BOOK FIVE

THE DARK TOWER

THE MYTH:

Then Great Alta set a pillar of darkness on the one end of the plain. On the other she set a pillar of fire. In between ran a path as thin as the edge of a knife and as sharp.

“She who can walk the path and she who can capture both towers is the one I shall love best of all,” quoth Great Alta. “But woe to the woman whose foot is heavy on the path or whose heart is light at the tower, for she shall fail and her failure will bring doom to the land forever.”

THE LEGEND:

There is an odd plain not far from Newmarket that grows neither grass nor trees. All that is there are dozens of high rocks, great towers of stone, some hundreds of feet in the air. The tallest of all stand almost two hundred feet high, one on the north side and one on the south.

The rock on the north side of the plain looks as if it had been blasted with fire. The rock on the south has the mark of the sea.

Atop the Fire Rock are strange remains: wood ash and bone buttons and the carved handle of a knife with a circle and a half cross incised in it. Atop the Sea Rock there is nothing at all.

The folk of Newmarket say that once two sisters lived on those two towers of stone, a black-haired one on Fire Rock, a white-haired one on Sea Rock. They had not spoken in fifty years. Their argument had been lost to memory, but their anger was still fresh.

One day a child came riding across the plain on a great gray horse. The child was beautiful, his hair a dazzling yellow, his face Great Alta’s own.

Both sisters looked down from their rocks and desired the child. They climbed down and each tried to cozen him.

“I will give you gold,” said the dark sister.

“I will give you jewels,” said the light.

“I will give you a crown,” said the one.

“I will give you a collar,” said the other.

The child shook his head sadly. “If you had offered love,” he said, “gladly would I have stayed though you gave me naught but stone to eat and naught but rock for a pillow.”

The anger that the sisters had so honed for one another bubbled hot once again, and the desire that each had conceived for the child added to it. The dark sister took the child by the right hand, the light sister by the left. They pulled first one way and then the other until the child was pulled entirely in two. Then they scrambled up each to her own lonely rock, cradling the half child in her arms, singing lullabies to the dead babe, until they died of grief themselves.

Their tears and the child’s blood watered the top of the tower of rocks causing a lovely flower to grow. Partling, the Newmarket folk call the flower, and Blood-o-babe. It brings ease to the pain of childbirth when boiled in a tisane.

THE STORY:

Kalas’ army, having no need to disguise its trail, was easy to follow.

“North and north and north again,” Jenna pointed out.

“To the castle,” Piet added.

“And the dungeon,” Jenna whispered grimly. “Surely it is not as bad as you say.”

“Worse, girl. It is called Kalas’ Hole and them that calls it so, mean no mere hole in the ground.”

Piet made sure their approach was little noted by the few villages along the way. This was accomplished by breaking the riders into smaller groups, though the women of M’dorah refused to ride alongside any men. Marek, Sandor, and Gileas rode carefully ahead, reporting back every few hours. Though Jenna was frustrated by their slow progress, she agreed fully with Piet when he remarked, “Speed brings notice.”

They supplied themselves in the woods without any great trouble, even with so large a group. The women of M’dorah were wily hunters and it being late into the spring, there were ferns, mushrooms, and good berries aplenty. For half the trip a small river paralleled the road and their skin bags were kept topped off with fresh water. Even when the stream turned and meandered on a more easterly route, they were never far from some small pond or stream. Fish were plentiful.

One man became sick from a purple berry, and seven of the remaining New Steading boys deserted one night. Two of the M’dorans developed horrible sores on their inner thighs from riding. The man recovered, though for a day he wished he might die. The boys were gone for good, but no others joined them. The two women could ride no longer and were left at a lonely farmhouse in the care of an old woman who welcomed them rather stiffly but nevertheless promised to treat them well.

That left barely one hundred riders, though they were well supplied with swords and knives, bows and shields.

Jenna had never been so far north and was amazed at the change in the woods. Used to the fellowship of larch, elm, and oak, she recognized fewer and fewer trees but the hardy pine which left scattered beds of sweet-smelling ground cover. When they camped the first time, Jenna remarked to Petra, “If there were not such need to go on, I could almost enjoy this.”

“You do enjoy this,” Petra said, leaning on one elbow. “You enjoy it for all that you know blood waits at the trail’s end.”

Jenna thought about Petra’s words as they rode the next day. She wondered if Petra was right, and if so, what that meant about her own nature. How could she enjoy a journey whose ending would undoubtedly be blood-soaked? How could she admire a countryside that was the burial ground for so many good women and men? How could she let the scented pine needles rain through her fingers when the man she loved above all others lay in a foul-smelling dungeon? How could she even notice the difference in meadow and wood when they were potential battlefields? Her mind boiled like a soup pot with the questions. But the road held no answers for her and Duty’s steady rolling stride only brought her closer to the bloody ending of which Petra warned.

The journey would take seven days.

“Four,” Piet explained, “if care were not needed.”

“Three,” Jenna added, “if you and I went alone. And did not sleep.”

“It would be good, girl, to cut that time. But then we’d be cutting our chances as well. Kalas’ castle is nigh impregnable. All rock and stone with but one big gate and three portcullises, inner iron gates. Well guarded, too. They built it right into the cliffside so the back cannot be attacked. Then they made another cliff for the front.”

“There is one thing good,” Jenna said.

“And that be?”

“The M’dorans are rock climbers.”

“I am thinking that, too.” There was approval in his voice for the first time.

“They could be the other mice pulled along behind me …” Jenna mused aloud.

“For the cat to snatch up first.” Piet chuckled. When Jenna looked surprised, he said, “That is an old family tale of mine. My mam told it to my little sister and me and she told it to her sons.”

“Her sons …” He had thrown in the revelation so casually, Jenna could scarcely credit it. Finally she blurted out, “Are you … the king’s uncle?”

He laughed. “The king’s uncle? What be … oh, no, girl. They be Garuns and I be wholly of the Dales. No mixed blood in me at all. But my little sister and Carum’s Mam, were childhood friends.” He rubbed his finger roughly against his beard. “Met those boys when Carum was five years old. Prettiest little child ye ever did see. The darling of the court. And smart as a …”

“Not Carum’s uncle then.” She felt, somehow, disappointed.

“I was just back from the Continent. Horrid place. Full of foreigners,” Piet said, throwing his head back in a laugh.

“So you knew them all?” Jenna asked. “Even saintly Jorum?”

“Jor—saintly? Who gave ye that idea? He was as sly as they come. Always in trouble. Always running up stairs to put the blame on someone else. And Carum always willing to take it. If there be a saint in that family … but not their uncle, no. For all they were good kings, they dinna think much of the folk of the Dales. Garuns first—and the Dales to make the sacrifice. That were the way. Though they were good to me and mine. And Carum, being half Dale, he was good altogether.”

“Would …” Jenna suddenly interrupted. “Would it be wrong to pull the others along behind, to sacrifice them that I might get to the castle and get Carum out?”

“That is no sacrifice, girl. That is a ruse.” He stroked his beard again and looked at her strangely. “Young Carum is king now. We must all do our part to set him free and some will likely die. That is the bloody way of war.”

They rode on.

The days were as warm as ever, but as they rode north the evenings turned chilly, and the nights were positively cold. Northern weather made no obeisance to spring. The men were forced to share blankets with other men, the women with women.

The first time Jenna and Petra lay side by side, Jenna’s blanket on the ground beneath them, Petra’s on top, Jenna could not sleep. She stared at the sky for a long time counting the stars and Petra’s smooth, even breaths. She got to a thousand before making up her mind.

At last she peeled back her side of the blanket and slipped out, careful not to disturb Petra. Signaling the men on watch, she walked to the edge of the woods, some fifty feet from the sleepers. Someone was there before her; she recognized one of the M’dorans, a young woman whose name she had never actually heard or, if heard, did not recall.

“You could not sleep either?”

The young woman grunted her response, then, as if the questions released something, began to talk in a whispery voice, alternately braiding and unbraiding one of a dozen thin plaits in her hair.

“Sleep? How could I sleep? I grieve. Iluna was my friend. My closest friend, closer even than my dark sister. And now she is gone. Gone. Gone where I cannot follow.”

Jenna nodded, having neither an answer nor an easy sentiment to offer. She knew that sometimes simply talking out a grief made it easier to bear.

“I do not understand,” the girl continued. “One minute we were all so … so …” She hesitated, looking for the right word, her hands still busy with yet another braid. “Happy—unhappy. Those words had no meaning on our rock. We were …” She gave a sharp tug on the braid as she found the word she was looking for. “Continent. We were content. And then ye came, a prophecy most of us had never heard of and some of us could not believe in. Word become flesh.” She turned slightly, her face all in shadow. It was as if a mask spoke.

“I thought …” Jenna began. “I thought you all recited the prophecy together and that was what convinced you.”

“Words!” the girl said, voice shaking. “That is all it was: words. But Iluna was real. She was flesh and blood. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. We swore to love one another always. We even cut our ringers and mixed our lives in blood when we were children. See.” She turned and held out her hand to Jenna.

Jenna took her hand and held it up, as if she could read the girl’s history there, but it was only a hand. Like her own. Nothing more.

“Words are for the old women. Iluna and I, we planned to leave M’dorah together. To see what else the world held. And when we were satisfied it held nothing, then we planned to return. But together. Together. And now she is … she is …” She began to snuffle, running the hand she had held up to Jenna across her mouth and nose, as if to stifle the sound.

Jenna nodded. “I understand. You will want the child after.”

“The child?”

“Scillia.”

“Oh no. I had told Iluna the child was not to come. It was our one argument, the only one we had ever had. No, White One, ye can keep the babe. I only want”—the snuffling began again—“Iluna.” The name was a sob in her mouth.

Jenna put her arms around the girl, letting her cry. But she could not still her own thoughts. What if Carum said the same thing when she told him of the child. Would he cry out, “I want only you”? Would she still take the little one-armed babe if he denied it? She bit her lip hard to remind herself that her entire rehearsal of that conversation depended upon finding Carum alive. Taking the girl by the shoulders, she shook her.

