CHAPTER FIVE

Knaar swirled the golden wine in his crystal goblet and looked out moodily at the water. “This room reminds me of the Old Armory in the citadel,” he said.

We were wintering out of Krail for the first time, at Selkray, that villa on the seacoast where my company had spent the first year of the war. The room where we were sitting looked out at the stormy western sea. The year was ending, the year of changes with the mystic number 333, and now we were both great men. Our officers sat at a respectful distance. Music played, two young girls in robes of painted tissue were dancing. Off in a corner a scrawny fellow was scribbling in a small Lienish book: Brother Less, the chronicler of great men.

“They are sisters,” said Knaar. “Come Yorath, are you still such a bashful monster?”

Knaar had become more lecherous since his marriage. His bride was Sisgard of Quentlon, daughter of the fiery oberst, and she was at the citadel in Krail awaiting the birth of her first child. Knaar was Lord of Val’Nur. I wondered that I had ever thought him like his father. I had come to know Valko better after the siege was raised. I was a welcome guest in the citadel and helped the lord ride out in the spring on his last campaign. Things were going so badly for Val’Nur that there was no question of keeping me from the field whatever my parentage. It had been a year of splendid fights and splendid victories. I rode out as a General of Val’Nur and boldly quartered the prancing black horse of the Duarings upon my personal standard.

“I think you are still hankering after your jade,” said Knaar, “your witch woman . . .”

“Always,” I said lightly, taking a sip of wine.

For my sweet Owlwife had gone. I could have numbered the moons and days since I had last seen her. She had left me without a word; I did not know why she had gone. In the time that I had for reflection, I wondered if it was because of my many deeds of blood. I had done so many, had personally hacked to death so many mortal men, that the chroniclers had run out of words of praise. There was hardly a person that I knew, man or woman, who would not have excused these deeds and tried to turn me away from my morbid fancies.

By Andine in Balbank I had ridden down a child; I could still see the small broken body lying in the mud and the soundless scream of agony upon the mother’s face. In the late summer of ’32, after the Second Battle of Balbank, the master stroke for the forces of Val’Nur, I killed an old man. I came round the side of a little hill, leading Reshdar in the narrow way, separated for a moment from my escort. A tall figure loomed up in my path: a party of fugitives were hastening away from the edges of the field. I saw this cloaked figure coming at me with a roar, and I struck out with the flat of my sword, tumbling the fellow down the rocks. His hood fell back, and I saw with disgust that it was an old man, his silver hair stained with blood . . . Was it for these things, I wondered, that Gundril Chawn had left me? Was it for my true parentage? For now I knew all, I knew the truth, and the Owlwife did not bide long with me after it was discovered.

As I rode off to war again, in this same year ’32, with the ailing Valko, I stood in my room at the Hunters’ Yard and Ibrim helped me don my fine new armor. Gundril was there and Forbian, perched at his writing desk. As Ibrim tightened the neck piece of my strip mail I was chafed by a thong; I drew off the small pouch with Caco’s amulet and flung it to Forbian.

“There!” I said. “Some work for you, my friend. Unfold my amulet so that it doesn’t fall to pieces!”

I thought no more of it. I went into the field and did great things and returned in autumn at the summons of Nimoné. Valko had been brought home again, now he was dying; Knaar was already at his side. I made haste to the citadel, and Knaar met me in the courtyard. He had a queer triumphant look; I had come too late. He did not even bid me come in to give my condolence to Nimoné. As I rode back with Ibrim over the Moon Bridge, the palace guards had lit the death fire on the highest platform of the citadel, and the trumpets in the city were sounding a last wild call for Valko Firehammer. I came to the Hunters’ Yard and greeted the wives and children of the company, all solemn for the lord’s death.

In my room I found Forbian and the Owlwife sitting oddly still, as if they had hardly stirred in the moon since I left them. The lamps were lit; they had been waiting for me. I saw at last that their grave expressions were not only to do with the death of Valko of Val’Nur. Forbian pushed two strips of parchment along the table into the circle of lamplight.

“I made a transcription,” he said dryly. “The old script is destroyed in places.”

My amulet had been unfolded and delicately pasted upon a second parchment. The treasure that Caco had worn was in fact an official document from the Palace Fortress of Mel’Nir and it was one year older than I was myself. It was a safe-conduct:

“Let pass in all the lands of the Great King, Ghanor of Mel’Nir, Mistress Caco, widow of Yeoman Bray of Alldene in the Mark of Lien, waiting gentlewoman to Her Royal Highness the Lady Elvédegran of Lien, Princess of Mel’Nir, wife of His Royal Highness Prince Gol Duaring, Heir of Mel’Nir.”

