The Towers Of the Sunset (19 page)

The prisoner swings over the wall until his hand alone can be seen, clutching at the wall stones.

The guard lifts the sword, bends… and steps back. “He’s gone. He’s in the river.” His voice is muffled by rain and wind.

“In the river? What river?” The second guard joins the first at the edge of the unfinished stone wall.

Then they hasten toward the elaborate wheeled wagon that houses the White Wizards, each looking back over his shoulder at the wall where the prisoner has escaped.

Clang! Clang!

Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!

Another pair of guards races eastward along the completed road, one glancing at the raging waters below, his glance moving farther and farther ahead of his body as he runs.

“… damned water!”

Amidst the torrent, the silver-haired man tries to relax, tries to let the water carry him where it will, at least for a time. Before he has taken two breaths, he is swept past the temporary gate on the road itself that blocks the prison work area from the completed road, past the small universe that is all he has been aware of for… how long? He does not know, for his life is in two parts: the part he is beginning to regain, and the part he has spent as a prisoner of the White Wizards. The last part, and its mindlessness, could have been for days, or for seasons, or possibly even for years.

The water flow smoothes out as it carries him toward the east, away from the storm and into the mist, which is the deluge’s forerunner.

He studies the terrain beyond the road and paddles southward, toward the roadbed, the side punctuated by drains. In another two kays, the current slackens to that of a swift stream. His booted feet begin to bounce off the rocks beneath. His eyes watch the upper peaks.

Then he sees the bridge, a fast-approaching blot across the small river. Splashing wildly and thrusting with his feet against the rocks, he half-swims, half-bounces toward the north side of the channel and is just in time to grasp the rocky abutment.

He clings there, his lungs rasping.

“Accuuugh… accugghh.”

The fingers of one hand edge toward the thin line between the carved stones, dig into the narrow groove and lever his water-tossed body nearer to the rocky escarpment. The other hand crosses, grasping another tenuous stone edge. By repeating the tedious process, the fugitive drags himself clear of the water and onto the stone riprap that slopes toward the valley mentioned by the healer.

After more heaving, he is at the top of the stones, putting one water-filled boot onto the grass. The meadow is empty except for scrub oaks and small junipers around the perimeter. He leaves behind him the stone-paved bridge crossing the subsiding torrent.

Before long, the riders will come trotting down the wizards’ road, and he must be out of sight. The mist is turning to rain as the clouds from ;the west move eastward over the Easthorns.

He forces his walk into a labored jog through the knee-high grass and toward the edge of the meadow, where, if necessary, he can drop behind the low junipers and scattered pines. Intermittent rain beats across the rags on his shoulders, but the water is scarcely cool to him.

“Accuffff… cuffff.” He coughs out the last drops of water from his laboring lungs and pushes onward toward the narrow end of the valley, where the pines rise toward the higher peaks and cover a jumble of rocks jutting through patches of thin soil.

As the sound of horses’ hooves echo down the wizards’ road and the artificial canyon that contains that road, the silver-haired man reaches the cover of the trees. His steps slow, but continue upward. The sound of pursuit grows, then fades as the fugitive works his way through the firs, glad for the skimpy underbrush.

The rain falls again in waves, each wave pushed by gusting winds and restricting vision to mere cubits. He struggles upward, knowing that he must cover as much ground as he can before the cover of the falling water vanishes and either the White Wizards or the trackers’ dogs can follow his trail.

At times he stops, but only long enough to regain his breath, to rebuild his strength. And thus he proceeds throughout the rainy morning and into the afternoon, following the trees over the crest and into the decline that will become a river valley leading into the Certan plains north of the valley where sits the walled city of Jellico.

He rests again in the late afternoon, under a sky filled with white clouds scudding across the clear blue-green and next to a berry patch. Even with the goodly distance between himself and the wizards’ road, he is careful to tuck himself into a hollow created by a boulder and a fallen tree, shielded from the view of high-flying dark birds. There he slowly ingests the dark-purple berries.

Curled into his shelter, thankful that he was raised in real cold on the Roof of the World, he tries to put the pieces together, the rain of memories that the nameless healer has allowed him to recapture. Was she Megaera? Or another tool of the Fates and Furies of the Legend?

As he rests, dreams, half-sleeps, his thoughts drift back.

“It IS HARD, I admit, to function when part of one’s mind is blank, but I have overcome greater obstacles.” Megaera smiles wryly.

“You have been here from late spring, and now the end of fall approaches. How long yet do you plan to be here?” the Duke of Montgren inquires.

“I do what I can, cousin. But under my handicap…” She smiles again, a twisted smile. “For as long as it takes.”

“You can’t mean-”

“For as long as it takes. He recovers, escapes, or dies. Dying, of course, would be the easiest on you and sister dear. I am doing my humble best to help him break the spells.” She pauses. “I’m not well trained, though. Sister dear ensured that. So it could be a long time that I may have to enjoy your hospitality.”

