The Shadow Roads

Fifty

They decided to slip away at first light, and very nearlydid so unnoticed. Tuath, the vision weaver, stood by the entrance to the Faelencampment, watching them with her icy pale eyes. She seemed, though, lessghostly that day, as though a little of spring’s color showed through the snow.

“I hope you have no visions to darken the road ahead?”Fyn-nol said.

“I have had no visions at all,” she answered. “It is asthough we have come to a division of the roads and have gone a wholly new way.All that lies ahead is a mystery to me and might be for some time. Luck to youon your journey. Perhaps I will travel north with my people one spring and comesee the Vale of Lakes. It is said that the people there are friends to theFael, and make them welcome.”

“It is true,” Tam said. “Bring Cynddl, if you can.”

“And tell him he still owes us horses!” Fynnol laughed.

They rode out of the circle of tents and along the trailbeside the Westbrook. They crossed the high, curving bridge, then stopped towait for Kai. Baore took the opportunity to tighten the ropes on theirpackhorses, for they were going home laden with gifts. A Fael cart appeared outof the trees, the great horse lifting its feet high as though on parade. Up onthe high bench sat Kai, and beside him Ufrra and the boy named Stillman.

“Kai!” Fynnol called. “Have you brought our map?”

Tam remembered that Fynnol had once laughed at the idea of amap that would lead to hidden lands-but he seemed to have forgotten that now.Tam would have to remind him later.

“I have brought more than that!” Kai said.

Out from behind the cart, on horseback, trotted Alaan,Thea-son, and Cynddl. They seemed more refreshed and joyful than Tam couldremember, and they smiled and laughed to see their friends.

Kai passed a rolled map down from the cart. “That will bethe shortest path to the Vale,” he assured them.

“Do you see how Kai has risen in the world,” Alaan said. “Hewould not take an estate from the Renne, or a house from Carral Wills, but thiscart and all its contents were much to his liking. Better than a barrow, hethought.”

“I have not lived in one place or beneath a roof for moreyears than most can count. A Fael tent and this cart will suit Ufrra and me.”Kai nodded to the boy beside him. “And young Stil seems to have hitched himselfto our wagon, as it were, and we are glad of it. Now I can see the landswithout feeling that I’m perpetually on my way to a slaughterhouse.”

“Where will you go?” Tam asked.

“South when the winter comes. There is seldom snow even thisfar north, but the winter is more agreeable by the shores of the great sea.”

“Come north in spring,” Fynnol said. “I know just the placeto pitch a tent in the Vale.”

“A long journey for a man of advancing years, but perhaps Imight manage it. We’ll see.”

“And you, Alaan?” Tam asked. “Where will you go now?”

“Into the Stillwater, to begin with. There is an enchantmentthere that needs my attention.” He tugged the green jewel out of the collar ofhis shirt. “And the design for that spell is in here. Theason has agreed totravel with me, so I shall not go alone.”

“Beware, good Theason,” Kai said, and not entirely in jest. “Ifyou join the company of men who have traveled with Sainth, you might have along life, but there will be no home for you.” He gestured behind him. “You’llbe lucky to have this.”

The little man did not seem to think this a jest. “Theasonwould consider himself fortunate indeed to live as the Fael do, but as youknow, good Kai, his great joy is to see new lands. I shall be on the lookoutfor any plants that might ease your suffering.”

Cynddl dismounted and embraced each of the Valemen in turn. “Noneof us knew where the river would take us when we set out. It was not a journeywithout loss, but the gains, too, were great.” He paused, and looked at each ofthem, his eyes glistening. For a moment his voice eluded him, but then hespoke. “You three are the friends of my heart-my brothers in arms. You haveeach saved my life, and more than once, and I believe I have done the same foryou. None but we four and the river know what we have been through. The storycan be told, but a story is but an artifice. A great complex of emotions,events, thoughts, and deeds, distilled down to a mouthful of words. Like tryingto imagine the river by listening to a spring.” He clapped Tam on theshoulder. “I will journey north in the spring and visit you. Be well, andhasten north, or the snows will catch you.”

Alaan handed Tam a sealed letter. “For you, Tam,” he said.

The Valeman glanced at the hand and slipped it into apocket. Shy Theason stood back while the men embraced, then mounted their finehorses.

“I would tell you to beware of highwaymen,” Alaan said, “butit is the highwaymen who should beware of you.”

“There will be no highwaymen on the paths I have laid downfor them,” Kai said.

Reluctantly the Valemen spurred their horses and set off towardthe north road. Fynnol turned in his saddle and called out.

“People will never know what you did for them, Alaan!”

“Nor will they know what you three have done,” Alaan rejoined,raising a hand. “Fare well. Good speed, my friends. Good speed.”

They stopped to let the horses drink from a small stream,and beneath the shade of a tree Tam took out the letter Alaan had given him.His name was written on it with an elegant, almost old-fashioned hand. He tooka long breath and broke the seal.

Dear Tam:

Now that I am no longer a lady of property, I go off intothe wildlands to take up my new position as nursemaid to children unlike anywho have lived before. Who better to do this than a woman who carries asorceress inside her?

I know it is not proper for me to say I will miss you, aswe never arrived at an understanding, but I will miss you, and will not pretendotherwise. Eber tells me that people who have once found their way to SpeakingStone are often able to find it again, so if a desire for adventure shouldseize you … Of course you have likely had enough adventure to last you forsome time.

I often wonder what course events might have taken had Inot leapt from the bridge that night after the Renne ball. I feel, even now,that I had no choice, yet it is an act I regret above all others. Elise Willsceased to be that night, and in her place appeared a creature, young andancient, callous and caring. A woman divided against herself. But without thecold heart of Sianon I should never have managed the things I did. And itseems that heart is not entirely cold, for there is in it a warmth that alwayskindles when I think of you.

Now that I have broken every rule I was taught as a younglady, I will close. That is a part of me too-Sianon’s disdain for theconventions of polite society. Where shall such a woman find a home but in thewildlands?

Yours utterly, Elise

Tam read the letter several times through., as he wouldevery day during that long journey, extracting from the few words all the meaningthat he possibly could. One phrase echoed in his mind over and over: ‘wenever arrived at an understanding’. He did not think that any six wordswould ever cause him such confusion and regret. It was, he feared, true inevery possible way.

Autumn in its copper glory spread across the northernforests, turning the world crimson and gold. Flights of swans passed south,stark against the high blue. Three riders leading pack animals came up thegreat road, wrapped in warm cloaks against the cool morning air. At the forkto the stone gate the leader stopped.

“Let’s ride out onto the bridge,” Tam said, and the othersnodded, not needing any explanation for this detour so close to home.

In a few moments they were above the narrow gorge where thebroad, calm lakes transformed into a racing river. None of them spoke. Tam,Baore, and Fynnol sat on their fine horses and gazed at their surroundings: therocks where they hid from Hafydd’s guards; the tower by Telanon Bridge risingup out of the crimson trees; the old battlefield where they had unearthed awhetstone that had once belonged to a sorceress.

It had all begun there, where the rain streamed down fromthe mountains and formed a river to the sea. A river fed by a thousand springsand streams, that bubbled and whispered among the sunlit woods.

A silver haze hung over the river, floating the bridge on athin cloud, and the sun glanced off the stone railings. It seemed too peacefula place to be the wellspring for an adventure.

“Let’s go home,” Fynnol said, “and see if anyone remembersour handsome faces.”

They turned their mounts and rode back toward the stonegate. Over the clatter of horses’ hooves Tam thought he heard a flutelikephrase off in the deep wood-a sorcerer thrush singing its way south-and hethought of Alaan, as he often did.