David Farland - Sons of the Oak

Rhianna found herself shaking. She cried out in impotent rage, then hobbled back to the boat.

Rhianna felt her stitches pull with every breath. She wept in terror and relief. Her thoughts felt muddled. After days of fear and sleeplessness and numbing cold, Rhianna was out of words.

She found herself peering at the river. The water was swift and cold and as clear as glass, flowing inexorably past field and stone, making its way to the curling waves and the brine of the sea.

Rhianna stopped at the side of the boat, standing in icy water. She didn’t dare climb back in, for fear of injuring herself.

A shadow fell over Rhianna. “Come,” Myrrima said, stroking Rhianna’s back. The wizardess stepped into the icy cold water. Myrrima seemed not to be affected by its numbing touch at all. She walked out to her waist, wading with unnatural ease, then looked back over her shoulder, inviting.

Rhianna thought that Myrrima was the most beautiful woman that she had ever seen. Her eyes were as dark as mountain pools, and her skin as clear as the stream. She seemed at one with the water, and now she reached out a hand to Rhianna, beckoning. “Come.”

Rhianna stepped into the clear, deep flow and caught her breath at its brutal cold.

She waded in, almost blind with tears, and though the rounded stones in the river were slick and she had to search with her numbing feet for toeholds, soon she reached Myrrima, and gazed up in dull pain.

Myrrima cupped a hand, raised it, and let some icy water dribble over Rhianna’s forehead. Rhianna arched her neck, and it felt as if the water was not just pouring down upon her, but flowing into her, filling her mind and washing away the weariness and fear that she had borne for days now, for weeks.

“Be at peace,” Myrrima said. “Let your thoughts be as restful as forest pools. Let clarity fill you like a mountain stream.”

Rhianna stood, neck arched, as Myrrima dipped her hands again and again, letting water dribble on Rhianna’s forehead. It seemed not to run down her so much as through her.

Soon Rhianna was weeping again. At first she wept for the loss of her mother, and some dull corner of her mind still hoped that she might still be alive, but Rhianna’s heart knew that she was gone. She mourned the young girls who had died in the forest, girls she had known only for a few hours, for they had traded names and told one another the stories of their brief lives in those final hours after the strengi-saats took them.

Then after long minutes it seemed that the waters washed away her mourning. Still, Rhianna found little relief. Her muscles were knotted cords, and as the water rushed over her, she felt as if for years she had borne a heavy burden and now at last she could lay it down. Her fear was the burden. Now the water washing over her brought relief, unknotting the muscles in her shoulders, legs, and stomach, letting Rhianna breathe freely for the first time in days, so that she gasped for air.

And when all of her muscles were unbound, and even the dregs of fear had washed away, still Myrrima washed her, and Rhianna found herself wracked with sobs, not sobs of pain, but sobs of relief, of perfect ease.

Myrrima stopped and smiled down at her. “You’re a troubled one, and a strange one. Do me a favor. Cup your hands, as if to drink.”

Rhianna held her hands out before her in a tiny cup, and Myrrima reached down and drew a rune on the water, then took it from the river in her own hands and began pouring water into Rhianna’s palms.

Rhianna was so weary that at first she did not recognize the import of what was happening. But her uncle had taught her some rune lore as a child, and suddenly she saw the danger. Myrrima had drawn the rune of revealing; now she leaned forward to peer into Rhianna’s cupped hands.

A sudden fear took Rhianna, and she hurled the water back into the river. She demanded, “What do you hope to see within the well of my soul?”

What Myrrima had done was an invasion of privacy.

Myrrima smiled, but it wasn’t a kind smile, the smile of an elder adoring a child. It was hard and calculating, the grim smile of a warrior who wonders if she has chanced upon a foe. “Where did you learn to scry runes?” Myrrima demanded.

Rhianna did not know what to say. “From…a merchant, a traveling merchant. I don’t know where he learned it.”

Rhianna should have known better than to try to lie to a wizardess. Myrrima gave her a suspicious look. “A rune caster, with no allegiance to the Powers? Some might call you a witch. And where did your mother get the cape pin?”

She waited for Rhianna to cough up the truth.

“I’m not your enemy,” Rhianna said with finality.

Myrrima held her eye for a long moment. Rhianna had obviously decided not to answer, and the fierceness in this girl’s eyes suggested that she could not be coerced.

At last Myrrima relented. “I would not let you near Fallion if I thought that you were an enemy.” She glanced back downstream a few paces where Fallion looked away guiltily and then gazed up at a small break in the clouds, the miracle of sunlight streaming across the heavens. Then Myrrima seemed to come to a decision.

“I heard what you said to Celinor just a moment ago. He was your father. I knew him once. And I knew your mother, too.”

She said these words softly. Rhianna looked around. No one else seemed to have heard.

Rhianna blushed with fear and indignation. Her mother had been running for years, hiding from Celinor Anders. Rhianna would never have betrayed her.

“Erin Connell was a friend of mine once,” Myrrima said. “She taught me the bow. I had heard that she had fled from South Crowthen, but I never knew why she ran or where she went. She just disappeared. Now, if as you say, she is dead, then I grieve with you.

“You’ve been through a lot, Rhianna. I saw how much pain washed out of you. I’ve seen battle-scarred warriors who have shouldered less. No child should have to bear so much. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. I only hoped to find the pain’s source, and thus speed your healing.”

“I’ll beg you to keep your nose out of my business,” Rhianna said.

Moments later, Fallion was back in the boat, floating downriver as storm clouds drew back over the heavens and finally grew so heavy that they were forced to relinquish their water. A drenching rain drizzled warm and sweet, and Fallion found himself light of heart.

Chancellor Waggit sent some scouts downstream and dispatched others to hold the path behind, so that the boat traveled in safety. Fallion slept part of the morning, and when he woke it was late afternoon.

The Gyell had met the River Dwindell and now flowed broadly through rich farmlands. The sun shone full.

They passed villages where cottages rested along the shore and tame geese honked at the sight of boaters upon the river. The children broke into the copious supplies and had a fine meal of cheese-bread, ham, and cider.

Talon leapt off the back of the boat and splashed about in the river, grinning broadly, swimming like a seal, and invited the rest of the children to join her. None braved it. Fallion dipped his hand in the water; it was not much warmer than it had been last night.

He lay back in the boat, watched the sun setting golden on the horizon. The sky was mottled with flecks of clouds, blue at the heart with golden edges.

So they had a pleasant trip to the Courts of Tide, where the spires of the castles rose up like spears to the sky, and the great crystalline bridges spanned from island to island, held up by ancient statues.