Chapter Five
My breath stopped when I glimpsed the still form sprawled on the grass under the eaves of the forest. Stars of night, was he dead? I sped across the meadow and dropped to my knees beside the body, but I had scarcely noted that he was breathing, when I found myself face down with my arms pinned painfully behind my back, my nose in the grass, and not a breath left in my lungs.
“A blight on your thick head,” I said, gasping. “It’s only me and a friend.”
At my first word, Aeren released me. By the time I dragged myself to my knees and reassured myself that neither arms nor neck were broken, he stood ten paces away, taut, wary, and watching Jacopo limp toward us across the meadow.
“Demons! The rascal didn’t hurt you?” Jaco no longer leaned on the sturdy length of hickory but brandished it as if it were an Isker scimitar.
I crept across the grass and leaned my back against a tree, rubbing my shoulder and neck and brushing the leaves and dirt from my skirt. “I’m all right. Just a second layer of bruises. He’s just a bit testy, as the man said.”
“He’s been trained to fight, no doubt of that. Quick and smooth. Strong, too, I’ll be bound.” Jacopo peered closely at my neck. “Sword of Annadis, what’s he done to you?”
“Ouch!” The old sailor was a ham-handed nursemaid.
Before Jacopo could apologize, Aeren grabbed his collar and shoved the old man away so forcefully that Jaco crashed into the dead lower branches of a pine tree. When the young man dropped to his knees beside me and reached for my neck, I flinched. But to my surprise, his fingers brushed my skin quite gently. His brow was creased, as if he couldn’t understand how the marks had come about.
“I’ll live,” I said, trying to calm the situation before he got more agitated. “We startled you.”
His frown deepened, and he moved in closer, his bulk pressing me against the tree as he tugged at the tie that would loosen the gathered neck of my shift.
“Get away from me.”
With an ungentle hand to his chest, I squirmed out from between him and the tree. But he removed my hand and moved closer again, yanking the cloth down to bare my entire throat.
With a stiff forearm I knocked his hand aside, while with the other hand, I reached through my pocket, drew my knife, and pointed it at his belly. I knew where to hurt a man, and I knew how to talk to a brute, whether he spoke the same language or not. “Get. Away. From. Me.”
Face a deep scarlet, he let go of my clothes. Then, baring his teeth, he grabbed my forearm and twisted it until the knife dropped to the ground. For a moment I thought he might break my wrist or snatch up the weapon and turn it on me. But instead, he shoved me to the ground and strolled toward the stream.
Jacopo gave me a hand up, stood close by my shoulder, and raised his stick to Aeren’s back. “May the good god Jerrat drown you, you filthy devil.”
“Let it go, Jaco.”
No point in letting things get out of hand. I retrieved my dagger and sheathed it. By rights, I should be dead.
“Aeren.” I called after him several times. Only when he faced me did I lay my hand on Jacopo’s shoulder. “This is my friend Jacopo from Dunfarrie. Jaco, this is Lord Aeren of somewhere.”
Jaco’s grudging bow was less than gentlemanly.
Aeren ignored both Jacopo and good manners. With a sour expression, he gestured to his stomach and his mouth and pointed down to the cottage.
“I’ve better things to do, Your Pomposity. Time to fend for yourself a bit.” I rummaged amid the eggs and butter in my pack and pulled out a well-bruised wild plum, left from my morning on Poacher’s Ridge. I threw the plum at Aeren. Hard.
He caught it in one hand, deftly enough to prevent the soft fruit from splattering on him. As he bit into it, I’d have sworn one corner of his mouth twitched in amusement. Smug little bastard.
I moved a few steps closer and tossed the clothes bundle at his feet. Once he had finished the plum and flipped the stem into the weeds, he squatted down beside the pile and, one by one, lifted the items by the tip of one finger. He examined each carefully, then gave me such a look of scornful disbelief that, despite all my annoyance, I could do nothing but burst out laughing. It seemed like a century since I’d laughed, and finding myself doing so at an unpleasant brute of a man who had come near throttling me twice within a week was strange indeed. Aeren flushed, snatched the bundle of clothes and disappeared behind a tree.
