Cara paused before entering the solar. Two minds warred within her; one wishing for the clean air and open sky of home, and the other wishing to stay longer within the mountain, and see what its dark places still had to reveal to her. She wished to spend more time with Ror, and to understand what had been happening to her. She felt a strange sense of detachment as she entered Grar’s private chambers with her family, as if she were watching herself from some hidden vantage point, and the body with her blue eyes and red hair was not truly her, but a façade meant to hide her true self from others. She wished she could retreat to her quiet field of endless gray sands until the evening was done, and learn from her false self if anything of note happened, and then relive those happy moments herself, while ignoring the monotony of her father and Grar’s forced pleasantries. She wanted to be spared Balvor and Idana’s excessive affections, the half spoken back talk of her mother and Halfi, Klar’s piteous comments, Halfur’s sighs, her brother’s ill omens, and the inane prattling of the children. She wanted to be alone with Ror, Ridzak and Audun, pouring over stories and songs until they learned the truth of the Voice, and the strange castle she saw being eaten by the Black Worm.
Halfi beamed and hugged her, Grar smiled kindly and Balvor patted her on the back and laughed. Everyone spoke, but all she heard were tiresome whispers, and all she saw was a dark sun in a pale sky. Her father made a point not to mention Lobuhl to Grar, but his absence was the one thing Cara drew a measure of happiness from. The food they ate was heavy and rich and made her sleepy, and the flavors passed over her tongue without her notice.
After they supped there was a flurry of movement while porters came in to clear the table. The two families moved to other parts of the solar to pair off and talk, and Cara managed to steal a lonely moment on a small balcony. Summer was gathering its heat in the lands below, and this evening was the warmest she’d felt in the high climbs of the citadel. Soft clouds billowed overhead, glowing red and blue where they passed in front of the Titan's Torch. A warm breeze came from below and filled her nostrils with a dream of sunny days and golden fields.
If only the world stood still, she thought. How many times, she wondered, had the seasons turned as she’d known them? How many times had the winds of winter drawn their chilling white blanket over the world, only to be supplanted by the promises of spring that faded into the torrid stillness of summer? And how many times had the cold fires of autumn crept their slow and wending way up the branches of trees, heralding yet another rolling of the wheel? Was there salvation from the endless war of one change after another? Was there ever to be a final tide? No sooner than Cara had grown accustomed to Obrus, she was to leave it, just as she’d been told she was a woman grown the instant she’d learned what it meant to be a child, and as her brother and closest friend had been taken away from her, and was now thrust back a man changed and grown. She longed for stillness, she longed for the world to be content, she longed for peace.
She listened idly to the rhythm of voices inside the solar. Grar’s solar was vast compared to her father’s, and speech echoed loudly within. Her father’s voice had taken on a much softer tone since she’d awoken from her long dream. He sounded calm, but almost sad, disarmed perhaps. While Cara lay unconscious and Lobuhl was free to storm about the mountain bullying him, her father was shown pity and kindness by the dwarves. Now he was no more than a lesser king in a greater realm, with no injustice to cry against, and no sick daughter to be comforted over. Grar’s voice in turn seemed pensive, no doubt due to the throng of enemy soldiers massing outside his gates.
The goblin army was a thing that seemed unreal to Cara. Were an army so vast to assail High Alden, there would be no escape from their drums and screams. The sight of them would darken the day, as a boiling and churning ocean about to swallow an island. Here in Thrond, the approaching storm seemed half a world away and was hidden from sight. It was as if the enemy of Obrus were no more than a silent wind that merely hinted at a danger from another world, another Konistra. The million dwarves living within the mountain would know nothing of the battle until it was over, and the report would be no more than a few words spoken of over a flagon of spiced cider, an echo from a neighboring time that trickled into theirs through cracks in the wall. She imagined hearing about the war in a letter from her aunt, in hollow words that meant nothing, having been repeated to her from others who also knew nothing of the blood and woe that ripped through those who fought. The distant silence of the goblin army was casting a shadow on Cara’s heart. It made Thrond feel unnatural to her, and its people less glorious.
She heard a voice speak her name. It was deep and shadowy, and rang through her thoughts like a war horn. She turned to see Ror standing in the doorway. Here’s one who won’t merely hear of the battle, she thought. Ror will wade into the fray at the front of the line, bathe in blood and ruin, then return to the citadel and dance at a feast. “Dread Ror,” she said with a smile that he returned. He stepped silently onto the balcony and leaned on the rail. Cara leaned next to him, though the rail only rose to her thighs. She rested the tips of her fingers on it, noting how feebly she braced herself against falling from the heights of the world.
