Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

Roel snorted and said, “Mayhap the cartographer was one of the Fates.”

Celeste laughed but then sobered. “Take care, love, for they might be listening.”

Roel turned up a hand and said, “Most likely.” Then he raised his face to the sky and called, “Why couldn’t you have made the map plain?”

Celeste slapped a hand over her mouth to conceal a smile.

“Ah, well,” said Roel, “whatever those initials might indicate, we do have a clue:

“Creatures and heroes and the dead Will test you along the way.

Ever recall what we Three said,

To fetch the arrow of gray.”

“It seems we are to be challenged along the sinister path,” said Celeste. “My bow and long-knife will be ready if they are tests of arms.”

“And if not?” asked Roel.

“Then my wits,” said Celeste.

Roel nodded, and then looked at the map again.

“Think you we can fetch the arrow and then reach my sister in the eight days remaining?”

“I cannot say, for there is no scale,” said Celeste, tapping the map. “Still, if the Fates have sent us this way, surely there is a chance.”

They sat without speaking for long moments, eating waybread and jerky and drinking brewed tea. Finally Celeste said, “Lady Doom gave us one last admonishment ere she vanished: ‘Left is right, but right a mistake; you will fail if the wrong path you take.’ I wonder if she was speaking of these crossroads. Was she warning us to take the left-hand way and not the right?”

“Another puzzle,” said Roel, “another confusing instruction. Mayhap what she was saying is that we should take the right-hand way, for if left is ‘right,’ but ‘right’ is a mistake, then doesn’t that make ‘left’-that is, the left-hand way-the mistake?”

Celeste groaned. “I don’t know.”

“Agh!” spat Roel. “I just had another thought: we were travelling due south-due sunwise-when we came upon Lady Doom. What if the left-hand way, the sinister way, is based on the direction we were going, rather than where we were standing when she gave us the rede? That would make the sinister path be toward the east, dawnwise, sunupward.”

Celeste’s face fell. “Oh, Roel, do you think that could be so?”

“I know not, cherie. Regardless, let us see what lies along the road toward dawn,” said Roel. As his finger traced a sunupward route, he mumbled, “Hmm. . PR

and WT and over here GY. -Argh! That’s no help whatsoever.”

Celeste shook her head and said, “It all depends on which way one faces as to which of these roads-

dawnwise, sunwise, duskwise, or starwise-is sinister.

Yet the road running dawn to dusk is a ‘different trail’

from the one we were on, hence the one to follow, though in which direction, sunupward or sundownward, there’s the rub.”

Once again they fell into silence, but finally Roel glanced up into the star-filled night, and said, “Let us sleep on it. I will take first watch.” Celeste pushed out a hand of negation. “Non, love, for if you take first watch, you will let me sleep beyond my due. Instead, I will take ward now.”

“What’s to say you won’t do the same to me?” asked Roel, a smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

Now Celeste peered at the spangled vault above and said, “The sun will rise ten candlemarks hence. I will guard the first five, you the last. -Done?” Roel reluctantly nodded and said, “Done,” and he held her close and kissed her tenderly, and then lay down.

Celeste listened to Roel’s breath slowing as he fell into slumber, and when he was fast asleep she stood and paced to the horses. They, too, were adoze, and so she returned to the fire and cast a branch thereon.

And she sat in the warmth and reviewed Lady Doom’s rede as well as Urd’s final message, seeking answers that did not seem to be forthcoming. And slowly her watch passed as she pondered which way to ride on the morrow. Candlemarks eked by, and when she awakened Roel for his turn at ward, she had come to a conclusion. She embraced and kissed him, and as she lay down, she said, “Roel, think on what should be our course from here, and by morn let us see if we agree.”

