2.7.5 – Fire-Hall Favor

Elder Gafed stared at me. The white-haired old man put a hand on her shoulder. 

The Elders turned their backs on us. I let my head droop, knelt as I was on the rush mat. My knee was starting to ache again. Eris put her hand on my head, helped me to my feet.  

Rina pulled us both back, away from the Elders. A crowd had encircled us now, curious onlookers, but they held their distance from Rina, from Eris and I. Somewhat to my surprise, Lord Meteth and his hunters remained with us in a loose guard, not too close, and not too far.  

I was shaking. Eris squeezed my shoulder, offering, and I turned away into her arms, to hide just for a moment. I longed to rest, yet fear and ferocity had driven me for so long that I feared I might crumble to dust if I let them go.  

Voices were speaking around us. I heard Rina’s among them. Meteth, too, more gruffly.  

“Favor-Oflife,” a man I did not know was saying, his voice gnarled and marked by a thick accent. He lumped the words together oddly. “Thiir-tesa, freli? Thiir-tesa natecsonin?”  

Another woman said something that was muffled by the arm wrapped around my ear.  

New arms enfolded me. Warm like bands of fresh-forged iron, sleek skin against skin. I shivered.  

Grannine.   

“My Mariead,” Grannine whispered in my ear. Held so close, it was like Eris was embracing Us both. “This place is…”  

It’s beautiful. My eyes burned as if with tears. I realized they were tears only when I heard my breath come out as a sniff and not a sleek inhalation. I never dreamed it would be like this. That I would stand here and… 

That I had found it within myself to ask for life, beg for it. So much time had been spent deluding myself into thinking there was no fear in death—but still I had been thinking like a child of the Church. Bleeding my soul in contemplation of a Beautiful, Holy Death. Of a good death.  

If we must die, let it be as this. If we must die, let us die free. If we must die… 

But to die a beautiful death was still to die. To fail. I looked to Grannine. No illusion of Elysium for Her. A wild and screaming abyss was all that awaited Her if we failed.  

A keen and ice-cold prickling awareness of came over me of the slim margins by which we had succeeded. Swords and arrows had narrowly missed us, Templar and Inquisitors had hunted us. Death’s jaws had worked hungrily at our back every step of the way.  

And yet…we might live.  

In escaping death, we had come so close to life, and now its very closeness terrified me. I felt my pulse quicken, my arms shaking around Eris. Was this madness at last? The final breaking of my mind?  

The very stillness of our shared moment only stoked the fear I was feeling.  

What if it never fades?  

What if I could never rest? What if, now, when all was done, I remained a thing of terror, of war, of flight? Even now we had reached our destination. The Elders now considered my request, and still I… 

“Mariead.”  

Grannine. I reached for Her. I felt Her hands enfold my heart, stilling its wild flutter. I closed my eyes, and all I saw was Her vaulted and tetrapartite glory sailing high beyond the firmament, ponderous and serene, a ruined temple capped in dawnfire splendor.  

“It’ll take some hours,” Grannine said, and Her voice was wrought of such gentle stuff that I nearly wept at the sound alone, the words brushing over my cheek like cobweb. “Five hours, maybe. After we’ve done. To descend, gather Caer Lunan, and bring them along the path we traveled. Less, if we get some help.”  

The task would be far from a simple one. The hold’s cliff was sheer, and its way narrow, marked with ice, and we had many old and infirm, to say nothing of the tools and rations each of us carried. 

She was offering a diversion. Another problem to consider, one last trial to forestall my disintegration. It was kindly, knowing, and such a profoundly human gesture that the weary realization on its own brought a pang.  

Stranger still, it worked. I felt my mind stirring again, starting to focus. To consider the problem at hand. We yet had wounded to tend to—and it would be miraculous if we did not have more following our headlong charge into peril. Withdrawing from Eris, I found that we were ever-more the epicenter of a curious audience. Rina stood beside us like an honor guard, wearing her familiar, inscrutable half-smile. Black irises in her hooded eyes rendered her expression still more cryptic as a manner of habit.  

Natecsonin, the druids murmured to one another. Thiir-tesa, natecsonin. I flinched instinctively as one drew close.  

