Darkburn Book 4: The Haunt of Ternss by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 21

I want, I want, I want, said Parthenal underneath his breath as he rode through the dawn’s dark glow. The sky shone like a bluish-purple jewel lit by the unrisen sun: the black streams glimmered: the dusky stones were tinged with silver, glittering as if they held a myriad miniature stars. It was a lovely landscape, and it did not cheer him.

I know what I want, Parthenal thought wretchedly, and I know I cannot have it. He had to marry, I have always been aware of that; but why does he have to spend every night with her inside that carriage?

I want, I want, I want. If I can’t have him, it almost doesn’t matter who. I wish Jaul were not here to remind me. Although I wanted him before, I won’t make that mistake a second time. I dare not gaze at any of those Kelvhan soldiers, although it would be easy enough to want some of them.

And I have always avoided wanting my own kin amongst the Vonn. Too complicated; especially if we have to ride in the same train together afterwards. The truth is I have never wanted anyone for long. Apart from one: that one, that one, the one I cannot have. The others I let go. Forget them. I need them not to matter to me.

He sighed and nudged Alda to make the horse move further up the line. The long procession of Riders and their carriages had set off as soon as it was light enough to see. As they rode down the avenue, the glinting stones on either side appeared like tall, still, watching figures draped in cloaks with pointed hoods: then they seemed to glide away, receding as the train moved past them. With the approaching dawn the streams were slowly turning red and the sky too held a pink veil of cloud up to its violet face.

The army was already making good progress south, but Parthenal was restless. He envied the high flocks of birds that so easily outstripped the Vonnish army – skeins of geese, and others, nameless, swifter, slender-winged. No matter how fast the army marched, he wanted to go faster, like those birds, to be somewhere else.

Somewhere that Huldarion and Meya weren’t. Yet he had sworn to devote his life and service to Huldarion, and he would not withdraw that fealty now just because of his own weakness. Especially not because of his own weakness. He had to pretend that he had strength. So he gripped the reins more tightly until Alda gave a snort of protest and he slackened them again.

As he passed a group of fellow-Riders, Rigal called out. “In a hurry to leave, Parthenal?”

“I’ve had enough of this forsaken place,” he answered.

“I’d like to stay,” said Landel wistfully. “To me it doesn’t feel forsaken, only peaceful. It’s a nice change.”

“He wants to loll around on those grassy banks with a fishing rod,” said Rigal.

“And a cheese pie, and a mug of ale,” said Landel. “My perfect day. There are lots of minnows in these streams. Nothing bigger; it’s too shallow. And probably there’s too much clay, or whatever it is that makes those colours in the water.”

“You’ve really been looking for fish?” said Parthenal. He had not bothered to gaze into the streams.

“He likes fishing,” explained Rigal. “And a minnow counts as a big catch for him.”

“It would count as a big catch for me too, just now,” said Parthenal, and he rode on, leaving them behind.

He wondered what exactly he had meant. Was it true that anyone would do? Any minnow? If he would not lie with any of the Vonn, that did not leave much option. Although the Kelvhans were in sight, riding apart from the Vonn, he would not consider them. And there were only a few within the train who were neither Vonn nor Kelvhan. Parthenal went through them in his mind; a purely academic exercise.

The Ioben hunters. No. He could tell that none of them inclined that way. Nor did the few men of Melmet who still trailed doggedly behind the army of the Vonn: men who liked adventure, but not that species of adventure.

The priest Hokiro? He had some attractions – but no, no, not a priest. Tamu? Parthenal had been convinced he’d seen a flickering of longing there, but maybe he’d been mistaken after all, for Tamu had shown no sign of any interest since.

In any case, I’d terrify him, Parthenal thought wryly. The very idea would send him into stuttering shock. If he’s nervous just talking to me, imagine what he would be like… No, no. I can’t. I couldn’t. I want, but I don’t want Tamu, although I like him well enough. Poor little minnow.

With these thoughts he rode on up the next long grassy mound and down its avenue of stones. Gazing ahead he saw that there were many similar avenues – too many – each on its isle amidst the sluggish streams, all leading south for some reason that was lost in time.

As the light increased, the ranks of stones discarded any sense of watchful sentience, becoming mere lumps of inert rock. But the mood around him also seemed to lighten. Amidst the tread of hooves and intermittent splash and gurgle of the water, Parthenal heard soft laughter.

Somewhere behind him a man began to sing: a slow, ruminative Vonnish ballad. It suited the tranquillity of this place if not Parthenal’s own mood. Other voices joined in, lifting in harmony, until the song came from several areas at once, yet still in perfect unison. Someone begun to strum a lutine: one of Thield’s handful of part-time bards, no doubt, as no-one else would bother lugging such an instrument to war. But the result was anything but warlike. It sounded like a soft hymn to the coming dawn.

