The Sage (39 page)

Illbane
bound wood to the tang, of course—not firewood sticks, but seasoned dark ebony
that he brought from his smith's pack. He fastened it with rivets, fashioned a
scabbard of the same dark wood, then whetted the blade and polished both wood
and steel until they reflected the sky. He strapped it on Culaehra's back,
bound up the anvil and his tools in his pack, and bound the two bars of Star
Stone metal in a leather bag that he tied to a rope, to drag behind. Then he
led the companions away from the ground where the Star Stone had stood. They
looked back once from the crest of the ridge to see that the slag pile had
already crumbled away into the ground, and that snow was already rising upon
it, as the glacier began to reclaim its own.

Then
off they went, through gently falling snow.

“I
must carry your pack, Illbane!” Culaehra protested. “It is my place!”

“Not
yet,” the sage told him, “not yet. You bear a heavier load now, Culaehra.”

“I
scarcely feel the weight of the sword at all,” Culaehra protested, though he
knew quite well what Illbane meant—but the sage did not even deign to reply,
only strode through the snow with a glow in his eyes. Culaehra would have
thought him a man who had finished his work and rushed to his reward, if he had
not known that the greatest task of all still lay before them. Nonetheless, the
thought gave him a shiver.

The
next day, however, Illbane seemed to lean more heavily on his staff, and after
the first hour his pace slowed. Culaehra slowed with him, reining in his
impatience and silencing questions from Yocote and Lua with a warning glance.
Kitishane did not ask; she, too, had seen.

On
the third day, though, Illbane's back began to bend under the weight of his
pack of smith's tools. When they paused at midday, he set it down, and Culaehra
snatched it up. Illbane glared at him, but Culaehra glared right back and said,
“It is my place, Illbane, and my burden. It is time for me to bear it again.”

Illbane
tried to stare him down, but his glance wavered; he knew the younger man spoke
truth.

They
ate and rested, then forged into the wilderness again. A light snow fell about
them as they strode across that featureless plain that was the top of the
glacier, toward the mountains that rose still higher in the distance. Illbane
walked with his back straight now, but his steps were still slower than they
had been. Culaehra ventured a word. “We do not retrace our steps, Illbane.”

“We
do not,” the sage agreed. “We must march eastward as well as southward,
Culaehra, for if we seek to find Bolenkar, we must go to his city in the Land
Between the Rivers.”

On
they went into land none of them knew, but Illbane's steps slowed even more,
and by evening his back had begun to bend again. When they sat around the fire,
Culaehra saw with a shock that the sage's face had lost its color, taking on a
shade of gray.

Yocote
saw, too. “By your leave, Illbane,” he said, taking the sage's wrist in his
fingers.

Illbane
frowned. “Do you think to heal me, Yocote?”

“You
taught me that no shaman should seek to tend himself,” the gnome said evenly.
He frowned, pressed a hand against the sage's chest, then shook his head. “You
are not well, Illbane. We must rest until you are healed.”

“We
must not lose a day!” Illbane snapped. “I will be restored tomorrow, Yocote!
Leave me now!”

The
gnome retreated with misgivings, and Lua murmured to him, “He did not tell you
what to do if a patient would not accept healing.”

“Oh,
yes he did,” Yocote replied, “but he is still too strong for me to knock him
down and tie him up, and I would not put such a doom upon Culaehra.”

True
to his word, Illbane looked almost healthy the next morning as he strode
briskly off into the snow. The clouds dispersed and sunlight waked all the
snowfields to blinding intensity. Illbane bade them bind cloth over their eyes;
so they did and, squinting behind their masks, strode ahead. By noon, though,
the sage was wilting again, and by evening he was moving so slowly that his
companions had to drag their feet as they followed.

Over
dinner Culaehra decided to take the bull by the horns.

“You
must rest until you are well, Illbane. We will stay in this camp!”

“You
will go on!” the sage snapped. “Even now Bolenkar brews war among the younger
races! Leave me if you must, but march!”

Then
the vomiting began.

