| SORCEROUS SIGNALS |
| Written by Therese Arkenberg / Artwork by LeeKuruganti |
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| The Sorceress of Avalo |
My horsed shied before the vale of Avalo. I had been warned to expect it, and it was a simple matter to
calm the animal. But when I tried to spur it forward again, it balked and looked back longingly at the
grassy hills around us. I followed its gaze, but farther, imagining I could see the gates of the Golden City
Ilnar. Had it only been an hour ago that I left? Or a hundred years?
When going to see a sorceress, one can never tell.
In the end, I left my mount behind; picketed with a generous length of rope to one of the trees in the
vale. The meadow around seemed to agree with him, and as I watched he lowered his head to graze.
Then, with the sword of my fathers’ at my side and the knife the priests had given me in Ilnar in my right
hand, I entered Avalo alone.
With one step the world was changed: from the green and rolling hills of Ilnar to the deep blue shadows
of the woods within the vale. There was a trail through the forest of Avalo; it gleamed white in a light I
could not trace. But it was well-made, the stones fitting together gapless and smooth, and even on foot
I made good time, walking unshielded into the gloom. Despite what I had heard in Ilnar, I did not feel as
though I was being watched. Rather, it seemed as if the entire forest around me was dead, without even
a breeze to stir the trees into the illusion of life.
The first sign I had that I was not alone came as a raucous cry carrying through the still air. I saw in the
sky at my right a cloud of black feathers and flashing gray beaks and talons. The ravens and their little
brothers, the crows, crowded over a dark iron stand that rose over the trees, fighting for the guts and
rotted meat placed there. It was said the sorceress watched their feeding for omens.
When the gruesome thing was behind me, the vale again closed around with the stillness of a tomb.
Even my feet on the smooth trail made no more sound than a raven’s feather falling. I thought for a
moment of singing, or doing something else to break the silence, but didn’t dare. The quiet air could not
be easily breathed, and I feared if I tried to speak I would only manage a whisper.
At last, when it seemed I had forgotten even the sensation of sound and had wholly lost the memory of
anything in the world outside the vale, I saw the silver dome of the Tower of Avalo rise above the
boughs of the trees and into the colorless sky. The Sorceress’s hall was built of dark marble, unlike the
yellow stone of Ilnar, and a flight of steps led from the very end of the forest path to the great iron-
bound double doors. At both their foot and the entrance stood two men, if men they were, with white
skin, white hair, and golden eyes whose black parts were strangely shaped. I identified myself to them,
and they let me past, though I was left to open the doors myself.
Within, the tower was empty but for a thin flight of stairs against the wall that curved up out of sight. I
took them with care, for there was no rail and the marble was slick. The hand which held the knife of the
priests of Ilnar was shaking, and I was made aware of the sound of my panting for breath. I was relieved
to hear again.
The stairs coiled on and up, until I felt for sure I could see the change in the walls from mortared black
marble to curving hammered silver. Was the tower empty, then, but for this? For a moment I imagined
turning back and following the endless stars to the ground, but the thought of the men of Ilnar and
what they would say of my failure goaded me on.
I followed the curve of the stairs once more and there she stood: the Sorceress of Avalo. Her arms were
bare and white as those of the doorkeepers outside, her eyes as golden, but her hair hung down black
like one of the coal-poisoned streams of Adian. Her robes were red, her belt leather tooled with gold, and
a jagged knife of some green stone or metal or glass hung at her side. She bowed to me, gold beads
and bells chimed in her hair.
“Knight of Ilnar,” she said. “Have the priests sent you?”
“They have.”
She rose, turning her head sharply to regard me as a shy raven watches from beneath its wing. “How
long has it been since the last time?”
“Ten years, Sorceress.”
She sighed, and I saw the bones in her slender shoulders as they heaved; looking down I could number
the bones of her wrists. “They know when I am weakening,” she said. “Once they sent a knight but every
hundred years. Then each half century, then each quarter. Will these things soon become as frequent as
the harvest?”
I could not answer, and did not. The Sorceress of Avalo was strange to my eyes, with pale skin so unlike
the black tones of Ilnar and with a cast to her features not seen anywhere since once-holy Shadiar sank
beneath the waves. Her voice, too, carried in its timbre an older language, even the speakers of which
had faded from the memories of men. She was a singular creature, wise and ancient, who of old had
been the adversary of the kings of Ilnar, until they had each done the other a great service.
A promise had been made, then, and in its keeping a knight was sent to the vale of Avalo, carrying a
knife made by the priests at the Sorceress’s request, to assist her in the one ritual that must be kept.
She threw back her head, then, and took up her hair to bare her neck. “Strike, then,” she commanded,
her gaze straight and steady on the far wall. “Down the middle. And then move back.”
I struck. The sacred blade cut as it was meant to do, and I stepped back to escape what came from the
parted flesh. The room was filled with an odor like the perfume of wilted flowers, and I heard the sound
of a great wind, though nothing in the tower stirred from any breeze. And I watched, and witnessed, the
birthing of the new body the Sorceress of Avalo would inhabit for the next ten years.
Of it I will not speak, for the priests in Ilnar have told me to remain silent, but it was a marvel in its way,
though one to haunt my dreams ever since and, I think, for the rest of my life. The essence of the
Sorceress spilled out and reformed, and through it all the wind blew in my ears, and the whole tower was
anointed with the musk of dead flowers.
When it was finished, she stood before me clad only in the rags of her red shift. Her skin was bronze,
and her eyes bluer than the waters in the harbor of Ephseraph, which is always in summer. But her hair
was still black, and as I watched she bent to take her beads and bells from the floor. Her form was full
and comely, and when one of the bells jangled she laughed, a rich sound from somewhere inside her that
was now a little closer to the surface.
As she stood she kissed me, and though I do not think I showed my surprise, she laughed again.
“Go then, knight,” she said. “And carry with you my blessing for your city.”
Then she told me things she had seen among the crows and entrails, which I spoke of to the priests of
Ilnar when I returned. At that she dismissed me, and I left with only a final glance at what lay on the floor
at her feet—afterwards, I dared not look at her again.
The white men still stood at the stairs, and the path through Avalo still shone in the sourceless light.
When I passed the raven’s platform, I watched for something that might be a sign, but saw none.
My horse was still picketed at the edge of the forest, and we rode swift over the hills to Ilnar, the Golden
City, where dwell the friends of the Sorceress of Avalo.
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