The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition), Page 2

  Needless to say, I do not report such remarks to my father. Tonight my father is giving me a birthday feast – a thoroughly Koretian one, with nut tosses and blessings and blood vows. Afterwards we will sleep by the fire in order to watch the Jackal eat his prey. (That's what we call it here in Koretia when the fire burns its wood.) I will bring along this second volume of my journal along in case anything happens at the feast that is interesting enough that I would want to write it down.

  Perhaps, now that I am a man, I will be able to peer into Fenton's spirit and know what he is, in the same manner as the Jackal knows me.

  o—o—o

  The second day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

  I suppose that I ought to be reluctant to write in this journal again, considering its role in what happened at my birthday feast. But when I told Fenton what had happened, he said that I must model myself on the Jackal and not destroy the good in my eagerness to erase the evil. Fenton does not say, as my father says, that the Jackal ate his prey and that what happened is the will of the gods. Instead, Fenton says that the ways of the gods are mysterious, and though the gods do not bless the evil deeds that men have done, they are able to take these deeds and turn them to good.

  For this reason, I will continue to write in this second and now sole volume of my journal, though it feels odd to take up this book once more and remember it lying between Hamar and me on the night of my birthday, like a murderer's thigh-dagger hidden in its sheath.

  We were sitting around the outdoor fire in our village green, which must have been selected for its purpose for the simple reason that it is the only piece of reasonably flat open ground in Mountside. What other flat places there are on the slopes of our mountain – usually naked boulders jutting out from the sparse grassland – are occupied by houses such as our own. My mother, who lived in Cold Run before she vowed herself to my father, often complains about how uncomfortable our rock floor is compared to the dirt floor she grew up with. My father, over the years, has always made the argument that such stony barriers prevent fires from spreading from one village house to the next, and I suppose that such an argument is now irrefutable.

  We had already had my birthday blessing and the prayers to the gods – that took a while, since Fenton prayed to all seven rather than reveal which gods are worshipped by the people of our village. Some people, like my brother, consider their god-service something to be spoken of only to the priest. My brother and I were sharing wild-berry wine from one cup, since we were short of drinking vessels, and at a certain point Hamar commented, "The Emorians think wild-berry wine tastes like poison."

  I had just received one of the nut bowls that was being passed hand to hand around the fire. I took a nut, gave the bowl to Hamar, and said, "Where did you hear that?"

  "From Titus – I heard him talking to Lange. He said that the Emorians believe their wine to be the best wine in the Three Lands."

  "Well, they would," I said in disgust. "They think that everything they do is better than what is done in Koretia and Daxis. They even say that it's better not to believe in gods."

  "No!" Hamar stared in astonishment at this blasphemy.

  "That's what Fenton says," I said calmly, having recovered from my shock at the time I first heard this. "He said that the Emorians believe that Koretians use the gods as an excuse to indulge themselves in passionate and irrational behavior."

  I thought it best not to add that Fenton had said that the Emorians were sometimes right about this. Hamar leaned back his head to sip from our cup, as well as to watch one of the nuts soar over the flames and then crack at the moment before it reached the fire. We joined in the cheers and applause. Hamar said idly, "Do you suppose that Emorians have nut tosses?"

  "I don't know, but I know they eat nuts. Fenton said that he tasted some Daxion nuts when he was a slave and that they were delicious."

  Hamar frowned as he took from the man next to him the bowl of blackroot nuts. "Not that I want to accuse a priest of such a thing, but he must have been lying. Daxion nuts are a noblemen's luxury."

  "Well, his master was rich, remember? —Oh, blessed of the gods," I said enviously as I noticed that Hamar was holding the last nut of the bowl he had been handed. He stared at the flames for the moment, formulating his thoughts, and then sacrificed his nut to the fire. Hamar was always eager to show off his throwing skills: as a result the nut went too high, then plunged quickly into the fire before it was hot enough to crack.

  "Too bad," I said. "What did you pray for?" Then, at Hamar's look: "You can tell me, since the god didn't accept your sacrifice. The prayer won't be answered in any case."

  Hamar shrugged, reaching over to take the wine cup from me. "It wasn't an interesting prayer," he said. "I prayed to the Sun God to protect me from harm."

  "Is that who your god is?" I said with interest. "Why did you choose the Sun God?"

  Hamar shuffled the heels of his shoes against the ground, which was dry in the late-summer heat and therefore gave off great clouds of dirt that rose into the night sky. "The Sun God is the most powerful god, I think," he said. "More powerful than the Jackal God, more powerful than the Moon Goddess – I don't know why people choose to serve the other gods. The Sun grows our crops and he makes the fires that warm us, like that one." He pointed to the balefire.

  Annoyed, I said, "That's the Jackal's fire – he's eating his prey."

  "Well, but who says that? Father, who worships the Jackal, and Fenton, who is his blood brother and wouldn't say anything to offend Father."

