The Fall of Waterstone

Book 2: Black Land's Bane

by Lilith Saintcrow

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology

Synopsis

An elemental witch and her shieldmaiden navigate a dangerous world of forgotten myth and deep magic in the second volume of New York Times bestselling author Lilith Saintcrow’s sweeping Norse-inspired epic fantasy series.

Solveig and her shieldmaiden have finally made it to Waterstone, a fabled city hidden in a world of frost by ancient magic. Shrouded from the Enemy’s gaze, they are safe to rest and regroup—or so they think.

Sol suspects their hosts are not as benevolent as they seem. Whispers race through the halls, hinting at self-serving agendas and secret plots. So, as Sol attempts to harness her awakened magic, she must fight for her voice to be heard or risk being used like a pawn in the greater game.

But the Enemy always watching and nowhere is truly safe. Before the darkness finds a way in, Sol must decide if she will take up the mantle of power to save not just the home she’s left behind, but the future of the world.

Black Land's Bane 
A Flame in the North

Release date: June 11, 2024

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 416

Sample

Thus did the folk of the High-helm pass swift and silent, over tree-crowned hill and through murmuring valley, until they reached the place shown unto their king. The first stones of Laeliquaende were laid with joy, and as the white towers rose Taeron’s people sang. Even so close to the Enemy’s land the music flowed unceasing, until the day doom arrived in the form least suspected…

—Gaemirwen of Dorael, Concerning the Lost Kingdoms

At least they did not throw us in a pit,” ruddy-haired Arneior snarled, tapping a disdainful fingertip against the bars. The slim metal pillars were light, even decorative—for the Elder make no thing without attention to the most pleasingly efficient shape for its function—and their powdery surfaces were utterly impervious. Even had we some implement to cut through, where on earth would we go? “Though that would be easier to escape.”

No freeborn creature likes to be caged, and a shieldmaid less than most.

I sat upon the cell’s shelf-bed, which now bore a thin cushion of wondrous softness and blankets of surprising warmth. The guards were not impolite, though regarding us with a great deal of curiosity. They were Elder, had presumably seen mortals enough in their time… and yet.

There was nothing else to do, so I combed my hair with surpassing slowness. As well as bedlinen and small necessaries, the politely inquisitive guards had also brought my mother’s second-largest trunk, hauled this far north by what seidhr I could not tell—and it did not seem they had searched its interior, at least.

The appearance of our luggage bespoke some graciousness upon the part of our hosts, and further intimated the men of Naras might not be finding their own confinement overly difficult. Our prison was amply sized, contained a water-room, and once the sun left the sky a soft glow remained in shell-shaped patterns painted upon the wall, dying gently as we readied ourselves for sleep.

I tried to discern the seidhr in such a wonder by laying a fingertip against luminescent stone, but it granted no illumination other than the physical. In fact, the meat inside my skull, usually so painfully active, was hard-pressed to find a solution to any quandary. Even twisting my hair into braids starred with red coral beads—all of Dun Rithell’s supply until traders brought more upriver in summer—did not help.

To make matters worse, I still occasionally shivered with the cold of our passage across the Glass, not to mention the memory of a snow-hag and a great lich, attempting the healing of Eol of Naras, the final terrible effort to reach this hidden city where Aeredh said some great Elder weapon lay waiting for my use. The shocks lingered in my flesh, echoes not fading as an ordinary nightmare but acquiring new and terrible resonance whenever I shut my eyes.

My shieldmaid’s attention was wholly taken with peering down the stone hall, testing the bars at intervals, listening intently for any sign of our guards, and performing what practice she could within the barred room’s confines. Her spear was too long for the space, but those women taken by the Black-Wingéd Ones may fight with anything to hand—even sand, and grass—so she performed the stretches and quick movements of unarmed battle assiduously every rising and dusk, and when the sun reached its apex as well.

I was content to sit and brood, to consume what liquid victuals the Elder brought us, and to attempt some manner of contemplation, so far as I could through the clamor vying with strange humming distraction inside my head.

“Solveig?” Arn half-turned, regarding me narrowly. Her hazel eyes were hot as banked coals, and normally I would have said something to ameliorate her temper.

There seemed little which could accomplish such a mighty feat at the moment, though. “I am trying to think,” I repeated, for perhaps the fifth time that day. My throat was dry, though a graceful silver ewer and two gemmed chalices rested upon a small table carved, like the rest of this room, from pure rock. It was akin to the dverger-crafted halls of Redhill, except the stonework of the Elder seems more grown than shaped.

