Spellbreakers (16 page)

The light failed before they passed the Sea Gate of
Nevraan, the huge arch in the walls where each foreign ship leaving or coming
to and from the harbor had to pass and pay its toll. Lights went up all over
the city as the sunset left the lowest tiers first and then faded from the
highest reaches of the cliff as well. A bell tolled. The lighthouses each side
of the Sea Gate blazed
out,
and another answered, far
up the cliff. White Nevraan of the Narrows was calling her ships home.

It was night when they moored, but the quays were
alive with lanterns and people.

Leal thought that the morning could not come fast
enough. Whatever happened to her in the future, she’d take a day to visit this
wonderful place.

“Well, not quite before supper time,” said Svarre
Thorsen as they said their farewells on the quay, standing beside their
exhausted horses, both as happy as Daria to be on solid ground again.

“Never mind,” said Leal, obscurely moved by this
parting, as if the
Neversinks
had
changed her life forever. “It was the most glorious day. Maybe we’ll sail again
together when, if ... when we come this way again.”

Svarre gave her an appraising look up and down.

“So you plan to sail back, eh?”

“Oh yes. If my business here goes well, I’ll be coming
this way again before the winter.”

“Well, I’ll keep an eye out for you, then. Where will
you spend the night, boys? I know just the place where two young peaches like
you could have a world of fun, if you get my meaning...”

“Oh, a quiet inn with good stables is all we need,
thanks,” said Leal quickly, before Daria could put in a word. The grin on
Daria’s face at the mention of the funny place was not at all reassuring.

Svarre shook his head with some reprobation, but didn’t
insist. He grabbed a blackguard boy who was loitering around the busy quay
waiting for whatever little errand might come up, and instructed him to guide
them to a respectable place he knew far up in the higher streets of Nevraan,
behind the ridge of the cliff, away from the rambunctious harbor crowds, and
closer to the high green vales behind the city.

“If ever I am free to do as I please, and live the
life I want,” said Leal as they followed their young guide, “I will be a
sailor.”

“Gods, I hope not,” said Daria gloomily.
 
“If it was not that we are in such a hurry,
I’d crawl round the whole damn Karelian sea on my hands and knees rather than
cross those accursed Narrows by ship once more. Once I get back to Enskala I’ll
never even put my foot in a puddle again, I swear.”

Chapter Nine

The next day they slept in, luxuriating in the
knowledge that they would take the day off. Their horses could do with a day of
rest, and they, too.

Still, after another huge northern breakfast not
unlike the ones they had been served in Enskala, they sauntered out of the inn,
an indeed very respectable place run by two elderly myopic sisters, to see
their horses in their stable, a private establishment some hundred yards down
the road. The sisters did not cater to horses.

Then off, into the heart of the beautiful town.

It was a strange place. Big stables were not very
common, because most of the place was too steep for wheeled vehicles. Stout
ponies carrying beautifully carved pack saddles laden with enormous panniers
did most of the heavy work in the town, going up and down alleys as steep as
staircases with no more sweat than a mountain goat. Indeed some places high up
in the town could only be accessed by actual staircases, beautifully built in
the local white stone, sometimes covered by elaborately sculpted porches or
vaults.

The people of Nevraan were friendly, and eager to make
themselves understood by the exotic Escarran travelers whenever they happened
to ask for directions, or talk to shopkeepers. They always began by speaking
the native language of Kaleva, something that had the vaguest, faraway
resemblance to Hassian, but was wholly unintelligible to Daria and Leal.
 
Seeing that this didn’t work they always
switched to the curious version of the commercial lingua franca spoken in
Nevraan, something close enough to what was spoken all over the western
kingdoms, but more archaic, almost poetic. Despite the fact that it was a
language that had been devised by sailors and travelling tradesmen, Leal
thought that it was a good tongue for storytelling. It had the right sort of
stateliness and rhythm to it.

Some of the houses were built in white stone, in the
same pointy style as in Enskala, but more ornate. Other houses were just made
of timber with wattle-and-daub walls, but they were all painted white, with the
carved beams picked out in bright colors.