“Enough! Iluna would not have you cry for her. She would have you remember with courage.”

Pulling away from Jenna’s grip, the girl nodded. She scrunged her shirttail over her face, drying her eyes and blowing her nose loudly. Then she walked away as if embarrassed that Jenna had comforted her at all.

For a moment Jenna considered following her. Then she shrugged and turned back to the encampment. Jareth, who happened to be on watch, stared at her, his hand covering his throat.

“Just battle jitters I expect,” Jenna said, brushing a stray hair back from her face. She sighed. “Oh, Jareth, I am so tired of this. I want to be home. I want …” She looked at him. “I want to be able to talk to you. You were such a comfort before.”

He stared at her for another moment, then took his hand from his neck. It was bare.

“Jareth—the collar—where?”

He mimed a sword cut, an upward blow. She suddenly remembered the sound of a gasp behind her when she had buried the knife between the Bear’s eyes.

“Then you can talk now? You have been able to talk these past days?”

He shook his head vigorously, pointing strangely at his mouth.

“Gone?” she whispered. “The collar off and your voice still gone? Was it all a lie, then? Like the cradle and the hall? Is Catrona dead, Carum captured, and all those buried back there in the field for a lie?” She reached out to touch his arm, heard a noise behind her, and turned. Marek and Sandor stood close together.

“He can talk but he will not, Anna,” Sandor said carefully, using her own dialect. “He dare not talk else he shatter the fellowship.”

“What fellowship,” Jenna asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Women who will not speak to men and men who laugh at women. A Dale warrior who rightly blames me for the death of his beloved, and three boys who believe a scared, incompetent girl is some sort of goddess?”

“You be leaving out Petra,” Sandor said softly, slipping back into his own speech.

“A rhyming priestess,” Jenna said, “who surely could not kill without getting sick on it.”

“We be all that,” admitted Marek. “Do you be feeling better saying it?”

“No,” Jenna said miserably.

“Well, we be a fellowship nonetheless,” Sandor said.

“That we be,” Marek added, smiling.

“But what if it is lies,” Jenna whispered. “If it is all lies?”

“He still be not talking, Anna, because he believes,” Marek said.

“And I,” added Sandor. “Not until the king be crowned and the king’s right hand be winning the war.”

“You be his right hand,” Marek said.

“And Carum king. I be glad of that,” Sandor finished.

“Oh, you brave, loyal boys,” Jenna whispered, suddenly remembering Alta’s fire that went ever before. “So much braver and so much more loyal than I.”

They put their arms about her then, all four thinking about what had already been and what must surely come. Jenna, Sandor, and Marek whispered memories back and forth as if telling themselves a wonderful tale, but they did it quietly, so as not to disturb the sleepers around them. And when at last they pulled away from one another, their faces hot and tight with unshed tears, they were each silhouetted against the night sky. To Jenna the three boys looked as though they had been crowned with stars.

She went back to the blanket which Petra had now firmly wrapped around herself. Unwilling to wake her for a share, Jenna lay down on the cold ground beside her and willed herself into a dreamless sleep.

THE SONG:

Well Before the Battle, Sister

Well before the battle, sister,

When the sky is crowned with stars,

And the world is clean of wounded,

And the ground is free of scars.

Well before the battle, sister,

When content with what we know,

We will sing the lovely ballads

From the long and long ago.

THE STORY:

By the time they reached the outskirts of Kalas’ Northern Holdings, on a path which Piet insisted was marked by blood, though there was nothing to show it—not bones nor broken armor nor mounds of buried dead—the moon was coming into full again. That doubled the number of women at night, making even Piet uncomfortable. The men came up with both feeble and outrageous suggestions as to where the women had come from.

“Out of the woods,” Gileas said to the New Steading boys. “They be trailing us all along.”

“Mayhap they live here around,” one boy said.

The others thought that a foolish idea, and told him so loudly.

“Nay,” Piet said. “They be friends of our girls. Cousins, most like. See how much they resemble one another.” It was the explanation they settled on in the end.

But it meant that at night, at least, the enlarged band was hard to disguise. Since Piet knew the land well, having served one year in the North, he kept them in the forest as deep as could be managed with horses. Under the heavy cover of trees, their numbers were once again halved. If the men wondered about it, they did so silently.

They left the horses crowded together in a small dell and went by foot the last mile toward Kalas’ castle, single file and without talking. At the woods’ edge, Piet signaled them to halt and they fanned out along the edge, being careful to each stay behind a tree.

Under the eye of a leperous moon, Kalas’ castle was a great black vulture throwing a vast predatory shadow over the plain. It had two stone wings, the crenellated walls like feathers of rock. A single tower stretched up, the bird’s naked neck. And in the single window, like a staring eye, a light gleamed. It was the only visible light in the place.

“There,” Piet said, pointing. “The girls will climb straight up that rock face while I take the men to the gate there.” His hand moved slightly. “We will make a great clamour and a rattling of swords. If they lower the gate to get at us, some will go through it. If it stays up, we will climb up it ourselves.”

Jenna nodded.

“Two lines of mice are better than one against this great cat,” Piet added.

“And the dungeon?”

“There is no way but from inside. That is why you go up the tower.” His pointing finger shifted two palms worth to the left, where the rock seemed to grow right out of the ground forming an impenetrable wall.

“Kalas’ tower!” Jenna whispered.

“How will you get up that, Jenna?” Petra asked.

Where the rock ended, the tall brick cylinder rose straight up into the air. Not a vulture’s neck, Jenna thought, but a spear jabbing at the sky.

“Slowly,” Jenna said. “And with a great deal of difficulty. But I will get up it all the same.”

“If anyone can, you can,” Petra said in her ear. “The prophecy knows it. Alta will see to it.”

Jenna looked steadily at the tower. It was at least a hundred feet high. Privately, she prayed that Alta had a very long arm. “When I get to Kalas’ room,” she said steadily, “I will put my knife to his throat and make him take me personally to the dungeon to set the king free. If there is blood this night, it will be Kalas’.” She spoke with the firm enunciation she had learned from listening to Gorum, but her heart beat erratically as she spoke. She was not nearly as certain as she appeared.

“We will have the surprise this time,” Piet said grimly. “They think us all dead.”

“We be having the right on our side as well,” Marek added.

“Ah, lad, on the Continent they say: The mice may have the right but the cat has the claws. Whenever did right guarantee a victory but in a tale?” He stared ahead at the castle. “Do not be counting on the right. King Gorum did, and we buried him. I dinna want to bury you, too.”

“Nor we you, Piet,” said Jenna.

They waited until a shred of cloud covered the moon, then the women raced forward to the near wall, the men veering off toward the only gate.

Jenna set off on her own, avoiding Petra’s attempt to catch her eye. If she thought about Petra or about all those who might be killed in the attempt on Kalas’ castle, she knew she would become paralyzed, unable to climb. She forced herself to think only of the rocks ahead.

When she got to the precipitous stone, its sheer size overwhelmed her. At its base, she could see nothing above and nothing to either side but more and more stone, an endless wall of it. In the dark she could discern no handholds at all. Then suddenly the moon came out of its covering of cloud, and Skada was beside her pointing out the route.

“There!” she said. “And there.”

“An odd sort of greeting,” Jenna complained, tucking her braid down the back of her shirt.

“We have no time for pleasantries,” Skada said, fixing her own hair. “And you are already breathing hard even before the climb.”

“If I could appear and disappear under the light as you do,” Jenna said testily, “I would not need to breathe at all.” But nonetheless it was a good reminder that she had forgotten the first rule Mother Alta had taught her so long ago, that of proper breathing. She forced herself to think about the careful spider breaths for climbing. As she did so, she heard Skada’s breathing synchronizing with her own.

Slow hand by slow hand, feet slotted into the shallow ridges, they began to climb. Every few moments they waited together, breathed together, gathered strength, then moved on up. The soft leather of their boots was scraped, their skin leggings had a hole in the right knee. Still they climbed.

The moon suddenly disappeared behind another cloud and Skada was gone, but Jenna, so intent on the rock under her hand, foot, and face, never noticed.

A minute later the moon came out again and Skada reappeared, clinging as Jenna did to the stone.

“You breathe hard, sister,” Skada said.

“In my ear, sister,” Jenna replied. “You are doing this to annoy. I wish to Alta you would stop.” But she slowed her breathing down again and found the climbing easier.

The wall, shadow-scarred and crumbling, fooled both hand and eye. What seemed a chink was often solid. What appeared solid, a handful of dust. The mistakes cost them precious minutes, took them equally by surprise. Jenna wondered whether the others had reached their goals, the women scaling the far side of the castle, the men at the gate. But when she thought about them, her right hand slipped and she found herself desperately grabbing for rocks that kept failing to pieces beneath her. One shard cut deeply into her palm. She cursed, and heard an answering curse from Skada. With great concentration, she found another handhold and Skada’s sigh was a welcome sound.

Above them—way above—was the lighted window. Jenna knew that they had to be there before dawn because she needed Skada, both for the sword she could wield and the comfort she might give. She said so aloud.

“Thank you for the thought,” Skada whispered, “but keep on climbing.”

For a moment, Jenna stopped, put her right palm to her mouth, and licked the small, bloody shred. Skada did the same, almost seeming to mock her. Neither of them smiled. Then Jenna set her hand back on the rock and began the climb once more.

Inches were gained at the cost of minutes. The wall did not so much fight them as resist them; their own bodies became their worst enemies. There is only so much stretch in the ligaments, so much give to muscles, so much strength in even the strongest arm and thigh. But at last Jenna’s hand felt along the top of the stone wall.

“Tower base,” she whispered. But the moon was once again behind a cloud and there was no longer anyone to whisper to.

“Alta’s Hairs!” Jenna muttered, using a curse she rarely allowed herself. She pulled with both arms, heaving herself over the top. Even the skins were little protection against the wall. She could feel the roughness of the stone through the hides.

Rolling to her knees, she found herself staring at a large pair of boots.

“Look up slowly,” came a voice. “I would like to see the surprise on your face before I strike you down. Look up, dead man.”

