A dawn wind arose, rippling across the lake, to send waves lapping about these age-old standing pillars which the quiet fisherfolk of Anakue had discovered untold years ago and put to use as supports for their water-protected homes.
My lord Kerovan and I had chanced upon many strange things both wondrous and terrible during our wanderings across this new world of ours—Arvon, the holder of secrets. The past troubled my mind as I watched the stars pale and dwindle in the east. From that east and north we had come, discovering a way down from those mountains now only a smudge of shadow against the sunrise-paling sky. I remembered that first morning after our struggle against the Dark Lord, Galkur, when we stood together on the slopes of those distant heights, looking out upon a land that seemed, after the frost-seared stretches of the Dales and the desolation of the Waste, to be a blurred tapestry of gold and scarlet, vivid against a backing of tall evergreen forests.
Then my lord and I had been near drunk with that beauty, feeling still the exultation of those who treasure life doubly because they have lately faced its ending. My mind filled with a heart-raising warmth, my cheeks flushed as I remembered well that first night together after our victory, when Kerovan became my lord in truth. Though the mountainside had been cold, our heat of body and spirit filled the world… our new world, this Arvon.
A fair land, truly, for the most part. Yet there were ancient pitfalls aplenty, to trap the unwary, that we had also learned during these past three years of wandering… of our wandering without end, for it seemed that nowhere was there a place we might claim for our own. Though we had found temporary dwellings among several peoples such as these simple, kindly fishers, always there was something within my lord which grew restless, pushing him on, so we would take to the road again.
The baby in my arms stirred, recalling me, with a start, to the here and now. He opened a tiny mouth in that reddened face, still molded by the stresses of birthing, to squeak, uttering a small mouse-sound.
Sun began to finger the lake, staining the water with crimson glory. I held the child up to the window so those rays might touch his thatch of dark hair. “Your first sunrise, small one. What do you think?” He blinked sleepily at me, unimpressed.
“Utia’s waking, Lady Joisan.” I turned, to see Zwyie,
Anakue’s Wisewoman, spooning a strengthening cordial between the exhausted mother’s pale lips.
“How does she now?” I returned to the woman’s side, touched fingertips to her throat. The pulse I found was still fast, but stronger.
“Better, I think. She lost much blood, but I think she’ll strengthen after a few days. Tis a good thing both of us were here, Lady, or we might have lost her.”
I nodded tiredly. The baby had been a breech delivery, and nigh a month too early. I had been hurriedly summoned from one of the net-tenders who had run a hook into his hand, to discover Zwyie trying to calm Utia so she might determine how the child lay. It had taken every bit of healcraft I had learned from my aunt, Dame Math, as well as lore I had gained during our roving, to sing the labor-wracked woman into a relaxed state. We had worked together the rest of the night, mixing herbs and cordials, chanting, calling upon Blessed Gunnora’s help to give her strength. And Gunnora had been with us, for both mother and child survived.
Utia’s eyes opened. She was too weak to speak, but I guessed her desire. “The babe is well, Utia.” I knelt on the woven rush floor covering, holding forth the child that she might see that tiny wrinkled face. “You and Raney have a fine son.”
The woman’s pale lips curved into a tender smile as, with an effort, she raised her hand to touch the fuzzy darkness of the baby’s hair. I bit my lip as I laid the child beside her. There was a hidden emotion here which wakened in me a strange longing, akin to pain. My arms now felt empty of something far greater than just the light weight of a babe.
“Leave them now to peace, Lady.” Zwyie was beside me, although I had not heard her come. “You, too, must rest, eat…”
Numbly I went to the table, swallowed a few mouthfuls. The full weight of this night’s work seemed to settle on me. It was all I could do not to slump and sleep, my head on the board.
The morning sun was now well up, light shimmering brilliantly across the water. Through the door I could see all of Anakue plainly. Those pillars with their wooden houses atop, the spidery bridges linking one to the next… all but the one that stood a little apart. That house was reserved by custom for the Wisewoman of the village. Until my lord and I had come to Anakue—nearly a year past—Zwyie had lived there alone. She had given us lodging in her loft. Our chamber was small, but after months on the trail, living on the open land in all weathers, trading what skills we had between us for a night’s lodging here, a meal there, it had become the first real home I had known since the Hounds of Alizon had stormed Ithkrypt’s now-shattered walls. I had wistfully dreamed of perhaps building a house of our own on the lake’s shore, near the smokehouse where each day’s catch was brought for preserving. If only my lord…
“How does he, Lady Joisan?” Zwyie might well have followed my thoughts, though between us was no true mindspeech, such as my lord and I sometimes shared. Still, all those who work within the Craft are conscious of much that cannot be seen, touched, smelt, or tasted by ordinary senses. And Zwyie and I had become close—I thought of her perhaps as an older sister, though I had never had one…
I looked up to face her dark blue eyes, beautiful and long-lashed in an otherwise broad, plain countenance. “The… dreams come oftener these days. Then, when he wakes, he is… overcast… his features altered a fraction, as though another dwelt in him…”
“Shadowed? You mean the Dark?”
“I do not think so… No! He is not so cursed; but after these dreams, he will not speak aloud of what troubles him. His mind is closed to me also. Each time he awakes, he searches out his weapons to clean, oil, polish… as though what has plagued him during sleep can be met and conquered by steel.”
“Steel… cold iron is a defense against some forms of the Shadow. The land hereabouts harbors many who embrace the Dark. That is why Anakue stands surrounded by running water—which is also a defense, since evil cannot cross it.”
“That I well know. What I cling to is the talisman he wears—that wristband of the Old Ones. So far it does not warn. And my ring remains unchanged.” I looked down at the cat’s-head ring I had found in a manor once occupied by Old Ones—those, I was sure, of the Light. Rainbow prisms flashed across its surface, as the rose-gold color of it mirrored the newly risen sun.
“Look ever to the ring, Lady. As long as it holds life, all will be well, though you may have cause to fear that it is not so.”
The Wisewoman took from her belt a tiny pouch made of dried fish-skin, darkened with age. “I have not done this in long and long, but… reach within with your left forefinger; stir these.”
Wondering, I cautiously dipped the finger into the pouch, felt therein many tiny sharp objects. I stirred them, felt one prick my flesh, so withdrew my hand hurriedly. A red drop stood out clearly on my skin.
“Good, blood always strengthens the bespelling. Now…” Zwyie upended the bag on the tabletop. The contents scattered across the sanded surface. Peering closer, I saw tiny fishbones. The Wisewoman studied the wide-flung pattern, then spoke with a lilt close to a chant. Her voice was so low I had to strain my ears to hear.
“From the mountains a shadow reaches forth… fell dark, bound by a spell grown old. You shall journey, and you shall find, a home of ancient wisdom, a place of ancient evil… What are now two shall be three… and then six, to face that not of earth… Reach within, then without for strength…” Zwyie’s voice trailed away as she looked at me, her eyes once more direct. “Beware, Lady Joisan. Your future is indeed Shadowed, and I can see no more clearly. But this I know—you walk in step with great danger.”