Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar v(-100 Page 11

  "Good." He turned to his aunt. "All yours."

  She looked a bit shocked as he handed her his sister. "I thank ye," she said, blinking owlishly at him as he stood.

  " Twas nothing," he said as he walked away from

  them, going back into the house, masking his face with false cheer.

  But between his brows was a headache, between his shoulders tight muscles, and his arm once more hurt from holding on too hard to his sister.

  Night!

  He woke with a start, his breath heavy as his eyes strained to adapt to the absence of light. Next to him, Tileir dreamed on, his heavy snoring sending discordant ripples into the pearly pre-dawn silence of the room.

  Rivin wiped his hands over his brow, surprised to find it dry. He had been flushed a moment ago, he was sure of it The room must have been stifling hot—

  But it wasn't. The window was open, letting the cool air in, letting the hot air out. Slowly, so as not to wake Tileir, Rivin stood. He picked up his belongings, cast one last unnecessary, fear-inspired glance back, and then exited.

  Rianao's home was silent save for the sound of the sleepers. The chairs were empty, the sewing set aside, and Rivin found himself thinking, / guess mages sleep, too.

  He purloined a loaf of the oldest bread he could find, then moved outdoors and filled his leather skin with water from the well. His aunt wouldn't mind, he knew, but she would probably be disappointed when she found him gone before she woke. So would Nastasea and Danavan. Rivin had to remind himself that they were only half a day's ride from his father's, and that it would be easy to come and visit. . . just as soon as he finished planting . . . and harvesting . . . and trading . . . and planning for winter . . . but then they would be snowbound for all the winter, and then. . . .

  Rivin realized with a sinking heart that it would be a very long time before he saw his sisters again.

  Silent with guilt, he loped down the road.

  Two days later, he was ruing his wish for a storm. While the precious items he had bought in town were

  securely wrapped in layer upon layer of lavishly waxed skins, he had no such protection, and was drenched to the core when finally he reached home, letting himself into the barn to change and then go via the adjoining, dry overhang into the house proper.

  "Rivin?" he heard, low and soft from his right, and he spun—panic catching him off guard—only to see Sattar, sitting in a golden pile of hay with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She looked up at him, and he noticed the dark rings around her eyes.

  Somewhere inside him, despite her appearance, he felt a deep weight lifted, and relief flooded every pore.

  She's alive, he found his mind sighing.

  "Sattar—" He swallowed. "You scared me."

  She nodded, and he noticed a haunted look in her eyes.

  "What's wrong?" he asked, kneeling next to her. Concern tinged his voice.

  She flinched as he touched her, her muscles clenching spasmodically, and then the emotion smoothed away as she took rigid control of her body. She smiled at him, her lips tight, if not pained. One hand sought his hair and the other went around his shoulder in a gesture that reminded him keenly of his mother.

  "Sa ... sa ... sa," she murmured. "How was your trip, Rivin?"

  He shrugged, wrapping his arms around her and placing his cheek against her shoulder.

  "How did you convince Da about the girls?"

  " Twas nothing. Da is very easy to talk to if you— catch him in the right mood."

  He heard loss and something he knew but could not name lace her words, but he ignored it, instead closing his eyes and being content to listen to her heartbeat.

  "You know I would've rather stayed—" he started.

  "Sa, sa," she interrupted. "We all must have our freedoms, fledgling. I would not limit you yours."

  He sat up, shaking droplets from his hair. "Look, I'm soaked. How about I put on some of my dry things and you take the packs inside?"

  She nodded, smiling. "I'll get to stoking the fire-Father can complain if he wants, but the rain is a good omen and you're cold. The wood is worth it."

  With brisk efficiency, she took the packs and went inside.

  It took him a while to realize that she had never told him what was wrong, and he cursed himself for not recognizing the same tactics he had used on his cousin.

  Rivin watched the scythe slide over the grain, listening to the whisper of the wheat as it cut. He blinked rapidly, exhaustion blurring his vision. He had been working sun up to sun up for the past two days, with one more day to go. Harvest week was crucial to the prosperity of the crop—if they didn't reap it in tune, the wheat would spoil along with their profits.