From her knees, Jenna looked up slowly, never stopping her prayer for a sliver of moonlight. When she finally stared at the guard, his face was suddenly lit by a full and shining moon.

Jenna smiled at him.

“By Cres, you are no man,” he said, relaxing for a fraction of a second and starting to smile back.

Jenna looked down coyly, a maneuver she had seen on the face of one of the serving girls in New Steading, and held out her hand.

Automatically the soldier reached down.

“Now!” Jenna cried.

Startled, he stepped back. But he was even more startled when, from behind him and below his knees, he was struck by another kneeling form. He tumbled over and was dead before the blade came sliding out of his heart.

Jenna hoisted the man’s body on her shoulder and heaved it over the wall. She did not wait to hear it land. When she turned to speak to Skada, Skada looked stunned.

“What is it?” Jenna asked.

“I … I have never actually killed a man before,” Skada whispered. “The knife went in and out and he was dead.”

“But we killed the Hound,” Jenna pointed out. “And the Bear. And cut off the Bull’s hand which led to his death.”

“No, Jenna, you did that.”

“You are my dark sister. You feel what I feel. You know what I know.”

“It … is … not … quite … the … same,” Skada said, pulling each word across her tongue with great difficulty.

“No,” Jenna said at last. “You are right. I do not feel about this unnamed guard what I felt about the others. My hand does not remember his death in quite the same way.”

They touched hands for a moment. “We had better resume the climb up that tower. This is just the first stop. If there are other guards …”

Skada nodded.

“And once daylight comes, you are of no practical use. If I die …”

Skada smiled grimly. “You do not have to remind me. Every dark sister knows the rules of living and of light. I live as you live, die as you die. Only get up that wall. I cannot start without you.”

Jenna stared up at the tower wall. The bricks were newer than the stone along the great wall they had just climbed, but the ravages of the northern winds had pulped part of the facade. Bits of the brick would crumble underhand.

As they began the new ascent, whispers volleyed between them, though nothing so loud they would awaken any guards. Occasionally, they cursed. The curses served as a cup of borrowed courage might, strengthening their resolve and reminding them that anger would serve when purpose faltered.

Jenna reached the tower window first, but only fractionally. Below one torn fingernail blood seeped. The cut on her palm ached. Her legs were beginning to tremble with the effort of climbing. There was a spot between her shoulders that was knotted with pain. She ignored them all, concentrating all her effort on the windowsill and the light filtering over it. Under her tunic, muscles bunched as, with a final pull, she hoisted herself up to the sill onto her stomach. The sill was broad and her legs kicked Skada’s head. All she felt was relief to be off of the wall and irritation with Skada.

“Out of the way.”

“It is your legs that are at fault,” Skada answered huffily. “My head only moves in a limited direction.”

Pushing herself up, Jenna tumbled them both off the sill. She caught hold of a lantern to stop the fall and dashed them both against the floor. The lantern landed first and went out; the fall seemed to take forever.

Voices scrabbled around Jenna in the dark.

“I have him,” someone cried and Jenna felt her arms seized. She was pushed to her knees, the sword belt slashed from her waist. Struggling did no good; it only forced her arms up higher behind her till she was sure they would break. She relaxed into the hold, waiting.

“Light the torches, fools,” came a command. The voice was soft, but no less powerful for its softness.

A torch was lit, stuttering to life. It was held over Jenna’s head. An odd scrambling sound from the corner made the voice from the darkness add: “There’s a second one, double fools. And idiots, all. Bring the torch over there.”

Two men, one with the torch and one with a drawn sword, ran over to the corner but the strong light disspelled all shadows. Only along the far wall, where no one but Jenna looked, were a bent leg, a quick turn of head.

“There is no one, Lord Kalas.”

“Just a trick of light,” Jenna said smoothly. “Would I have been captured so easily if I had had a companion? I come alone. I am always alone. It is …” She hesitated thinking of the right word to cozen him. “It is my one conceit.”

The men brought the torch back and held it close to Jenna’s face.

“It is the White One, my lord Kalas,” the man with the torch said. “If we have her as well as the prince, the rebellion is all but over. They say …”

“They say … they say altogether too much,” Kalas said. “Let me look at her. Why, she is scarcely out of childhood.” He laughed. “I had thought her a grown woman. She is but a long-legged, white-haired colt.”

Meanwhile Jenna looked at him, past the glare of the torchlight. She had heard many things about him from Carum and Piet, and none of them good. But could this faded coxcomb, with the dyed red hair and the dyed red beard that only emphasized the pouching under his eyes, be the infamous Lord Kalas of the Northern Holdings? How could he be that wily toad they all so hated and feared?

“I’m not interested in what the others say, but you may be fascinated by what that late, lamented, sniveling princeling Carum—who calls himself Longbow for no discernible reason—says about you.”

Jenna controlled her tongue, thinking quickly that Kalas had put Carum’s name in both the past and the present. But the guard had not. Was Carum dead? It was not possible. She would have known, she would have felt something if he had died. Late. Lamented. Perhaps Kalas was referring to the title of prince and not the man himself. Garunians liked to play with words. She allowed herself to smile up at her captor, showing him nothing of what she felt.

“And shall I tell you what the very late and not at all lamented Bear had to say about you, you dyed rooster?”

“Ah,” Kalas whispered, “not a child then. A woman with a woman’s wiles. I should have known you even had you changed your hair color. Longbow’s White Goddess. He said your mouth opened as quickly as your legs, like most women of the Dales.”

“Carum would never …” She closed her mouth, feeling like a child, indeed, to have fallen for such a trick.

“A man on a rack says many things, my dear.”

“Few of them true,” Jenna added.

Kalas leaned over and put his hand lightly on her head, as if to stroke her. Instead he pulled the braid out of her shirt and yanked.

“Girls playing at women have a certain kind of charm. Women playing at girls another. But women playing at warriors bore me.” He pulled a smile over his discolored teeth, yellowed with piji. “And you, for such a pretty girl, do it badly. Your prince is in the dungeon, not my chamber, so all your climbing has been for naught …” He tapped her right knee with the flat of his blade. “Except to strengthen those comely legs.”

“By Alta’s Hairs …” Jenna began, hoping that by swearing she might better disguise her feelings.

“Alta’s hairs are gray and much too short to keep her warm,” the smooth, mocking voice replied. “And that is what we have you by—Alta’s short hairs!” He laughed at his own crudity. “But if you insist on playing a man’s game, we will treat you like a man, and instead of warming my bed—which you would doubtless do with little grace though youth does have certain advantages, even Dalian youth—you will freeze with the others in my dungeon.”

Jenna bit her lip, trying to appear frightened, when actually the dungeon was the very place she wanted to be. Though she wanted to be there with both her sword and her dagger.

“Ah, I see you have heard of it. What is it they call it?” He yanked her braid again, this time wrapping it three times around his fist and bringing his face close to hers. For a moment she was afraid he was going to kiss her. His breath was sickly sweet with the odor of piji. The thought of that mouth on hers made her ill.

“They call it … Kalas’ Hole,” she whispered.

“Enjoy it,” he said, pulling his face away. “Others have.” He turned from her so quickly, his lizard-skin cape sang like a whip around his ankles. Then he was gone.

The guards pushed Jenna down the stairs, descending it quickly. Much more quickly, she mused, than the laborious climb up that wall.

Her hands were so tightly bound behind her, she had lost the feeling in her fingers by the second level. The one consolation was that the man with the torch went ahead, and so the shadows of their moving bodies were ranged behind them. If he had been at the end of the line, there would have been a second bound woman on the stairs, with a dark braid down her back, leggings with a hole in the knee, and a head that ached.

Jenna promised herself that she would do nothing to make any of the guards look back to where Skada was following; neither by a remark nor by a movement would she betray her.

The stairs twisted round and round through the tower. When they began a straight descent, Jenna knew the tower had ended and the main part of the castle had begun. At each level, the air grew cooler and mustier. There were great wooden doors on either side, with a single barred window. As they passed, she could see pale patches at the windows, but it was only after the third that she realized they were faces. After that she lifted her head, turning toward the doors, so that whoever was inside might see and recognize her. She would not be buried in secret.

At the stairs’ end was a final heavy wooden door barring the way. It took three keys to unbolt the door and when it was finally opened, Jenna was pushed in without further ceremony and the door locked behind. Not a word had been spoken the entire trip down the stairs.

The dungeon certainly deserved its name. Lord Kalas’ Hole was dark, dank, wet, and smelled like the hind end of a diarrhetic ox. Even without ever having been behind one, Jenna knew the smell.

To keep herself from gagging, Jenna turned back and shouted at the departing guards, “May you be hanged in Alta’s hair. May She thread your guts through Her braids and use your skull…”

“I have never heard you curse before,” came a voice made almost unfamiliar with fatigue. “But you could at least try something original.”

“Carum!” Jenna whispered, spinning around and trying to find him in the dark. “That we were put in the same cell.”

“Oh, this is the special one, lady,” came another voice from the dark. “The worst.”

It was not wholly black. Some faint light trailed in through the barred window in the door. After a bit she could distinguish some shadows, though she was not sure which was Carum and which the other captives. Of Skada there was no sign, but with just that splinter of light, Jenna hardly expected to see her. And she did not wish her dark sister the pain in her wrists.

She felt fingers touch her shoulder, move down to her bound hands, and begin to work at her bonds.

“Actually,” Carum whispered in her ear, “I think you have it wrong. I looked it up once. The curse is really: May you be hanged by Alta’s heirs, meaning the sons and daughters she bore. Not the long braids you copy. It was in a book at Bertram’s Rest. Still, I love your hair. You must never cut it. I mean to shake it free again in the light.”

He was having trouble with the ropes around her wrists and she stood absolutely still to let him work on them, though her legs suddenly trembled. He smelled nothing like the Carum she knew, but she doubted she smelled very good either.

Finally he got the knots undone and silently rubbed her aching wrists. “There. What good is my right hand tied?”

“What good am I at all,” Jenna asked wearily, “if I am caught? At least I know you are alive. I had hoped to stick my knife in Kalas’ mouth and pick his piji teeth.”

