However, he yielded to Aufrica, that I had my time with her. We quested into the hills for herbs, and for her to show me certain places of the Old Ones and relay to me the rituals and ceremonies which must be observed at phases of the moon should it be desired.
I saw the star-walled place where my mother had wrought her High Moon Magic, but that we never ventured in. Though we brought harvests from about the walls.
I had seen many times the cup my mother had brought from that final sorcery. Aufrica kept it among her most precious things, never touching it with her bare hands, but always with a square of green-blue stuff she valued highly. It was silver in color, that cup, but also other colors ran across its surface when it was turned this way or that.
“Dragon scales,” Aufrica told me. “This is dragon scale silver. I had heard of it in old legends, but never did I see it before the dragon fire itself wrought this at the Lady’s bidding. It is thing of very great power; guard it well.”
“You speak as if it is mine—” I marveled at the cup, for it was a thing of such beauty as one might see only once in a lifetime.
“Yours it is when there is time and need. It is bound to you and to Elyn. But only you, being what you are, can make use of it.” Nor did she say more then.
I have spoken of Aufrica who was very close to me, and of my father, who walked, talked, and lived as if a thin sheet of some invisible armor cut him away from the rest of mankind. But I have not spoken of Elyn.
We were born at one birth, yet we were not close copies of one another. Only in our faces and persons was that so. Our interests were never the same. He loved action, swordplay, and he chafed at the narrow life of Wark. He was reckless and often disciplined by my father for leading other boys into trouble or danger. And he used to stand outside at times, staring at the hills with such longing in his eyes that he seemed a hawk in chains.
I found my freedom inwardly, he wanted his outwardly. He had impatience for Aufrica’s teachings. And as he grew he spoke more often of Jurby, of going there to take service with a Dales lord.
That my father would have had to let him go at last we knew. But in the end war answered that for us. For in the Year of the Fire Troll the invaders came to High Hallack.
They were seaborne, and, when my father heard of their raids upon the coast keeps and towns, his mouth set hard. For it seemed that they were enemies long known to his own people. He put aside those moods of other-being when he walked apart and one night he spoke to us and Aufrica with the determination of a man who had decided upon a course and would not be turned from it.
He would go to the Lord of Vestdale and offer his sword—and more than his sword, for knowing this enemy of old, he had that to offer which could prepare resistance the better. Looking upon his face we knew that nothing we might say or do could turn him from this course.
Elyn then arose and said if my father would go, then he also as squire. And his determination was as set and stern—their faces alike, one to the other, in that moment as if one was the mirrored reflection of the other.
But my father won that battle of wills, saying that Elyn’s duty was to me and to Aufrica for the present But he swore a binding oath that he would send for Elyn later, so his authority held.
However, my father did not depart at once; rather, he wrought in the smithy day and night. But first he went into the hills with a pack pony. When he returned his animal was heavily laden with lumps of metal which might have once been worked and then congealed into these masses.
From these he wrought, Kaleb aiding him, two swords and two shirts of fine and supple chain mail. One of these he gave to Elyn, the other he brought to me. When he laid it down he spoke as one who would have his words heeded, to be remembered in days to come.
“I do not have the gift of foreseeing that she had”—seldom did he mention my mother, and then never by name—she might have been some great lady he held in reverence and awe. “But I have dreamed, and of my dreams has come this—that there lies before you some venture in which you must go girt with more than your strong spirit and courage, my daughter. Though I have not treated you as a maid—yet—”
It seemed that words failed him. He stroked the mail shirt as if it were silk, nor did he look directly at me, but turned sharply and went before I could speak. And in the next dawn he took the hill path to Vestdale. Nor did we ever see him again.
The Year of the Fire Troll passed, and as yet we dwelt safe in our small clift pocket, we of Wark. But Omund made no year-end voyage to Jurby, for a small band of hard-used folk came over the hills to tell us Jurby had fallen to the enemy in a single night of red wrack and ravage. And that Vestdale Keep was now besieged.
The villagers met and tried to plan. They had always lived by the sea, yet it seemed now that the sea might be their bane and to flee inland meant safety. The younger men, and those without strong family ties, spoke to make a stand where we were. But others thought it better to abandon the village and return later if no invasion came nigh.
Tales of the refugees swung the day, for those hearing their accounts of the red ruin the raiders left urged retreat, and that decision won.
During all debate my brother listened but did not speak. I read in his face that he had made his own decision. So when we went back to the house I faced him and said:
“There comes a time when one can no longer keep sword in sheath. If you would go—go with our blessing of good fortune. You have served your time here; be sure we shall have safety on our side when we take to the hills, for who knows their secrets better than Aufrica and I?”
For a long moment he was silent and then he looked at me straightly.
“There is bred in me that which I must answer, for a year I have been trapped here. Yet I was promise-bound.”
I went to Aufrica’s cupboard, and she, sitting on a stool by the fire and watching, said not a word. What I brought forth was the dragon cup of our heritage. When I set it on the table between us I let fall the wrapping and set my two hands boldly about the cool curve of its sides. So I held it for the space of a few breaths.
Then Aufrica arose in turn and brought from her stores a bottle of herb brew I had never seen her open before. She drew its stopper with her teeth, keeping both hands about it as if she feared she might drop or spill what she carried. Into the cup she poured a thick golden liquid, and a spicy odor filled the room, carrying with it the plentiful ripeness of a good harvest, the slumberous fullness of early autumn.
Halfway she filled the cup as I held it; then she drew back, leaving Elyn and me facing each other across it. I loosed my hold, reached out, catching his hands, drawing them to the smooth silver.
“Drink,” I told him, “half of this, drink. For it is the cup we must share before we part.”
Without question he raised it two-handed, and did not set it down again until he had swallowed half the potion. Then I took it in turn and finished what was left.
“While we are parted,” I told him, “I shall read your fate in this. For while the silver remains clear as you now see it, then all is well. But if it clouds—”
He did not let me finish. “These are times of war, sister. No man walks safely forever.”
“True. Yet sometimes ill can be turned to well.”
Elyn made an impatient gesture. Never had he taken any interest in wise knowledge. It was as if he deemed such of little value. Still we had never brought this difference into words. Nor did we now.
Rather I put away the cup and worked with Aufrica preparing what he must take with him, covers to sleep warm in on the trail, food and drink, as well as a wallet of healing herbs. And, like my father, he went.
But those of Wark left also. Some of the younger men followed my brother like an ill-drilled menie. For he was, in spite of his youth, a leader amongst them in his knowledge of arms. The rest of us barred the doors of our houses, loaded our pack ponies, and took to the hills.