The Hidden Stars Page 4

  The color went out of her face; her lips compressed in a thin hard line. It seemed she was reluctant to speak—but then it all came out in a rush. “I displeased my father, my grandfather, when I married. They had intended me for a great merchant prince, a dealer in brocades and satins and rare orient silks. It was to be an alliance of families, you understand, rather than a love match. But I—I was determined to choose for myself.” She closed her hand in a sudden fierce gesture, and her voice grew husky with repressed emotion. “The man that I chose was strong and brave and honorable, but he was only the son of a poor tradesman. He went for a soldier in the war, and died at Quirfaimre with Prince Eldori. When word of his death arrived, my father might then have welcomed me back into the family…had I not been with child by the man he despised.”

  She looked down at the infant lying across her lap. Freed of her swaddling bands but still loosely wrapped in warm woolen blankets, the baby blinked in the sunlight, waved her tiny white fists. “I lived,” said Luenil, “as best I could by the charity of my neighbors, who had little enough for themselves. But when I grew ill there was no money for medicine, and my father was deaf to all my pleas.”

  She took a deep breath of the salt air, reached out absently to stroke the infant’s downy hair. “I set out walking—I don’t know why. My mind was hazy, feverish. How many days I walked, I can’t even tell you. I walked out of the town where my family lived and into the countryside. At last the Fates led me to Cuirglaes and to the Lady you know. She told me…she told me my little son had already been dead in the womb for many weeks, there was nothing that she or anyone could do. Yet for all the difference in rank and age between us, she spoke to me like a sister, and she seemed to share my grief. The Lady said to me, ‘We are both widows, estranged from our families. We have much in common.’ I didn’t know what she meant at the time, but when I heard of her death, I knew I was destined to care for her child.”

  The wind died, the sail went slack, and the wizard was briefly occupied, pulling out the oars he had stowed in the bottom of the boat and fitting them into their locks. “After all,” he said at last, “you were the logical choice. The village was small—”

  “No,” she protested, “it was more than that.” The color came back into her face as she spoke, and her eyes glowed. “I knew that I would be chosen, but not in any ordinary way.”

  He sat silent for many minutes, considering her words. Waves slapped against the side; the little boat rocked. “You are gifted with Foresight?”

  Luenil shook her head. “Not as you mean it, I think. Or only a little. I was told when I was small that any talent I possessed was too slight, too ordinary, to interest the great wizards of Leal. There are children in every village and town who have what I had,” she added bitterly, “but they have too little of it to merit training them.”

  What she said was unanswerable, being all too true; but there was something in the way that she said it that he found moving. “I am sorry,” he said, “that you were disappointed. In this, as in so much else.”

  She surprised him by laughing: an unexpectedly bright sound out in that vast grey wilderness of wind and wave. “Why should you be sorry? It was no doing of yours. I’m the one who should apologize if I sounded resentful.”

  He searched his mind for something he could offer, some words of comfort. “I have lived in this world for much more than a century,” he said at last, “and I don’t pretend to understand the will of the Fates. Yet this much I know: they can be cruelest when they seem kind, and kindest when they seem cruel.”

  Again Luenil laughed, but then she grew sober. “If that should be true, then they must have something extraordinarily pleasant in mind for me.”

  “Be it so,” said the wizard, sketching a powerful rune on the air.

  4

  They landed on a grey day of sleet and snow, near the town of Povey in Hythe. Of two minds about taking his companions into town with him, Éireamhóine chose, in the end, to lead them to a little sheltered woodland about a mile from the nearest houses. There he left Luenil rocking the baby to sleep and singing one of her incomprehensible nonsense songs.

  He remained wary of using any magic, but people knew him all up and down this coast, from Weye in the north to Rheithûn in the south, and his greatest fear was that someone might recognize him and speak of it later. So he wove a little spell of illusion, a harmless shibéath, to disguise his face and his purple robe. Then he went into Povey.

