“If you can’t tell us their numbers,” said Thoronal, “then what are you here for? What exactly is the point?”
Maeneb did not answer immediately. She stared out across the dull browns and sickly greens of the Outlands with her lips tightly compressed. Inwardly she was assessing stoneman numbers by the weight and shape of distant minds. She was also beating down the wave of anger that seethed through her.
“It’s not an easy task,” she said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I certainly do not understand,” said Thoronal with heavy disdain, “why you thought it worth our while for you to come all the way out here to tell us what we can already guess perfectly well using our own eyes.”
“A little over three thousand,” said Maeneb coldly. “Say three thousand and three hundred, distributed over about the first ten forts. I can’t tell the numbers of darkburns.” She wondered what Thoronal would do if she whipped out her long knife and held it to his throat, here, now, on top of the Outland wall. Laugh, probably. Except that Thoronal hardly ever laughed. He took everything in earnest.
Holding a knife to his throat would achieve nothing. And it would mean getting too close to him in any case. She tried to swallow down her anger: this was all just part and parcel of being who she was.
“Unfortunately the number of darkburns is equally important,” said Thoronal, and he walked away along the top of the ruined wall to watch the distant Riders who were returning from the forts across the muddy plain. The nearest forts were small grey blocks, surprisingly regular in shape considering their age. Beyond them rose stern mountains already topped with white, in warning of the winter. It would come early and without mercy to these northern Outlands.
Parthenal climbed up the steps to join her on the Outland wall. He also stood watching the Riders, at a distance from her that she found acceptable. Thoronal had stood too close.
“Don’t let him get to you,” said Parthenal quietly. “He does that to everybody. It’s not personal.”
Maeneb nodded. However, in her case it probably was personal. Thoronal thought she was a freak, a misfit, an undesirable aberration from the norm. The norm, of course, being him.
“He doesn’t approve of me either,” said Parthenal. “Can you tell if there are any stonemen in the furthest forts, beyond those first ten?”
“I’m sure there are. But I can’t tell the numbers. It gets too confusing at that distance.”
The group of four riders galloped over to the wall and pulled their horses up below it. Maeneb and Parthenal saluted – not to Huldarion, who did not expect such formalities, but to the General who rode alongside him. The General was a small, blunt man, very upright in the saddle: he was not of Kelvha, as was evident from his lack of ornament, but was from West Vale on its borders. Kelvha had delegated this remote and chilly task to his command. Behind Maeneb a few soldiers were still milling around after the morning’s muster.
The muster had been interesting. Maeneb had kept her distance, being female, while Huldarion inspected the General’s troops. She had read a lot of curiosity in the soldiers’ minds – centring on those scars of Huldarion’s, of course. The troops from West Vale regarded his disfigured face with respect. That, and something in his manner, seemed to mark Huldarion to them as an able military man. Which he was. She just hadn’t expected the soldiers to recognise it so quickly. Esteem gave their massed thoughts a certain colour.
But the colours of men’s minds were often contradictory. Take Parthenal’s mind, now, looking half ahead and half behind him: a mixture of thoughts that seemed shocking even to her, who knew him well, and ought to be used to it by now.
“It’s a pity we can’t go and explore any closer to the Forts,” she said to him as they watched Huldarion and his companions dismount.
“Yes. But by this time of year it’s all bog and swamp out there. If we picked the wrong path the horses would sink up to their shoulders very quickly. Men too. It would not be pretty.”
“But once it freezes…”
“No better, really,” Parthenal remarked. “You never know if the ice will be thick enough to bear the horses’ weight. Where it is, they skid. Where it’s not, they drown. Not pretty, again. I’m glad we don’t have to stay up here all winter.”
“Unlike the stonemen.”
“I hope they all freeze and starve,” said Parthenal. “Unfortunately they’re not likely to do either.” His gaze followed Huldarion, who was consulting with the General and his aides. His mind veered back and forth and settled somewhere behind them. She knew why but would certainly not discuss it.
“Where will you go when we’re finished here?” she asked.