Inside the jug was a version of what Aeredh and his Elder friends called winterwine, that memory-flavored drink filling as meat and bread, though not nearly quite so satisfying to the teeth.

“Oh, aye.” My shieldmaid did not mock me, though ’twas a near thing. “What good is that, though? We must do something.”

“I find there is little to be done at the moment, small one.” The name carried no little affection—I barely reach her shoulder, despite my father’s brawn and my mother’s tall slenderness. Even Astrid held more height, and she the youngest of Eril and Gwendelint’s children.

The image returned once more—our riverbank home under the shadow of Tarnarya reduced to a shattered, smoking skeleton, strewn with baked, shrunken corpses. If I sought sleep, sooner or later I dreamed of it; if I closed my eyes and attempted to still my thoughts in the way of a volva the vision thrust itself upon my inner eye. I could not tell if it were a true sending, a foretelling, or merely my own fears given deadly strength by passage so close to the terrible shadowed peaks of the Black Land.

The Marukhennor is hung about with gloom that eats hope, pouring despair into all living things. We had passed near indeed to those sawtooth masses of frost-choked stone, and even our leader had seemed prey to bleak imaginings in their shadow.

At the winter solstice, being concerned wholly with my own problems, I had been certain the Enemy was merely a tale of past danger to frighten children with. Our journey had not consumed more than a few moonturns, and yet I felt as old as some of the Elder are said to be. They do not die as the Secondborn do, those favored first children of the Allmother, though they hold that we mortals are her favorites, given the greatest gifts of any beings.

I cannot tell the truth of such an assertion, even now.

That morning, awakened from a fitful broken doze—I did not toss or turn, since Arneior slept upon the edge of the shelf-bed, closer to the door as befit a shieldmaid with a charge to protect—and not only clean but warm as I never thought to be again after the last terrible part of our trek, I had no energy for such philosophical matters.

The red coral did not help, though it is said to keep its wearer from being led into a bog. My favorite scentwood-and-horn comb, miraculously unbroken, lay in my lap; heartsblood-red wool, the second-finest dress I had, probably appeared drab to our Elder captors. It took far more concentration than usual to twist my hair properly, and I often gazed at my hands or comb as if I had forgotten how to use them.

“Nevertheless.” Arneior was not willing to admit any defeat, or even uncertainty. Battle or protection were her duties, negotiating with and winning over our new captors should have been mine.

There was no purchase upon that cliff, for all the spike-helmed Elder guards were courteous enough—when they spoke at all. Aeredh had promised to return when he could, but would he be allowed after parley with the Elder king whose lands we had reached? One did not build a hidden city in order to look kindly upon visitors; perhaps our guide and leader had been placed in a cell of his own after attempting diplomacy.

Four days since our arrival, all told, Arneior chafing more and more at inactivity when she was not performing the forms of weaponless combat or examining the contours of our quarters for any weakness, and I? I sat slothful, staring at the fall of light in the stone hallway, rousing myself barely enough to take some nourishment or wander to the water-room when the need arose.

Perhaps I could have tried harder to befriend the guards. Blond Floringaeld appeared daily as the sun reached his highest point, passing naught but greetings through the bars along with our daily repast. No information did that captain grant a lowly pair of Secondborn women.

I had not even enough wit to attempt a riddle or some other manner of enticement, letting my shieldmaid meet him with stiff politesse instead.

“Do not rattle the bars.” I was hoarse as if I had been screaming, and my head ached. “Please.”

Arn spread her slim capable hands. “I doubt I could shift them. Even the Wingéd Ones are silent; this is a curst place, and us dragged here by Northerners.” The last word was not obscene, but her tone almost managed to make it so. “False are they, claiming weregild where instead your brother did them a service, and now look. These Elder will probably keep us here until we die. ’Tis no more than an eyeblink to them.”

I almost winced at hearing my own fear given voice, and examined my comb afresh. My braids were done; now I had to fill the rest of the day with something before I could lie down once more and seek elusive sleep.

Some volva you are, the soft terrible voice of self-loathing whispered. A wisewoman may send her subtle selves free of any confinement; all it takes is will and concentration. Yet I lacked both at the moment, and I could not tell if my weakness stemmed from the strain of our travels or another, less wholesome direction.

