When my supplies ran low, I stopped at a pilgrim’s hostelry, a meager shelter for those visiting a local shrine to the twins Vellya and Vanir, goddess of earth and god of fire. In the holy cavern visitors could wander by torchlight among pits of boiling mud that reeked of brimstone, deep crevasses where spouts of fire shot up from glowing rocks, and rocky maws of simmering water that would periodically shoot towers of steam to the cavern roof ten stories above. I skipped the pilgrimage to the cavern and resumed my journey after sharing the common soup pot and sleeping on a hard mat in the shelter. I spoke to no one, asked no questions, and sought no news. My hands stayed inside my cloak.
Fortunately the roads were mostly deserted, for I had begun talking to myself aloud. Anyone who heard me might have reported a madman on the loose. I needed to work the rust and hesitation from my speech. It was too noticeable. So I worked at the repetitive diction exercises my singing masters had drilled into me, and I searched out saxifrage and coltsfoot and candlewick and boiled them in water, inhaling the steam or drinking the tea to ease the irritation of my throat.
Only once, as I stood on a rocky overlook and watched the sun set over the Carag Huim with the color of dragons’ fire, did I attempt to turn my speech into a song, that same “Morgave’s Lament” I had known since I was five. But the first three notes fell dead in the quiet air. I could not hear the next one in my head, could not feel the words blossom from the unfolding melody, could not summon the passion that would weave together the notes and the words and grow them into so much more together than they were apart. And so I faltered and broke off ... and cursed myself for a fool to think it even possible that I could make music where none lived any longer.
On the next day I passed a roadside shrine dedicated to Roelan. The graven visage of the hunchbacked god was nestled in a grove of willows next to a well-tended pool. I stopped there awhile, gazing at the god with the falcon on his crooked shoulder. In the hot stillness of the afternoon I forced myself to look inward, to lay myself open, to listen and feel as I had not permitted myself for half an eternity. But though my ears came near bleeding with the effort, the world was silent. I left the shrine without an offering for the god. I had nothing to give him.
At the end of my second week on the road, I arrived at the city of Camarthan, a fair-sized market town of graceful domes and arches built of warm yellow granite and white marble. It was nestled in the green foothills of the Carag Huim, the Mountains of the Moon, that bounded Elyria on the west. No major trade routes passed through the city, but myriad minor ones, ensuring that its marketplace provided the most interesting and exotic fare of any in the kingdom. The people were friendly and open, and perhaps because of their constant exposure to new things, their city had always been the best place to try out new music. The region lay under the protection of the Duke of Catania. In the past when I had visited Camarthan, the duke had been a cultured, well-educated man. When I had come there to sing in his marble-columned festival pavilion, the duke’s wife had tried her best to entice me to settle in Camarthan as a member of the court and a mentor for their son, who at fifteen was a more than passable harpist. I had refused her, explaining that I was pledged in service to Roelan and must go where the god called me. The duke had graciously offered me a home for whenever the god permitted me to settle. It was perhaps foolish to go back to a place where I had been well known, but it was a convenient destination when I had no other in mind. The old duke’s son now ruled Catania. Assuredly our paths were unlikely to cross.
I left my horse in a clean public stable, asking the owner to find me a decent saddle with large buckles that an “aged servant with poor eyesight” could manage. Then I spent a nervous hour in the local shops, finding new clothes that were less fine and less memorable than those my cousin had supplied, and a better knife than the one I’d gotten from a barmaid at the Whistling Pig. I sought out a glover’s shop deep in a deserted street and bought some loose-fitting doeskin gloves that I could manage to pull on over my wretched hands so that perhaps their appearance would not be so noticeable. The gloves served dual purpose: except on the very hottest days every joint I had ached miserably, and my hands and feet were cold all the time.
By the time I’d taken care of these matters, I was shaking with exhaustion from three weeks’ traveling in constant fear and the terrifying exposure of the city streets. Along with my pride and my defiance, I had used up the last of my courage in Goryx’s chamber. Once mortal necessity was satisfied, I could think of nothing but to find somewhere to hide. So I sought out lodgings in a modest quarter of the city, the streets frequented by clerks and laborers, drovers and journeymen. To remain anonymous in the poorest streets of any town is always difficult, for many residents are looking for information to sell, and no one has enough occupation to keep them from watching each other. But in the streets where people are hurrying about on their own business, no one has time to look too closely.
I, of course, had no business, a matter I was going to have to rectify before too many weeks passed. My cousin’s purse would not refill itself. But I constantly put off taking action. I couldn’t force myself out of my room except to find something to eat, and even then I would make my purchases and scurry back to my lodging like a rat to a hole. A glance from a passing stranger would make me break out in a sweat; a casual word would force my stomach into spasms of terror. I imagined Dragon Riders awaiting me around every corner with manacles and whips. Life became a shriveled mockery, more dismal, I think, than the refuse heaps of Lepan ... until I spent the next-to-last silver coin from my repugnant hoard. Left with no choices, I had to take up life again.
Chapter 7
My first ventures out in search of a new start were into Camarthan’s marketplace. The tree-shaded market was crowded and busy, with a good number of escape routes should I draw unwanted notice. The first day I forced myself out for an hour, the next for two. I drifted from one display to the next, never speaking to anyone until I chided myself that all the work I’d done while on the road was gone for naught if I let my voice rust away again. So I asked a few questions about the origins of the exotic art-works, fabrics, and furnishings one could see in the market, satisfied when the words came out without the harshness of my first days of speech. For a week I would fly trembling back to my hiding place as soon as my allotted time was done. But as the days passed uneventfully, I gained confidence. After two weeks I would spend the whole day in the market, listening to the babble of commerce, watching the ebb and flow of sellers and buyers, and actually beginning to see some of the things at which I looked.
Inevitably, I was drawn to a harpmaker’s stall. I had passed by it ten times before without stopping, but on one beautiful summer afternoon, an elegantly dressed young woman sat tuning a small rosewood harp with ivory keys under the hovering eye of the old craftsman. Her shining dark ringlets shook with her frustration.