
constructions left by that unknown race. For the Old Ones seem to
have used spells to bind stones together in such a way that even
time cannot devour them, and thus some buildings look as if they
were abandoned only yesterday. What purpose this one might have
served none could guess. But there were carvings of men and women,
or those who had such seeming, on the inner walls.
My mother's travail was hard, and her ladies feared that they
might not save her. After I was born they half-wished that they had
failed to, for asking to look upon the babe, she saw me full and
gave a great cry, losing her senses and near her wits. She wandered
in some mind maze for several weeks thereafter.
I was not as other children. My feet were not with toes, like
unto human kind; rather they were small hoofs, split, covered with
horn such as make up the nails upon fingers. In my face my eyebrows
slanted above eyes that were the color of butter amber, the like of
which are not seen in a human countenance. Thus, all gazing upon me
knew that, though I seemed far stronger of wind and limb than my
unfortunate half-brothers and sisters before me, in me the curse
had taken another turning. I did not sicken and die, but thrived
and grew.
But my mother would not look upon me, saying I was a demon
changeling, implanted in her womb by some evil spell. When those
about her brought me nigh, she became so disordered in her wits
that they feared her state would be permanent. Soon she declared
she had no true child but Hlymer — and later my sister Lisana, born
a year after me, a fair little maid with no flaw. In her my mother
took much pleasure.
As for me, I was not housed at Ulmsdale Keep, but sent out at
nurse to one of the foresters. However, though my mother had so
disowned me, my father was moved, not by any affection — for that I
was never shown by those closest to me in blood — but rather by his
pride of family, to see that my upbringing was equal to my birth.
He gave me the name of Kerovan, which was that of a noted warrior
of our House, and he saw that I was tutored in arms as became a
youngling of station and shield, sending to me one Jago, a keepless
man of good birth who had served my Lord as Master of Menie until
he was disabled by a bad fall in the mountains.
Jago was a master of the arts of war, not only with the lesser
skills that can be battered into any youngling with a strong body
and keen eyes, but also those more subtle matters that deal with
the ordering of bodies of men great and small. Crippled and tied to
a way of living that was only a half-life for a once-active man, he
set his brain to labor as he had once ordered his body. Always he
searched for new lore of battle, and sometimes at night I would
watch him with a strip of smoothed bark before him, patiently
setting out in his labored and crooked script facts concerning the
breaking of sieges, the ordering of assaults, and the like, droning
on to me the while, emphasizing this point or that by a fierce dig
into the bark with the knife he used for a pen.
Jago was far more widely traveled than most dalesmen, who
perhaps in a whole lifetime know little beyond four or five dales
outside their own birthplace. He had been overseas in his first
youth, traveling with the Sulcar Traders, those dangerous
sea-rovers, to such half-fabled lands as Karsten, Alizon, and
Estcarp — though of the latter nation he said little, appearing
uneasy when I besought him to tell of his travels in detail. All he
would say was that it was a land where witch spells and
ensorcellment were as common as corn in a field, and that all the
women were witches and held themselves better and apart from men,
so that it was a place where one kept one's eyes to oneself and
walked very quietly and mum-tongued.
There was this which makes me remember Jago well and with
gratitude. In his eyes I was apparently like any other youngling,
and not a young monster. So when I was with him I could forget my
differences from my fellows and rest content. Thus Jago taught me
the arts of war — or rather such as a dale heir should know. For in
those days we did not know the meaning of real war, giving that
name to our petty skirmishing between rival lords or against the
Waste outlaws. And of those we saw many in the long winters when
starvation and ill weather drove them against us to plunder our
granaries and try to take our warm halls and garths. War wore a far
grimmer face in later years, and men got full bellies of it. It was
no longer a kind of game which was played by rules, as one moves
pieces back and forth across a board on a winter's eve.
But if Jago was my sword tutor, the Wiseman Riwal showed me
there were other paths of life in the world. It had always been
held that only a woman could learn the ways of healing and perform
the spells my people draw upon in their time of need in body and
spirit. Thus Riwal was as strange to his fellows as I. He had a
great thirst for knowledge, which was in him as a longing for bread
might be in a starving man. At times he would go roving, not only
in the forest country, but beyond, into the Waste itself. When he
returned he would be burdened by a pack like any peddler who
carried his own stock in trade.
Being kin to the Head Forester, he had taken without formal
leave one of the cots nearby. This he made snug and tight by the
work of his own hands, setting above its door a mask carved of
stone, not in the likeness of our people. Men looked askance at
Riwal, yes — but let any animal ail, or even a man keep his bed in
sickness that could not be named — then he was summoned.
About his cot grew all manner of herbs, some of those long-known
to every housewife in the dales. But others were brought from afar
with masses of soil bundled up about their roots, and he set them
out with care. Everything grew for Riwal, and the farmer who had a
wish for the best of crops would go cap in hand at sowing time and
ask the Wiseman to overlook his land and give advice.
