Darkness Descending

He’d been walking for hours, at the ground-eating pace he’d acquired in the Gyongyosian army, from the depot at which the ley-line caravan had left him. No ley line came any closer to his valley than that. Now, looking down from the pass, he could see spread out before him the place where he’d spent his whole life till Gyongyos’ wars pulled him away.

He stopped, more in surprise than from weariness. How small and cramped it looks, he thought. The valley had seemed plenty big enough while he was growing to manhood in it. He shrugged broad shoulders and started walking again. His village lay closest to the mouth of the pass. He’d be there well before nightfall.

The mountains that ringed the valley still wore snow halfway down from their peaks. That snow would retreat up the slopes as summer advanced on spring, but not too far, not too far. Even now, Istvan’s breath smoked as he trudged along.

Snow still lay on the ground here and there in the valley, too, in places shaded from the northern sky. Elsewhere, mud replaced it, mud streaked with last year’s dead, yellow grass and just beginning to be speckled with the green of new growth.

An old man, his tawny beard gone gray, was setting stones in a wall that marked the boundary between two fields: a boundary no doubt also marked in spilled blood a few generations before. He looked up from his work and eyed Istvan, then called, “Who are you, lad?”--a natural enough question, when Istvan’s green-brown uniform tunic and leggings hid his clan affiliation and made him look different, too.

“I am Istvan son of Alpri,” Istvan answered. “Kunhegyes is my village.”

“Ah,” the old man said, and nodded. “Be welcome, then, clansmate. May the stars always shine on you.”

Istvan bowed. “May you always know their light, kinsman.” He walked on.

But even as he walked, he realized he spoke differently from the old man. The accent of the valley--which had been his accent till he joined the army--now struck his ear as rustic and uncouth. His own way of speaking, these days was smoother and softer. In the army, he still sounded like someone from the back country. Here in his old home, though, he would seem almost like a city man whenever he opened his mouth.

Like any village in Gyongyos, Kunhegyes sheltered behind a stout palisade. So far as Istvan knew, his hometown remained at peace with the other two villages in the valley, nor was the valley as a whole at feud with any of its neighbors. Still, such things could change in the blink of an eye. The lookout up on the palisade was in grim earnest when he demanded Istvan’s name.

He gave it again and added, “You let me in this instant, Csokonai, or I’ll thrash you till you can’t even see.”

The lookout, who was also Istvan’s cousin, laughed and said, “You and what army?” But he didn’t try to keep Istvan out; instead, he ran down off the palisade and opened the gate so his kinsman could enter. As soon as Istvan came inside, the two young men embraced. “By the stars, it’s good to see you,” Csokonai exclaimed.

“By the stars, it’s good to be seen,” Istvan answered, which made Csokonai laugh. Istvan laughed, too, but he hadn’t been joking; plenty of times, he’d thought he would never be seen again, not in his home village.

Inside the palisade, Kunhegyes’ houses were as he remembered them: solid structures of stone and brick, with steep slate roofs to shed rain and snow and to make sure no stick could set them afire. The houses stood well apart from one another, too, to make each more defensible. Despite that, the place seemed crowded to Istvan in a way it hadn’t before he saw the wider world. First the valley felt crowded, and now the village looks too small, he thought. What’s wrong with me?

“You must be glad to be back,” Csokonai said.

“Oh, aye, so I must,” Istvan agreed vaguely, though that had been the furthest thing from his mind.

“Well, don’t just stand there, then,” his cousin said. “I’ll take you along to your house--not likely anybody else’U come along till I get back up on the palisade. We don’t get one traveler most days, let alone two.” His laugh said he was happy to dwell in such perfect isolation.

Istvan had been, too. He kept looking into shops and taverns. Was everything here really on such a small scale? Had it always been this way? If it had, why hadn’t he noticed before? It had been air under the wings of a bird--that was why. He’d never imagined things could be any different. Now that he knew better, Kunhegyes shrank in his mind like a wool tunic washed in hot water.