“Your father is leaving half the soldiers he brought,” Ror said idly.
“Yes, to protect my aunt. It’s the goblins he fears, of course.”
She heard Ror laugh. “He fears everyone, and everything. Why else would he seek to ally himself with all the world?”
“I’ve never thought of his schemes in such a light. I suppose it’s true. He often remarks on our castle being built too high, as if it were a beacon, and that beacons drew everyone to them, both the foul and the fair. He’s had many rooms built underground, and spends time roaming the tunnels that bring water in from the Sholai. I’ve heard him giving orders to laborers to dig them further into the hill. There’s a hole in the roots of the farthest hill, outside the borders of our kingdom. Istan says he went inside once. He thinks it goes all the way to the Tall Hill.”
“Don't you ever find it confusing to have so many hills?” Halfur said, stepping onto the balcony.
Cara felt mildly amused. It was nice to hear Halfur speak humorously. “Alden could have named his castle something else, for sure. We don’t notice, us who were born there, as I’m sure you can find your way around Obrus with your eyes closed, while I get lost within our apartments.”
She looked at Halfur and to her surprise he was smiling. She felt much more present for some reason. Perhaps his usual reluctant nature was something she'd expected to seek distance from. She still wished it were Ror who would be accompanying them home, though it made sense that Ror would not want to leave Thrond on the eve of a battle, and to see Halfur smile while speaking in a friendly way helped her to accept his impending company.
“I hope I don’t prove to be a burden,” he said merrily.
“I’m sure you’ll have an abundance of guides,” she replied. The sky grew dark and the air grew cold. She shivered as an icy alpine breeze went right through her gown. Ror motioned for them to all go inside. The children were on the floor by the hearth paying a game. There was a stone board with figures made of metal and gems. There was an archer on a tower that was moved to a different place on the board each round. The rest of the pieces were of knights; a knight of stars, a knight of stone, a knight of shadow, a knight of wind, a knight of grass, and a knight of bone. The game lasted four rounds, and the archer on the tower rolled three twenty sided dice at the end of each, showing where the tower moved, the archer fired, and where his secret target was revealed. The knights moved about the board hoping to intercept the archer’s arrows. The archer won if he struck the target, and the knights won if they caught his arrow. If the fourth round ended with neither goal achieved, all lost.
She heard the two father kings speaking softly at the far end of the room. Their words were beyond her hearing, but the queen mothers repeated them a little closer. The talk saddened Cara. An entire tribe of orcs had been massacred. The Windfang, they were called. She didn’t hear who was responsible, but she assumed it was the Eruhali peasants again. She thought back to the Voice telling her to go to Castle Gwynd, and wondered how Eruhal could be safe with the orcs becoming so enraged toward them.
She remembered her vision of Castle Gwynd with its golden spires, then she saw a field of graves surrounded by fog. In the midst of the field was a throne of burning coals, and upon the throne sat a shadow in the form of a man wearing a crown of sharp teeth. A wall of spears rose from the ground behind the shadow king, and sitting at his feet were two beasts; a red bull with jagged pieces of iron nailed to his flanks, and a naked sheep that cried bloody tears. Behind the wall of spears rose an ancient oak as tall as a castle tower. Its boughs spread over all, covering the field of graves in a silver light that kept the fog at bay. When the wind blew through the leaves of the oak, they rattled like bones and whispered secret truths.
Cara closed her eyes tightly. Not now. Please. Wait until I sleep. She wanted the unchanging peace of the grey shore where the sun and wind did her bidding, not a waking dream where visages of fear that she could not understand tormented her. The black sun appeared in the sky above the oak and the shadow king rose from his throne. His face took shape, forming a mouth with short tusks rising from its lower jaw, and bright green eyes like a nightlion’s. The shadow king’s mouth opened and it whispered a name. Please, speak so I can hear you and be on your way. The shadow king seemed to hear her, as it grew in size as if it were drawing close to her, and the red bull and the bleeding sheep were always close behind, though they never rose to their feet. The shadow king whispered again, no louder than before, but Cara could hear him now. Othominian, it said in its shadowy voice. It then turned and looked to the black sun with its wheel of scorching stardust.
Othominian, she repeated to herself, from the strange castle named after Othomo? He must be. But was he the child or the Worm? She opened her eyes and the waking dream was gone.
The families were listening as Hale played his cittern and sang. Cara did not know the song. It told of twin sisters who loved the same man, a lord of a castle called Oakstone. One twin was heartless, and loved the lord only for his power, and the other loved him for his heart. The heartless twin wanted to use the lord’s power so she could rewrite his country's laws to suit her desires, and the other wanted only to make him happy, and to give him all that she had so he would have even more.