Not only did he bring green life, but he also drew that which
wings over our heads or pads on four feet. Birds and animals that
were hurt or ailing came to him of their own wills. Or else he
would carry them to his place gently and tend them until they were
able once more to fend for themselves.
This was enough to set any man apart from his fellows. But it
was also well known that Riwal went to the places of the Old Ones,
that he tried to search out those secrets our blood had never
known. And for that, men did fear him. Yet it was that which drew
me to him first.
I was as keen-eared as any child who knows that others talk
about him behind their hands. And I had heard the garbled stories
of my birth, of that curse which lay upon the blood of Ulm,
together with the hint that neither was my mother's house free of
the taint of strange mixture. The proof of both was perhaps in my
flesh and bone. I had only to look in the mirror of Jago's polished
shield to see it for myself.
I went to Riwal, boldly perhaps in outward seeming, but with an
inward chill that, young as I was, I fought to master. He was on
his knees setting out some plants which had long, thin leaves
sharply cut, like the heads of boar spears. He did not look up as I
came to him, but rather spoke as if I had already spent the morning
in his company.
"Dragon's Tongue, the Wisewomen call this." He had a soft voice
with a small tremor, not quite a stammer. "It is said to seek out
the putrid matter in unhealing wounds, even as a tongue might lick
such hurts clean. We shall see, we shall see. But it is not to
speak of plants that you stand here, Kerovan, is it, now?"
"It is not. Men say you know of the Old Ones."
He sat back on his heels to look me eye to eye.
"But not much. We can look and finger, search and study, but of
their powers — those we cannot net or trap. One can only hope to
brush up a crumb here and there, to speculate, to go on
ever seeking. They had vast knowledge — of building, of creating, of
living — beyond our ken. We do not even know why they were
near-gone from High Hallack when the first of our ancestors
arrived. We did not push them out — no, already their keeps and
temples, their Places of Power were emptied. Here and there, yes, a
few lingered. And they may still be found in the Waste and beyond
the Waste in that land we have not entered. But the most — they
were gone, perhaps long before men, as we know them, arrived. Still
— to seek what may still lie here — it is enough to fill a lifetime
and yet not find a tenth of a tenth of it!"
In his sunbrowned face his eyes were alight with that same spark
I had seen in Jago's when he spoke of a trick of sword-play or a
clever ambush. Now Riwal studied me in turn.
"What seek you of the Old Ones?" he asked.
"Knowledge," I answered. "Knowledge of why I am as I am — not
man — yet neither — " I hesitated, for my pride would not let me
voice what I had heard in whispers.
Riwal nodded. "Knowledge is what every man should seek, and
knowledge of himself most of all. But such knowledge I cannot give
you. Come."
He arose and started toward his dwelling with his swinging,
woodsman's stride. Without further question I followed after. So I
came into Riwal's treasure house.
I could only stand just within the door and stare at what lay
about me, for never before had I seen such a crowding of things,
each enough to catch the eye and demand closer attention. For in
baskets and nests were wild animals, watching me with bright and
wary eyes, yet seeming, in this place, to feel such safety that
they did not hide in fear. There were shelves in plenty on the
walls. And each length of roughly hewn, hardly smoothed board was
crammed with a burden of clay pots, bundles of herbs and roots, and
bits and fragments that could only have come from the places of the
Old Ones.
There was a bed, and two stools were so crowded upon the hearth
that they sat nearly in the fire. The rest of the dwelling was more
suited for storage than for living. In the middle of the room Riwal
stood with his fists planted upon his hips, his head turning from
side to side as if he tried to sight some special thing among the
wealth of objects.
I sniffed the air. There was a mingling of many odors. The
aromatic scent of herbs warred with the musky smell of animals and
the suggestion of cooking from a pot still hanging on the
boil-chain in the fireplace. Yet it was not in any way an unclean
or disgusting smell.
"You seek the Old Ones — look you here, then!" Riwal gestured to
one shelf among the many.
I skirted two baskets with furry inhabitants and came closer to
see what he would show me. There I found set-out fragments, one or
two being whole, of small figures or masks — bits which in some
instances Riwal had fitted together to form broken but recognizable
figures.
Whether these indeed represented various beings among the Old
Ones, or whether they had had life only in the imagination of their
creators, no one might know. But that they had beauty, even when
they tended toward the grotesque, I could see for myself.
