They sang a song at the burial:
No light without darkness
No dark without light
In maturity, the seed of rot
From decay, new life
All is shadow; stalk the heart of shadow
All flows; with time, be healed and be destroyed…
Blue as the halcyon’s wing, writhing like a pit of snakes, sprawling like the poison ivy and delicate as a silken thread, the spider-web of tattoos peeked out of the tattered shreds of the man’s clothes. A red spatter of fresh blood from the yet-unclosed incisions and the unnatural pallor of the skin completed the image, moulding Cernd into some kind of an abstract tricolour picture painted on a living human’s hide, and projected onto the calm green screen of his cloak, hanging loosely over the back of the chair.
He did not recognise her when she entered; did not say anything; did not even lift his head to look at her. When she came closer, she saw that the pupils of his dry, wildly-gleaming eyes were greatly dilated; when she tried to lift his chin to see them better in the weak candlelight, he tore away his head impatiently, like a rabid dog, shaking his long hair into his face to shield it from the glow. His skin was extremely dry and cold; and constantly shaken by miniature, almost imperceptible spasms.
“Cernd?” she asked, without receiving the answer she did not hope to receive; and then, turning to the old druid, and much more harshly, “What have you done to him? He looks like one giant bruise!” she added, looking to Sarevok for back-up in this particular fray. “What have you done to him in that forest?” she demanded again, angrily, and saw that Pauden backed off a step from her.
The old man scratched his scalp. “It will pass, girl,” he said, clearly trying to sound conciliatory while not having had much experience at it.
“It’ll pass?!” Imoen repeated, feeling bellicose this early in the morning and straight out of bed. “How’s this supposed to pass?! Brother, put him in the bed, will you?” she shot at Sarevok in passing before concentrating the fullness of her attention on the old man again. “Can you please explain to me how this is supposed to pass before we are supposed to set out and how he is supposed to be in a fighting condition when we do?! Can we even heal him, the way he is?” she added belatedly, as she realised that even this might be an issue; and as she realised that she, too, might have played a role in the creation of this work of art.
“The wounds will close,” the druid replied, looking rather cowered by the barrage of questions. “He regenerates them even now, as a human— It will pass, girl,” he repeated. “It’s just the herbs.”
“The herbs?” Imoen pressed on.
Pauden sighed deeply, obviously realising that he would neither escape nor defeat this particular huntress, and thus giving up all intent to fly or fight. “He had to take them like this. Strong, I mean, and in the blood— That’s what the tattoos are for, see, girl?” he asked. “They both fetter the werewolf and unfetter him when the time comes to release him. It’s the herbs that give them the colour. Mostly, the boy now only needs to rub a bit of the paste into the skin to keep the balance between losing the werewolf and losing control over him. But for the final transformation, he needed them straight in his blood again, just like the first time. It should all pass inside an hour or two,” he finished, shrugging fatalistically.
Imoen, suddenly again tight-hearted, homed in on the word she liked the least in the druid’s speech. “Should?”
“The final transformation?” Sarevok asked at the same moment; and Imoen remembered that he was not aware of this particular detail.
The druid scratched his scalp again. “Well, yes,” he said. “He was an unfinished one until now, lad. Afraid the herbs would make him mad, after what happened the previous time— We had to send him over to Tethyr to complete his training,” he said, obviously in response to the identical hungry expressions on both faces looking at him. “The first time he tried the herbs at all, he was in a coma for several days. But by then, it was too late to withdraw… We didn’t know what the boy had done to himself in the city, see? Otherwise we wouldn’t have tried,” he finished defensively.
“Cernd’s from the city?” Imoen asked, trying to lend some sense to the old man’s muddled tale.
Pauden squinted suspiciously at her. “You don’t know? What kind of friends of his are you, anyway? Neither from Trademeet nor from Athkatla… Where did you meet him?”
“On the road, as he was returning from Tethyr,” Sarevok replied casually; and then, softly probing, added, “But you were saying that he had done something to himself in Athkatla, old man?”