It bore traces of the royal seal and was countersigned by Pulk, a former captain of palace guard.

We sat quite still for a long time exchanging a few words. Did I understand? Yes. And was it possible. No, no it was impossible, but it had been done. Hagnild, the healer and magician from the Great King’s court, had spirited away a marked child of the royal house, not to mention a waiting gentlewoman. I was no bastard. I was the true-born son of Prince Gol and of that young, golden-haired lady of Lien, the fair Princess Elvédegran. I drew off the silver swan that I wore and laid it on the table beside the safe conduct.

“You could be heir to half the world,” said the Owlwife softly. “Kelen of Lien has no children . . .”

I saw that, too. The Markgraf Kelen’s sisters, the three swans of Lien, had all married princes of other lands. The children of Hedris and Aravel, consorts of the Daindru, the Kings of the Chameln, were excluded from succession to Lien. Had any such provision been made for a male child of the youngest sister, Elvédegran? I shook my head as if to drive away a cloud of kinsfolk: Kelen of Lien, Aidris, the Witch-Queen of the Chameln and Sharn Am Zor, her co-ruler, who was called the Summer’s King, for his beauty and noble bearing.

“Yorath, Yorath,” said Forbian Flink, with that contortion of his face that his friends knew for a smile, “I told you long ago to come to some kin . . . but I had not reckoned with all this!”

“What will you do?” asked the Owlwife, pressing my hand. “Surely you can use this knowledge to good ends. This war that presses so hard upon the poor dark folk, upon mortal men . . .”

“Valko is dead,” I said. “Knaar will rule in Val’Nur. I must go back to my army in the field.”

“Yorath . . .” she said.

I do not believe that I looked at her, but long afterwards I could recall how beautiful she looked, in the half light, in her green robe. At that moment there came a clash of arms and muted orders from below. I heard my name: “General Yorath . . .” and Ibrim looked in to tell me that the garrison oberst of the city and the city reeve waited below. I was the ranking officer in Krail, the victor of Balbank, and a great favorite with the citizens. I was required to light the mourning torches before the Meeting House. I went off and performed this sad duty and returned late to the yard after conferring with officers at the Plantation. The Owlwife came to my bed, but we spoke no more of my parentage or my soldiering. In the morning she was gone. I had neither seen nor heard of her again; I knew that she had returned to the Shee, her adopted folk. Once, as I rode on the High Plateau, I had gone out alone when the moon was high and cried out to her and to the Eilif lords to send me my love again, but I was given no answer.

In the winter Knaar was betrothed, and he married with great splendor at the New Year, 333, the Year of Changes. One other change was imminent: in the spring the Great King did not take the field, and it was common talk that he lay dying in the Palace Fortress. In the meantime Knaar drove the army of the south from the field, and I recaptured the free zone for Val’Nur. The armies of Prince Gol and his generals . . . one was Strett of Andine who had used his half-brother of Cloudhill so badly . . . did well enough, but we did better.

So between advance and foraging, between the hectic cry of the trumpets, the charging over bloody fields and the long exhausted silences of the aftermath of battle, the year went by. In the Maplemoon, as winter came down, Prince Gol sent messengers to Knaar of Val’Nur and proposed a truce. He would confirm this truce in the last moon of the year, in the Ashmoon. We were certain that this meant that the old king’s death was upon us at last; Ghanor would breath his last as the year of changes waned. We waited with our escorts all winter long at Selkray villa, and now the Ashmoon was in its last quarter.

“He will call a truce for a year, half a year,” said Knaar, motioning to the servants to refill our glasses. “What will you do with yourself, Yorath?”

“Take a long furlough,” I said. “Look over the manor at Demford.”

I was not telling the truth. I planned to seek out Hagnild and to search for my lost love, the Owlwife. I planned to do great things; perhaps it was the wine or the death of the old king and the old year. The manor of Demford, west of Krail, was Valko’s gift to me in his will, along with the deeds to the Hunters’ Yard. The small Free Company of the Wolf had been disbanded; those not dead or retired from service formed my escort. Chandor, the standard-bearer, had gone home at last to the Eastmark. The Westlings, on the other hand, had added a five-span to Knaar’s army.

“I always liked Demford,” said Knaar. “It was part of poor old Duro’s inheritance.”

“Here’s the night half gone and no messengers in sight,” I said. “We’re going stale here like two middle-aged generals.”

“Speak for yourself!” said Knaar. “What we need is a fool. You have that fool, that deformed dwarf back in Krail . . .”

“The trouble with Forbian is that he is no fool,” I said, yawning. “I’ll check the lookout before we take our walk.”

“No hurry,” said Knaar.

