Everyone knows that if a woman goes out on Winter's Eve, and makes a fire in some wild place where gods walk, Fate will notice her. She'll huddle beside that fire, waiting: and, some time before dawn, a god will come.
In the morning, the woman will not be the same.
It isn't always good, what happens beside that fire. Sometimes, when morning light comes, there's a dead woman lying in the wilderness. Maybe only a few and closely gnawed bones.
Even, sometimes, a woman comes away alive but raving mad: hair white overnight, tangling the flowers together forever, her hands restless.
But sometimes a woman walks home having given and taken, having got something in a secret bargain. Sometimes a woman comes back smiling in secret; nine months later a child of amazing destiny is born.
It's how the god deals with the woman that makes the difference, and he deals according to what he finds waiting at the fire.
Fearing the unknown, most women stay in their beds on Winter's Eve, or beside their own hearth fires, where no cold hand is likely to come reaching in the night. But, now and then, a girl grows to womanhood restless-hearted. Maybe she yearns after an eternal something she can't put a name to; maybe she is in dreadful need; maybe she's bored, or just too silly to know better. Whatever the cause, one Winter's Eve, out she'll go: and it's another one for the storytellers.
The Yendri, in their forest bowers, knew this custom. The Children of the Sun in their cities knew it. It was known to the Master of the Mountain and to his blessed wife, the Saint of the World, and to their very mixed bag of children. Especially and personally, it was known to Lord Ermenwyr, their third son. 39 The mage Ermenwyr was wise, cunning and controlled. He was not madly magical, like his brother Eyrdway; not noble and spiritual like his brother Demaledon. He was a man of craft, prudent, deeply cautious. By careful stratagems he worked his will, and sorceries rather than feats of arms. He was not a coward, exactly; but if argument or lies could do the trick (he reasoned), why put on all that heavy armor?
Still, he had a weakness, this subtle man. He was incautious in one thing: Lechery.
He was a ladies' man, was Ermenwyr! His beard was combed, perfumed; his sorcerer's robes were cut with style and elegance. He was small of stature but well-made and handsome, and his manners were oil-smooth and charming when he wanted them to be. When he wasn't brewing careful spells or plotting politics or studying his investments (and sometimes even then) he was attempting to slip into some lady's bed. Successfully, as a rule.
But he never stayed long in a bed once he'd got in, seldom came back to one he'd tried. He was faithless by inclination.
Ermenwyr was often sent down alone from the Master's mountain, into the lands below: he'd spy for his father, conducting that business with cold- hearted skill, or do his own shady deals. Once, on such a journey, he was benighted on a dark road as a storm broke fearfully.
His brother Eyrdway would have laughed, dancing between the lightning bolts; his brother Demaledon would have plodded on bravely through the rain. But fastidious Ermenwyr had a horror of catching cold. So when he saw a light in the darkness he hurried toward it, shouldering through black dripping leaves, pulling his cloak close.
Crack cried the wet sky, and purple lights danced above the wet trees, and the wet sorcerer waded up to the gate of a vast wet house. It was high- walled and frowning, but the gates were rusty: only one lamp flared above the wall. Clearly it was some place fallen on bad times.
Ermenwyr wondered—briefly—whose ancient house was in the middle of nowhere; more, he wondered what he had to do to get someone to open the door. He hammered at the great gates without getting any response. The rain soaked him. Finally, at a barred grate, he saw two pale faces peer out. Someone with a thin sad voice called: "What do you want?"
Ermenwyr called: "Shelter!" thinking that folk were certainly suspicious in these parts. "I beg only a dry place beside your fire! In High God's name, let me in!"
At last the sad voice replied:
"In High God's name, then." The two faces disappeared from the grate.
A long while later he heard slow footsteps, stumbling up behind the gate. It creaked open a little, and he saw three hands straining to push. He got his fingers round it too and pulled it with all his wiry strength, and slipped through nimbly as a weasel going down a hole.
The gate crashed to behind him, and he stood in a rainy courtyard. Flash, lightning blued the world: standing before him were a man and a girl. The girl was beautiful. The man was hideous. Half his face was gone, only a ropy mass of scars where it had been.
