The Song of Andiene - By Elisa Blaisdell Page 0,31

the guard said. “Pass. Go on. Go on.” The grizane dragged Ilbran forward. “Well, good mother, where are you going?” the guard asked. His voice was young and light, not taking his duties too seriously.

“Out to the blaggorn fields, for straw to mend my roof, if there is any left. With my useless grandson to help me. Come on!” The grizane gave Ilbran’s arm a jerk that nearly pulled his already sprained shoulder from its socket.

“Good luck,” the guard called after them. “Down by the marshes, it’s harder gleaning, but it won’t be so brittle after the summer.”

So they passed through the gates. Outside, they walked in silence. Though Ilbran listened, he heard no sound of the hunt rising behind him. It was good, so good to be alive, good in spite of all that had happened. He had not known that so much pleasure was possible from breathing sweet air and feeling warm sunlight on his skin. This was the day of my death, he thought in wonder. He followed the grizane gladly.

In a little while, they turned from the main road. Ilbran felt the sun hot on the left side of his face. They were traveling north, farther north than he had ever been.

Something caught his hand, tearing it like a courser’s claw, leaving a poisoned burning from wrist to fingertip. Ilbran put the wound to his lips and tried to draw out the pain. “Follow me closely,” the grizane said. “The thornfruit hems us in on either side.”

Ilbran sniffed the spicy air. Sure enough, there was a sweet scent, like thornfruit candy fresh from the baker’s oven. The sun burned almost as fiercely as aftersummer which follows the first storms of autumn. “Is there any water?” he asked.

“There is a spring ahead,” the grizane replied. “A good one that does not fail, even in the heat of summer.”

They turned from the path to a narrower trail, where the thornfruit plucked at sleeve and leg. The spring lay cold in a circle of stones. Ilbran felt his way over them and drank greedily, scooping up the water in his hands.

“Here is the traveler’s cup,” the grizane said. “Use it for your last mouthful, at least.”

Ilbran dipped up water and drank, the same as any other mouthful of water would be. He turned the wrought-metal cup over in his hands, trying to feel out its shape with his fingers. “Who set it here, I wonder?” he asked idly. The answer chilled him.

“Ones who were no blood and bone of your kind. Before your ancestors entered this land, a thousand years ago. It is part of the enchantment of the earth.” Ilbran dropped the cup as though it were a snake writhing in his hand. It clanged against a rock and rolled away.

“An unthankful way to treat a gracious gift,” the grizane said. “The pavement you walk on was laid, the houses you live in were raised before your kind walked the earth. Why should little things be different?”

“Perhaps I notice them more because I am in the company of a magician,” Ilbran said. “It is good water, but where is the food to follow?”

“We will walk long before we find food.”

Ilbran laughed aloud. “When you were raiding the clothes chest in that lord’s house, why did you not think to rob the larder too?”

There was a strange note in the grizane’s voice. “You can still laugh, after what has happened?”

“Why not?” Ilbran’s mood had swung to recklessness again. “I do not know why you wish for me to follow you, but I am glad to be alive. About now, they would have been scattering my ashes to the four ways of the earth. This is not the time for grief—though I will not forget. When you have no more need of me, I had thought that I might find my way to the forest folk, my mother’s people. I have heard tales that they would welcome even someone who was maimed or blind.”

“That would be a wise choice,” said the grizane. “The forest people are like any others, in spite of the tales told of them. They welcome strangers eagerly, and even a blind man would find a home and a wife and some work within his skill. But that is not for you yet.”

As they followed the winding paths to the north, Ilbran’s mind was filled with those words. What does he want with me? I am but a useless weight to stumble behind him. They walked slowly.