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  I did not see Nolon set forth to play my role in axe marriage, for he rode out of Ulmskeep where I did not go. It was only two months later that my father came to me looking less unhappy, to tell me that Nolon had returned, and that I was indeed safely wed to a maid I had never seen, and probably would not see for at least eight more years.

  I did not, thereafter, think much of the fact that I had a lady, being well-occupied, with my studies and even more with the quests on which I went with Riwal. Though I was under the guardianship of Jago, he made no protest when I spent time with Riwal. Between those two came to be an odd companionship, in spite of their being so dissimilar in thought and deed.

  As the years passed, that stiffness which had come from my tutor's old hurt grew worse, and he found it difficult to face me in open contest with sword or axe. But with the crossbow he was still a skilled marksman. And his reading of maps, his discussion of this or that battle plan, continued. Though I saw little use then for such matters in my own life, I paid him dutiful attention, and that was to be my salvation later.

  But Riwal did not appear to age at all, and his long stride still carried him far distances without tiring. I learned early to match his energy. And, while my knowledge of plants was never as great as his, yet I found a kinship with birds and animals. I ceased to hunt for sport. And I took pleasure in the fact that his wild ones did not fear me.

  Best of all, however, were our visits to the places of the Old Ones. Riwal prospected further and further over the borders of the Waste, seeking ever to find something intact from the ancient days. His greatest hope, as he confided in me, was to discover some book roll or rune record.

  When I suggested that the reading of such could well be beyond his skill, for surely the Old Ones had not our tongue, he nodded in agreement. Still I felt he opposed that thought, sure that if he did find such, the Power itself would aid him to understand it.

  It was in the Year of the Spitting Toad that I had been wed. As I came closer to manhood, the thought of that distant lady began now and then to trouble me oddly. There were two lads near my years in the foresters’ hold, but from the first they had not been playmates, or later companions. Not only did rank separate us, but they had made me aware, from the beginning of my consciousness of the world about me, that my non-human appearance cut me off from easy friendships. I had given my friendship to only two men—Jago, old enough to be my father, and Riwal, who could have been an older brother (and how I sometimes wished that was the truth!).

  But those forester lads went now to the autumn fair with lass-ribbons tied to the upper latches of their jerkins, whispering and laughing about the adventures those led them to. This brought to me the first strong foreboding that when it did at last come time to claim the Lady Joisan in person, she might find me as ill a sight as had my mother. What would happen when my wife came to Ulmsdale and I must go to bide with her? If she turned from me in open loathing—

  Nightmares began to haunt my sleep, and Riwal at last spoke to me with the bluntness he could use upon occasion. When he demanded what ill thought rode me, I told him the truth, hoping against hope that he would speedily assure me that I saw monsters where there were only shadows, and that I had nothing to fear—though my good sense and experience argued on the side of disaster.

  But he did not give me that reassurance. Instead he was silent for a space, looking down at his hands, which had been busied fitting together some of his image fragments, but now rested quiet on the table.

  “There has ever been truth between us, Kerovan,” he said at last. “To me who knows you well—above all others would I choose to walk in your company. But how can I promise you that this will turn to happiness? I can only wish you peace and—” he hesitated. “Once I walked a path that I thought might end in hand-fasting and I was happy for a little. But while you bear your differences to others openly, I bear mine within. Still, there they be. And the one with whom I would have shared Cup and Flame—she saw those differences, and they made her uneasy.”

  “But you were not already wed,” I ventured, when he fell silent.

  “No, I was not. And I had something else.”

  “That being?” I was quick to ask.

  “This!” He spread out his hands in a gesture to encompass all that was about him under that roof.

  “Then I shall have this also,” I said. Marry I had, for the sake of custom and my father's peace of mind. What I had seen and heard of marriages among the dale lords did not set happiness high. Heirs and lords married to increase their holdings by a maid's dowry, to get a new heir for the line. If inclination and liking came afterward, that was happiness, but it certainly did not always follow so.

