Northlight (32 page)

They passed one night by a grove of ironbark trees and the next in the shelter of the huge, isolated rocks that towered above the half-frozen earth.

Terris curled up in his cloak against the weather-cracked stone and lay there unmoving until Etch brought him a pan of hot trail stew. It was the usual sticky mess of grain, dried fruit and nameless smoked meat. With it was a chunk of bread and a pinch of coarse salt, which Jakon said would help them adapt to the altitude. Even though he wasn't hungry, Terris took a mouthful of the stew. The last thing he wanted now was someone else nagging him to eat.

Behind him, the wind moaned fitfully through the crevices. He felt the rock tremble, but perhaps that too was a product of the strange warping of his senses the farther north they went. The pulling had grown into a sweet wild calling that he could feel even in his sleep, and it was all he could do now to sit still and let his aching body rest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on chewing.

In between the gusts of wind, he heard Etch and Kardith discussing one of the horses, a foreleg tendon or something like that. Abruptly Kardith swore and stomped off. Terris felt her pass within inches of his extended legs, not smooth like a shadow panther, but turbulent, volatile. He opened his eyes.

Across the flickering pocket fire, Jakon and Grissem had taken out a hand drum and a small bone flute. Yesterday evening, they'd spent an hour or more playing and chanting. The words were so archaic Terris couldn't even guess their meaning, yet he had found himself humming along, caught by their lilting rhythms. Tonight he recoiled from the music.

Aviyya got up from her place in the shadows and went over to Jakon. Grissem's hand jerked from his flute to the hilt of his knife. She saw the movement and kept her hands in plain sight.

“What's the matter with my brother?” she asked. “Why is he like that?”

“It's the Northlight calling him,” Jakon said, hands poised over his drum.

“Batshit. He's acting like he's overdosed on ghostweed. He can hardly talk.”

Terris struggled against the curious stillness of his body, the quality of listening, of following. He knew the effects of ghostweed, and this wasn't any of them. His throat moved reluctantly. “I'm all right.”

Aviyya glared at him. “Have it your own way. For now.” She sat back on her heels and turned her attention back to Jakon. “It's also time we talked about what happens after we get to this Northlight.”

Jakon laid the drum on the ground slowly. “We aren't there yet. Your brother still must stand in the Light. We can't make any plans beyond that.”

She shook her head impatiently. “You don't understand. No matter what happens there, we have to go back to Laureal City. I see that now. The sooner the better — in fact, we ought to turn around right now. We can't afford to waste this much time. The political situation's too unstable — and I'm not just talking about your people, I'm talking about mine, too. What if Terr's vision is right and Esme's now Guardian — how long do you think Montborne will let her live? Will there be another poisoned dagger for her? Maybe you don't care. But suppose he manages to get elected instead. If people are scared enough, they'll turn to anyone for help. What then? You know what he can do, you even call him the Butcher of Brassaford. But with the dagger and my brother's testimony, we can make him answer for what he's done. A part of it, anyway, enough to keep him from power. These aren't empty words, Jakon, I
can do it
— if I can get back home in time.”

“Who says this — Aviyya the Ranger or Aviyya the daughter of Esmelda of Laurea?”

“I don't have any choice on that one, do I?” She paused. “Will you trust me and let us go? Will you come with us?”

“Are you offering an alliance?” In the near darkness, one sandy eyebrow arched upward.

“Would you accept one?” she shot back.

“Will you dance again, Aviyya of Laurea?”

“Jakon! You still don't understand! This is serious business, not a gods-damned carnival! A war's going to come smashing down on both our heads if we don't stop it! And more than that, it's a chance to end all the years of fighting between us. Don't you see what — ”

“I know what's at stake here, even more than you.” Jakon's voice cracked like a whip through the near darkness. “Tell me how much of your own blood ran red at Brassaford and how many brothers you lost to the Butcher?” He struggled for control and continued, “Yes, what you offer could change everything between us. But what you ask — to turn back now — is unthinkable, no matter what the cost. I've never given a hundred-years-putrefied elk turd what any souther thinks, but I want you to understand — I dreamed the Light. I
danced
it. We're in the middle now — we can't know how we'll see things at the end. At Northlight, everything is different.”