  Situated near the mouth of the placid river Brae, Povey is a town of bridges and rowboats, of little whitewashed shops and houses, where the blue smoke of hearthfires hovers over steep-pointed roofs of slate or thatch. Pelicans and herons fish in the river; ducks and skrinks and other small fowl paddle in the shallows. Great clattering flocks of skua-gulls wheel overhead, and all the narrow cobblestone streets smell of fish—wherever one goes in the town there is the smell of fish. On this day, Éireamhóine passed open stalls selling oysters and roasted chestnuts and tiny flaky pies stuffed with crabmeat or mushrooms, all smoking hot. The town had a wholesome feel. No servants of the enemy lurked there to sense his magic, Éireamhóine felt certain of that, and he began to wish he had brought Luenil and the little Princess Guenloie with him.

  Moving quickly past the houses, the inns, and the market stalls, he headed toward the south side of town, where most of the shops and stables congregated. There, he bought horses, and supplies, and a mule to carry what the horses could not, and for himself a pair of leather breeches and a rich woolen tunic lined with otter skins. In this new dress, he felt confident no one would recognize him for a wizard of Leal, once he left the coast and the towns where he was known.

  Then, on an impulse, just before leaving the last of the shops, he bought a handful of lavender hair ribbons for Luenil. She was, he thought, much too young, and far too pretty, to wear such deep, unrelieved mourning. He returned to the wood to find nursemaid and infant sleeping peacefully, curled up on a pile of dry autumn leaves.

  They rode east, through Hythe, heading for the Cadmin Aernan, the high range of mountains that divides the coastal realms of Mere, Hythe, and Weye from the interior. They passed through easy, rolling country, through tiny villages and lonely farmsteads. A thin blanket of snow lay gently on the land. The baby traveled in a wicker basket, lashed to the back of the mule, while Luenil rode a pretty grey mare, and Éireamhóine a bay gelding. Their pace was slow; those who might follow in pursuit would be looking for signs of a wizard traveling in haste, at great speed, not for a man and a woman riding peacefully through the countryside. As they continued inland, the roads grew worse and were often nonexistent; rivers were too icy-cold to be forded; again and again they were forced to turn aside and find some other way.

  In his tunic and cross-gartered trousers, Éireamhóine thought he might easily be mistaken for a prosperous farmer or ordinary merchant. He wore his long hair braided back in a fishtail plait, and (because he had always gone smooth-shaven before) allowed a rough dark stubble to grow along his jawline, hoping a beard would disguise his face.

  Luenil, as he soon discovered, had lived her entire life in the islands. Up until now, she told him, one brief voyage to Leal and twice to Nimhelli had been the extent of her travels. She was accustomed to the sea—its vast size, its many moods—but here on the edge of the great continent she seemed overwhelmed by the immensity, the extent of the land.

  “And you tell me,” she said, “that it goes on like this for thousands of miles, with forests and mountains and cities—and people! I never imagined the world was so populous. There must be as many as there are fish in the sea.”

  “No,” said Éireamhóine, suppressing a smile. “This land is vast, but the sea is still greater. Nobody knows how far it continues.”

  She would not, as yet, wear the lavender hair ribbons, but her mood was lighter; she never spoke with the same bitterness he had heard in her voice before. And she was interested in everything she saw: a flock of blackbirds in the b
are white branches of a birch, a herd of spotted deer grazing in a snowy wood.

  “When my son died,” she said to Éireamhóine one day, “I thought that I would soon die, too. And I was glad to think so. But now—” Her voice faded away, the sentence unfinished.

  “The young are resilient,” said the wizard.

  For a moment, her eyebrows came together in a frown, as though she resented the implication. But then Luenil laughed, her clear bright laugh. “I must seem little older than this infant to you!”

  She looked around her, with wonder in her eyes. “After all, I am only seventeen,” she said softly. “And my heart is mending.”

  But one day, at the back of his mind, Éireamhóine felt a nudge of fear.

  They had stopped early, when the weather turned bitter, with snow and lashing winds, and taken shelter in a barn, which the farmer was willing they should do in return for a few small coins.