I stood up and stretched. The dancing sisters, who were crouched by the musicians awaiting further orders, cowered and fluttered their eyelashes. I looked around for Ibrim, but he was not there. I had sent him back to Krail two days before with my good Reshdar, who was ailing: the fodder at Selkray did not agree with him. I had ordered Ibrim to look in at the Hunters’ Yard; I still hoped for news of the Owlwife.

I drank a round with the officers; it was a sign for them to dismiss if they had no duty. I went up alone to the low tower and found that besides the two watchmen, Brother Less, the scribe, was there before me. We leaned on the parapet and looked to the northeast, to the downs flecked with snow and the road the messengers must follow from the Palace Fortress.

“The year is going, Brother,” I said. “Have you found your enlightenment?”

“No, lord,” he said in his papery voice. “No, lord, it may never come in this world. The Lord of Light grant it to me in the next.”

“Tell me, Brother Less,” I asked, “is this Lord of Light, whom you honor, the same as the Lightbringer, the Soldiers’ god?”

“Yes, lord. He is Inokoi, the Lame God, and he is worshipped in the land of Lien.”

“Well, I have had my enlightenment,” I said. “If there is a truce, I will do all in my power to extend it. I will try for peace.”

He stared at me in the half darkness.

“Lord,” he said, “General Yorath, that is enlightenment indeed!”

I went down feeling less heavy in mind and body. Knaar was waiting in his cloak on the terrace of the pleasant garden room; a servant swung my own cloak about my shoulders. We wandered off on our nightly walk. It was Knaar’s own way of keeping his health in the languid routine of the winter quarters. We walked as we always did up to the clifftop and peered down at the seals who lived among the rocks. A pair of servants paced after us. The night was crisp; the grass under our feet was heavy with frost, and snow lay in the hollows about the villa. We stood on one headland and less than a mile away there was another with a good road linking them. We usually walked about halfway down this road to a certain standing stone and then turned back.

This night we had hardly reached the stone when there came a sound of running footsteps.

“What’s that?” said Knaar.

The man pounding along from the next headland was a stranger in servant’s dress; the two men with us, both from Knaar’s escort, drew in closer.

“Help!” panted the man. “The wagon will go over the cliff!”

“A wagon?” I asked.

“Slid on the frosty ground . . .” he gasped. “There is a lady in it . . . hanging by a thread . . . it will go down! In the name of the Goddess, lords or whoever you be, help me!”

“Come on then,” I said, “we’ll help, man! What lady is this?”

The man reached out and plucked Knaar by the sleeve.

“Oh come,” he said. “She will not say her name . . .”

We were already running with the man and climbing the slope to the clifftop. I saw the dark shape of the wagon canted over the edge of the cliff. Before I reached it other dark shapes rose up: ten, twenty men, wrapped in their cloaks.

“A trap!” I said. “Here, Sergeant, give me your sword, I am unarmed.”

“I am armed,” said Knaar of Val’Nur.

He drew his hand from under his cloak and plunged a dagger into my side.

I felt the blade strike a rib, drew back with a cry of pain. I seized Knaar by the wrist, flung him aside and kicked down the sergeant as he came at me. I snatched up his sword and prepared to sell my life dearly. I was full of fear and rage, thinking of the trap that had been so carefully set by my friend, my own liege lord. I shouted aloud for help and heard how my voice rang out in the frosty night. How could my escort in Selkray villa not hear it? Had they turned against me, too? Now I was in among the crowd of assassins. Hacking and thrusting like a madman, and I had no breath to cry out. I slipped in the frost and thought of Huarik the Boar. I was no longer the young champion of Silverlode. I was more experienced, more dangerous, but I was older, and I had learned to fear death.

Knaar stood back from the fight, nursing a broken arm and taunting me through his own pain. A stream of unreasoning hatred poured from him, a resentment that had festered for years. I saw that he had raised up a horde of my own ghosts to fight me, for the smaller men who cut at me with long curved blades were Danasken assassins. I brought down two or three and now fought with my back towards the clifftop. The wagon had been hauled onto level ground. Yorath the Fool, the deformed fool, crowed Knaar, had been lured into the trap by a cry for help, by a lady in distress.

Now as the swordsmen pressed me close and I bled from many wounds, a tall man stepped from behind the wagon and called a halt. He was a warrior of Mel’Nir, tall as myself, but somewhat younger: a champion indeed.

“Know my name!” he cried. “Know my name, Yorath Nilson! I am the Lord Fibroll!”

The name meant nothing to me. The newcomer attacked, and I knew him for a swordsman less skillful than myself. He called to the Danasken to draw themselves away so that he might come to me, and as they moved back one fell down at my feet, a little man. I snatched him up in my left hand, lifting him high in the air by his bunched clothes. At that moment I remembered.

