Lark's Quest: The Complete Story (The Deeds of the Ariane) by Barbara Cool Lee

Author:Barbara Cool Lee [Lee, Barbara Cool]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Pajaro Bay Publishing
Published: 2015-01-15T19:00:00+00:00

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The sound of the two sets of hooves pacing on the path, and Lark's occasional cursing, had long since faded in the distance as Raven walked up the hill. The only sound was a bird cooing in the bushes nearby. It was cold, and the lake mists would soon qualify as rain by anybody's calculation, but the trail ascended quite gradually up the hill so the walking was not unpleasant. The tiny road wandered around and around the hill, barely higher on each succeeding pass up to the top.

His first trip up to the top of the funerary hill he had disrupted the ceremony with his questions. Why not climb straight up? he had asked as a child. It's not logical to wander around and around a hill to get to the top, when one can climb straight and reach the summit in one-tenth the time.

The path gives one time to think, the Lady Melody had said as she led the worshipers on the ascension. She had held his small hand in her cool, smooth one, and he had quieted, but he had not understood her answer until many years later. Until now, perhaps.

These few days of travel had brought all the old memories back to him, the thoughts he had succeeded in banishing for many years. Perhaps that was what the journey was for. To give him time to think.

He could not think of anything religious to contemplate as he walked, as he knew he was supposed to. It mattered little which god he entreated—none ever answered him. He had not been able to concentrate as a child, either. Make your mind empty and open to the gods, they said. (Open to God, his mother had said.) What if God never came? Then all one is left with is an empty mind. That joke had seemed more amusing when he was a child.

At the top he stopped to catch his breath. He was more winded than he liked to admit—hardly in fighting condition, hardly the fit young heir to a kingdom. But then it was hardly a fit kingdom.

He had to gather his wits about him to orient himself. At first none of the grey shapes lurking in the fog seemed familiar, and then he realized he was facing the wrong way. The faint purplish beacon in the distance to his left was the signal light on the Far hill. The Far hill and the hill on which he stood framed the Mission on Hollow hill.

Three hills looming over the valley floor—representing the triad of the one God, the peasants said. Representing the forces of the constant pressure from the underground springs on the mountainside, said those more cynical.

Far below, the valley stretched across. The hillsides made a brilliant emerald frame for the valley, the rich terraces of growing rice marching down the mountainsides to embrace the city below. Far below, the city of Chÿar itself covered the valley floor. On a clear day from this vantage point the city would appear as just a patchwork of rooftops interlaced by arrow-straight canals.

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