Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar

L'lewythi, now looking more like an overgrown child than ever, laughed a child's laugh, grabbed Olias' hand, and led him away from the cliffs. They stumbled down a sharp slope toward a pampas of richly green grass leading to a field where tall corn stalks brushed back and forth through the air. To Olias, everything smelled like lavender —which to him had always been the scent of his mother's skin, left there by the soap she bought from a local tradesman.

They moved toward the entrance to a grove, but as they neared it, Olias saw there were no trees beyond the few dozen that rose before them, arranged in two opposing rows, between which stood a stained glass archway.

Olias slowed his steps.

Something about this was familiar, but he didn't know why.

The trees were as tall as a castle's tower, each with a thick black trunk. The branches of each tree were obscured by onion layers of bleak blue leaves which collectively blossomed into human faces, each one turned skyward and staring up through milky, pupilless eyes. Every face wore the pinched, tight expression of concentrated grief, and as the wind passed through the trees, the faces opened their mouths and moaned deeply, steadily, mournfully.

L'lewythi looked upon them as if they were old friends.

Olias whispered, 'They sound as if they're in pain.'

'They are, but they're used to it. They're Keening-woods, and this is what they do.'

Keeningwoods, thought Olias.

And then: the Forest of Sorrows!

Looking backward, he began to see a pattern. L'lewythi had taken various parts of Valdemar and transposed them into this place the same way a skilled musician

would transpose one theme into another. The Barrens could very well have been L'lewythi's version of the Border—Ylem's uncanny form attested to that, and Ylem itself could very well have been based partly on the legends of the Border's creatures, and partly on the Companions, the sea taking the place of Companion's Field, and here the Keeningwoods replaced the Forest of Sorrows.

It both made sense and did not.

Of course a child like L'lewythi would have to build upon things he already knew, and who in Valdemar didn't know of the Companions or their field, or the Forest of Sorrows, or countless other beings and places? (Some part of him shuddered inwardly at the thought of what a child might do with the concept of the outKing-dom or the Pelagirs.)

Pointing toward the Keeningwoods, Olias asked L'lewythi, 'Why do they make such an anguished sound?'

'To remind all travelers that there are only three things that really matter, people you love, your memories, and sadness.' Such a wistful look in his silver eyes as he said this!

They passed under the Keeningwoods and through the archway, emerging on the threshold of a resplendent stone city where a raucous band of black-winged children flew past them, all smiling and greeting L'lewythi by name.

'They're my friends,' said L'lewythi. 'I like having friends. Even if I had to ... make them up. . . .'

Just outside the city, they came to an ancient bridge made of sticks and bones. When they reached the middle, L'lewythi stopped and pointed over the side.

Beneath the clear, stilled surface of the turquoise water was a series of evenly spaced, hollowed boulders, each with a transparent sheet of glass attached to the front Inside each of the boulders—which weren't boulders at all, Olias saw upon closer examination, but glass spheres like those within L'lewythi's strange pipe, only covered in moss and isinglass—sat a claylike lump. Some were shapeless blobs, others more human in shape, some were skeletal, others so corpulent their forms could barely be contained. Still others were merely hand-sized, featureless fetuses. All of the figures huddled with knees pulled up tightly against their chests.

None of them seemed complete. Their dark, sunken eyes stared blankly at the floating weeds and golden fish swimming by.

'You see them?' asked L'lewythi. 'Don't they look safe?'

'No,' whispered Olias. 'They look imprisoned.'

'Oh, no, no, I'd ... I'd never do anything like that. I don't like feeling lonely, and I know that they feel the same way, so I made sure that the water is filled with stories and music to keep them company.'

'Why do you want them to feel safe?'

'Because it's . . . it's nice to feel that way. I don't want them to be lonely. Lonely is cold. I don't like the cold. There's so much cold, sometimes. Don't you ever feel cold?'

'Most of my life.'

'That's sad.'

'No, it isn't. It's just the way that is. Your Keening-woods weep; I feel cold.'

'But not here?'

Olias shrugged. 'No, this is ... this is fine.' He looked down once more at the beings in the water. 'How long will you keep them this way?'

L'lewythi stared down at his feet. 'I guess ... I don't—I mean, until. . . .'

'Until when?'

'Until I decide what to make out of them.'

Olias stared at his companion, then said, very slowly, very carefully, 'How did you come by this power? I've heard of no Herald-Mage who possesses such abilities. What . . . empowered you?'

'I don't know. My dreams, I guess. I dream a lot. Sometimes ... I don't have a mother or father. If I ever did have, I can't remember. Mostly I live in the stables of my village. The grooms there are kind to me. They make sure that I have food and blankets.' He stood a little taller, a little prouder. 'I sweep up after the horses. I do a good job, the stable-master says so. I have a fine feather pillow. The stable-master's wife made it for me. She says I'm a nice boy, and it's a shame the other children won't. . . won't play with me.'

Olias almost laughed at L'lewythi's referring to himself as a child. Perhaps in his mind, yes, but his body was that of the strongest armsmen. A child's mind in a warrior's body.

But ... a stable-hand? Gods! Were they in a place such as Haven, a boy with L'lewythi's Gifts would be treated with the deepest respect and awe. No one would dare think to make a Gifted one sleep among the horses.

'L'lewythi,' said Olias, slowly and carefully, 'why were you made to sleep in the stables?'

'Because no one would take me into their home.'

'Even though they knew of your powers?'

L'lewythi stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the ground and shook his head. 'I never . . . never understood why I could do some of the things I could—can do. I thought they might be bad things, some of them, so I never . . . told anyone. I never showed them.'

'But certainly there must have been ...' Olias sighed, puzzling for a moment over how to say this. 'There must have been people in your village who suffered, either from sickness or injury. Children, gods save us! Certainly there must have been children who fell ill and might have died if—'

'Oh, yes! There was one child, a little girl, who became so sick with fever that no one thought she would live if a Healer were not sent for. But I made her better.'

'How, if no one knew?'

A bird—strangely metallic in coloring—flew overhead at that moment, and L'lewythi waved his hand toward it. Its wings went limp and its body began to plummet toward the ground, but a few seconds before it would have struck the earth L'lewythi waved his hand once again and the bird—wrenched from its trance—frantically flapped its wings and, screeching, flew away.

'That's how I did it,' said L'lewythi. 'I can make people sleep, or not see me. That's how I got into the little girl's bedroom and made her all better. Everyone in the village, they said it was a miracle, a blessing from the gods.'

'And anytime someone in the village needed healing, you . . . you made them sleep or not see you?'

'Yes.'