There was a winged figure of a woman, alas lacking a head; and a
man of humanoid proportions, save that from the forehead curled two
curved horns. Yet the face below was noble, serene, as if he were a
great lord by right of his spirit. There was a figure with webbed
feet and hands, plainly meant to suggest a water dweller; and a
small one of another woman, or at least a female, with long hair
covering most of her body like a cloak. These Riwal had managed to
restore in part. The rest were fragments: a head, crowned but
noseless, the eyes empty pits; a delicate hand that bore an
intricate ring of metal on both thumb and forefinger, those rings
seemingly a part now of the hand, whose substance was not stone but
a material I did not know.
I did not touch; I merely stood and looked. And in me was born a
longing to know more of these people. I could understand the
never-ending hunger that kept Riwal searching, his patient attempts
to restore the broken bits he found that he might see, guess, but
perhaps never know.
So Riwal also became my teacher. I went with him to those places
shunned by others, to search, to speculate; always hoping that some
find might be a key that would open to us the doors of the past, or
at least give us a small glimpse into it.
My father made visits to me month by month, and when I was in my
tenth year, he spoke to me with authority. It was plain he was in
some uneasiness of spirit when he did so. But I was not amazed that
he was so open with me, for always he had treated me, not as a
child, but as one who had good understanding. Now he was very
sober, impressing me that this was of import.
"You are the only living son of my body," he began, almost as if
he found it difficult to choose the words he must use. "By all the
right of custom you shall sit in the High Seat at Ulmskeep after
me." He paused then, so long I ventured to break into his musing,
which I knew covered a troubled mind.
"There are those who see it differently." I did not make that a
question, for I knew it to be a statement of fact.
He frowned. "Who has been saying so to you?"
"None. This I have guessed for myself."
His frown grew. "You have guessed the truth. I took Hlymer under
my protection, as was fitting when his mother became Lady in Ulm.
He has no right to be shield-raised to the High Seat at my death.
That is for you. But they press me now to hand-fast Lisana with
Rogear, who is cousin-kin to you."
I was quick enough to understand what he would tell me and yet
loath to hear it. But I did not hesitate to bring it into the open
myself.
"Thus Rogear might claim Ulmsdale by wife-right."
My father's hand went to his sword hilt and clenched there. He
rose to his feet and strode back and forth, setting his feet
heavily on the earth as if he needed some firm stance against
attack.
"It is against custom, but they assault my ears with it day upon
day, until I am well-nigh deafened beneath my own roof!"
I knew, with bitterness, that his "they" must be mainly that
mother who would not call me son. But of that I did not speak.
He continued. "Therefore I make a marriage for you, Kerovan, an
heir's marriage so that all men can see that I do not intend any
such offense against you, but give you all right of blood and clan.
This tenth day Nolon rides to Ithkrypt, carrying the proxy axe for
your wedding. They tell me that the maid Joisan is a likely lass,
lacking two years of your age, which is fitting. Safe-married, you
cannot be set aside — though your bride will not come to you until
perhaps the Year of the Fire Troll."
I counted in my mind — eight years then. I was well content. For
marriage had no meaning for me then, save that my father deemed it
of such importance. I wondered, but somehow I did not dare at that
moment to ask, whether he would tell this Joisan, or her kinsmen
who were arranging our match, what manner of lord she would meet on
her true bride-day, that I was what I was. Inside I shrank, even in
thought, from that meeting. But to a boy of my years that fatal day
seemed very far away, and perhaps something might happen to make
sure it would never occur.
I did not see Nolon set forth to play my role in axe marriage,
for he rode out of Ulmkeep where I did not go. It was only two
months later that my father came to me looking less unhappy, to
tell me that Nolon had returned, and that I was indeed safely wed
to a maid I had never seen, and probably would not see for at least
eight more years.
I did not, thereafter, think much of the fact that I had a lady,
being well-occupied with my studies and even more with the quests
on which I went with Riwal. Though I was under the guardianship of
Jago, he made no protest when I spent time with Riwal. Between
those two came to be an odd companionship, in spite of their being
so dissimilar in thought and deed.
As the years passed, that stiffness which had come from my
tutor's old hurt grew worse, and he found it difficult to face me
in open contest with sword or axe. But with the crossbow he was
still a skilled marksman. And his reading of maps, his discussion
of this or that battle plan, continued. Though I saw little use
then for such matters in my own life, I paid him dutiful attention,
and that was to be my salvation later.
But Riwal did not appear to age at all, and as long stride still
carried him far distances without tiring. I learned early to match
his energy. And, while my knowledge of plants was never as great as
his, yet I found a kinship with birds and animals. I ceased to hunt
for sport. And I took pleasure in the fact that his wild ones did
not fear me. Best of all, however, were our visits to the places of
the Old Ones. Riwal prospected further and further over the borders
of the Waste, seeking ever to find something intact from the
ancient days. His greatest hope, as he confided in me, was to
discover some book roll or rune record.
When I suggested that the reading of such could well be beyond
his skill, for surely the Old Ones had not our tongue, he nodded in
agreement. Still I felt he opposed that thought, sure that if he
did find such, the Power itself would aid him to understand it.