“‘Everything is different...'“ she repeated in a completely unconvinced tone. “Does that mean Montborne will wake up tomorrow and send you flowers? Or this wire-grass will suddenly sprout sausages? Give me one good reason why we have to continue on this superstitious trek to the middle of nowhere!”

“Because it is our way. Because if we give up everything we believe in, everything that gives our lives meaning instead of mindless suffering, then we are nothing. Nothing.”

“But — ”

“You asked for
my
trust, Aviyya of Laurea,” Jakon said quietly. “Where is yours?”

Aviyya reached over to his plate, which lay in front of him, and rubbed her fingers across the surface, gathering up the crumbs.

“Bread...salt...” She didn't add,
Damn you,
though she looked as if she'd like to. She held up a solid pinch and downed it. Grissem drew in a short audible breath.

Terris sat up straight. Tension hung in the air like a physical weight. Kardith, standing near the outside of the camp, watched with wide eyes. No one moved.

For a long, heart-stopping moment, Jakon continued to study Aviyya, his face expressionless. Then he said to Grissem, “Give their knives back.” There was something in his voice that made Terris wonder if Aviyya had just eaten Jakon's salt or he had eaten hers.

Grissem reached into his pack and drew out a bundle wrapped in thin, supple elkskin. He unrolled it on the ground in front of him. Aviyya picked up two of the knives and wordlessly put one of them in the empty sheath on her belt, the other in her boot.

Etch knelt and gathered up the rest of the knives — all that had been taken from them — as well as Kardith's belt. He went to Kardith, reversed the long-knife and held it out to her. She slipped it back into its sheath without a word.

Terris felt no desire to reclaim his small utility knife. He had no right to a weapon he couldn't use, just as Kardith had said. But he picked up the wrapped dagger and carefully put it away in his travel pack.

Later he drifted into an uneasy sleep with Jakon's words still in his ears —
In Northlight, everything is different.

Does he mean everything appears different, the way colored glass tints whatever you see? Or...does he mean everything becomes different? Permanently, forever?

The morning air was so thick and damp, the breath of animals and riders alike spurted out in plumes of white smoke. For the past week of travel, they had all worn the hooded, fur-lined parkas and outer pants that the northers supplied, instead of their Laurean wool cloaks. The cloaks they used as extra blankets for the horses at night.

The ground-hugging mist lifted for a moment and Terris saw they were making their way along a row of standing stones. The stones, like those scattered behind them, were pale and fine-grained, irregularly shaped, ten to twelve feet high. None of them bore any trace of artificial shaping. They ran in a straight line along a shallow, scooped-out valley. The broken hills on either side were dusted with snow, and a herd of shaggy, long-bodied animals grazed along the western slopes, well away from the road.

Etch and Grissem had been riding side by side, carrying on a spirited debate about the relative merits of horses and ponies. Now Grissem urged his mount forward and led the way. He raised his voice in a chant. This time, Terris thought he recognized scattered phrases:
the wisdom of time...the two gates...a ceremony of remembrance...

The stones ended in a wall of rock jutting across the horizon, as sheer and jagged as if some mad giant had turned the layers of bedrock on end. A deep cleft cut through the wall where the last of the stones formed a sort of gatehouse or fortress.

It began to snow. Fluffy clumps drifted and billowed like feathers, soon giving way to icy pellets that fell faster and faster. The norther ponies lowered their heads and plodded on, tails clamped against their rumps. Terris's sorrel gelding snorted and shivered the skin over his shoulders.

“Poor Miserable Beast,” Terris called the horse.

Visibility sank to a few feet in front of Terris's nose. The snow muffled his senses — sight, hearing, smell. Iced-over snow crusted his beard and eyebrows. His body went numb in the saddle, his fingers frozen around the braided reins.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the inner pull from the north, as clear and strong now as if it were a magnet. He felt no fear of it, for it was the antithesis of the thing beneath the Starhall. That had repelled him to the point of physical illness, but this exhilarated some deep part of him even as it drew him in.

