But there was more. Something in the air that tasted like menace, or a promise. Like a distant melody that haunted him from afar. It was so like music that he glanced to where Keashil lay. But Althak’s harp lay silently beside her filled with moonlight.
Movement caught the corner of his eye at the same moment he realised that Tenari was not beside him. He could see her, or a figure that must be her, gliding silently over the frost towards the group of trees.
A chill that was more than just the frost ate into his bones. He pulled his blankets around him tightly and shivered. It did not occur to him to follow her at first but as she disappeared among the trees that strange feeling grew stronger.
Silently he rose, still clutching his blanket around him, and followed. Her path was clearly marked out on the frosty ground. Frozen grass crunched under his feet and the cold could be felt through his boots.
The strangeness grew into an exquisite pain that was not pain as he approached the trees. They loomed darkly ahead of him, and among them the moonlight was reflected off something.
Under the trees it was warmer, as Althak had said it would be. What had Hrangil said about this place? He could not remember. The frost had not come here but it was still very cold. He pushed his way through a brake of undergrowth, following Tenari’s clear path of turned leaves and broken twigs.
Beyond the undergrowth he found himself in an open space where the trees crowded darkly against the sky. A ring of pale stones, each as tall as a Vorthenki, gleamed whitely in the moonlight and in the centre of the ring stood Tenari gazing at him dumbly.
Other than her blank gaze she gave him no acknowledgement. The strangeness in the air intensified here; the very stones were haunted by it. He stepped towards her, wanting to speak but hesitating, as if his voice might break some deep magic.
Magic was almost tangible. It swam in the moonlight and lurked in the shadows. The ring of stones was alive with it.
With a sudden clarity of vision Azkun realised that the stones were indeed alive. On each stone was carved an eye, and each eye was looking at him with silent inscrutability. He could feel their minds, or the moonlit shadows of their minds, as they surveyed him with an awful depth of vision, as if they looked into his very soul.
He felt suffocated by their gaze. They seemed to be dissecting him. When he tried to cry out no sound came from his throat. His limbs were lead weights. He tried to run, grabbing at Tenari’s arm to pull her with him but his legs buckled, pitching him forward. His head struck something and darkness blotted out the moonlight.
He awoke just before sunrise stiff with cold and sore from lying on the hard ground. His blankets had rolled off him in the night. No one else was awake yet so he rose as quietly as he could and walked away from the hollow to stretch his legs. His dream bothered him. Not far away the copse of trees hunched like a crouched animal. He wondered if he should go and see if there was a ring of stones, but he was too uneasy at the thought. It was just a dream, Hrangil had said something about the copse yesterday and he had built it into a nightmare. His head had no injury from his fall. Tenari still lay in the hollow. It was just a dream.
But he found footprints in the frost that matched his own leading to the copse. None returned and Tenari’s footprints were nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 21: Meyathal
The dream haunted him for the next two days as they travelled through the mountains that separated the plains of Relanor from the pastures and deserts of Anthor. The icy wind left them as they entered the relative shelter of the mountains but a thin, misty drizzle rolled in from the east.
The days were spent hugging wet cloaks around themselves, the nights in sodden blankets around frugal fires of wet wood. Olcish developed a cough and Keashil looked pale and weak. Althak made the lad a brew of herbs he found on a hillside, but the cough only grew worse. Menish’s leg began to pain him again but he said nothing. Home was not far away and there he would find relief, not before.
For Azkun the weather was a minor discomfort compared to the unease of his dream. He felt the eyes of the stones staring at him as they travelled, hidden behind trees and rocks, making evil plans for him. They haunted him.
Once he ventured to ask Hrangil what he knew about the copse of trees, but he told no one of his dream. That would admit its reality. Hrangil made vague, sinister references to the evil Monnar who built magic circles in these mountains and killed men there. He knew little about them, and his peculiar way of answering Azkun’s questions, as if it were some obscure test, was both irritating and uninformative.
One thing he did make clear was that the Monnar were responsible for Gilish’s death, for they had told him that the Duzral Eye lay in the Chasm of Kelerish.
Meanwhile the nagging feeling that they were watching him continued and he grew more and more anxious. Was it some judgement from the dragons? The guilt he had acquired unwittingly on the raft of cow skins still lay heavily on him. The guilt that Vorish had given him by having that man executed in his place was also fresh. He had drunk wine against his vow at the banquet at Atonir, was it that? And they had killed a girl for him on that Vorthenki beach. But he found himself glancing sidelong at Tenari. It was she who had led him to the Monnar, it was she who watched him. She was under some spell of theirs, some evil that was part of what they were plotting against him.
Whenever they managed to get a fire going Azkun stared at it, trying to take comfort from the flames and to remember the fire from the dragon. But the fires were pitiful in the damp, as if the Monnar would extinguish all his hopes.
On the second day the countryside opened out onto a broad plain that swept up to the feet of the mountains where it was cut by wide valleys. They crossed several of these valleys during the day. Many-channelled streams wound amongst themselves on the valley floors, swift, cold, shallow and filled with gravel banks.
Late in the day they found themselves on the edge of one of these valleys. It was wider than the previous ones and a deep river flowed in it, winding among tilled fields and herds of cattle. Directly below them the road plunged down the long slope towards a town near the river. It could only be Meyathal.
Menish let out a whoop of joy when he saw it and kicked his tired horse into life. The rest of the company paused at the top of the slope as he sped ahead of them, giving Azkun time to see Meyathal from a distance.
The palace was clearly an imitation of the great palace of Atonir, but a poor imitation. Azkun had by now heard the story of how it had been built long ago by Relanese craftsmen for Harana, the daughter of the Emperor, when she married the son of the King of Anthor. Those craftsmen showed great mastery of their skill, but their works could not rival those of Gilish.
It was also reminiscent of Holdarish and Mora’s house, but those and the other smaller buildings he had seen were probably copied from this.
The result was a many sided building with tall grey stone walls and a wide terrace. It was, perhaps, four stories high, but the roof was complicated and it might have been higher in some places and lower in others. The tops of the walls were decorated with flowing carvings but Azkun could not make out the details from a distance. He guessed that horses and cattle were the dominant themes.
There was a lower wall surrounding the main house with a grandly carved stone gateway in it. Within that wall a number of smaller buildings clustered around the house.
Surrounding the outer walls were stone houses like the ones they had seen in Kronithal, but varying in size from tiny hovels to larger, rambling buildings. Forming a fringe around those were many of the round, white tents that they had seen in the distant thals.
As Menish sped ahead of them towards Meyathal a shout came from a figure on the terrace. Moments later a horseman sped through the open gateway. They charged at each other like warriors in combat. Menish called something that sounded like a war cry. Azkun turned to Althak, wondering what was happening. The Vorthenki was smiling indulgently.
“They've never tired of each other, even after forty years.”
The two riders met, though not with the shattering impact Azkun expected. The horses skidded to a halt at the last moment, the riders leapt off them and clung to each other in an embrace that lasted until the others caught up with them.
