Aloren (3 page)

My mouth tasted bitter.  I imagined Leode’s small body lying broken and Tem kneeling with a knife in his back. 

The fire drew close and my skin tightened.  I couldn’t see for the smoke.  I doubled over, coughing, nauseous.  I remembered the toilet. 

I ran over and looked down into it.  It had a wide shaft, and I was small and skinny. “Cat,” I yelled.  “Damn me, but I’m coming down.” But the smell was awful, and I hesitated.  The floor snapped at my feet. 

I stopped thinking on it, and stepped onto the seat.  I lowered myself into the hole, and cold air raised the hair on my legs.  I was hanging by my fingers.  Above, the shutters clapped over the seat, pinching them, and I let go.  

The chute didn’t go straight down––I slid and rolled.  My feet ran into the cat on the way down, and we proceeded together.

The chute stretched south and emptied us into a deep part of the river.  The cold collapsed my lungs.  I swam right through my overtunic; and the cat swam for shore, whereupon reaching it, she disappeared into the trees. 

I clambered out after her.  I rattled the dead bracken, and stumbled hot and cold through ash and beech.  The trees fell away, the sun poured round my head, a clump of fescue beckoned at my knees, and I crumpled.   

***

When I awoke, the late sun shone on my face.  A bird sat on my chest––a song sparrow. 

She was quite bold.  When I sputtered and began to cry, she said sternly,
Get up and follow
.  I didn’t obey.  Her breast heaved. 
Follow!
 

She had a fit, pulling at my hair, tickling my nose, scratching my skin.  I got up to run away. But she got hold of my gown and made such a bluster with her little body that I gave up and walked in the direction she was pulling.  

“What do you want?”  She hopped from tree to tree, and I raked branches away, trying to keep up.  “Where are you going?  Slow down.” 

But she didn’t, and my legs and feet bled.  I had kicked off my shoes in the water, and the sparrow favored the routes tangled with thimble and blackberry brambles, uncomfortable as the cold air clinging to my gown. 

I wove through trees, splashed through puddles, and slid over the river on a rotten plank bridge; and finally we reached the ridge where the ruined Gralde watchtowers leaned toward the sunset, as if to take in the last light. 

I slowed as we drew near their long shadows.  I imagined dead faces peering out the long black windows.

The little brown bird flew right into the nearest one.  The top half was gone, where to I couldn’t guess.  It looked like a broken tooth. 

“I’m not following you into there,” I said.

I turned away, and saw a splash of dapples moving in the shade:  Father’s grey horse, chewing on the new greens by the river. 

I picked my way down to her.  “Liskara, where’s Father?” 

She raised her head and looked on me with a dark eye.  The brown blurred into the white, and she told me in images
.

She gave a sneeze and went back to chewing, and I made my legs carry me up the steps, thick with wet loam and rock creepers, toward the tower.  I hated it bitterly. 

Around the back the entrance was misshapen and dark as a cat’s mouth.  A strip of sunlight fell in and lit the floor under a window.  The late sun made him glow red.  He woke when I blocked the light, but he didn’t recognize me until I came closer. 

“Reyna,” he said.  “I must speak with you before I go.” 

“Where’re you going?” I said.

I saw the glint of a thin shaft, a feather.  An arrow, pinning his shirt to his chest.

“Father.”  I knelt close and touched it with shaking fingers.  “Father, what happened?”

“Bandits, I––”  I grabbed hold of the shaft and snapped it.  He tore at his lip, and I eased the broken bit out through the cloth.  The blood had spread through the shirt; my hands were slick with it. 

“I don’t know how to help.”  I lifted my head, and glanced around.  “I have to find someone, somebody, please––”

  “Don’t be silly, girl,” he said.  “No one here.  There were eight, about eight of them––”  He coughed and dark stuff wet his lips.  I tore his shirt at the amigaut.  “No.”  He stopped me with a hand.  “You shouldn’t see it.”

“I don’t know how to help.”  I stood and dug my toes into the floor.  “I don’t know how to help.”  I began crying softy, and he looked behind me. 

“I’m here to tell you how,” he said.  “You see them?”  He lifted his hand to point, and I looked over my shoulder.  “She’s cursed their Marione.” 

The sparrow, perched on a windowsill, was the only real bird.  The ones on the floor had been too well hidden for me to notice before.  They were black, semi-transparent like shadows or smoke, and the sun shone darkly through them: an egret, a raven, a swan and a dove. My brothers.