“If ever I’ve seen a spoiled lording, it has to be this one,” I said, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. “Did you see his nose turn up? I’ve nursed him until I’m exhausted and full of splinters from sleeping on the floor, I’ve fed him half my food stocks, so that I’ll be doing well to have a meal next week, and here he sits in Anne’s old sheet and disdains something a hundred times better. I just don’t think he’s some common riverman, wrecked on the Snags.”
“No half-wit groom, neither.” Jacopo fingered his own knife and did not laugh with me. “He’s a killer, Seri. Never saw a man with such moves who wasn’t, whether lowborn or high. And I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
I clasped my hands about my knees and leaned back against the tree. “On that we are in complete agreement.”
A short time later Aeren emerged from the wood dressed in Jacopo’s gifts. He picked at the rough cloth uncomfortably, like a small boy dressed in his first stiff-collared suit.
“I sympathize,” I said. “I can’t say I prefer kersey or russet to silk.”
“Do you think he understands what you say?” said Jacopo, as Aeren snatched my pack and rummaged through it, dropping it with an annoyed grunt when he found nothing of interest. Raking me with a glare, the young man strode across the field toward the cottage.
“Most likely not, but I’m less likely to take an ax to him if I say what I think.” If he had broken my eggs, I was going to kill him.
“He looks older than you said.”
Aeren soon returned, tearing at a hunk of the chewy hearthbread as a hunting dog tears at a doe. He did look more nearer thirty than twenty. I had always considered myself a keen observer of such things. Perhaps it was his illness had changed him or the afternoon sunlight, revealing what forest shadows, soft mornings, and lamplight had hidden.
“Show him the dagger, Jaco.”
“That might not be so clever.”
“As you said, a knife is no more dangerous than his hands if he’s of a mind to make away with us.” But somehow … Twice in the past hour I’d seen his rage surge. Twice, I had seen it quelled. Perhaps I was getting cocky.
Jacopo tossed the bundle on the ground in between us and nudged the dirty wrappings open with his stick. Immediately fascinated, Aeren picked up the weapon, thumbed the steel blade’s edge, and ran his fingers slowly over its shining length, examining it curiously, especially the device on the hilt. Yet he registered no sign of recognition.
The knife’s heft and balance were pleasing to him, though, and he snatched up the sheath and fastened it to his cloth belt. I didn’t particularly like the idea but wasn’t going to argue. I wasn’t afraid of him. Ten years had gone since I was truly afraid. What could anyone do to hurt me?
“Come on,” I said, scrambling to my feet, “let’s take a look at where Paulo found the knife. Maybe Aeren got in a fight there, got whacked on the head or something. Seeing the place might force him to remember where he came from or where he was going. I want him gone by nightfall.”
The sun was starting its westward slide as the three of us set out on the trail to the spring. The grassy hillsides were brushed with gold. I showed Jaco where I’d first encountered Aeren, and where the hunters had ridden through, and I tried to get Aeren to show us which way he had come down the hill. He was unsure, but as we wandered up higher, beyond the boundary of the woodland, his steps slowed. His eyes darted about, the lines of his face drawn tight, his fists clenching and unclenching.
“A little farther,” I said, urging him up the hill.
A cool, rock-lined grotto taller than a man split the side of the hill near the ridge top. Poacher’s Creek had its source in a spring at the base of the smooth boulders. The clear, blue-green pool spilled over moss-covered stones and carved its way down the sunny hillside into the dark line of the trees.
Jacopo and I searched the soft ground for tracks or any sign that something unusual had gone on in the place. The only thing I found was a rusty ladle thrown into the pool, probably the offering of some drought-blighted farmer hoping to appease a local water spirit. Despite the templars’ best efforts to stamp out all remnants of any gods but Annadis and Jerrat, a few stubborn, desperate people persisted in their superstitions.