  An entire month had passed since they left Thäerie, and the moon waxed full again. Éireamhóine could sense it, brooding and malignant behind the overcast; he could feel a series of tiny quakes and jolts pass through the earth. And somehow, sitting beside the small crackling fire of sticks he had built in the middle of the packed-earth floor, the wizard found himself telling Luenil something of his long life and of the world that he remembered, the world that was gone.

  “I was born,” he said, “only a few years before the Change. As now, there was always the threat of war. And I have a dim memory of the full moon, high and cold and distant as we never see her now. The moon was always so, from phase to phase: remote, benign. No one dreaded her influence. It was our fellow men we doubted.”

  He picked up a bit of straw from the floor, held it between his thumb and forefinger, before feeding it to the fire. But his mind was elsewhere, remembering the great kingdom that was—Alluinn of the Bright Towers. As a provincial youth from Thäerie, visiting the mighty seat of Empire in the train of the wizard prince to whom he had recently been apprenticed, how she had dazzled him, with her palaces, her pageantry, her ancientry and pride! Every hour he could spare from his studies, he spent wandering the streets, marveling at the statues, the gardens, the tall, fortified houses. Each morning, he woke with the same thought, the same little thrill of delight: I am here at the very heart of the world. But that idyll was to prove as brief as it was precious. A great company of warriors and wizards marched out through the gates of the capital, going to do battle with the legions of the Otöwan Sorcerer-King far to the south. Vast armies met and clashed; while ordinary men fought, wizards and mages engaged in a cataclysmic battle. The wizards were victorious, and Otöi was reduced to ashes. But the death of a thousand magicians sent a shock through the entire world of matter, changing the path of the moon, the courses of rivers, the face of the land and the sea. A great wave of destruction passed over Alluinn. Even now, much more than a century later, Éireamhóine could still remember it vividly. The beautiful old cities leveled: the great temples and houses; libraries, universities, schools of magic, astronomy, and healing; inns, shops, shipyards, and playhouses, all gone in an instant. And the white towers falling, falling, as great kings and princes; courtiers, heralds, pages, cooks, grooms, seamstresses, and gardeners; hawks, horses, greyhounds, and all—all went down to dust.

  He came back to a realization of where he was and who was with him, with a start. Luenil sat nursing the baby, humming a tune under her breath. A blast of wind rattled the walls of the barn, and the cattle and horses stirred uneasily in their narrow stalls. He saw that the fire was burning low, reached out for another handful of sticks to replenish it—

  And it was then that he felt the first twinge of apprehension. He scolded himself, silently, for speaking of things that were best left unmentioned—but still, he discounted the warning, believed it was only the return of his own natural caution, which had somehow slipped away during the uneventful journey.

  Yet the fear was with him all through the night, and the next day. As they packed up to leave in the morning, as he helped Luenil to mount and swung up into the saddle, he experienced a rising sense of panic, most uncharacteristic, and a desire to urge the gelding into a canter that was almost overwhelming.

  He began to suspect that his mind had been touched from the outside, that a trap had been prepared, and they had only to give in to the fear in order for it to close on them. If we run, he told himself, it will be easier to spot us.

  A new day dawned, the clouds parted, and Éireamhóine was able to point out the gaunt snowy peaks of the Cadmin Aernan marching along the horizon, sharp and distinct against a blue winter sky. Yet he knew that the distances were deceptive; the mountains were still a long way off.

  He felt a constant pressure on his mind. We are moving too slow, too slow, he thought, in a near panic. Taking it too easy for the sake of the girl, the infant, the horses. And that was true: some days they had not traveled at all because of the weather, and some days for an hour or two only.

  But at last the weather relented, and they made good progress. A faint breeze came fresh and sweet down from the north, and the fields sparkled in the mild light of a winter day. The horses plodded on through the powdery snow, moving between milestones of weathered granite that marked what remained of an ancient road. It was possible to make out the tumbled shapes of the foothills, rising ridge upon ridge, smoke-blue and smoke-grey, until they met the great needle-sharp pillars and spires, precipices, stacks, chimneys, and towers of the snowy mountains. Yet still the voice in his head said, Hurry—hurry!