  While he was used to this sort of work, he wasn't so sure of his sister. She was some hundred yards away, working her section of the field, cutting with slow, even strokes. In the past months since the planting season had started, she had grown more and more anxious—worried almost—with lines of fatigue growing around her eyes. Rivin had no idea why she felt this way—the crop was growing well, and they should be able to harvest enough to make a large profit. But, still, the state of desperation—almost depression—she had fallen into made him wonder, and agitated him no small amount.

  He did not know what made him stop and look up. He thought that he heard a soft voice call his name like a lost spirit on the breeze, but he was never sure. One moment he was biting his lip to keep himself awake, the next his head had snapped up and trained on Sattar, who had fallen motionless in the field.

  "Sattar?" he called, dropping his scythe and running over.

  Rivin knelt when he came to the body of his sister, and was shocked to see blood staining the heavy layers of her skirts. A claw of pure fear gripped his heart, and

  he glanced toward the scythe she had been using, fearing that she had fallen on it.

  But, no, the blade shone like a clean moon, the silver edge dulled, perhaps, by the work it had been doing, but not bright red with fresh gut-blood. Than what . . . ?

  "Move away, boy!" Delanon roared, coming out of nowhere, and Rivin was pushed back by surprisingly strong hands.

  "Sattar?" he heard his father say, panic in his voice. The man shook her, rolling her over and staring into her pale face. Even from where he lay in the ripe crop, Rivin could see the sweat on her clammy skin, could almost feel the chill coming off her cool body.

  "Should I—should I get the Healer?"

  "Yes! Now!" his father roared, picking her up and cradling her tenderly, like a lover. His jaw was clenched tight, his eyes downcast, and Rivin could clearly hear him say, "Don't die, girl. Papa loves you. Don't die now. Not yet."

  And then the boy was running—not for his life, but his sister's.

  "Let me see," said the Healer, his face blank as he bent over the unconscious form of Sattar.

  Rivin was still breathing heavily as he leaned against the doorway to his sister's room. The Healer lived a full hour down the road, but it had seemed to Rivin to be a thousand miles he traveled before he finally arrived at the old man's house, banging on the door and screaming at the top of his lungs as if the Hounds of Hell were on his heels. It had taken another thousand years to saddle the Healer's horse, and then a thousand leagues to ride back, with Rivin gasping the whole way.

  Now, safe at home, he watched in anxious concern as the Healer drew back the covers and examined his sister.

  After a moment he looked up, giving Rivin and Delanon a severe look and saying, "Please leave the room."

  The two men filed out, Rivin panting now from increased fear as well as exertion.

  The door shut with an ominous thud.

  Rivin waited, shifting nervously from foot to foot. After a moment, he felt an iron hand on his shoulder, and turned to look into Delanon's dead eyes.

  "Go," he said, pointing out the door, toward the fields.

  Rivin's jaw dropped, and it took all his will not to scream, You've got to be joking!
/>
  "Now," Delanon said, leaving no question of authority.

  Rivin submissively lowered his head and walked out the door.

  In the field, he picked up his fallen scythe, looking at the only-half-harvested crop, blind to the fact that the profits this year would be slim.

  The silent whisper of the scythe was the only sound he heard, gasping like the laboring death-rattle of a dying person.

  "Ho—boy."

  Rivin stopped his work, dumbly turning toward the Healer who was standing in the stubble of wheat-trail that Rivin had made.

  "We must speak.'"

  Mute still, and shivering from sweat-chills and weakness, Rivin leaned on his scythe, waiting.

  "How is she?" he asked bluntly.

  The Healer shook his head. "There is a sore deep inside her that my Gifts and knowledge can't seem to reach. I am going to try and summon help, but I fear I may not be quick enough."

  Rivin scrubbed his face, pretending that the dampness this action left on his hand was sweat, and not tears.

  "Why has this happened?"

