THE LETTERSEEKER

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

            Cleva's sleep was calm. She no longer dreamed of shadows or of serpents. Her breathing became shallow and her skin sagged on her weak bones. Liesa would not leave her mother's bedside, so Trask prepared the evening meal while Lieth, moody, walked alone on the beach, saying he could not eat. At dusk Dohan lit the oil lamps and took one to Liesa. She accepted it with a mechanical gesture and placed it on the small table by the bed. When the food was ready she ate a little loaf and meat stew made from a hare Lieth had caught that morning in one of the many traps he kept among the scrub.

            Stoneglow ate with Dohan and Trask in the kitchen. He asked that the scraps be saved, explaining that he had an animal, a pet, that would relish hare-bones.

            “What animal is that, and where is it?” asked Trask, pausing between swallows of a bitter dark tea, brewed of roots.

            “An owl—a yulet it is called in the place I come from. It sleeps now in the cuddy cabin of my boat, where I left it before Liesa brought me here.”

            “I have never before heard of a man with an owl for a pet,” said Trask. “Was it difficult to tame? Here the owls can carry away a child. Thankfully they keep to the far hills. We seldom see them.”

            “This is a small bird, not a great hunting owl,” said Stoneglow “Its kind are hardy and clever. Some folk use them for fishing. They can be trained, and they catch water life, preferring to hunt and live in marshes. But I did not train this one and it is not, I think, really tame. Rather it seems to accompany me by its own choice—and by the wish of the Lady Vrrjhri, who spoke to it.”

            Dohan's and Trask's eyes widened.

            “I see you have more than a single tale to tell, Lord Threescar,” said Dohan. “There are no birds like that here, and few marshes. Many leagues to the west, though, there are the Salt Islands of which strange things are said. Come you then from the Salt Islands, or from beyond?”

            “Beyond,” Stoneglow answered, thinking it best not to mention Koronthos at present. Already, he guessed, the credulity of his hosts had been strained.

            “Then you have traveled far!” exclaimed Trask, full of desire to hear stories of adventure.

            “No doubt, no doubt, Trask,” said Dohan, “but this is not a night for tales or for much talk of any kind. Your mother Cleva dies, I fear, and I have had my fill of tales and visions for the moment.”

            “Dohan, I hope it is not true that your wife is dying,” said Stoneglow. “It seemed to me that the rose had a soothing effect upon her.”

            Dohan shrugged.

            “That is a kind wish. But already I think her soul is on its way to The Brilliance where Elihh will shape it anew. Yet I am grateful that she lies with the breath of the Lady's flower near. It is a great blessing and I thank you for it, since it seems that the rose came to Liesa through you.”

            “In a way, yes. But I was hoping for Cleva's recovery for my own sake as well as your family's. She has some knowledge, I think, of the location of the Treegorge. Tell me, Dohan, do you know what she meant by Quastid?”

            “Quastid is a man,” said Dohan, “a healer of the city of Esti, three days from here by sea. It was Quastid who saved Cleva's life when she was injured long ago. Trren, king of Esti, would keep him as his private physician, but Quastid prefers to treat the poor and wayfarers.”

            “Oh,” said Stoneglow, disappointed. “Then Cleva was just calling for the healer.”

            “Maybe. But she may have meant that Quastid has the information you seek. He is wise and a keeper of lore.”

            There was a sound from the main room of the house. Lieth had returned carrying firewood, which he began to kindle in a stone fireplace. It was dark now beyond the small open windows. The sound of the surf came clearly to Stoneglow's ears, softening somewhat Cleva's long gasping breaths that could be heard from the bedroom.

            “Come,” said Dohan. “I will show you a place to sleep. My sons and I will keep vigil tonight with Liesa, but you are our guest and I can see that you are weary.”

            Stoneglow rose from the table, and Dohan showed him to a pallet in the main room, warming now as the fire Lieth had started took hold. After Dohan and Lieth left the room, Stoneglow lay down, wrapping his cloak about him. The pack he placed beneath his head as a pillow. In it was Vrrjhri's shawl, folded into a small bundle. Garufel would be pleased, Stoneglow thought, if he knew what a treasure his pack now held.

            Garufel...

