Fires of Azeroth

"Be careful always what you say," she advised him. "When you speak in the Kurshin tongue, beware of using names they might know, whatever the language. But henceforth you and I should speak in their language constantly. You must gather what you can of it. It is a matter of our safety, Vanye."

"I am trying to do that," he said. She nodded approval, and they occupied themselves the rest of the day in walking about the village and the edge of the fields, talking together, impressing in his memory every word that could be forced there.

He had expected that Morgaine would choose to leave by the next morning, and she did not; and when that night came and he asked her would they leave on the morrow, she shrugged and in talking of something else, never answered the question. By the day after that, he did not ask, but took his ease in the village and settled into its routine, as Morgaine seemed to have done.

It was a healing quiet, as if the long nightmare that lay at their backs were illusion, and this su

But conscience worried at him, for the days they spent grew to many more than a handful. And he dreamed once, when they slept side by side-both slept, for sitting watch seemed u

"Bad dreams in such a place as this?" she asked him. "There have been places with more reason for them."

But she looked concerned that night too, and lay staring into the fire long afterward. What the dream had been he could not clearly remember, only that there seemed something as sinister in his recollection as the creeping of a serpent on a nest, and he could not prevent it.

These folk will haunt me, he thought wretchedly. They two had no place here, and knew it; and yet selfishly lingered, out of time and place, seeking a little peace… taking it as a thief might take, stealing it from its possessors. He wondered whether Morgaine harbored the same guilt… or whether she had passed beyond it, being what she was, and impelled by the need to survive.

He was almost moved to argue it with her then; but a dark mood was on her, and he knew those. And when he faced her in the morning, there were folk about them; and later he put it off again, for when he faced the matter, the odds against them outside this place were something he had no haste to meet: Morgaine was gathering forces, and was not ready, and he was loath to urge her with arguments… when the geas fell on her, she passed beyond reason; and he did not want to be the one to start it.

So he bided, mending harness, working at arrows for a bow which he traded of a villager who was an excellent bowyer. It was offered free, once admired, but in his embarrassment Morgaine intervened with the offer of a return gift, a gold ring of strange workmanship, which must have lain buried in her kit a very long time. He was disturbed at that, suspecting that it might have meant something to her, but she laughed and said that it was time she left it behind.

So he had the bow, and the bowyer a ring that was the envy of his companions. He practiced his archery with the young folk and with Sin, who dogged his tracks faithfully, and strove to do everything that he did.

In the pen and agraze on the grassy margin of the fields, the horses grew sleek and lazy as the village's own cattle… and Morgaine, always the one who could not rest in an hour's delay, sat long hours in the sun and talked with the elders and the young herders, drawing on a bit of goatskin what became a great marvel to the villagers, who had never seen a map. Though they had the knowledge of which it grew, they had never seen their world set forth in such a perspective.

Mirrind, the village was named; and the plain beyond the forest was Azeroth; the forest was Shathan. In the center of the great circle that was Azeroth, she drew a skein of rivers, feeding a great river called the Narn; amid that circle also was written athatin, which was the Fires- or plainly said, the Gate of the World.

So peaceful Mirrind knew of the Gate, and held it in awe: Azerothen Athatin. Thus far their knowledge of the world did extend. But Morgaine did not question them on it closely. She made her map and lettered it in qhalur runes, a fine fair band.

Vanye learned such runes… as he learned the spoken language. He sat on the step of the meeting hall and traced the symbols in the dust, learning them by writing all the new words that he had learned, and trying to forget the scruples in such things that came of being Kurshin. The children of Mirrind, who thronged him when he would tend the horses or who had such zeal to fetch his arrows that he feared for their safety, quickly found this exercise tedious and deserted him.

"Elarrh-work," they pronounced it, which meant anything that was above them. They had awe of it, but when there was no amusement to come of it, and no pictures, they drifted away-all but Sin, who squatted barefoot in the dust and tried to copy.

Vanye looked up at the lad, who worked so intently, and poignant recollection stirred in him, of himself, who had never been taught, but that he had sought it, who had insisted oo having the things his legitimate brothers were born to have-and thereby gained what learning his mountain home could offer.