  The Healer frowned, a line of worry between his brows. "Did not you know, boy? She has miscarried. The babe could not survive the strain of the work she was doing. Some can, but she was too frail." A note of disapproval entered the man's voice.

  Rivin blinked, the chill in his body suddenly concentrating and finding a focus in his breastbone.

  "Do you know the father?" the Healer went on.

  Rivin stared at the man, feeling a numb balm wash him. In that moment, he felt separate—from his body, from the situation, from the questions the old Healer asked. He was above it all—all laws and vows, all beliefs and blood ties that had bound him to his family and his father. The chill in his heart began to radiate outward, and he felt it enter his gaze.

  The Healer must have seen it, for his own blue eyes widened and he stepped back, slowly, first one step, then another.

  "I—" the old man began, and then broke into a run, waddling flat-footed toward his horse, mounting, and galloping off into the night.

  In his belly—even apart—Rivin felt a colddrake uncoil, stirring.

  Go, the Rivin that walked apart from Rivin thought. Summon your Healers. They may be able to help my sister, but there is none who can save my father.

  Carefully, Rivin felt himself lay the scythe down. He would not need its edge. He turned to the farm, and took one step—

  The movement was like a trigger. He Felt the tremble of inner blocks crack, fracture, and start to collapse. Revulsion, that sense of broken trust, panic—the source of all those emotions had overflowed its dam. The walls disintegrated—

  And ... he remembered. . . .

  So long ago, as a child—a baby. The warm trust and love he had once held for the man who loomed above him, who he called Da. He remembered the day he had been playing in the barn and his mother had been down at Rianao's, on an errand with Sattar, heavy with Dana-van. He remembered looking up, and seeing Delanon—

  He remembered pain, and screaming. He remembered the ripping sound of his clothes as they were torn from him, and he remembered begging, pleading, "No—no— please, Da, no—"

  He remembered being beaten, and then told that if he

  told anyone, anyone, his father would kill him—or kill Sattar. And it would all be Rivin's fault if that happened.

  And he had made himself forget. To keep that from happening, he had built up walls, drowned the memory, weighted it with stones and thrown it down a well—

  But now he knew. Now he was soaked with memory. All the groundless fears had a base. His vision was clear. The denial was gone. Now he knew—

  His father had raped him.

  The door to the farm did not open, it exploded. He Felt himself reaching for the chill fire that had now spread to his palms, and he Felt it buoy his spirit higher. He Felt the hunger for revenge—cleansing at last!— sweep him as he opened the door to Sattar's room, and stared down at his father.

  Who was sitting in a stool, holding his daughter's hand, bent double.

  There was no pity, no remorse at that moment. There was no doubt as to who was the father of Sattar's baby. He had heard the unknown element in Sattar's voice that rainy night he had returned from his excursion to the city, and now he knew a name for it.

  Shame.

  Delanon stood, a frown on his brow, his eyes dark. With a sweep of his hand, Rivin felt raw power roar through his body and pick his father up, slamming the older man against a wall.

  There was a crack and a scream as Delanon's rib cage broke and his pelvis shattered, and Rivin felt a rivulet of sheer exhilaration trickle into him. Retribution, he thought, and Reached for more.

  "No!" the disembodied boy heard. He saw realization in his father's eyes, a desperate plea—horror—fear— good!—"Stop! Please—oh—gods—I'm sorry—"

  Rivin did not waste the breath to tell his father that there was no way he could excuse what he had done, nor words enough to apologize. There wasn't even the time for words. Only the time for destruction. Only— the solution—

  Fire exploded from the boy, smoking through his body and out of his hands in a burst of light and energy. He Felt the agony as his father screamed, writhing and twisting. The fire sloughed off flesh, burned away blood, burrowed into marrow and bone. Rivin screamed his hatred—his burden of shame—into the winds he had summoned, feeling his mind snap and crackle beneath the new burden of magic.

  And then it was over, leaving behind only a char-black, greasy smear on the wall, and ashes on the floor. Rivin swayed, staring down at his hands, amazement in his eyes.

