Chapter 18
AFTER THIS, suddenly the winter was too short, despite the nightmares of a man with eyes brighter than a dragon’s, who wore a red cloak. The snow melted too soon, and too soon the first tight buds knuckled out from the trees, and the first vivid purple shoots parted the last year’s dry grass. There was a heavy rich smell in the air, and Aerin kept seeing things in the shadows just beyond the edge of sight, and hearing far high laughter she could not be sure she did not imagine. Sometimes when she saw or heard such somethings she would whip around to look at Luthe, who, as often as not, would be staring into the middle distance with a vague silly smile on his face.
“You aren’t really alone up here at all, are you?” she said, and was surprised to feel something she suspected was jealousy.
Luthe refocused his eyes to look at her gravely. “No. But my ... friends ... are very shy. Worse than I am.”
“I’ll be leaving soon anyway,” Aerin said. “They’ll come back to you soon enough.’’
Luthe did not answer immediately. “Yes. Soon enough,”
She got out Talat’s saddle and gear and cleaned everything, and oiled the leather; and upon request Luthe provided her with some heavy canvas and narrow bits of leather, and she rigged a plain breastplate, for Talat had insufficient wither to carry a saddle reliably straight. She also made a little leather pouch to carry the red dragon stone, which had been living under a corner of her mattress, and hung it around her neck on a thong. Then she spent hours currying Talat while the winter hair rose in clouds around them and Talat made hideous faces of ecstasy and gratification.
She came dripping into the grey hall at twilight one evening, having shed a great deal of white hair and dust in the bathhouse, and found Luthe pulling the wrappings off a sword. The cloth was black and brittle, as if with great age, but the scabbard gleamed silver-white and the great blue gem set in the hilt was bright as fire. “Oh,” breathed Aerin, coming up behind him.
He turned and smiled at her, and, holding the scabbard in a shred of ragged black cloth, offered her the hilt. She grasped it without hesitation, and the feel of it was as smooth as glass, and the grips seemed to mold to her hand. She pulled the blade free, and it flashed momentarily with a light that cut the farthest shadows of Luthe’s ever shadowed hall, and there seemed to be an echo of some great clap of sound that deafened both the red-haired woman and the tall blond man; yet neither heard anything. And then it was merely a sword, glinting faintly in the firelight, with a great blue gem set at the peak of the hilt.
“Yes, I rather thought she was for you,” Luthe said. “Goriolo said I would know when the time came. Funny I did not think of her sooner; there can be no better ally against Agsded.”
“What—who is she?” Aerin said, holding the tip upright so the firelight would run like water down the length of the blade. “She is Gonturan,” Luthe said. “I—er—found her, long ago, on my travels in the—er—East. Before I settled here. Although I think it probable that she called me; there was no good reason for me to have been possessed of a desire to go haring off on a long journey East. I have never been a traveler by nature.”
“Called you?” said Aerin, although she had no difficulty in believing that this particular sword could do anything—jump over the moon, turn herself into a juggernaut, speak riddles that might be prophecy. “It’s a long story,” said Luthe. Aerin took her eyes off the sword long enough to flash him an exasperated look.
“I’ll tell you all of it someday,” Luthe said, but his voice carried no conviction.
Aerin said quietly, “I leave at the next new moon.”
“Yes,” said Luthe, so softly she did not hear him but knew only that he must agree; and Gonturan slid like silk into her scabbard. They stood not looking at anything, and at last Aerin said lightly, “It is as well to have a sword; and I left mine in the City, for it is sworn to the king and the king’s business; although if Arlbeth knew of Agsded he must admit that Agsded is king’s business.”
Luthe said, “He would; but he would never admit that it was your business, even if he knew all the story. Arlbeth is a worthy man but, um, traditional. But Gonturan goes with you, and Gonturan is better than a platoon of Damarian cavalry.”
“And easier to feed,” said Aerin.
“North you must go,” said Luthe. “North and east, I think you will find the way.”
Talat stood still while Aerin tied the last bundles behind his saddle, but his ears spoke of his impatience. It’s been a pleasant sojourn, they said, and we would be happy to return someday; but it’s high time we were off now.
Aerin gave a final tug on a strap and then turned to Luthe. He stood next to one of the pillars before his hall. She stared fixedly at the open neck of his tunic so she need not see how the young spring sunlight danced in his hair; but she found herself watching a rapid little pulse beating in the hollow of his throat, and so she shifted her attention to his left shoulder. “Good-bye,” she said. “Thanks. Um.”
The arm attached to the shoulder she was staring at reached out toward her, and she was so absorbed in not thinking about anything that its hand had seized her chin before she thought to flinch away. The hand exerted upward force and her neck reluctantly bent back, but her eyes stuck on his chin and stayed there.
“Hey,” said Luthe. “This is me, remember? You aren’t allowed to pretend I don’t exist until after you leave my mountain.”
She raised her eyes and met his; blue eyes smiled into veiled green ones. He dropped his hand and said lightly, “Very well, have it your way. I don’t exist.”
She had already turned away, but she turned back at that, and his arms closed around her, and so they stood, while the sun shone down on their two motionless figures and one impatient stallion.
Aerin broke free at last, and heaved herself belly down over the saddle, and swung her leg hastily behind, thumping a bundle with her boot in the process. Talat grunted.
“Come back to me,” said Luthe behind her.
“I will,” she said to Talat’s ears, and then Talat was trotting briskly down the trail. The last Luthe saw of them was a stray blue gleam from the hilt of a sword.
Spring seemed to burst everywhere around them as they went, as though Talat’s small round hoofs struck greenness from the earth; as if the last white hairs of his winter coat conveyed a charm to the earth they touched. When they slept, they slept in small glades of trees where leaves had just begun to show; but in the mornings, somehow, the leaves were uncurled and heavy with sap; even the grass Aerin lay on had thickened during the night hours. Talat seemed to grow younger with every day, his shining whiteness brilliant in the sunlight, tirelessly jogging mile after long mile; and the birds followed them, as the leaves opened for them, and the flowers cast their perfumes around them. Aerin saw, and wondered, and thought she was imagining things; and then thought again that perhaps she wasn’t; but the sun told her that they went steadily north, and the hard feel of Gonturan in her hand reminded her of why they went.
They had first descended to the forest plain when they left Luthe, and turned right, or north, in the foothills; and here the grass grew to Talat’s knees, and he had to wade through it, with a rushing sound like a ship’s prow through the sea. Before them the grass was thinner; behind them, when she turned to look, the grass was deepest where their trail had been, and waves of grass rippled out from it in wide curving swells. Aerin laughed. “I believe we go in company after ail, though the company chooses to be silent.” Talat cocked his ears back to listen.
But soon they climbed into the mountains again, and there spring had more trouble following them, although she continued to try. Aerin was not conscious of guiding Talat, any more than she had been when they sought for Luthe; they both knew where they were going, and it drew them on; and behind them spring urged them forward. Higher they went, as the sun rose over them and set almost behind them, and the ground underfoot was no longer turf, but rock, and Talat’s hoofs rang when they struck.