“Thield, I expect.” Thield would move its tents to a more sheltered spot for the coldest weeks. But it would be diminished in size, and not the most comfortable of winter quarters. “Then I plan to join Rothir at his sister’s farm for a week or two, just to get warm.”
“I’ve been invited there for winterfest,” said Maeneb glumly. “Though it’s not really the sort of thing I enjoy.”
“Ah, but Olbeth won’t force you to make merry. And she does a fine feast. I hope Rothir is finding it congenial working in the forge there: more than enough heat for him, I should think. Good practice for darkburns.”
“Indeed.” Maeneb gazed past him at the Outlands, whose cold prospect was to her almost more inviting than the idea of farmhouse warmth and feasting. At least the Outlands were solitary.
She studied the Outland Forts, which receded in a long line across the weary landscape. From here, none looked inhabited: the nearest three had been evidently occupied quite recently and then abandoned as the stonemen had moved further west. The stands of pine trees had nearly all gone, presumably to re-roof the forts for the stonemen. So not a solitary landscape after all.
“Where would the stonemen keep the darkburns, do you think?” she asked.
“Cellars or dungeons, I expect,” said Parthenal. “As long as there’s a stone floor above them that they can’t burn through. One darkburn could probably heat the whole fort. But each fort might hold several darkburns.”
“I expect so.” Maeneb felt across the Outlands for them yet again. Nothing. Thoronal was right: there was no point in her being here. Her despondency and sense of uselessness returned, and again she had to fight against the fall into gloom. It was such a struggle, sometimes. Exhausting; this continual self-measurement she had to undergo, the repeated consciousness of failure.
“You’re doing a useful job,” said Parthenal, and she was grateful. She thought that, like her, he must sometimes feel alone.
Not today, though. She was well aware that Parthenal was not just standing on the rampart to look out and keep her company. Somewhere behind her was that familiar colour of longing and desire which sprang up rather frequently around him, in both men and women. She suspected he had already noticed someone’s interest amidst the soldiers from West Vale and was now, as it were, on display. Later on, she would have to avoid looking in the direction of his thoughts for a while.
Parthenal walked along the wall towards the steps to greet Huldarion and the General. After they had exchanged a few words the men dispersed. Huldarion and the others descended from the wall, but the General lingered. He came over to her, hands clasped behind his back.
She couldn’t remember his name. He was a stocky man the same height as her; he looked steadily in her face, before turning his gaze towards the Outlands and taking one courteous step away from her. So somebody had warned him, then. Probably not Thoronal. The General’s thoughts were very focused.
“I’m glad you could come,” he said. “We need all the information we can get, from whatever source.”
“The help that I can give is limited.”
“It is certainly unusual. You see men’s minds, I understand?”
“I detect their presence. I see their colour and shape – their leanings perhaps – rather than their detailed thoughts.”
“How very odd that must be,” said the General, although he did not seem taken aback.
Maeneb shrugged. “I’ve never known things any other way.”
“Could you see my men’s thoughts now?”
“As I say, only the colour of them. Your men seem to be steadfast enough if that is what you’re asking. They study the Outlands. Their minds are on their future task. I cannot be more specific than that.” Nor would she mention the two or three minds fixed on Parthenal.
“And are the men’s thoughts different to their leaders’?”
Now she turned to look at him. “Not in their quality, no. Why would they be?”
“Ah,” said the General. His gaze was fixed on the distant Forts but his mind was set the other way. It looked south and backwards, and seemed to hold a tinge of anger.
However, there was no anger in his voice when he continued. “The Kelvhans would say that there is all the difference in the world between a commander and his troops, or a lord and his servants. Also between the men of Kelvha and those from outside. Do you know Kelvha?”
“Outer only. I have never been to Inner Kelvha and do not wish to go – although a friend of mine is there at the moment.” Tiburé was not quite a friend; Maeneb was not sure what friendship entailed. But it was the easiest term for now.
“Indeed? A good moment to visit, with the Prince about to be invested. Will your friend see the ceremony?”
“I imagine so,” said Maeneb. “She’s staying with one of the ladies-in-waiting at the castle, who is married to a High Lord.”