I don’t know how I knew, but I did.  They felt like my brothers.  An egret, a raven, a swan, and a dove. My skin pricked, and the air thickened in the tower, and I struggled to draw breath.  One breath, and then another.  My spirit quailed and I stopped breathing altogether––one puff of wind might blow them away like dust.

“She’s cursed their Marione,” said Father.  “Birth flowers. I haven’t much time to explain.”

“Who’s she?” I said.  “How did she know where they are?
We
don’t even know.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” said Father.  “It’s already been done.  You must undo it.”

He cried out and hacked blood on his shirt.  I pulled away.

“I know where they are,” he said.  “They’re growing at the crest of the hill with the standing-stone, just north of here.  The red staring out from the green.” 

I knew the place.  A strange place, where the wind breathed down the back of your neck.  We stayed well clear of it.  Mother must have seen the place in her mind––sometimes new mothers could.  We’d been raised here for a reason.  “They’re growing behind the towers?” I said. 

“Yes,” Father said.  “You must pull them from the ground.”

I stared at him, and the tower darkened around me.  Pulling someone’s Marionin was more terrible than murder. Pulling your own was inconceivable. 

“Why––” I swallowed.  “Why should I want to do that?”

His voice shook.  “The
Cam Belnech.
  If you break the spirits, the curse will no longer take effect.”

“What?”  I shook my head and wrung my wet skirts. 

“Reyna,” he said, “Reyna, you must listen to me.  They’re dying––you see?”  He nodded at the birds––my brothers.  “All smoke and dust.  Because they touched the red flowers, they say.  I can hear them.  I’ve heard of these red flowers––
Cam Belnech
, they’re called.  They kill Gralde.  I don’t know how to explain. You’re much too young.”  He was silent for a moment, thinking.  He said, finally,  “The flowers cause suicidal thoughts in Gralde.  If you touch the flowers, you desire death.  You want to die.”

“They want to die?”

“Yes.  Something is holding them here.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t know what.  Something has changed their shape, made them birds.”

Had I done that? 
I thought of the black-eyed girl, the albatross. 

“I don’t understand it,” he said.  “And it’s not enough.  They’re still fading.  You can see right through them.  You must weaken them so they do themselves no more damage. You must pull the plants.  All of them.  A broken spirit can’t destroy itself.”

I understood very little of this.  And I understood even less why it had to involve me.  “I didn’t touch the red flowers, why should I have to pull my own––?”

“You must pull all of them,” he said sharply. “Yours, too.  After you pull them, after you break the spirits, you will have to mend them at some point, and for the mending you need
all
the plants.  So.  Pull them all.  When you do this, your brothers will stop fading, I think.” 

“You
think
?”  My fists were clenched; I might have stamped my foot.

“Be quiet and listen.  I haven’t much time.” 

“No.”  His every word was absurd.  “You’ve lost too much blood.”  He shook his head, and I sat on the stones, arms around my knees, crying.

He reached out and took my hand.  “After you break the spirits, when your brothers are safe––”

I wiped my sleeve across my nose.  “What about Foy?”

He moved his head impatiently.  “Floy is Rielde, doesn’t have a Marionin.  The
Cam Belnech
affected her differently–-see?”  He pointed to the sparrow.  “She’s a real bird, safe for now, and as I was saying, after your brothers’ spirits are broken, you will have to find the cure.  The cure for the red flowers, the
Cam Belnech
.”

“I thought the broken spirits were the cure––”

“No, they’re not.  They’ll just give you more time to find it.”  He shifted his weight under him, and blood bubbled on his lip.  “So you must look for the cure, and at the same time you must mend the spirits you broke.”  His voice was terrible, rasping, jumping octaves.  “To mend them––“ His head fell forward, and his eyes moved back and forth, and he muttered to himself. 

He looked up.  “I know this from an old story.  About the Oredh Brothers.  I have no time to tell it; you’ll just have to follow my instructions.  To mend your Marione, you must sow the seeds––so keep the flowers after you pull the plants.  Grow a crop of the Marione seeds, and another from that crop, and another, until you have harvested enough of the plants to weave with.  When you have enough, you must weave tunics out of the plants, sleeveless tunics, like surcoats.  Five tunics of the combined plants, each shirt must be a mixture of the five different plants.  When you complete these tunics, throw them over yourself and your brothers, and that will mend the spirits.” 