  They stopped in the afternoon, to rest the horses, and to allow Luenil to feed the baby. Éireamhóine built a fire, to warm some wine and cook some food. He had only just begun to eat when he felt a prickling all down his spine, and knew it for a true warning. He sprang to his feet, kicked out the fire, and scanned the land, the sky, in all directions.

  Then he spotted them: far across the snowy landscape, a blur of red and brown and grey—horses, and men in scarlet cloaks riding them, still distant but closing rapidly.

  He snatched the infant out of Luenil’s arms. “Furiádhin! Six of them, I think.”

  Éireamhóine saw her eyes dilate, the blood drain out of her face as the name shocked through her. “They will kill Guenloie.”

  “They will try,” he answered, with a hard look, slipping the baby into the basket, and quickly and deftly fastening the straps over her blankets to keep her securely in place. “But first they must catch us!”

  Luenil had already mounted, and the wizard flung himself into the saddle atop the bay. Then they were off: the mare and the mule running flat out, but Éireamhóine was obliged to hold the gelding back, just a little, to keep from outdistancing the young woman and the child.

  It was, he reflected as they went hurtling down the road, in some ways a relief to run at last, to know the danger, even if that danger consisted of Ouriána’s most feared servants. Yet he shuddered at the memory of cold, inhuman faces, and of a pain past bearing, pain unremitting.

  Behind him he cast an illusion: a long line of trees in full leaf, a phantom forest of oak, ash, and hawthorn, separating those who fled from those who followed. It would not deceive the Furiádhin, but it would confuse the horses and serve as a blind between him and the men while Éireamhóine urged the bay to a faster pace, briefly surging ahead of his companions, to lead them off in a new direction, cross-country: north this time, parallel to the mountains. Then he drew down a storm from the peaks to cover their tracks.

  As he dropped back to keep an eye on the others, the clouds he had summoned came streaming on the wind like dark flags over head, and flurries of snow fell all around him.

  They rode until their mounts were stumbling with exhaustion. Looking back over his shoulder, the way they had come, Éireamhóine could see no signs of pursuit. They were in the foothills, where a little stream came clattering down from the heights. Though they had run a straight course all afternoon, heading north, true north the whole time, they had
reached a place where the mountain range veered toward the sea. The storm clouds broke, and the sky overhead was a dull gold, shading to grey over the Cadmin Aernan, to crimson in the west.

  Because it seemed safe, as much as for pity of the horses and the mule, he finally called a halt by a thin line of trees, evergreens and hollies and cowan, straggling along beside the stream. He climbed wearily down from the saddle, then forced his legs to move, to take a few steps, his aching arms to reach out and assist Luenil as she dismounted. The hand that she put in his was icy-cold, and trembling; her eyes were glazed with fear and fatigue. But she made a valiant attempt at a smile as she dropped to the ground and stood on unsteady legs.

  The baby began to fuss and whimper in her nest of blankets. She had been quiet all the time they were running, perhaps sensing their danger, perhaps lulled to sleep by the rocking gait of the mule.

  “Feed her; then take something for yourself,” said the wizard. “I will do what I can for these poor beasts.”

  While he made himself busy, he continued to talk, more to himself than to the girl. “King Réodan’s diversion has gained us this much: there were only six of them, not the full twelve. It seems that Ouriána holds something back to defend the island. And—thank the Fates!—Camhóinhann wasn’t with those we saw.”

  “But how can you tell?” asked Luenil, behind him. She sounded tired and ill, her voice hoarse and faintly querulous. “They all looked the same to me.”

  “That is how I can tell. It would be impossible to mistake Camhóinhann, even at a distance. There is that about him—a power, a brilliance—that makes him stand out among the others like a giant among pygmies.”

  Later on, while they rested, all huddled together, wizard, nursemaid, and baby, under the trees and out of the wind, Éireamhóine said to Luenil: “We should be safe for the night. They don’t see in the dark any better than we do; neither can their horses run any longer than ours can. But if we can only reach the mountains! I know them well: all the high roads and passes, which ones will be open this time of year. We’ll have the advantage there. Unless—