After the song of the twins, he sang an old tune she hadn’t heard since she was a girl. It was called The Moon in Silver Trees, and told of a caravan that travelled through the stars. The beginning told of their travels in the dark fields of the lands beyond, and how they forded the Constant River that flowed through all lands; remaining untouched by mortal time throughout its endless path. The end of the song told of the caravan coming to Konistra to finish their long journey. The thunder of their horses' hooves could be heard in the sky as they passed under the gaze of Ferenrar, the Red Wolf of War. They set up their stalls under the tallest mountain, and offered to sell the fire of titans to the kings and queens of the land. The price of wielding the fire was life, and none of the kings or queens were willing to pay it. It was a peasant who did, a woman who tended her village’s garden, and before it claimed her life she divided the fire into small flames and gave them to children from each of the kins. It was a pretty song, and while listening to it Cara wished she too could travel through the stars, perhaps even to the dark star that haunted her, and learn what it was, and why it kept showing itself to her.
The end of the night saw Cara and Ror sitting by the hearth while Hale strummed idly to the rhythm of the flickering flames. Halfur and her father were deep in conversation. They spoke softly, but she would catch fragments of their speech; they were commenting on King Verrold’s death, and how strange it was that he seemed to whither before his people’s eyes, as if he’d begun to swiftly age. Halfur seemed to think the poor man had been consumed in some scholarly obsession that lead to madness. Her father said he would have been wise to name a regent to maintain the realm while he sought whatever forbidden knowledge had so maddened him.
Her mother was speaking with Balvor nearby. She had a game she’d often play, where she would seat herself nearby people she wished to spy on, and draw another close to her and engage them in idle talk, all the while listening to her unsuspecting mark. She played this game now, eavesdropping on her father and Halfur while Balvor told unflattering childhood tales of Lobuhl. Her aunt sat on the floor with the children. Audun was telling frightful stories and Idana made reassuring comments to comfort the other three. How very brave of you, Auntie. It was indeed very self sacrificing of her, as Audun’s stories ranged from horned worms devouring a person’s bowels to a world being torn apart in a war between two suns. Yemi tried in vain to order him to tell happier tales, and eventually resigned herself to the tides of woe that flowed from the oddling’s strange little mind.
She looked away from her auntie and the children to Grar and Halfi. They sat next to each other on a high backed setl and gazed into the fire. The light from the flames glowed bright in their eyes, but faded as the night wore on and the flames died down. Klar lay curled up on the setl in the far corner, fast asleep, likely dreaming of Buri. Last of all she turned to Ror. He’d been quiet the whole evening, an unusual thing for him.
“A copper for your thoughts,” Cara said.
Ror looked to her suddenly, as if woken from a dream. “I’m sorry.”
“Whatever for?”
“You leave on the morrow, and I’ve been silent as the grave. I should be filling your ears with laughter and promises of our next dance.”
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“Well, I do expect another dance. Perhaps you’ll come to the Tall Hill once you’re done dancing with the goblins?”
“You have my word.”
Cara laughed. “I’m sorry, you have my word. Ror, you’ve spent far too much time around my father and I.”
He smiled. “I’d prefer to spend more. With you that is.”
Cara felt warm air swell in her chest and her heart quickened. “It’s settled then. You’re to come to the Tall Hill once this war is won and give me another dance.”
“My lady, I will come, and we shall dance a dance that will bring your towers down. I’ll even dance with your father if it pleases you.”
Cara felt a flush and giggled. “Oh stars! What a thing to see! I think my people would all be in tears.".
They shared another bout of laughter before again falling silent. Ror’s eyes then drifted back into the shadows, and he grew so distant he seemed to be lost in another time, with only an image of himself left behind in theirs. “Tell me,” she said in the voice of a queen, “what has the Black Horned Prince so vexed?”
He gave her a sideways glance. “The what?”
“Noxi called you that. Well, your Noxi called you that, before your uncle Lobuhl dragged him off in chains.”
Ror smiled and rolled his eyes. “He calls me all sorts of things. The Black Horned Prince, the Shepherd of the Dead, Orvar’s Lance, the Warrior of the Wall of Light, the King of Ninehall, and the list goes on. He wasn’t jesting when he spoke of having a riven mind. I worry over him at times.”
“Do you worry over him now? I heard he’d been taken by a tremble like mine.”
“He’ll recover. He always does. When I first met him him he’d been hanging from an igdrus tree for nine hours. He was bracing himself against the trunk with his toes to keep from choking. I’ve never met anyone more determined to survive than that mad goblin.”
“How did you rescue him?”