            And as he slept a call seemed to repeat itself amid his dreams: shrill sensitive cries of a night-bird hunting nigh the dune rills, the first of its kind ever to journey from the Narrow Lands to the Broad.

* * *

            The Letterseeker woke at the first suggestion of light. The house was cold, the fire grey ash. Supposing not to interfere with those at Cleva's side, he stole from the house silently, walking across the dark sand to the sea.

            In the west loomed the promontory beyond which Pride lay beached. To the east there were low sandhills. Over them in the morning mist Jupiter yet gleamed, though Regulus nearby was invisible, the dawn and the pale moon, halfwaned upon the zenith, having sapped its strength. Down the strand toward the growing light Stoneglow walked, pondering yesterday's events. How should he respond to the command of the goddess? Repeatedly he thrust away the idea that Liesa might have any part in it, despite Cleva's prediction.

            No. Not Liesa. He alone must carry out that task which, through his carelessness, he had earned. A tall order! Find a legendary valley, take a branch from the Father of Trees, make a new Bodla, carry it to the Stoneshield.

            The Stoneshield—Garufel had said that it existed in all the Lands: Stonehenge, the link, a Door like the M-gate. That was his one hope: If Garufel guessed or divined by his arts that Stoneglow had come to the Broad Lands, then the wizard might himself continue on to the Stonehenge of the Narrow Lands to keep rendezvous there. Perhaps then a transition could be accomplished. But where was the Stonehenge of the Broad Lands? This too he must find.

            The sun broke over the sandhills, driving away Jupiter's flash. There was a fresh tang in the air. Threescar stopped walking and drew a deep breath. Very well, then: First, Drred-Srrnyo; then the Stoneshield.

            “Ho, Lord Stoneglow! Stoneglow Threescar!”

            The Letterseeker turned toward the shouts. Dohan, the two brothers, and Liesa were coming toward him from the dunes ahead. It was Trask who shouted and waved. He and Lieth carried shovels. An ominous feeling gripped Stoneglow. They had been away from the house when he had left. That could only mean—

            Shreeiu!

            Out of the darker western sky featherball descended, folding his ochre wings as he settled upon Stoneglow's left shoulder. The round yellow eyes opened and shut deliberately as the yulet regarded him against the glare of the fast-mounting sun.

            “Oh, it's little Itu,” Liesa exclaimed, running up ahead of the others. She smiled though her voice quavered and her eyes were red from crying. She had a rough cotton cloak about her to ward off the chill. Her golden hair was drawn back in a tight bun.

            “Look, Lieth, Father,” she said, turning to them as they came up, “Stoneglow's owl. He has flown over the ridge from the boat where we left him.”

            “More likely he has been a-hunting in the dawn among the hills,” said Dohan gruffly, looking with curiosity at the bird.

            But the Yulet, having surveyed the party imperiously, opened and closed his beak with a brief snort, then shut his eyes as if preparing for a long day of sleep.

* * *

            “Yes; quietly. About midnight,” Dohan said in answer to Stoneglow's question. “We buried her in a place she liked, a slope looking to the sea. What's done's done! We are of a folk that do not grieve overmuch. Cleva was years abed and had grown impatient of life.”

            They sat in the main room of the house. Yulet, waking when they entered, accepted the meat saved for him, then flew to a rafter and settled down again in half-shadow where his yellowbrown feathers were ruddied now and then by a flicker from the rekindled fire.

            Liesa brought fresh water in a metal pot and when it simmered she added bits of black root to it, stirring the tea with a wooden stick. Stoneglow appreciated the sharp smell and taste of the brew, called ushluth `sea-lick' from its main ingredient, a weed that hugs the tidelands. After his first few draughts, he put another question to Dohan.

            “I am going to the city of Esti, Dohan, to find Quastid the healer. I will have to journey overland. Can you furnish me with provisions? I have nothing of great value to trade, but perhaps my sword—”

            Dohan raised a hand.

            “Why, Lord Stoneglow, you have a boat, have you not, and no common one as Liesa says. But nay, we'd not ask it in trade; we've our own. What I mean is this: why not rig it for sea? All you need is here—willing hands, cloth, spars—”

            “Dohan, I could never repay you for such help.”

