The Hero and the Crown (24 page)

side of the fire, with Gonturan’s hilt in easy reach. She lay down with her back to

the fire, and stared wide-eyed at the writhe of tree root before her.

Nothing happened.

The silence was broken only by the small snaps of the fire, and even these, at

last, subsided, and real darkness fell. I should keep the fire going. Aerin thought;

who knows what else is out there waiting? Who knows ... But her nightmares

claimed her, and she fell asleep; and again she was suspended in nowhere, but

nowhere was lit with a smoky red light, and a voice was calling her name; or she

thought it was her name it called, but perhaps the word was “uncle.”

She awoke at dawn with a cramp in her side, for a heavy black-furred head was

resting in the hollow between her last rib and her pelvis. As she stirred he began

to purr. She sat up anyway, and glared at him. “You are horrible,” she said, and he

gave her the same sleepy smile as when he had attempted to usurp her bedding.

Talat was dozing uneasily, still leaning against his tree, and was inclined to be

cross when she went to put his saddle on; but perhaps that was because of the

four-footed grey-edged shadow she brought with her. She rode off without

looking behind her; but she felt, if she could not hear, the fluid motion following,

and the black cat trotted along beside them as he could, occasionally leaping into

the rocks above them as the trail narrowed. Once he jumped over them, from a

rock face on one hand to an evergreen tree on the other, showering them with

small sharp needles and seedpods; and when he rejoined them Talat whirled and

snapped at him, but he only glided out of the way. He was smiling again. “Don’t

let him tease you,” Aerin murmured. Talat’s ears stayed back all that day, and he

was a little short on the weak leg, for he could not relax.

On the next day the yerigs joined them, the shaggy wild dogs with their great

ruffs and silky feathery legs and long curling tails. They were a little less alarming

than the folstza only because Aerin was accustomed to the king’s hounds, which

were only half the size of the yerigs. The royal barn cats who caught the mice that

tried to invade the grain bins were barely a tenth the size of the folstza.

On the next day the yerigs joined them, the shaggy wild dogs with their great

ruffs and silky feathery legs and long curling tails. They were a little less alarming

than the folstza only because Aerin was accustomed to the king’s hounds, which

were only half the size of the yerigs. The royal barn cats who caught the mice that

tried to invade the grain bins were barely a tenth the size of the folstza.

Still they traveled north and east, and still the sun rose before them and sank

behind them, but it seemed to Aerin, leading her quiet army, that it rose more

sluggishly and sank sooner each day; and while the trees still shook out young

leaves for her, there were fewer trees, and the solitary sound of Talat’s shod

hoofs rang duller and duller. Occasionally she thought wistfully of the Lake of

Dreams, and of a grey stone hall that stood near it; but she struck these thoughts

from her mind as soon as she recognized them.

And then the day came when dawn was barely a lessening of shadow, and the

clouds hung so low it took an effort of will to stand up straight and not bow

beneath their weight. “Soon,” Aerin said to those that followed her; and soon

came back to her in a rumble of many throats.

Talat stepped out that morning as if all his joints ached, and Aerin was willing

enough to go slowly; she heard little gibbering voices snarling and sniveling at the

edges of her mind, and there seemed to be a red fog over her eyes, as if the

nothingness that haunted her nights would find her out in the days; and she

murmured a word that Luthe had taught her, and the voices stopped, and the fog

lifted. But she was not long allowed the pleasure of this small victory, for now a

single voice murmured to her, and its murmurs reminded her of her Northern

blood, her demon blood... “No!” she cried, and bent forward to press her face in

Talat’s mane, and then she felt the pressure of a heavy paw on her shoulder, and

whiskers tickled her cheek, and she opened her eyes to see two yellow eyes in a

black face that did not smile; and Talat stood perfectly still, his head bowed, as

the black cat’s other forepaw pressed into his crest.

She sat up again, and the cat dropped to the ground, and Talat turned his head

to look at the cat, and the cat turned his head to look back. Talat’s ears, half back,

eased a little, and one reluctantly came forward and pointed toward the cat, and

the cat walked up to him and put up his nose. Talat’s other ear came forward and

pricked, and he lowered his nose, and the two breathed gently into each other’s

faces. Then they went on.

The mountains opened suddenly into an ugly uneven plain; the footing was

bad, crumbly and full of small hidden crevasses, and there were no trees at all.

Aerin’s army stepped and glided and shambled out of the shadows of the rocks

and the last leaves, and billowed up around her till she and Talat were the hub of

a wheel; and all looked around them. “We are no longer in Damar,” she said

calmly, and Talat heaved a great sigh. Aerin unslung Gonturan from her saddle,

and carried the blade in her hand, for the comfort of her only, for there was

nothing for a sword to do in the wide bleak brooding space before them, where

no spring could come.

The silence hammered at her, and she heard the little gibbering voices again,

but indifferently this time, as if she heard them from behind a locked door whose

strength she did not doubt. “Come along, then,” she said, and Talat walked

forward, yerig and folstza making way for them and then falling in beside them.

There was nothing to see but the heavy grey sky and the bleak grey landscape.

Mountains again there must be on the far side of this flat grey space; but the

clouds ringed them in, and there was no horizon. Her beasts followed her because

she led them, but they could not see what she led them to.

Neither could she see aught that was useful; but the small nasty voices in her

mind seemed to push harder on one side of her skull than another; and so she

went toward them.

And before them suddenly was a black mountain, or crag, or tower, or all three;

for it was the size of a mountain, but of the looming impossible shape of a crag

that will be ripped into an avalanche in the next great storm; and yet it was also a

worked shape, however improbable, as if a hand had built it—surely in its peak

was the glint of windows?—but the hand must have belonged to a madman.