It was in the Year of the Spitting Toad that I had been wed. As
I came closer to manhood, the thought of that distant lady began
now and then to trouble me oddly. There were two lads near my years
in the foresters' hold, but from the first they had not been
playmates, or later companions. Not only did rank separate us, but
they had made me aware, from the beginning of my consciousness of
the world about me, that my non-human appearance cut me off from
easy friendships. I had given my friendship to only two men — Jago,
old enough to be my father, and Riwal, who could have been an older
brother (and how I sometimes wished that was the truth!).
But those forester lads went now to the autumn fair with
lass-ribbons tied to the upper latches of their jerkins, whispering
and laughing about the adventures those led them to. This brought
to me the first strong foreboding that when it did at last come
time to claim the Lady Joisan in person, she might find me as ill a
sight as had my mother. What would happen when my wife came to
Ulmsdale and I must go to bide with her? If she turned from me in
open loathing?
Nightmares began to haunt my sleep, and Riwal at last spoke to
me with the bluntness he could use upon occasion. When he demanded
what ill thought rode me, I told him the truth, hoping against hope
that he would speedily assure me that I saw monsters where there
were only shadows, and that I had nothing to fear — though my good
sense and experience argued on the side of disaster.
But he did not give me that reassurance. Instead he was silent
for a space, looking down at his hands, which had been busied
fitting together some of his image fragments, but now rested quiet
on the table.
"There has ever been truth between us, Kerovan," he said at last
"To me who knows you well — above all others would I choose to walk
in your company. But how can I promise you that this will turn to
happiness? I can only wish you peace and — " he hesitated. "Once I
walked a path that I thought might end in hand-fasting and I was
happy for a little. But while you bear your differences to others
openly, I bear mine within. Still, there they be. And the one with
whom I would have shared Cup and Flame — she saw those differences,
and they made her uneasy."
"But you were not already wed," I ventured, when he fell
silent.
"No, I was not. And I had something else."
"That being?" I was quick to ask.
"This!" he spread out his hands in a gesture to encompass all
that was about him under that roof.
"Then I shall have this also," I said. Marry I had, for the sake
of custom and my father's peace of mind. What I had seen and heard
of marriages among the dale lords did not set happiness high. Heirs
and lords married to increase their holdings by a maid's dowry, to
get a new heir for the line. If inclination and liking came
afterward, that was happiness, but it certainly did not always
follow so.
"Perhaps you can," Riwal nodded. "There is something I have long
thought on. Perhaps this is the time to do it."
"Follow the Road!" I was on my feet, as eager as if he meant to
set out upon that beckoning mystery this very moment For a mystery
it was, and beckon it did.
We had come across it on our last venture into the Waste, a road
of such building as put any dale's effort to shame, making our
roads seem like rough tracks fit only for beasts. The end of the
road we had chanced upon was just that, a sharp chopping-off of
that carefully laid pavement, with nothing about the end to explain
the why-for. The mystery began nearly on our doorstep, for that end
point was less than a half day's journey from Riwal's cot. The road
ran on back into the Waste, wide, straight, only a little cloaked
here and there by the drift of windborne soil. To find its other
end was a project we had indeed long held in mind. The suggestion
that we set out on this journey quite pushed from my mind the
thought of Joisan. She was just a name anyway, and any meeting
between us was still years ahead, while the following of the road
was here and now!
I was answerable to none but Jago for my actions. And this was
the time of year when he made his annual trip to Ulmskeep, where he
kept festival with old comrades-in-arms and reported to my father.
Thus I was free to follow my own wishes, which in this case meant
the road.
Here Begins the Adventure of Kerovan, Sometime
Lord-Heir in Ulmsdale of High Hallack.
I was one born accursed in two ways. Firstly, my father was
Ulric, Lord of Ulmsdale in the north. And of his stock there were
told dire tales. My grandfather, Ulm the Horn-Handed, he who led
his people into this northside dale and chartered the sea-rovers
who founded Ulmsport, had looted one of the places of the Old Ones,
taking the treasure sealed within. All men knew that this was no
ordinary treasure, for it glowed in the dark. And after that
looting not only Ulm, but all those who had been with him on that
fearsome venture, were visited by a painful sickness of body from
which most of them died.
When I was born, my father was already in middle years. He had
taken two ladies before my mother and had of them children. But the
children had been either born dead or had quitted this world in
their early years, sickly creatures one and all. He had sworn,
however, to get him a true heir, and so he set aside his second
lady in favor of my mother when it seemed as if he would get no son
of her.
