VI
The others waited for them on top of the Crown. A grove of dwarf cherry trees hung with lanterns sheltered them to one side. On the other gaped the mouth of the shaft. Foxkin rode its feverish exhalation, light from the hall striking blue on the undersides of their black wings. Drunken argument sounded on the balcony below, then receded.
Jame sighed with relief. Turning, she found an anxious Kindrie at her elbow.
"We shouldn't be here," he said urgently to her in a low voice. "Can't you feel it? This is women's land."
He was shivering—from the cool air, perhaps, after the overheated rooms below, or from the memory of Wilden halls under their matriarch's cold hand.
"Huh," said Jame with a shudder of her own, remembering Gothregor. "Forbidden territory. At least no man will think of this as a hiding place. With luck, they'll decide that their friend really was drunk. We've only got to wait, then sneak back down by the secret stair."
"Here you are at last!" cried Lyra happily, sweeping down on them through a storm of cherry blossoms. "Gran wants to see you!"
Oh, lord. After a winter of Kallystine, Jame was as well acquainted with the Caineron ladies as she ever wanted to be. Moreover, mask aside, she was hardly dressed for a social call. But go she must, or "Gran" might raise the alarm through sheer pique.
Brier Iron-thorn was regarding her without expression, perhaps remembering how she had slipped away earlier to confer with Lyra.
"Oh, all right," she snapped. "Come along, then, if you want."
The Kendar gave her a brief, hard stare and then a curt nod, judgment suspended.
They followed Lyra through the grove, ducking under low branches, half-blinded by falling blossoms. Jame stopped suddenly. Ahead, through a moving screen of petals, she thought she saw familiar low walls, down which imus marched, and a door gaping third-quarters open. The Earth Wife's lodge? Here? No. Emerging from the trees, she saw a cottage set as though in a mountain-top garden, covered with climbing roses. As they approached, the whitewashed walls revealed themselves to be marble and the blossoms clustered about the windows rose quartz, aglow with warm light from within. More light spilled out the front door, which stood nearly open as though in invitation.
"Come on," said Lyra, tugging her sleeve.
The door opened onto the black and white parquet floor of a surprisingly large hall. On its far side was a fireplace with two high-backed chairs drawn cozily up to it. One had its back turned toward the door. From its hidden depths came the click of knitting needles. In the other chair sat a very old woman shaped like a slightly squashed apple dumpling, dressed in many layers of clothes. Her white hair was wrapped around her head in a twig-thin braid and her round face puckered inward around a mouth that had long since outlived its ability to grow new teeth. A black foxkin perched on the chair back over her. In her gnarled hands was the end of a knitted scarf, which stretched back to the busy needles opposite.
Jame realized that she had been slow-witted. "Greetings, Matriarch," she said, with the appropriate salute.
Age-gummed eyes fixed on her. The toothless mouth mumbled on its own gums, then opened. "So. You're Ganth Gray Lord's girl, are you? Got his temper, I hear. A touch of his madness too, eh? I never did find out if he was ticklish, though—which you aren't, particularly."
Jame blinked. "What?"
The Caineron Matriarch Cattila peered at her, wheezing slightly.
"Go to bed," she said abruptly to Lyra.
"Oh, but Gran . . . "
"Now, missy. And no eavesdropping, either. I'd know."
"Yes, Gran. You always do. I never have any fun anymore. Good night, sister!"
As Lyra reluctantly departed, Jame wondered if the old woman would also dismiss Brier Iron-thorn. On second thought, she didn't think that Cattila could see the tall Kendar as she stood respectfully in the shadows by the door. But then Jame couldn't see the occupant of the other chair, either. Through Jorin, though, she smelled something vaguely familiar, something . . . loamy?
"Scatterbrained," the Matriarch was muttering. "Just like her mother. Speaking of dams, what's this about you refusing to name yours? Ashamed?"
"No."
This old woman was beginning to rattle Jame. No one in the Women's Halls had questioned her so bluntly. Rudeness was the prerogative of great age, perhaps: Caldane's great-grandmother must be nearly two centuries old and none the duller for it, despite her mumble-gums.
Cattila gave a snort which might have been laughter. "Good. A waste of time, that sort of shame. So's regret, rose blight, and great-grandsons. You've got the air of a Knorth purebred, though, as Adiraina says. Now, Kallystine's mother was Randir, a niece of the Wilden Witch. Bad blood there. Very bad. Just what did darling Kally do to your face?"
How did she know that Kallystine had done anything, three days ago and over forty leagues away? By post-rider, maybe. One could travel that distance in twelve hours with frequent remounts, bringing the Ear's message-scarf—perhaps the very one which the Matriarch's fingers were now reading.
Someone still worked on the other end of it. A lace section, so much faster to knit than straight work, edged toward Cattila's gnarled hands, a message in transit.
Then Jame placed that smell, last encountered in Kallystine's chambers. Cattila's other visitor was the Ear herself.