Pauden cackled. “You city rats… You have no idea about how to use herbs, but you have a thousand about how to misuse them. Specially, Black Lotus—” Suddenly, he grew silent; as though he realised that he had said too much in the crossfire of questions.
There was sudden understanding on Sarevok’s face; but aloud, he said only, “Then you say, old man, that he feared he might not keep his sanity through this final transformation; but that you are assured he will?”
“So I do, lad,” the druid replied. “He was halfway to recovery already when you saw him, girl,” he said to Imoen. “Long as I live, I have never seen so easy a rite of passage. All he now needs is a warrior’s breakfast when he awakens, to help him fight that madwoman.”
“And that would be?” Imoen asked, light-headed and light-hearted again.
“Milk, blood and honey, girl,” the druid cackled for a second time. “Milk, blood and honey.”
-----
Lit by the first rays of dawn, a deer, bled dry through its torn-out throat, lay on the path to Adratha’s cottage.
“There are three things which need be done, sister,” Sarevok was saying. “There is the goat—”
“Pauden will take care of her,” Imoen replied absently. The deer had been killed by Cernd, Pauden had told them; she wished that the murderous part of her self accepted the deer as a sacrifice in lieu of Cernd’s life. But killing a deer was not a murder.
Nor was killing Faldorn in a ritual fight, her mind whispered; that was, in a way, what made the whole deal so frightening. There was really only one outcome of the fight which might be a murder: if she had somehow pushed Cernd onto the path which would kill him. And if the only way to prevent it lay with her ability to curb her instincts, then the gamble was as well as lost. She could hope and wish and be intent on saving the druid; but hopes and good intentions did not a day make.
“—Cernd’s clothes to be patched and the deer to be skinned and chopped,” her brother, meanwhile, was saying; and she felt inclined to hate him for the easy practicality of his thoughts. What right had he to think and speak of patching clothes?
“You prefer the skinning, I take it, brother?” she asked.
“I do not remember ever having performed it, sister,” Sarevok replied evenly; and Imoen thought bitterly that this here was, after all, a man who had never had to survive in the wilderness before. Then, she wondered in passing if she should not ask him whether he had experience in flaying a human, and point out that the principle was the same; and then, she realised what she was actually seriously considering.
She blinked, and tried to banish the filthy thought from her mind. The question would not even irritate the unmovable man, but it had come far too easily to her for her liking; and, worse, it brought with it a memory of Irenicus cutting—
An animal was an animal, and a skill necessary to survival was necessary to survival; but there was still enough food in Adratha’s cupboard for the breakfast.
“Why don’t we put the deer in the stream for now?” she asked. “It’ll last these few hours, I think.”
To her mild surprise, there was no argument.
-----
Instead of an argument, there was the sewing; patching Cernd’s tattered soft leather clothes (a by-product of the not completely controlled transformation, the old druid had explained: a terrible itch over the whole body which made one wish to tear off one’s clothes and skin before the shape-shifting) with pieces of sleeves of Sarevok’s eventually very short-sleeved shirt and Adratha’s thick threads and needles.
That; and looking at Cernd and trying to perceive that taint of hers with which she had, or had not, infected him; to no avail.
And yet, she mused as she watched the shivering, cloak-wrapped man—they had not even wiped the blood off of him; Pauden had forbidden it—the tiger-creatures could see her for what she was; and so could Viconia. This meant that there really was something to look for; and if there was, she must learn how to seek it. Yet another feat, like seeing the invisible which Anishai could do, which she would have never believed possible, but which was quickly turning to be essential to her survival—
At least, she now knew what Black Lotus was.
“A powerful, and extremely addictive, narcotic,” Sarevok said matter-of-factly when she asked him this as soon as they found themselves out of Pauden’s range of hearing. “Illegal, of course; Aran’s made a fortune of selling it. But the dens and the traffic are all Bayle’s exclusive domain. I’m not surprised that you may not have heard of it before, sister.”
Later, when she asked him, he explained the workings of the substance upon mind and body in more detail, in curt, precise sentences; in the end, she decided, it was a good thing that she had lost all her illusions about the noble company of the Shadow Thieves long before.