How strange to hear this comfortable, tuneful army; he admired its skill. Yet even while he felt the music tugging at some region of his soul, Parthenal wondered at the urge to sing. Although he normally enjoyed singing he felt no inclination to join in. Instead he rode on faster, to get away.

The voices followed him as he swiftly passed a rumbling, jolting carriage; Meya’s. But there was no sign of her, nor of that constantly sick maid, Jebil. Travel sickness, homesickness, revolt against the rations – whatever it was that afflicted her, it kept her hidden out of sight. He wished that he could use the same excuse.

He drew alongside Piril and Yaret, who were gazing over at the stones. He remembered seeing Piril last night leaning against one of those tall rocky knives as if she would like to become part of it. He wouldn’t mind being turned to stone himself, he thought morosely.

“I like the singing,” said Yaret. “Is that a traditional ballad?”

He nodded. The voices shifted in fine layers, dividing and re-joining. He thought of the music of Caervonn: of songs uprising from the leaf-clad terraces at dusk, along with flutes, to vie with the piercing calls of darting swifts above. Amongst the carefree harmonising voices, he heard that voice, that one beloved voice, the young Huldarion’s, always more clear to him than any other. Would Caervonn still be so precious to him, with Meya as its queen?

Oh, I want, I want, and I can never have.

Desperate for distraction, he turned to Piril.

“What secrets did you hope to learn from those dead stones?” he asked her, without any real wish to hear the answer.

“I don’t know,” she said soberly. “But when I look at them I keep thinking that I see my brother standing underneath them.”

“Your brother?” Then Parthenal remembered that young would-be assassin, so deftly slain in Kelvha’s music hall. He had felt sympathy for the youth. A salutary lesson about Kelvha.

“I see him staring at me. As if to remind me: as if I could forget.”

“That’s odd. I thought I saw my grandfather standing underneath a stone a little further back,” commented Yaret. “Looking at me. It was only for a second. My imagination. But it was strange.”

“A trick of the light,” said Parthenal. But even as he spoke he glimpsed a face drawn clearly on the lichen of the nearest stone, a random pattern abruptly given meaning by her words. A sudden and unwanted memory tugged at him.

A Rider, a serious man a little older than himself, eight or nine years ago. A desire as brief as all of his desires. It would have been forgotten totally had the man not drowned soon afterwards; some said that it was suicide. They did not know of Parthenal’s short liaison with him. Suicide had seemed to him unlikely – rivers being dangerous things – yet that was the last time that Parthenal had looked amongst the Riders for a partner.

He thought of that man now, with a wince of his heart. The face had been quite vivid, briefly. But it was only lichen.

“What does your brother say to you?” he asked Piril.

“Nothing,” she said flatly. “Nor do the stones. They cannot speak. I ask of them, but what I want is something that they cannot give.”

“Why, what do you want?”

“A place.”

“What sort of place? Where will you go?” He had not expected Piril to stay with the Vonn this far, assuming she and Jebil would disappear into the villages and country manors of Outer Kelvha. There were places there for maids presumably.

“I want a place where I can fit,” she said.

Parthenal looked at her thin face and skinny body. Could I? he wondered. Could I bend the leanings of a lifetime and go with a woman? She’s boyish enough.

He glanced round at Yaret, who was listening intently to the song that still drifted through the air as if she were memorising harmonies. He remembered seeing her for the first time: that slight young man with the broken nose and easy manners had sparked his interest, until he learnt her real identity.

Could I pretend that Piril is a boy? he mused. But she may have heard about the way I lean. And in truth I haven’t been attracted to boys since I was a boy myself, in the gardens of Caervonn. And then it was chiefly one boy. That one. Always that one. Every lover I have ever had, I wished it were that one.

He wanted to ride over to the nearest stone and beat his head against it. Why was he even thinking about any of this? Is was all impossible.

“Where do they lead, these stony avenues and streams?” asked Piril, and he was thankful for the question.

“The Red Roads? They lead down to the sea. Water always flows towards the sea,” he explained, with both compassion and faint derision for her ignorance.

“They pull me to follow them.”

“People cannot see a path without the urge to follow it,” he said. “They always long to know where it will end.”

“True,” said Yaret. “And here we are, being pulled by the stones, by our desire to find the end.”

“This route was Huldarion’s plan, before we knew the stones were here,” he pointed out. But he thought, was it a wise plan? Such a long way we are from Caervonn still. It is so far behind us and before us. And yet I cling to that city, to that youth, that now is gone.

“What’s wrong?” Yaret asked him. So he must have sighed.

“Just keen to get the job done, that’s all.”

“I like this place,” she said. “A land between lands. I’m not surprised the Riders sing. It’s very calming.”

“To me it feels abandoned.”

