A Sword from Red Ice

Effie tried not to think about her lore, but Waker's father had a way of getting under her skin. Stoney broke. It was considered the worst kind of luck to lose your lore, like a doom. Inigar Stoop told chilling stories of those clansmen unfortunate enough to lose their lores. Jon Marrow had accidentally dropped his squirrel lore down a well shaft east of the Wedge. He was jumped by Dhoonesmen the next day, so the story went, and while he was defending himself against their hammer blows something horrible happened to his man parts. Effie thought they might have froze. Then there was the tale of little Mavis Gornley, who had lost her lore whilst riding to the Banhouse to wed her betrothed, a dashing Bann swordsman with teeth filed to points. As soon as she realized her grouse lore was missing, Mavis had dismounted and retraced her steps, carefully inspecting every hoofprint made by her horse. Mavis was so intent upon looking down that she hadn't see the big grizzly who came loping out of the woods and tore off her head. The only way to save yourself from similar misfortune was to rush back home to your clan guide and beg him to replace the missing lore. This was a tricky business apparently, and could take several months. During that time you were left vulnerable and unprotected and were advised to stay inside.

Well, Effie thought, glancing up at the crumbly red walls of the gorge and the hemlock forests that lay beyond them. There's exactly nothing I can do about that.

In a way the stories didn't bother her. Bad luck was something she didn't believe in. It was the actual missing of the stone that felt bad. She hadn't realized how much she had relied upon the ear-shaped chunk of granite until it had gone. Her uncle Angus had once told her how bats were able to fly in the dark. "They listen for their cries bouncing back off trees and walls." "But they don't make any sound," she had replied. "Not any that you can hear," he had countered. She'd thought about that conversation many times since, as it seemed to her that her lore was a bit like bat ears: able to detect sounds that no one eke could hear. Vibrations caused by changes. Stirrings in the air. Course when you put it into words it also sounded a bit … pikish, but Effie Sevrance knew what she knew. And she missed knowing it. That was the worst thing, the absence of reassurance, the forewarning of danger. Now bad things could happen and she would only know about them at the same time everyone else did.

It was like losing a sense. And a tooth. The hole was there, new and strange, and she kept poking it in disbelief.

Realizing that she'd been paddling for too long on one side, Effie switched her oar to the right. It was getting colder and her breath began to make clouds. She thought she detected the pitchy green sharpness of burning pine and searched for woodsmoke above the tree line. She couldn't see any, but Waker Stone's father wasn't taking any chances and steered the boat closer to shore.

The curved prow of the boat glided over the still water, and for a while the only sound to be heard was the muted splash of paddles as they broke the surface. Oddly enough the silence seemed to waken Chedd and he jerked forward in his seat and had to scramble to steady himself.

"Looks like we're going ashore," he said to Effie, glancing around.

"Silence," Waker warned, muscling the paddle. The walls of the gorge were closing in on them, and Effie could see rocks beneath the water. Red spruce and birches extended out over the river, their limbs fingering the surface. Effie could not see how it would be possible to go ashore. The cliffs were too high and there was no place to beach the boat. She thought perhaps that Waker was using the cliffs for cover, that by pulling close to them he was making the boat less visible from above. It was no use asking questions, that was for sure. Spiced peas and information were two separate things.