Even upon the Scales
’Tis oft not the simple which heals, but the strength of the hand that gives it.
—Proverb of the riverdwellers
Slowly, gently, I drifted. Occasionally a cold blue light bloomed, pushing away the devouring dark, and I heard the Old Tongue as if muffled through layers of cloth. Soft and steady it sang, almost familiar. For I had heard some of the saga before.
The song told of an Elder princess whose glance was like a knife, and of the Secondborn who loved her—at first from afar, then with his affection returned. The tune was lovely, lilting and slow, yet with the sadness which lies within a great many Elder stories.
Anything granted life—short or long—must have some experience of suffering. Even gods; do not the old tales tell us so?
Eventually the blue radiance gave way to a hazy, colorless glow. I found myself possessed of breath again, and for some while simply enjoyed the ability to draw air without pain. From there, though, I discovered my physical body, and expected it to ache more. Seidhr flowed in concentric rings, rippling through me as if I were eleven again, feverstruck while Idra tended to me.
A bleak wind had blown from the north that winter. I almost flinched, expecting the vision of my shattered, fire-blackened home to strike snake-quick, but the blow did not arrive.
What did, however, was further consciousness of existing. I had fingers and toes, ribs and a head, my hair was unbound, and I became aware the softness was something like a bed, and the weight upon me very much like blankets. The new illumination was daylight pressing through my half-open eyelids.
The song faded into humming. I lingered upon the threshold of waking, reluctant to discover what new ill-luck returning to myself would bring. Yet I could not tarry forever—there was Arneior, after all, and she relied upon me.
As if the thought summoned her, my shieldmaid spoke. “I think she wakes. Sol?”
Oh, please, let me stay dead. I hate this.It was no use; there is no rest when duty—or seidhr—calls. The gates of my eyes opened fully, day flooded in, and I found myself flat upon my back, staring at a stone ceiling carved to look like interlocking, vine-covered branches. A fresh cool breeze touched my cheek, and I tasted the dregs of some Elder draught at the back of my throat.
“Arneior?” The word slurred, caught halfway, and firmed like bread in the oven, developing its proper shape. My arm lifted, and I reached out.
Warm fingers threaded through mine. The invisible haze of another living, breathing being swamped my seidhr-senses, heartbeat and lungwork thump-sighing under the formless faraway mutter of another creature’s thoughts. The jolt was salutary, like Idra’s walloping upon my back when my breath refused to seat itself properly.
The first few times a volva sends her subtle selves forth, their return can shock the body’s processes into halting. A teacher’s blows, while uncomfortable, serve to bring an unruly beast to compliance, or merely to its own natural behavior.
“There you are.” Relief made her tone sharp as one of Frestis’s flint knives. Arneior sat at my bedside, her spear leaning easily to hand, and her hornbraids glowed ruddy in light like that of a new-winter afternoon. “By the Wingéd, I’ve half a mind to thrash you like your father does Bjorn. What were you thinking?”
Despite the situation, I was absurdly comforted. If she was using breath to scold me, any danger was well past. “I think ’twas a passing divinity, small one. What did I say?”
“Not that, you stubborn little fishhook; I’ll repeat the god-talk word-for-word later.” Her glare intensified, if that were possible. “But Aeredh says you were struck by some weirding, and hid the wound. Why?”
“Easy, shieldmaid.” Aeredh’s face appeared over her shoulder. The Crownless looked weary, as an Elder hardly ever does unless some great feat is performed or grief has occurred. The fatigue sat uneasily upon his unlined face, for when they are tired it is mostly shown in the eyes and somehow, in the lack of expression instead of how the flesh pleats with mortal age. “The mists of the Marukhennor hold dangers more than physical, and our lady alkuine is not the first to be sickened by the despair. It is a shapechanging foe, and hides itself even from its sufferers.”
I longed to shut my eyes again, retreating into lassitude. The veil of distortion was lifted, and the music rustling through fluted pillars along one wall—a door or large window, I could not tell—was no longer a cruel mockery of the Allmother’s gift. The shadow lay in my memory, and did I think upon it, I could see how it had grown, silent as chancre breeding in bones or inner organs, turning the faces of my companions into malignant masks and the Elder city into a twisted mockery.
Mighty that seidhr was, and I had not even known its working in and upon me.
The room was pretty enough, its walls carved with vines and a wardrobe of dark wood opposite the bed. A stone table and two filigreed chairs of that light powdery metal also stood ready for use, and I heard liquid rilling from a fountain or water-room, for it was Laeliquaende after all and no corner of that land lacked the sound. I was not chilled, though the uneasiness of winter light married to a merely cool breeze remained, a taunting reminder of this place’s essential alienness.
Arn and I were mortal, and even if honored guests I did not think us truly welcome here.
All this passed through my skull in a flash. It was a relief to thinkagain, without looming, nameless horror grasping at every breath. “It was seidhr.” Had I not been lying down I might have staggered with relief, for that meant the awful vision of Dun Rithell might not be true. “A great and lying weirding.”
“Indeed.” Aeredh regarded me gravely, shadows lingering in his blue eyes. “I must beg your forgiveness, my lady Solveig, for I did not notice it. I thought you merely quiet, as is your way.”
Arneior’s mouth twitched; she knew I was not truly so. Watchful, certainly, as those born to weirding often are, but no one who has ever seen a volva enforce peace between arguing smallhall-lords or brawling warriors would name me quiet.
“No use in asking what will not be answered.” I sound like Idra. It was one of my teacher’s sayings, though usually accompanying a tweak of my braids or a dismissive snort. “So, I listen instead.”
