The Hero And The Crown (Damar 1)

SHE COULD NOT THINK where she was when she awoke. She was sitting in a tall wooden chair, and a fire burned in a hearth not far from her outstretched feet; and she was in a hall so vast she could not see the ceiling. It was not until Luthe walked between her and the hearth, to lay another log on the fire, that she remembered all that had passed; and she sighed.

He turned to her at once, his face still solemn and frowning. "Talat?" she said, as if he was always the first thing on her mind. Luthe, exasperated, said: "If you have so little faith in my ability to look after one fat, elderly, self-centered stallion, then I will show you proof." He leaned over her again and picked her up, and strode out of the great grey hall.

"I can walk," said Aerin, with dignity.

"No, you can't," said Luthe over the top of her head, "although at some date in the near future you will have the opportunity to relearn."

He set her down, finally, on her own feet, at the edge of a wide unfenced meadow; several brown cows grazed in it, and at its farthest edge she saw one or two deer raise their heads and look toward her; but they did not seem alarmed.

Then she heard Talat's great ringing neigh, and he galloped up to them, coming to a sliding halt at the last minute (Luthe muttered something that sounded like "Show-off"), and slobbered green and purple down her shirt. "Horses," said Luthe with disgust; but she took a step away from his steadying hand to wrap an arm over Talat's non-existent withers.

"Here, then," said Luthe. "You can be of some use." He boosted her onto Talat's well-rounded back and walked off. "This way," he said over his shoulder, and Talat pricked his ears and followed docilely. But Luthe's long legs covered the ground at a good pace, and Talat had to stretch himself to keep up, for he would lose his dignity if he broke into a trot; and so his ears eased half back in disapproval of so rude a speed. Aerin laughed her small half-laugh, that she would not cough.

They came soon to the edge of a wide silver lake. Aerin blinked her dim eyes, for it was hard to determine where the land ended and the water began; the stones of the shore were a barely flatter, duller grey than the water's gleaming surface. Talat stopped when his hoofs crunched on pebbles; it was the worst sort of footing for a horse with an unreliable leg. Luthe continued to the very edge of the water, and as he stopped just before he got his feet wet, the water gave a sudden little gloop and ripple, and a small outthrust finger of water reached out and splashed his toes. Luthe muttered something under his breath and the water replied by hunching itself up into ridges, and several tiny wave-edges crept humbly up the shoreline, but none quite touched his feet. "Here," called Luthe.

She slid off Talat's back, but found within two steps that Luthe had been right, she really couldn't walk. She sank down where she had been standing, and Talat crunched up beside her and lowered his nose for her hand, his ears saying anxiously, "It's all my fault - I don't really mind these wretched small stones - do please stand up again and I'll carry you."

Then Luthe was kneeling beside her, and he lifted her in his arms again; his hands were wet to the elbows. He set her down, carefully, by the lake's edge, and the water shouldered up in small ripples again, and flung itself up the stones toward her as if curious; but it did not quite touch her. Luthe dipped his hands into the water again, and held the leaky cup to her lips.

"Drink," he said.

"Is this another sleeping draught?" she said, trying to smile; but he only looked sad and grim.

"No," he said. The water dripped on her leg, and its touch through the cloth was somehow personal, soothing like the hand of a friend.

She drank awkwardly, over his thumb, and the water was silver, almost white, even against Luthe's pale skin; and it was faintly sweet, and cold, and wild, somehow, wild with a wildness she could not put a name to beyond just that: wild. It seemed to course down her throat of its own volition, and foam up in her stomach. She looked up and met Luthe's blue frowning gaze as he bowed over her and his cupped hands. She said, "What is - ? Not water," and then he and the lake and the taste of the water on her tongue disappeared; but just before her mind spiraled away after them she felt hands clamp on her shoulders, wet hands, for she could feel the damp through her sleeves, and these hands dragged her to her feet, "Aerin," came a voice from very far away, and then she no longer had feet, or ears either. Aerin.

Her lungs were on fire like a swimmer's too far underwater, and she clawed her way toward the surface, and toward the voice that still called her name; and it seemed that her face broke the surface of the water which held her, and for a moment she lay gasping. The voice again. Aerin.

She opened her eyes, and she was not on the shores of a silver lake, though a tall man stood before her, calling her name, and offering her a goblet. Drink, he said.

