Amusing Insults
The Greycloak’s wrath was great. He would not alter his decree, but neither would the Secondborn’s heart turn. So it was Bjornwulf set out from Dorael to gain a shining bride-price, and he took the road to Nithraen, seeking counsel. For Aerith of the Shining Caves was ever a friend to mortals, though oft repaid with bitterness.
—Daerith the Elder
The gleaming towers of Waterstone rose high indeed, most tipped with needle-spikes but some swelling into bulbs as if they sought to worship Fryja’s most tender gift to men. But we did not tread upon the paved streets that late afternoon, instead following a chain of gardens through Taeron’s palace. No carved-rock dome soared overhead as in Nithraen, but I was still uncomfortably aware of many buildings crowding relatively close, brimming with living, thinking beings. Aeredh’s city had been an assault to the senses, but Laeliquaende was truly massive, and weighed upon the breath.
There were quiet spaces within its bustle. Music—Elder voices, fountains playing, instruments I did not recognize adding to the flow—turned soft, a murmur in the distance, and though no bright-armored guards were visible, I knew we were watched.
Arneior studied our surroundings with much interest, occasionally taking my elbow as I craned to look at some detail of the buildings. I longed to know how they constructed such towers, what seidhr or cunning held them steady, how the Elder melded earth with stone or fashioned the sheets of window-crystal. A cool breeze flirted with my skirts, teased at Arn’s leather-wrapped braids, and swirled about Aeredh like a small tame animal wishing to play. And as we walked the Elder spoke, softly at first, then warming to his theme.
Of Faevril he told us, that blessed son of an Elder king, the only alkuine among his people. Mighty in craft and battle ere the Sun first rose, his works were still spoken of with wonder. The taivvanpallo was only a toy, a small amusement; I looked at my feet as Aeredh spoke of Faevril’s other, more serious artifices.
He had told us something of this once before, but I did not begrudge the repetition.
I did not need felted overboots for this journey either. Soft embroidered slippers of Elder make were more than adequate, for the garden paths were smooth even as their borders turned rustic-ragged, disarray looking at once planned and utterly natural. We descended an easy slope, a smaller cup within the valley holding the city, and in its center a hill, clothed with green sward and starred with five-petaled blue flowers. At its crown, a small tower the color of summer cloud rose.
I say small, but only by comparison to its fellows; its shadow could have swallowed Dun Rithell’s largest hall with little difficulty. A glittering cylinder, light playing upon its sheerness like the sheen of a snail’s trail, rose skyward and no path ran to its base. Nor was there any hint of winter yellow upon the greenery, and we had seen those flowers before. Of old the Elder named them ildora, but more recently they were called sudelma-lithielle, Lithielle’s Kiss.
As we circled the tower-crowned hill, ambling at an invalid’s pace, Aeredh spoke of the works Faevril held most dear. It was then I first learned of the Elder Jewels.
His tone was hushed and reverent. A clutch of artificial stones, translucent and yet holding silvergold light within their depths, so beautiful even the Blessed of the far West were enchanted by their sheen. By the will of the Allmother’s mightiest children the Jewels were hallowed, for the light they captured was last seen during a long and blessed peace in the Elder’s once-home across the sea.
The gems had been stolen by the Enemy upon a day of fear and lamentation; deep grief followed the loss. Much else also ensued—an oath that led to murder, Elder shedding the blood of their own kin, banishment from that lost shining island, and a great darkening only broken when Tyr the Ever-Burning slipped free of his own skin to kindle the Sun’s great bonfire-heart, for he took pity upon newly awakened Secondborn suffering under the Enemy’s thick shadow.
Of all the gods Tyr is the one said to love mortals most, and he proves it by immolation.
The Enemy had thieved many other treasures as well, committed a spate of horrific murders as he fled, and now kept his hoard in the Black Land’s great iron fortress, gloating over it much as his great wyrms do over precious metals and other shining things.
Faevril’s greatest works could not be turned to the Enemy’s use, no—but he could and would rob the world of their solace, denying all who might find comfort in the echo of lost beauty.
“Like any petty warlord,” I murmured. Arn’s soft exhale, not quite a huff, said she agreed. Perhaps we were both surprised to find the great Enemy of both Elder and gods behaving so, but then again, many of the beautiful immortals we had met so far had proved themselves startlingly like touchy, self-important Secondborn in certain respects.