“Did you see him?” Carum’s voice was suddenly cautious.

“See him? The toad caught me. As easily as a child catches an eft.”

“Did he …” He stopped, drew in a breath, and let it out saying “… touch you?” His arms encircled her protectively.

Very gently she turned in his arms. “He said since I was playing a man’s game, he would treat me like a man.”

“Bless your Alta for that,” Carum said.

“Could his bed be worse than this dungeon?” Jenna asked lightly.

Carum did not answer, but someone in the dark did. “Far worse, lady, for the girls of the Dales. He worships the Garunian women. They, alone, are exempt from his foul attentions.”

She whistled a long, low sound through dry lips.

Carum whispered again, this time so softly no one but Jenna could hear. “Are you by yourself?”

“I am here in the dark,” she answered as softly.

“I don’t mean Skada. I know she is gone without the light. But the others? They aren’t all …”

“Dead? Gone? No. Though your brother … oh, Carum, you are the king now. I am sorry.” She turned so that the light lit her face just a little that he might see that she was truly sorry.

“It’s as I expected,” he whispered. “As Kalas hinted. And Jenna, I’m sorry, but it’s as prophecy wrote. You are to be the king’s bride, and I would let no one else wed you. I’m not surprised.”

“You will not be king if we are in a dungeon. And by my sword, which I have unfortunately lost and my dirk which …” She felt in her boot knowing it was gone, too. “And by my temper, which is fast going, I can’t think in the darky.”

“You can’t think with your hands tied,” Carum said, raising his voice to match hers. “But you do very well in the dark.”

For a moment she was furious with him, turning their lovemaking into a joke. But when she heard the slight rattle of laughter around them, like cold water over bone-dry stones, she realized it was the first laugh these men had had in days. It stumbled inexpertly out of their mouths, but it was a laugh. She knew instinctively that men in dangerous situations needed laughter to combat that feeling of helplessness that would, in the end, conspire to defeat them. She put her pride behind her and added a line to his. “Longbow, you do fairly well yourself in the dark.” Then she spoke rapidly, more thinking out loud than a question to him, “But why so black? Why is there no light at all?”

A slight shift of sound and a shadow moved. One of the men stood up. “Lord Kalas’ jest, Anna. He is a true Garun. He says one’s enemies are best kept in the dark.”

Her wrists still hurt where the ropes had cut into them, and she rotated them to work out the ache. “When do they feed us? And do they do that in the dark as well?”

“Once a day,” Carum said. “In the morning, I think, though day and night have little meaning here.”

“I came in the night,” Jenna said, adding as casually as she could, “and there was a fine moon.”

Nodding, Carum whispered, “Skada?”

She did not answer him directly. “But do they bring light then?”

“They bring a single torch, Anna,” came a voice by her shoulder.

Another added, “They set it in the wall, over there, by the door.”

“For all the good it does. It shows us how degraded we have become in three short days.” Carum laughed a short angry bark. “Or two days. Or ten. Is it not ironic what a little bit of dirt and dark and dank and a delicate diet can do to beggar a man?”

“Carum, this does not sound like you,” Jenna whispered, furious.

“This doesn’t look like me either, Jenna,” he answered. “Oh Jen …” His voice caught suddenly. “I’ve made a royal hash of it.” He laughed shortly at his own bad joke. “And I wouldn’t have you see me this way.”

“I have seen you many ways, Carum Longbow,” Jenna said. “And not all of them handsome. Do you remember the boy running from the Ox, scared and curious at the same time? Or the boy dressed in girl’s skirts and scarf at the Hame? Or the drowned ratling in the River Halle?”

“As I recall it, you were the ratling and I the rescuer,” Carum said, his voice almost back to normal. Then it dropped again. “How could I have let Gorum talk me into …”

One of the other men put his hand on Jenna’s arm. “They put something in the food, Anna. A sprinkling of some witch’s berry. It takes a man’s will away. Yet we must eat. Each of us has his moments of such despair. Do not tax him with his answers. We are all like that—high with expectation one moment, low and despairing the next. You will feel the corrosion of it soon enough. We are our own worst torturers.”

Jenna turned back and placed her hand against Carum’s cheek. “It will be better by and by. I promise.”

“Women’s promises …” he began before his voice bled away, like an old wound reopened.

“What do you mean?”

“It be an old bit of wit from the Continent, lady,” a new voice said. “Best leave it.”

“No—tell me,” Jenna said.

“No, Anna.”

“Carum, what do you mean?”

His old voice was suddenly returned. “It is something Kalas is fond of saying: Women’s promises are water over stone—wet, willing, and soon gone.”

“Water over stone …” Jenna mused. “I had that advice once, long ago. Be water over stone. It meant something quite different.”

“Don’t tax me with it, Jen,” Carum pleaded.

“I keep my promises, Carum, and well you know it. All I need is that light.”

Carum was about to speak when one of the other men broke in. “It will do you no good, Anna. It does none of us any good. They hold the light up to the hole in the door and then they make us lie down on the floor, one atop another.”

“One atop another?” Jenna asked.

“It is a cruel and humbling act,” Carum said. “They do it in the dungeons of the Continent. An invention of Castle Michel Rouge, where most of the instruments of torture come from as well. Kalas has cousins there.” He hesitated, finally admitting, “As do I.”

“They count us aloud, lady, afore they open the door. After each lock they count us.”

“Better and better,” Jenna said mysteriously.

“If you have a plan, tell me.” Carum’s voice was strong and full again.

“Tell us,” a dozen men’s voices agreed.

Jenna smiled into the dark, but with her back to the single sliver of light in the door, none of them could see. “Just be sure,” she said to them, “that I lie on top of the pile.”

The men gave forced, muttered laughs, but Carum added—as if he understood—“It would not do to have the Anna, the White Goddess, lie beneath.”

Jenna laughed with them, extending the joke. “Though there have been times when I have fancied that place as well …” She was glad they could not see her face, hot with furious blushes. If Carum continued this jest, she swore to herself she would kill him before Kalas ever got the chance. But sensing her desperate embarrassment, he let it go. The men were as buoyant as they were likely to be. Jenna walked over to the door. Holding up her hand into the splinter of light, she watched as Skada’s hand appeared faintly against the far wall. Jenna waved and was delighted to see Skada’s hand return it.

“Will you be ready?” she called to the wall.

Thinking she was addressing them, the men cried out, “We will, Anna.”

“For whatever you require,” Carum added.

But Jenna had eyes only for the hand on the wall. It made a circle between thumb and finger, the goddess’ own sign. For the first time Jenna felt reason to hope.

Forcing herself to sleep on the cold stones, Jenna gave her body time to recover from the long climb. She curled next to Carum, breathing slowly, matching her breath to his. When she slept at last, her dreams were full of wells, caves, and other dark, wet holes.

The clanging of a sword against the iron bars of the window woke them all.

“Light count,” came the call. “Roll up and over.”

The prisoners dragged themselves to the wall and attempted a rough pyramid, not daring to complain. Last to sit up, Jenna watched as the sturdiest six, including Carum, lay down on the floor. The next heaviest climbed on top, and then the next until a final skeletal two—obviously long interred for other crimes against Kalas—scaled up to the perch, distributing their weight as carefully as possible. It was easier to see all this because of the additional light from the torch shining through the window in the door.

The sound of the guard’s voice counting began. “One, two, three …”

“Wait!” It was a new voice, well in command. Not Kalas’ voice. Jenna was disappointed but not surprised. After all, why should Kalas himself oversee a dungeon full of prisoners?

The voice had a soft purr to it. “You misbegotten miscalculators,” came its smooth mockery. “Don’t deny us the best. His highness, King Kalas, spoke movingly of the lady. Is there not room on top for her?”

“There is room,” Jenna said, her voice soft so that the speaker had to come closer to the door to hear her. She could only see a shadow, a smallish shadow, almost boy-sized.

“Always room,” came the purring voice, “because a pyramid is altogether a pleasing figure.”

Jenna guessed. “The Cat!”

He laughed. “Smart women are annoying. But I understand I have nothing to fear from you. You have already killed one cat. And I have lives to spare, is that not so?”

His men chuckled.

“Climb up, my lady. Ascend your throne.”

“Why should I?”

“Ask the men upon whose backs you will make your climb,” the Cat said in his purring voice.

“We tried denying him his pleasure in the pyramid,” Carum said, “and they simply refused to feed us at all until we lay one atop another.”

Jenna nodded and kicked off her boots. Then she set her right foot carefully on someone’s buttocks and began the climb. When she reached the top, she lay down gingerly, trying to distribute her weight evenly.

“Will they bring the light now?” Jenna whispered to one of the men under her.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “Look, here it comes.”

Two men—one with a torch—entered the room. The Cat, disdaining to draw his own weapon, entered after them. He was a small, wiry man who looked pleased with himself, like a puss over a saucer of cream.

The light-bearer stood at the head of the pile of bodies counting them aloud once again. The second went to a corner, sheathed his sword, and dropped a bag that had been draped over his shoulders onto the floor. He emptied its contents on the stone. Jenna made out a pile of hard breads and wrinkled her nose. Then she looked up at the wall nearest the door where shadows thrown by the flickering torch moved about.

“Now!” she shouted, flinging herself from the pile.

She calculated her roll to take her into the shoulder of the guard at the pyramid’s peak. His torch flew into the air, illuminating another hurtling body that seemed to spring right out of the far wall. Skada rammed into the Cat, just as he unsheathed his sword.

Jenna reached for the guard’s weapon as Skada grabbed for the Cat’s, then completed identical rolls in a single fluid motion and stood up.

At the moment of their impact, Carum and the other captives collapsed the pyramid. The strongest leaped to their feet, surrounding the guard near the bread and stripping him of his sword and a knife in his boot. Holding the torch aloft, Carum laughed.

“At least one of those lives ends here, my Cat.”

“Perhaps,” the Cat said, smiling. “But indulge me for a moment and let me ask the lady why at yesterday’s count, there were twenty prisoners in this cell. Yet today, though there should have been twenty-one, a perfect pyramid, there was one extra. Where did the extra come from?”