He took my arm, pulled me closer, and said: “You must mend them within five years.  After you pull the plants from the ground, you have five years to grow them and weave with them, five years to find the cure; if you go longer than five years with a broken spirit, you will go mad.  Do you understand?”

He had forgotten I was ten. 

But for all his blindness, bungling, and bad luck, my father wasn’t stupid.  He’d studied across the sea before Tem was born, and it wasn’t his fault his encyclopedic memory squashed the common sense right out of him.

“Do you understand how to do this?” he said again.

I nodded, only to mollify him.

“Good.  You and your brothers will be able to live five years with your broken Marione, a time enough that you may find the cure for the
Cam Belnech
.  Ice asters.”  He spoke between gulps of air.  “
Reinenea Corliogra.
They’ll heal the wound done by the red flowers.  They cure everything.

“The boys and Floy must each have an aster, a whole flower, pistil and stamen, ground into a palm.  After you’ve finished the tunics, after you’ve cast the tunics over yourself and the boys, right after you’ve mended your spirits, the boys will only fade, crumble again, and so they must have the asters ready.

“But more immediately,” he said, squeezing my hand, “after you pull your Marionin, you will have to be careful, very careful, when you are dealing with normal people.  You absolutely cannot speak about yourself to whole people.  You cannot talk about what you are doing.  You cannot take responsibility for your actions.  You cannot defend yourself.  And you’d be better off not expressing your opinions.  Do any of these things and you risk going mad.” 

He scrunched his face up. “You’re too young to understand.  You aren’t allowed certain things.”  He squeezed my hand again, so hard he shook. “I’m sorry.” His hand went limp. His ring fell through my fingers and chimed on the stone.

“Don’t leave.” My temples burned and my stomach sickened.

“Be brave.” 

“Don’t leave me.”  

Stillness crept through the tower, cold and blue, a bruise stealing into every nook of me.

Three

As I wept, darkness fell and the stars above me grew bright.  The last of the light went, and dust blew up from the ground, catching in my throat.  The shadows on the walls lengthened. 

I turned and there they stood, bodies whole, hands and feet solid. Hair wildly mussed, tunics askew––it looked as though they had been standing in a great wind.  They were white-eyed with shock.

“I don’t understand,” said Tem, looking at his hands.

“Starlight.”  Mordan looked out the broken roof.  “It’s a new moon.”

  The new moon was a traditional time of magic and strangeness.  Or it could’ve been the starlight.  The Elde had worshiped the stars before humans came and brought the sun.

Tem stuck his hand into a shadow and out of the starlight, and a few transparent pinion feathers took its place. “All right.” He sounded remarkably calm.  “Stay out of the shadows.”  He looked at Mordan.  “Let's put Father on the river while we still can.” 

“Why? This is his fault.” Arin didn’t move, and the freckles stood out from his white face. 

“You’ll help us,” said Tem quietly, “or I’ll thump you.”

Arin said no more about it, and the older boys picked Father up and carried him down to the murmuring Gael River to give him a proper Gralde goodbye. 

With numb fingers we tied bunches of last autumn’s rushes into a pallet, and for lack of our family’s wild-roses, threaded it through with snow glories and larkspur while Liskara nickered in the night.  We placed Father upon it with his sword on his breast, and set him afloat on the black water.

I wiped my nose and looked away before he drifted out of sight.  My hand found Tem’s and he held me next to him. 

At some point I realized Floy wasn’t there.  I ran back up the steps and into the tower. 

She stood against the wall, white-faced in the starlight.  When she saw me, she slipped half into a shadow and I saw half of her disappear.  I grappled for her hand and pulled her into the light. 

“What happened to you?” I said. 

She told me the whole story.  I gaped at her, and the boys came in, keeping clear of the shadows.  “All right,” Arin said shakily.  “What are we going to do?”

“Stay out of the wind,” said Mordan.  “Try not to die.  Watch  the country fall apart.”

“We’ve got instructions,” said Tem. He pointed to the signet ring glinting on the stone.  “And that.” 

“You could just put it on,” Arin said, “march down to Ellyned––”

“Not in a night.  This is temporary––we have until morning.” He put his arm into a shadow, and it became a wing. 

“You’re birds,” I said, staring at the feathers.  “All of you.  You’re all birds.”

Arin eyed me sullenly.  “What about you?  Always skiving off family occasions.”