My mother's lineage also laid me under a curse. She was the Lady
Tephana, daughter to Portal of Paltendale, which lies farther to
the northwest. There are those who even now make off-warding signs
at dalesmen from those parts, saying that, when our folk moved
thither to settle, there were still Old Ones, seeming like
ourselves; and that our people — the Borderers — entered into a
blood-mixing with these, the offspring therefrom being not
altogether human.
Be that as it may, my father was desperate for an heir. And
Tephana, lately widowed, had borne already a goodly child who was
now in his second year — Hlymer. My father was willing to forego
dowry, to close his ears to any rumor of mixed blood, and to
welcome the lady with full honor. By all accounts I have heard, she
was willing, even unto risking the curse laid on my father's family
by their treasure theft.
My birthing came too early and under strange circumstances, for
my mother was on her way to Gunnora's shrine to give offerings for
a son and a safe delivery. When she was yet a day's journey away,
her pains came on her very swiftly. There was no hall, not even a
landsman's dwelling near enough, and a mighty storm was brewing.
Thus her women and guards took her for shelter into a place they
would have normally shunned, one of those strange and awesome
remains of the Old Ones, the people of uncanny power who held the
dales in the dim past before the first of our blood wandered up
from the south.
This building was in good repair, as is often true of the
constructions left by that unknown race. For the Old Ones seem to
have used spells to bind stones together in such a way that even
time cannot devour them, and thus some buildings look as if they
were abandoned only yesterday. What purpose this one might have
served none could guess. But there were carvings of men and women,
or those who had such seeming, on the inner walls.
My mother's travail was hard, and her ladies feared that they
might not save her. After I was born they half-wished that they had
failed to, for asking to look upon the babe, she saw me full and
gave a great cry, losing her senses and near her wits. She wandered
in some mind maze for several weeks thereafter.
I was not as other children. My feet were not with toes, like
unto human kind; rather they were small hoofs, split, covered with
horn such as make up the nails upon fingers. In my face my eyebrows
slanted above eyes that were the color of butter amber, the like of
which are not seen in a human countenance. Thus, all gazing upon me
knew that, though I seemed far stronger of wind and limb than my
unfortunate half-brothers and sisters before me, in me the curse
had taken another turning. I did not sicken and die, but thrived
and grew.
But my mother would not look upon me, saying I was a demon
changeling, implanted in her womb by some evil spell. When those
about her brought me nigh, she became so disordered in her wits
that they feared her state would be permanent. Soon she declared
she had no true child but Hlymer — and later my sister Lisana, born
a year after me, a fair little maid with no flaw. In her my mother
took much pleasure.
As for me, I was not housed at Ulmsdale Keep, but sent out at
nurse to one of the foresters. However, though my mother had so
disowned me, my father was moved, not by any affection — for that I
was never shown by those closest to me in blood — but rather by his
pride of family, to see that my upbringing was equal to my birth.
He gave me the name of Kerovan, which was that of a noted warrior
of our House, and he saw that I was tutored in arms as became a
youngling of station and shield, sending to me one Jago, a keepless
man of good birth who had served my Lord as Master of Menie until
he was disabled by a bad fall in the mountains.
Jago was a master of the arts of war, not only with the lesser
skills that can be battered into any youngling with a strong body
and keen eyes, but also those more subtle matters that deal with
the ordering of bodies of men great and small. Crippled and tied to
a way of living that was only a half-life for a once-active man, he
set his brain to labor as he had once ordered his body. Always he
searched for new lore of battle, and sometimes at night I would
watch him with a strip of smoothed bark before him, patiently
setting out in his labored and crooked script facts concerning the
breaking of sieges, the ordering of assaults, and the like, droning
on to me the while, emphasizing this point or that by a fierce dig
into the bark with the knife he used for a pen.
Jago was far more widely traveled than most dalesmen, who
perhaps in a whole lifetime know little beyond four or five dales
outside their own birthplace. He had been overseas in his first
youth, traveling with the Sulcar Traders, those dangerous
sea-rovers, to such half-fabled lands as Karsten, Alizon, and
Estcarp — though of the latter nation he said little, appearing
uneasy when I besought him to tell of his travels in detail. All he
would say was that it was a land where witch spells and
ensorcellment were as common as corn in a field, and that all the
women were witches and held themselves better and apart from men,
so that it was a place where one kept one's eyes to oneself and
walked very quietly and mum-tongued.
There was this which makes me remember Jago well and with
gratitude. In his eyes I was apparently like any other youngling,
and not a young monster. So when I was with him I could forget my
differences from my fellows and rest content. Thus Jago taught me
the arts of war — or rather such as a dale heir should know. For in
those days we did not know the meaning of real war, giving that
name to our petty skirmishing between rival lords or against the
Waste outlaws. And of those we saw many in the long winters when
starvation and ill weather drove them against us to plunder our
granaries and try to take our warm halls and garths. War wore a far
grimmer face in later years, and men got full bellies of it. It was
no longer a kind of game which was played by rules, as one moves
pieces back and forth across a board on a winter's eve.