  “Perhaps you can.” Riwal nodded. “There is something I have long thought on. Perhaps this is the time to do it.”

  “Follow the road!” I was on my feet, as eager as if he meant to set out upon that beckoning mystery this very moment. For a mystery it was, and beckon it did.

  We had come across it on our last venture into the Waste, a road of such building as put any dale's effort to shame, making our roads seem like rough tracks fit only for beasts. The end of the road we had chanced upon was just that, a sharp chopping-off of that carefully laid pavement, with nothing about the end to explain the why-for. The mystery began nearly on our doorstep, for that end point was less than a half day's journey from Riwal's cot. The road ran on back into the Waste, wide, straight, only a little cloaked here and there by the drift of windborne soil. To find its other end was a project we had indeed long held in mind. The suggestion that we set out on this journey quite pushed from my mind the thought of Joisan. She was just a name anyway, and any meeting between us was still years ahead, while the following of the road was here and now!

  I was answerable to none but Jago for my actions. And this was the time of year when he made his annual trip to Ulmskeep, where he kept festival with old comrades-in-arms and reported to my father. Thus I was free to follow my own wishes, which in this case meant the road.

  2

  Here Begins the Adventure of Joisan, Maid of Ithkrypt in Ithdale of High Hallack.

  I, Joisan of Ithkrypt, was wed at harvest time in the Year of the Spitting Toad. By rights that was not considered a year for new beginnings; but my uncle, Lord Cyart, had the stars read three times by Dame Lorlias of Norstead Abbey (she who was so learned in such matters that men and women traveled weary leagues to consult her), and her report was that my wedding was written as a thing needful to my own fortune. Not that I was aware of much more than the stir the question caused, for I was thereupon the center of long and tiring ceremonies that brought me close to tears for the very tiredness they laid upon me.

  When one has no more than eight years, it is hard to judge what occupies most the thoughts and plans of those in the adult world. I can remember my wedding now mostly as a bright picture in which I had a part I could not understand.

  I remember wearing a tabard stiff with gold-thread stitchery that caught up a pattern of fresh-water pearls (for which the streams of Ithdale are rightly famous). But I was more occupied at the time with keeping to Dame Math's stem warning that I must not spot or wrinkle my finery; that I must be prudent at the feast table lest I spill and so mar the handiwork of long and patient hours. The robe beneath was blue, which did not please me over-much as it is a color I do not fancy, liking better the dark, rich shades such as hue the autumn leaves. But blue is for a maiden bride, so it was mine to wear.

  My new lord was not present to drink the Life Cup and light the House Candle with me hand to hand. In his place stood a man (seeming ancient to me, for his close-cropped beard was frost-rimmed with silver), as stern as my uncle in his look. His hand, I remember, bore a scar across the knuckles that had left a raised banding of flesh of which I was acutely aware as he clasped my fingers in the ceremony. And in the other hand he held a massive war axe that signified my true lord who was about to twine my destiny with his—though that lord was at least a half-do
zen years or more away from being able to raise that axe.

  “Lord Kerovan and Lady Joisan!” The guests shouted our names together, the men unsheathing their knives of ceremony so that the torchlight flashed upon the blades, vowing to uphold the truth of this marriage in the future, by virtue of those same blades, if need be. My head had begun to ache with the noise, and my excitement at being allowed to attend a real feast was fast ebbing.

  The elderly Lord Nolon, who stood proxy at the wedding, shared a plate with me politely throughout the feast. But, though he asked me with ceremony before making a choice from all offered platters, I was in too much awe of him to say “no” to what I liked not, and his choices were mainly of that nature. So I nibbled at what my taste rebelled against and longed for it to come to an end.

  It did, much later, when the women with great merriment laid me, wearing only my fine night shift, in the great, curtained bed. And the men, headed by my uncle, brought in that awesome axe and bedded it beside me as if it were indeed my lord. That was my wedding, though afterward it did not seem too strange, just one of those things difficult for a child to understand, something to be dismissed to the back of one's mind.