After a fruitless half hour, I flopped down on a rock in the shade, discouraged. “There’s nothing here. Perhaps Aeren is exactly the thief Darzid claims.”
Jacopo sagged onto the rock beside me, mopping his brow. “It would help if I knew what we were looking for.”
“Enough is enough, Jaco. We’ll give him some food, point him toward Montevial, and let him take his chances. He’s certainly not defenseless, and if he sells the knife, he can keep himself far better than you or me.”
Aeren wandered about the hillside restlessly, frustration shadowing his handsome features. He had drawn the silver dagger, and every few steps he would stop and glare at it, until at last, with an explosive croak that was the only expletive he could manage, he threw it at the boulder that sheltered the pool.
The dagger embedded itself to the hilt in the smooth and unbroken rock face, heeding its impenetrable solidity no more than if it had been a loaf of bread.
“Demons of the deep!” Jacopo jerked backward as if struck in the head.
I thought my heart had stopped. Every nerve in my body quivered with the charge that lingered in the air. Enchantment! It was like the fleeting embrace of lightning, or the kiss of fire’s breath on frozen flesh, or a moment’s memory of passion that stands every hair on its end, flushing the skin with exotic sensation. Ten years since I’d felt the like—almost fifteen since the first time, the day my life changed forever.
“Aeren, who are you?”
The young man was furiously launching rocks down the hillside, not seeing what he had done and not hearing my urgent question. With a deep inhale, I went to take a closer look at the knife.
Jacopo croaked, “Don’t touch it! Demonfire, Seri. There’s no crack there, no opening.”
“It’s all right, Jaco.”
But it was not all right. My eyes had not deceived me. The blade was firmly embedded in solid rock.
“Aeren,” I called again. Twice more before he noticed.
Flushed and agitated, he dropped his stones and joined me at the spring. I showed him how the knife was stuck, and he shrugged his shoulders. No guilt. No fear. No surprise. He yanked the blade from the stone and returned it to the sheath at his waist. No mark, slot, or chip marred the granite rock face, and the weapon itself was neither scratched nor bent.
As I stared at the uncompromising evidence, the wind rose. Trees thrashed and shadows raced over the ridge top, draining the warmth from the wavering sunlight. I shivered with the sudden chill. Afternoon storms were typical in summer, though drought had kept them rare in the past four years. Shock must have unsettled me, though, as I kept looking over my shoulder and scanning the horizon, expecting … something.
Even stranger, although the sun’s disk hung just over the hilltop, and the afternoon sky was unmarred by haze or cloud, neither our bodies or the granite outcrop cast a shadow. “What the—?”
Before I could finish my question, Aeren grabbed my arm and Jacopo’s and dragged us down the slope toward the trees, shoving us roughly into the thick brush. He’d no need to motion us to silence. He threw himself over the two of us, reducing the entire physical substance of the world to the dusty twigs beside my nose and his solid body pressing me into the thicket.
Time twisted in a knot and turned in upon itself. Mortal dread seeped into my bones. It took all my self-discipline not to whimper. The wind stank of smoke and ash—the scent of soul-searing desolation. Unholiness. Violation. Exactly as it had on the day I’d found Aeren in the wood.
Only when the weights lifted from my spirit and then from my back, did I know the shadow was gone. Aeren stood tall, pivoting slowly, peering in every direction.
A beam of sunlight, piercing the forest roof, stung my eyes. The air smelled properly of hot pine needles and dry leaves, and a jay’s raucous chattering roused the other birds. Jacopo scrambled up, clutching his stick and my arm as one.
“What madness is this, Seri?” he croaked. I had never heard Jacopo afraid.
“Don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”
We followed Aeren through the wood to the edge of meadow, where he paused and studied the landscape. “What was that?” I whispered. “More sorcery? Not yours, though.”