But if Jago was my sword tutor, the Wiseman Riwal showed me
there were other paths of life in the world. It had always been
held that only a woman could learn the ways of healing and perform
the spells my people draw upon in their time of need in body and
spirit. Thus Riwal was as strange to his fellows as I. He had a
great thirst for knowledge, which was in him as a longing for bread
might be in a starving man. At times he would go roving, not only
in the forest country, but beyond, into the Waste itself. When he
returned he would be burdened by a pack like any peddler who
carried his own stock in trade.
Being kin to the Head Forester, he had taken without formal
leave one of the cots nearby. This he made snug and tight by the
work of his own hands, setting above its door a mask carved of
stone, not in the likeness of our people. Men looked askance at
Riwal, yes — but let any animal ail, or even a man keep his bed in
sickness that could not be named — then he was summoned.
About his cot grew all manner of herbs, some of those long-known
to every housewife in the dales. But others were brought from afar
with masses of soil bundled up about their roots, and he set them
out with care. Everything grew for Riwal, and the farmer who had a
wish for the best of crops would go cap in hand at sowing time and
ask the Wiseman to overlook his land and give advice.
Not only did he bring green life, but he also drew that which
wings over our heads or pads on four feet. Birds and animals that
were hurt or ailing came to him of their own wills. Or else he
would carry them to his place gently and tend them until they were
able once more to fend for themselves.
This was enough to set any man apart from his fellows. But it
was also well known that Riwal went to the places of the Old Ones,
that he tried to search out those secrets our blood had never
known. And for that, men did fear him. Yet it was that which drew
me to him first.
I was as keen-eared as any child who knows that others talk
about him behind their hands. And I had heard the garbled stories
of my birth, of that curse which lay upon the blood of Ulm,
together with the hint that neither was my mother's house free of
the taint of strange mixture. The proof of both was perhaps in my
flesh and bone. I had only to look in the mirror of Jago's polished
shield to see it for myself.
I went to Riwal, boldly perhaps in outward seeming, but with an
inward chill that, young as I was, I fought to master. He was on
his knees setting out some plants which had long, thin leaves
sharply cut, like the heads of boar spears. He did not look up as I
came to him, but rather spoke as if I had already spent the morning
in his company.
"Dragon's Tongue, the Wisewomen call this." He had a soft voice
with a small tremor, not quite a stammer. "It is said to seek out
the putrid matter in unhealing wounds, even as a tongue might lick
such hurts clean. We shall see, we shall see. But it is not to
speak of plants that you stand here, Kerovan, is it, now?"
"It is not. Men say you know of the Old Ones."
He sat back on his heels to look me eye to eye.
"But not much. We can look and finger, search and study, but of
their powers — those we cannot net or trap. One can only hope to
brush up a crumb here and there, to speculate, to go on
ever seeking. They had vast knowledge — of building, of creating, of
living — beyond our ken. We do not even know why they were
near-gone from High Hallack when the first of our ancestors
arrived. We did not push them out — no, already their keeps and
temples, their Places of Power were emptied. Here and there, yes, a
few lingered. And they may still be found in the Waste and beyond
the Waste in that land we have not entered. But the most — they
were gone, perhaps long before men, as we know them, arrived. Still
— to seek what may still lie here — it is enough to fill a lifetime
and yet not find a tenth of a tenth of it!"
In his sunbrowned face his eyes were alight with that same spark
I had seen in Jago's when he spoke of a trick of sword-play or a
clever ambush. Now Riwal studied me in turn.
"What seek you of the Old Ones?" he asked.
"Knowledge," I answered. "Knowledge of why I am as I am — not
man — yet neither — " I hesitated, for my pride would not let me
voice what I had heard in whispers.
Riwal nodded. "Knowledge is what every man should seek, and
knowledge of himself most of all. But such knowledge I cannot give
you. Come."
He arose and started toward his dwelling with his swinging,
woodsman's stride. Without further question I followed after. So I
came into Riwal's treasure house.
I could only stand just within the door and stare at what lay
about me, for never before had I seen such a crowding of things,
each enough to catch the eye and demand closer attention. For in
baskets and nests were wild animals, watching me with bright and
wary eyes, yet seeming, in this place, to feel such safety that
they did not hide in fear. There were shelves in plenty on the
walls. And each length of roughly hewn, hardly smoothed board was
crammed with a burden of clay pots, bundles of herbs and roots, and
bits and fragments that could only have come from the places of the
Old Ones.
There was a bed, and two stools were so crowded upon the hearth
that they sat nearly in the fire. The rest of the dwelling was more
suited for storage than for living. In the middle of the room Riwal
stood with his fists planted upon his hips, his head turning from
side to side as if he tried to sight some special thing among the
wealth of objects.