  I rose to my feet and kicked the dust at Hamar, saying, "Don't you dare say such a thing. Fenton would never lie about the gods, not even if it meant hurting Father or anyone else."

  Hamar jumped up and put his hand on his dagger hilt in a clear challenge. "Don't you dare say that my god isn't the most powerful!" he shouted.

  A few heads turned our way, but not many, for our village had already had three duels that night, though only one of them resulted in serious injury. I could see my father watching us with amusement. He had kept out of our quarrels ever since we had reached an age where he trusted us to be able to duel without drawing more than first blood – and he had made it clear that such blood must not be deep.

  I considered taking Hamar aside and teaching him a lesson, but I decided that Fenton would not be pleased if I were to quarrel with my brother on my birthday. "Peace," I said and held out my left hand.

  Hamar considered this for a moment, then said, "Peace," and clasped my hand as though our palms were sliced and we were joining our blood in a peace oath.

  I waited till we were seated again before saying, "Anyway, Fenton says that all of the gods are the different faces of the Unknowable God."

  "Oh, well, if Fenton says . . ." Hamar's words dissolved into giggles as I attacked my brother's sides with my fingers.

  I released him from my tickling eventually so that I could take another nut bowl that was passing my way. I noticed with envy that only two nuts were left. Taking my nut, I passed the bowl to Hamar, saying, "Here's your second chance."

  Hamar was still catching his breath from my attack; he said between gasps, "You take it. If I tried it now, I'd probably drop it on Father's head. Besides, I owe you a birthday present."

  Satisfied that this would now be a perfect birthday, I took Hamar's sacrifice, made it my own, and prayed to the Jackal, saying, "God of Vengeance, God of Mercy, God of Judgment: I do not yet know how you wish me to serve you, but I know that Fenton is your servant, as he is the servant of all the gods. Since he is the wisest man I know, give me the strength to do something courageous which would please him. Hunting god and trickster god, as my sacrifice, accept this, all that I have." I tossed the nut toward the fire.

  It cracked while still clear of its flames, its sound breaking through the light chatter and laughter about me. Amidst the applause of the others, Hamar said with balanced criticism, "That's better than your usual throws."

  "Thank you," I said
, judging it better to interpret this as a compliment. Feeling a warm glow after the sign that my prayer would be fulfilled, and wishing to make up for my quarrel with him, I said, "Hamar, I've been writing a journal."

  "Have you?" he said vaguely. He was looking over the fire at Fenton, who had risen to his feet. "Do you suppose that he's going to start the blood vow now? Oh, he's only walking over to get more wine. Listen, Adrian, I know what blood vow he has chosen for tonight – I heard him tell Father."

  "You ought not to tell me," I said uneasily. "It's supposed to be a surprise."

  "Well, you'll be finding out in a short while anyway, and I don't want you to look crestfallen. It's not at all an exciting one, like the one he gave me at my coming of age. He's going to have us take a peace oath."

  "A peace oath?" I frowned in puzzlement. "You must have heard wrong. We're not feuding with anyone."

  "We're feuding with Cold Run," said Hamar.

  "Oh, that," I said, dismissing the matter with a wave of the hand.

  It occurs to me here that blood feuds may not familiar to my Emorian reader. Fenton told me once that the Emorians don't take blood vows, which obviously must have been some sort of joke on his part, but perhaps the Emorians don't take certain types of blood vows, such as feud vows. Our village's feud with Cold Run had not yet reached the stage of blood, though both Hamar and I half hoped that it would, as we had never before witnessed a blood feud. Of course we had witnessed a dozen or more lesser feuds. This one had started when Richard of Mountside, driving his cart, ran over the prize rooster of Tabitha of Cold Run and refused to pay for the creature, arguing that the rooster had darted in front of his wheels. Since that time we had progressed from livestock theft to drilling holes in wine barrels to water-traps that left the victim squealing in indignation – I knew that Hamar had done the last, since he had gleefully confessed to me that he had drawn the lot for this deed. Otherwise I would never have known, for, except on the rare occasions when a fire-killing occurs during a blood feud and the victim is avenged by his nearest kin, those who take part in a feud are known only to the village priests who draw the lots.

  I knew that Fenton was worried because we were only two stages away from a blood feud, but everyone said that the people of both villages were too wise to shed blood over such a small matter. Anyway, the dispute would be ended as soon as someone was caught in the act of carrying out a part of the feud. This being the case, I could not understand why Fenton would waste my birthday vow with a peace oath, which was usually used only to settle a prolonged blood feud. But I was too loyal to Fenton to voice my disappointment; instead I hid my feelings by saying, "Oh, listen to me, will you? I've been writing a journal for several months now, all about everything that happens to me. I just started the second volume – it's lying next to us here."