“We are as nightjars to them, dashed upon rocks.” The words startled me. They were not mine but Tarit of Redhill’s, and now I wondered if I should have insisted on going to Dorael, where yet another Elder king reigned.

Perhaps we would have ended in a barred cell there, too. Even Lady Hajithe’s son had been loath to accompany us southward. The deep, inarguable certainty that I would never return to Dun Rithell taunted me, along with the vision of my home blasted by some unspeakable attack. The orukhar of the Enemy were fierce indeed. My father and his fellow warriors might hold those back for a time, yet the liches, not to mention other foul things…

Those were an altogether different matter. And here I lingered, trammeled in an Elder hutch like a rabbit in an osier cage, waiting for the sharp knife or the sacrificial fire.

“Sol.” Arneior’s shadow blotted out the light from the hall. She rested her fingertips upon my chin, tipping my face up like a dish. “You are not well.”

“Well enough.” If I admitted any weakness, what would my shieldmaid have to lean upon? She trusted me to know what seidhr to perform, my weirding ways more than adequate at home.

Ever since we left that haven, I had failed miserably in every way that counted.

She might have said more, but a soft sound interrupted us with far more efficacy than shout or clamor. When you are locked in a silent prison, every footfall is as a festival drum.

My shieldmaid whirled, darting for the end of the bed, and had her spear to hand in a trice. Every time the guards arrived she was armed, and it would have been comforting if I could have readied some manner of seidhr as well.

I could not. It was midday. And we had visitors.

Great choking fumes rose from torn earth where the eldest son of the Allmother ended his flight, and shrouded his new home in shadow. His servants fear the great eye of day no less than their dread lord and perhaps it is their misery which provides fuel for the brooding dark; the Black Land is vast, but in the end no more than a prison cell.

—Faeron One-hand, The Nature of the Black Land

Floringaeld was not merely a captain, but the head of Waterstone’s royal guard. With a spiked helm tucked under his arm, his fine green cloak draped over bright silvergold armor, and his long golden hair, he would have been accounted more than handsome enough in Dun Rithell even though he bore no beard. It was strange that the Northerners and Elder did not grow such a crop upon their cheeks and chin; one would have thought that the cold would induce them to the measure in self-defense.

He halted at the other side of the bars, and he was not alone. Of course, even while exchanging pleasantries through our cage-door he was usually accompanied by at least two other Elder—as if my shieldmaid and I were mighty enough hostages to need such caution—but this time, his companions were familiar figures.

Aeredh son of Aerith no longer wore the black garb Secondborn lords in the North preferred. Instead, the Crownless of Nithraen appeared in clothing of Elder make and style, with the particular grace of Laeliquaende. Soft is their fabric, and wondrous light even when woven for warmth; trews and a long velvet tunic more closely resembling a robe, both near a young birch’s bark in hue, suited him rather well.

His blondness was paler than Floringaeld’s, though the pointed tips of their ears were of like kind and rose through their hair. Aeredh’s eyes were a richer blue, and seeing them together one would be hard pressed to say which man was younger, though the son of Aerith was slighter in build. A silver fillet rested upon his brow, and he smiled upon seeing us.

Behind him, slightly taller and dressed in unrelieved black, Eol of Naras glanced at the bars of our cage. His mouth was a straight line, his dark eyes cool and distant, and the glitter riding his shoulder was the colorless gem in a swordhilt. Since we were not journeying in the wilds, he had not wrapped it with leather to deny pursuers its gleam.

They had taken all our group’s weapons save Arn’s spear. It seemed rather important that Eol wore his blade openly, but the scalding passing through me was not for that reason. He was walking about, whole and well. Naturally the Elder here would have healed the wound in his shoulder; I had only managed to draw out a shard of the great lich’s blade. A poor volva I proved to be, unable to fully stanch the bleeding, and even the burning vitality of one who had a second form had not been able to close the flesh properly.

I had glimpsed the wolf in him more than once. It peered through his coal-dark eyes for a moment again, but I closed my own lids, stricken with relief that my incompetence had not killed him.

When I did so the image of my home, blackened and burnt, rose before me once more in pitiless detail. I could not dispel nor had I spoken of it to my shieldmaid, though she was the one to record a volva’s oracular utterances from dream or vision before they fled waking memory. I had been hoping it would retreat as any normal nightmare, since I could not discern if it were truth or mere fearful imagining.