I sniffed the air. There was a mingling of many odors. The
aromatic scent of herbs warred with the musky smell of animals and
the suggestion of cooking from a pot still hanging on the
boil-chain in the fireplace. Yet it was not in any way an unclean
or disgusting smell.
"You seek the Old Ones — look you here, then!" Riwal gestured to
one shelf among the many.
I skirted two baskets with furry inhabitants and came closer to
see what he would show me. There I found set-out fragments, one or
two being whole, of small figures or masks — bits which in some
instances Riwal had fitted together to form broken but recognizable
figures.
Whether these indeed represented various beings among the Old
Ones, or whether they had had life only in the imagination of their
creators, no one might know. But that they had beauty, even when
they tended toward the grotesque, I could see for myself.
There was a winged figure of a woman, alas lacking a head; and a
man of humanoid proportions, save that from the forehead curled two
curved horns. Yet the face below was noble, serene, as if he were a
great lord by right of his spirit. There was a figure with webbed
feet and hands, plainly meant to suggest a water dweller; and a
small one of another woman, or at least a female, with long hair
covering most of her body like a cloak. These Riwal had managed to
restore in part. The rest were fragments: a head, crowned but
noseless, the eyes empty pits; a delicate hand that bore an
intricate ring of metal on both thumb and forefinger, those rings
seemingly a part now of the hand, whose substance was not stone but
a material I did not know.
I did not touch; I merely stood and looked. And in me was born a
longing to know more of these people. I could understand the
never-ending hunger that kept Riwal searching, his patient attempts
to restore the broken bits he found that he might see, guess, but
perhaps never know.
So Riwal also became my teacher. I went with him to those places
shunned by others, to search, to speculate; always hoping that some
find might be a key that would open to us the doors of the past, or
at least give us a small glimpse into it.
My father made visits to me month by month, and when I was in my
tenth year, he spoke to me with authority. It was plain he was in
some uneasiness of spirit when he did so. But I was not amazed that
he was so open with me, for always he had treated me, not as a
child, but as one who had good understanding. Now he was very
sober, impressing me that this was of import.
"You are the only living son of my body," he began, almost as if
he found it difficult to choose the words he must use. "By all the
right of custom you shall sit in the High Seat at Ulmskeep after
me." He paused then, so long I ventured to break into his musing,
which I knew covered a troubled mind.
"There are those who see it differently." I did not make that a
question, for I knew it to be a statement of fact.
He frowned. "Who has been saying so to you?"
"None. This I have guessed for myself."
His frown grew. "You have guessed the truth. I took Hlymer under
my protection, as was fitting when his mother became Lady in Ulm.
He has no right to be shield-raised to the High Seat at my death.
That is for you. But they press me now to hand-fast Lisana with
Rogear, who is cousin-kin to you."
I was quick enough to understand what he would tell me and yet
loath to hear it. But I did not hesitate to bring it into the open
myself.
"Thus Rogear might claim Ulmsdale by wife-right."
My father's hand went to his sword hilt and clenched there. He
rose to his feet and strode back and forth, setting his feet
heavily on the earth as if he needed some firm stance against
attack.
"It is against custom, but they assault my ears with it day upon
day, until I am well-nigh deafened beneath my own roof!"
I knew, with bitterness, that his "they" must be mainly that
mother who would not call me son. But of that I did not speak.
He continued. "Therefore I make a marriage for you, Kerovan, an
heir's marriage so that all men can see that I do not intend any
such offense against you, but give you all right of blood and clan.
This tenth day Nolon rides to Ithkrypt, carrying the proxy axe for
your wedding. They tell me that the maid Joisan is a likely lass,
lacking two years of your age, which is fitting. Safe-married, you
cannot be set aside — though your bride will not come to you until
perhaps the Year of the Fire Troll."
I counted in my mind — eight years then. I was well content. For
marriage had no meaning for me then, save that my father deemed it
of such importance. I wondered, but somehow I did not dare at that
moment to ask, whether he would tell this Joisan, or her kinsmen
who were arranging our match, what manner of lord she would meet on
her true bride-day, that I was what I was. Inside I shrank, even in
thought, from that meeting. But to a boy of my years that fatal day
seemed very far away, and perhaps something might happen to make
sure it would never occur.
I did not see Nolon set forth to play my role in axe marriage,
for he rode out of Ulmkeep where I did not go. It was only two
months later that my father came to me looking less unhappy, to
tell me that Nolon had returned, and that I was indeed safely wed
to a maid I had never seen, and probably would not see for at least
eight more years.
I did not, thereafter, think much of the fact that I had a lady,
being well-occupied with my studies and even more with the quests
on which I went with Riwal. Though I was under the guardianship of
Jago, he made no protest when I spent time with Riwal. Between
those two came to be an odd companionship, in spite of their being
so dissimilar in thought and deed.