-----
Then, there was only the boredom of waiting for Cernd to awaken while sitting by the kitchen table already dressed in her third, last and most comfortable set of clean clothes—the black, red-rimmed one paid for by Aran Linvail’s fortune—under her armour; leafing through the large, heavy tome in which Adratha had written in a large, neat script detailed instructions on the preparations of potions and poisons.
“You like it, girl?” the monkey-like old man asked when he surprised her during the reading, squinting to see the book. “Then take it. You won’t find many as can read here, anyway.”
He was grinning toothlessly; and Imoen decided to take the suggestion as a peace offering. “Thank you, grandfather,” she said, grinning back.
Pauden cackled delightedly. “Wait. The boy told me that you are an archer, too, aren’t you? Then I have a better boon for you. If those cats didn’t spoil them, that is. Wait here.”
He went to the bedroom and rummaged a bit in the large wooden chest standing next to the bed; a moment later, he pulled out a pair of small leather bracers, just Imoen’s size. “Adratha had them made and enchanted when she started to lose her aim with the bow,” he explained as Imoen eyed them suspiciously. “Try them on, girl,” he urged her. “Try them on.”
“He is correct,” a merry voice reached them from inside the bedroom. Cernd had woken up from his stupor and was stretching himself in the bed; the tattoos on his bloodstained face and hands glittered and writhed with their own life. “Pauden, like the bird of passage who never forgets the way to her winter lodgings, remembers whatever he wants to remember of all he has ever been told.” He yawned, and stretched himself again. “And I am hungry, like—”
“—a wolf?” Imoen finished, laughing with relief at the sight; for, apart from the spatter of dried blood and the new tattoos, Cernd looked surprisingly normal. “I’m afraid there is no blood for you, though. Only milk and honey.”
Cernd frowned, and asked mildly, “Have you been telling her your stories, Pauden?”
-----
The lay of the land was just as Cernd had described to them when they had trekked towards the druid encampment: a village of some thirty houses with walls woven from wicker and withes and covered with turf and mud, lying on both banks of the stream which sprung from the lone crag towering over the village; and which, having passed through the copse of trees they were now leaving, joined with the second, larger stream near Adratha’s cottage and then spilled far and wide to create the swamps.
The henge stood on a grassy knoll on the other side of the stream, slightly removed from the camp: all they could see of it now were some tall stones behind the mud-houses on that bank. On their side, a troop of druids was assembling before the village; and, foremost among them, was a blond elf riding bareback on a rose grey mare.
Dalok hadn’t noticed them yet; and Imoen, stopping right behind Cernd on the narrow path, had a clear opportunity to shoot at him.
And shoot she did; but—perhaps due to the wind; or perhaps due to a bad aim, caused by the novelty of the weight of the archer’s bracers on the archer’s forearms; or, finally, perhaps due to some tardy realisation of the archer’s that she did not, after all, and against all logic, want to kill a man simply because he stood in her path and rode her horse—the arrow went wide of its target, and hit the earthen wall of the house standing behind instead.
The elf Dalok had noticed the arrow even before it struck; looked in the direction whence it came; noticed the newcomers; and, twirling a long, curved blade in the air and hitting the mare’s sides with his feet, charged at them.
The sabre’s edge, Imoen noticed as she dropped the bow and shot a volley of magic missiles at the fast-moving target, was licked by tongues of red-hot flames; it scorched her face as it passed centimetres before her face when Sarevok, who had somehow found himself in front her, pulled the elf down from the mare’s back, and the elf lost his grip of the weapon.
The mare, freed of her rider, reared, and Imoen backed off from her as quickly as she could to avoid getting kicked by the powerful hooves. In the corner of her eye, she could see that Dalok started to rise from the ground. The next moment, however, Sarevok pulled out his own scimitar and cleanly lopped the elf’s head off his neck. It was not even a fight; her brother might as well be simply testing the sharpness of the newly-acquired Calishite steel; and, perhaps, he was.
But Dalok’s death turned to be as much of a curse as it was a blessing: for the mare, irritated even further by the smell of blood, was dancing, neighing and kicking, now beyond all control. Or, at least, so it seemed to Imoen, who watched sadly how her bow was broken and treaded into the ground by the horse’s hooves.