Whether from remorse or loss of blood, the world grew misty before my eyes and I set the man down again. I shoved him harmlessly back amongst his fellows instead of dashing him at the Lord Fibroll. I stepped back to the very edge of the cliff where they could not follow me. I thought of the rocks and the boiling surf that might lie below and saw again that old man I had slain in Balbank, his silver hair dabbled with blood. I lowered my sword.

“Hem Fibroll,” I said, panting. “I remember your name.”

“Let me come at you then!” he cried.

“No,” I said. “I will not fight you. I will fight no more.”

“Coward!” he cried. “Where is your honor?”

“Where is yours?” I asked sadly. “You have been drawn into treachery by Knaar of Val’Nur.”

“You murdered my brother!” cried Hem Fibroll.

“I killed him,” I said. “I flung him down and killed him in a fit of god-rage when I was sixteen years old. He had ridden down and killed an old woman, my foster-mother. I have long been sorry that I killed Hem Fibroll and his fellow trooper. Make what you will of that. I will fight no more.”

I cast aside the sword that I carried, and we heard it fall into the water. Then I turned my face to the stars overhead and I cried out to the powers of earth and sea and sky.

“Hear me!” I cried. “See where I am! I am Yorath Duaring, true heir of the royal house of Mel’Nir. I am Yorath the Wolf, and I have cast away my sword!”

Then with the last of my strength I flung myself over the cliff into the sea.

The icy water took me, and I sank like a stone. I was so close to death from my wounds and from the freezing water that I seemed to be already in another world. Whirling dark shapes moved all around me, over and under me as I sank down, then raising me up again from the rocky floor of the sea. I saw the stars again and breathed and lost my senses.

I came to myself in a dream of soft arms that kept me from the cold and a swift movement through the water. I turned my head and saw a face next to my own: dark eyes, flowing hair, a smiling mouth. It was almost a woman’s face, and the bodies that pressed against me, furry and soft, were like the bodies of women. I knew that I had fallen among the Selchin, the seal-wives, who live among the seals and share their nature. Now they bore me swiftly through the waters of the western sea. They did not speak, but their eyes were full of tenderness.

Daylight woke me, pressing upon my eyelids, which were gummed together with blood and sea salt, I moaned with pain. The journey with the seal-wives had ended, and my wounds were no longer numb. I pried open my eyes and could not see the sky, but I felt a cold wind blowing and I lay on stone. The least movement caused me pain. As I tried to turn on my side and draw my sodden cloak about me, a wound on my back opened and I felt warm blood gush out. I tried with my good left hand—for my right hand ached from gripping a sword, and a Danasken blade had given me a cut on the forearm—to press the cloak to my back and close the wound. The salt water had a sharp sting.

I saw that I was on the threshold of a very old stone tower, it was a ruin, tumbledown and deserted. White sand stretched out to meet the incoming tide, and I saw the marks in the sand where a whole troop of seal-wives had dragged a large, limp body up the beach to the doorway of the ruined tower. I saw grass growing beyond the tower and grey rocks; I guessed that I was upon some island in the midst of the western sea.

I was all alone; no sea birds flew by; the sound of the sea was muted. Against the tower grew a small tree, stunted and black, with a few dried leaves still clinging to its branches. I stared into the ruin and saw a wonder: a spring of water in a broken stone basin. Slowly and in great pain I dragged myself across the stone floor to the spring and drank and tried to bathe my wounds. A pale wintery sunlight shone into the round cell where I lay; I saw that the stones of the tower were hacked with runes and with script. I saw a string of runes and made out the name Ross and again Ross Tramarn and when I painfully craned my neck to see further Ross Tramarn, Prince of Eildon. I laughed feebly and wondered aloud that so mighty a prince had inhabited this desolate place.

I woke again and it was thick night. From being cold, now I burned with fever; I feared for my life, thinking of deadly wound fevers.

My mind wandered. A voice spoke to me in the darkness, a woman’s voice, very clear and distinct: “Young lord?”

“Who speaks?” I demanded. “Are you the spirit of this place? Can you help me?”

“I am no more than a voice . . .”

“What place is this?”

“This is Liran, the Isle of Sleeps.”

“Are we alone? Is there no one else?”

“Only an apple tree,” said the voice, “and it is very stupid.”

“I will die here, cast away . . .”

“No,” said the voice, “you have been placed here by some magician. No one can die on Liran’s Isle. The spring will help to heal your wounds; it has magical properties. Who are you, young man, to warrant such care?”

“I am Yorath, Heir of Mel’Nir,” I said. “I am a prince, though I have hardly lived as one. I was a soldier. . . .”

“Tell me . . .”

I spoke of my life. The voice prompted me and laughed a little and sighed and wept as I did, telling of my life.

