“The choice is yours,” Neevor repeated. And I knew he would give no advice.
My duty in Ulmsdale was part of my training. If I turned my back now upon my father’s land, made no attempt to save those dwelling in it from disaster, either by enemy hand or the spells of that witch and her brood, then I would be traitor to all bred in me.
“I am my father’s heir. I cannot turn my back upon his people. Nor do I take part in their witchery. There may be those to follow me – “
He shook his head. “Try not to build a wall out of shifting sand, Kerovan. That Dark biding within the walls of Ulmskeep has spread. No armsman will rise to your summons.”
I did not doubt that he knew exactly what he said. There was that about Neevor which carried full belief. So – it must be Ithkrypt after all. At least I would find shelter there from which to gather men and support. Also I must send a message to Lord Imgry.
Neevor thrust his wand-staff through his belt. Then he turned to his led pony, tumbling from its back the small pack that had been lashed there.
“Hiku is no battle charger, but he is sure-footed in the hills. Take him, Kerovan, with the Fourth Blessing.” Once more he reached for his wand and with it he tapped me lightly on the forehead, right shoulder, left, and over my heart.
Straightway then, I had the feeling my decision had pleased him. Yet I also knew that I could not be sure it was the right one. For it was laid upon me that I must choose my own road for myself and not by the advice of another.
I had forgotten my bare hoofs, but now as I moved toward the pony, my boots swung against my thigh and I caught at them. As I loosened them from my belt, ready to draw them on again, I had a strong revulsion against hiding my deformity – or was it so? It was a difference, yes, but what I had seen in my father’s chamber this night, a deformity of spirit, seemed to me the greater evil.
No, I was done with hiding. If Joisan and her kind turned from me in disgust, then I was free of them. I hurled the boots from me, holding to that sense of freedom I had had since I shed them.
“Well done,” Neevor said. “Be yourself, Kerovan, not ruled by the belief that one man must be like another. I have hopes for you after all.”
Deliberately he urged the second pony on a few paces and then, standing with one hand on its shoulder, he drew a circle on the earth around the animal and himself. Following the point of his wand there sprang up a thin, bluish haze. As he completed the encirclement, it thickened to hide both man and beast. As I watched, it faded, but I was not surprised to see that its going disclosed emptiness – that the trader and his mount were gone.
I had guessed that he was one of the Old Ones. And that he had come to me was not by any chance. But he left me much to think on. Half-blood was I then, having kinship to the mysterious forelords in this land? I was a tool of my mother’s desiring, though not to her purpose – yes, so much he told me fitted with the facts I knew and answered many questions.
I clung to the human part of me now: the fact that I was in truth Ulric’s son, no matter what that sorceress had done to set it awry. That thought I cherished. For in death my father had come closer and dearer to me than ever he had been in life. Ulmsdale had been his. Therefore I would do what I could to see it safe, which meant I must ride for Ithkrypt.
I could not even be sure that the pony was of the natural order of beasts, seeing by whose hand he had come to me. But he seemed to be exactly like any other of his breed. He was sure-footed. Still there were stretches where I must go afoot and lead him.
By dawn I was well into the heights. As I made a rough camp, I lifted off my gift-mount something Neevor had not removed along with the pack, a stout hide bag. In it was a water bottle of lamantine wood. But it did not contain water, rather a white drink that was more refreshing and wanning than any wine I had ever tasted. There was also a round box of the same wood with a tightly fitting cover. I worked this off, to find inside journey cakes that had been so protected by their container they seemed fresh from the griddle. Nor were they the common sort, but had embedded in them bits of dried fruit and cured meat. One of them satisfied my hunger, as great as that now was, and the rest I kept for the future.
Though sleep tugged at my eyelids and my body demanded rest, I sat for a while in a niche between two rock teeth, thinking on all that had happened to me this night. My hoofed feet stretched before me. I studied them, trying to put myself in the place of one sighting them without warning. Perhaps I had been foolish to cast away my boots. No, in the same instant as that thought entered my mind, I rejected it. This I would do and so I would go – Joisan and her people must see me as I was and accept or deny me. There must be between us no untruths or half-truths, such as had filled my father’s house with a web of dark deceit and clung there now as a foul shadow.
I unlatched my belt-purse and for the first time in months brought out that case, deliberately opened it, and slid into my hand Joisan’s picture. A girl’s face, and one painted nearly two years ago. In that time we had both grown older, changed. What was she like, this maid with large eyes and hair the color of autumn leaves? Was she some subdued daughter-of-the-house, well-lessoned in the ways of women but ignorant of the world outside Ithkrypt’s stout walls? For the first time I began to think of her as a person, apart from the fact that by custom she was as much my possession as the sword at my belt, the mail on my back.
My knowledge of women was small. In the south I had listened to the boasting tales men tell around the campfires of any army. But I had added no experience of my own. I thought now that perhaps my mixed blood, my inheritance from the Old Ones, had marked me with more than hoofs; that it had set upon my needs and desires some barrier against the dale maids. If that was so, what would become of my union with Joisan?
I could break bride-oath, but to do such would be to lay a stain on her, and such a trick would be as evil as if I stood up before her assembled House and defamed her. That I could not do. But perhaps when we at last met face to face she would look upon me and make such a repudiation, and I would not gainsay it. Nor would I allow thereafter any dale-feud to come from my dismissal.
Yet at this moment when I looked upon her face in the dawn light, I wanted to see her, and I did not relish her breaking bride-oath with me. Why had I sent her the englobed gryphon? Almost during the past months I had forgotten that – but my interrupted journey to see Riwal brought it back to mind. What had lain so heavily on me then that I had sent that wonder to her, as if such a gift was necessary? I tried to picture it in my mind now – the crystal ball with its gryphon within, a warning claw raised –
But –
I was no longer looking at the dale below. I could no longer see the pony grazing. Rather I saw – her!
She was before me so clearly at that moment that I might have reached out and touched her skirt where she crouched. Her russet hair was in wild disorder over her shoulders, and through its straying strands I could see the gleam of mail. On her breast hung the gryphon, and it blazed with light. Her face was bruised, and there was fear in her eyes. Against her knee rested the head of a young man. His eyes were closed, and across his lips bubbled the froth of blood that marked a wound from which there was no healing. Her hand touched his forehead gently, and she watched him with a tenseness that meant his life or death had meaning for her. Perhaps this was farseeing, though I had only once bad such a gift or curse set upon me before. I knew that the face of the dying man was not mine, and her sorrow was for another. Perhaps therein lay my answer. Nor could I fault her if it was. For we were naught to each other but names. I had not even sent her the picture that had been her own asking from me.