Skada laughed behind him. “From a darker hole than you will ever know, Cat.”

Jenna hissed through her teeth and Skada was immediately silent. But the Cat smiled.

“Could it be …” he said, his eyes crinkling, “could it be that the stories about you witches raising black demons out of mirrors is true? Mages lie, but images …”

Skada made a mocking bow. “Truth has many eyes. You must believe what you yourself see.”

Jenna bowed as well. When she stood straight again, the Cat had a finger to his lips, obviously thinking.

“I see sisters who may have had the same mother but who had different fathers.” He took the finger away. “It is well known that the mountain women take pleasure with many men.”

“Some,” Skada said, “take no pleasure with any men.”

The Cat laughed, and at the same moment leaned forward dashing the torch from Carum’s hand. It fell to the stone floor, started to gutter, and almost went out. Without the light, Skada was gone and the Cat’s sword which had been in her hand clattered to the floor. He bent quickly and picked it up.

“Like my Lord Kalas,” he said into the dark, “I chew piji. It stains the teeth but gives one wonderful night sight.” His sword rang against Jenna’s.

“Dark or light,” cried Jenna, “I will fight you. Stand back, Carum. Keep the others out of the way. And do not mover!”

The Cat was not as strong as the Bear, being a small man, and so he could not overcome Jenna with sheer strength. But he was a clever swordsman, quick on his feet, and cunning. Twice his sword stroked open a small wound, once on her right cheek, once on her left arm. But he counted too much on his night sight, thinking it an advantage. What he did not know was that Jenna, like the other Hame warriors, had learned swordplay and wandplay in both dark and lightened rooms. Though she could not see as well as he in the blackness, she had been taught to trust her ears as well as her eyes. She could distinguish the movement of a thrust that was signaled by the change in the air; she could read every hesitation of breath. She could smell the Cat’s slight scent of fear under the piji, the change in the odor of his sweat when he realized that he did not have the upperhand after all.

She slowed her own breathing to give her the steady strength she needed and with one last twist of her wrist managed to catch up his blade on hers and send it clattering away into the corner.

“Light!” Jenna called.

Carum picked up the torch and held it overhead. Once off the cold stone it managed to flutter back into smoky life.

The Cat stood with both hands held out, almost playful in his surrender, though no one was fooled by his stance. Jenna’s blade remained in his belly. Behind him, Skada had her sword at his back.

“If you move,” Skada whispered to him, “I will spit you like a sheep over a roasting pit. And I will turn that spit very, very slowly.”

He shrugged, but with exaggerated care.

“You have rightly guessed that Jenna and I are sisters,” Skada continued. “And that we are not at all alike. I do not yet have your blood on my blade, though it is she who has sworn your death.”

Jenna turned to Carum. “Keep the torch high, my king. And stand at the head of the line as we go. Skada and I will take the rear.”

They left the Cat and his two men locked in the dungeon without any light at all, and made their way up the stairs. Carum held the torch in his left hand, one of the guard’s swords in his right. After him came his men. At the rear was Jenna, the wound on her cheek and arm wiped clean of the fresh blood and already starting to close, though both still stung. And, when the light was right, Skada trotted along behind.

At each new door they fumbled the locks open with keys they had taken from the Cat’s belt. Carum greeted each released prisoner in turn, both those who had ridden with him and those who had been in Kalas’ Hole for other crimes.

All in all, they opened eight dungeon doors and gathered almost a hundred men, most still in fighting condition, though they had only three swords and nine torches for weapons. There was not even a chair or a table that might be broken into cudgels.

“My lord, Carum,” a thin voice cried.

Jenna strained to make out the speaker in the flickering torchlight. Carum spotted him first and, handing the torch to someone, gave his hand to the speaker. The man was as thin as his voice, and knobby; his hands were too big for their wrists, his nose oversized on a bony face.

“What is it?” Carum asked.

“I know this castle well, sir. I have served here all my life, first as serving lad, then as cook’s boy, now as cook.”

Someone laughed. “Don’t they say: Measure a cook by his belly? This one is all bones.”

The man shook his head. “I have been in the dungeon four or five weeks now. It thins a man.”

“Maybe less,” someone cried. “If he cannot remember.”

“He’s a spy,” another called.

Carum held up his hand for silence. “Let him speak.”

“If I do not remember rightly,” the cook said, “it is because time has no dominion here. Day is night. Night is day.”

“That be true enough,” a man with a blond beard said.

“To your point,” Carum urged.

“I know every passage in this castle, every hall and every stair.”

Coming forward, and heedless of Skada following her, Jenna put her hand on the cook’s arm. It trembled slightly beneath her touch. Skada took his other arm. His trembling increased.

“Then tell us where this passage leads to.”

“Out of the Hole, lady.”

“He is a spy,” came a voice.

“He must give us more,” came another.

“And what does the door open into,” Jenna persisted. She suspected he was the kind of man who could not say anything straightaway but must have it pulled from him.

“An arras, lady.”

“What does that mean?” asked someone.

“A curtain, he means. An arras is a curtain,” explained Carum.

“He is a spy. Spit him!”

Jenna tightened her hold on the cook’s arm. “These men are getting restless and Longbow and I will not be able to control them if you do not speak plainly.”

“No, listen to me,” the cook said hastily. “This passage leads to an open door in the wall of Kalas’ Great Hall and it is hung over, covered over, by an arras.”

The muttering men hushed.

“That is better,” Jenna said, relaxing her grip.

“Much better,” Skada said from the other side.

But the cook, once started, seemed unable to stop. “It is a heavy arras,” he said. “One of the finest in the castle. A tapestry dedicated to Lord Cres. He is feasting with his heroes and they are …”

“Throwing bones over their shoulders to the dogs of war,” Skada whispered to Jenna.

The cook did not hear and continued in his thin voice, “… hangs over the door. But often King Kalas …”

The men began to mutter again at that, an angry sound, like bees. Carum silenced them with a cut of his hand.

“… I mean, Lord Kalas when he dines has the arras pulled back to listen to the cries from the Hole. He calls it seasoning for his meals.”

Carum’s lips closed tight together but he made no comment other than a nod.

“Lord Kalas had been away much lately, but he returned precipitously a few days ago. After a message from one of his chiefs.”

“The Bear!” one man said, turning to stare at Jenna.

“Na, how could he know all that?” asked another.

“They tell it to me, the guards,” the cook said quickly. “To crow over it. My pain their pleasure; their gossip my only meat.”

“I don’t like it, sir. ’Tis too easy,” one of the men cautioned Carum. Several others agreed.

“But it makes good sense,” Jenna mused.

“Who guards this arras, this tapestry?” Carum asked in a harsh whisper. “How many? What arms?”

“It is an open door, my lord. Kalas’ boast is No one escapes from the Hole whole. Sometimes he shows the gaping door to the ladies, just to frighten them a little bit.”

“What ladies?” Jenna asked, hardly breathing.

“The ones he captures. The ones he beds. Young ladies, some of them. Scarce more than girls.”

Jenna shivered, thinking of Alna and Selinda, thinking of Jareth’s Mai, thinking of the children from Nill’s Hame.

“Do you mean no one guards it?”

“I mean it opens directly into the Great Hall which is always full of an army of men, especially when Kalas is home.”

The men mumbled their opinions, volleying them back and forth. Crowding tightly together, they discussed their options.

“It’s no good then.”

“We’re doomed.”

“Better dead at once than dying slowly down there.”

“Wait,” Skada said. Now that the torches were close together, she held her shape. “Listen. There is something you do not know.”

Jenna nodded. “There are one hundred armed women on the walls outside who may have already made it to the top.”

“And fifty armed men battling through the gate.”

The cook laughed mirthlessly. “There are three portcullises between the gate and the keep. They will not get in.”

“Whether they get in or not,” Skada said, “they will be a distraction.”

“They are the mice,” Jenna cried to Carum.

“And we already have the Cat!” he rejoined.

“Listen,” Skada said, “we have few weapons but the torches.”

“Do you mean to burn him out?” asked someone.

“Trust me,” Skada said. “Set all you can on fire. If it is day and the women have gotten in, they fight—better—near a fire.”

“Better a hot woman than a cold dinner,” someone called.

Laughing, they started up the stairs again, but became quiet at the next turning for it was clear the exit out of the Hole lay just ahead.

Jenna and Skada signaled them on, and they crept silently up the rest of the cold stone steps, amazingly quiet, Jenna thought, for so many men.

Since only Carum, Jenna, and one other man were armed with stolen swords, they went ahead. Skada, with her shadow weapon, followed close behind. When they reached the last step, Carum poked the sword slowly at the heavy curtain, looking for a way out. Finally Jenna knelt down; she tried to lift the arras. It was a heavy weave and weighted along the bottom. She gestured with her head for help. Two of the unarmed men stepped forward to lift the curtain up, and Jenna and Skada crawled through, sliding their swords before them.

It was bright daylight on the other side of the tapestry and Jenna blinked frantically, trying to adjust her eyes to the sudden light. She turned to speak to Skada but Skada was gone. Jenna felt a terribly loneness, as if she had been forsaken, though she knew it was but a trick of the sun. Skada would be back again in the evening. If they were still alive by evening.

Then she realized that the room was unnaturally quiet for the central room of a castle. Slowly she looked around. No one was there.

“Empty,” she whispered at last to the slightly raised tapestry.

The curtain inched its way higher until there was a doorway held between hands. The rest of the prisoners boiled through, blinking awkwardly in the light and staring about in confusion. If they had expected anything, it was not this. The Great Hall was totally deserted.

“I don’t understand …” Carum began.

“I do,” Jenna said. “Listen!”

They all heard it then, the faint tumble of voices coming from outside where an uneven battle was being waged.

“We must help them,” someone cried.

“First set fire to this hall,” Jenna said. “You—the curtains there. And you—the arras on the other wall.”

“And break up those chairs. At least we will have clubs to fight with,” Carum called.