“Greed makes its own weather, we say.” Aeredh glanced up, checking the sky, a motion familiar from our journey hence. He walked with his hands loose, or sometimes clasped behind his back. “And no doubt you have noticed some peculiarities in the construction of this tower, my lady.”
Indeed I had. “No windows. And no door yet.”
“Yes. This building can claim neither, and only Taeron knows the secret of its opening. It holds something the Enemy much desires to attain once more. Can you guess? One of Faevril’s great Jewels.”
He told us then—without song or saga-rhythm though the tale well deserves both—of an Elder princess, the Secondborn man who loved her, and how their affection had resulted in a deed so stunning it was celebrated in song even by the people of this hidden place.
For Lithielle and Bjornwulf had stolen a single radiant Jewel from the lord of the Black Land, and escaped his wrath afterward.
“Where is she?” Arn was immediately interested in a woman who could perform such a feat. “An Elder, surely she still…”
“She died a mortal death.” Aeredh paled, though his eyes had darkened. The filigree upon his ear winked cheerfully. “Such was her love, and such was the grace granted her.”
“Grace?” Arneior tapped her spear’s blunt end upon the turf, halfway between thoughtfulness and disbelief. “And for a man. Disappointing.”
“A shieldmaid never marries.” I murmured the old proverb. “These jewels, my lord Aeredh. What do they do?”
“Do?” He seemed puzzled; we were approaching the place where we had begun our circuit of the hill. The tower was indeed featureless, blank as an egg. “They are beautiful, and sacred. ’Tis said their light is painful for any evil thing to bear.”
“And yet the Enemy—” I was about to ask if he were powerful enough to overcome such injury, but a clear, cold voice rang against the tower’s sides, the Old Tongue accented strangely.
“So.”The dialect of Waterstone had diverged in isolation, though ’twas still understandable enough. “You bring a Secondborn witch to attempt a theft? Your father would weep, Crownless. Or perhaps you think his part in the great quest gives you some claim?”
It was the black-eyed Elder I had seen at the king’s side. He wore the light, beautifully forged armor of Laeliquaende, yet not polished to smooth brightness as upon the guards. Instead, his metal was dark as volcanic glass yet unshining, and his beauty was sharp as the healer’s knife I had just been gifted. Bladed cheeks, dark eyes, a fine nose—if he had a beard, the young women of Dun Rithell would have counted him handsome indeed.
He was also armed, one gauntleted hand resting upon a swordhilt. His blade was of the Northern style, straight and heavy, though its metal was blackened as well; they called him the Watchful for that steady gaze and fierce silence.
“Maedroth.” Aeredh bowed but slightly, and did not lay hand to his own hilt. I suspected it was not for lack of desire, though. “The son of Taeron’s sister, my lady. He has a sharp humor; ’tis said to be like his father’s.”
“My father is dead.” Maedroth’s gaze flicked across Arn, settled upon me, and I felt again the weight of an Elder’s regard. In Nithraen a son of Faevril had looked upon me thus, but Curiaen’s attempt to discern my inner self—common enough, among those with seidhr—had not the well-honed edge of this man’s.
“So is mine.”Even in his home city Aeredh had not sounded thus. Not quite offended, but thinly polite, a shield of ice over swift-running water waiting for an unwary step. “We are akin in that, and equal enough. Your uncle would chide you for impoliteness; must I?”
Arn’s grip did not tighten upon the spear, and her expression held nothing but mannerly interest. She did not shift so much as a muscle, but her attention settled upon the newcomer.
He was, after all, an armed stranger. And a man.
The darkness I had seen upon him in the thronehall was nowhere in evidence now; he was merely an Elder, though that is like saying a wolf is merely a wolf. Either way, ’tis a creature deserving of respect and careful handling.
There was a great deal of arrogance in the Watchful’s seidhr, and I thought him touchy as Ulfrica when a new freeborn girl arrived for service in my father’s hall. The initial glimpse of a visitor is often of much deeper import than any later events, and I suppose that day outside the tower could be said our first real meeting.
I have often wondered what he saw upon that short new-winter afternoon, as the sun nearly touched the horizon. The days were lengthening, yes—but spring was still some distance away.