“Well.” Arneior addressed an invisible point above Aeredh’s golden head. “I thought we had been forgotten.”

“We would rather forget ourselves first, my lady shieldmaid.” The Elder’s smile was instant, and warm; at Dun Rithell we had mistaken him for a mere youth. Of course his kind have means of appearing near-mortal when they walk among us, and did so more often than one might suppose even as we southroners forgot the menace beyond the Marukhennor.

Perhaps the Northerners’ appeal to the Althing might have met with some manner of firm reply instead of silence had they been openly accompanied by such a fabled creature; perhaps my brother Bjorn might not have struck an Elder’s companion with one large fist, knocking the other young man down to meet his end upon a loose, skull-cracking rock.

Wondering upon what might have been can drive even the most sensible person mad.

Would we have believed what was before us, had Aeredh shown his ears to the Althing? Safe on familiar banks, protected both by our river-mother and Tarnarya’s white-hooded bulk, we had known the age of wonders long past, the Elder all departed, and the Black Land merely a tale to frighten unruly children with.

I wished Arn and I were still there, cradled in that blessed ignorance. Even if it meant we might be unaware of impending disaster as the Enemy stirred.

“The king of this place is an old friend,” Aeredh continued, and though he spoke to my shieldmaid his gaze rested upon me. The seidhr in it was a heaviness, but did not meet with my own. I merely sat upon the shelf-bed, my comb loosely clasped in both hands, and sought to appear interested instead of almost too exhausted to stand. “He wishes to meet one whom the valkyrja have blessed, and my lady alkuine. The entire valley is most curious about you both.”

Arneior half-turned, glancing over her shoulder. Her seidhr-cleaned ring-and-scale was bright as Floringaeld’s armor, and her spearblade glistered almost angrily. She clearly expected me to do my duty in this situation, since there was nothing for her to fight—or kill.

I had to say something, yes, but what? My throat ached dryly, no matter how many Elder draughts I drained from gem-crusted goblets. “No doubt you have not seen your friend for some time, Lord Aeredh.” Each word was a husk of itself, as if I were shaking free of a winter illness. “Your reunion must have been joyous.”

“Blame me.” Eol of Naras’s gaze had a weight to it as well, though he possessed no weirding save a second skin and that is not properly seidhr but another wonder entirely. He took a single step closer to the bars, and his expression was strange, almost as if he were the one trapped in a cage instead of breathing free air. “I lay near death for some while, and could not be called upon to give counsel.”

Was I supposed to believe a Secondborn would sway an Elder king’s mind? All I had seen of Aeredh’s people so far was much pride, and no little disdain for those of us who suffer mortal death and disease.

Although that was not quite fair, for they were mighty allies. Daerith the harpist had fended off the great lich upon the Glass; the others of our band had fought with skill and bravery against orukhar and worse while shepherding not just Arn and me but the wolves of Naras through the killing freeze.

Yet we would not have left Dun Rithell at all save for a lie. I could not tell how to properly weigh each individual event since setting forth from home—one more sign I was not a true volva at all, despite the inked bands circling my wrists and the runes between them speaking of each test I had passed.

“Step back some little, my lady shieldmaid.” Floringaeld pronounced the word for Arn’s kind cautiously, handling the southron dialect with care. He had grown far more facile with its use over the past few days, though only exchanging commonplaces. Still, Elder love all manner of language, from their own and past ours into the speech of birds, the long slow sighcreak of trees. ’Tis said they woke and conversed with many things long before the very first sunrise, while the sky was a great river of Vardhra’s star-lamps and the Enemy merely laying his plans in a forgotten corner.

The captain also produced a ring of keys, jangling musically as he moved. Arn retreated a few paces, but her knuckles were white upon her spear.

“I believe they mean to free us, small one, and to show us in their Hidden City much as prize livestock during a riverfair.” I lay aside my comb and rose, though my knees were none too steady. “It will be a change, at least.”

I meant it as a jest, however bleak. Aeredh’s smile fell away, and Eol looked pained. But the stiffness in Arn’s shoulders eased, and when I reached her side to lay my fingertips carefully upon her left arm a warm humming sense of breathing life filled me, pushing back the persistent chill.

I was still volva enough for that, at least.