Ermenwyr wheezed with exertion, and said: "Thank you. Where is your fire, good people? I must get dry."
"You can come in, but I can't guarantee you'll get dry," muttered the man. He turned and shuffled through a dark doorway. The girl followed. Ermenwyr hurried after, watching the girl's lovely back.
Deep they went into the dark house, through narrow stone corridors, through echoing rooms that dripped rain. At last they came to a bare room where a tiny fire struggled on the hearth. It threw dim red light on no carpets, no tapestries, no cushions nor chairs. Rain hissed in the chimney.
"Ahem! What a fine cheerful fire," said Ermenwyr, being a good guest. "But it will never dry my cloak, you were right about that. I'll build it up for you."
He gestured, and the fire blazed up as if fed with seasoned wood. Smiling, for he was proud of the effect, he turned to his hosts. But they weren't staring in open-mouthed admiration; they had drawn together and regarded him with weary resigned faces, the beauty and the horror alike.
"Ah—do not be surprised," he said anyway.
"We're not," said the man.
After a discomfited pause, Ermenwyr added meaningfully, "For, you see, I am a powerful sorcerer."
"Yes," said the girl. "We'd guessed."
"Yes. Well." Ermenwyr was taken aback. He looked about the room. He saw only a leaning table, bearing the remains of a paltry meal. A torn curtain hung across a broken window, flapping in the wind, letting in the rain.
His hosts wore raiment that had once been fine, but was now worn to threadbare cobwebs, through which Ermenwyr saw that the girl was lovely indeed: but as sad music is lovely, or the twilight. The man looked worse. Not only half his face was gone; half his body was maimed, one arm missing, one leg crooked.
Ermenwyr, trying to make the best of an awkward social situation, cleared his throat and said:
"I don't suppose you see sorcerers very often, out here."
The girl trembled but the man laughed, a dreadful long rusted laugh.
"Oh, we've seen our share of sorcerers. We've seen more sorcerers than most people! So, what have you come to inflict on us?"
Ermenwyr was taken aback at this, and stammered:
"I mean you no harm at all, man! Who are you, and what is this place?"
The man drew himself up, as far as he was able.
"Sir, we are the last of what was once a noble house. We were the Aronikai, governors in the city of Brogoun. My brother was the lord, but he made terrible enemies: Assassins. Sorcerers. Politicians. They were powerful, inventive in their revenge, and they have wasted us. One by one we have been slain or exiled, ruined or driven mad. This ruin was the least of our properties: but here we hide, my niece and I, in its dead hulk, and I am more ruined than the house. We alone are left of the Aronikai.
"You would think, sir, that this was enough revenge; but someone ensures that we grow ever poorer. The trees in the orchard died, the game hereabouts has fled, the well's dry. Some vigilant mage tightens the screw daily and kills us by inches. You, maybe."
"Not I, sir, on my honor as a lord's son!" Ermenwyr protested. "And my father is a powerful lord indeed. As your guest, I will protect you."
He cast about him with his bright mage's eve, and perceived a sullen hating Presence that watched. Whatever it was, it recognized the son of the Master of the Mountain, and withdrew its influence under his cold scrutiny.
The girl said, in her voice as sad as violets, "If you're not lying, we'll have one night in peace. Last night a pack of wolves howled beyond the wall until sunrise. The night before that an army of rats fought in the walls for hours. This morning a hailstone fell from a clear sky, right through our last whole window. You see how it is."
She said it simply, straightforward: she had learned that to complain is to send a message written in invisible ink to a blind man.
Ermenwyr turned his expression of greatest benevolence to her.
"My dear child, have no fear; I am respected and honored in my profession. See now! I can summon cheer even in this dank abode."
He flexed the muscles of his glittering mind, and the room was filled with good things. There were cushions and carpets and a cloth spread with a glorious feast, and many bottles of fine wine. It was all illusory, but Ermenwyr was not only boasting for effect when he claimed prowess as a sorcerer: it was the very best illusion. Every sense was fooled and gratified by his display.
