Ember and Ash Page 13

  She wished that the Prowman were with them now.

  “Greetings,” she said to the ghosts. Squinting, she could just make out male shapes. Cedar said quietly, “Men of the Northern Mountains Domain,” and she realized that he could see them clearly enough to make out the insignia on their uniforms.

  “We greet you, men of the Northern Mountains Domain,” Ember said clearly, inclining her head graciously at the correct angle. “We ask permission to pass through this land to the mountains beyond.”

  The ghosts turned to stare behind them, at the cold shapes of the Eye Teeth jutting dark gray against the pale sky. There were clouds at the snowy peaks, twisting in a distant wind.

  Then, moving together as though they were the same being, they raised their swords and crossed them. It was a clear signal: No passage. Then one freed a hand and pointed south.

  Obediently, they looked: there was a path, now, just below the rim of the ridge. A deer trail, Ember thought, or an elk walk. The bushes on either side were cropped, a sign that elk had been that way.

  “South,” Ash said. “Toward Starkling.” He swiveled in his saddle to face Ember. “Best not go there if we can help it.”

  Starkling… it and Elgir, the warlord of Northern Mountains Domain, had an eerie reputation. This use of ghosts as gatekeepers was typical. In a world which had almost been destroyed by ghosts, who else would use them as warriors? It was unthinkable.

  Ember studied the ghosts. They were still standing with crossed swords, one with his finger pointing, in exactly the same position. She supposed that ghosts didn’t get tired. Her mother would know. Her mother was the one to deal with strange events and unchancy threats, not her. But they had to do something. They couldn’t sit on their horses until the ghosts went away to be reborn.

  Tentatively, she said, “By your leave, good men, our task is urgent and we cannot risk delay. Let us pass.”

  They didn’t move.

  “Ride through them!” Curlew said. “They’re just ghosts.”

  He kicked his horse and she leaped forward as though glad to get moving again.

  “No!” Cedar cried. “Curlew, don’t!”

  Ash reached for Curlew’s bridle, but too late. He had cantered past them and straight through the ghosts.

  The horse screamed, threw up its head and fell, twisting as it went as though its legs had been swept out from the side. They all reached toward Curlew, but it was futile; he was falling, too. Ember had time to see that his face was astonished, not afraid, and then he hit the ground.

  And disappeared, horse and rider both. Ember cried out in alarm, and heard Cedar and Tern echo her. The ghosts hadn’t moved, hadn’t reacted at all: they still stood with crossed swords, hand pointed south.

  Ash had readied his bow, but there was nothing to shoot. The grasslands stretched out before them. But Curlew was simply gone.

  “Where is he?” Ash demanded. “What have you done with him?”

  The ghosts ignored him.

  “Perhaps,” Cedar said slowly, “they are not gatekeepers, but guardians. Saving us from whatever took him…”

  “No,” Ember said bitterly. “This is Elgir’s work. My father warned me to avoid him. He gathers power like a dragon hoarding gold. He wants us to go to Starkling.”

  “Then we should not go,” Cedar said. “But I suspect we will, anyway.” He looked at Ash quizzically.

  “Curlew may not be dead,” Ash said. “Elgir might be able to bring him back from wherever he was sent. We will go and ask him.”

  Ember had never heard him so grim. Part of her agreed with him, but that part was Curlew’s friend, not the daughter of his lord.

  “No,” she said, her eyes filling hot and sharp, because the part that was Curlew’s friend was large in her. “We cannot risk a whole domain for the sake of one man.”

  Ash looked at her in astonishment and dismay, but then his face hardened and he nodded.

  “North, then,” he said. “Try to go around them.”

  “But Curlew!” Tern protested. “What if he’s hurt, somewhere? What if we could save him?”

  Ember brought Merry across to him and held his gaze so he could see that she meant what she said. “I wish we could forget everything else and find him,” she said. “But what do you think Curlew would tell us to do?”

  Tern looked mutinous. “Just because he’d say it doesn’t mean it’s right!”

  Cedar laughed shortly.