He whistled. “With the big-wigs, eh?”
“She herself was a maid-in-waiting to the past queen there, many years ago.” Maeneb found it hard to visualise Tiburé as a maid-in-waiting, even in her youth. She couldn’t imagine her compliant and curtseying – and in a dress, of all things. “She was on a visit from Caervonn.”
“Caervonn,” repeated the General. “Now, there was a city indeed.”
“There still is.”
“One hopes so.” He stood ramrod straight, gazing out at the Forts. “Your commander, Huldarion. He aims to take back Caervonn eventually?”
“You would have to ask him that.”
“I will. He seems to be a man that I can deal with. He speaks with sense. Where did he get those scars? I hardly like to ask him that.”
Maeneb was silent for a moment. It was not her tale to tell, but on the other hand it was no secret. If she did not tell him, somebody else would.
“A darkburn,” she replied. “At Caervonn, twelve years ago, in the feud between Huldarion’s house and that of his cousin–”
“Olvirion. Who claimed the throne through primogeniture, although being descended of the female line, yes?”
“Yes. The throne should have gone to Huldarion through the male line, as was the law.” She paused and added, “I am sure that Huldarion would tell you that it was a law that he did not actually agree with; but it was not for him to change it. That had to be done by the council.”
“And was not.”
“It was done by half the council: not enough. But Olvirion claimed he had won the right to rule. It caused a great deal of unrest.” She remembered the fights in the streets, the antagonism that had sprung up between families. Old feuds had been reignited and new ones brooded over. It had been a horrible time.
“Which became war,” said the General. “I study my military history, you see.”
“Which became war only because of the actions of one other person,” she said sharply. “Huldarion was ready to negotiate–”
“Wouldn’t have worked. You can only have one king.”
“It could have worked. It wasn’t given a chance. This – person – offered Olvirion a weapon that could destroy any opposition; that could demolish Huldarion and all his allies. Olvirion took it. It was a darkburn. The first of its kind that anyone had seen.”
The General fell silent.
“They set it in his house,” she said. She had not witnessed this but they had lived in the same quarter. She remembered well her mother’s grief and horror, and the scenes that had followed were vivid to her mind. “It ran through the place seeking people to kill – well, you know what darkburns do. But nobody knew then what it was. Huldarion’s mother and sister were dead before he could even get to them. He tried to shield his brother and fought against the darkburn while the house went up in flames. He managed to cut it to pieces eventually but not before they were both badly burnt. Meanwhile fire had spread through the quarter and killed a dozen others. Huldarion’s brother died a few days later. As for Huldarion himself…”
“I see,” the General said sombrely. “Yet nowadays it prospers, does it not? Caervonn?”
“In some ways,” Maeneb answered. “Olvirion was not a tyrant. For the first few years, when harvests were good, it seems that he was well-accepted. But fear of the darkburns may have had something to do with that. Caervonn has become an inward-looking place. Little information comes out.”
“I believe some information has come out lately that is not so good.”
“You mean the stonemen.”
“How can Caervonn form an alliance with such savages?” the General expostulated.
“The stonemen never caused a problem until recently,” Maeneb pointed out. “They were an isolated people and kept to themselves. I suppose Olvirion saw no reason not to trust them.”
“I see every reason. I don’t believe the stonemen are even capable of forming an alliance. And to what ends?”
“To their own ends,” said Maeneb. “But if you mean someone else has formed the alliance, you are probably right. We believe the stonemen are driven by the will of the one who is said to rule Caervonn from outside its walls. The one who introduced the darkburn.” The Riders of the Vonn usually referred to him as The Ignoble One. If they spoke his name it was with hatred and disgust; and with disgust she said it now. “Adon.”
The General studied her.
“Come with me a little way,” he said, and he led her briskly along the uneven wall.
He did not speak until they had walked for some distance. At one point they had to descend where the wall had collapsed, and re-ascend it twenty yards further on as it regained its integrity. Here, the wall curved round to face the west so that they were no longer looking straight at the Outland Forts, but at the featureless swamplands, and beyond them at a blur of far-flung forest and pale hills.