            “Ah, yes,” the older man replied, and Stoneglow caught the gleam's edge in the man's sea-narrow eyes, “but that's not quite the point. Let me explain, Lord Stoneglow Threescar.

            “Our lives on this shore are hard and lonely and we too have no wealth of any account. But they are wrong who call us dull. Our ancestors were far-roving men who not an hundred years ago lorded all the seas about until the power of Esti grew. Then the king there—Gorrst, father of Trren's grandfather—built a fleet and challenged the wickfolk as our forefathers were called; for they hid their longships in the wicks or bays east and west of here.

            “Then Hrrl the Heavyhanded, my own great-great-grandfather's brother, gathered all the wickfolk and led a clever raid on Esti, thinking he had decoyed King Gorrst's fleet on a fool's errand. But Gorrst was smarter than Hrrl at that time, because although in his prime Hrrl had no match in wit or strength, then he was old-grown. So his fleet was trapped in Esti bay by Gorrst's boats. They had not been drawn away as Hrrl thought, but had hidden in the bight of Shalath a few miles east. So Gorrst turned the wickfolk's own tactics against them.

            “Hrrl was defeated and slain by Etarth Gorrstson, eldest heir to the king. Yet a few boats 'scaped the broil and fled. Nor could Gorrst pursue, since a powerful wind came up and his city sailors had not the skill to fight it. Gorrst's own boat was swamped and Etarth became king.

            “One of those who fled was my grandfather's father, himself called Dohan. He had stolen a woman of the city who fell in love with him for his strength and skill and fairmindedness. Elder Dohan settled here, building this same house that now shelters us. And he was allowed to do so in peace because he after swore allegiance to Etarth.

            “You see then, lord, that the blood of adventurers runs in our veins. Until now we have challenged only the sea for the sustenance it brings us. But this morning we have spoken long with Liesa, who is now the woman of this house and who, in spite of her youthful years, has always been respected by us for her sharp sight and honesty. We do not doubt her. We know that the goddess Vrrjhri came to you two and placed a charge upon you to seek out the Treegorge and renew the Bodla of old that has been half burnt away by a witch-woman who fled beneath the earth. In this matter also we cannot doubt the evidence of the unearthly rose, which Liesa now wears.”

            Liesa's hand went to her throat. She held up a small pouch of yellow cloth that hung about her neck on a braided cord. “This was my mother's, Stoneglow, and now the rosebud dwells within it.” —But she did not mention that she had stripped the bud of a single petal that now lay with Cleva in her sandy grave.

            “My daughter will not abide your seeking Quastid and the Treegorge without her,” Dohan continued. “She feels that the Lady's instructions were for her as well as you—else why should she have been there? With this we agree, since Cleva also forsaw it. Yet we would not have Liesa show you the way to Esti alone. So we have decided thus: we will put a sail and oars on your boat, and ready one of ours for sea as well. Then we will accompany you and assist you as we may.”

            “Dohan, this is too much!” said Stoneglow. “I cannot be the cause of your leaving your home.”

            “Cleva is gone. Liesa will not remain here. Our home is now the sea—wherever it may take you. Through you we may serve Vrrjhri and Berainn. You are not the cause of our loss, lord. You are our hope. Henceforth we are under your command, at least until the Bodla is renewed and the shadows that struck down Cleva have been driven from the Land.”

            Astonished, Stoneglow looked from face to face in the firelight: Dohan, determined, efficient, and wakened to new purpose; Trask, eager for adventure and beaming with friendship; Liesa, still touching the pouch that held the rose and gazing steadily at him with eyes full of hope. But of Lieth's face he saw nothing, for it was turned to the fire.

* * *

            The outfitting began. Dohan and Trask prepared their forty- foot hull for sea, after shortening the mast that had belonged to their smaller craft. This was to be installed under Lieth's supervision on the Pride, with Stoneglow and Liesa assisting. Dohan assured the Letterseeker that Lieth, although younger by five years than Trask, was the most adept at rigging.

            This proved true. With admiration Stoneglow observed how Lieth's serious, sure eye guided him as he estimated the balance of forces that would act upon the reed hull. He designed a lateen sail that hung from a long, graceful spar, and gave a noticeable rake to the mast.