Illbane
turned pale and pulled himself up by his staff, hobbling quickly away behind a
boulder. They heard him retch, then retch again. Yocote was on his feet,
starting toward the sound, but Lua held him back. She detained him until the
noise stopped, then let go, and the gnome bolted forward, but he met his
teacher as Illbane came limping back. Yocote took his arm as he sat, concern
wrinkling his face. “You cannot march farther, Illbane!”

“Even
so,” the sage admitted. “Go south without me, Yocote. I shall endure.”

“You
shall not stay by yourself!” Kitishane snapped, and Culaehra nodded. “We shall
fare more strongly against Bolenkar with you than without you, Illbane. It is
worth the wait while you mend.”

The
sage was silent a moment, then said, “I shall not heal.”

They
all stared, not daring to speak, frozen by his words.

Yocote
finally asked, “What has brought this illness, Teacher?”

“The
Star Stone itself,” Illbane answered.

They
stared. Illbane breathed heavily a few times, then explained. “The Star Stone
is a force for good, yes, for it is imbued with the power of Lomallin—but it
was struck from his spear by Ulahane, whose power poisoned the metal within it.
Only traces of poison, it is true, but they would have been enough to sicken
anyone who stood near it for any length of time.”

“As
you did.” Lua's breath caught in her throat.

Illbane
nodded. “I did not stand near it so long as that—but as I forged the metal, I
beat the poisons out...”

“And
they took root in you,” Yocote whispered.

Heavily,
Illbane nodded.

“You
forged me a wondrous blade by taking its poisons into yourself,” Culaehra
cried, tears in his eyes. “You cleansed the steel at the cost of your own life!”

“And
you knew you were doing it,” Yocote accused.

Illbane's
nod was slow and ponderous. “There is no curing this sickness. Go, go on
without me, for there is no time to wait!”

“We
cannot,” Lua cried, and Kitishane agreed, thin-lipped. “We cannot leave you to
die alone, Illbane.”

They
did not. They dug their camp in; Kitishane went out to hunt while the gnomes
did what they could to ease Illbane's pain—but they could not stop the
vomiting, nor patch old skin as it sloughed off, leaving new and tender skin
behind. They could not make his scalp cease shedding, nor his cheeks. Perhaps
it was a mercy that the end came while his beard and hair were only sparse, not
gone completely.

They
built a hut of ice blocks to shelter Illbane, then settled in for the death
watch, their campsite sunk in gloom, partaking only sparsely of the game that
Kitishane brought in and Lua cooked so well. Culaehra had to hold himself from
speaking, for fear that he would snap or snarl at the others from the weight of
grief within him that demanded release. He contented himself with holding
Kitishane's hand and with trying to feel Yocote's grief as well as his own, for
the little man's face was bleak and drawn whenever he came back from tending
his teacher—which was not often.

On
the fifth day he emerged from the brush hut to say, “He wishes to speak to us
all. Come in.”

Silently,
they filed in and knelt beside the old man's pallet. His eyes were closed and
dark, his breath rasped in his throat, and his skin was so pale that it seemed
to have been claimed already by the snow. After a few minutes he opened his
eyes, looked from one to another, tightened his jaw against a spasm of pain,
then spoke with great effort. “Go south and east. Go through the mountains, go
down to the plain. When you come to a great river, build or buy a boat and sail
with the current until it joins another river, equally great. Sail with the
current of that river, too, until it comes to an inland sea. There, take ship;
cross that sea to its eastern shore, then march eastward still past seven great
cities. The eighth will be Bolenkar's citadel.”

“He
will not let us merely march toward him,” Kitishane stated.

“He
will not,” Illbane agreed. “He will send monsters against you, packs against
you, armies against you. You must gather forces of your own as you march, and
you will fight several battles before you see his city. There you will fight
the greatest battle of all, and Culaehra shall at last hew through the ranks to
Bolenkar himself.” His hand caught Yocote's with strength that was surprising
in a body so wasted. “Do not let him go alone, O Shaman! Stick as closely to
him as his breastplate then!” Turning, he caught Kitishane's hand likewise. “Do
you stay as closely to him as the shield upon his arm, O Maiden!”

Culaehra
cried out in protest, but the sage's glance stilled him. “There will be no
peace for either of you, Culaehra, nor any chance of marriage and children, if
you do not win that battle—and believe me deeply, it will be far better for her
to die beside you than to be captured if you are dead.”