An image flared up in Terris's mind and he saw himself standing naked on a road. Paths radiated out like a spider's web, the Ridge to the east a tangle of glowing nuggets. Far to the south, the filaments ended in a single node that pulsated, red and black, as if it were swollen with blood and bile.

He turned north to face the spot where all the strands came together. They gleamed like silk, inviting the touch. How easy it would be to let himself go sliding along them, to plunge headlong into the shimmering pool of light at their center.

Terris opened his eyes. The snowfall had eased, and before him lay a building of charcoal stone, once a sprawling fortress, now crumbling with age and weather. Yellow light streamed from the central windows. Overhead, the sky looked murky, as if with a gathering storm. The temperature was falling.

The horses' shod hooves clattered over the cobblestoned yard. The hall door opened, and an old man came out and walked toward them with a rolling gait. His face was round-cheeked and squint-eyed, his wisp of a beard indistinguishable from the straggly yellow-gray fur of his parka. He beckoned to the travelers, humming and droning as if he'd been alone so long he'd forgotten proper human speech.

Grissem dismounted and walked up to him, bowed deeply and made a gesture Terris didn't know. The old man returned the greeting. After a moment, Grissem called the others to come forward.

They led their horses through a double wooden door. The room inside might have once been a low-ceilinged banquet hall but was now partitioned into a snug stable. The place reeked of wet horsehair, oat hay, and a strange, musky animal smell. The old man grunted and left them alone. Within a few minutes, the body heat of the animals began to melt the crusted snow.

As soon as Terris hauled off the gelding's saddle and bridle, the horse tore into the overhead hay net as if it hadn't eaten in a week. As he twisted a double handful of straw into a wisp, Terris noticed saw how sharp and angular the horse's ribs looked, how sunken the flanks, how dull and ragged the coat. Slowly and methodically, Terris rubbed the horse until it was dry and as glossy as it was going to get and its ears had flopped sideways with contentment. By the time Terris finished, the others had stowed their gear on the nearby racks and gathered up their personal gear. They were ready to go in to their own dinners, except Kardith, who was fussing over the gray mare's off hind hoof.

Kardith let the mare's leg down, her mouth twisted in disapproval. Her face looked drawn, her eyes dark and withdrawn in a way Terris had never seen.

Or perhaps the remoteness was his. Kardith had saved his life and brought him to where he could never have come on his own. She was tied to him in ways he couldn't understand. Yet she might as well have not existed ever since they'd left the lake. Nothing had mattered except the pulling from the north.

The yellow light Terris had seen from the courtyard came from a fireplace so massive it spanned the length of the wall. Made of the same pale stone as the lined-up boulders, it bowed outward to direct the fire's heat into the center of the room. Three-tier wooden bunk beds ranged along the other two walls. Coarsely woven wool rugs had been laid out in a half-circle around the fire, and the old man was already setting out steaming bowls and platters.

They hung their parkas and outer pants on the hooks on either side of the fireplace, well away from the direct heat but warm enough to dry quickly. Boots went on a rack beyond, to be replaced by felt slippers. They all sat down on the mats and began eating.

The bowls contained an over-salted porridge of grain and nuts, and the platters, coarse bread and slices of a hard, tangy cheese somewhat reminiscent of Laurean sheep-cheese. To go with this were pitchers of something hot, very strong and heavily sweetened, covered with a scum of slightly rancid butter. Terris couldn't identify it. It was not something commonly drunk in Laurea.

They ate in silence and their dishes were refilled as soon as they were emptied. Terris couldn't remember having eaten so much in his life. He hadn't noticed he was hungry, but as soon as he started eating, he couldn't stop. They'd been traveling all day and the lowering sky, he now realized, was not another brewing storm but sundown.

Terris laid his empty bowl on his platter, got up, and wandered to the window. It looked south, along the avenue of stones. He had no idea who could have put them there or why. At this moment, he didn't care. Behind him, Grissem was answering Aviyya's questions about the religious symbolism of the standing stones, the ritual greeting, and the ancient, isolated clan that supplied porters to the fortress house.