The bars slid aside, grooves at floor and ceiling letting them move with only a faint metallic ringing, sweet as the keys’ jangling chorus. “You are guests of Taeron Goldspear the High-helm, king of Laeliquaende,” Floringaeld intoned. “The son of Aerith has pledged to your good behavior, and you may tread where you will save for private houses. Our safety here depends on secrecy; should you attempt to leave this valley no mercy shall be shown.”

How often does he give this speech? I could not tell, and to ask would be insulting. Yet I was sorely tempted.

Instead, I kept my hand upon Arneior’s arm. “Considering there is nothing but leagues of lich- and orukhar-infested wilderness in every direction, my lord Floringaeld, we might think it wise to tarry even without such warning. We thank you for your care during our captivity.”

A somewhat stiff half-bow was all I received for my restraint. Arneior exited our cell with her head high and her spear ready; I followed slowly, my joints creaking as Idra sometimes complained hers did near the end of her life.

Of course the air held no appreciable difference outside the cage, yet I breathed a little easier.

Only a little.

The cunning word, the bright eye, the quick hand, all these are seidhr. But the word means much more, for it encompasses the weirding wonders performed by the Wise, the natural laws which seem miraculous to those unknowing, the powers of the gods themselves, and the secret spark in every living thing. There is still more contained within—loneliness lives there, and the will to surpass one’s own mortal self…

—The Saga of Icevein

Our other traveling companions had been freed as well, and there were two white Northern horses to bear Arn and me across the green fields and pastures. Though I was glad enough at the prospect—it was some distance to the shining city—I also could not suppress a flinch when the Elder-bred mount given to my use turned her head.

Her mild gaze reminded me of Farsight, the mare most likely lost in the wrack and ruin of Nithraen. If she had escaped the city’s collapse and eluded the orukhar—not to mention the great wyrm making its home in the now-darkened caves—she would still have to contend with winter’s bony, ravenous grasp, no longer held back from the hills over the Elder city.

Arn hardly noticed my hesitation, and fairly tossed me into the saddle. Perhaps she was simply delighted to be breathing free air again; she vaulted atop her own horse with enviable ease.

A bright nooning lay over the great green cup-valley holding Laeliquaende, called Waterstone in our southron tongue. Once it had been a mountain-girt lake, so deep the tallest spires might have only pricked its surface from underneath, but those days were long past. Now broad stone-paved roads, proud cousins to the ones running near the Eastronmost Steading of Lady Hajithe or from the great gate of Nithraen to Dorael, spread in lazy patterns from the shining city to outlying steadings and halls, running alongside several leftover brooks and streamlets. Copses clothed in dark evergreen or vivid autumnal leaf dotted the plain, and though the depths of new winter—the most grievous time of year, after the solstice heralding sunlight’s lengthening but before any melt is possible—held the land outside in its iron-iced palm, the Elder somehow kept such murderous weather at bay. While the trees might change color they did not shed their robes; a thin veining of green remained at the heart of each leaf, as in the center of every yellowed grassblade at Nithraen.

Only Arneior and I were granted mounts. The wolves of Naras made a cortege about us, the Elder who had accompanied Aeredh from the riven city both before and behind as well as a small contingent of the Hidden City’s green-and-gold-armored guards. All in all it was a grand sight, but I felt no wonder.

I was too busy clinging to a saddle of design far different than the southron kind or even the equipage of the Northerners visiting Dun Rithell. The cavalry of Taeron Goldspear was legendary, and their tack reflected all the art of the Elder. The seat was surprisingly comfortable, the mare’s gait so easy I hardly had to touch the reins—which were in scarred Efain’s hands anyway—but my head throbbed abominably and the steady motion threatened to make me ill.

Were I to retch the only thing produced would be Elder winterwine, and though that drink does not burn with bile during an upward journey it also does not taste half so good as upon its downward path. Besides, the Elder do not suffer such physical upsets, and my pride, though much smaller, would not permit it either.

Not if I could help it.

Each hoof-fall chimed upon pale stone, and to the others it must have seemed musical indeed. Arneior suffered Soren to take her own reins and glanced often in my direction as we rode, each time wearing a disbelieving smile. It was not quite the bemused grin she displayed after our ride upon antlered winter-deer, but I understood her joy.