            Trask and Liesa cut the sail from an older one of blue-dyed canvas. Dohan shaped a leeboard that was swiveled from the port side for stability, the wind being mostly to starboard on the east-journey.

            Dohan's boat was ready first: mast raised, a final coat of pitch on hull and deck, and the great blue lugsail bent to the spars. On the second day, all five of them together dragged the boat to the water over short log rollers. When it was afloat, Dohan began at once to load it with goods from the house—food, water in kegs and leather flasks, tools, extra cloth, coils of line, and an endless list of other sea-gear.

            This boat had been called the Smrr `Wave,' but now Dohan changed the name to the Rose. He painted an eye upon the bows with dark blue and red pigment. It was a stylized shape with a thin brow ending in a threadlike, six-curled double spiral: a charm of the wickfolk of old, he said, that could pierce the thickest fog. Beneath the eye he added a small red rosebud upon a blue stem.

            The next day they gathered on the western beach to launch the Pride, sliding her hull easily over the sand. In spite of the extra weight of the new equipment she rode as lightly as before. Beautiful she was in the afternoon sun. Lieth and Trask, shouting enthusiastically, hoisted the sail. The Yulet, which Liesa now always called 'Itu,' blinked twice and fled to the bow end of the cuddy cabin, out of sight.

            There was a light afternoon breeze. At Stoneglow's invitation Lieth took the tiller—really a short sweep—and as the wind freshened the Pride sprang joyously to sea, closehauled, foam gathering at her prow. Dohan remarked how well-sealed the hull was, as if the reeds were bound together by an invisible resin of great strength.

            Smiling, Stoneglow said that it was not sealed by resin, but by a binding-spell and the will of Vrrjhri. For once the reference to magic did not appear to bother Lieth. Liesa let her hair fly in the wind and Trask laughed aloud at the spray that wet his face as he lay on the foredeck, peering over the stem with his arms wrapped about the swan-neck.

            They brought her thus around the jutland into the shelter of the bay, where she came alongside the newly christened Rose. There was a transfer of supplies, including an ancient bronze oil lantern and an anchor with fifteen feet of roughshaped chain and one hundred fifty feet of fiber line. This was secured to the bow, and, moving her off to a good radius, Stoneglow anchored the Pride in twenty feet of water.

            Liesa would not hear of sailing on the Rose, insisting her quarters must be on the Pride. Lieth would agree to this only if he also sailed on the Pride. Dohan, however, wanted Lieth on his own boat. Stoneglow pointed out that the Pride was small for three persons—and an owl.

            Liesa contradicted all of them. She could sail as well as any, she said; and there was no reason she should not share the boat with Lord Stoneglow. Had not Vrrjhri Herself brought the two of them together? Besides, Itu would be there, and the watchful owl would chaperon them at night! At this all laughed, even Lieth, and they agreed to put off a decision until after dinner.

            Dohan had a coracle of skins on a bentwood frame, which carried two persons at a time. This he launched, and four trips brought them all ashore for a final meal at the old house. Lieth's roaring fire (the last and best he ever kindled there) quickly dried the clothing they had wet during the launching. Then Dohan produced from a chest a skin of fruit-wine, startling Liesa and her brothers who had not until then known of its existence.

            “Old it is,” said Dohan, “and from a distant land.”

            He poured a half cup all around, which exhausted the bottle's contents, since the mugs were large. The flavor was good. It spoke of sunlit autumn hills where the salt air seldom came. Then Stoneglow Threescar wondered again at these folk, who so recently had suffered the loss of a dear one and were about to leave their ancestral home, yet so vigorously put aside tragedy and looked instead with joy toward the morning and a fresh breeze. He wondered at himself also, finding that he had lost for the moment the cares that had grown without letup, it seemed, since before he had left the Midlands. Even his convalescence in the cottage of Garufel in the Narrow Woods had not brought him such a feeling of homeliness and inner peace.

            Whatever the morning light might bring, here in the moment he had found a diamond of joy set among the darker jewels that, for him so far, had made up the treasure of Erta; and of that diamond, the brightest facet was Liesa Summercurls.