Ror raised an eyebrow and a fiendish grin stretched like a shadow across his dark bearded face. “As prone as I am to boasting of my labors, how I rescued the Green Shadow is a secret that only the most privileged shall know.”
“The Green Shadow? Is that your name for him?”
Ror smiled and nodded. “I thought it only fair for me to give him one at least, in return for the myriad he’s given me.”
“Well, I’d say the name is apt. Noxi is the only goblin I’ve known well, and he moves as nimbly as a cat, and appears out of thin air when I least suspect him.” Ror nodded idly, the way her mother was nodding to Balvor halfway across the solar. “Did I guess the name’s meaning wrong?”
“Not entirely.” His voice grew distant, and his eyes drifted away from her once more.
“Well,” Cara used her queen’s voice again, “you may keep your privileged secret, but I’ll know the entire meaning of the name Green Shadow.”
“As my queen commands,” Ror said as he came back from the darkness. “The green part of his name should be evident. The shadow, that has to do with the splinter in his heart.”
“The splinter in his heart? That sounds poetic, and very sad. What does it mean?”
“It’s something his oldest friend said about him. He never spelled out to me the meaning of those words, but I thought on them often as our friendship grew. What I’ve seen is that he’s driven to accomplish something, some great or terrible thing, and he’s fully committed himself to achieving his cause, to the point that he’s given away any thoughts of personal pleasure in life. I wish I could say this of myself, that my mind and heart were one, as Ridzak’s. Maybe it will be true one day.”
“And what is this cause he pursues so ardently?”
“I don’t know. I’ve asked him many times what he’s after in life, if it’s wealth or fame, or to send a message to his people. If you wish to hear him sound truly confusing, then by all means ask him yourself.”
“So the Ridzak you know, that jumps around a lot and says things wrong, he’s the shadow, and his purpose is his true self.”
“Yes. I can’t help but think that we both came as close as anyone to learning what his secret motive is in that peddler’s tent, after you’d awoken.”
She nodded, remembering the look in the goblin’s eyes when he held her piece of black mannarim. “He has his Black Garden, and I have my Grey Shore.”
“And your Crownless King.”
Cara looked at Ror with a start. “Is that another of Ridzak’s myriad names for you?”
He shook his head and looked at the floor. “No. I was given that name by an enemy.”
The thought suddenly struck Cara that having fought twelve battles, Ror was like to have an enemy or two, if not more. She was curious to know what kind of a man would set himself against the Horned Black Prince. “They say a person’s enemies tell more of them than their friends.”
“Then I must cause blindness in others.” He leaned in close and spoke quietly. “His name is Valung Mimir. He was Captain of the Stone Guard when I was a small boy. He turned on our family, and tried to murder my father in front of us.”
Cara covered her mouth to stifle a gasp. “That’s terrible. Did your father defeat him?”
Ror chuckled softly and shook his head. “I did. My dad fought well, in a robe, and armed with a lampstand, while Valung was in plate and swung a pair of axes. I came from the room Halfur and I slept in back then, wearing nothing but my beard, and leapt onto the man’s head from behind.”
Cara could feel her smile stretching so wide it threatened to outgrow her cheeks. He’s the bravest man I’ve ever known. Hale can marry Ser Gammon, I want no one but my Crownless King. “What happened then?” She couldn’t wait to know. She saw with her mind a naked little Ror pulling a terrible, ugly old dwarf down to the ground and pinning him to the floor with his proud little foot.
“It’s a gruesome tale,” he said in a pained voice.
“Oh,” the brave little boy in her mind faded into into the night, and a gory beast began to take his place. He said something about blinding people. “Did you… did you hurt his eyes?”
Ror nodded. “One of them. He wears a patch over it now. Gund came and fought off the other Stone Guards he’d managed to turn, then he was sent to the doomed, where he remains til this day.”
“I’ve heard of the steel merchant you rescued from there. You have a history of saving people, Ror, not blinding them.”
He seemed to think for a moment, looking upward as if there were answers in the sky. “When we were six years old, our mother asked Halfur and I what weapons we wanted to train with. Halfur chose a bow, and I chose a knife. When we were old enough to understand warfare more clearly, Halfur switched to sword, and I to hammer. We’ve learned to use them all since then, of course, all but the lance at least. I will never understand how you lot fight on horseback. My point is, though, that as a child I thought small, wanting a weapon that does little more than frustrate an enemy. As a man grown, I desire to crush my foes’ skulls into dust. And you speak of me saving one person from injustice. One person, Cara, would do well. But this morning I spoke to a crowd of people gathered in the Grand Bazaar, and I promised inquests for all the doomed. All. I do nothing in partial measures, and I worry that such a brazen way will bring harm to my people.”
