The Border Keeper

by Kerstin Hall

  “What is that?” Vasethe stared dumbly at the wall of shadow. He took a step toward it, and Tyn caught his wrist.

  “Stop,” she said.

  “But—”

  “It’s too late. We’ve already crossed realms.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve passed out of Buyak’s domain.” Tyn did not sound afraid. She released his arm. “It was careless of me.”

  Vasethe’s skin crawled. “We crossed without noticing?”

  “Yes. Tricked into it.” She pressed her lips together. “The real question is why. We should see where the passage leads.”

  “Do we want to know where it leads?”

  “There’s no point in staying here; a channel only opens in a single direction. But if we can determine where we are, maybe we can find a way back.”

  “Always were good in a crisis,” he muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. You’re right, that’s all.”

  She gave him a hard look. He shrugged.

  The passage curved and the lights in the walls steadily dimmed, replaced by the glow of far-off daylight. No windows now, and a layer of fine dust covered the floor. It rose in clouds of powder when they walked.

  Not dust, Vasethe realized. Ash. The faint smell of lilies caused his chest to tighten. He paused.

  “Is something the matter?” asked Tyn.

  “I just had a strange feeling. Like I’ve forgotten something important.”

  “Keep it together, okay?”

  The daylight grew stronger. When they rounded the next corner, the passage came to a sudden end.

  The realm was vast. They stood on a sheer precipice overlooking endless miles of dark hills. Thick mist coiled in the valleys. Nothing alive, nothing growing, nothing that moved but the wind. Peculiar rock formations grew from the murk; sharp, cracked mounds rose from the ground like giant termite hills. The sun was faint through the fog, staining the landscape red.

  And ahead of them, a scar in the landscape, was the city. It sprawled over the hillside; close-packed brick houses and soot-stained halls. At the crest of the hill loomed a tiered palace, its high walls rising above the rest of the city.

  And everything dead and blackened and still.

  “It can’t be,” breathed Tyn.

  “Do you know where we are?”

  She turned to him, smiling faintly, as if she expected him to tell her it was all an elaborate joke.

  “The Realm of Ghosts,” she said. “The 41st. What used to be the domain of the Goddess Fanieq.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE OLD ROAD TO the city remained mostly intact. It cut through the hills, straight and level, although the mist made it difficult to see farther than a few feet ahead. The shadows of abandoned wagons and wooden carts emerged from the whiteness, the metal wheels rusted in place, never to move again.

  “I’ve seen this place before,” said Vasethe. “I think it’s the realm we were trying to reach.”

  “Why you’d want to come here is beyond me,” Tyn replied. She stopped beside a wagon, braced her foot against the boxboard, and snapped off one of the guard rails. She hefted it in her right hand, holding it out in front of her.

  “You are sure this is the 41st realm?”

  “Certainly looks like it.” She swung the pole with her right hand, tracing smooth arcs through the air. “When the border keeper destroyed Addis Hal Rata, this place was closed off to all but the High. Even their channels disappeared after she abdicated to Ahri. No one goes in. No one comes out.”

  “Except for us.”

  “Lucky, lucky us.” Tyn spun and hit the side of the wagon, hard. Vasethe saw her wince as the force jarred her left arm, but the pole held firm. “We must reach the city before nightfall. If the stories are to be trusted, there’s a kind of curfew in place. We don’t want to be caught breaking it.”

  “Caught by who?”

  “Fanieq had her dwellers,” she said gruffly. “They’re still here. In a sense.”

  The mist dampened Vasethe’s clothing and caused the fabric to stick to his skin. The air was mild but curiously stale. Beads of moisture ran down the back of his neck.

  They came to a fork in the road and kept straight. Strange rock formations towered over them, rising from the damp ground like spearheads. Huge mud-filled fissures cut across the verges of the road, and slow bubbles rose from the muck. Vasethe, peering closer, noticed what appeared to be thick, trailing weeds growing in the sludge. He tugged the strands free and found himself holding a clump of human hair. Brown and slick, long as his forearm. He dropped it and wiped his hands on his shirt.