After all, we had survived the ruin of an entire Elder city, endured the Wild, the Mistwood, and the Glass, not to mention the killing cold of the Marukhennor. Orukhar and liches and the many-legged weavers of the dark woods were left far behind; now we rode white horses under an achingly blue winter sky. There were Elder about, and most sang as they wandered or attended to vineyard and field. Some danced too, apparently from a manner of overwhelming joy, like my sister Astrid upon certain summer days.

Efain gave me many a curious glance; he hardly needed to guide my mount. He had his sword again, as did the other Northerners. Their black-clad forms were blots against white stone and rolling green; I made no effort to inquire after his health.

I was too busy keeping my stomach from wringing itself dry.

As we drew nearer Laeliquaende’s walls, the music intensified. No doubt my companions found it sweet, but discord lurked under the notes. I tried to discern whether it was simply the pain in my head, spilling down my neck and radiating outward from my stiffened spine, tainting the melody so. Yet each time I gained some equanimity the vision of my charred, broken home rose and every tradeweight of pleasure, no matter how small, vanished.

I shudder to remember that ride. Though it stood wide, the great southronmost gate of Waterstone—the color of horn and bound with mellow brassy metal—appeared to me merely a larger cell-door, and the streets beyond resounded with that jarring, discordant noise. Houses with steeply pitched or rounded but always brightly tiled roofs did not crowd each other too closely, gardens peeped through filigreed gates of powdery metal or stood open to the admiration of passersby, fountains played in every courtyard or square. Each building seemed not to have been built but grown, trimmed and shaped as it rose from the earth itself, and they were all different shades of paleness—nacre to riverfoam, summer cloud to the fleece of a spring lamb, horn to parchment, and all the different hues of bleached linen or wool.

Even the towers, rising to piercing spires or bulb-tipped, graciously melded with their surrounding buildings instead of looming over them. Elder crowded in many a doorway, their gazes lambent and their high-pointed ears poking through hair of every shade, a few even ruddy as my shieldmaid. They all bear a certain similarity, the Children of the Star, and to see it repeated in a crowd is to suddenly doubt one’s own mortal lineaments.

The Northerners smiled as they walked, even Efain’s mien far less forbidding than usual. Daerith the harpist was at the head of our group with Aeredh, conferring as they walked; each Elder was in the flowing, comfortable costume of the Hidden City.

It should have been glorious. In an Elder settlement, a traveler’s weariness falls away. There were even children about, though few compared to the number of adults and looking a little less… well, alien than their parents and teachers. Indeed, the very young among them may oft be mistaken for bright, laughing mortal younglings, like my own beloved Astrid when she was but four or five summers high.

The Elder are born knowing much, ’tis said, but also arrive from the womb amused at the world’s follies.

Occasionally pairs of littles darted toward our group to hand over flowers; Eol was granted a nosegay instead of a single bloom and thanked the black-haired child who handed it to him with a grave, smiling bow.

None approached me, though—or Arn. My shieldmaid viewed all with an interested air, and her spearblade shone bright as the armor of the guards. She seemed to be having a fine time, her hair alight in sunshine, and hers was the only face that did not seem sickly or vaguely malignant, hiding some secret purpose.

And I? Every hoof-fall was a torment, the endless singing scraped my already frayed nerves, and salt damp collected along my lower back, under my arms, in my palms. The red coral beads in my braids were chips of ice, as if fragments of winter still clung to me.

“My lady Solveig?” Efain had finally decided to address me. He dropped back slightly, the reins clasped in one half-gloved hand, and the mare did not find this at all amiss, plodding placidly along. “It has been some few days. Are you well?”

How could I be? Yet I essayed a smile, though it felt more like a rictus on a frozen corpse. “Well enough. Was your captivity endurable, my lord Northerner?”

“Well, Gelad would not stop pacing, and Soren fiddling with bits of leatherwork, and Karas fretting when there was fresh news of our captain, or no news at all.” Efain’s scars—one bisecting his eyebrow, the other along his jaw—were pale compared to a warrior’s weathering upon the rest of his face. “Even the Elder held with us seemed a trifle out of countenance. The folk are passing cautious here.”

“So it seems.” I could find nothing else to say.

After a short, excruciating pause, he cleared his throat. “I must offer you our thanks,” he said, quietly. “’Tis a wondrous deed, drawing forth a heartseeker. Eol owes you his life.”

Then he may take it, and use it elsewhere. I wish to go home. It was a child’s response, and childish anger fair threatened to choke me. The wolves of