His hosts cried out and ran to partake of the repast: hot bread, roasted meats and fowl, fruit melting-ripe. There for an hour they were a little happy, dining in comfort as Ermenwyr poured wine and regaled them with traveler's tales.
It is a curious fact that illusory food satisfies better than real fare, and illusory wine intoxicates faster than real vintages. Ermenwyr was particularly solicitous in refilling the glass of the noble uncle, who shortly lay snoring on illusory cushions before the fire.
This suited Ermenwyr perfectly, of course (he had already decided on his own treat), and he turned his attentions to the girl. He didn't care that she wore rags; he could see her pale skin peeping through like stars through clouds. He didn't care that she sat sad and dignified as a figure on a tomb; his design was to warm that marble.
"Now, my dear," he purred, "you've told me nothing of yourself, not even your name!" He made to pour her more wine; but she set aside her glass.
"No, thank you, my lord," she said. "I am a little drunk. As for my name: I was Golden Rose of the Aronikai once, but now I am Desolation Rose."
"Desolation Rose!" Ermenwyr exclaimed, and drank her health from his own glass. "Truly an original and beautiful name, though not so beautiful as its bearer."
She smiled bitterly.
"My name will be my death, and my beauty will last only until our enemies find a way to wither it. My poor uncle was handsome, once. Do you know what they did to him?"
"Something dreadful, obviously. But please, don't make yourself more sorrowful. Be safe with me, lady! Steal delight, while I stand guard against despair. Shall we not be thieves of felicity together, tonight, though tomorrow brings another bleak day? Why your enemies may even withdraw if I take you under my protection."
Desolation Rose shook her head. "They won't. You don't know them. Tomorrow something will die under the floor, or a black fungus will begin to grow in the pantry, or another corner of the house will collapse. Every morning, a new and miserable surprise."
"It sounds perfectly dreadful," sympathized Ermenwyr, hitching himself closer. She stared at him thoughtfully.
"I suppose, even now, you might be some agent of theirs," she said, "come to sharpen pain by giving us this brief respite. I don't care if you are. Anything you do to us will only bring us closer to the end of our sufferings. Tell that to your masters, if they are your masters, and tell them we still spit on them."
This sort of talk was not very conducive to a seduction, so Ermenwyr decided to abandon subtlety.
"I am no enemy of yours, Desolation Rose, on my life. Won't you make the night sweet with me, here upon the hearth? For I tell you truly, you are the loveliest girl I've seen in weeks, and I feel sincerest desire for you. Such beauty and such bravery too, is worth gold. Let me pleasure you here, and give you a rich gift. Your uncle sleeps soundly."
Some fine ladies would have gone white with shame, and some red with anger. Desolation Rose only looked him in the eye and said:
"If I thought I could benefit from lying with you, I'd do it, make no mistake. But I've a reason to keep my maidenhead; and since you've made me such a kind offer, I'll tell you what it is."
She said, "I mean to go out Winter's Eve and present myself to the god. As I am a virgin, I'll beg him in trade to save our poor house. And if the sacrifice is not acceptable to him and he kills me, at least our enemies will lose a victim. My uncle can't last long, alone. So our torment will end."
Ermenwyr sighed and cursed the fate benighting him among the Children of the Sun, a race for whom the vendetta was an art form.
"You're foolish, Desolation Rose, but you have a brave heart. All the same—Winter's Eve is only a few nights away. Will you end your life so soon, never having known bliss? Where is it written that the god demands only virgins? Won't he be just as impressed by your laudable sense of familial piety?"
But Desolation Rose said, "I must make the best offering I can, and my maidenhead is all I have left. Thank you all the same."
"Well, may the god reward you," said Ermenwyr sullenly. They settled down some distance from each other, and soon Desolation Rose was asleep.
Ermenwyr, though, lay awake, still desiring her very much and musing to himself how he might have her.
In the morning he got up, thanked his hosts and pushed on, leaving them a purse of gold. The gold was real enough; he was crafty but he wasn't cheap.