“You have done much for so young a man,” said the voice. “How will you go on?”

“I will change my life or I will die,” I said. “If I come off Liran’s Isle, I will not be a soldier. I will not be a prince, a ruler of Hylor. I will seek out some place far from the haunts of men and live there simply as I once lived in Nightwood as a boy.”

“Will you live alone?” asked the voice slyly.

“If need be,” I said. “The Owlwife, my true love, has forsaken me.”

“First, Yorath, you can help me,” said the voice. “I have waited long ages, but now the time has come. Help me, and I will reward you.”

“Spirit, I am very weak. How can I help you?”

“I am imprisoned here under a spell. You can set me free. I must change my nature.”

“I will help you if I can,” I said.

“I will trust you,” said the voice. “Here is your reward. I will tell you a secret, and you must tell it to no one light or dark or the way will be lost again from that moment. You say that you would live far from the haunts of men; then this is the path to take. You will be healed, and when you are strong again you must journey into the Chameln lands. You must go into the northern mountains beyond Last Lake and travel northwest along a wide frozen river that edges its way down into the distant White Ocean. Go to the place where this river bends around a black rock. From the top of this rock you will see to the south a place where three fire mountains stand; one has crumbled away and the two others are almost burnt out. Find your way over the fallen mountain and there it lies . . . lost Ystamar, the Vale of the Oak Trees.”

I felt at last a small stirring of my own spirit, a gleam of light in my darkness.

“I will do it!” I said. “Thank you, spirit. This is a rich reward.”

“I hope you come to it,” said the voice, “for now I will tell you the secret of Liran’s Isle. The spring will help you to sleep, it will heal your wounds, but it will cause you to forget all that you have told me: your friends, your heritage, even your name.”

I was very much afraid.

“This is a dreadful thing,” I whispered. “In the name of the Goddess . . . I must drink. I have already taken water from the spring. When will I forget?”

“Day by day,” said the voice, “from the present to the past. Names will go first. You stumbled over a name or two in your story.”

“Everyone does that . . . forgets names . . .”

“Who was that chronicler in Selkray, the one seeking for enlightenment?”

“I know the man you mean,” I said, “but I cannot quite . . .”

I saw his lean, dark face, I recalled our last meeting upon the watchtower of the villa, but the name had gone.

“I will go mad,” I said. “I will lose my soul!”

“No,” said the voice, “you will become very peaceful. And here is my second reward. I know how you can regain your memory. In the morning go to the apple tree behind the tower and strike down one of its magic fruit. Hide this away in your cloak. Tell no one you have it. When you have been taken from the Isle, you will one day find and eat the apple and you will remember.”

“But if what you say is true, I will forget all about the damned apple!”

“No one forgets to eat and drink,” said the voice. “You will eat the apple because you are hungry. It will keep fresh.”

“Spirit,” I said, “I do not doubt you, but I am puzzled. Prince Ross of Eildon was once on this island. Did he drink from the spring? Did you speak to him?”

“He was here seven years long,” said the voice, “but it was before my time. Perhaps he bewitched the spring. The Princes of Eildon put me under a spell . . .”

“You have done me a great service,” I said. “What must I do to set you free?”

“Go to the door of the tower,” continued the voice evenly, “break off a branch of the ash tree that is growing there and cast it into the sea.”

“Agreed,” I said, “but will you not tell me your name even if I forget it again?”

“I am called the Alraune.”

Then I saw that daylight was coming into the ruined tower. I was alone. Only the stunted black tree scraped against the stone in the morning wind.

My fever had lightened and many of my wounds were healing. I was still very weak and in pain. I heaved myself up, clinging to the basin of the spring and then to the wall of the tower. I came at last to the black tree.

“Alraune,” I whispered, “which branch shall it be?”

There was no answer, but the branches twisted about and one offered itself to my left hand. I took hold of it firmly and stripped it off downwards where it joined the trunk. There was a shriek of pain and, shuddering, I turned and threw the branch down clumsily into the receding tide upon the sand. The waves washed over it and drew it down into the water. All at once the branch was gone, and a woman stood there with the waves washing about her ankles. She was slender and pale, with long hair of a greenish yellow. She flung out her arms and danced on the sands, naked except for her long, wild hair.

“Farewell!” she cried. “Farewell, Yorath! Farewell to Liran’s Isle!”

Then she ran down into the sea waist deep, flung herself down into the cold grey water and swam off strongly to the northwest. I watched her until she was lost in the mist upon the surface of the sea.