Naturally, he ignored my questions, but urged us down the trail toward the cottage while casting frequent glances over his shoulder toward wood and the ridge top. I’d no mind to argue with him. Whatever we had experienced, I wanted no more of it. He herded Jaco and me through the door and signaled me to close both door and shutters. He remained outside.
Jaco and I did as he said and then huddled together in a corner, not daring to speak. Aeren’s footsteps circled the cottage, wandered elsewhere, made another circle. And another. An hour passed. Bright sunlight shone through the cracks in the shutters.
We had witnessed an act of sorcery, so I believed and Jaco feared. How was that possible? Karon had believed that he and his unborn child had been the last sorcerers on the earth.
By the time Aeren’s latest circuit of the cottage ended with his walking into the cottage, the memory of the fear that had sent us running had faded, a lingering revulsion like the taste of spoilt milk. What had really happened besides a cloud passing over the sun?
The question of Aeren himself had twisted my head in knots. One language I had not tried with him. I knew only a few words and had believed no one still living in the world could understand them.
“Aeren, J’Ettanne ý disé?”
Though he shook his head, his face came alive in a way I’d not yet seen. I tried a few more phrases, and he recognized some, but not all, as if this was a language of which he, too, knew only fragments. Did he mean that he was not one of the J’Ettanne or that he didn’t know? I couldn’t seem to make my question clear.
One more thing to try. I formed a question in my mind with absolute clarity, sweeping aside every other thought and concern until the words stood alone like stone pillars in a desert. Then I took Aeren’s hand and laid it on my temple, inviting him, with the gesture Karon had taught me, to read what was inside.
Aeren yanked his hand away and shook his head angrily, then rapped his clenched fist rapidly against his brow. He knew exactly what I meant, but either would not or could not read the thoughts I offered him.
I could hardly contain my excitement. Excitement—how strange it was. I should be terrified. No one could get wind of this, or all of our lives would be forfeit: Aeren’s, mine, Jaco’s.
The old sailor sat on Jonah’s bench outside the cottage door, staring at the horizon, his wide hands braced stiffly on his knees. I hurried to his side and laid my hand over his gnarled fingers. His skin was cold.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’d never have gotten you involved if I’d suspected this.”
“Can his sorcery truly take our souls? Was that what he was doing up there? Evil, Seri. I’ve never felt such evil.”
“The first part with the knife. Think about it. You were shocked, but amazed, too. Prickly and alive in an unfamiliar way, but not evil. That was sorcery. Yes. But what came later, what made him shelter us—the stink, the feeling of snakes slithering up your back—I’ve no idea what that was. It was wholly outside my experience. I swear to you, Jaco, by our long friendship, by everything we’ve meant to each other, sorcery of itself is not evil. And though Aeren is surely dangerous—wild, half-mad, maybe—I don’t believe he means us any harm. I think he saved us from whatever that was.”
A sorcerer, one of Karon’s people. How in the name of all gods had he happened to come to Poacher’s Ridge?
“I’m just not sure about what to do with him, Jaco.”
“They’ll arrest you if they find out, little girl. They’ll finish what they started. You can’t let him stay.”
“What they’d do to me is not half what they’d do to him, and the way he is, he wouldn’t even know why.”
Aeren roamed restlessly across the evening meadow, back and forth as if searching for his own explanation for his presence here. I caught up with him, determined to get answers.
“What was up there?” I gestured toward the hilltop.
He picked two blades of grass, one green and healthy, one brown and withered. Holding the green blade in the fingers of one hand, he passed his other palm over it, leaving only the withered blade exposed. That was clear enough. When he pointed to the trees and the cottage and folded his arms over his head, I gathered that such were places to hide. When I pressed him further, he shrugged incomprehension.
Aeren had demonstrated no sense that there was anything unusual about what he had done, so he could have no understanding of the dreadful consequences if others saw such things. It was the shadows and stench that had worried him. Which meant I had to teach him the difference between sorcery and other actions.