“You locked me in the
privy
.”

“It is strange,” Mordan said, “that we should be birds.  And Floy––she’s an actual bird.”  He turned to Floy.  “Are you dumb like a beast?”

“Dumb like a beast?”  She shoved him away from her.  “Straight out of hell this came.” 

She hid her face in her hands, and I kept quiet; and Tem said to me: “We sent Floy to look for you when we found Father.  As she was a real bird.  Solid, I mean.  The hall was burning, she told us.”  He ran a hand through his hair.  “I can’t believe this,” he said to Mordan.  “Outlaws and some bitch’s curse on the same day?”

“Could be more than a coincidence,” said Mordan. 

Tem touched a bruise at the nape of my neck.  “This is a wicked piece of work.”

“From a cupboard,” I said.  “Nilsa did it.”

He pulled his hand away.  “Nilsa?”

“Hardly matters now, does it?”  I blinked back tears.

“How’d you get out?” said Mordan.  “You’re wet.”

“The toilet.”  Arin’s eyes bugged.  Before he could say anything, I said viciously, “I didn’t have feathers, at least” 

They all stared at me solemnly.

I backed away and cut the arch of my left foot.  I looked down: the ring glinted.  

“You’ll have to keep it.  You’re the only one left.”  Tem’s eyes didn’t move from the ring.

“Did you understand any of what Father said?” Mordan said.

“Don’t talk about Father.”

“Once we uproot the Marione,” said Mordan, “we’ve only got five years to find the ice asters.”

“While we’re searching for those, you’ll be sowing the Marione seeds,” said Tem, “so you have enough of a crop to weave tunics.
”

“Stop it,” I said.  “I’d kill us.”

“And you can’t speak about yourself to anyone,” said Mordan, “except us, I expect, once we’ve broken––” 

“You believed him?”  Tears wet my face.  “Mordan, he was out of his mind.”

A silence followed, unbearably tense.  “I’d rather be dead than have this disease,” said Arin.  Leode started to cry again, and Mordan took hold of his wrist.  Outside the wind picked up and slipped through the cracks, and Floy, still pinned to the wall, grew bold.

“Let her be,” she said.  “See how small she is?  She’d get no help at all.”

“We’ll won’t do the country any good as dust,” Mordan said.

Tem nodded.  “If she’s willing––”

“She’s right, you know.”  Arin didn’t look at them.  “We’re done for, we’re through, whether or not she decides to do it.”

“Thank you, Arin.  Your optimism is appreciated.”  Mordan turned to everyone else: “Anything she does later––it can’t get much worse than this.”

“Yes it can,” said Arin.  “Reyna with all our Marione?” 

I looked at Arin and licked my lips.  “Fine,” I said.  “I’ll do it.”  My heart lurched up and hammered in my throat. 

“You won’t last a day,” Arin said to me.  “You won’t be able to tell anyone your name, who you are, what’s your favorite color, whether or not you murdered someone––”

“I said I’ll do it.” 

He wiped spit off his nose.

“You’ll go hungry, Reyna.  You don’t know how horrible it is,” said Floy.  My hand crept up to run over the back of my neck.

“Make sure you understand,” said Tem.  “A broken spirit––it’s supposed to feel truly awful.” 

This was beyond my comprehension.  “Can’t you help me?  Even a bit?”

“When it’s moonless.  Twelve nights a year.”  He sounded more miserable than I’d ever heard him. 

“Let me try it, Tem,” I said.  “Do.  Let me just try.” 

“And then there’re the ice asters,” said Arin, as though that put the cap on it.

“They’re real,” said Tem.

“How’re you so cocksure?”

“Because the
Cam Belnech
are, obviously enough.”

A wind caught in Tem’s hair and he turned toward the window.  “It’s late,” he said.  The first pale light shone through, coloring the floor green. 

I backed against the wall and waited.  Their fingertips caught the light and changed, lengthened into feathers that spread down their arms like sleeves. 

Tem’s arms became long, wide, an egret’s wings.  Mordan’s nose curved into the beak of a raven, Arin grew the slender neck of a swan, and the dove that used to be Leode waited for the others to be done. 

I wondered what bird I might have been.  The sparrow, the only solid one, sat on her windowsill and looked at me. 

I picked up Father’s ring, put it in my chemise pocket.  I walked out the door, turned, and called back into it, not sure they could understand me, “I’m uprooting our Marione.  You come and watch.”