“We Qanuc have not been much meeting with the Zida’ya—the Sithi-folk, as you are calling them—in recent years,” said Binabik, “but we have also been seeing no great change in their dealings with us. Do you agree, Sisqi my wife?”
She nodded emphatically. The other conversations had now ended, and all by the fire were turned toward each other. “Many Sithi coming to Blue Mud Lake only three summers gone,” she said. “They giving us news of many things, and sharing meals with us then. They sang.” Simon could hear the change in her voice as she remembered. “At night, beneath all stars. It had so much beauty!”
“But nothing was being said by them of silence between the Zida’ya and their friends in the Hayholt,” Binabik added, a frown creasing his brow. “Still, these were being ordinary Sithi—I mean not of the family of Year-Dancing that we are knowing best, Aditu and Jiriki and their kin.”
“All we can do is be patient, I suppose,” Simon said. “We have sent them many messages. One day, perhaps they will answer.” But he could not keep the deep sadness out of his voice. Once, he had held out great hope that the Sithi and mortal men could be reconciled, but it had been many years since a better friendship between their peoples had seemed anything but a foolish, idle dream. He stared at the fire, watching the flames and thinking of his last, terrible night in Jao é-Tinukai’i with Jiriki and the rest, the night the Norns had attacked their Sithi kin, the night Amerasu Ship-Born had died.
The others were thinking their own thoughts; for long moments the room was silent but for the crackling of the fire. At last the king turned to Sludig. “I’m sorry I’ve made a muddle of the festive mood, old friend, but now you might as well tell me what you’ve heard of the Norns. Is it just rumor or something more? The north is always full of tales that the White Foxes are coming again, that I know. That hasn’t changed since the days of the Storm King’s War. Grimbrand said there were many stories this winter, but he did not think it was so much different from other years.”
“Simon, don’t,” said Miriamele. “You agreed.”
Sludig shook his head. “Perhaps your husband is right, Majesty. And perhaps things are different here in Elvritshalla—it is a large, well-guarded city. Engby, where we live, is farther north—closer to the Nornfells. But I should let my wife tell the story, since it is hers.”
They turned to Alva. “What story?” the queen asked.
Alva looked a little surprised. “I had not expected to . . . it will seem foolish, or at least parts of it will . . .” Several of the others urged her to speak. “Very well,” she said finally. “But it seems a poor way to end an evening of good fellowship.” She turned to Sludig. “Send the squire back to our chambers for it, will you, my husband?”
Sludig called for a young man who had been waiting outside in the hall’s antechamber. The young man bowed as he was given his quiet orders, but he was struggling to keep something else from his face—distaste or even fear, Simon thought.
“What is this mystery?” he asked.
“I beg your Majesties’ patience,” Lady Alva said. “All will be revealed soon enough. But here is what I must tell you first.
“Elvritshalla, Kaldskryke, Saegard, all these places are much like Erchester, cities with towns and villages all around. If you stand upon almost any road nearby, within an hour you will hear a farmer’s cart or the sound of hooves as a royal messenger rides past, or glimpse hunters or charcoal burners making their way through nearby woods. But in Engby where I grew up, and where Sludig and I now live, if you walk away from the houses you can continue on for days without seeing another living human soul. Some of the older roads will not see a traveler for a year or more. But that does not mean that you will be alone.
“In the north, we have always known that the land of the White Foxes—the Norns—is close to our borders. There is a valley just beyond ours to the northeast that has been called the Refarslod—the Fox’s Road—as long as anyone can remember, going back to my great-grandmother’s day, because the Norns have always used it.”
“Hold a moment, please, Countess,” Tiamak said, his usual shyness pushed aside by his curiosity. “Engby, your home, is far east of where we sit here in Elvritshalla—east even of Kaldskryke, is it not? Why would Norns travel so far that direction? Nothing lies to the east of the Dimmerskog forest except snow and emptiness.”
