Aloren Read online

  The rider was a woman. A tall woman with black hair unbound and falling over her grey mantle. She crossed the rickety bridge of pine masts, sitting sidesaddle on a brown palfrey. The bells on the halter sang like stars.

  She reined in the horse and they all gawked at her. Floy saw that she was human––her eyes shone gold in her white face.

  “You’re not Father,” said Leode.

  “No,” she said. “But I know him well, I think. Are you the Lauriad children?”

  Tem gave a tiny shake of his head.

  “Yes,” said Arin, flattening his hair. “Who are you?”

  “Faiorsa. Your father sent me. How funny you shouldn’t know my face at all.”

  Arin tilted his head, scratched it. “You’re supposed to look something eviler than you do.”

  “Arin,” whispered Mordan. The lady gave a gay laugh

  “We must start anew.” She demounted in a fluid motion, and the palfrey shook her head and snorted. “I have a gift for all of you.” She took a bundle of satin from her mantle. “From the south.”

  “The real south?” Leode swept hair from his brow to better see. “Across the oceans?”

  “Yes. Where the sun is so bright it fills every shadow and never sets.”

  “That’s impossible.” But Mordan’s grey eyes widened in his thin face. She had unwrapped the fabric. It held five flowers, colored the deep warning red of poppies. They shimmered slightly, giving off a faint heat.

  “Stand back a bit.” Tem took Arin by the arm. Arin jerked out of his grip.

  “Do you want to fly?” She bent over them so that the gown hung loose on her chest and hair slipped over her shoulders.

  “No,” said Tem.

  She ignored him. The rest of them did, too. “Do you want to touch the top of the sky, where you can dip your toes into the sunlight and cup it in your hands like water?”

  “Arin,” said Tem, “take Leode and go home.”

  “I want to stay,” said Leode. Arin never turned his head.

  “The blooms of Cam Belnech will lift your feet from the ground.” Her voice swelled musically, her eyes widened, and Leode was first to reach for a flower. Made foolish by his bravery the others, except for Tem, moved closer.

  The woman’s teeth pulled blood from her lip, and the grass dried under Tem’s feet.

  “She means us harm.” Tem plucked at Floy’s dress. “Don’t touch them.” Floy took a flower. The others did, too, and the woman caught Tem by the wrist. She drew him into her chest, and ground a bloom into his palm with the kerchief.

  The juice ran down his arm. The rest dropped the flowers, palms stained red.

  She laughed. “Take to the air all of you,” she said. “Forget the ground and fade away.”

  She turned to her palfrey and mounted, astride this time. The stain sank into Floy’s hands. Inside Floy a desire grew: a desire to stop her heart, to draw back into nothing, and melt into the air. But something was off; her flesh stayed solid.

  The boys gave the woman’s command no such resistance. Lauriad feet turned to ash, and Lauriad hands melted away.

  Never turning round, never seeing Floy’s stubborn, solid body, the woman leaned into her saddle and fled. Dust blew around Floy, and she threw her arms over her face.

  Then the miracle happened. Pain teased through Floy’s arms, and the boys stopped crumbling. A strange thing, a divine hand, hollowed bones and pinched fingers to pinions. The ground flew up and Floy crouched over toes gone hard and horny.

  A solid sparrow rose first, then four black birds made of dust. They beat wings north, too thin against the blue to catch the eye of the lady rider.

  She mistook my brothers and me for dead. And how she could have mistaken a pot girl for the only daughter of Daonac Lauriad was incomprehensible. But she did.

  ***

  I ripped up the old tapestry that hung in the privy.

  There was a swan on it. Her wings were raised and she held her chest aloft with such haughtiness that she made the mistake of resembling Arin. I caught a loop of thread with my finger and pulled. The weathered stuff tore easily.

  “Arin,” I cried, ripping the swan’s head off, “were you to turn into a great, stupid bird, I would be the happiest girl on earth.” I ripped it down the middle. “And Mordan, I wish the same fate upon you.” I pulled it from the wall, and used shoes to maul as well as hands. “All of you may have it.”