When I turned back, I saw that the remains of the black tree had fallen down. I took it up and found that its roots had dried up, it was no more than a heavy, dead stick. I stripped off a few more branches, and using it as a crutch, I limped out and looked at the island. It was very small; the further shore was less than fifty paces behind the tower, and there in a patch of greener grass stood the apple tree. I limped painfully towards it, and as I came up it moved its branches. I stood on the thick grass and gazed up among the leaves.

“Mortal man,” whispered the apple tree, “I am the tree of wisdom . . .”

“Tree of wisdom,” I said, “where are your fruit? I cannot see them.”

“They are very precious,” said the tree.

“I do not think you have any fruit,” I said. “The birds have eaten it!”

“Birds!” said the apple tree shrilly. “Look, foolish mortal! Behold! On this branch here!”

I lifted up my ash staff and struck down an apple and caught it as it fell. It was firm and golden green. I sank it deep in the pocket of my cloak, a roomy inner pocket where I had kept battle plans. As I limped away, the apple tree still preened itself and said, “I am the tree of wisdom . . .”

I sat by the spring in the tower and had to drink a little. I tried to turn my mind away from the throbbing of my wounds. I felt a sudden chill as if hailstones were sliding down my back. I turned my head and saw that a part of the wall had become smooth and black, like a dark mirror. A point of light shone in the depths of this mirror and there appeared the figure of a man. He was smooth-faced and pale, with long dark-red hair and a blue robe glowing with magic fire. I saw that the magician who had brought me to Liran’s Isle was Rosmer of Lien.

“General Yorath,” he said, his voice full of concern, “I heard your cry for help and had you brought to this island.”

“Master Rosmer, I owe you my life.”

“Highness,” he said earnestly, “I saw from the first that you bore the aura of the Duarings, the royal house of Mel’Nir. Lately I have discovered even more . . .”

“Master Rosmer,” I said, “I will not lie to you. I have reason to believe that I am the Heir of Mel’Nir, only true-born son of Prince Gol. Do you see this silver swan that I wear?”

He peered out of his mirror and gave a sigh.

“So it is true,” he said. “Hagnild Raiz has pulled off a master stroke. You are the child of the Lady Elvédegran, the youngest sister of my liege the Markgraf Kelen. You are not only the Heir of Mel’Nir, you may be the Heir of Lien.”

“How can this be?”

“The children of Queen Hedris and Queen Aravel, the consorts of the Daindru, the double rulers of the Chameln lands . . . they are barred from succession to Lien. You are not, poor fellow.”

“Master Rosmer, I beg you to bring me off this island.”

“A boat is already on its way, Highness, with as much wind as my magic can raise up to fill its sails. It will take several days. Rest and heal your wounds with water from the magic spring.”

“A magic spring?” I asked. “I hope it has no evil working!”

“None at all, Highness Yorath,” said Rosmer. “There is also food on the island.”

“Magic food?”

“No,” he said, smiling. “A sea chest of sailors’ provisions in the ruins of this tower. I will look in again.”

His image wavered in the dark mirror, and then he returned and said, “Highness Yorath, who attacked you last night?”

“Knaar of Val’Nur,” I said, “and some hired assassins. I seem to remember another man, a lord. It is all very cloudy.”

Rosmer smiled again and faded from view. I went into another part of the ruined tower and found the sea chest of sailors’ food. It was well-preserved but salty. After a meal of salt pork and black bread, I had to take another drink of the spring water.

Rosmer, the man in the mirror, came back now and then. I had been doing some fishing with tackle from the sea chest, and I had lit a small fire to cook the fish. I felt very peaceful.

“I think you have done a lot of soldiering,” he said cheerfully. “Can you tell me your rank?”

“Ensign,” I said. “I think I made ensign at that place in the east, the horse farm. Did I tell you of that time?”

“Yes, you did. And you came to the city in the west of Mel’Nir . . .”

“Yes, a fine place. I think it is called Krell, Krall . . . you know the place I mean. Good sir. I must tell you that I have wounds that will not heal . . . this one on my leg. I have been injured in some battle, and I need a healer.”

“You will come to one. I am sending a boat for you. In the meantime drink from the magic spring. It has healing properties.”

I slept deeply and had no dreams. I wandered all over the small island. When I came near to the green tree behind the tower, it drew up its branches and cried out, “Go back! Go back! I will not give you any!”

I could see no fruit on the tree.

A man appeared in a dark mirror. I asked him to tell me his name again, and he said it was Rosmer.

“Tell me,” he said, “What is your name?”

“Yorath, of course!”

“What land do I come from, Yorath?”

“I’m sorry, Master Rosmer, but I don’t know.”

“And what was your native land?”

“That’s easy,” I said. “I am a man of Mel’Nir.”

“What is the name of the old magic kingdom of the west?”

I shook my head.

“Do you remember a woman called Gundril Chawn?”