“I am not meaning to take offense where I am suspecting none was meant,” said Binabik a bit sternly, “but by ‘nothing’ I hope you are not speaking of Yiqanuc, land of our people?”
Tiamak was dismayed. “Forgive me, no! Of course not, Binabik. But the mountains of Yiqanuc are far away, many, many leagues, and I had not heard of the Norns being seen in the Trollfells.”
“They are not,” Binabik admitted. “Not since the most ancient of days, before great Tumet’ai vanished in the ice.”
“That truly is puzzling,” said Eolair. “The two ways the Norns have always traveled to the south, at least when mustered for war, are down the old Northern Road in the shadow of the western mountains or down the wide Frostmarch Road, that leads past this city and through the eastern heart of Rimmersgard on the way south.”
Simon was a bit dazzled. “All this map-reading and such. I don’t understand. Miriamele, does this make any sense to you?”
“A little, I think,” she said, “but I am still waiting to hear Alva’s story.”
“And me,” said Simon. “It’s only that I’ve had too much drink for patience. Go ahead, Lady Alva, please.”
“I hope you will be patient enough for this,” she told them. “Because I must tell you of a dream I had when I was a girl.”
“Tell, then,” Simon said. “I have had many dreams myself that turned out to be true.”
“Then we have that in common,” Alva said. “I have always had dreams of things that later come to pass. Small matters, mostly—things that are lost, visitors unlooked-for, messages from those who have passed on that make sense only to those who knew them.”
“It is true,” said Sludig. “All in Engby know of Lady Alva’s dreams.”
“Once when I was but a girl,” she went on, “I dreamed that St. Helvard himself came to me, dressed in robes of white, as I had seen him portrayed on the walls of our church. He led me out of my parents’ house and through the snows. In the dream there was a great storm, but I could hear other voices in the wind, singing and laughing. They were beautiful, but also frightening, and somehow I knew I was hearing the White Foxes, the ice demons I had been taught to fear since I was old enough to understand.
“In the dream, Helvard led me up a hill and across its crest to the far side, so that I could look down and see the Refarslod laid out below me. A ghostly army walked it, barely visible through the hard-blown snow, but what I could make out was spiky with spears and banners. In truth, all I could see clearly were their eyes glowing like the eyes of beasts, and they were beyond counting.
“‘They march to a city that never was,’ the saint told me. ‘They seek to win the everything that is nothing.’ And then I woke up, shivering in my bed.”
Simon was shaking his head. “I don’t understand,” he said at last. “You say this dream came to you when you were a girl?”
“I used to have many strange dreams,” Alva said. “But no other like that one.”
“Why do you look so puzzled, husband?” Miriamele asked.
“The wise woman Gelo? used to say I was closer to the Road of Dreams than many people, Miri, but I don’t . . . of late I haven’t . . .” Simon paused. “I’ve just realized something. I’ve stopped dreaming.”
“What?” The queen was not the only one who stared at him as though he had begun babbling nonsense.
“It’s true! I only realized it now. I can’t remember the last time I dreamed. It’s been days—no, weeks!” Simon turned back to the baroness. “Lady Alva, I apologize for being distracted. I will try to make sense of it later. But I still do not understand—you said this dream came to you when you were a child. Why do you tell us now?” He looked from her to Sludig. “Am I misunderstanding?”
“No, Majesty,” said Alva. “Because I have not finished. We were going to wait and tell you this later, but it seems the moment is now.” She gave a little shrug. “Here is the rest. I have remembered that dream of St. Helvard all my life, with no sign of it ever coming true. In truth, the Norns seemed to have entirely stopped using the Refarslod they had traveled for generations. But just in the last few years such stories have begun to be told again. People are once again seeing strange things around and on the ancient fairy road. Then, scarcely a month before Sludig and I came to Elvritshalla, one snowy night several dozen cattle escaped from one of our barns. My good husband took several men and went in search of them. Nearly half of the cows were found wandering, but the others had simply vanished.”