  The damage to the first buildings was not too severe, although their brickwork had grown spongy with mould and dampness. A mix of ash and sludge choked the gutters. Vasethe kept watch and Tyn searched through the houses for weapons. The sun had sunk below the palace walls, outlining the steep roofs of the city in yellow light, preserving them in amber.

  They pressed on, rarely speaking; something about the realm demanded silence. The road widened and the houses grew smaller. Ugly streaks of old soot coated the walls. A fire had gutted whole districts of the city and left only the skeletons of buildings standing. Shattered roof tiles littered the ground, and pieces of broken glass caught the light. In some places, the streets had collapsed into sinkholes, and the subterranean water system was visible: huge rusted pipes, ferrying a trickle of sludge downhill.

  The light was fading quickly. With a heavy ceiling of cloud blocking out the moon and stars, night would be pitch dark. Vasethe rubbed his arms. Tyn, only a few steps behind him, was scarcely visible through the grey mist. If he lost sight of her, she might vanish entirely, swallowed up by the city.

  “Up there,” she said, and pointed to the end of the street.

  When he turned around, he saw a wavering orange light through the mist. A lantern, swinging on a post. As they approached, the building behind the light swam into focus: a tall, narrow edifice of dark stone. Unlike its neighbours, it appeared unscathed—the windows were still intact and the roof secure.

  He exchanged a sidelong glance with Tyn. “What do you think?”

  “I think that we don’t have much time to search for an alternative. It looks defensible, at least.”

  The front door was unlocked, but it took both of them to force it open; the ancient wood had swollen with moisture and fused to the frame. Vasethe took the lantern down from the post.

  “I hope we can find something to burn,” said Tyn. She shivered. “It would be good to dry our clothes.”

  The last of the daylight had vanished; everything beyond their sanctuary was invisible. In the pool of wan lantern light, Tyn’s tattoos flickered and twisted. A good excuse, the clothing. But they both knew that the lantern was meant to keep the darkness at bay.

  “Come on,” she said.

  Vasethe pulled the door closed behind them and slid the bolt into place. His heart was thumping, although he wasn’t sure entirely why. He raised the lantern above his head.

  Inside, the building appeared to be a temple. The walls were stained a rich, dark shade of copper, and the roof was high and shadowed. Thousands of gold coins were inset into the varnished floor, arranged in perfect interlocking rings. Malachite statues—three on the right, four on the left—formed a short corridor that led to an altar at the far end of the chamber.

  Each statue held a steel bowl in their outstretched hands, filled with oil. Vasethe moved from one to the next and used the lantern to light them. Seven statues. All of the same women in different dress and ornaments, different aspects of the realm’s goddess. Warrior, judge, dancer, shepherd, scholar, queen, beggar. The last of them, the shepherd, had lost her face and shoulders, the stone blasted clean away. Her staff remained upright, held by a dismembered hand. He set the lantern at her feet.

  “We’ll look for the exit from the realm tomorrow,” said Tyn. She tried to untie the sling around her neck with one hand. The fabric was sodden. “I
t’s bound to be somewhere within the city, probably near the palace.”

  “Can I help?”

  She nodded. “If you don’t mind.”

  He worked the knot loose. “I didn’t think this would need to be waterproof.”

  The layers of fabric securing the bamboo splints were only mildly damp, so he left them in place.

  “Vasethe?” said Tyn.

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering . . .” She sat on the edge of the warrior statue’s plinth. Her eyes were averted; she toyed with the frayed edge of the splint binding.

  “What?”

  “No, it’s nothing.” She swallowed, and shook her head. “Never mind.”

  She seemed embarrassed, so Vasethe left her alone. He picked up the lantern and set about exploring the rest of the building.