  Tem, Leode, and Floy had rarely done me any wrong, but such was my passion that I treated them all the same. I threw the pieces of tapestry against the door. “I wish you would all sprout wings and fly away.”

  And even as I spoke I had a vision: a girl, running in a wood. She stopped and looked around as though she’d heard my voice. Her eyes were big and black, and her feathery hair whirled around her face, becoming wings––the great, white wings of an albatross, beating, beating, making a wind.

  I fell silent. Something had heard me.

  Our house was deep in the Vara––a place in the mountains where the air was thin enough and the ground high enough to catch the interest of strange beings.

  I felt bones hollowing, lengthening. I looked at my fingers: there was nothing odd, no feathers.

  But I knew in my gut something was wrong. The blood hammered in my ears, and I knelt next to the toilet. The cat’s mews rang below––she must have caught hold of a crack in the wall.

  I sat down, sticky and cold, and heard a noise behind me. A sibilant hiss, growing louder. Almost a whistle now, and I turned round just in time to see it shoot through the privy window. It stuck, vibrating, in the bottom of the doorframe.

  An arrow.

  There was a flaming rag wrapped around the shaft.

  The fire licked down, set the tapestry alight. I watched the flames snake through the wool, caressing new life into the shredded breast and wing. The door ignited, and I jumped to my feet. “Wildmen,” I said. The shutters caught fire from another arrow, and my breath turned ragged.

  The shutters groaned. I pulled at the door-handle; it was hot to the touch. Another arrow hissed round and seared my ears, and the wood flowered red above my head. I turned, palms pressed to my neck. Already the room glowed like the belly of a forge.

  The hills just south of us were thick with brigands; and I thought of the tales Arin and Mordan told, of bloodthirsty ruffians hacking and burning their way through the wilds.

  My mouth tasted bitter. I imagined Leode’s small body lying broken and Tem kneeling with a knife in his back.

  The fire drew close and my skin tightened. I couldn’t see for the smoke. I doubled over, coughing, nauseous. I remembered the toilet.

  I ran over and looked down into it. It had a wide shaft, and I was small and skinny. “Cat,” I yelled. “Damn me, but I’m coming down.” But the smell was awful, and I hesitated. The floor snapped at my feet.

  I stopped thinking on it, and stepped onto the seat. I lowered myself into the hole, and cold air raised the hair on my legs. I was hanging by my fingers. Above, the shutters clapped over the seat, pinching them, and I let go.

  The chute didn’t go straight down––I slid and rolled. My feet ran into the cat on the way down, and we proceeded together.

  The chute stretched south and emptied us into a deep part of the river. The cold collapsed my lungs. I swam right through my overtunic; and the cat swam for shore, whereupon reaching it, she disappeared into the trees.

  I clambered out after her. I rattled the dead bracken, and stumbled hot and cold through ash and beech. The trees fell away, the sun poured round my head, a clump of fescue beckoned at my knees, and I crumpled.

  ***

  When I awoke, the late sun shone on my face. A bird sat on my chest––a song sparrow.

  She was quite bold. When I sputtered and began to cry, she said sternly, Get up and follow. I didn’t obey. Her breast heaved. Follow!

  She had a fit, pulling at my hair, tickling my nose, scratching my skin. I got up to run away. But she got hold
of my gown and made such a bluster with her little body that I gave up and walked in the direction she was pulling.

  “What do you want?” She hopped from tree to tree, and I raked branches away, trying to keep up. “Where are you going? Slow down.”

  But she didn’t, and my legs and feet bled. I had kicked off my shoes in the water, and the sparrow favored the routes tangled with thimble and blackberry brambles, uncomfortable as the cold air clinging to my gown.

  I wove through trees, splashed through puddles, and slid over the river on a rotten plank bridge; and finally we reached the ridge where the ruined Gralde watchtowers leaned toward the sunset, as if to take in the last light.

  I slowed as we drew near their long shadows. I imagined dead faces peering out the long black windows.