“Be still,” Rina said gently, to Eris, and to me. “They will not harm you.”  

I nodded. In answer to the crowd’s freely-seeking eyes, I let myself look back, from one face to the other, more boldly than I ever would have even in Caer Lunan. Some were familiar—the pale skin and stocky features I had known in Caer Lunan. Some faces, if I had not known, would not have seemed out of place in a priest’s vestments, or a Templar’s armor. But others bore the stamp of a different place or time, with skin of other undertones I had never seen. There were so many. Some friendly, some furious, and some simply interested, as though I were a curiosity. I found Rina again, weathered and sorrow-sharpened features framing her dark eyes like a mask.  

“Rina,” I said. “This place…I hadn’t known.”  

I hadn’t known. How insufficient an explanation. I had imagined a ring of mud huts, beside which we might construct shelters of our own. I had envisioned tents strung between a ring of ancient dolmens. I had thought we might encounter a hundred people, perhaps, in a village in some hidden hollow, or living among the trees like squirrels. I had imagined we might be momentous. Sixty people. So many. How few it seemed now, measured against the number of druids I had already seen!  

“You were not told.” Rina’s half-smile persisted as she looked us over. “I did not tell you.”  

“I wouldn’t have believed you if you had,” Eris muttered. Rina laughed aloud. I thought once again that she had a pleasant laugh.  

“May I return to my people while they deliberate?” My voice sounded smaller than I had intended. Grannine’s fond distraction had prompted contemplation of the time we had already spent scaling the face of Raven Lake. “It is cold, and they may wonder where…”  

Lord-Hunter Meteth made a sound of negation. I drew Grannine close to me like a mantle. Her long arms draped languidly about my shoulders, and I felt Her fingers tease my hair. She slipped seamlessly back between myself and the Grey Speech. 

“You will not leave,” Meteth said, to me. His look was neither cruel or kind, simply implacable. “Until the Elders decide you are ours.”  

“It will not be long,” Rina added, in a lower tone. “They will decide quickly.”  

“Oh.” I said. I did not know whether to find that a relief. They will decide quickly. For us?  Rina was smiling. Not a smile that seemed much-concerned. “…Why?” 

I followed her gaze to the Elders. 

“…to speak to the Fire-Hall to ask,” the white-haired man was saying. “We must speak for them, as is our right.”  

“There is more at work here than you might know, safi.” Rina’s sanguine expression did not waver. “You will have time to learn. Look!”  

“–have not been given the time,” Elder Gefed said shortly. “Sixty is not few, Kova. Where would they stay?” 

“With us,” the bald old man replied. He stood with a familiar hand on Speaker Soden’s shoulders. “We will not keep them apart. If they will share our food, they will share our Sleeping-Hall.” 

“Warriors of the seven-pointed star, here.”  

“If you fear for our people, we will set them to sleep with our own Hunters,” the man with white hair said. “And we will set a watch.”   

Grannine spoke every word to me, but still I hardly understood what I was hearing. These were not debates of yes or no. These were debates of manner, questions of how. Of petty details. The decision had come and gone while I had been lost in my own thoughts.  

“I will serve as Arbiter.” Speaker Soden rubbed her hands together. “We announce between ourselves, so there is no doubt. Will you speak, Waker of Life? This is your domain.”  

The bald-headed old man, Kova, rubbed his chin. His lip quavered.  

“We are offered a Favor of Life,” he said at length. “The auspice of Life’s Favor comes not from suspicion. Life trusts. I would intercede, and accept.”  

“We would accept a poor repayment,” Gefed muttered.  

“All cannot give alike,” Speaker Soden said coolly. “The God-King may give more than a shepherd, yet the shepherd may offer more by his generosity. This, even a child knows. Will you speak, Waker of Death?”  

This was the white-haired man. He had a string of long, pale needles hanging about his neck; they looked like the quills of a porcupine, or the teeth of an adder.  

“They have many children among them,” he said, as though that were in itself an argument. “I will intercede.”  

“I, Waker-Arbiter, would intercede.” Speaker Soden touched the sigil at her throat.  “Gefed-Elder. Will you speak?”  