As Ermenwyr left the pitiful House of the Aronikai behind him, he heard a howling in the woods, as if glad wolves were let off some leash; and a flock of carrion crows rose from the trees where they had waited, and went back to perch on the crumbling battlements.
Ermenwyr came to the city and his father's errands took little time. The temple porter was easily bribed, the worthless stock soon sold to the eager merchant, and the spy had his report neatly written out and ready with a visual presentation. Nobody was sufficiently offended by his presence to challenge him to any duels. Ermenwyr enjoyed a leisurely evening at the theatre and breakfast on a sunlit terrace the next morning, before making his return.
And at sunset on Winter's Eve he waited in the forest, watching the gates of the House of the Aronikai. Presently he saw Desolation Rose creeping out, looking about her as the field mouse watches for the owl; she hurried away into the darkness. Ermenwyr tore down a piece of the sky—a corner, with no stars—for a cloak of invisibility, and went after her.
She walked a long way, up into high cold hills, gathering dry sticks as she went. In a bare open place she stopped. He watched from behind a standing stone as she made her small fire, and settled down by its meager warmth to wait.
Ermenwyr let her sit there until the stars had drifted far overhead and the mists were rising. (He was always scrupulous as to timing and effect.) Then he summoned his powers to him. Out of the night mist he conjured the illusion she expected to see: a towering figure of mysterious gloom. Then he walked out, just beyond the circle of firelight.
Desolation Rose looked up from where she crouched, shivering. Her eves were wide. Motionless, like a small trapped thing, she watched his slow approach. He stood at last on the other side of the fire. Wordless. Waiting.
She drew all her strength into her heart, but couldn't make a sound. She knelt to him and her heart spoke instead, trusting that the god would know her prayer.
Ermenwyr smiled in his beard and kept his silence, as any god does. He came forward, and indicated to the girl that she should pleasure him.
So he lay with Desolation Rose, passing himself off as a god, and a very creditable job he did of it. Faint with terror and delight, she held him all night long.
When gray morning came she lay asleep; but Ermenwyr got up and made his departure, having had what he'd wanted. Beside the fire he left a bag with more gold, reasoning it would do her more good than revenge on her enemies, which he couldn't give her anyway. Still, for dramatic effect, he wrote the god's name in the ashes of her fire.
All lighthearted Ermenwyr went his way, and journeyed until under smirking stars he returned to his dread father's house. There he went straight to his apartments, flung himself into bed, and slept the sleep of the just.
He woke greatly refreshed, in broad morning. He bathed and dressed himself with more than usual care, for he was to make a report to his father on his affairs among the Children of the Sun. Then Ermenwyr went to his long mirror to comb his beard and preen a little.
He looked once—What? He rubbed his eyes, peered in the glass, and let out a cry of horror. Instead of the small dapper sorcerer he was so fond of looking at, there in the mirror was reflected a looming darkness with eyes. Distant lightnings crackled in its heart.
Now Ermenwyr was terrified. He looked down at himself but could see nothing different. He looked back in the mirror and there It was still. He ran to his dresser and found a hand mirror to peruse: there It was with Its cloudy head. He ran to his washbasin and looked in at his reflection: even vet It looked out at him with Its hollow eves. He found a crystal ball and glanced at its surface: it roiled and boiled so with the phantom image that he thrust it hastily into a sock drawer.
Ermenwyr's heart hammered. In every reflective surface in the room clouds shifted; stars burned there.
Cautiously he opened his door. He stepped out in the corridor; looked this way, looked that way. His father's guards were posted down at one end, and they saluted him as they were wont to do.
He went up to them and said, with a terrible effort at calm:
"Do I look different today? Is there anything a little, well, unusual about my appearance?"
One of them was a big scaly reptilian fellow with fanged jaws that did not permit light conversation; nonetheless, he rumbled and shook his head No. The other guard blinked his small red eves thoughtfully, and said:
"You've trimmed your beard, my lord?"
"Thank you," said Ermenwyr, "I just wondered if anyone would notice. Where is my father?"