  The little brown bird flew right into the nearest one. The top half was gone, where to I couldn’t guess. It looked like a broken tooth.

  “I’m not following you into there,” I said.

  I turned away, and saw a splash of dapples moving in the shade: Father’s grey horse, chewing on the new greens by the river.

  I picked my way down to her. “Liskara, where’s Father?”

  She raised her head and looked on me with a dark eye. The brown blurred into the white, and she told me in images.

  She gave a sneeze and went back to chewing, and I made my legs carry me up the steps, thick with wet loam and rock creepers, toward the tower. I hated it bitterly.

  Around the back the entrance was misshapen and dark as a cat’s mouth. A strip of sunlight fell in and lit the floor under a window. The late sun made him glow red. He woke when I blocked the light, but he didn’t recognize me until I came closer.

  “Reyna,” he said. “I must speak with you before I go.”

  “Where’re you going?” I said.

  I saw the glint of a thin shaft, a feather. An arrow, pinning his shirt to his chest.

  “Father.” I knelt close and touched it with shaking fingers. “Father, what happened?”

  “Bandits, I––” I grabbed hold of the shaft and snapped it. He tore at his lip, and I eased the broken bit out through the cloth. The blood had spread through the shirt; my hands were slick with it.

  “I don’t know how to help.” I lifted my head, and glanced around. “I have to find someone, somebody, please––”

  “Don’t be silly, girl,” he said. “No one here. There were eight, about eight of them––” He coughed and dark stuff wet his lips. I tore his shirt at the amigaut. “No.” He stopped me with a hand. “You shouldn’t see it.”

  “I don’t know how to help.” I stood and dug my toes into the floor. “I don’t know how to help.” I began crying softy, and he looked behind me.

  “I’m here to tell you how,” he said. “You see them?” He lifted his hand to point, and I looked over my shoulder. “She’s cursed their Marione.”

  The sparrow, perched on a windowsill, was the only real bird. The ones on the floor had been too well hidden for me to notice before. They were black, semi-transparent like shadows or smoke, and the sun shone darkly through them: an egret, a raven, a swan and a dove. My brothers.

  I don’t know how I knew, but I did. They felt like my brothers. An egret, a raven, a swan, and a dove. My skin pricked, and the air thickened in the tower, and I struggled to draw breath. One breath, and then another. My spirit quailed and I stopped breathing altogether––one puff of wind might blow them away like dust.

  “She’s cursed their Marione,” said Father. “Birth flowers. I haven’t much time to explain.”

  “Who’s she?” I said. “How did she know where they are? We don’t even know.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Father. “It’s already been done. You must undo it.”

  He cried out and hacked blood on his shirt. I pulled away.

  “I know where they are,” he said. “They’re growing at the crest of the hill with the standing-stone, just north of here. The red staring out from the green.”

  I knew the place. A strange place, where the wind breathed down the back of your neck. We stayed well clear of it. Mother must have seen the place in her mind––sometimes new mothers could. We’d been raised here for a reason. “They’re growing behind the towers?” I said.

  “Yes,” Father said. “You must pull them from the ground.”

  I stared at him, and the tower darkened around me. Pulling someone’s Marionin was more terrible than murder. Pulling your own was inconceivable.

  “Why––” I swallowed. “Why should I want to do that?”

  His voice shook. “The Cam Belnech. If you break the spirits, the curse will no longer take effect.”

  “What?” I shook my head and wrung my wet skirts.

  “Reyna,” he said, “Reyna, you must listen to me. They’re dying––you see?” He nodded at the birds––my brothers. “All smoke and dust. Because they touched the red flowers, they say. I can hear them. I’ve heard of these red flowers––Cam Belnech, they’re called. They kill Gralde. I don’t know how to explain. You’re much too young.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. He said, finally, “The flowers cause suicidal thoughts in Gralde. If you touch the flowers, you desire death. You want to die.”

  “They want to die?”

  “Yes. Something is holding them here.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what. Something has changed their shape, made them birds.”

  Had I done that? I thought of the black-eyed girl, the albatross.

