“No.Well, that’s probably part of it. But he meant forever.”
“Then he’s less of a man than we all thought.” Gearrog’s tone was blunt. “Only a fool gives up his one treasure.”
Tears stung my eyes. I could not let him go down this road. I must be strong. “Where did you go, Gearrog?” I asked. “Rioghan held a meeting. All the men of the host were there, or so it seemed. But Cathair said he couldn’t find you.”
He held his silence to him like a shield.We walked on.
“You can’t fight the frenzy on your own,” I said after a time. “But perhaps all of you together will find the strength to hold firm against it. Rioghan has ideas about that; he’s clever where these things are concerned. I expect Cathair and the others will have their own techniques for mastering it. Gearrog, I want you to go back up there and face them. I heard that Anluan spoke harsh words to you earlier. He was upset.Troubled.The fire awoke dark memories for him. I hope you will understand why he was angry with you, even though you had just saved my life.”
“I did a bad thing.”
“You hurt me by accident. I was simply in the way. That wasn’t you flailing around, it was something else using you. Promise me you’ll go back up and join the others, Gearrog.Anluan needs you.You have a special strength in you.You proved it by saving me even when the frenzy was on you.You’ve just proved it again by making those creatures go away. I can’t imagine how you did that.”
“They haven’t gone far.” The words were dismissive, but warmth was creeping back into his voice. “My lady, you’re the one Lord Anluan needs most. And what about us? You changed everything. What’s going to happen if you go away? How can you not come back?”
My eyes were brimming. I bowed my head; I did not want him to see how badly this was hurting me. “I said something terrible to Anluan. Something so cruel and hurtful that it shames me to think of it. Something so bad that he’s never going to want me back. And he . . .” There was no describing how I had felt when I had thought, for just an instant, that Anluan might strike me. Now, I recalled that when sudden anger seized him he would often clench his left hand into a fist in that way. I’d seen him use it to break the mirror. I’d never seen him hit anyone.
“Gearrog, the little girl will need friends once I’m gone,” I said. “She trusts you.”
We were at the boundary. It still lacked some time until dawn, but I could see the shadowy outline of the settlement through the deceptive light, a huddle of dark shapes, the line of the makeshift defensive wall, the flickering points of torches set around the perimeter.Tomas and the others kept them burning all night, fearful of the host.
“Promise me,” I said as the sky lightened towards the true rising of the sun. A bird gave a summons, an upward call of two notes:
Gearrog held his silence.
“I must go now,” I said.“I don’t want to see any of them from up there; I wouldn’t be able to bear it.Will you promise, Gearrog?”
“Say you’ll come back. Later, when this is all over. Say you’ll come.”
“I can’t. Not if he says no.” I must move on, I must run now, before the sun rose and they found me missing. I must flee before I lost the will for it.
“You say, go up and face the others. But you’re running away.”
I lifted my chin and squared my shoulders. “I have to go and find my sister. I have to face up to my own others, people who wronged me. And afterwards . . .”
“You’ll come back to Whistling Tor?”
Naked hope trembled in Gearrog’s voice. It shone in his eyes and transformed his features, forbidding a refusal.
“If Anluan truly wanted me, if he needed me, nothing in the world would keep me away,” I said, and as the words left my lips I heard a great sigh, not from my companion, but from a dozen, fifty, a hundred ghostly voices out in the forest.The host was watching.The folk of the Tor knew I would not be there in the library tomorrow seeking out answers for them. They knew I would not be working through the grimoires in a quest to end their suffering. I had let them down. I had broken my promise.Yet I sensed that they understood; that the words I had just spoken were enough for now. “Be strong, Gearrog.Watch over him for me.” I looked out under the trees, unable to see the others, but acknowledging their presence. “Be strong. Help him.”
“Farewell, my lady.You have my promise.” Gearrog placed a fist over his heart. He had halted right on the border of the hill, between the guardian trees.
“Farewell, Gearrog.” I turned my back, and as the sky brightened I walked steadily downhill and away.
As if to mock me, the day I left Whistling Tor the weather turned fair, with sunny skies and gentle breezes. It was enough to make me wonder if this was a different world, in which summer had followed its natural course through all the time of my stay in Anluan’s fortress, while mist, rain and bitter cold had clung steadfastly to the Tor.
I held fast to the decision I had made as I packed to leave, that I would not give in to the helplessness that had befallen me after my father’s death. If I had learned anything over the strange summer at Whistling Tor, it was that I must not become the lost soul of last winter again. Never mind that the man I loved had sent me away forever. Never mind that I had been forced to break the deepest promise I had ever made, and abandon my friends in their time of greatest trial. If Anluan didn’t want me, he didn’t want me. It was as simple as that. I would grit my teeth, summon my courage and get on with what must be done.
I did not go to Whiteshore. I did not even go to the settlement at the foot of Whistling Tor. I walked the other way, up to that crossroads where I’d been unceremoniously dumped on a day of mist and shadows. There was no point in waiting for a cart to happen by. I set my feet forwards, making lists of colors in my head to keep out thoughts of Anluan.
It was so early in the morning, nobody was astir. Birds chorused in the woods by the cart track, and somewhere down under the elders I could hear the voices of frogs. Everything seemed swept clean, open to light, full of promise. It felt wrong. Part of me wanted to protest that such a lovely day ill fitted the catastrophe facing the folk of Whistling Tor. Another part of me whispered,