The tall, dark-skinned woman did not speak. She stood still, silent, and impassive, for so long that Speaker Soden frowned. More gently, she repeated. “Gefed-Elder.”  

“I am the Voice of our people,” Gefed said at last. It was impossible to discern either compassion or resentment on her face. “Our Elders would intercede. We will intercede, against the counsel of my heart.”  

“We listen, Voice of our people,” Speaker Soden bowed her head. “Speak your judgement.”  

Elder Gafed bowed her head. There were patterns drawn across her hands. Letters, words, sigils in the druid’s script, writ among geometric designs. They twined between her fingers, over her knuckles, trailed up her sleeves and out of sight. As she wrung her hands in thought, those patterns seemed to writhe.  

At length, she stepped forward.  

The crowd fell silent almost as soon as she presented herself, as though those nearby had been waiting for her to act, and those beyond had been watching for them. The silence spread long before she gave voice to any greeting.  

“Fire-Hall,” she said, and her words rang from the ceiling. I wondered at the surety with which she commanded the room, set apart from the rest by nothing beyond the respect they paid. “Set down your workings of four. Now, we are makers of Life.”  

I heard more sound—the echo of feet shuffling through the chasm that led further into the cavern. Before the crowd blocked my sight to the north, I saw more people trying to move closer, to listen. The silence of many waiting voices was deafening.  

“Today we intercede and offer Life for sixty,” she said. “They are lost children of seven.”  

I heard more than one voice repeating the number, so many that the word itself crept through Grannine’s voice, almost drowned Her out. I could guess the meaning even so. Na-anax. Na, Anax. Na-anax. Sixty.  

We were more. But still we are many. How can it be that we are accepted? 

“Their coming has many portents.” Gafed’s eyes fell upon me. “Led to this place by Acrurina Speaker of Starfurrow, our child who has returned. Preserved by Meteth Lord-Hunter as a Tyrant’s act, brought before us as a Tyrant’s Favor.”  

She paused. The silence was profound. I wondered what thoughts might be passing behind her stark and calculating eyes. “We act quickly, Fire-Hall. We have chosen to intercede in the relation of Life. A favor done for Starfurrow Hold, and for our new children. We will have need of your help, and we will ask that help in time. Ask what you will of the Wakers, and we will obey.”  

Within the silence, low voices. Some repeating the words she had spoken, relaying them through the passages I could not see. Others musing on this news. Would it be well-received? Were we welcome? I felt ill-worth the favor. 

At last, the Elder’s hand lifted to point at Rina, and the crowd swung to follow her gaze.  

“Portended by a tyrant’s favor, you will receive a tyrant fate, Acrurina,” she said levelly. “You are a Speaker of Starfurrow Hold no longer. You say these children of seven are good fortune—then we will bind their fortunes to yours. If they honor us, you will be honored as none have been honored before. If they destroy us, you will be destroyed. They are your flock to raise, and yours to bring into us. For this favor of Life, we will provide food for Starfurrow Hold.” The old woman looked from me to Rina and back again. “Do you accept?”  

“I hear, I accept, I am honored.” She bowed from the waist. “I obey.” 

“I name you again as Speaker of Raven Lake, Acrurina. Welcome.” Elder Gafed turned her attention to me. As prepared as I thought I had been, I felt a chill. The very swiftness with which events unfolded left me ill-at-ease, like the oncoming front of a storm. “You will take your place at the gate with Soden-Speaker to name the newborn.”  

“I hear, I obey, Voice of Wisdom,” Rina bowed again.  

“Child of seven,” she said. “Your people have a place here. They will be children of Raven Lake. They will learn and obey our laws, live by our ways, and teach all that they can. They will be ours. For this we will offer Life. Can this be obeyed?”  

“Elder Gafed,” I said, and my voice faltered again. Failed me. A terrible fear rose in my chest, strangling—a dread that I might fail on the final word, that I might misspeak and doom us all. “I accept. We accept. I…” I glanced at Rina. “I hear, I obey. Thank you.”  

She did not smile.  