“My thoughts exactly, cherie,” said Roel as he saddled his mount. “We must take the sinister path, and I believe we measure sinister from where we stood when Lady Doom spoke her rede. And as to ‘left is right, but right a mistake,’ mayhap it applies here-or not-though I do believe its true meaning is ‘leftward is correct, but rightward is wrong.’ Regardless as to whether that is the proper interpretation, I say we ride toward the west, in the sundown direction.”

“Oui,” said Celeste, pulling tight the girth strap

’round her mare. “Duskwise. Let us find this Spx , whatever that might be. Mayhap ’tis where the gray arrow lies.”

And so they mounted up, and trailing the packhorses, sundownward they rode.

“Oh, now I understand,” said Celeste, breaking out of her rumination.

“Understand what, cherie?”

“What Lady Doom meant when she said I was to think on the riddle she posed and the answer I had given.”

Roel frowned, then cocked an eyebrow.

“Remember, she told me that I had answered all three riddles: hers, Verdandi’s, and Skuld’s. But I replied that I had said ‘river’ in response to her poser, which was neither a yes nor a no to the question at the end of the riddle. Anyway, she told me to think on it, and I have.”

Roel smiled. “And what did you conclude?”

“That I didn’t really have to answer the question, for by merely saying the name, or not being able to, that is answer enough.”

Roel laughed and said, “Exactly so, cherie. But heed: even a wrong answer resolves the riddle, or rather the question as stated, for if one gives a wrong answer, then that means one’s answer to the question is no.”

“Hmph,” grunted Celeste. “It’s not much of a riddle if no answer at all as well as any answer-right or wrong-resolves it.”

“Mayhap that’s the way she planned it,” said Roel.

“How so?”

“Love, I think the Fates truly wish to give us guidance, and so they make it as easy as they can without breaking those ‘rules’ they follow.” Roel then shook his head and added, “As to why they would do so, I haven’t a clue, yet I wish they could speak plainly instead of in murky redes.”

Celeste nodded in agreement, but said, “I believe one of their rules must be that those they help must cipher out the meanings for themselves.”

Roel nodded and on they fared, heading ever duskward as the sun rode up the sky.

Nigh midday, Roel said, “To the fore and left, Celeste, a long train of dust.”

“A caravan, do you think?”

“Oui. Or the like.”

Celeste frowned and said, “It is moving starwise and will cross our course. Perhaps we’ll intercept it.” Closer they drew and closer, and Roel said, “Camels.

It is a long train of camels.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of them but have never seen such,” said Celeste. “I hope we do cross their path, for I would see a camel.”

Roel grunted and said. “I saw my fill of them during the war. They are swift, but are not as nimble as horses.

And the warriors astride were quite good, especially with the bow; we were hard-pressed to defeat them. You and I must take care, Celeste, for should this be a military train, such men are fierce.”

“Roel, someday, you will have to tell me of this war.”

“Ah, me, cherie, I do not like to think about it, for many good men died. . on both sides, I am certain.”

“When you are ready, my love.”

They rode without speaking for a while, and then Roel said, “It’s not like single combat, where two knights agree upon the rules ere the fighting begins. Instead it is a charge of steeds and knights and footmen and a horrendous collision of armies crashing against one another, and confusion and chaos and a wild uproar filled with the clangor of weapons and belling of steeds and shouts of rage and cries of fear and the screams of the dying. All one can do is lay about and lay about and lay about, with hammers smashing and swords riving and spears stabbing and arrows piercing, with severed heads flying and entrails spilling forth like hideous blossoms blooming; hands and arms are lopped off in a dreadful pruning, and bones snap and skulls crunch beneath crushing blows. And then, finally it is over, and it seems a silence reigns, but the silence is only relative to what has gone before, for the field is littered with the dead and the dying, and men weep and cry out in an agony born of horrendous wounds, and horses scream of broken legs and ripped-open bellies; and the gorcrows and looters come to pick over the carrion, and-” Of a sudden, Roel became aware that Celeste had stopped the horses and had dismounted and now held him by the hand, and tears spilled down her cheeks as she looked up at him.