  “Well said, boy. But she is right. Do you want to go back to the mothers of dead children and tell them we were too late because we tried to find a missing soldier, who knew the risk when he agreed to come?”

  Tern’s lip trembled, his eyes blurring with tears. His shoulders sagged and he looked away, saying nothing.

  “North,” Ash said again. They turned the horses to the north, and dismounted. The slope would put too much strain on the horses if they rode—there was no path this way, although the trees and shrubs were not dense and they could easily weave through them.

  As they left, the ghosts turned their heads to watch but did not otherwise move, and Ember wondered how long they would stand there, barring the way.

  Barely half a league to the north, they rounded a bend and found themselves headed back toward the path they had left, with the ghosts still standing there, swords crossed.

  Cedar swore. “They’re laughing at us!”

  “No doubt we look funny,” Ash said. He tilted his head back to watch a bird circling, high overhead, and sighed. “Heron,” he remarked absently. “Or crane, maybe. South, princess?”

  Although the name was teasing, his tone was weary and Ember wished they could all fly away.

  “Let’s see what the stones say,” she said, turning to Cedar. As a family, they were used to consulting the stones. Ember hoped Cedar would have at least some of that talent.

  Cedar handed his reins to Tern and came to them with a mixture of alacrity and nervousness. His first casting, she realized. He took the yellow pouch from his waist, and then looked dismayed.

  “I don’t have a cloth!” he said. It was odd to see the normally saturnine Cedar so discomfited. Ember concealed a smile and pulled a kerchief from her pocket. It was a little grubby, but it would do. Cedar took it and sat on the ground, smoothing the green fabric as carefully as if it were silk from the Wind Cities.

  “Ask,” he said, looking up at her. But something made her turn to Ash instead.

  “You ask,” she said. “Make sure Fire doesn’t get involved in this.”

  He grimaced, but he squatted opposite Cedar and spat into his palm. Cedar did the same and they clasped hands.

  “Should we go to Starkling?” Ash asked. Tern edged nearer, holding the horses, so that their hot breath swept over Ember and raised the hair on her neck. She waited, heart beating hard, aware from the corner of her eye that the ghosts had turned to stare at them.

  Cedar dug in his pouch and cast the stones on the kerchief. That moment, watching the stones fall, was always long, always exciting. No matter how many times Ember saw it, she was still astonished at the gods’ generosity—to share the future with humans, how amazing!

  Five stones. Some face up, some down. Cedar touched each delicately with one long finger, as Martine did.

  “Chaos,” he said, a rough edge to his voice, as though this wasn’t easy. “Loss. Face up, both. And hidden…” he turned the others over. “Love. Destiny. Hope.”

  “Hope,” Ash repeated.

  “Chaos and loss,” Tern muttered.

  Cedar gathered the stones together slowly.

  “That’s what they are,” Ember asked, “but what do they say to you?” The others looked at her strangely, but her mother had often talked about the stones speaking to her.

  “They laugh,” Cedar said blankly. “I think they think we have no choice.”

  He put the stones back in the bag and dropped Ash’s hands. They stood up, staring at each other, wiping the spit off on their legs with identical
movements. They had never looked more like brothers. Cedar made to give the kerchief back to Ember, but she waved it away. He would need it again.

  “So, south, princess?” Ash asked her, his eyes steady.

  “South,” she said, fear welling in her chest and making it hard to breathe. “South to Starkling.”

  They turned and headed south, leading the horses, and the trail appeared in front of them, clear as day, where they had walked through scrub and grass only moments before. Oddly, Merry and the other horses seemed completely unconcerned by the change, as though there had been no change.

  What kind of power did Elgir have? Had he clouded their minds or physically moved them? Had he looped a part of the world back on itself? How was that possible?

  They mounted again. Ash held Thatch back until he was level with her, and asked, “What has your father told you about this warlord?”