Now among all the children of Mirrind, here sat one who reached and wanted beyond the others, and who-when they had taken their leave-would be most hurt, having learned to desire something Mirrind could not give. The boy had no parents; they had died in some long-ago calamity. He had not asked into it. Sin was everyone's child, and no one's in particular. The others will be only ordinary, he thought, but what of this one? Remembering his sword in Sin's small band, he felt a chill, and blessed himself.

"What do you, khemeis?" Sin asked.

"I wish you well." He rubbed out the runes with his palm and rose up, with a great heaviness on him.

Sin looked at him strangely, and he turned to go up the steps of the hall. There was a sudden outcry somewhere down Mirrind's single street . . , not the shrieks of playing children, which were frequent, but a woman's outcry; and in sudden apprehension he turned. Hard upon it came the shouting of men, in tones of grief and anger.

He hesitated, his pulse that had seemed to stop now quickening into familiar panic; he hung between that direction and Morgaiue's, paralyzed in the moment, and then habit and duty sent him ru

He needed not explain: Changeling was in her hand and she was coming, near to ru

Sin lingered at the bottom of the steps, and tagged after them as they walked the commons toward the gathering knot of villagers. The sound of weeping reached them… and when Morgaine arrived the gathering gave way for her, all but a few: the elders Melzein and Melzeis, who stood trying to hold back their tears; and a young woman and a couple in middle years who knelt holding their dead. To and fro they rocked, keening and shaking their heads.

"Eth," Morgaine murmured, staring down at a young man who had been one of the brightest and best of the village: hardly in his twenties, Eth of clan Melzen, but skilled in hunting and archery, a happy man, a herder by trade, who had laughed much and loved his young wife and had no enemies. His throat had been cut, and on his half-naked body were other wounds that could not have brought death in themselves, but would have caused great pain before he was killed.

They gave him his death, Vanye thought fearfully. He must have told them what they wanted. Then he reckoned what kind of man he had become, who could think foremost of that. He had known Eth. He found himself trembling and close to being sick as if he had never looked on the like.

Some of the children were sick, and clung to their parents crying. He found Sin against his side, and set his hand on the boy's shoulder, drew him over to his clan elders and gave him into their care. Bytheis took Sin in his arms and Sin's face was still set and stricken.

"Should the children look on this?" Morgaine asked, shocking them from their daze. "You are in danger. Set armed men out on the road and all about the village and let them watch. Where was he found? Who brought him?"

One of the youths stepped forward-Tal, whose clothes were bloody and his hands likewise. "I, lady. Across the ford." Tears ran down his face. "Who has done this? Lady– why?"

Council met in the hall, the while the Melzen kindred prepared the body of their son for burial; and there was unbearable heaviness in the air. Bythein and Bytheis wept quietly; but Sersen-clan was angry in its grief, and its elders were long in gathering the self-possession to speak. The silence waited on them, and at last the old man of the pair rose and walked to and fro across the fireside.

"We do not understand," he cried at last, his wrinkled hands trembling as he gestured. "Lady, will you not answer me? You are not our lady, but we have welcomed you as if you were, you and your khemeis. There is nothing in the village we would deny you. But now do you ask a life of us and not explain?"

"Serseis," Bytheis objected, his old voice quavering, and he put a hand on Serseis' sleeve to restrain him.

"No, I am listening," Morgaine said.

"Lady," said Serseis, "Eth went where you sent him: so say all the young folk. And you bade him not tell his elders, and he obeyed you. Where did you send him? He was not khemeis; he was his parents' only child; he never went to that calling. But did you not sense that the desire was in him? His pride made him take risks for you. To what did you send him? May we not know? And who has done so terrible a thing?"

"Strangers," she answered. Not all the words could Vanye understand, but he understood most, and filled in the rest well enough. At the feelings which gathered in the air of this hall now, he stood close to Morgaine. Shall I get the horses? he had asked her in his own tongue, before this council met No, she had answered, with such distraction that he knew she pulled both ways, with anxiety to be moving and guilt for Mirrind's danger. She lingered, and knew better; and he knew better, and sweat gathered on his sides and trickled under the armor. "We had hoped they would not come here."