As the years passed, that stiffness which had come from my
tutor's old hurt grew worse, and he found it difficult to face me
in open contest with sword or axe. But with the crossbow he was
still a skilled marksman. And his reading of maps, his discussion
of this or that battle plan, continued. Though I saw little use
then for such matters in my own life, I paid him dutiful attention,
and that was to be my salvation later.
But Riwal did not appear to age at all, and as long stride still
carried him far distances without tiring. I learned early to match
his energy. And, while my knowledge of plants was never as great as
his, yet I found a kinship with birds and animals. I ceased to hunt
for sport. And I took pleasure in the fact that his wild ones did
not fear me. Best of all, however, were our visits to the places of
the Old Ones. Riwal prospected further and further over the borders
of the Waste, seeking ever to find something intact from the
ancient days. His greatest hope, as he confided in me, was to
discover some book roll or rune record.
When I suggested that the reading of such could well be beyond
his skill, for surely the Old Ones had not our tongue, he nodded in
agreement. Still I felt he opposed that thought, sure that if he
did find such, the Power itself would aid him to understand it.
It was in the Year of the Spitting Toad that I had been wed. As
I came closer to manhood, the thought of that distant lady began
now and then to trouble me oddly. There were two lads near my years
in the foresters' hold, but from the first they had not been
playmates, or later companions. Not only did rank separate us, but
they had made me aware, from the beginning of my consciousness of
the world about me, that my non-human appearance cut me off from
easy friendships. I had given my friendship to only two men — Jago,
old enough to be my father, and Riwal, who could have been an older
brother (and how I sometimes wished that was the truth!).
But those forester lads went now to the autumn fair with
lass-ribbons tied to the upper latches of their jerkins, whispering
and laughing about the adventures those led them to. This brought
to me the first strong foreboding that when it did at last come
time to claim the Lady Joisan in person, she might find me as ill a
sight as had my mother. What would happen when my wife came to
Ulmsdale and I must go to bide with her? If she turned from me in
open loathing?
Nightmares began to haunt my sleep, and Riwal at last spoke to
me with the bluntness he could use upon occasion. When he demanded
what ill thought rode me, I told him the truth, hoping against hope
that he would speedily assure me that I saw monsters where there
were only shadows, and that I had nothing to fear — though my good
sense and experience argued on the side of disaster.
But he did not give me that reassurance. Instead he was silent
for a space, looking down at his hands, which had been busied
fitting together some of his image fragments, but now rested quiet
on the table.
"There has ever been truth between us, Kerovan," he said at last
"To me who knows you well — above all others would I choose to walk
in your company. But how can I promise you that this will turn to
happiness? I can only wish you peace and — " he hesitated. "Once I
walked a path that I thought might end in hand-fasting and I was
happy for a little. But while you bear your differences to others
openly, I bear mine within. Still, there they be. And the one with
whom I would have shared Cup and Flame — she saw those differences,
and they made her uneasy."
"But you were not already wed," I ventured, when he fell
silent.
"No, I was not. And I had something else."
"That being?" I was quick to ask.
"This!" he spread out his hands in a gesture to encompass all
that was about him under that roof.
"Then I shall have this also," I said. Marry I had, for the sake
of custom and my father's peace of mind. What I had seen and heard
of marriages among the dale lords did not set happiness high. Heirs
and lords married to increase their holdings by a maid's dowry, to
get a new heir for the line. If inclination and liking came
afterward, that was happiness, but it certainly did not always
follow so.
"Perhaps you can," Riwal nodded. "There is something I have long
thought on. Perhaps this is the time to do it."
"Follow the Road!" I was on my feet, as eager as if he meant to
set out upon that beckoning mystery this very moment For a mystery
it was, and beckon it did.
We had come across it on our last venture into the Waste, a road
of such building as put any dale's effort to shame, making our
roads seem like rough tracks fit only for beasts. The end of the
road we had chanced upon was just that, a sharp chopping-off of
that carefully laid pavement, with nothing about the end to explain
the why-for. The mystery began nearly on our doorstep, for that end
point was less than a half day's journey from Riwal's cot. The road
ran on back into the Waste, wide, straight, only a little cloaked
here and there by the drift of windborne soil. To find its other
end was a project we had indeed long held in mind. The suggestion
that we set out on this journey quite pushed from my mind the
thought of Joisan. She was just a name anyway, and any meeting
between us was still years ahead, while the following of the road
was here and now!
I was answerable to none but Jago for my actions. And this was
the time of year when he made his annual trip to Ulmskeep, where he
kept festival with old comrades-in-arms and reported to my father.
Thus I was free to follow my own wishes, which in this case meant
the road.