I was suddenly less peaceful. I felt a pain in my head.

“I feel that I should remember her,” I said. “I am sick. I am still in pain. Did you say something about a boat, Master Rosmer?”

When he had gone, I sat looking out at the sea and thought of the name Gundril Chawn and found myself weeping. A picture formed in my aching head: a bird with yellow eyes flew through a dark forest. I strove in vain to remember the name of this bird, of any bird.

“Young man!”

A man in a blue robe stared at me from a dark shining place on the wall of the tower.

“Young man, what is your name?”

“Sir, I cannot tell you. I have lost my memory.”

“Can you remember anything at all?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am sure that once I lived in a dark wood, a forest, with a man and an old woman. I had a friend, and we climbed trees together.”

“Nothing else?”

“A woman. I think I loved a woman. I long to remember her.”

“Tush . . . the world is full of women,” said the man, smiling. “I have come to help you, my friend. My name is Rosmer . . . can you remember that?”

“I will try.”

“A boat is coming for you. Go out and wait on the beach.”

I did as I was told. I sat watching the sea, and presently I saw a ship with yellow sails that stood off the island. A boat was lowered with three men, and they brought it to the beach.

“Lord of Light,” said an ugly man in a sea cloak, “this fellow’s a monster! Hope he is quietened down.”

“Come now, friend,” said one of his companions. “Step into the boat. Master Rosmer—you know him, eh?—he bids us bring you off this island.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I limped down with the aid of my staff, wrapped my cloak about me and stepped into the boat.

My memory did not return, but once I began to drink the stale water aboard the caravel instead of that sweet, treacherous spring water on Liran’s Isle I was much more myself. I could learn the names of persons, places and things and not lose them from one day to the next. I lost the uncanny feeling of peace that I had experienced; I strove to recall more of my past.

The captain of the caravel, a man named Adrock, treated me well. He had the third mate, who acted as healer and barber, take a look at my leg wound.

“Nasty,” he said. “I can do no more than put a dressing on it, soldier. You must get it seen to when we make port.”

Straightaway when I was on board the ship, I began to dream again. I had two dreams. In one I roamed a forest, hunting, and came home to a brown house and sat down to supper with the man and the old woman. The second dream was puzzling. I came riding up to a bridge over a river, and at the other side of the bridge stood the cloaked figure of a woman. She called to me, called a name. At last I heard the name and tried it out. By the time the caravel reached Balamut and set sail inland for Balufir, I had a name for myself. I felt as sure as I could be that I was called Yorath.

The river Bal was a wide and placid river, not quite like the river in my dreams. I stood on the high bridge of the caravel with Captain Adrock and saw the snowy fields and white-roofed towns of the land of Lien. On the right bank there were fewer settlements; a watchtower rose up here and there above a manor house.

“That land is called Mel’Nir?” I asked.

“That’s right, lad.”

He gave me a strange look but all the sailors did this and some raised their voices whenever they spoke to me as if I were stupid or hard of hearing. I was becoming shrewd; I checked the name of Mel’Nir because I had heard the men calling me “the Melniro.”

“I think I am a man of Mel’Nir, Captain,” I said.

He laughed. “You are that, lad.” And he explained.

“The men of Mel’Nir are tall and strong and have your coloring,” he said. “Anyone would know you for a Melniro.”

We came in sight of the city of Balufir, spreading far and wide over the downs and crowding down to its river harbor with a forest of ships’ masts. The caravel turned out of the main stream and sailed along a still, deep channel. Frosty sedges covered the banks; I stood with the captain again and he said, “In summer there are swans all over these pastures. Now they are flown to the Burnt Lands to escape the winter’s cold. Look there, we’re coming to it: there is Swangard.”

It was a building hard to describe even if one had not lost a few words. I wondered why it had a large moat with no less than four drawbridges and why it stood upon a flat plain or piece of parkland. It was all of white stone, but in this cold season it looked almost blue. It was a long, rather low building with fanciful towers on its four corners and, in the center, a taller tower.

“What is it?” I asked. “Would it be called a palace? A fortress?”

“To tell the truth,” said the captain, “folk around here call it ‘The Folly.’ A markgraf built it about two hundred years ago as a residence, shall we say, for his wife.”

“A residence?”

“She lived there,” said the Captain. “He kept her pent up because he was jealous. But he did not want to be too hard on the lady, so he prettied up the place, as you see.”

“Who lives here now?”

“Why it is a Hermitage of the Brothers, the servants of Inokoi, Lord of Light, bless his name.”