  “Rumors, mostly,” she said, feeling better for being with him. “That he’s an enchanter. That he never does a thing in the ordinary way if there’s an unchancy way to do it. That he’s besotted with the forms and uses of power. No one is allowed into Starkling without his leave, and his people…” She dropped her voice. Her father had hesitated to even say this out loud. “They say his people mate with the water spirits and the forest sprites, and carry their blood.”

  Ash paled. “Can that happen?” he asked.

  “Who knows? I didn’t think so, but then I didn’t think the world could be turned in on itself as it is around here.”

  He looked up at the sky again, and to their left, where the Forest loomed, dark and somehow more mysterious since they had passed through it. Ember shivered at the thought of riding back into that gloomy shade, and told herself that they’d be lucky to make it that far.

  Palisade Fort, the Last Domain

  Arvid had thought that Lady Sigurd was a tall woman; but as she came down the steps from the hall, leaning on Merroc’s arm, she seemed much smaller. Older, weaker, fragile. He heard Martine, beside him, take in a breath that was full of pity.

  “She told me, before the wedding,” Martine murmured, “that she lost two babies before Osfrid, and could have no more after him. He was her heart and breath.”

  Compassion took him, imagining how he would feel if Ember, born so late and so unexpectedly in his life, had been burned in that fire as well as Osfrid. Not for the first time, he wondered why he’d had no other children. He’d put off marrying because he wanted what his parents had had, love and respect, instead of just political goodwill; but he’d had love affairs, with more than a few women, over the years, and none of them had borne him a child. Most warlords had a score of bastards—half the sergeants in the Domains were by-blows of their lord. He had only Ember. His heart contracted, thinking of her in the Great Forest, where anything could happen.

  They waited silently while Sigurd made her way slowly across the muster yard to the fire. Arvid bowed to her. She nodded back, but when Martine bowed she ignored it completely. Martine said nothing.

  “My lady, I have arranged for musicians, if you please,” Arvid said.

  Some people believed that music helped the soul to quicken, and then to release its hold on this world and move on, to the darkness beyond death which was the threshold of rebirth. Sigurd nodded.

  The flute and drum began to play; the musicians had come for the wedding, ready with love songs and ballads and dance tunes. But every musician was used to playing for quickenings, and the music was gentle and soothing. Martine signaled to Cat, the steward, to bring the chairs they had ready forward, so that Merroc and Sigurd could sit. Merroc, Arvid could see, would have preferred to stand, but he sat to make sure that his wife would sit, also.

  Sigurd looked withered; ashen with bloodshot eyes, a fine tremble in her hands as they lay in her lap clutching a kerchief. She stared at the fire with terrible intensity. They had moved the cooks away for the time being, so the fire burned unrestricted with no pots or pans nearby. It would make the day harder, but it was a mark of respect they could show.

  Ghosts didn’t quicken to the minute, so they had gathered a full two hours before the time of Osfrid’s death. The sun was well up, and shining, but the chill was strong. Sigurd was shivering. Martine sent Fox back to the hall for a cloak and Arvid placed it carefully around Sigurd’s shoulders. She didn’t notice. Her eyes never wavered from the flames.

  Martine was in her red coat. Normally he liked to see her in it, her hair tucked up under its matching hat, but today the color reminded him of blood, and she seemed like an enchanter out of the old stories, not to be trusted, not to be—not to be loved.

  Waiting fruitlessly for Osfrid’s ghost to appear left him with too much time to think. Too much time to remember. He had, with his own eyes, seen her and three others remake the compact spell when an enchanter’s spell had unraveled it.

  She had kept everyone safe, Traveler and Acton’s people alike. He had been so proud of her, and later, so sure of her love… Memories poured through him. Martine pregnant, holding little Ember as she tried to walk, doggedly learning etiquette so that they could visit the southern warlords without her disgracing him, Martine in his bed, in his arms… he shuddered and disguised it by rubbing his arms as though even colder than he actually was.

  Could all that, could all the twenty-one years of laughing and loving and working together have been a lie?

  He couldn’t begin to imagine the mind of someone who could live that lie.

  If only she would come to him, say she was sorry, ask for his forgiveness… He realized that his hands were clenched into fists. He loosened them, and glanced at the sun.