I did not have to sting him with my own weirding, for he altered, swift as the frozen carapace upon a river’s back cracking in the melt. The storm upon his features vanished, a smile bloomed, and the dark of his eyes turned to velvet instead of sharpshatter shards.
“Forgive me, Secondborn ladies.” The same bladed accent scraped his words in our language free of the Old Tongue’s moorings, but he was much better at it than even Tjorin. Like Caelgor the Fair, he sounded as if he had been taught the southron language by mountainfolk. “I am of an abrupt temper, and accustomed to the… oh, the combat-of-jesting. You call it flyting, do you not?” He bowed in the Elder way, but with a swift grace like a hawk’s stooping, straightening afterward with the greatest possible efficiency. “It is a saying in this city that the Watchful never utters a killing insult, only amusing ones.”
“There is little need for either.” Aeredh took a single step, his shoulder breaking the thin line of humming force between me and the new arrival. He loomed somewhat in the manner of a brother with an injured sibling to protect; I was reminded of big, blundering Bjorn, and my eyes prickled for a moment. “Your uncle knows my intent.”
“Does he? That is a great comfort.” Maedroth also took a single step—to the side, which placed Aeredh yet more squarely between us. I could not decide if he wished to mock the Crownless, to laughingly imply he feared a pair of women—or if he had another purpose, some turn in the arcane dance of Elder etiquette. “Well, we are the Hidden City, I suppose there is no better place for a few dangerous articles to be kept. I look forward to friendship with these Secondborn, brief though it may be.”
“I would not want you to suffer any inconvenience,” Aeredh returned, stiffly. This was a side to him I had not seen, even with Curiaen and Caelgor in Nithraen. His shoulders almost seemed to spread, like a bullock’s when preparing to pull a heavy plow.
“Oh, it is none, I assure you.” Maedroth’s smile never altered, and winter sunlight fell into the curiously matte surface of his armor. “I am quite fascinated. An alkuine, here? I would invite the lady to visit my workshops; it would please me much to have one of Faevril’s kind view my work.”
I was relieved of any responsibility to respond by Aeredh’s swift reply. “I do not know if my lady Solveig will have time, king’s-nephew. Naciel likes her a great deal, and will keep her close.”
“Oh, yes, my sweet cousin loves her pets. But as they age… well, what seems short to us is not to others, my friend. Cherish your days. And, my lady Solveig?” The Watchful’s accent turned my name into three disparate syllables, all of them graceless as the Old Tongue would never be. “My invitation stands. You—and your fascinating blue-painted companion—are welcome at the House of the Maker at any moment.”
I could have made answer politely enough, but Aeredh again denied me the chance. “Keep thy distance, watchful one.” The Old Tongue was inexpressibly pure in his mouth, an accent far older than any he had used before edging each word steel-sharp. “You may attempt tormenting the son of Hrasimir as you please, but this Secondborn is beyond your reach.”
My jaw felt suspiciously loose. Arneior watched intently, and though she did not know the Elder tongue she had no difficulty understanding the tone.
“Ah, I see you have grown fond.” Maedroth’s fingertips tapped his swordhilt in quick succession, a gentle, thoughtful smile pulling up the corners of his lips. “I am merely being hospitable; even brief as the lives of Secondborn are, your alkuine may seek other amusement when her captivity palls. And then I shall welcome her.”
With that, Maedroth the nephew of Taeron turned and glided away across the green, his armor soundless as his step and his shadow long as the light of day lowered. His hair glowed with blue highlights like Eol’s in thin golden sunshine, and later I learned the same sheen was imparted to blades of his making. It was said he learned that particular craft from his own silent, keen-eyed father, and guarded it well.
In the pained silence, a realization struck me. My stomach rolled, a wringing motion like a great silver-sided fish brought from the river’s cold embrace, drowning on dry land. As Maedroth left, the tension receded from Aeredh’s back, but he did not turn. Instead, his chin dropped. The Crownless studied the grass at his feet as if he had never seen such vegetation before.
“So I am not to use this thing at all.” Therein lay the answer to the riddle, and I spoke not in verse but with the slight embarrassment of one who had been bested during a dinnertime game of rhyming. “You merely wished an alkuine kept away from the Enemy, lest he hear of my existence and seek to collect a prize.”
So simple, and yet I had not seen it before.