  With a popping sound akin to that of a dislocated joint being reset, he came back to himself.

  What have I done?

  He sank to his knees, sanity returning, the cold banished, weakness and a strange inner emptiness making him tremble. The air was stifling. He felt flushed. When he ran his hand over his forehead, he pulled sweat away from his face.

  What have I done?

  Slowly, he stood, turning his eyes from the glassy-slick mark on the far wall, turning to the shutters of the window, fumbling to open them, to let this foul, foul air out—to purify—deep, clean, breaths—clean, cleansing air.

  His body was racked with sobs when he finally pushed the shutters open and nearly collapsed against the win-dowframe. He was a murderer—a killer of men—he was foul—slimy—caked in dirt—stained in blood—blackened by ash.

  He was just like his father.

  Like father. Like son.

  :No.:

  The voice was assertive, female. He trembled, fear consuming him again, making a fist around his belly. He shook his head against the voice, choosing to disbelieve.

  Killer. Defiler. Damned. What have I become?

  :No!:

  The voice again, and he screamed in the silence of his

  soul, Don't you see what I just did? Don't you know what I have done? Don't you understand?

  .7 see. I know. And I understand.:

  He looked up, for a moment blinded by a light akin to the sun, though it was an hour until dawn. And then he saw her—the graceful line of her white neck, the glancing blue-stream brilliance of her eyes—like fire, but kinder.

  Shock gathered him up in its prickly folds, and then plunged him into an endless field of blue that was as textured and soft as a satin robe, and as all-encompassing as the closing surface of water. But he had no fear of drowning. Nor did he want to. All he felt—was—her—

  And her name was Derdre, and he was her Chosen.

  Lisabet gently pulled the covers over the bed that had held the corpse of the girl, tucking everything into neat order. The undertaker had carried the body of Sattar Morningsong off two days ago, and buried it yesterday. They had had to wait that long just to let Rivin rest from the exhausted state he had fallen into.

  The man that the regional Healer had brought from Maidenflower stared at the bed and then turned away. He had stayed around in case any other
—accidents— had occurred.

  "It didn't have to end like this," he murmured, glancing out the window toward the boy, leaning against his Companion, head buried in her slender neck.

  "It didn't have to start either," Lisabet replied grimly, glancing at the mark on the wall that no amount of washing had removed. "Gods damn it—I should have known!"

  The Healer, a man by the name of Yiro, put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. "Stop it now, Herald. Sometimes it's almost impossible to tell. Even Delanon's sister said that she thought he was a tad harsh, but never . . . well. . . ."

  "Those kids carried that secret well."

  "Or else they thought it was normal to be treated that way."

  They stood in silence for a time. Then: "Why would someone do that to their own children?" she whispered.

  "I've asked myself that same question before. The best answer I have is that they like the . . . power. The pleasure of a helpless victim. The dependence. They get a feeling of control. Some even think they're doing the child a favor. If nothing else, they try to justify their actions."

  Quiet. Outside, the Herald could hear Derdre take fidgety steps, the tall grass whispering softly. Then, "And the other two?" she asked.

  "I've already called in one of the best MindHealers in this district. She'll check them out, live with them for a while. They're young. With luck, she'll be able to Heal them."

  After a moment, Yiro clasped her in a quick hug. "Cheer up, sister. Things'll get better. The boy will most likely heal, if not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the next day. It will take a lot of time, but hopefully, it'll happen. He'll realize . . . and then maybe he'll even forgive." "But not forget."

  "No. He already forgot once, from what we got out of him. He must have blocked that incident for years. I've heard of it."

  But the Healer's words were fading away as Lisabet moved out of the room and toward the figure in the fields.

  Gently, she placed a hand on his shoulder, remembering what she had seen from her view out the window of her cousin's home when Nastasea's bathtime had come up. A child comforting a child.

  And now I am doing the same. Aren't we all just children at heart?

  She enclosed him in her arms, petting his hair, holding him as he began to cry.