The guards bowed deeply and the one said, "Your lord father is in the exercise yard, sir."
Ermenwyr set off at a run.
He found Shadlek his father armed, raining blows on his practice opponent. Ermenwyr waited on the sidelines, fidgeting, until the bout was concluded. As Shadlek stood back and removed his helmet, Ermenwyr hurried up to him.
"Um.... Father?"
The Master of the Mountain looked down at his son, and knit his black brows in a frown.
"What have you done, Ermenwyr?" he said in a voice like thunder.
Ermenwyr cried out in relief and fear.
"You see it too? Oh, Father, what is it?"
Shadlek scowled and made a few passes in the air with his gauntleted hand.
"It will not leave you. Did you steal something?"
"Only what you told me to!"
"Did you trespass in some sacred place?"
"Only where you bid me to!"
"Did you summon powers greater than your own?"
"No!"
"Then what crime did you commit other than the necessary crimes I sent you to commit?" said his father. "Tell me the truth, boy."
Shamefacedly Ermenwyr told his father about Desolation Rose, as they walked up and down the length of the exercise yard. Shadlek nodded thoughtfully.
"I did something like that once," he reminisced. "A wealthy man died and his wife went mad for grief. She had his heart placed in a gold reliquary covered with red sapphires, very fine. She went out lamenting, to wander the world with it.
"Hearing of the sapphires, I went down in search of her. I found her inching along a road, barefoot and ragged, weeping for her love.
"I put a glamour on myself and appeared as her dead husband's ghost; persuaded her I could not rest until my heart, and its handsomely decorated container, was returned to me. She complied, with many touching avowals of eternal passion. I sent her safely home."
Ermenwyr was curious despite himself. "What did you do then?"
"Burned the dead heart and kept the reliquary, of course. It's around here somewhere, I saw it only the other day..."
"Mother must have been angry with you," said Ermenwyr.
"Not at all," replied the sorcerer lord. "Consider, my son: the man's true heart dwelt in the bosom of the lady, beyond theft. It was not that lump of carrion, nor its house of gold. By relieving her of that macabre ornament I spared her the danger of carrying such a thing. She might have met with thieves, after all! So, no, your mother was not angry with me.
"But she'll certainly be angry with you. You did a stupid thing, boy: you impersonated a god, on the one night and in the one place it would be truly imprudent to do so. I thought I had trained you better!"
Ermenwyr said hastily:
"Yes, sir, but surely the thing now is to relieve me of this condition with all possible speed. What's to be done?"
His father grinned down at him and dusted his hands.
"I have no idea. You must go to your mother and ask her advice. Gods have never been my particular field of study."
"But she will reproach me," Ermenwyr said in a stricken voice.
"Even so." Shadlek nodded. "Run along now, my child."
Miserably Ermenwyr went to his mother's bower. It was peaceful there; white rosemary flowered thick, bees droned in the still air. Inside, the sunlight filtered soft through the white flower petals: a place of utter calm, though Ermenwyr was far from tranquil as he beheld his lady mother.
The Saint knelt at her writing desk, composing a letter to her disciples. Her youngest grandchild slept near her in a willow basket.
Ermenwyr wondered nervously whether the baby was one of his. "H'em! Mother," he said, kneeling for her blessing.
"My child," she responded, placing her hand on his head. She sighed, and when he looked up he saw she was sadly regarding him. She knew exactly what was wrong with him and how he'd got that way, too. There was no fooling her.
"Oh, my son, you have done another wicked thing."
"Yes, Mother, I'm afraid so," Ermenwyr said meekly.
"I did not form a child with no heart in my womb, I know; how are you so cold and faithless? Now your behavior has set a wrathful god on your back."
"What has this god got to be angry about, anyway?" muttered Ermenwyr. "I was good to the poor girl. I gave her a pleasant night and ever so much money!"
"That is not the point," said the Saint. "You mocked her in your heart, which was cruel. But you have paid for it, my darling, and this time it's more than your father or I can mend. The girl opened a door to let in a god. You stood in that doorway and so the god moves through you, and all against your will you must do his Will."