“But have you brought harm to them? You’ve been alive for fifty years, and you’ve given laughter to your friends, a new hope to your people, and you’ve put out the eyes and crushed the heads of those who would harm those you love. Don’t feel guilt over sins not yet committed. Instead, rejoice over the good things you have done. And if you do err, what of it? All men go astray from time to time. So long as your intent is pure, you will do only what you’re meant to.”
Ror held her gaze for what seemed an eternity. She lost track of the world around her as she looked into his green fire eyes, at the tough skin on his heavy brow, and the proud mane of night black hair that shrouded his proud head and fearsome face. If they had been alone she would have leaned close to him with closed eyes and parted lips, but she contented herself with a prolonged stare.
They spoke no more words that night, and when she dreamt they were in silence as well, sitting atop a mountain so tall they could look down and see the pale crown of the moon. He spoke again to her the next morning, when they began their journey home. She thought of the traitor Valung when the Stone Guards filed out of Malgond behind Yemi and Halfur. The parting words of all the others were wind in her ears, but Ror’s hung in her heart and smoldered like an ember in a pile of ashes. “Until our next dance,” he said.
The walls of steel shadow that cradled the trembling path passed silently along as their entourage, much smaller than it had been, left the World Dragon behind and journeyed back to their land of green hills and silver mist. Cara had not even noticed the bears that tread upon the other creatures, or the faceless men in their blood red barbute helms, holding ready their vengeful morning stars and tall spears pointed to the sky. She smiled as Bolo wrapped his long grey tongue around her ankle, and yelped when her silver mare bucked and reared to get away from the oafish saurian. Noxi was quiet for a change, even though he’d explained himself to her father, and all seemed satisfied with his reasons for being caught on the dwarves’ mountain, and he’d sworn to half the Titans that his days with the Grim Whimsey had been over for an entire lifetime. Dennel was somber as well, though he’d slung his new dwarf made heater shield proudly over his back. She thought of the round black stone Hale found as they passed under the Titan’s Arm, and remembered how Dennel defended his dubbing of black mannarim as Imanna’s Fire to Gislain.
The dwarves were ever ahead of them, moving speedily even though they were on foot and laden with heavy packs. Istan and Gislain had ridden ahead to keep Yemi company. Cara had thought of doing the same to speak with Halfur, but she figured he’d prefer to travel in silence. She’d met a few of their guards and soldiers at the very start of the journey, while the dwarves still walked beside them. There was a golden haired scout who was the comeliest man she’d seen of any of the six kins, a youngish looking man who spoke very proudly of his aunt, and a silent brute named Vor the Cold.
Her parents and Hale spoke as they rode. Most of their talk was of her aunt, and how much everyone would miss her. Her father made fervent promises to her mother of returning to Obrus soon. She caught a half hushed remark from her mother about her and Ror, and Hale expressed a lament for poor Ser Howl. Their words all past over her like rain rolling off an oil slicked cloak. Her thoughts were of Ror and her dancing on Cavanal Hill, of the grey and sealess shore where she was master of wind and sky, and of Castle Othomo and the light of a distant star.
The command to walk with the Voice, to go to Eruhal, was weighing on her mind now that they were on the road. You want me to walk with you, she said in thought, wondering if the Voice would respond. You told me where, but will you tell me why, or when? There was a silence she could feel after she thought her question. She looked south to the passing trees, losing herself in the Coldwood’s endless rows of pines, birches and oaks, broken by the occasional willow grove that beckoned to her with their wispy arms.
The Coldwood was vast and ever growing, reaching to cover the whole world in the shadow of its expansive boughs. The ground between the trees looked open and bare along the eaves, though she’d heard many a tale of its outcroppings of rock, and the city of grottos that lay beneath its thick floor of pine needles and tumbledown stone. She saw a white banner that looked almost like a robe between two tall sentinel trees, snapping in the alpine wind that rushed down the shoulders of the World Dragon. It was a large banner, tall as her almost, and so wide that she could not see the pole it was lashed to. The wind was indeed blowing hard, sending her red curls into a mad flurry that nearly blinded her until she sheltered them with the hood of her indigo cloak.
You have legs to walk, the Voice said at last, but have you eyes to see? Cara looked up reflexively, as if she expected to see the black sun against the black mannarim arching over her, then looked back to the south at the Coldwood. Its ranks of birches and pines stood like leashed hounds awaiting a hunter’s horn, with the clustered willows standing by, ready and eager to let them slip. Cara mused over the Voice’s strange words, and was forming another question to ask it when she noticed the white banner was gone.