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 tune 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 everseeking. 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-flay 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.