"Tell me this much, at least," the Matriarch demanded: "Will this business cause trouble between our houses?"
It would be sweet to pay Kallystine back, but Jame hesitated, remembering the Caineron captain's mention of a possible civil war. She kept forgetting the wider stage on which she now acted.
"No," she said slowly. "Not if I can help it."
Cattila grunted. "Just as well. You Knorth wouldn't've stood a chance. You may not anyway, but that's another matter."
Again came that vast grinding noise, closer than before, like mountains shifting in their beds. A shiver passed through the fabric of the tower. Jorin and the foxkin stirred uneasily.
"What is that?" Jame said.
The old woman had clutched the scarf to her chest, flinching as if between lightning flash and thunder clap. Her movement jerked into sight the knitter's hands, old and strong, with very dirty nails. The Ear jerked them back, so that for a moment the two of them seemed to be playing tug of war.
"That's a weirdingstrom," said Cattila, glaring at the again invisible Ear. "A bad one. I sent one of my pets to investigate, but she never came back, did she, Precious?"
This last was addressed to the foxkin, who "quipped" unhappily.
Why, she's bound to that creature, Jame realized, perhaps to the entire colony. So that's how she learned that I'm not ticklish.
"I've seen patches of weirding," she said. "Is this so much worse?"
"Is a cataract worse than a raindrop? What do they teach you girls at Gothregor these days? Listen: the Three-Faced God created the Chain of Creation out of the chaos of Perimal Darkling, yes?"
"Er . . . ." said Jame, startled. She had always understood that the Enemy was an invader from outside the Chain.
"Listen! The Merikit say that this world rests on the back of a great chaos serpent, left over from the beginning. Its mouth is the great maelstrom called the Maw, that drinks the Eastern Sea. Its offspring run like veins under the earth and water. Some call weirding the Serpent's breath. When it passes over the land, the Serpent's brood awakes, and that includes the River Snake, which lies under the Silver. The first time that happened, the Merikit sent down a hero to subdue the monster. They'll be preparing to dispatch another one now, none too soon. Hear that rumble? North of here, the very face of the earth is changing."
Did the old woman really believe such superstition? But then again, was it? As she had traveled the Riverland's wilderness, stranger thoughts had occurred to Jame. What was it which she herself seen on the river bottom when the willow had dunked her?
"If there's going to be an earthquake that bad," she said, "not to mention a weirdingstrom, this tower can't be very safe."
"The quake we'll have to risk. Worse, to be caught out in the weirding. The oldest buildings like this will be all right in the storm: they're built on hill fort ruins, and those ancestors of the Merikit knew how to stay put. But any additions may be swept away. Good riddance, too! A trap and a snare, this valley has been to us all. Without it, we'll have to resettle the border keeps where we should have been all along, guarding against the shadows."
"But what about your Kendar?"
"Safe in the tower, aren't they?"
"Well, no. They're all out sleepwalking in the square."
The old woman stared at her, toothless mouth opening, closing, opening again. "Well! Got 'em drunk, has he? The lord of this house, not man enough to hold his own hangover. Oh, how could he have been so careless, tonight of all nights?"
"I think," said Jame slowly, "that I know."
She would rather have kept quiet—it would certainly have been safer—but she felt that she owed an explanation to someone. So, haltingly, she told the story: how Caldane had taken her prisoner at the Cataracts, how she had slipped something into the wine which he had offered her and tricked him into drinking, how that "something," mysterious crystals taken from a Builder's house in the Anarchies, had affected M'lord:
"He started to hiccup and then to float, this, with only a canvas roof between him and open sky. He's terrified of heights. Imagine, drifting up and away, higher and higher and higher . . . . When would he come down again, and how fast? Matriarch, what can I say? He panicked."
"When?" demanded Brier suddenly emerging from the shadows.
"Er . . . that would have been the thirtieth of winter. He was still 'not quite feeling in touch with things' on the thirty-first, nor probably for some time after that. Why?"
Cattila had been peering at the big Kendar, smacking her gums thoughtfully. "Brier Iron-thingie, isn't it? I never forget a voice."
"But . . . . Matriarch, we've never met."
"We needn't have. I sit in my garden at the shaft's mouth. Nothing goes on below that I don't overhear."
A dull glow kindled in the Kendar's brown face. "Well, then. You know how angry Lord Caineron was with me, how he swore he would never let me either progress in his service or leave it. His grip is . . . very strong. I didn't think anyone could break it."
"But you must have," Jame protested. "At the Cataracts."
"Yes, lady. Now I understand how. He was . . . distracted."
"Meaning he was probably tethered to the floor having hysterics," said Jame. Then her amusement died. "Matriarch, I listened to his Kendar in the square tonight, unconsciously mouthing his hidden thoughts. He tells himself over and over that he's recovered, that it will never happen again—but underneath he's terrified that it will, and he's trying to bury that fear under excess. That's the reason for his carelessness, and for your danger. I'm sorry for the latter, but by God I had cause for what I did and if need be, I'd do it again."