Culaehra
felt something turn very cold within him.

“When
I am dead—”

Lua
cried out.

Illbane
smiled fondly, a ghost of his former beam, and transferred his hand from
Kitishane to her. “Do not think to deceive me, little maid, for I know I die,
and I welcome it. But when life has left this corpse, find some seam, some
wrinkle, in the great ice field, and lay me in it with my tools at one side and
my staff at the other. Then heap snow in atop me and pack it firm, and leave
the glacier to carry me where it will.”

Lua
sobbed, but Yocote said gravely, “Illbane, we will.”

“The
two remaining bars of Star Stone metal, drag behind as I have shown you, then
bury them when you come to the mountains and leave them to lie for long
centuries. Most of the poison I drained when I smelted them, but there is
enough left that no man should touch them until another smith comes who can
draw their poison as he forges.”

At
last the sage laid his hand on Culaehra's and said, “Of all that I have ever
forged, my proudest work is you.”

Culaehra
stared, amazed, and the old man beamed back at him, as strongly, as truly, as
ever. His hand tightened on Culaehra's, and the warrior had to blink hard
against a stinging in his eyes.

Then
the old hand loosened and went slack. The old eyes glazed, then dulled, and the
sage's body loosened in a way that told them all his spirit had departed. Still
they knelt in frozen silence, hoping against hope for some sign of returning
life, but the body lay most obstinately still. At last Yocote leaned forward to
test his pulse, first in his wrist, then in his throat, then held his hand over
nose and mouth to feel for breath. He waited long, but grudgingly and finally
reached up to close the sightless eyes.

They
buried the sage as he had asked, in ice and snow with his staff and smith's
tools beside him. They packed the snow atop the little crevasse where they had
lain him, stood to pause awhile in prayer, then reluctantly turned away and set
their faces toward the south.

“You
must lead us now, warrior,” Yocote said, but Culaehra shook his head, his face
dark, eyes downcast, “I am still too full of grief, O Shaman.”

So
it was Kitishane who took his hand and Kitishane who led them out of that
lifeless land, south and east into the mountains, where evergreens grew and
where, after days of travel, they found a land swept bare of snow, where grass
sprang new.

Chapter
22 me, hero, you must eat a little, at least.” Kitishane held the soup spoon up
to Culaehra's lips. “How will you slay Bolenkar for Illbane if you die of
starvation before you meet him?”

Culaehra
looked up at her, frowning and blinking, trying to puzzle out-the meaning of
her words. The whole world seemed darkened, and had for days, ever since they
had left Illbane's grave. Sounds came to him dimly, as if muffled in a
snowbank—the snow that mounded high on Illbane's grave. After a few minutes,
though, he managed to remember her words, then puzzle out their meaning. He
nodded, took the bowl from her, and sipped. She rewarded him with a bright
smile, then seemed disappointed that he did not return it.

She
was indeed disappointed. Sighing, she returned to the campfire and told Lua, “He
cannot love me if my smile will not pull him out of this morass of self-pity in
which he wallows.”

Lua
nodded agreement. “It seems he enjoys his sorrow more than your company.”

But
Yocote shook his head. “It is not self-pity, ladies, but only grief, though
very deep.”

Kitishane
frowned. “We are no ladies, Yocote, but only ordinary women of our own kinds.”

“No
longer,” Yocote contradicted. “You ceased to be ordinary when Illbane chose you
for Culaehra's companions.”

“Chose
us?” Kitishane stared.

“Well,
perhaps it was Rahani who chose you,” Yocote conceded, “but did you really
think it was accident that led you to Culaehra? I mistrust accidents of that
sort, ladies. A shaman learns that coincidence only seems accidental. And yes,
you are ladies, for your experiences have elevated you above the ordinary—or
will.”

Kitishane
frowned. “I do not feel special—or elevated!”

“Then
you are remarkable indeed,” Yocote said sourly, “for everyone feels themselves
to be special—or should. Anyone who does not has had her own picture of herself
crushed or debased—or is somewhat less than honest about her feelings.”