“Which I must supply,” notes the Duke coolly.

“Ah, yes. We all have burdens to bear.” She turns toward the antique desk on which she has placed her crystal goblet. She blinks, then reaches out toward the desk.

He shakes his head slowly, not noticing her hesitation.

“Aeeeü…”

The redhead sinks to the floor under the weight of the kaleidoscope of memories and twisted images that scream through her skull like nightmares riding on warhorses with spiked hooves.

The small and precisely dressed man who has held her arm but a moment before whirls, nearly dropping the goblet of red wine. Instead, only scattered, dark-red splotches mark the ancient Hamorian carpet dating back to the prosperous days of his grandfather.

Before he can replace the half-empty crystal goblet on the desk, the redhead is flat on her face, unconscious, though still breathing.

“Now what?” he mutters. “Helisse! Helisse!” He looks down at the woman, then finally kneels beside her. “Now what?”

The dashing young man on the wind-bearing skis, He flew down the cliff with the greatest of ease, A sword on his pack and his soul in the breeze, That dashing young man on the wind-bearing skis.

With fury to heel and his gray silver hair, He stepped from the heights out over the trees, And he dropped from the Roof to the magic so fair. That dashing young man on the wind-bearing skis.

His eyes on the dark and his soul upon ice, He flew from the Tyrant, a life filled with ease. He left behind wealth for love without price, That dashing young man on the wind-bearing skis.

The soldiers, they searched for many a year. They ripped down the mountains and tore up the trees. But never they found what they never could hear, That dashing young man on the wind-bearing skis.

“Dashing Young Man” Sarronnese-Anonymous

FROM BENEATH THE overhang, Creslin studies the unnaturally clear sky to the south. There, a pair of vulcrows circle, spiraling outward from where the wizards’ road drills its way through the Easthorns.

From where did he receive the strength and the courage to swim the torrent that carried him from the White road guards? Did the healer’s hands help break the block on his memories? Or was it someone or something else? Whatever the cause, he has escaped the White Wizards for now. He will not escape again, not alive, and that means he cannot be caught again.

Toward the east circles yet another pair of the sharp-eyed predators. And he has felt the disruptions of the winds and the skies, the storms being shunted to the east and west. With an indrawn breath, he rests under the rocks, his eyes taking in the thin line of rushing water: another stream that may lead him eastward.

Inside his skull, memories twist like the winds, for he is two people at the same time-silver-top and Creslin-and each remembers a different yesterday. One remembers the road crew; the other remembers the glittering white stones of
Fairhaven and a guitarist who could barely reach the silver notes, and only in a well-shielded tavern.

Music… why don’t they like it? The questions are all too many, the answers too few. So who are you?

He is a man. A man who can sense the music, and the order behind the music. A man who can wield bow and blade better than all but a few. A man who can grasp the winds and bend them to his wishes. A man who knows little of life apart from the Roof of the World, and even less of women, for all that he has been raised around them. A man who has no idea of his destiny.

Unbidden, another set of words drops into his thoughts: “You can run to your destiny, but not from it.”

But what is his destiny? Neither musician, nor soldier, nor student-what is his role? Why do white birds and vulcrows circle above, searching for him? Such questions will not help him to escape from the wizards. Or to find food.

In the cloudless sky, the vulcrows have begun to circle farther to the north, closer to his cover. His heel twinges, but outside of keeping the sore clean, he does not know what else he can do. Yet, besides tending to the infection, the healer had touched the soreness and somehow hastened the healing. Creslin recalls her hands on his foot, and then on his forehead.

But… who? Why? Someone else opposes the White Wizards, enough to help him without saying why and to give him a set of directions, even though such actions could have been exceedingly dangerous. Yet the healer is not the shadowy Megaera.

He slumps back under the overhang, trying to sort out his confusion and to plan his next moves. At least the weather is bearable. There will be little enough to glean from this land, even though it is nearing harvest in Certis and Sarronnyn, and he has not even a knife, only a sleeveless tunic, faded trousers, and road boots. Not even a belt.

How can he escape the White Wizards? Any attempt to seize the winds will draw them to him. He studies the rocky slope below, the scattered pines and the scrub oak, then laughs harshly.

Patience. That is all he needs, that and the willingness to eat anything that is edible as he makes his way through the coming nights toward the plains of Certis. One way or another, he must find his way to Montgren.

He takes a deep breath, then another, and tries to relax until darkness comes, the time when the vulcrows cannot see quite so well.

THE STOOPED FIGURE trudges, shuffles, and occasionally hobbles along the farm road. The rags that cover him are relatively clean. A cloth patch covers one eye, and a stout, if bent, walking stick rests in one square-fingered hand. Creslin asks himself again why it is taking so much longer to cross the plains of Certis the second time.