But then, she suddenly grew aware of an odd sound on the wind. She looked around: Cernd, looking intently at the mare, was half-whispering, half-singing to her in a language Imoen did not understand. With awe, and not a little envy, the girl watched how, little by little, the horse slowly calmed down, and stopped her mad dance, and, at last, even let herself be taken by the piece of twine which had served Dalok as the bridle.
Cernd was perhaps the worst person possible to be a chief, Imoen thought then, as Pauden, who had not moved from his place during the whole commotion, approached the mare and started to squint at her appreciatively. He was too kind. Far too kind. He could fight, there was no doubt of that; and he might win the fight against Faldorn; and Dalok was dead, and would cause no trouble; and that High Merchant Sarevok had mentioned, and whose name she had forgotten, he might be a reasonable man; but Cernd was simply far too kind, and far too soft; and far too quiet. He had the kind of voice which was suited to whispering to horses; and that was precisely the kind of voice which was not suited to shouting over people.
What were they doing to him? she wondered as she watched the druid pat the mare’s neck and exchange some quiet words with Pauden which resulted in the old man’s taking over the reins. Even if Cernd survived the fight, what were they doing to him? Pushing him into a position where he would never be comfortable; where he never could be comfortable. Playing—no, not at dukes this time; or at kings. But at kingmakers. Or, possibly, at gods.
But it was too late to back off now; and their arrival had attracted more attention. None of the druids who had been with Dalok had come to the elf’s aid; but a group of women was heading in their direction.
Their leader was middle-aged, tall and stately. “Celina, Malika’s aunt,” Cernd said quietly to Imoen and her brother; for Sarevok, too, had rejoined them by this time, and was eyeing the pink mare with assiduousness equal, perhaps, only to Pauden’s—though in his case, tinted by ownership rather than admiration. “Is she a danger?” he asked curtly.
“I don’t think so,” Cernd replied, quite surprised; and then, sounding rather ashamed of himself, added, “She cares for her late sister’s child like a bee cares for her queen’s.”
“Or cared,” came the concise response; but this was the end of the conversation, for Celina and her escort were already with them. “Cernd!” the elder said. “You’re just on time. Do you know what is about to happen? You do? What are you going to do about it, then? Pauden!” she scolded the old man, without waiting to hear the answer. “Where have you been? Verthan is getting worried. And who are you, you pretty thing?” she turned to Imoen. “Has Cernd finally found another girl for himself? And you, handsome one?” she finished, completing the round inspection of the arrivals on Sarevok, who was following the verbal onslaught with a curious mix of amusement and bemusement on his face. “Who might you be?”
“I’m sorry,” Cernd started to say quietly to Imoen; who wanted to tell him that there was no need to apologise—after all, her own family, too, had recently taken to making objectionable allusions regarding her private life—but did not manage to. “Sorry? Nonsense! What for?” Celina said loudly, and started to discuss in detail the terrible things the terrible woman Faldorn had wanted of her.
It was an odd feeling, to walk with this woman, so boisterous and chatty and imperious, and not for a second admitting doubt that the terrible woman Faldorn would be shortly dealt with; and to see Cernd’s patched shirt and to remember how he had been not few hours before; and finally, to be constantly aware at some strange, almost physical, level, of the fact and the supposition of what had happened yesternight. Here, in the bright light of noon, in company of others than just Sarevok, matters of tainting people with murder seemed matters from nothing but a story; or yet another evil dream. But Imoen’s dreams were terribly real.
Celina, at least, did not press unwanted gifts unto Cernd, Imoen thought; she satisfied herself with utterly embarrassing the man with meaningful questions about his travel and his company, accompanied by more than one meaningful look cast in the girl’s direction. But though the woman was talkative and lively, her eyes were all red and puffy; and the faces of all the other women around them, grim.
Later, at the burial, one of them would tell Imoen that Celina had been the staunchest opponent of all Faldorn’s ideas, defying the Shadow Druid in ways both open and covert; that she had even tried to send a warning to Trademeet; and that, to quote, “she said that this was one of the few rare moments of her life that she regretted never having learnt how to curse properly.”
