He took her hand and they stood together in the sunlit room smiling at each other, in the love that could only be when no door, however thin or partly ajar, intervened.
He might never see her again. He knew it, and so did she. The fires that would be awakened, a million times greater than any which had gone before—that Waking of the Serpent, to this a taper to the sun—such fires might overwhelm them. Ankabek had been the first sacrifice. Undemanded, unintended, yet now a facet. To die for this would not be required, yet it might come to be that one would die.
For, as he had believed in the beginning, it was to be a victory through passion. Except it was a different passion than the one he had taught himself to serve, with a sword and an angry heart.
As sleep settled more deeply, he relinquished Medaci’s hand, and she was softly gone.
He was on a golden barge then, winged by a solitary shining sail. It was his life, and he powered it by his will and sent it flying over the bright water toward morning.
Yannul the Lan, leaning on one elbow, saw his wife smile in her sleep. Sleeping, she looked so young, younger even than when he had met her. Then she spoke his name and her eyes opened.
“What is it?” he said.
“I dreamed of Lur Raldnor.”
“Was it a kind dream?” Superstition and a desire for her peace mingled in his words.
“Yes. Before—there was a shadow. I was afraid. But he was with me, he told me. Not only a dream, Yannul. Mind speech. We can be easy about him, now.”
“Good,” he said. Almost absently. He found that accepting an unvaried diet of supernatural things tired him. It had been the same with Raldnor of Sar, except that the tiredness had expressed itself in other ways, the ways of a young man.
Medaci was already asleep again. He lay back beside her, and watched the walls of the wagon change color as the dawn began to lift the sky.
He reminded himself it would be a Zorish dawn. They were inside the Zor, and had been so half a month, since getting down the mountain.
After the miracle, the manifestation of the Lannic Anackire—it was useless to pretend it was not a miracle or a manifestation—the Karmian soldiery had ridden off, plainly tranced. An avalanche then blocked the pass. One did not know if any of the Karmians had been killed or injured. It seemed they would not have been. The power of the goddess had been merciful this time, if quite ruthless.
The pass trembled as the rocks fell. Other rocks fell behind them. When the fume settled, when the psychic stupor wore off and the resultant insane rejoicing and hysteria were at last controlled, the Zorish girl Vashtuh stood shouting at them. Her dialect had become incomprehensible, they had to go and see for themselves before they found the way into the mountain, and so into the valley of the Zor, was now clear.
It was partly a cave, and partly a tunnel, man-hewn, maybe. On the far side the mountains cascaded down, hung at intervals with wild white curtains of water.
Their descent was not so simple. They lost a couple of men even here, and a goat later, for though there were occasional paths, they were treacherous. In that manner, the religious bravura wore off. They had unconsciously reckoned themselves invulnerable since the magic on the pass. But natural accidents could still happen, apparently.
Eventually, they got to the intermediary slopes of the valley. Even here, the magic faltered. It did not seem exactly as they had dreamed of it. Rain pelted and thunder rocked about the sky. They were very miserable, like children promised sweets and then shooed into the yard without supper.
Safca, with black-ringed, red-rimmed eyes, spoke encouragement, bullied and cajoled. She never gave up as they floundered and crawled through the first acres of mud and drenching. Though the legitimacy of her nobility had been in doubt at Olm, she seemed a veritable king’s daughter now, royal to her limits, and slightly mad. The girl Vashtuh, too, was full of savage pleasure at beholding her roots, so she went up and down the lines, wet as a fish, grinning. She said something to Yannul and he nodded politely. Only much later did he translate and understand and say to Medaci in bewilderment, “Vashtuh says the snow won’t fall here, only the rain does.”
They believed it presently when one morning the sky had grown dry and luminous, and they saw the heads of the mountains they had left behind thickly daubed with scintillant whiteness, and only the rain ponds on the ground. It seemed the valley ran very low, under the eastern snowline, cupped by its palisade of rock and granite, protected. They might drown but would not freeze.
That night, there were songs at the fires again.
They came to realize the dream they had all had was not a lie, but rather a sort of précis of the facts.
They did not see the river for some while, but before then they had come on the riches of the valley, the fruit yet heavy on the trees and bushes, the animals which roamed everywhere and would provide meat.
When the river did come in sight, there was something else, a stone town. It was Lannic-looking—like Amlan, though far smaller. There had been, until now, only cots, a couple of deserted villages overgrown by bare creepers and deep in rotted leaves. The town gave signs of occupancy.
Yannul wondered if the town was what had swelled in the stories to a city, but Vashtuh insisted not. Her mother had come from this place. The city lay northeast, beyond the river.
There were indeed people in the town, and some system of government, but rather resembling that of Elyr, mystic and mysterious. A group of black-haired men came and talked with them on the incline below the town. Vashtuh acted as interpreter, a necessity, for the dialect was well set in here. Beyond odd words and phrases, the men of the Zor and those of Lanelyr could not make sense of each other.
It transpired, nonetheless, that the Zor no longer counted itself a kingdom, merely the testament to one. Free Lan was welcome, although it was asked that they observe a space between any site they wished to mark out and the existing properties. Meanwhile, refuge in the town was available. There were a number of vacant domiciles, not completely incapable of sheltering them; or the houses of those now absent might be utilized, though with respect for the owners, as was their custom. The produce of the valley was for all.
Plainly, the Zor did not quite trust them, nor they the Zor, but proprieties were maintained, sympathy existed and might expand. The Free Lans, who had watched Karmiss march in and manhandle them, were but too aware of how an influx of foreigners could be viewed. They took care to be amenable and just.
The first night, a percentage were entertained by Vashtuh, who had reclaimed a tumbling house on a slaty outcrop teetering over the river. This had been her family’s dwelling; there were others who had joint claim to it also, uncles and cousins her mother had mentioned, out traveling the valley or the world beyond, who might come back at any time. A long stone table, scrubbed by Vashtuh for her guests, was also laid with five unoccupied places—at each an ivory knife unearthed from a chest, a candle, a stone cup lovingly polished by hundreds of fingers and lips—for those who might momentarily return. This was the custom of the Zor, and though there had been similar traditions in Lan, never had one felt the precipitance of possible arrival so strongly.
Free Lan would settle by the river, there was no argument on this. In summer, maybe, there would be other imperatives, to seek another venue, to leave the valley again and reconnoiter the outer landscape. But they had traveled a great distance. They had achieved liberty and a fair measure of hope for survival. For now it was enough.
“But I,” said Safca, “must go on to the city.”
The Lans listened with deference. Safca was their priestess, she had been the spark for their revolt at Olm, the focus for Anackire on the mountain pass, turning aside their enemies, opening the gate into the Zor. They did not want her to leave them, and if she commanded it they too would feel obliged to go on. She did not, however, command. She expressed her own need, and asked who would accompany her.