She stopped, defiant, braced for the old woman's wrath.
Cattila had been making noises like a tea kettle coming to a boil.
"Heh!" she said now, with an explosive venting of stream which made her bob in her chair. "Heh, heh! 'Not quite feeling in touch with things,' eh? Bouncing around the rafters, more likely. Heh, heh, heh! Face like a dinner plate with frog eyes, I beg. Heh, ha, ho . . . hiccupping . . . hooo!"
"I'm glad it amuses you," said Jame weakly, as the Caineron Matriarch beat the arm of her chair with a puffball fist and crowed like a cockerel. "I wish it helped."
Cattila snuffled into the end of the message scarf and blew her nose on it to regain self-control. "Maybe it does, girl. It shows again, as with that boy who jumped, that the bond between Caldane and his Kendar can only take so much strain. T'cha. That idiot won't raise a fat finger to protect his people tonight. They must be free, to save themselves."
"But Brier wanted to break away," Jame protested. "The Kendar below don't."
"That's why they've held on this long. If my darling Caldane were to lose control again, though, and push them too far . . . ."
"Many might wrench free despite themselves."
"Or go mad," said Brier Iron-thorn grimly, "or die."
"It would take a genuine, destructive influence to bring that about," Cattila said, no longer laughing. "A nemesis."
Jame gaped at her. The Nemesis, of course, was That-Which-Destroys, the third face of Kencyr god. A nemesis was a Shanir who didn't quite make the apotheosis, apparently because the other two aspects of the Tyr-ridan, Creation and Preservation, hadn't yet manifested themselves.
"Now wait a minute . . . ."
A low rumble interrupted her.
"Queee!" said the foxkin, and streaked out an open window, Jorin crouched flat, ears back. Below in the compounds, dogs began to howl.
Then, ever so slightly, the tower started to sway.
Jame staggered. For one appalling moment, she knew exactly what terror Caldane had felt, so high up, with such a distance to fall. Behind her, she heard Brier swear.
The swaying stopped. The rumble faded to no more than an echo in the bones.
Cattila had hunched down in her chair, eyes screwed shut. "A nemesis," she repeated. One eye popped open to regard Jame balefully. "If I were you, girl, I'd get on with it."
What could one say to that? Jame bowed and turned to leave, but on the threshold the matriarch's voice stopped her:
"Why, it's for you!"
Cattila was holding up the lace section, which had at last reached her fingers. "'Don't walk,'" she read out-loud. "'Run. My turn comes next. You shouldn't have stolen my imu.'"
Jame boggled. "Imu? Your . . . ?" The earthy smell, the dirty nails, the proclivity to eavesdrop . . . . "M-mother Ragga? Is that you?"
"'Step-mother to you, if that,'" Cattila read, from stitches knit half an hour before.
Jame shook her head as though to clear it. To imagine that the Earth Wife's lodge was following her was one thing: but what in Perimal's name was its mistress doing in the service of a matriarch, much less serving as her Ear on the very Council of Matriarchs?
"Earth-wife, listen: I did not steal . . . ."
"'Don't talk. Run. Here I come.'"
Jame bolted outside, followed by Brier and no one else.
Dammit, she thought, stopping, feeling profoundly foolish. Those two old women had really spooked her, and for what? The night seemed normal again, the tower rock steady. Foxkin still flitted nervously around the shaft's mouth, but the dogs had stopped howling. A babble of voices floated up from the hall below:
"You're drunk."
"I tell you, it moved!"
"Didn't."
"Did."
"Didn't."
"DID!"
"Look," said Brier.
She was pointing toward the roofline of Cattila's cottage, black against a faint glow beyond. Dawn? But it was far too early, and in the wrong direction.
They circled the building.
From this height, one should have seen the northern reaches of the Silver, a glinting, sinuous ribbon threading back into the dark hills. Instead, a vast river of luminous mist flowed down the valley, filling it from slope to slope. Ruined Tagmeth showed black against it for a moment, as small with distance as a toy, and then was swallowed. Farther back, against a pitch-black sky, peaks emerged like islands in a slowly boiling sea. A continuous grinding noise came from its hidden depths—faint, distant, ominous.
"Is it moon-dark?" the Kendar asked. "Has this world fallen into shadows at last?"
The weirdingstrom must be loosening knots of tension in the ground as it came, Jame thought, sending tremors on ahead of it. As good an explanation as any for the River Snake's writhing.
"It's more a case of Rathillien rising," she said, "which isn't good news for us either. And that tidal wave of mist is coming fast. Damn! If it isn't one thing, it's another. C'mon."
"Take the boat!" Cattila called after them. "God's teeth and toenails, Knorth, Lyra Lack-wit was right: things do happen around you!"