  Only that axe, which was my partner in place of a flesh-and-blood bridegroom, was a stark prophecy of what was to come—not only to me but to all the country that was my home: High Hallack of the many dales.

  After the departure of Lord Nolon, life soon returned to what I had always known, for by custom I would continue to dwell under my birthroof until I was of a suitable age for my lord to claim me.

  There were some small changes. On high feast days I sat at the left hand of my uncle and was addressed ceremoniously by my new title of Lady of Ulmsdale. My feast-day tabard also no longer bore only one House symbol, but two, being divided in the center vertically with a ribbon of gold. To the left, the leaping Gryphon of Ulmsdale was worked in beads that glittered like gems. On the right was the familiar Broken Sword of Harb, that mighty warrior who had founded our line in High Hallack and given all his kin fame thereafter when he had defeated the dread Demon of Irr Waste with a broken blade.

  On my name-day, or as near to that as travel conditions permitted, would come some gift sent by my Lord Kerovan, together with proper greetings. But Kerovan himself was never real to me.

  Also, since my uncle's lady was dead, he looked to his sister Dame Math for the chatelaine's duties in Ithkrypt. She took over the ordering of my days, to secret sighs and stifled rebellion on my part. This and this and this must be learned, that I be a credit to my upbringing when I indeed went to order my lord's household. And those tasks, which grew with my years, induced in me sometimes a desire never to hear of Ulmsdale or its heir; a longing in all my being to be unwed and free. But from Dame Math and her sense of duty I had no escape.

  I could not remember my uncle's lady at all. For some reason, though he lacked an heir, he made no move through the years to wed again. Perhaps, I sometimes thought, even he dared not think of lessening in any part Dame Math's authority. That she was an able chatelaine, bringing peace and comfort to all she had dominion over, could not be denied. She kept those about her in quiet, sobriety and good order.

  In her long-ago youth (it was almost impossible to think of Dame Math as ever being a maid!) she had been axe-wed in the same fashion as I to a lord of the south. But before he could claim her, the news came that he had died of a wasting fever. Whether she thereafter regretted her loss, no one ever knew. After the interval of mourning she retired to the House of Dames at Norstead, an establishment much-revered for the learning and piety of its ladies. But the death of her brother's lady had occurred before she took vows of perpetual residence, and she had returned to the mistress's role at Ithkrypt. She wore ever the sober robe of Dame, and twice a year journeyed to Norsdale for a period of retreat. As I grew older, she took me with her.

  My uncle's heir was still undecided, since he had made no binding declaration. He had a younger sister also—one Islaugha, who had married and had both son and daughter. But since that son was heir to his father's holding, he was provided for.

  I was the daughter of his younger half-brother, but not being male, I could not inherit save by direct decree—the which my uncle had not uttered. My dowry was such to attract a husband, and my uncle, should he wish, had also the right—no, even duty, to name that husband heir, but only when he declared it so would it be binding.

  I think Dame Math would have liked to see me in the House of Dames, had the marriage with Kerovan not been made. And it is the truth that I did find my visits there pleasant. I was born with an inquiring mind and somehow attracted the notice of Past-Abbess Malwinna. She was very old, but very, very wise. Having talked with me several times, she directed that I be given the right to study in the library of the House. The stories of the past which had always enchanted me were as nothing to the rolls of chronicles and travels, dale histories, and the like, that were on the shelves and in the storage boxes in that room.

  But what held me most were the references to the Old Ones, those who had ruled this land before the first of the dalesmen came north. I knew well that such accounts as I found were not only fragmentary, but perhaps also distorted, for the larger numbers of the Old Ones had already withdrawn before our forefathers arrived. Those our ancestors had contact with were lesser beings, or perhaps only shadows, left as one would discard a threadbare cloak.