“Meteth Hunter-Lord,” she said, without taking her eyes from me. “The newborn of Raven Lake are below in the care of Starfurrow Hold. They are cold and wounded, and there are enemies in the Forest. Make safe the shore and bring them home.”  

“I hear the Voice of Wisdom, and I obey,” Meteth said. He bowed from the waist, and the crowd made space for him to depart.  

“Lorsala Store-Guard,” Elder Gafed said. A name, a title. She pointed through the crowd with her hand, fingers closed like a dagger. “Starfurrow Hold has little food left for this winter. Discern how we may dispatch to them a favor of Life. Kova-Elder will counsel you.”  

The man thus named answered in the affirmative. Gafed continued with only the barest pause, as though she had anticipated his obedience. She spoke to a woman not far from us next, but I barely heard the command she gave.  

It is done, I thought. The moment seemed incomplete. Broken, as I was broken. As We were broken. I longed to turn back to Eris and fall apart as I knew I might have just scant moments before, but the moment had passed—my mind was working again, my heart racing, still on guard against some danger that had not come. Would not come.  

It is done. I turned the idea over in my mind. I tried to make it Real. It felt ill-suited. Too small for me, for the fear that gaped in my chest, yawned in the pit of my belly like an open wound. Constricting.  

Speaker Soden said something. Elder Gafed responded with a sharp word.  

“They will need a firstborn,” Speaker Soden replied, when I gathered Grannine to me again. “I could–” 

“This I know,” Elder Gafed said, curtly. She beckoned to me, a cold and cursory gesture. “Approach.”  

The crowd stepped back for me, but where for Meteth it seemed an act of respect, to me it felt like a singling-out, an exposure. I approached her warily. My head was beginning to ache once again, but I was far more preoccupied with the rising sense of panic, of wrongness.  

“Mariead,” she said, and the familiar sound was strange indeed from her lips. With no more hesitation than a farmer inspecting a calf, she grasped the side of my head. Her palm was dry, warm to the touch. “Suuna’astrea.”  

This word I heard whispered among the crowd. But now Gafed seemed to place less weight upon it. From here I could count every line and blemish across her features, each laid down gilded by year upon year. She said nothing more. I dared not speak, lest I impinge upon some unknown tradition. Was an answer expected of me? I could not look away. I swallowed, and I felt my throat move against her hand. 

The very intimacy of the feeling shocked me from rising turmoil, and she faltered, perhaps seeing the look on my face. On hers, the moment of surprise was hardly visible, swiftly overcome. Her face hardened, some unspoken grief or melancholy turning black and soundless as the tarn outside.  

“Child of Raven Lake,” she said, a timbre I did not understand in the very lowest register of her voice, a hint of some emotion held close.  

She lifted her right hand, and pressed the pad of her thumb to my forehead so firmly that I thought she sought to break the skin. Who knew what weird and eldritch arts the Elder druids possessed? She might pierce through my skull and kill me there before the crowd. Her fingers blocked the light from my left eye in a web of shadow. I felt faint. I had slept so little, and eaten nothing but a scrap of bread all night.  

 “I bless you in Life’s name,” she said, in a low voice. “For you are a blessing to us. In Death’s name, for you will be beloved. In the name of Defiance, for you are beholden to none. In Order’s name, for our world is yours. I bless you by the Fivefold, and by the design thereof.”  

Beloved. Blessed. Beholden to none.  

Belated, and almost blushing, tears welled up in my eyes. On the Elder’s face, three scant teardrops sought well-worn tracks down her face. She seemed surprised, though whether at my emotion or hers I could not say. 

“I name you Mariead, firstborn of your kindred,” Elder Gafed said. “May you know peace here.” The force of her thumb lessened. She lowered her voice, as though these words were spoken only for me. Only for us. “May misfortune be averted from your way. May our trust not be misplaced.”  

She lowered her hand as though in remorse.  

“Firstborn Mariead, Suuna’astrea of Raven Lake,” she said. “I am the Voice of your people. We welcome you home.”   

Home.  

Whether it was the release of such tightly-held apprehension, or this scant and grudging acceptance in the foreign word of a stranger, it was enough to undo the floodgates. At long last, I came undone.  

*

2.7.4 – Favor Pled

2.7.6 – Home