“By people, maybe. But it’s not blighted. See all those weeds that swirl within the streams? The cresses and the mosses by the banks? All full of insects.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” answered Parthenal, weary with himself, weary of the familiar shackles of desire. Gazing down he saw a host of star-like flowers, pale greenish white and blue, peeking from short rush-like stems. He discovered that the air smelt sweet and fresh although the flowers were surely far too small to cause such fragrance.

“And those little bobbing birds are everywhere,” said Piril.

One darted past at ankle-level, quick and drab. Twenty yards away a small flock rose and whirled, then settled, piping. He did not know their names.

“Their songs are taking over from the Vonn,” said Yaret; and indeed, there was a high-pitched chorus rising all around him, twicking and weeking and swiking. “And overhead. High flights of birds.”

“I know,” said Parthenal. Long lines and arrowheads of birds were dark against the sky; which was filling up with colour now, azure, lilac, rose. They were travelling south, just like the Vonn. These Red Roads pull us all, he thought, along the shining waters to the sea.

“Lin!” exclaimed Yaret. “Just over there! I saw a lin. It’s gone now.”

Piril looked puzzled. “What’s a lin?”

“Creature of folklore,” Parthenal said. “A spirit of the land, that nobody can see properly.”

“Durba says she’s seen a few out here,” said Yaret. “In Kelvha I believe they are called bunnoes.”

“Oh! I know about bunnoes. Though back home we called ours a bodno,” Piril said. “It lived in the woodpile and we used to leave out bread for it. But it was just a story. I thought I saw it twice or thrice but only from the corner of my eye.”

Yaret nodded. “That’s a lin. A relative of darkburns.”

“Only according to your unproven theory,” said Parthenal. The freedom of the birds above him made him jealous and impatient. He felt abruptly uninterested in lins or any other intangible creature. He wanted something he could see and touch: some solid welcoming flesh. He was angry with himself for harbouring such thoughts and hated the tearing strength of this intolerable yearning.

I want, I want, he thought. And I cannot have.

He grunted a farewell and rode on up the next long avenue of stones to join a pair of Riders near the top: Rothir and Ikelder.

Rothir looked at him keenly. “What’s the matter?”

“I want to get somewhere,” muttered Parthenal.

“Take it easy. We are getting somewhere.”

“Stars knows where, though. And only slowly. I don’t know how you can stand it. We’re barely crawling.”

“Well, give us a chance! We’ve only been riding for an hour,” Ikelder said. “And look: the sun is coming up.”

In fact the sun must have risen some time previously, but had been obscured by the band of rosy cloud along the eastern sky. Now, at last, it dazzled as it climbed above the haze to shine out on the land.

Ahead of them, Huldarion’s horse reached the summit of the rise, and halted. The whole train stopped, although they could not see the reason.

The risen sun now turned the clouds to soft, pale gold; the colour of the jasmine that curled up the ancient walls above the terraces of Caervonn. He remembered standing on the south-east wall one sunset, waiting for a lover, as yet unknown; breathing in the jasmine’s pale sweet odour. The scent of yearning. He seemed to smell it now.

Something was happening to the stones. Second by second they were being transformed by light. They began to glow – not golden, like the sky, but red as embers. The long slow curling waters started to glow likewise, with a radiance that increased as the Riders watched.

“Rivers of fire,” said Rothir softly.

“I have seen too many fires this last year,” said Ikelder equally quietly, “but never one so harmless and so beautiful.”

“Pretty,” conceded Parthenal, although the luminous sky did not bring him any joy. It felt not like a new beginning but rather like an end: an end of hope.

And yet I never hoped to win Huldarion, he thought. Not realistically. Maybe I hoped beyond hope, but now, with Meya come, I know that hope is gone. Sunk as the sun rises.

“What’s that?” He ducked, by instinct. But the swift rush of wind across his hair came from no flight of arrows. Birds? Yet where were they? When he looked up he saw only distant skeins, too high to cause that breeze.

“A pulse of many wings,” said Rothir, staring up. “They seemed to brush my head.”

“Invisible geese,” Ikelder said. “Flying south, very fast.”

“And very silently, for geese,” said Rothir. He laughed, and rode a few yards further up the rise. There he paused. “You want us to get somewhere soon, Parthenal? Well, I think we are about to.”

Parthenal rode up beside him and looked out. The Red Roads flowed on to a fresh horizon: a wholly unexpected one.

A skyline built of stone... But not of single monoliths, like the ones they had been passing. Parthenal discerned great slabs clasped together. Some were leaning, partly toppled; others upright and intact, like massive shelters.

A city built by giants, he thought in wonder. The Roads swirled on, as if another world were set aflame beneath their surface; and the sun ignited the construction to a blaze upon the burning waters.

Then the marvelling Riders took up their reins again, and rode towards that city made of stone and fire.