  “This was the time, my lady,” he said quietly.

  Sigurd gave no sign of hearing him, but Merroc nodded shortly, his eagle gaze fixed on the fire.

  But Osfrid did not come.

  Arvid didn’t expect him to. If twenty-one years of living with Martine had taught him anything, it was that her castings were true. If she said that Osfrid had gone on to rebirth, then he had, and that was that. He felt sorry for Sigurd, all the same.

  Two hours after the time, he touched Merroc on the arm and drew him aside.

  “I think my lady’s casting was true,” he said. “Your son was a noble soul and has gone on to rebirth already.”

  Merroc’s eyes shone with tears. His hand was unsteady as he wiped them away.

  “So it may be. But my lady will wish to wait longer.”

  “She is welcome to wait as long as she wishes. But in a few hours we will need to cook the evening meal for the children…”

  Merroc closed his eyes for a moment and drew in a breath.

  “Have you ever noticed,” he asked, almost conversationally, but with a thread of deep pain underneath his words, “that dying in battle is easy compared to living?”

  Arvid couldn’t stop himself glancing at Martine, who still stood, calm and polite, behind and to one side of Sigurd’s chair, where the lady did not have to look at her. Calm and beautiful, like a soapstone carving.

  “Aye,” he said. “But when you are the lord, you must go on caring for your people, in battle or after.”

  Merroc nodded, and seemed to have trouble stopping the movement of his heavy head.

  “Give her another hour or so,” he said. Arvid could see the effort it took not to plead.

  “Of course,” Arvid said. “I will give as much time as I can.”

  He bowed and returned to waiting, standing a careful pace away from Martine. Merroc, after a moment’s hesitation, put his hand on Sigurd’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear. She shook her head fiercely and he shrugged at Arvid and sat down next to his lady.

  Martine ordered food brought, but Sigurd would have nothing but water. She never moved in her chair otherwise.

  Arvid waited as long as he could, but the sun was lowering and he could hear babies crying, children demanding food, mothers being exasperated, in the shelters and barns. Women who had left the grieving mother
respectfully alone all day now gathered in the doorways and waited, watched, impatience growing with their own little ones’ needs.

  Finally, he had to act. He drew in a breath and stepped forward, but before he could say anything Martine had walked past him and knelt by Sigurd’s chair.

  “My lady,” she said formally, respectfully, “we must begin to use the fire again, so that the children may be fed.”

  Sigurd seemed to pull her gaze back from the fire with a great effort, but she did not look at Martine. She raised her eyes to Arvid.

  “My son will come,” she said. Her tone had the flat certainty of madness or prophecy, and who was he to say which it was?

  “He will be welcome when he does,” Arvid said. “Welcome and honored.” She nodded, and settled back into the same pose she had taken all day. “But, my lady—”

  Her head whipped around and she almost spat at him, “My son will come.”

  “When he does, will he be pleased to find starving children?” Martine’s voice was sharp. Merroc got up hastily and stepped toward her, but Sigurd kept watching the fire.

  “What do I care about other women’s sons?” she said.

  “Sig,” Merroc said, touching her head. He looked up at the residence, at the floor where their rooms were. “You could watch from your chamber.”

  She moved her eyes slowly to his face, as though she had to remember how. “From inside?” she asked. “But he will not see me there.”

  “If—when he comes, he will wait for you, my dear,” Merroc said, his tone dreadfully kind. “Come. You go up and I will wait here and watch for him. When you are safe at the window, I will join you.”

  For a long moment, Sigurd considered this. Then she shook her head, slowly, and at the end of one shake her head simply kept turning until she was staring once more at the fire.

  “I will wait here,” she said. Arvid looked away from Merroc’s face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “we will need to cook, anyway.”

  Merroc nodded and sat down again, taking Sigurd’s hand into his own. She let him, but her pale fingers lay lifelessly in his grasp. Arvid’s throat tightened and he turned abruptly to gesture to the waiting servers and cooks.