The General gestured at the empty landscape. High overhead some kite or vulture circled; apart from that, no sign of life was visible.
“Can you hear anyone out there?”
Maeneb listened. “If there is anyone, I can’t detect them.”
He nodded. “Many hundred years ago,” he said, “that land you see stretching to the horizon was a rich and fertile plain. It produced great quantities of wheat and barley and held many thousands of cattle on the meadows around a number of small towns. That land was called Elthe, and my people are descended from those who lived there once.”
“What happened to it?”
“A combination of things. The weather changed; the watercourses altered; the land may have been over-farmed and too many trees cut down. But all those changes were put down to one ruler. Adon.”
He stared out at the land as if seeing those ancient scenes. “Adon was not just a king; he was a god, or so he claimed. He also claimed that the floods and famine were the fault of the people – they were a punishment.”
“A punishment for what?”
The General smiled at her sadly. “For not believing in him enough, I think. It’s not clear. It was a very long time ago and the records are few. Of course he wasn’t a god at all. He was just an incompetent ruler. There was a battle and he was driven out – but Elthe collapsed anyway. It could no longer sustain people: the land that had been fertile was now barren. The surviving inhabitants moved south to settle in West Dale. Adon himself moved north with a number of his soldiers. If this ruler of Caervonn has now taken on his name and mantle–”
“It is the same Adon,” said Maeneb.
“That’s impossible. Adon was no god.”
“True. But neither is he quite a human. What happened to your Adon after he moved north?”
“Oh, he subjected some other poor tribe to his rule. The Outland forts are said to have been built to keep him and his new army out. And they succeeded. He went further east eventually, I believe, and disappeared. Presumably he died.”
“He didn’t disappear, nor die,” said Maeneb. “It’s said he crossed the northern lands and laid them waste: some of them at least, with fire and flood and earthquakes.”
“Earthquakes?” The General took a step away from her as if doubtful of her sanity.
“It’s not known how he could have engineered them,” Maeneb said calmly, “but he certainly boasted of doing so. Four hundred years ago he was on his way east and south again. Do you know the Iarad, the land west of the Thore?”
“I do not.”
“The Iarad once was fertile, and now is blighted since Adon passed through it, though perhaps not as badly as Elthe. It seems he then crossed the ocean to the southlands and tried to set up some sort of empire there. Within two centuries the southlands were largely lost to desert. Wherever he went, he despoiled and exploited, trying to extract as much wealth as he could in minerals and gems and food, and ruining the land in the process.”
“This cannot all be the same man,” said the General stiffly. “I daresay it could be a series of Adons, a dynasty passing the name down the line.”
“It is all the same man – or rather, the same not-quite-a-human,” countered Maeneb. “When the Southlands failed to meet Adon’s needs he crossed the seas again. It was on the coast some distance from Caervonn that he found the stonemen and placed them under his dominion. For a long time he was quiet; but he was laying his plans. He set up his stronghold in the elbow of the Darkburn river. And somewhere there – somehow – the darkburns were created.”
She thought the General was going to scoff, but he was silent.
“Adon,” he said, as if testing the word. “Adon. It cannot be the same.”
“It is. We know that for sure.”
He turned to look at her.
“We know who Adon is,” she said, “because we know his brother Leor, who is a wizard. Adon was a wizard too, before he called himself a god. I have never seen Adon, but I have met Leor on several occasions.” She saw him in her mind’s eye, tall and thin and energetic with a tremendously long stride.
Always in a hurry, she thought, always busy on some errand that he would not divulge. Huldarion trusted Leor, so she had to; but she could not see the wizard’s mind. Although she could feel its quicksilver presence, its shades of feeling were obscure; incomprehensible to her.
The General’s face grew dark. “I have heard of Leor, if that is the same wizard as Lioril. Is he in league with his brother?”
“No. I am almost certain he is not.”
“But he doesn’t do much to stop him, does he? Where is this Leor now?”
Maeneb gazed out across the plain. Although it was still early, night was already falling, thickening across the Outlands to hide the grey Forts in its gloomy shroud.
“Nobody knows,” she said.