Patricia McKillip - The Tower at Stony Wood

He lifted his head then, perhaps at the odd silence. The relentless buzzing behind him had ceased. He did not want to turn, but he turned finally, slowly, to find that the dead had all unraveled into the wind behind him. There was nothing left of them, except their images in thread on the cloth he held, and the silver disk beneath his shirt.

He shivered, unsettled by the power that turned death into thread. He lingered, chilled in the bite of sea wind, but nothing else happened; nothing explained. He let the wind take the cloth, but did not watch to see if it, too, vanished. But he kept the disk, for a ghost had come out of nowhere in Skye and given it to him, like a portent. But of what, for what, why? Nothing said. He mounted finally and rode out of the marsh to the sea.

The tower overlooked the sea. It rose seemingly out of solid stone on a dark wedge of cliff; graceful walls dipped and curved away from it to enclose the castle within. Cyan, putting as much of Skye as he could between himself and the eerie marsh, saw the tower near dusk as he rode along the coast. The castle itself looked worn and unthreatening, stones spilling out of the old wall here and there onto the meadow, one side of the massive gate open and sagging on its hinges. It flew the blue banner of Skye, with its three white doves in flight. Its chimneys looked hearteningly busy.

He found an old man in the turret beside the gate, looking through a long, strange tube out over the fields. Cyan called to him. The man, his hair thin and cloudy white, his chin patched with white-and-gray stubble, removed one eye from the tube and leaned out of the turret.

He ran a sky-blue eye over Cyan, from the dust in his hair down the towers on his surcoat and his sword to his cracked boots. “You look lost,” he commented. “Though I couldn’t say where from.”

“From Gloinmere,” Cyan said. “My name is Cyan Dag.”

Both brows, fat and furry as caterpillars, went up.

“Cyan Dag is a knight in the court of Regis Aurum.”

“Yes.”

“Well, what are you doing at my gate in Skye? You’re a very long way from home.”

Cyan nodded wearily, feeling the sands he had ridden across lodged in his hair, behind his eyes. “A very long way,” he agreed. “Do you think that, in the king’s name, the lord of this castle might give shelter to a knight of Gloinmere? I have slept on the ground as often as in a bed since I left Yves.”

“Why—” The old man waved a hand vaguely at the word, and changed it. “Wait.” He took the tube from its stand, tucked it under his arm, and disappeared. He reappeared stepping out of an arch at the bottom of the turret. He wore a long black robe; its sleeves and hem and collar were of scalloped cloth-of-gold. Under his chin, Cyan noted, the gold carried a wine stain, a few morsels of old meals. He patted Cyan’s horse, then took the bridle gently.

“I am Verlain,” he said, “the Lord of Skye.” He walked the gelding through the gate while Cyan gazed at him, dumbfounded. “If you came from Gloinmere, you must have seen my Gwynne married. She would not let me come; she said I am too old to cross the mountains. Did you see them marry?”

Cyan closed his eyes, felt the grit in them. “Yes.”

“You must have left Gloinmere shortly afterward. No one of my household or family is back yet. Is Gwynne happy? Tell me. Do you think the king will love her?”

“From what I saw he loves her past doubt.”

Her father heaved a sigh. “Thank you.” He stopped, lifted the tube he carried. “Would you hold this for me?”

Cyan took it. It was broader than he expected, and heavy with circles of glass at both ends. He balanced it awkwardly against the pommel of his saddle, letting the Lord of Skye guide his horse. “What is it?”

“It sees dragons. At least,” Verlain amended, “it does when there are any to see. Sometimes there are, but I always miss them… But why did you leave Gloinmere to come to Skye? You look as though you left in a hurry, without an escort, without armor except for that sword. And your boots—”

“They aren’t mine. Mine were stolen.”

Verlain rolled a dubious eye as blue, Cyan realized, as his daughter’s. “No one would dare steal the boots off such a formidable knight.”

“They didn’t know it was me.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you stop them?”

“They threw rocks at me.” Cyan sighed. “It is not a pretty tale.”

The old man snorted in amusement. Then he patted the gelding’s neck, as if in apology. “In the name of Regis Aurum, who seems to have made himself my son by marriage, let me offer you a few things to help you on your way. Which, by the way, is where?”

Cyan hesitated. The woman in the tower might be anyone, he decided, and so might the woman who sent him on his bewildering path. “I am looking for a woman in a tower,” he said, watching Verlain’s face. The hoary brows lifted again, in surprise.

“You rode that hard, from Gloinmere to Skye, to look for a woman in a tower?”

“She is in very great danger. I was sent to rescue her. I was told only that she is in Skye, but not where… You have a tower,” he added suddenly, remembering the dark stones rising above the sea.

“Yes, but I don’t keep women in it,” Verlain said reasonably. “I go there sometimes to watch for dragons from the roof. Who is this woman?”

“A lady of Yves, who is trapped in Skye. Regis,” he added, inspired, “was so moved by the tale that he sent me without delay. So I went alone. So moved, myself, that I forgot a few things.”

“I never travel without a small village,” Verlain mused. “Attendants, guards, pots, dogs, spare horses, pavilions in case there are no suitable lodgings…” He summoned a stabler for the gelding. A liveried servant came down the steps to take the dragon tube so that Cyan could dismount. He cradled it in his arms as carefully as a baby.

Verlain said to him, “This is Cyan Dag, from the court of Regis Aurum, a knight of great renown. Treat him so.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Find him suitable clothes, a proper pair of boots, and—”

“A bath,” Cyan pleaded.

“Yes, my lords.”

“Bring him to the hall to eat with me. You can tell me about the wedding,” he added eagerly to Cyan. “The feasts, the celebrations, the games. And have the tube set on its stand on the roof of the tower for us to view the skies after supper. Tonight there might be dragons.”

The servant bowed. Cyan blinked, suddenly remembering Thayne Ysse’s dragon. But that was another tale, he decided tiredly, another tower. After he freed Gwynne of Skye from her prison, he would search for Thayne. He might have entered Skye, but Cyan guessed that even the smoldering Lord of Ysse, with all his dangerous intentions, would have trouble riding onto a plain made out of thread.

Washed, dressed in light wool and linen that did not have dirt and sweat ground into their seams, and in fine, supple boots that did not try to walk away without him, the towers on his surcoat golden again instead of dust, he presented himself to Verlain of Skye. Supper in the great hall seemed a haphazard affair, with dogs wandering loose among children eating on the floor, lovers feeding each other in corners, musicians with harp and flute and lute snatching bites between songs, and long gaps of empty, sky-blue cloth between courtiers.

“Everyone left me to go to the wedding,” Verlain explained, patting the cloth beside him for Cyan to sit. “And when they all return, my Gwynne will not be with them…” He brooded a moment, then added more cheerfully, “But my bard will. I miss her almost as much. Did you see her there?”

Cyan pulled the seamed, secret-eyed face out of memory. “A tall woman with long white hair and a very odd harp? Oh, yes. How could I not have noticed her?”