Ermenwyr tugged at his beard in panic. "But what must I do to be free?" he cried. The baby woke up and began to wail. The Saint hushed and comforted it.
"Make reparation to that poor girl. She gave her body to the god in good faith; he intends to give her something in return. You must find out what it is, and bring it to her. Only then will the god leave you."
"But how will I know what the god wants?" Ermenwyr pleaded.
"You could break the habit of a lifetime and pray," said his mother. "Even your father prays, when it suits his purpose. No, don't look at me like that, with your eyes popping out of your head. You don't have a headache."
"Yes, I do!" wept Ermenwyr, but he hid his face in his hands.
"You're a sorcerer," the Saint reminded him. "Do a casting, if you can't bring yourself to meditate. My child, what will become of you? With all the disciplines to which you have applied yourself...."
You can imagine the rest. Covered in gloom, psychic as well as spiritual, Ermenwyr went to his study and prepared. In the magic mirrors, in the seeing spheres, in the curved surfaces of the retorts and alembics, the god's reflection glared thunderous.
Ermenwyr lit candles. He cast spells. The room filled with unearthly blue light.
The light emanated from three objects, in a corner of the casting chamber. Ermenwyr peered through the brilliance to see what they were, and cried out in real pain.
* * *
Desolation Rose of the Aronikai sat watching storm clouds cross the sky.
She heard a cry from the gate; Ermenwyr standing there with a bundle in his arms.
She scrambled down, over missing bricks, and ran to let him in. The rain hadn't helped the gate. When at last he was inside and had caught his breath, Ermenwyr said:
"I suppose you didn't expect to see me again. But, as it happens, I've got something to deliver.
"On Winter's Eve, as I slept, a god appeared to me. He said: 'Go thou, dig beneath the first black stone that thou findest in thy path. Take what thou shalt find there under to Desolation Rose of the Aronikai, for she has pleased me.'
"I rose and went out and dug beneath the first black stone I saw and, would you believe it, there was an ancient chest with some things in it—" Ermenwyr set down and unwrapped his bundle, "which I thought I had better bring you —"
Desolation Rose looked on in wonder as he took out a small sword, a crystal pendant on a chain, and a flask of white glass. Ermenwyr held up the sword.
"This sword," he said, "is magical. It brings the strength of five warriors to its wielder."
He gave her the sword and took up the pendant.
"This pendant," he said, "is also magical. It wards off danger and brings wealth to its wearer."
He gave her the pendant and held up the flask.
"This flask," he said, "as you might have guessed, is magical too. The inexhaustible cordial within has great healing powers."
Desolation Rose took the flask, crying: "But how do you know these things?"
"I'm a sorcerer, after all," said Ermenwyr in some irritation. "I can vouch for their puissance."
Which was certainly true, for he himself had crafted them, with many hours of painstaking labor. He had been particularly proud of them, too.
Desolation Rose swept the sword through the air. It balanced to her hand as if it had been made for her (which it had not been).
"I gave myself to the god, as I said I'd do. Did you know that, sorcerer? And I doubted him, afterward."
"Never doubt the god," said Ermenwyr, solemn as a high priest. "He honors bargains."
Desolation Rose arranged the gifts on the cracked pavement and looked at them.
"With these things, all the fortunes of my house will be restored," she said. "Now our enemies may tremble. Great is the god, blessed is his name!"
"Amen!" said Ermenwyr ruefully.
Desolation Rose took up the gifts and went running in to see what the cordial could do for her uncle.
After that Desolation Rose became Fire Rose, the Fire Rose of the songs, and of course the story is well known how she avenged her family, brought her enemies to ignominious and horrible ends, and served her god bravely through many glorious adventures.
But Ermenwyr went back to his father's house; and the first thing he did there was look in his mirror.
There he stood, himself and no other. So great was his joy and his relief that he hurried off and tumbled one of the housemaids.
Ermenwyr was thenceforth prudent, and never again impersonated a god; save once at a costume ball in Troon, when he seduced the vice-regent's sister. But she knew perfectly well who was under the mask....