The central square of Nevraan, bizarrely perched
halfway up the cliff under an undercut rock wall, was only accessible through
two covered passages, a flat long tunnel on one side and a wide, splendid
staircase on the other side. The temple of Ægir, the sea-god of Kaleva, opened
not quite on the square, but over it, its huge doors reached by yet another
staircase. From the terrace of the temple one could see over the roofs of the
whole town, down to the bay and the Narrows beyond. It was a glorious sight. It
was said that on a clear day a very far sighted man could just perceive the
sister temple of the god built on the other side of the Narrows, within the
walls of Enskala, but maybe that was just a legend.

From the terrace of the temple one could also see the
map of the Kalevan kingdom drawn on the square below in a mosaic of pale and
dark beach pebbles. Daria and Leal pored over it for a long while, trying to
memorize every detail, wishing they had brought something to write on.

Inside the quiet temple a thousand ship models hung
from the rafters of the dark roof as if they had left the sea to sail right up
into the night sky. The sea-god himself was pictured in a simple image of pale
driftwood, with lidless white eyes of mother of pearl. Much to Daria’s
embarrassment, Leal bowed her head to him and left an offering before leaving
the temple.

“You are not going to fall into religious ways now,
are you?” she asked when they were well away from the temple. Escarra
officially honored the traditional twelve gods of Andalou, but religion was not
a major source of interest in the mountains, and the priests were little more
than well-dressed record keepers for the community. It was said that when
people achieved the control of High Magic, religion became nothing more than
superstition. Perhaps it was so. Yet High Magic was all but lost in Escarra,
and religion had remained of marginal importance.

“No, I will not fall in religious ways, I promise. But
there was something truly mystical in that temple. I don’t know what got into
me, but I thought it was the right thing to do. Don’t ask me why. It’s just how
it was. Don’t let it bother you. Let’s find something to eat, shall we? I am
starving.”

“You tell me. You didn’t throw all of yesterday’s
breakfast into the Narrows. My own offering to the sea-god, I guess.
Yeargh.”

“Spare me the details, miscreant. There’s a tavern,
right there. Let’s go and explore.”

****

“How do we proceed from here?” asked Leal an hour
later, while mopping up the last of a large bowl of stew with a chunk of bread.

Bread was the most remarkable part of their meals here
in Nevraan. It was dark and chewy, full of crushed grain and seeds, textured
and full of flavor. They both could eat slice after slice of it, non-stop.

“I don’t know about you, but I will have cake, too. I
can smell it from here,” said Daria still chewing.

“Bah, of course I’ll have cake.
With
cream, too.
But I am talking about the road.”

Daria shrugged. “There’s supposed to be an old route
to Dalarna, crossing the forest. You saw it on the map. But from what Dee and
also Svarre said, it is not much used these days. But that is our road,
princess. Brother, I mean.”

“I am just wondering if we should hire a guide. If the
road has fallen in disrepair we might easily get lost.
Lost
in the Kalevan forest alone.
That would be a disaster.”

Daria thought about this for some time.

“I don’t know what to say, honest. We don’t know a
soul in the city. There is no way we could be sure. What if we hire a crook
who
will take your money, bring us in some lonely place out
there, cut our throats and run off with our horses and all our belongings?”

Leal didn’t answer immediately, and they both brooded
on the matter for a while.

Daria didn’t dare to bring up an even more unpleasant
thought. If they traveled with a guide for any length of time it would be hard
to conceal their true sex, and then all sort of nasty things might happen. On
the other hand, getting lost or delayed in the forest would not only jeopardize
their mission, but also, possibly, be the end of them.

“It is your decision, Leal,” said Daria quietly. “I am
sorry to put it on you, but I don’t really have much wisdom to contribute.”

“We will go alone,” said Leal finally, shaking off her
silence and indecisive look like a dog shakes off water after a swim. She sat
up straight and looked defiant, poised. “Perhaps I
have
fallen into
religious, or at least superstitious ways, but I have a feeling that if we need
help in the forest, help will come to us. The Shining Ones are powerful in wild
places.”