  Behind the altar was a small door. Archways stood on either side of it, leading into a curving, windowless passageway. An enormous mural covered the walls of the passage; the painting stretched from one end to the other.

  Once, it must have been remarkable. The detail was incredibly fine and deliberate, not a brushstroke wasted. Even now, peeling and chipped and grown over with mould, it demanded attention. On the wall beside the first archway was a string of words written in a red, swirling font, but Vasethe did not recognize the language.

  The narrative of the painting began on the left, with an armoured warrior standing below a rippling standard, her shining army spread out on the plains below her. Facing her across the battlefield was a kneeling man clothed in black, his head bowed in surrender or penitence.

  The back of his cloak fed into the next scene, where a great festival was underway; people dancing and bowing before the throne of the warrior queen. She gazed at the crowds, unsmiling, her eyes seeing beyond them to a storm on the horizon.

  Masses of purple clouds roiled, and from them arose a woman with scarlet skin and hair like lightning, her eyes wide and insane, her teeth bared in a hideous snarl. She was naked, and snakes coiled around her bare limbs. Where her feet met the earth, flames burst from the grass.

  Now the warrior stood before the gates, her guards arrayed behind her and her sword raised in defiance. Beautiful, glorious. Doomed. The border keeper, grown to the size of a giant, bore down upon her with burning knives, and the city was aflame, people torn apart and bleeding, children howling at the sky, rivers of gore, and only the warrior queen to stand before the onslaught.

  “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  He started. Tyn stepped closer, gazing up at the mural.

  “It’s difficult to reconcile with the story I heard,” he admitted. He couldn’t stop himself from adding, “The painter had a degree of poetic license, too. Even as Wrengreth, she wouldn’t have been indiscriminate.”

  “Some facts are unassailable,” said Tyn.

  “Eris never denied that she killed Fanieq. And maybe some other dwellers were caught up in the violence, but this?” He gestured at the wall, willing Tyn to agree with him. “It’s exaggeration.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. You’ve seen what remains of the city.” Tyn laid her hand over a figure of a crying child, blotting them out. “The truth lies somewhere between the story of the conqueror and the story of the conquered.”

  She ran her fingers sideways, following the painting to its final image.

  The queen lay alone before a broken throne, clasping a wound in her chest. The sun shone upon her, and her expression was fierce and determined. Through a gap in the wall of the palace, she gazed at a silver-leafed grove and a house in the woods.

  “There’s a second inscription here.” Tyn moved to read the writing at the edge of the mural. Vasethe scarcely heard her, staring at the small, painted house.

  “Down the hill and into the valley, where the sun cannot shine. Down the hill and into the valley, where the house of bones lies. Queen of Ghosts, where burns your kingdom, Queen of Loss, where burns your heart. Hush, hush, under stone, under water, what secret place you hide. Hush, hush, the witch will hear you breathing. Hush, the witch will know the lie.”

  And like a switch in his brain, he remembered where he had heard the chant, why he had believed it to be a nursery song.

  “She never died,” he whispered.

  Nialle bent over the cradle, singing softly to her baby. The same words. His memories were so vague and clouded, he could remember asking her about the lullaby, and her laughing—just something I heard, just a silly little song—and then nothing. Holes in his past, long stretches of nothing, up until her death.

  “What did you say?”

  “Fanieq. Eris thought she’d killed her; but what if she was wrong? What if, all along, Fanieq hid in a minor realm and survived?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “No one ever tried to claim the 41st realm, did they? It’s still hers.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “All of it was meant to drive Eris back into Mkalis.” Bile rose in Vasethe’s throat. “Fanieq wants revenge.”

  A loud bang shattered the silence outside the temple. They jumped. A throaty, seesawing screech pierced the air, and the ground trembled.

  Tyn caught Vasethe’s eye and pressed a finger to her lips.