  That caught Hamar's attention. He was always the sort of person who needed to have something right in front of him to fully understand it, this being the reason he did so badly at playing Jackal and Prey. I sometimes wondered too whether he hadn't inherited most of the Emorian blood in our family, for he was as pale-faced as an Emorian, and he sometimes talked about the unseen gods as though he were not quite sure he believed in them – but of course I would not insult him by pointing this out to him.

  Now he said, "I wondered about that book, but I thought it was one of those volumes Fenton taught you to bind."

  "He did," I said, "but I only bound blank pages, so I decided to fill them as a journal."

  "What does it say? Does it have anything in it about me?" He reached toward the book.

  I pulled it hastily from his hands, remembering what I had written about him earlier that day. "Not this one," I said, offering a silent apology up to the Jackal for my falsehood. "My earlier volume has some passages in it about you." Some of those passages, I knew, were complimentary enough to my brother that he would be pleased to hear them.

  "Read them to me now," he ordered.

  "I can't. I don't have the first volume with me. I hid it back in the house, where you and Mira couldn't paw your way through it."

  "Then fetch it," ordered Hamar. He's like that sometimes.

  I could see that he was on the point of going into one of his rages, so I said wearily, "You can fetch it yourself. I've hidden it in—"

  "I can find it," he said, clearly annoyed that I had so little faith in his hunting abilities.

  I shrugged and turned my attention back to my wine flask. When I looked again, Hamar was gone.

  After a minute, I regretted his departure. All around me, villagers were chatting and laughing, but Hamar and I had set ourselves slightly apart from the rest, and no one rose now to take Hamar's place.

  I looked about. Drew was on the other side of the fire with some of his playmates, and he looked longingly at me, but I was sure it could not be a manly act for me to go sit with a cousin so much younger than myself, so I turned my gaze away from him toward the younger men of the village. They were all standing in a knot, gathered round Drew's father, Lange, who was talking about the latest village council meeting. I realized, with a lowering of the heart, that I would have nothing to contribute to such a conversation.

  Leda was sitting nearby, holding her baby and smiling as she watched Lange. I was trying to decide whether it would be manly to go talk with my own sister when, to my relief, I caught sight of Fenton gesturing to me. I rose and rushed to join him.

  He said in a low voice, "Adrian, where is your brother? Your father wants to start the village's vow-taking now."

  I looked at the hall, which was farther down the mountain. "He went back to our house to fetch something."

  "Well, have someone bring him back here. He should be present for the ceremony, and he will need to be here for its sequel, when you and he exchange vows."

  I looked round, but Leda was now in conversation with one of the more garrulous older women in the village; I knew that it would be difficult for her to extract herself from the talk. After a minute's more frantic searching with my eyes, I found Mira.

  She was sitting with her friend Chloris, who recently married Titus. Some of the older boys were saying at the time of the marriage that Emorians do terrible things to their women, but I had known better than to pass that information on to Mira; my sister is a terrible gossip. Besides, Titus has lived in Koretia for three years now. He has had time to become civilized.

  When I told Mira what I needed done, she treated me as though I was still a boy. "Fetch him yourself," she said, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. Then she said to Chloris eagerly, "Go on. What did he do next?"

  Chloris turned pink; she was trying to bite away a smile. I sighed and stepped back out of hearing, turning my eyes toward Drew.

  At that moment, though, I heard my father call for silence, and I knew that it was too late. I ran over and was just in time to scramble onto the speaking rock beside Fenton. My father remained below us, waiting for the moment when he would be called forward to help administer the vows.

  I looked round from the heights of the speaking rock at the view before me. All in a cluster around us and the balefire were the men and women and children of the village – about thirty households in all, along with a few unmarried men who had become members of our village by vowing their blood to a blood-brother. That same vow – the one I was about to take with Hamar – is always taken by the village's boys when they become men, as a way of showing their loyalty to the village . . . and also, of course, because a double bond of blood to one's village, through birth and through friendship, makes a man more likely to exact vengeance in a feud.

  So there were blade-carrying men and boys there, and very young boys who yearned to carry blades, and the women and girls who brought new sons into the world – and daughters too, for women and girls are needed to help with the healing of wounded men and the preparation of corpses. The last is a secret among women: the art of preparing a corpse so that it will stay fresh for three days, even in the hottest wea
ther. But other than that, women are never allowed to take part in blood feuds. I'm glad I was born a boy rather than a girl.

  Beyond the villagers stood the wooden houses, built on rock and dirt, including our own house: a hall, along with a loft where Hamar and Mira and I slept.

  And beyond that was the Sea of Koretia, as it is called: the long stretch of green woods, nearly unbroken within the triangular bounds of the mountains that enclose Koretia. Sometimes, on clear days when I'm on top of the mountain, I've thought I could see Capital Mountain, where the priests are trained, and at its foot the city where the King lives and his lords meet in council. But my father says that the capital is much too far away to be seen – many days' ride away. Only Capital Mountain serves as a dim and distant sentinel of the capital's position.