“Because you have no horse, no money…”

Why is he crossing the plains, heading eastward? Why is he traveling back in the general direction of the wizards, who clearly want him either dead or mindless?

“Because it feels right?” He talks to himself since there is no one else with whom he can talk. “Risking your neck feels right?”

The winds do not lead him to the White Wizards, but along the faintest of trails, too faint to be White or Black, a trail that partakes of both.

He remembers to shuffle as another wagon lurches toward him, and he holds out a supplicating hand. A copper bounces in his direction, but the man and woman on the wagon do not look at him. Creslin recovers the coin and tucks it away. He straightens and walks more steadily once the road is clear.

“NO…” A DARK-HAIRED woman staggers out through the side door but reaches only the second step before she is grasped from behind. Her already-ripped blouse gives way, revealing ample breasts and a bruised shoulder.

“You’ll not spill good wine again!” The thin man with a scar across his cheek seizes the heavyset girl’s bare shoulder and elbow, levering her toward the slop-filled gutter.

“I won’t. I’ll be careful. Please…”

Two bravos smirk as they watch the innkeeper. A capped maid standing on the doorstep across the road looks away and scurries inside.

“No! No!”

Clip… clippedy…

The innkeeper pauses as the horse draws near, then lifts his hand again at the serving girl.

The redheaded woman on the horse reins up. The innkeeper does not look at her, but his hand remains aloft.

“Please, mistress, save me…”

“Go ahead and save her,” snaps the innkeeper. “She’s a worthless slut. Throwing wine on paying customers. Good Suthyan wine at that.”

The serving girl straightens. “They wanted more than wine…”

Two other mounts, carrying a pair of Spidlarian mercenaries, rein up, maintaining a good ten cubits’ distance from the mounted woman.

“Why should I save you?” The redhead’s voice is cool, almost deep.

The serving girl sways. “If your grace…”She shakes her head and looks down. Her eyes are red.

“So you will not beg.” The redhead’s voice remains distant.

“She’s like that. Thinks she’s above everyone,” ventures the thin man. He does not release his hold on the girl’s bruised shoulder.

“Why? Because she doesn’t like being manhandled?” The redhead’s voice sharpens.

“Customers expect friendly service.”

The woman’s eyes take in the dark bruises and the welt on the back of the uncovered shoulder, then move to the innkeeper. “And you expect her to provide very friendly service?”

“Business is business,” responds the innkeeper, but his voice is cautious. “Besides, she was fine when she started.”

The serving girl holds her head erect, looking at neither innkeeper nor horsewoman, but at the silent mercenaries in blue. Tears seep from her eyes; she makes no move, even with her free right hand, to blot or wipe them away.

“Let her go.” The redhead’s voice is level.

“Who will pay her indenture?” whines the innkeeper.

“That wasn’t-” The dark-haired girl breaks off her outburst as the redhead’s eyes focus on her.

“I don’t believe that the Duke’s laws permit the indenture of children for debts of the parents.”

The innkeeper opens his mouth, then closes it.

“Even if the law is not always observed,” continues the horsewoman. She reaches toward her belt and extracts a coin. “Here.”

The innkeeper releases his captive to catch the spinning gold. “But-”

“It’s more than you deserve.”

The innkeeper looks at the hard-faced woman on the horse, then at the two bored mercenaries.

“Don’t even think about it,” warns the woman. “Cousin dear will have your head.”

“Cousin…” The innkeeper looks startled.

“Korweil. The Duke.”

The thin man pales as his eyes flicker from the redhead to the mercenaries. The girl takes a step from him. She uses her freed hand to draw the ripped blouse over her shoulder and partly revealed left breast, but licks her lips nervously.

“Take her then, and be done with it.”

“No.”

The innkeeper backs up another step.

Light flares at the fingertips of the redhead. “Women are not things.”

A fireball sears past the man’s right ear.

“I trust you’ll remember that.” She laughs, a hard laugh, almost a bark, and the fire fades from her hands. Then she looks down at the girl. “You still want to be saved?”

The smallest of nods greets the question.

“Gorton. Help her mount behind me.” The redhead watches as the innkeeper backs up the stairs.

The taller mercenary dismounts and lifts the short but stocky girl up behind the redhead.

“Put one arm around me, and hang on to the saddle rim there with the other. It’s not perfect, but we don’t have far to go.”

“Your grace-” protests the girl.

“Just do it.” The redhead flicks the reins.

The mercenaries follow, and the innkeeper glares from the doorway. The two bravos who have watched the entire proceeding shake their heads, but neither moves until the three horses have picked their way a good hundred cubits up the avenue and toward the walls of the Duke’s keep.

The horsewoman asks, “What are you called?”

“Aldonya, your grace.”

“Will you serve me, at least so long as I am at Vergren?”

“Yes, your grace.”

“That will do.” The redhead says nothing more as the horses walk up the sloping road to the keep.