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Interim V

The Grimly Holt: 60th of Spring

The forest keep lay drowned in mist as though at the bottom of a luminous sea. Difficult to say in that glowing twilight when dawn came, or noon, or setting sun.

The shadow of that other, darker keep had long since faded like a bad dream, taking with it the stench of sickness and burning. The wolvers had not discussed it, afraid that words would bring it back. There were some things about humankind, after all, which few of them wished to know. Besides, there was so much else about which to sing.

Abandoning the outer walls of the keep to the weirding's care, the wolvers happily speculated about its interior. How thick had been the walls, how patterned the roof beams and floor, and where (whined hungry cubs) had food been stored? As debate rose and fell, weirding trickled in the long-gone windows to take the hazy shape of each detail, building its reality, a fragile shell crafted of song, cupped in a hollow of mist.

By the hearth, Torisen stirred in his sleep and mumbled incoherent words of distress. Not long ago, his breathing had changed from the deep, slow rhythm of dwar. Now he was beginning to surface, through the level of dreams. His hands twitched, as if clutching at something or trying to pull away.

". . . hurting me," he muttered. "Let go, let . . . ah!"

His eyes flickered open. He blinked, confused, then focussed on the worried face bending over him.

"Oh. Hello, Grimly." His right hand hurt. He frowned at swollen, splinted fingers. Kin-Slayer lay across the nearby hearth, sullenly reflecting the pale flames which danced in the grate. "W-Where am I? What happened?"

"How much do you remember?"

The Wolver's careful tone chilled him. The last thing which he recalled clearly was trying to last out the night awake in his Kothifir quarters. Obviously, he hadn't succeeded. After that? Snatches of memory, as broken as the dreams which they might in fact be. His breath caught.

"Grimly, did I kill Burr?"

"No, no. You haven't killed anyone this time, not even a horse."

Torisen looked at Kin-Slayer, confused. "But I was supposed to . . . . Father said . . . ."

But then Jame had shot the bolt. He could still feel Ganth's madness pressing hard against that locked door in his soul, but as long as the bolt held . . . .

He shook himself. Just another stupid dream. Absurd, to think that it had anything to do with this blessed return to sanity . . . assuming he was sane.

He looked at the surrounding walls of glowing mist, at the semblance of smoking torches and the phantom flames on the hearth. It might have been a hall hollowed out of living cloud. More mist drifted over the ground, or was it a floor? He lay on something ill-defined and yielding, yet substantial enough to support his weight. A muffled chuckling came from underneath. His fingers gingerly probing downward, touched water so cold that it seemed to burn. It was a . . . a brook, swift with melted snow, running down the length of a ruined hall. This was the wolvers' keep, where he had often been a guest before; and there at its far end were his hosts: dark, lupine shapes with glowing eyes regarding him shyly askance. Their song rose and fell. The misty floor seemed to firm. He jerked up his hand before it could become trapped, then lay it wonderingly down again on a surface textured like that of worn stone paving, almost gritty to the touch.

"I was northward bound on the River Road." he said slowly, remembering. "Just short of the holt, you and a weirdingstrom overtook me. And then . . . and then . . . .

"We took refuge here," said Grimly, still with great care. "You looked at the sword in your hand and said, 'There's more than one way to break a grip.' Remember? Then you pried loose your fingers one by one. Three broke. Then, finally, you slept."

"How long?"

Grimly glanced up at the nebulous beams supporting the roof of mist. "Hard to say. Fourteen hours, at least."

Torisen nodded. Even that much dwar sleep would hardly set all to right, but he knew by the deep itch in flesh and bone that healing had begun. He wouldn't lose his right hand this time, as he so nearly had at Urakarn.

"What is it?" the Wolver asked sharply.

The old terror of mutilation had leaped on Torisen suddenly, and with it the memory of that last true dream before his present waking.

"I-I was in the Southern Wastes, trying to pull Rose Iron-thorn out of sinksand . . . ."

But then it hadn't been Rose at all but his sister Jame, sinking, pulling him down with her. "You can't bear to look at my face, can you?" she had jeered up at him. "It's the price I've already paid for your cowardice."

She wouldn't let go. Her nails were tearing the flesh off his hands . . . .

"Let go, let go . . . ." he gasped, and found himself struggling against Grimly's restraining grip. "Let go, dammit! I've got to leave for Gothregor. Now."

"You can't," said Grimly, holding him down. "Not in this weather. Be sensible, Tori! The Riverland is over four hundred miles away."

"Then I'll weird-walk. It's been done before."

"D'you want to arrive piece-meal over the next ten years? That's been known to happen too!"

By now, they were nearly shouting. Furry ears flicked in their direction. The wolvers had chosen the wrong moment, though, to let their attention wander. The weirding outside the keep had been stationary for some time. Now it stirred with a sigh and began to flow—northward, as if at the turning of a tide. The song-crafted inner shell shifted with it, away from the shadow of the brook under the floor, away from the old ruins, taking its crafters with it.

"Now what?" Torisen asked.

Grimly had leaped to his feet, all four of them. His hackles had risen.

"Damned if I know. We're adrift, in a cockleshell of song. This has never happened before . . . but then you've never been our guest during a weirdingstrom before, either, have you?" He showed sharp teeth in a nervous grin. "I've noticed, Torisen Black Lord, that what you want, you usually get. Maybe we're bound for Gothregor after all."

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