She reached to take the goblet; reached out to take it with her left hand, and noticed with mild surprise that the arm was unscarred and strong. Ah, she thought wisely, I am dreaming again; but she paused before she took the goblet, and looked around her. She stood in a wide chamber that at first she thought was round, till she realized the walls were straight, but that there were five of them. She looked up, and there was a heavy weight of bound hair on her head, and this preoccupied her, so she did not examine the strange clawed creatures that writhed, black and red and yellow, against that ceiling. She lowered her head again, puzzled, for she had never been in this room before, and yet its red walls seemed familiar to her.

Drink, said the man again, and his voice was impatient. Drink. The goblet in his outstretched hand trembled very slightly, and she wondered why he was so eager for her to take the cup.

She tried to look up into his face, but he wore a cloak with a hood, a red cloak, so bright that it hurt the eyes, and the hood was so deep she could not see the face within it. Drink, he said, half mad with impatience, and it occurred to her at last that this was not Luthe she stood before.

Drink.

Then she looked again at her left hand and arm, and she thought calmly. That is not my hand; this one is smaller, and the fingers are more delicate than ever mine were. She withdrew the hand, and put it to her head, and pulled a wisp of her hair free, and held it before her eyes. It was the color it had used to be, before Maur burned it; but the hairs of it were finer.

Aerin, said the red man; you shall take this, and drink it.

In a voice not hers she replied: No. But the voice despaired and the red man heard the despair, and thrust the goblet at her the more eagerly, knowing that he would succeed. Drink.

Slowly, hopelessly, her left hand reached out again, and took the goblet, and held it to her lips; but she did not taste what was within it, for she heard her name again, and paused.

Aerin.

This was not the red man's voice, but another one, familiar to her. Aerin. The voice was Luthe's voice, and frantic.

The red man heard it too, and whirled around; the cloak spun on his shoulders, but still she saw nothing of his face. Luthe! he cried. You shall not have her!

Luthe's voice laughed weakly. No, I won't; but I shall have the other one; you shall not have them both.

Then there was a roaring around her, and it seemed that the red walls of the five-sided chamber were angry red mouths; but then the red faded to grayness, and yet still the roaring went on; and suddenly the grayness was the grayness of stone walls, not the pale stone of Luthe's hall, but the grey and darker grey and dull red and black of her City; but before its walls lay a desert plain, empty and barren, and three of the four monoliths that marked the City gates lay on their sides, and she saw no folk anywhere. She opened her mouth to scream, but her mouth filled with silver water, and she choked, and struck out with her hands; and felt sunlight on her face. Next she realized that she had a stiff neck; and then found she was stiff all over, from lying on ... rocks.

No wonder she hurt. The dreams faded under the onslaught of the physical discomfort. She bent an elbow to prop herself up on, and then thought to open her eyes first. Trees, blue sky. Stones. She pulled herself up on the elbow. Stones, trees, blue sky. Lake. Luthe.

He sat up beside her. "Ack," he said, and stretched cautiously. He was soaking wet; it occurred to her then that she was too, although they were some distance from the water's edge - nearer, in fact, to the trees. Then there was a familiar stomp and whiffle behind her, and she reached up without looking to encounter Talat's silky cheek.

Luthe was getting to his feet; he looked as stiff as she felt. He watched her inscrutably as she staggered to her feet and stood beside him. The lake's surface was smooth as glass. It was strangely silent where they stood; she heard nothing but the distant chirp of a bird and the occasional whisk of Talat's tail.

Nothing.

"I can breathe," she whispered.

"Ah," said Luthe. "Yes, I hoped for that."

Then the cacophony of her dreams rushed back. The red man she discarded, but - "My City - "

Luthe's inscrutable look settled over his face as if it was there for life. "Later."

"Later? The end of my land, my City, my people? Later?" My land, a far-off thought said to her mockingly. My City. My people.

"Yes, later," he said gruffly. "It hasn't happened yet, and your destiny lies elsewhere."

She stood rooted to the ground, staring at him. "My destiny lies elsewhere," she said in a high voice. "My destiny has always lain ... elsewhere."

His face softened. "Yes, that's true, but not quite the way you think. Come. I'll tell you what I can - of what you need to know. We'll have to hope it's enough."

"It will have to be enough," she said fiercely, and as he looked into her eyes they were golden from the flames of her dreams; and he feared then for what he had done. "I had no choice," he murmured to himself, but Aerin, still fierce in her fear, said, "I can't hear you. What are you saying?"

Luthe shook his head. "Nothing that will do you any service to hear. Come, then. What has happened to you is not all bad."