  Some were evil as we judged evil, in that they were enemies to humankind—like the demon Harb had slain. There were still places that were filled with dark enchantment, so that any venturing unwisely into such could be enwebbed. Other such beings could grant prayers and gifts. Such was Gunnora—the Harvest Mother—to whom all women were loyal, and whose mysteries were as great in their way as the Worship of the Cleansing Flame to which the House of Dames was dedicated. I myself wore an amulet of Gunnora—her sheath of wheat entwined with ripened fruit.

  Yet others seemed neither good nor ill, being removed from the standards of humankind. At times they manifested themselves capriciously, delivering good to one, evil to another, as if they weighed men on some scales of their own and thereafter dealt with them as they saw fit.

  It was chancy to deal with any of the Old Ones save Gunnora. The accounts I found at Norstead were full of instances where humans had awakened from long slumber powers that never should have been disturbed. At times I would seek out Abbess Malwinna in her small garden and ask questions, to which she gave answers if she could. If she could not, she admitted her ignorance frankly. It was on my last such meeting with her that I found her sitting with a bowl upon her knee.

  The bowl was of green stone, wrought so finely that the shadow of her fingers about it showed through the substance. It had no ornamentation but its beauty of line, and it was very beautiful indeed. Within was enough wine to cover the bottom and come a bit up the sides.

  I knew it was wine, for the heady smell reached me. The warmth of her fingers about it was releasing the scent of the grape. She turned it slowly around and around, so the liquid washed back and forth, but she did not watch it. Instead she looked at me so searchingly that I felt discomfort, as if I had been found wanting in some necessary quality. I searched my conscience hurriedly for any fault I might recently have shown.

  “It is long,” she said, “since I have tried this, Joisan. But this morning I awoke with the need for doing so, and for you. In my youth I had the gift of farseeing—for gift it is, though some shrink from it. They are afraid of that which they cannot touch, see, taste, hear, or otherwise clearly perceive. It is a gift that cannot be controlled. Few who have it can summon it at will; they must wait until the time it draws them to action. But if you are willing, this day I can use it for you—for how much or how well, that I cannot tell.”

  I was excited, for of farseeing I had heard. TheWisewomen could use it—or some of them could. But, as the Past-Abbess said, it was not a talent that could be sharpened for use and then put ready to hand like a man's s
word or a woman's needle—it must be seized upon when it came, and there was no use in trying to control it. However, with my excitement there was also a tiny chill of fear. It was one thing to read, to listen to, stories of the Power. It was, I understood now, another to see it in action, and for one's own self. Yet at that moment I do not think even panic would have kept me from saying “yes” to her offer.

  “Kneel before me, Joisan. Take this bowl within your two hands and hold it level and steady.”

  I did as she bade, cupping my palms, one on either side of the bowl, holding it as one might hold a firebranch that might be ignited at any moment. Then she leaned forward and touched the fingers of her right hand to my forehead.

  “Look upon the wine; think of it as a picture—a picture—” Oddly enough her voice sounded farther and farther away. As I looked down into the bowl, I was no longer seeing only dark liquid. It was rather as if I hung suspended in the air above a wide, borderless expanse of darkness, a giant mirror with none of the brilliance a true mirror possesses.

  There came a misting, a change on that surface. Tendrils of the mist became shadow forms. I saw a round ball that glinted and, entombed in that, a form familiar to me—that of a gryphon gleaming white.

  At first the ball was very large, near filling the whole of the mirror. Then it shrank swiftly, and I saw it was fastened to a chain. The chain swung from a hand, so that the ball revolved. The gryphon in it sometimes faced me, sometimes faced away. But there grew in me the knowledge that this ball was of great importance.

  It was very small now, for the hand that dangled it was also shrinking. The arm to which it was attached, and then the body belonging to the arm, appeared. Now a man stood there. His face was turned from me, hidden. He wore war mail, the hood drawn up about his throat. There was a battle sword girded to him, and over his shoulder I saw the arch of a crossbow. But he wore no House tabard, nothing to identify him, only that swinging ball. Then he left, tramping away as if he had been summoned elsewhere. The mirror was dark and empty; nor did any more shadows gather there.