The tapestries smoldered slowly at first, refusing to take up the flame, till at last one section flared suddenly, and within minutes that Cres and his heroes were completely consumed by the fire. The men armed themselves with chair legs and the table bracings and several caught up cushions from the chairs to use as shields. The rest of the furniture they piled in the middle of the hall and set on fire. As the central flames rose higher, Skada danced next to Jenna for a second.

“I will follow whenever I can,” she said.

“I know,” Jenna whispered, then waved to the empty air as she followed Carum and the men out of the door and down a wide hallway.

Racing along the door-lined hall, they followed the cook’s shouted directions, heedless now of any noise. They came upon two guards who turned to face them but were quickly and efficiently disarmed and bound by Carum and three of the men wielding clubs. The guards’ swords were taken up by two of the men, and a dagger in a boot was found as well.

“I will take that,” said the cook, pointing at the dagger. “And I’ll dice the next one into small, bite-sized pieces.” He giggled.

“Just get us outside,” Carum cried, “and you can carve up who you will.”

The cook led them to a wide stone stairs flanked by a pair of magnificent banisters polished to a high gleam. At the bottom of the staircase, ranged across it to block them, were some twenty castle guards armed with swords and fully shielded.

“What now?” Jenna asked. “We have but five swords and a knife.”

“Let them come up to us,” Carum said. “They’ll have a harder time of it, unbalanced on the stairs, though what I would give for a bow now. Still, we have more men. And clubs.”

As if guessing Carum’s strategy, the guards remained below, unmoving. Long minutes went by.

At last Jenna said, “We cannot just wait.”

“If we go down there one at a time, they’ll take us one by one. If we try and rush them with the weapons we have, it will be a slaughter.”

“Then we must fool them with a line of false mice.”

“Too late. They’ve seen us and counted our weapons. Time is on their side,” Carum said.

“Cook,” Jenna said suddenly, turning. “What of those doors we passed in the hallway. Any escape there?”

“They are closets, lady. With extra dishes and linens and …”

“Ha!” Jenna said, turning back to Carum. “We will have our mice! You”—she touched one of the men on the shoulder—“take my sword. And you—take Carum’s.” When they hesitated, she shoved her sword at one, took Carum’s and handed it to another man. “And you three”—she pointed to some of the weaker-looking men—“come with us.”

Carum chose a raw-boned, blond-bearded man to be in charge while he was gone, then ran to catch up with Jenna. “Where are we going?”

“To make us a line of mice.”

Kicking open the first door, she stripped the shelves of priceless wool and linen weavings, of banners and toweling.

“Take it all,” she told them.

The second closet yielded goblets and platters and, best of all, carving knives.

A third closet would not open even to their frantic kicking, and they left it, hurrying back to the stairs with their treasures. The guards were still waiting below with the studied calm of hunting cats, but the men at the top of the stairs had not been as patient. A few were several steps down and pacing. One had already tried to get through the line by himself, his bloody body testimony to the foolishness of such an act.

“He was not one of us, my lord, but a prisoner of Kalas’ from before. He had not our training,” the blond-bearded man said.

“Still we must count him as ours,” Carum said softly. “He died on Kalas’ blades.”

“Here is what I would have us do,” Jenna said, showing them how to tie together the line of banners and linen, threading into place the cups and platters and bowls.

“A woman’s wiles,” complained one man.

“A mouse’s,” Carum said, smiling grimly. “Listen to her.”

Below the soldiers were curious at first, but at a shouted command from their captain, stilled again, waiting with swords raised.

It took precious minutes to complete the little mice, as Jenna called the strange assortment of cobbled-together tableware. She traded the men carving knives for cudgels, adding the pieces of wood to her strange tapestry. Then she gave the final orders in a whisper, telling the men of their places.

“The signal,” she explained, “is For Longbow!”

She stationed herself at the top of one banister, one end of the tied banners slipknotted around her waist. Carum stood at the other. He had a similar line bound around. They each held a sword. Behind them, not yet taut across, was the quick weave and behind it, the waiting men, knives, torches, and three swords at the ready.

“For Longbow!” Jenna shouted suddenly, and at the signal she and Carum both leaped onto the banisters as if onto horses. They pulled the line taut between them, a strange curtain of heavy implements, and slid straight down. Screaming their defiance, the men came trampling down the stairs right after. The bemused guards watched their advance.

The mouse-line hit the guards neck high, tangling them long enough for Jenna and Carum to slip the knots from their waists. By the time the guards had gotten free of the weaving, Carum’s men were on them, too close for the swords. The carving knives, sharp enough for tough venison, found little resistance in the soft meat of a man’s neck. It was over in minutes, and only one of Carum’s crew had been injured from tripping in the lines himself and cutting his shin on a piece of broken glass.

Quickly they stripped the guards of their weapons and shields and then hurried, under the cook’s nervous direction, toward the main doors. A heavy piece of wood deadbolted the door, but they managed to push it aside. When they flung open the doors, the scene outside in the courtyard was bedlam.

Outmanned but fighting steadily and well were the women of M’dorah, light sisters only, battling under the glaring eye of the afternoon sun. There was no sign of Piet and his men.

“They are still behind the gates,” Jenna cried.

“Or caught in the trap between the portcullises,” Carum added. “We must raise those gates.”

“I will, my lord,” cried the blond-bearded man. “I’ll take several with me.” He hurried out, careful to sidestep a number of the fighting guards. Jenna watched as he made his way across the courtyard and knew they could count on his success, for he was single-minded in his march, and the men around him saved him from many a blow.

“And where is Kalas?” Carum cried. “Where is that toad? I do not see him.”

Jenna realized that she had not seen him, either.

“He is where toads always are, my lord, hiding in a hole,” the cook said. He smiled and Jenna saw that his teeth were as yellow as Kalas’ had been. As yellow as the Cat’s. She wondered that a cook could afford such an addiction.

“In his dungeon?” Carum asked.

“In his bolt-hole,” the cook said. “He will wait there till he is sure of his victory.”

“Are you sure?” Jenna asked, staring in fascination at the man’s teeth.

He nodded and, mistaking her attention, picked at his teeth with the knife.

“And you know where that hole is?” Carum asked.

“I do, sir, I do. Surely I do. And haven’t I many times taken him his meals there?”

“The tower!” Jenna said suddenly.

The cook nodded his bony head. “The tower.”

“Take me,” Carum said. “I have a score to settle with him.”

“Take us both,” said Jenna. “We have lost more than one family each.”

They trailed after him back up the stairs, along the hallway, and into the Great Hall again. The fires they had started there had sputtered out, and one wall of the tapestry was but partially burned. There was still heavy smoke in the air, as if the floor had been draped with gray bunting. Putting their arms across their faces to shield themselves from the smoke, Jenna and Carum followed the cook to a door in the wall next to the gaping opening down to the dungeon.

“Here,” the cook said, pulling open the door and pointing up the twisting stairs.

“You go before,” Carum said. “I trust you more in front of me than behind.”

“He has done nothing wrong, Carum,” Jenna said, though she was uneasy as well.

“Like my men, I feel things have been too easy so far,” Carum said. “And as they said at Nill’s Hame: The day on which one starts is not …”

“… the day to begin one’s preparations. You are right,” Jenna said. “Better to be safe than buried, we said at our Hame. He will go in front.”

The cook mounted the stairs before them. The passage wound up and up, unrelieved by any landings or windows, and was the darker since they had just come from the light. They went up by feel alone, putting their feet where the stone was worn smooth by many treadings.

“If we had a torch now,” Carum whispered.

“Skada would appreciate that,” Jenna whispered back. “And we could certainly use the extra sword.”

As they rounded the final twist, a sliver of light announced an open door. Jenna pushed aside the cook and put her eye to the crack. She could see nothing but a wedge of light on a polished wood floor, but she could hear Kalas’ voice speaking in an oily, cozening fashion. Having heard it only for a few minutes the night before, she could still not forget it. It was at once powerful and weak, full of dark promises and hinting at even darker secrets.

“Come, my dear,” Kalas was saying, “it will not be so bad as all that. Once done and it need never be done again. At least with me.”

Jenna breathed slowly. So he was alone—with only a girl as company.

There was a silence, and then a young woman’s voice, wheezy and achingly familiar.

“Leave me be,” she said, catching her breath. “Please.”

“Alna!” Jenna’s mouth shaped the name though she did not speak it aloud. Surely that was her Hame mate’s voice. Alna, who had been on her mission year to Calla’s Ford, had been stolen away. But it had been weeks—no, years in actual time—since she had heard Alna. She could not be sure without seeing her. Still, she could feel heat rising to her cheeks, could feel her stomach roil, as if her body already believed what her mind hesitated to accept. Turning to Carum, she whispered, “Kalas is alone in there with a girl. I can handle this. Best you see to the others.”

“No. I will not leave you.”

“The sword is my weapon, not yours. This is my fight. That is my Hame mate in there.”

“It is my fight, too. Kalas murdered my family.”

“I will not match blood with you. But if you stay and your men below go marching off to Lord Cres because you did not lead them …”

He kissed her cheek, turned, and left, so light on his feet she did not hear his footsteps go. When she turned back it was to see the cook tapping lightly on the door.

“No!” the woman inside screamed, then coughed violently.

Jenna pushed the cook hard on the small of the back, and he fell against the door, springing it open.

“It is a trap!” the woman cried, but she was too late.

Jenna was already inside. Before her was Alna, hands bound behind her, lying on a great canopied bed. To her right Kalas squatted toadlike on a carved chair. Ranged before him were seven large men. Very large men, Jenna thought. Seven to her one, with little room to maneuver as the door swung shut behind her. The stranger’s sword in her hand was lighter than she was used to, the pommel sitting awkwardly in her hand.

She knew she had to stall. Stall—and silence the cook who had betrayed them. She took a half step to the side and kicked the fallen man in the head, hard enough to quiet him for an hour or two, not hard enough to kill him. But her eyes never left Kalas and his men.

“Jenna!” Alna managed to get out, “it is you. I could not be sure it was not another lie.”