But this was later; for now, in this queenly escort and in between news and questions—not one of which, Imoen noticed, touched upon the subject of Dalok’s body—they finally entered the village of the druids.
-----
The maidan was not large, and the grass was already half-eaten; Imoen watched Sarevok watch the, now slightly tarnished, gold of his horse grazing in the distance, and listened to Cernd asking Celina whether his son was well.
Ashdale, Malika’s aunt replied, was fine so far; they had treated him well. But Cernd probably would not be allowed to see him before the fight.
“No, I daresay you will not!” a mocking female voice sounded right behind them. “Are you the little man who has come to challenge me?”
They turned around; a woman was standing there, slightly taller and barely older than Imoen, with a tangled mat of dark brown hair on her head and clothed in a dirty, unkempt leather dress. She had a tattoo of her own over her left eye, and a necklace of fangs and claws on her neck; she was barefoot, and was watching them with scorn painted clearly on her face. News spread quickly in the small village; and Faldorn had come to meet them.
Imoen wondered why; for, as the leader, the woman might as well wait and let them come to her. Perhaps Faldorn lacked patience.
“Yes,” Cernd, meanwhile, replied calmly to the question. “Unless, like the butterfly, you pupate from the caterpillar which devours a plant’s leaves into the imago which pollinates its flowers—I would fight you.”
Faldorn laughed shrilly. “What kind of challenge is that? Have you come here to fight or to preach me on the ways of my mother, docile, fireless man? I have heard that my partner is dead; but seeing you, I cannot believe that you should be worth my bother.”
Cernd shrugged. “You cannot refuse the challenge, either,” he said simply.
Faldorn scowled. “And you think that I would shy away from it? I have taken this grove by force, and by force I will keep it! Come, little man. There is no reason to put this off. Let us enter the sacred ring forthwith!”
Yes, Imoen thought; Faldorn did lack patience.
She looked at Sarevok again; for the rose grey mare rejoined the palomino on the maidan, and both horses were standing now not few steps from the siblings, as if waiting to be led out of the village while Faldorn, Cernd, Celina, Pauden and an old man who, but for the scars, looked just like Pauden, and who must be Verthan, his twin brother; followed by a retinue of men, women and children—all headed for the other bank of the narrow stream; and, once there, for the henge.
For a moment, the man only looked back at her, coolly amused and silent as she was; at length, with a cold smile, he asked simply, “Shall we, sister?”
-----
The henge was marked by a ditch; and the curious thing was that, once Cernd and Faldorn crossed it, an impression came on Imoen—precisely that: an impression, for there was no sign of the change to be seen, or heard, or smelt, or felt—that that small circle of turf now lay in a completely different world from its surrounds.
“None can cross within or without until the outcome of the challenge is decided, girl,” the druid Pauden, standing to Imoen’s left, said. He had cast some spell on himself a moment before, muttering to the girl as way of explanation, “Wouldn’t do to miss such a fine fight as must come.”
They were all standing in the first line of the crowd of onlookers. The whole village must be gathered there, around the henge, from the eldest to the youngest; parents were holding their children in their arms and on their shoulders to let them see better the coming fight. She tried to guess how many people might be attending; but the number she had arrived at—a hundred and fifty—simply must be too high. How could these many people live off a forest and a swamp?
As for the crowd’s sentiments, as far as she could tell, they were divided. There were those gathered closer to Pauden and her: older rather than younger, female rather than male, and with rather than without children. Most of those her age stood on the opposite side of the henge; if the circumstances were any less grave, she would have laughed at the inherent irony of the situation.
The only one possibly less fitting this side of the assembly was the one standing to her right; and not only because his preferred spot, if permitted to choose, would be inside the henge, on the eyes of all and a-fight. But, were one to judge from the glimmer in the eyes and the light, ironic smile playing on the lips, her father’s son was rather entertained by the approaching spectacle.
“Hah!” the druid Pauden roared, and Imoen started. “Good opening, my boy! But she also thought of it,” he added glumly.
The fight was begun.