“Indeed. I did not even guess you knew the Old Tongue.” Aeredh studied me, much as a volva will a recalcitrant patient who must be bullied into greater health. “You have a great deal of cunning, my lady alkuine.”
The term he used meant a hunter’s wisdom instead of treachery, and I decided it was a compliment. “As do you, son of Aerith.” Listening to the Northerners throughout our journey meant my accent was tolerably pure, though not like Floringaeld’s or even Daerith the harpist’s. “I was weregild, taken from my home and among strangers. You did not show your ear-tips at Dun Rithell; I did not show my command of your language. We might be said to be even upon the scales.”
“Hardly.” The weariness upon him did not alter. In fact, it intensified somewhat, and he straightened almost self-consciously as if my gaze was unwelcome. “We brought you from your home with a lie, and you have suffered much upon the journey. Make no mistake, daughter of Gwendelint, I am in your debt, as is the House of Naras.”
Little good it does any of us, I suspect.“Well, you have achieved your purpose. We are in the Hidden City you spoke of. And since I am not returned to a cell, I may understand the king of this place is not infuriated by a Secondborn’s seidhr-speech?”
Aeredh did not quite give a start, but he did allow himself a slight, bitter grimace. Arneior leaned back in her chair, wearing the slightest of smiles. She enjoyed hearing me negotiate; sometimes visitors to Dun Rithell made the mistake of thinking my lack of age meant a lack of sense, despite the slow accumulation of inked bands upon my wrists.
“If Taeron wishes to vent a measure of wrath, he may do so upon me.” He had been a smiling youth at Dun Rithell and calmly, patiently amused through most of our journey, but now the Crownless was grave indeed. “None can deny the hand of the Blessed in bringing you hence, and it is beneath him to treat a gift of theirs with disdain. Yet I am not comforted, my lady. We have arrived at some small safety. What lies ahead will not be so easily surmounted.”
“This Elder thing you wish me to wield, you mean. I already told you I cannot.” Caelgor’s toy had almost killed me, and I did not like the thought of what Aeredh intended me to attempt next. Though no pain remained, a great exhaustion still gripped me. Returning to health is often an uphill trek, like climbing our mother-mountain Tarnarya to search for certain plants useful in seidhr-workings.
Aeredh’s hands flickered, a graceful motion, and silver glittered in his palms.
The taivvanpallo seemed innocuous enough—a simple orb, the lines etched upon its surface moving lazily. I knew what that fluid writing said, and what lay locked in its flower-opening segments. The Elder toy had almost boiled me to death from the inside, but that was not what truly frightened me, for I had survived its touch and could count myself lucky. A danger surmounted is one which may be almost forgotten, else even a seasoned warrior might be reduced to a quivering rabbit-heap when battle approaches, simply waiting for the sacrifice knife.
No, the fear came in a different form. Because as much as I knew the thing was dangerous, I still longed to open it again and feel the heart-pounding satisfaction of accomplishing something an Elder could not do.
Only one among Aeredh’s kind had been born elementalist, what they called alkuine—able to touch all branches of seidhr’s great tree instead of merely one, able to bring open flame from the air itself instead of a mere spark amid piled tinder. Faevril was his name, mighty his gifts and wondrous his works. He was long dead, and some of his cherished art could not be used save by another capable of that weirding.
I could not even be glad of signal proof that I was of his kind. The greater part of me held it an honor I could have done without, the quite justifiable pride of one wearing inked bands notwithstanding.
“The Blessed brought us to your home, my lady.” Aeredh set the small silvery orb upon a tiny table at the bedside, carefully avoiding intrusion upon Arneior’s invisible borders. “I cannot think they would offer hope merely to snatch it away. I promised you answers when we reached this place, and will be glad to give them as you please. For now you should rest, and when you are ready, summon me. No matter the hour, I will appear.”
He turned sharply, and left through a door of light, deeply carved wood I had scarcely noticed.
Arneior considered the taivvanpallo, her bright head cocked and one of her leather-wrapped braids falling over her shoulder. Her ring-and-scale armor was polished to even greater brightness than seidhr could grant; she must have been at it with mortal methods and vengeful thoroughness while waiting for me to wake.
“Three days.” Her profile, familiar as my own, was set and stony. “He sat and sang, while others came and went with Elder draughts and other things. I prayed, but the Wingéd Ones were silent. You almost died.”
“I am sorry.” It was an effort to lift my right hand from soft sky-blue cloth once more. The blankets were light but warm indeed, though I did not sweat. I did not wonder who had stripped my heartsblood wool dress, leaving me in a sleeveless linen shift bearing Astrid’s careful embroidery at neck and hem, for my shieldmaid would have allowed none other that duty. “I did not guess it was weirding, Arn. Idra would be so disappointed.”
She clasped my hand, but her expression did not change. Her freckles stood out through paleness, the only mark of discomfort she would allow. “I wish you would have told me, instead of hiding it.”
“I cannot tell what I do not know.”
“What good is weirding, then?” A quick shake of her head, like a granary cat suffering an unwelcome shower of cold rain. “You must not do that again, Sol. We are far from home; you are all I have.”
It was unlike her, and a strange slipping sensation filled my chest. “You speak as if you are not all I have as well.”
She squeezed my fingers, bruising-hard, and let go to rise, striding to the pillared window. Later that day I learned it was a balcony far larger than the one attached to our quarters in Nithraen, for such was the healing I could rise and take a few steps back and forth, my legs unsteady as a newborn colt’s.
We were not troubled with other visitors, and my shieldmaid was largely silent. I did not like that, for her temper is unlike mine—quick to rise, and just as quick to recede.
And I had never before thought she might be afraid of anything at all.