“Alna!” She could not spare her old friend another glance, not even out of the corner of her eye, though she had known her at once. Alna was older and thinner than when they had parted on the first day of their mission year. And that, Jenna thought wryly, was the day she had believed that her life was at its worst, when she had been separated from her best friends and sent off to a strangers’ Hame alone.

“Alone again, White Jenna,” Kalas said slowly, as if he had been able to read her mind. “What an odd habit you are developing. Always arriving uninvited into my little tower room.”

“Perhaps not entirely uninvited,” Jenna said. “I think you sent the invitation by way of this skinny bit of …” She kicked again at the cook, this time deliberately bruising his ribs. He did not stir.

“Ah, you have uncovered my little deception,” Kalas said, smiling. “But not—alas—soon enough.”

“Tell me,” Jenna said, “was he at least a good cook?”

“A terrible cook, but he had his other uses.”

“What I do not really understand,” Jenna said, “is why you let us get away, why you did not just kill us in the Hole.”

“Such an uninteresting death, don’t you think?” Kalas asked. “And I have made such a study of death, it would not do to just kill people outright. Besides”—and he laughed, showing again his horribly yellow teeth and running his fingers through his thinning red hair, which exposed darker roots—“I did not believe that even you, Prince Longbow’s White Goddess, would really dare the castle on her own. I needed you as bait for the redoubtable King Pike, who is even now at my door.”

Jenna’s eyes opened wide, but she let nothing else betray the fact that she was startled. So Kalas did not know that Carum was king; did not know that Gorum was dead. She would keep that little piece of information to herself.

He smiled again, reminding Jenna of her Mother Alta when she had a particularly devastating bit of news to impart. “I did not expect you to escape, not with my Cat watching carefully at the Hole. What a fascinating little mouse you are. But I have clipped the Cat’s claws for him. He will not make that mistake again.”

Jenna nodded. Keep him talking, she reminded herself. “But how did you know we had gotten out?”

“Oh, little girl, I know everything. This castle is mined with passages and set about with traps. You cannot go from one level to another without my knowing. Everything.”

“Then we could not have gotten out without you letting us go?”

“Not in a hundred years,” Kalas said. “Not in a hundred hundred years.”

She had her back to the tower’s one window, could feel the sun warming her. She could always leap out as a last resort, but she knew—having climbed it so painfully the night before—that it would be a long and fatal fall to the wall below. And that would leave Alna to the mercy of Kalas still, and the rest without their Anna.

There would be no help from Skada either. The sun was only half down the sky, so Kalas had no torches lit. Carum was gone below, sent away by her, past recalling. And Jenna knew she was out of polite conversation.

“Get her!” Kalas said to his guards, no change in the pitch of his voice.

They moved in a well-trained wedge toward her and she stepped quickly to the other side of the bed, putting it between the men and herself. When they split and three came after her, she leaped onto the bed, straddling Alna, and beating them back with some quick, though awkward sword work. Then with a quick slash of her weapon, she severed the hanging curtains from the canopy’s crossbar, tangling the men below in its heavy brocaded folds.

As they fought to free themselves, their companions came to their aid, giving Jenna just a moment. It was all she needed. She flung the sword point first into the breast of one of the guards. He did not have the Bear’s quick hands and the sword pierced him straight through, skewering the arm of a man beneath him who cried out in agony.

Jenna bounced once on the bed and grabbed the cross bracing of the canopy, swinging herself feetfirst nearly out of the door.

“After her!” Kalas cried.

But before the remaining guards could untangle themselves, Carum and two of the M’dorans burst through the open door, swords in hand. Behind them came a fourth woman, carrying both a sword and a torch. She flung the torch onto the bed.

The linens caught fire at once and Alna, moving faster than Jenna would have guessed, rolled off the bed on the window side, scrambling over the guards, where she cowered against the far wall.

7As the cloth flared to life, Jenna moved around the bed to stand between Kalas and the flames. She was weaponless while he still had a thin rapier in his one hand. The other hand rested on a heavy tapestry behind his chair.

“My sword, Jenna!” cried Carum, ready to fling it to her.

She shook her head, smiling. There was nothing sweet in that smile. “I need no sword, my king.” She spoke the final two words with deliberateness, to be sure Kalas understood, then added, “Do you not remember that tribe in the East you told me about so long ago.”

With one sharp movement, Kalas drew back the tapestry disclosing an open door. But Jenna put her hand in back of her neck, pulling her white braid forward, stretching it between her hands, like a rope. Behind her was the blazing bed sending crazed shadows against the wall. One of those shadows, framed in the doorway behind Kalas, was a womanshape holding a black braid stretched taut between her clenched hands.

Jenna reached up, exposing her breast to Kalas’ blade, and leaned forward. He smiled triumphantly until he felt the braid from behind slip over his head and catch him, suddenly, around the neck. He dropped the blade and tried to rip the noose from his throat but Skada and Jenna had, simultaneously, pulled their braids tight, twisting and twisting it.

Kalas’ face turned a strange, dark color as he struggled against the garroting plait. At the end his hands dropped to his sides and his feet beat a final tattoo against the wooden floor.

“Alaisters!” Carum said suddenly. “Alaisters was the name of the tribe. They were …”

“… never weaponless because of their hair,” Skada said, unknotting the noose from Kalas’ neck.

“Promise me you will never cut your braid,” Carum said.

They both nodded, but neither one of them smiled.

THE BALLAD:

The Ballad of Langbrow

When Langbrow first was made the king,

Proclaimed by all his men,

He took to him a goodly wife

Whose name was Winsome Jen.

He took to him a goodly wife,

Her name it was Sweet Ann,

And light her hair, and long her limb,

And Langbrow was her man,

And Langbrow was her man.

When Langbrow first was made the king,

Proclaimed by all his peers,

He opened up the prison gates

That had been closed for years.

He opened up the prison gates

With just one little key

And all the men condemned within

Straightways were all set free,

Straightways were all set free.

When Langbrow first was made the king,

He killed the callous crew

That tortured many a fine woman

And slaughtered not a few.

That tortured many a fine woman

And brought them many a shame

Till Langbrow came to rescue them

Returning their good name,

Returning their good name.

When Langbrow first was made the king,

The country did rejoice

And sang the praises of the king

With cup and wine and voice.

We sang the praises of the king

And of his winsome Jen

And of the men who followed him,

And also the wo-men,

And also the wo-men!

THE STORY:

Carum carried Kalas’ body down the stairs and into the courtyard where he threw it onto the stones. Jenna stood by his right side, her hands clasped together, watching.

As soon as Kalas’ body hit the ground, a strange hush fell upon the crowd. The soldiers, most of whom had been hired from the Continent, flung down their weapons. Those who were Garunian bred knelt, offering up their swords.

Carum ignored their fealty, speaking instead as if it had always been his, saying, “I am the one and true king, for my brother Gorum is dead. And here”—he pointed to the corpse at his feet—“here is the one who would have severed us. Even Lord Cres will not have him, for only heroes feast at the dark lord’s side.”

The kneeling men stood, sheathing their weapons. Behind them, rising slowly over the crenellated castle walls, came the moon. Jenna saw it and smiled.

Carum took the leather thong from around his neck, holding up the crested ring that they all might see. “Here is the sign of the Bull and it belongs where I vowed it belonged—on the body of its dead master.”

The ring bounced on Kalas’ chest and tumbled onto the ground beside him. Watching silently, the crowd waited for Carum’s next words.

Instead, Carum took up Jenna’s left hand and set his mouth solemnly on her palm. Then he looked up again at the waiting men and women before speaking. As if weighing his words carefully, he said at last, “By my side is the one who was promised us, the White One of prophecy. Born of three mothers, born to lead us out of the ending of one era and into the beginning of the other, she is both light and …”

At that very moment, as though he had timed his speech exactly, the great full moon cleared the walls entirely, moving above the crenellations. Shimmering like water and starlight, Skada came into being next to Jenna, her black hair and dark eyes marking Carum’s text.

There was a sharp intake of breath from the watching men who did not even notice that the same was happening to all the women by their sides. Only Carum, staring down at them, and Piet, who stood near his king, saw that for every M’doran woman there were now two.

Carum held his hand up again and there was a complete hush.

“She is both light and dark, and shall rule by my side. She has made the hound, the bull, the cat, and the bear bow low. She has herself killed Kalas, and with that brought to an end his hideous reign.” For a moment after, the courtyard seemed to echo with his words.

Then Petra mounted two steps to stand in front of Carum and Jenna. She bowed her head to him briefly, solemnly, before turning more toward Jenna and raising her hands above her head, fingers extended, palms flat.

“Holy, holy, holiest of sisters,” she intoned.

The men chorused back, “Holy, holy, holiest of sisters.”

Petra turned and signed to Sandor and Marek to stand by her, and they climbed to her side.

“And Alta said this one shall crown the king,” Petra cried.

“The first Herald!” shouted one of the women.

Reaching into his shirt, Marek took out the circlet of sweetbriar which was, by some miracle, uncrushed, and placed it carefully on Carum’s head.

A great cheer went up from the crowd.

Petra raised her hand for quiet, and there was complete silence again.

“And Alta said this one shall guide the king’s right hand.”

Sandor slipped the wristlet of wild rose off his own arm and slid it onto Jenna’s. It hung loosely around her wrist.

An even wilder cheer, this one led by Piet, rose from the men and women.

Petra spoke into the noise and they quieted at once. “And Alta said that one shall be True Speaker for all, yet say nothing until the king be crowned, lest he sever the fellowship. Can you speak the truth to us now, True Speaker?”

Jareth pushed forward from the crowd, holding up the piece of green rag that had been his collar, calling in a strange croaking voice: “The king shall live long and longer yet the queen. They shall be for us whenever there is need.”

“Long live the king!” Piet shouted.

The crowd gave back its answer: “Long live the king!”

“And his queen, Jenna,” a woman with a wheezy voice cried.

“Long live the queen!” the crowd answered.

Petra turned her head slightly and winked at Skada who winked back. Then, as if singing an ancient chant, to the tune of the most sacred Altan prophecy’s plainsong, Petra let her voice ring out over the crowd:

“Then Longbow shall be king,

And Jenna shall be queen,

So long as moons they reign,

So long as groves be green.