The caravel dropped anchor. I bade farewell to the captain, and in the dusk of a winter’s day I got down into the ship’s boat again and was rowed to a jetty. A pair of soldiers in bright blue livery bearing the emblem of a silver swan were waiting beside two brothers in brown robes. When I had clambered ashore, they led me up to a third man who stood apart. He wore a pointed black hood, edged with white, and a long black tabard, embroidered in silver, over his brown robe. As we came up to him, the brothers kept plucking me by the cloak and whispering, “You must kneel, you must bow the knee, it is the Harbinger . . . it is the Brother Harbinger . . .”

I saw that this was an older man, with a long, set face.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I said, “I cannot kneel. My leg is injured.”

He looked up at me with an expression of cool interest.

“What is your name?” he asked sharply. “Do you know your name?”

“I think my name is Yorath, Brother,” I said. “I have been wounded and I have lost my memory. Did Master Rosmer send you? He promised that I should come to a healer.”

“I am a healer,” he said. “Come into the Hermitage.”

He led the way unsmiling, and the two soldiers and the brothers came after us. We trudged from the jetty to the edge of the moat, a long way over the frosty ground, then crossed a drawbridge and came into the outer court of Swangard.

In contrast to the chilly approach from the river, this place was warm and busy. There was a forge and a stable and living quarters around the thick walls. The brothers went about in their brown robes, bowing the knee to the high-ranking Brother Harbinger. I saw a few poor folk waiting to be fed at a kitchen and even a man selling hot chestnuts.

We came to another wall, a high white wall, and one of our soldiers lifted a heavy bar that locked a tall gate. Inside the wall was a neglected garden straggling around the base of the inner tower. Other guards, still in the blue uniform with the emblem of the silver swan, lifted the bar on the outer door of the tower. We went in and began to climb a broad staircase. I had to rest on the first landing my leg was troubling me so much, and the Brother Harbinger looked back impatiently. At the top of the stair was a guardroom and another barred door.

The rooms at the top of the tower were reassuring, for they were well-furnished and spacious. A small fire burned in a pleasant room with blue hangings, and beyond this bower was a bedchamber. The two brothers who had come in with the Brother Harbinger busied themselves with hot water and instruments. I was undressed and washed and my wounded leg was attended to. It was a long and painful process. I cried out at times, and one of the assistants soothed me and fed me mulled wine. At last I was put into a clean, soft bed-gown and given a bowl of broth.

When he had washed his hands again, the healer came and spoke to me.

“I am Jurgal,” he said, “Brother Harbinger or First Teacher of this foundation. I must tell you, sir, that we have saved that leg just in time. Judging by the scars and bruises on your body, you have taken enough wounds to kill any normal man, even a giant warrior of Mel’Nir.”

“Is that what I am?” I asked. “A giant warrior?”

“A soldier, certainly. And you remember the name Yorath?”

“I believe that is my name.”

“Where were you before you came here?”

“I was on an island. The caravel Goldbarsch took me off and brought me here. I knew I was coming to meet a Master Rosmer, whom I understand is vizier of the Markgraf of Lien. Before that I remember nothing except a little of my childhood.”

“You learn quickly enough,” said Jurgal, “and you reason pretty well.”

“Good Brother Jurgal,” I said, “you have dressed my wounds . . . for which I thank you heartily. You are a healer and a man of holy life. If you know who I am, why I have been brought to this place, or anything of my past history I beg you to tell me in the name of Inokoi, the Lord of Light. Try to understand my dreadful uncertainty . . .”

I watched him very keenly. I saw by the light in his eyes that he did know something and by the way he dropped his gaze from mine that he would not tell me. I tried to search the faces of the two assistant brothers, but they were gazing raptly at Jurgal, their Brother Harbinger.

“You must try to sleep now, Lord Yorath,” said Jurgal. “Master Rosmer will visit you soon.”

I was left alone. I heard a noise of bolts and bars as the guards let out the brothers and then made the doors fast again. I wondered why the healer had called me Lord Yorath . . . was it a slip that showed my true rank? I remained awake for a long time simply trying to remember; I did this very often from this time forward. I tried to remember by an act of will and by daydreaming, stringing idle thoughts together. I heard light footsteps come and go beyond the door of my bower; there were other chambers in the top of the white tower.

It seemed to me that I was in an unusually comfortable prison. I thought of the captain’s story of a Markgrafin of Lien, two hundred years ago, who had been pent up in Swangard. Even as I thought of this tale, a woman, not far away, began to wail and scream and weep. Was this a madhouse? How did I know that there were such places? I chased after a single image, a grating where madmen stuck out their hands, thin filthy hands. Fools Tower? Fools Keep? And at last I had it: Fools Fortress, not the true name of the place. I lay back afraid; I was completely delivered over to the mercy of my fellow men, and I began to doubt this mercy. The wailing woman who shared my tower was quiet at last, and I was able to sleep.