Then into their prison of ancient magery the younger, less-skilled power came, fraying the barriers as if a caress from without were stronger than the many curses flung from within. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the barriers withered. And silently, cloaked in that magery which even defeat could not wrest from them, the blackrobed spies went by night to search out their deliverers.
“Surely they have been warned,” said their leader, when the first spy returned with his tale of mortal settlement. “Surely our noble cousins have told them—”
“No.” The spy smiled, a smile that should have been beautiful on such a face, but was not. “For pride the sinyi will not speak our name; they have tried to erase all memory of us in the old lands. And they resented this one’s ability to use the ancient patterns. He angered them.”
“Blessings on him.” The tone conveyed a curse instead. “And what did they say, those guardians of our . . . virtue?”
“Only that a great danger lay mired in this wilderness, which he would regret awakening.”
The flash of bared teeth among them passed for human; one of the others chuckled. “Oh, he will. He surely will.”
“Not yet,” said their leader. “Here we have leisure to purpose more than a hasty vengeance on our wardens. We can do much better, by Arranha’s aid. Think on it . . . these mortals will settle and multiply, will they? Let them prosper. Let them plant their filthy trees, and reap many crops of fine grain, all the while fattening like oxen, like swine, for our feasting. Leave them without fear—for now. Let their prince, who is too wise to heed warnings he does not understand, take pride in his wisdom. May he rule long, I say, for his fall will be sweeter. We are free now; we can wait and watch this feast in preparation.”
A murmur of delight, chilling in its intensity, followed his words.
“But there are hazards,” the spy warned. “An old priest of Esea—of the Light, alas—has keen wits. And two of the younger mortals—one of them a true healer—have met our kind before. Or suppose their prince dies before the feast is spread. They might all leave.”
Their leader laughed aloud. “You name hazards what I name treasures! The priest is old, you say: he will surely die before long. We are in no hurry. And they have a true healer, and a prince without the healing magery, a prince we would have live long in complacent prosperity . . . how fortunate for us. Here’s a web to tangle those lightfoot cousins of ours, a jest to sour their hearts and silence even the forest-lord at the end. One shall snare the other, and never suspect it. Indeed the Tangier will be pleased.”
“But we cannot approach the Winterhalclass="underline" that magery they did not touch, and it still holds strong against us.”
Their leader smiled, then looked at each face in turn, the companions of his long exile. “No matter. We have won, before ever battle be joined. Can you doubt that an unwary mortal, whatever human magery he may have, will fall to our enchantments? We need not enter the Winter-hall, when we hold its prince’s heart.”
Sunrise on Midwinter: Luap no longer shivered, having learned the bodily magery from Arranha. He stood, on the eastern end of the rock platform, looking southeast as rose light flushed the snow, as a high wing of cloud grew feathers of rose and gold, then bleached to whiteness as the sun flared, blinding. Behind him, the song rose up, the song he had vaguely remembered from earliest childhood, sung now by all his people. Not quite all, he corrected himself; all the ones here, the best of the workers of old magery. Deep voices, high voices, all in towering harmony that rang off the nearby cliffs, the echoes seeming answers from yet other choruses . . . his skin prickled. The words were nothing like the peasants’ short rhymed Midwinter chants; he could feel the longer flowing lines twining around each other, statement and response, question and answer, full of power as the singers themselves. “Sunlord, earthlord, father of many harvests . . .” echoed back from the facing cliffs, and behind him the choir sang of “springing waters shining in the sun. . . .”
He alone did not sing; he had sung the invocation in the Hall below, at Arranha’s direction, and now (also at Arranha’s direction) he stood silent, looking at the land, listening to his people, being—according to Arranha—the tip of the spear the first light touched, the one through whom the Sunlord would enlighten his people.
“If you are clear,” Arranha had also said, last night. “You must be clear, the crystal to gather the light and spread it abroad.”
He would be that crystal, he thought, banishing from his mind the faint doubt he had heard in Arranha’s voice. If Gird could become what he had become, if from peasant clay had come first that stone hammer to break the old lords’ rule, and then that . . . whatever it was . . . that he had become at the end, surely he, Luap, could be that clear crystal point Arranha spoke of.
Light speared from the sun’s rim, just clearing the distant mountain. He squinted only slightly. Take it in, Arranha had said. Fear nothing light; the god cannot darken your sight; only you can darken the god’s light. Fine, but a lifetime’s experience made squinting easy. Gird’s voice, it seemed, came into his head with the thud of worn boots on hard-packed earth. Easy? And who said leadership’s easy, lad?
He forced his eyes wide, and felt that his head filled with brilliant light, radiance, glory. Slowly, the sun crawled upward; he watched, not thinking now, returning only praise for glory. At last its lower edge flicked free of the world’s grip. Behind him, the singers fell silent. He stood motionless another long moment, then remembered his next duty. Arms wide, welcoming, he let his gaze fall to the little altar before him. Light to light, fire to fire, sight to sight . . . the peasant chant intruded, and he had to strain to remember what now he should say. “Lightbringer, firebringer . . .” His own power’s fire given to the eight carefully laid sticks, no conceit of actual help to the Sunlord, Arranha had said, but willingness shown. And he must make that fire the hardest of the several ways he knew. A flame burst from the sticks, unsustained by them, unconsuming: his own power given freely. They would be saved to kindle the first fires after Midwinter Feast.
He quenched the fire, and turned. Arranha nodded at him; the others smiled. Beyond them, their shadows stretched blue across the plateau almost to the cliff beyond. In his mind, their numbers matched those shadows; he could imagine the beauty of so many voices, singing the Sunlord’s praises. This year they would fill the terraces they had built; this year they would plant for the first time, and then . . . then others could come. Others of his people, and in a few years children born here, would raise their voices in song to speed the turning year.
Back inside, he called the Rosemage and Arranha into his own room. “I will be going, in a few days. If it goes well—”
“It should,” said Arranha. “They were friendly enough last fall.”
“I hope it will.” Luap paused to sip from the mug of sib the Rosemage had poured him. He had not expected her to become his servant, but she had been doing him such services since autumn. At first it had felt very strange, but now he enjoyed it. “But some may object even if we take the dirt from fallow lands.”
“You can’t take it from the cursed lands,” the Rosemage said. “Remember—”
“I know.” He waved at her. Most of the old lords who poisoned their lands had done so with temporary magicks, having hoped to restore themselves to power. But a few, in the final days of the war, had chosen to use long-lasting curses which even now could not be broken. Generations, Arranha had said, would pass before that soil bore healthy growth. Luap had seen the blighted fields, black as charred wood and far less fertile . . . luckily they were few. He would not bring that curse back here to work its evil. “It’s still going to be difficult.”