Daria took a deep gulp of breath at this. The more
supernatural aspects of Leal’s adventures since the Challenge had been declared
left her completely baffled. She was an enormously practical person. She could
ride, hunt, hawk, and even sew if she really had to, because, face
it,
sometimes things get broken and must be repaired. But
this whole uncanny business with enchanted heroes and invisible people, well,
she was way out of her depth here. She was not even sure what to think about
these elvers. She’d believe them when she saw them. For all she knew they might
just be funny people from a far isolated place. Hell, in the mountain they
looked at you like the Man from the Moon if you came from just two villages
away.

“Look, the Shining Ones are not my field of
expertise,” she said slowly. “You tell me where you want to go, and I’ll do my
best to get you there. If you want help from the fancier crowd, you are the one
with the all friends in high society, so I’ll leave that to you.” She knew it
was the kind of remark that might hurt Leal’s feelings, but really, there was
no other way she could put it.

****

So the next day they walked their horses to the north
gates of Nevraan and tactfully asked if this here road was
the
route to
Dalarna from the many tradesmen that were coming in from the countryside with
goods for the city and the harbor. They received some seriously astonished
stares. Clearly Dalarna was not a fashionable destination these days.

In the end they found a loquacious elderly fellow with
a cartload of carrots. He was waiting for the man supposed to buy the carrots,
who was late, and had all the time in the world to chat to strangers. He even
offered two fat carrots to their horses. From the carrot man they gathered that
yes, this was the great north road itself, and that it still crossed the
forest, leading at least all the way to Elverhjem. It was not often used by
humans beyond the borders of the Elverlaen, because the elvers guarded their
borders quite jealously. But the elvers themselves did travel to Nevraan
whenever they well damned pleased, so the road must still be there, despite all
the outlaws, bears, wolves, goblins, and the freaking snow trolls that infested
the forest these days. And from the Elverlaen to Dalarna, why, it was just a
couple hundred miles of dark dank forests, barren freezing moors and bewitched
glaciers.
Easily done, really.

The carrot man was obviously convinced that they were
pulling his leg with their story of wanting to travel to Dalarna, so he
cheerfully laid it on very thick, but Leal and Daria left the north walls of
Nevraan with a sinking feeling that perhaps, just perhaps, they had bitten off
more than they could chew. Everything had gone wonderfully smooth so far, but
here, they were finally riding into the unknown. Their horses plodded on slowly
under the heavy packs of provisions Daria had bought in the market, but her own
heart was heavier by far, although she did her best to reassure Leal that they
would see this thing through soon enough.

The next seven days were the hardest they had endured
so far on their trip, and more than once Daria saw Leal wavering, exhausted,
and miserable almost to the point of giving up. Daria knew that only a truly
heroic devotion to the quest she had embarked on kept her going that week.

The road to the Elverlaen was there all
right,
clearly not much used beyond three riding days from
Nevraan, but still clear enough to follow. But the weather had turned wet and
grey, very chilly for those who could never quite dry out completely.

For the first three days the road crossed sparsely
inhabited land, with fields, pastures and even a few orchards in sheltered,
south-facing little dales. During that time they managed to sleep undercover at
least, in the stable of a small farm once, in a small inn, in an abandoned
shepherd hut under a leaky roof. But after that the road ventured deep in the
Áhkká hills, a lonely land of dark forests and high moors, only inhabited by
wild animals and hunters. It was said that outlaws infested the road between
the hills and the Elverlaen, but Daria could not see what they would do that
for. Even now, in late summer, there was hardly anybody on the road up here.
Once they met a silent, rough-haired man leading a pony laden with furs towards
Nevraan. He was half crazed by solitude and didn’t as much as answer their
greeting. Another time they met a small party of wood cutters, slightly more
talkative, but since they could or would not talk any language Daria or Leal
could understand, the meeting ended soon enough with reciprocal smiles and hand
waving and each went their way. After the fifth day they met nobody at all, and
the road became rougher. Green weeds were encroaching on it from every side.