  Something scrabbled at the front door, like a dog trying to claw through the wood. It breathed heavily. In the wavering torchlight, Vasethe could see a pool of oily water forming at the gap beneath the door.

  It rammed into the door again.

  Tyn crouched silently and picked up her pole. She pointed at the door behind the altar.

  The inner sanctum was colder than the rest of the building. The small, circular room had gilded walls and a drain set into the floor. Tyn shut the door with care and slid the rows of slender bolts into place.

  “I don’t believe anything will get inside,” she whispered. “But if they do, it’s best to put a second barrier between us.”

  Vasethe nodded.

  Another shriek. The sound morphed into a disturbing rattle, nails shaken in a rusted pipe.

  “There isn’t much we can do but wait until morning.” Tyn hesitated. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Vasethe—”

  “Really. You’re the one with the broken arm. I’m fine.” Vasethe sat, drawing his knees to his chest. Tyn lowered herself to the ground opposite him and rested her pole across her lap.

  More banging. It sounded like their visitor had brought friends.

  “I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Tyn, “but I’m afraid that you’ll laugh.”

  “I won’t.”

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Tyn, come on. It’s fine.”

  She took a deep breath. “Did you come to Mkalis to find me?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “It’s strange,” she said, “but I feel like I’ve known you for years. From the very first time we spoke, I trusted you. Right away, like you were a member of my tribe. And sometimes you say things that make me feel like you understand me better than anybody else.”

  “I didn’t come to find you.”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks flushed. “Of course. I thought it might be a stupid idea. Forget I ever asked.”

  “I didn’t come to find you,” he said quietly, “although I wanted to.”

  She paused.

  “Your name was Raisha Amascine, and we attended the same university,” he said. “Six years ago, while interviewing Pol merchants for your final paper, you fell sick. The Pol ships had brought a disease into Utyl; you caught it before the situation could be contained. A week later, you were gone.”

  She looked bewildered. “I was a scholar?”

  “One of the best.” He smiled. “Linguistics and anthropology. The rectors expected that you would take over the faculty within a decade. I believe you terrified them.”

  “Huh. Not what I expected.” She tugged at her hair, frowning slightly. “Did the disease kill many people?”

  “No, just you
and three others.” He studied the floor. “It was quick. I wasn’t able to see you because of the quarantine, but they let us write letters. You told me there was no pain.”

  He remembered reading that and knowing that she was lying. He remembered the helplessness.

  “Then you were gone,” he said. “One day there, the next, gone. All I had left were your letters and the sketch of a tattoo you’d designed for me.”

  “A tattoo?”

  “You always said—insisted—I should get one. It was an ongoing joke between us.”

  “What did I suggest?”

  “It’s hard to explain, but you modified a proverb in one of the languages we were studying. It translated to ‘dog of any master’.” He paused for a moment and traced the word on the ground. Stalling until he could trust himself to speak. “Because you said I could love anyone. That I would do anything, for anyone, if they asked.”

  “I like it.”

  He snorted. “Well, you did come up with it.”

  “Maybe I was smart after all.” She nudged him with her boot. “So, what were you to me?”

  “Your classmate.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I don’t think I can answer that.”

  “All right, then, if you want to be difficult: what was I to you?”

  He opened his mouth to answer but stopped. Tyn was still smiling, but tears ran down her cheeks.

  “The first person I ever fell in love with,” he said.

  She nodded. “And yet I can’t remember any of this. It’s all gone.”

  Her knuckles were bone-white around the pole.

  “I’ve lost something without ever realizing I had it.” She laughed. The sound came out harsh. “Doesn’t seem fair.”

  He was about to say I know, but didn’t. She brushed at her face with one hand.

  “It’s all in the past now,” she said. “I know that. It’s not like I would have wanted to return to Ahri, anyway. I just feel strange when listening to you speak, that’s all.”

  There were a thousand things he should say. All the things he never had the chance to tell her, all that she meant to him. There were a thousand things he should say, but none of them were enough.