Holy. Holy. Holy.”

“And what will that one turn into?” Jenna whispered.

“Some ballad sung in taverns and accompanied by a plecta and nose flute,” Skada answered. “Called When Langbrow was Made the King or How the Warrior Jenna Broke Heads or some such.”

“But,” Carum added, grinning, “it will be lovingly sung.”

THE HISTORY:

To the Directors, Dalian Historical Society Sirs:

Although I have been a member in good standing for twenty-seven years, a past president, and two-term general secretary, I find it impossible to remain a member any longer now that the Society has seen fit to give its highest award to that charlatan Dr. “Magic” Magon.

By so honoring Dr. Magon, you have given credence to his theories about the dark and light sisters, and his left-wing ravings about the circle of the Grenna as well as the cultural superiority of the indigenous populations of the Dales.

History must needs be even-handed and there is nothing surer than that legend, myth, balladry, and folktale are cultural lies that tell us the truth only on an incredible slant. To believe them without adjusting the glass, as Dr. Magon does, makes for warped history and a warped historian.

That this Society is now crediting such history and honoring such a historian forces me to tender my resignation until such a time as history itself shall prove me the prophet and Magon the liar.

Yours,

THE AFTERWARD:

Carum Longbow ruled the Dales for a full fifty years, till his hair was as white as Jenna’s and age had bent him.

Jenna was not always by his side, for she called the throne “a troubling seat” and she was ever uneasy with ceremony. Often she took long journeys into the countryside, accompanied by her one-armed daughter Scillia or one of her two sons.

At these times she sometimes traveled back to the southern parts of the Dales, passing by the Old Hanging Man and Alta’s Breast, to visit with old friends. Selden Hame, where the last of the remaining women of Alta lived, was always a home to her.

At Selden there were no priestesses anymore; the last—Jenna’s original Mother Alta—had died twenty years earlier. The M’dorans who had settled at Selden Hame had chosen a singleton without a dark sister as their True Speaker. Her name was Marget, still known to Jenna as Pynt, and she helped all the women in the Hame learn new ways, though that is another story altogether.

When Jenna was at court, her closest friends were Petra and Jareth, who married after a long mourning period for Jareth’s Mai. Petra proved a gentle stepmother for Jareth’s five girls, the eldest of whom was called Jen.

But Jenna did not stay at either court or Hame very long. She always found herself searching the woods and fields, the small vales and great valleys, for something. She could not have named it, though Skada—if asked—would have said she was searching for another great adventure. And perhaps Skada, who knew her best of all, was right.

However, her daughter swore that Jenna was looking for a simpler time, her sons, Jem and Corrie, for a finer one. Carum made no guesses at all, but welcomed her back from each trip with open arms and no questions asked except one: Are the people happy and well?

And they were happy and well. Carum made certain that all his people—Dale and Garun alike—were well fed, well housed, and safe from marauding strangers. With Piet as the head of the army, the Dale shores were patrolled and the peace kept. Marek stayed on to become one of Carum’s advisors, but Sandor returned home, taking over his father’s ferry and writing the story of his youthful adventures in a small spidery script for his own sons.

It was fifty years and a week since the coronation that Jenna came back from one of her sojourns in the hills. She had been uneasy the whole time, though she could not have said why. The journey had been undertaken alone, with nothing in her pack but a skin of spring wine and a loaf of bread. The hunting had been plentiful; she had not wanted for food. It was midway through the moon time, and Skada had not appeared, except for one evening when Jenna had put her blanket right next to the fire. They had quarreled briefly, for no reason, Skada as uneasy as Jenna, so that Jenna had not been cast down when the fire burned out and Skada was gone.

Jenna cut the journey short, heading back to the castle, for it was in her mind that perhaps Carum had need of her. Often they knew one another’s thoughts before a word was said, even as she did with Skada, though with Carum it came from living with him so many untroubled years.

She rode up the long, winding road on her white horse, one of Duty’s great granddaughters, with the smoothest canter and the sweetest mouth of any horse she had owned. As she went forward, the great gates opened and a rider came galloping toward her. She knew immediately it was Scillia by the missing arm.

They greeted one another from afar, Scillia calling, “Quickly, mother, it is father. He is sick and the doctors fear for his life. I was coming to trail you.”

Jenna nodded, her uneasiness gone. She knew now the author of her unhappiness. They raced back into the castle together.

Carum was propped up in bed surrounded by both sons, the doctors, and even Petra, as gray-faced as Jenna felt. Jenna sent them all away. She sat on the bed by Carum’s side and did not speak until his eyelids had fluttered open.

“You have come back in time,” he whispered.

“I am always in time.”

“Ich crie thee merci.”

“I will give it, my love.” She held his hands in hers. “I will take you to the grove. Alta said I might bring one back. And we will live there, young again, until the end of time.”

“I cannot leave the kingdom,” Carum said.

“Nonsense. Our sons and our daughter have been helping you run it these past twenty years. You have trained them well in castle ways.”

“And you in the forest.”

“So …”

He smiled, that old slow smile. The scar beneath the one eye, caught up in the wrinkles of laugh lines, disappeared. “So … I never quite believed in the grove.”

“Believe it,” she whispered. She kissed his hands and then leaned over and kissed his brow as well, before standing. “It will be a short journey, Longbow, and you will go in comfort.”

A carriage with a bed carted Carum to the King’s Way where the forest still lay unbroken on either side.

“We are almost there, my love,” Jenna whispered to him when they had stopped. “Now we come to the difficult part. You must leave your comfortable bed and ride on the sledge.”

“As long as you are near, my Jen,” he said, his voice hardly audible with the wild caroling of birds around them.

She dismissed the men and women who had accompanied them, then turned to Scillia.

“You must make sure that they all return to the castle. No one”—she stopped, then repeated—“no one must remain behind.”

“Do you know what you are doing, Mother?” Scillia asked.

Jenna reached out and smoothed a lock of Scillia’s hair that had come unbound in the ride. “Oh, I do. And so do you and Jem and Corrie. You belong to now and your children to the future. It is another turning.”

“Riddles! You know I hate that kind of talk.”

“Ah, Scillia, I learned long ago that riddles hold their own truth. And the truth is that your father and I were the beginning, but …”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“When you look in the mirror, child. When you speak to your own daughters and sons. Kiss me now. I will be with you when you need me most.”

They embraced, and Scillia turned away, before her mother could see her tears, gathering the others to her. Jenna watched until they were out of sight, then tied up her braids atop her head like a crown. Picking up the ends of the sledge on which Carum was bound, she pulled it off the roadway and across the grassy field.

The Grenna met her halfway through the meadow. She could not tell if they were the same ones she had met before. They looked the same: ageless, with the translucent green glaze of skin over fine bones. They made a circle with Jenna, Carum, and the sledge in the center, but they did not offer to help pull. Carum watched them fascinated, often half sitting up until the motion exhausted him.

Three times the circle stopped that Jenna might make Carum more comfortable and give him a drink of water. For a while he tried to get them to talk, but they were silent. When the odd procession got to the woods, where even the shadows were green, one of the Grenna said, “Here.” That was the entire conversation. At the Grenna’s voice, Carum slipped into a kind of fitful sleep.

A new moon rose overhead, but Jenna had only intermittent glimpses of it through the lacings of the trees, and it was not until they came to the clearing that ended on the cliffside that Skada appeared. The moment she was visible, the Grenna faded back into the trees. But Skada only smiled wryly, and bent to take one pole of the sledge. It moved more easily then and they brought it quickly to the front of the black cave entrance framed by oaken doors.

Jenna touched one of the carvings, Skada another.

“Apple,” Jenna whispered. “Bird.”

“Stone, flower, tree,” Skada countered. “Jenna, you must choose.”

“I know,” Jenna said. “I have thought of nothing else since this journey began.”

“Alta said you can bring one other into the grove, Jenna. One.”

“And there are no shadows within.” Jenna paused. “I do not know how this will end.”

Carum moaned, then opened his eyes. “Are the Grenna gone, Jen? Are we there?”

“Almost there,” Skada answered him.

“Good, you are here, too, Skada. For we are all three, or we are none,” Carum whispered.

“Candle by the bed or not, I know you loved me well, my king,” Skada said.

“I loved you best for your true tongue,” Carum answered.

“You have been listening!” Jenna’s voice was suddenly accusing.

“A king’s privilege.” He tried to shift a bit on the sledge, and moaned again. “The trip was long. But I would not have missed it. Jenna, you do not have to choose between us. I am dead already. Let the stories tell what they will. Our children will rule wisely and well.” He closed his eyes again. “And whatever we do here matters not. It’s the stories told about it that will last.”

Jenna smiled. “I know that, my love. But still we must do what the heart reminds us. Sister? Are you ready?” She held out her arms.

Skada smiled, her arms out as well. “Ready, sister.”

THE LEGEND:

There are two tales told about White Jenna and how she returned to Alta’s cave. One is told by women and one is told by men.

The men’s story speaks of a sledge on the cliffside, where, years ago when the Wilhelm Valley was mined for gold, it was discovered before an entrance to a cave. The sledge held the long bones of a man bound to it with bindings of leather and gold. Still, the men say, on moonlit nights two women can be seen running naked through the glades, women compounded of starlight and water. They run through the glades, past the rocky cliff, step over the long bones, and disappear into the cave just at dawn.

But the women tell a different tale. They say that White Jenna carried her lover, King Longbow, in her arms through the cave to the grove where Alta greeted them. And there they were made young again, and hale. They wait there, with their bright companions, feasting and drinking, until the world shall need them again.

THE MYTH:

Then Great Alta took down her hair, both the golden side and the black, and lifted the dark and light sisters out of the abyss of the world, saying, “You have come at last to the end of this turning. Whether you go forward or whether you go back, whether you go left or you go right, whether you go up or you go down, the end is the beginning. For each story is a circle, and each life a story. The end is the beginning and only I am the true end and only I can begin the circle again.

Here Ends Book 2:

White Jenna