Around it twined a vast vine of the surka, and Aerin’s stomach turned over and

fell back in her belly like a stone, and the gibbering voices could be heard to

laugh.

She bent and picked up her sword; but the blue fire had gone out, and the

blade was as dull as the grey plain around them. She looked again to the glint that

might be windows, for she knew now that she had come to the place she looked

for, knew that Agsded was here. And she knew also that there was no way in, for

the way that Gonturan might have won her was lost to her now.

Slowly she circled the great tower, but there were no doors, and now it looked

like a mountain after all, and nothing that should have had a door, it was foolish

to have supposed otherwise; and her quest was a failure, for if not here then she

knew not where. She crawled over the rocks below the surka that wrapped itself

around the black crag, for she would not touch the surka if she could help it, this

surka that the eye of Agsded must have touched, that his breath might have

stirred; but she went alone, for Talat and the folstza and yerig waited where she

had challenged the tower with Gonturan’s flame and then lost it.

She came round the full circle and knew herself defeated, and she went up to

Talat and put her arms around his neck and her face in his mane, as she had done

so often before for little hurts and dismays; and now in this great hurt she had no

other recourse. He tucked his chin against her arm, but it was no comfort, and she

stepped away from him again—and he bolted forward, and reared, and neighed,

a war-horse going to battle. She stared at him open-mouthed, the hilt of her dull

sword prodding her elbow.

Talat scrambled up the rocks before them, and neighed again; and plunged into

the twining surka, which slowed him little. Aerin watching felt that the leaves

pulled at him and hindered his passage as best they might; but he surged through

them and did not care. He neighed again as he reached the foot of the smoother

walls of the tower itself; he was above the vines now, and Aerin could see streaks

of their sap on him. He shook his head, and reared again, and struck the walls

with his front feet; and sparks flew, and there was a smell as of burning, but of

the burning of unclean things. He came to all fours, and then reared and struck

again; and then the folstza and the yerig were flowing up over the rocks and

through the clinging surka to join him, and the yerig queen flung herself at a high

outthrust knob of rock, and scrabbled at it.

“It won’t work,” Aerin whispered, and Talat reared and struck again, and the

smell of burning was stronger.

The folstza were clawing great ropes of vine from the base of the tower, and

flinging them down, and the tower seemed to quiver in her sight. The sharp little

elbow of rock that the yerig queen clung to gave way suddenly, dumping her at

Talat’s feet; but where it had been there was a crack in the black wall; and when

Talat struck at the crack a fine rain of stone powder pattered down.

The torn vines thrashed like wild things when they touched the sandy grey

ground. Aerin reached to touch one of the dark leaves, and it turned into a small

banded snake with venomous eyes; but she picked it up anyway, and it was only a

leaf. She stood staring as her army sought better purchase on the black rock face;

distantly she heard the patter of stone chips, and she picked up another leaf, and

wove it through the stem of the first; and another, and then another, and when,

suddenly, there was a crash and a roar and she looked up, what she held in her

hands was a thick heavy green wreath of surka; and her hands were sticky with

the sap.

A great face of the crag had fallen, and within, Aerin saw stairs winding up into

the black mountain, red with torchlight; and her army turned its eyes on her, and

panted, and many of their mouths dripped pink foam, and many of their feet had

torn and bleeding pads. Talat was grey with sweat. With the wreath in her hands,

and Gonturan banging lifelessly at her side, she stepped carefully through the

rubble, and through the ranks of her army, many of whom touched her lightly

with their noses as she passed them, and set her foot on the first stair.

A great face of the crag had fallen, and within, Aerin saw stairs winding up into

the black mountain, red with torchlight; and her army turned its eyes on her, and

panted, and many of their mouths dripped pink foam, and many of their feet had

torn and bleeding pads. Talat was grey with sweat. With the wreath in her hands,

and Gonturan banging lifelessly at her side, she stepped carefully through the

rubble, and through the ranks of her army, many of whom touched her lightly

with their noses as she passed them, and set her foot on the first stair.

THE STAIRS WENT UP and up in a long slow spiral, and Aerin followed, turning

round and round till it seemed to her she must be climbing the well of the sky and

at the end of the staircase she would step onto the moon’s cold surface and look

down, far away, upon the green earth. For a little while she could hear her

friends, who waited restlessly at the foot of the stair; once she heard the thinnest

thread of a whine, but that was all. None tried to follow her. Then she could no

longer hear anything but the soft sound of her footsteps and the occasional slow

stutter of a guttering flame. Her legs ached with climbing, and her back ached

with tension, and her neck ached with keeping her head tipped up to look at the

endless staircase; and her mind ached with thoughts she dared not think. Daylight

had disappeared long since, had gone with the last sounds of her beasts; the light

in her eyes was red. In the edges of her vision she saw gaping black doors that led

into chambers she would not imagine, let alone turn her gaze to see; and

sometimes the soft noise of her footsteps echoed strangely on a stair that opened

into such a room.

The silence weighed her down; the air grew heavier with every step up. She

recognized the weight, though she had never felt it thus before: evil. Maur’s

breath had stunk of evil, and its words had set evil tracks in her mind; but she had

faced Maur on the earth and under the sky, not in a dark endless airless tower.

She struggled on. With each step she felt her ankles and shinbones jar against the

floor, and tendons grate across her kneecaps, the heavy thigh muscles twist and

curl, her hips grind in their sockets. Her right ankle began to ache.