  “I don’t understand it,” he said. “And it’s not enough. They’re still fading. You can see right through them. You must weaken them so they do themselves no more damage. You must pull the plants. All of them. A broken spirit can’t destroy itself.”

  I understood very little of this. And I understood even less why it had to involve me. “I didn’t touch the red flowers, why should I have to pull my own––?”

  “You must pull all of them,” he said sharply. “Yours, too. After you pull them, after you break the spirits, you will have to mend them at some point, and for the mending you need all the plants. So. Pull them all. When you do this, your brothers will stop fading, I think.”

  “You think?” My fists were clenched; I might have stamped my foot.

  “Be quiet and listen. I haven’t much time.”

  “No.” His every word was absurd. “You’ve lost too much blood.” He shook his head, and I sat on the stones, arms around my knees, crying.

  He reached out and took my hand. “After you break the spirits, when your brothers are safe––”

  I wiped my sleeve across my nose. “What about Foy?”

  He moved his head impatiently. “Floy is Rielde, doesn’t have a Marionin. The Cam Belnech affected her differently–-see?” He pointed to the sparrow. “She’s a real bird, safe for now, and as I was saying, after your brothers’ spirits are broken, you will have to find the cure. The cure for the red flowers, the Cam Belnech.”

  “I thought the broken spirits were the cure––”

  “No, they’re not. They’ll just give you more time to find it.” He shifted his weight under him, and blood bubbled on his lip. “So you must look for the cure, and at the same time you must mend the spirits you broke.” His voice was terrible, rasping, jumping octaves. “To mend them––“ His head fell forward, and his eyes moved back and forth, and he muttered to himself.

  He looked up. “I know this from an old story. About the Oredh Brothers. I have no time to tell it; you’ll just have to follow my instructions. To mend your Marione, you must sow the seeds––so keep the flowers after you pull the plants. Grow a crop of the Marione seeds, and another from that crop, and another, until you have harvested enough of the plants to weave with. When you have enough, you must weave tunics out of the plants, sleeveless tunics, like surcoats. Five tunics of the combined plants, each shirt must be a mixture of the five different plants. When you complete these tunics, throw them over yourself and your brothers, and that will mend the spiri
ts.”

  He took my arm, pulled me closer, and said: “You must mend them within five years. After you pull the plants from the ground, you have five years to grow them and weave with them, five years to find the cure; if you go longer than five years with a broken spirit, you will go mad. Do you understand?”

  He had forgotten I was ten.

  But for all his blindness, bungling, and bad luck, my father wasn’t stupid. He’d studied across the sea before Tem was born, and it wasn’t his fault his encyclopedic memory squashed the common sense right out of him.

  “Do you understand how to do this?” he said again.

  I nodded, only to mollify him.

  “Good. You and your brothers will be able to live five years with your broken Marione, a time enough that you may find the cure for the Cam Belnech. Ice asters.” He spoke between gulps of air. “Reinenea Corliogra. They’ll heal the wound done by the red flowers. They cure everything.

  “The boys and Floy must each have an aster, a whole flower, pistil and stamen, ground into a palm. After you’ve finished the tunics, after you’ve cast the tunics over yourself and the boys, right after you’ve mended your spirits, the boys will only fade, crumble again, and so they must have the asters ready.

  “But more immediately,” he said, squeezing my hand, “after you pull your Marionin, you will have to be careful, very careful, when you are dealing with normal people. You absolutely cannot speak about yourself to whole people. You cannot talk about what you are doing. You cannot take responsibility for your actions. You cannot defend yourself. And you’d be better off not expressing your opinions. Do any of these things and you risk going mad.”

  He scrunched his face up. “You’re too young to understand. You aren’t allowed certain things.” He squeezed my hand again, so hard he shook. “I’m sorry.” His hand went limp. His ring fell through my fingers and chimed on the stone.

  “Don’t leave.” My temples burned and my stomach sickened.

  “Be brave.”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  Stillness crept through the tower, cold and blue, a bruise stealing into every nook of me.