I persuaded him to follow me to the stream. Taking a large rock from the stream, I demonstrated that I could not make my own knife penetrate the stone. Nor could Jaco.
He was surprised. Stars in the heavens, where had he been living? When I handed him the rock and my knife, and indicated that I wanted him to try it, he looked puzzled. But with a shrug, he stabbed my knife into the rock with no more effort than if it were a lump of cheese.
The air shimmered with unseen lightning. Unmistakable. Though prepared for it, my heart crashed against my ribs. I took Aeren’s hand and made him look at me. “Sorcery,” I said.
He frowned and gestured for another word. Karon’s language had no simple word for sorcery. It had been no more necessary than for other men to have a word for what it is that makes them get up in the morning, set one foot in front of the other, or inhale and exhale. So I pointed to the rock and said its name, and I pointed to the knife and did likewise, but I pointed to them joined and said, “Sorcery.”
What else could he do? He was not a Healer; I would have seen the scars. Karon had borne so many. Lifegiver, his people had called him. I dragged Aeren to the garden and showed him the bean vines that had wilted in the heat.
“Can you make them grow?” I asked, miming my words as I spoke. “Make them healthy like the rest?”
He thought what I wanted was ridiculous, but I insisted that he show me. He brushed his fingers over the plant, touching leaves and stem gently. A few of the leaves took on a deeper green, and for a short distance the vine became thicker, but most of the plant remained limp and withered. After only a short time he ripped the vine out by the roots, threw it down, and ground it beneath his sandaled foot.
“It’s all right,” I said, trying to remain calm and keep him the same. I retrieved the vine and pointed to the leaves he had changed, saying again, “Sorcery.”
That piqued his curiosity. With his eyes narrowed, he bade me come to the fire ring in the dirt near the cottage. He piled up tinder and kindling in the ring of blackened stones, and then he blew softly across his palm and passed his hand over the little mound, staring at it intently. After a few moments, a smoky tendril curled upward, and then another joined it, and another until my skin shivered and a tiny flame poked its head above the dry stuff. Though the flame went out almost immediately, Aeren looked satisfied and gestured to me that he wanted the word.
“Sorcery,” I said, and he smiled with a brilliance that dimmed the day.
So the first hurdle was done. He knew what kind of things were sorcery. Evidently, he wasn’t very good at it, and that accounted for some of his anger. Now to convince him that he mustn’t do any more of it.
As I tried to explain, he acted puzzled, like a child suddenly told not to walk after being so praised for the accomplishment.
Poor Jacopo watched all these activities uncomfortably. Though they had known the crimes of which I had been accused, I had never discussed sorcery with Jacopo, Anne, or Jonah. Why distress them? I had fought my battles and lost.
For the last ten years I had believed that human beings were the most despicable of creatures, vile, murderous hypocrites, who would slaughter their own. Even the J’Ettanne, the sorcerers who so piously celebrated life, had taught their children that their destiny was to die, refusing to lift their hands to stop it.
I was as bad as the rest of them, manipulating others, endangering lives to survive on my own terms. For all these years I’d cared nothing for anyone; I’d not cross a road to save a life.
But on this strange evening, I pressed a mug of ale into my only friend’s hand and told him that my curiosity and my hatred were going to put him in mortal danger. I was going to step back into the battle I had abandoned.
“Jaco,” I said, my cheeks hot, my limbs so light they might have belonged to someone else entirely. “I’ve decided what to do next. I’m going to find this man who’s searching for Aeren. You can walk away now. I will still love you forever and keep you safe by never coming back.”
“No! I could never—”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “Before you choose, I’ve got to tell you who I really am and why I have to do this.”
Jaco nodded, serious. “Start talking, then. Meanwhile, I’ll scrounge your larder and make supper. It’s long past time.”
I owed the J’Ettanne nothing, but Aeren was a sorcerer and Darzid was hunting him. I would kill Aeren myself before I allowed Evard to burn another man alive.