The Land of Night

by Kirby Crow

  “Indisputably. We saw their camp and captured their flags: red for Ramung, his ancestor.” Jarek’s smile was wolfish. “Vladei has been caught in treason against the queen, my prince. We have him.”

  Alexyin slapped his hands together, his jaw set. “Then he dies,” he grated out. “There can be no mercy for him.”

  “Indeed, no,” Liall murmured, suddenly subdued. This was the execution of a royal prince they were speaking of. “Unless he outfoxes us and we die first. Then, my friends, history will name us the traitors. It is not so much a matter of who is right in these wars, but who wins.”

  “We shall not lose,” Jarek stated.

  “I wish I had your confidence,” Liall returned, “but you do not know everything that has happened. Cestimir and Scarlet are missing. They went on a sleigh ride, it appears, but the sleigh was found smashed in a valley below the Temple Road. Their driver was found dead.”

  “A search—” Jarek began quickly.

  “We are searching. We have been for hours. They have found nothing, no hint of where they might be.”

  Jarek glanced to Alexyin. “And Vladei?”

  “Gone,” Alexyin answered. “None knows where.”

  “I know where,” Jarek said grimly. “We captured many of his men, as I said. A man will give up his own mother under torture.” Liall winced, but Jarek went on, untouched. “They have a stronghold, it seems: the temple ruins in the mountains. They’ve been fortifying it for months, in case they needed a fort to retreat to. Now that they’ve been routed, the survivors will go there. So will Vladei, I believe. Where else does that rat have to run?”

  Noise echoed in the chamber beyond, and the sound of Jarek’s soldiers shouting in a rising chorus of anger.

  “What in the hells,” Liall growled, stalking to the doors. He flung them open to see several of the royal army holding Shikhoza and Eleferi at spear-point.

  Shikhoza kicked her skirts aside fearlessly and glared at the men who couched their weapons at her. Eleferi stood beside the Lady of Jadizek, nervous and fretting, his sly face damp with sweat.

  “Why do you disturb my mother’s deathbed?”

  “It will be all our deathbeds if you keep me away.” She flicked a glance, quick as a viper, to Alexyin and Jarek. “Send them out.”

  “They stay,” Liall said before Alexyin could object. “Speak. But I warn you, Lady, I am in no mood to tolerate your poison today.”

  “This is no woman’s game of spite, Nazheradei.” She pulled Eleferi forward. “We are here to make truce with you.”

  “Two vipers in one basket?” Liall smirked. “Eleferi, you have been Vladei’s creature since we were boys. Do you mean to convince me you would betray him now? At what price?”

  Eleferi flushed and opened his mouth to answer.

  “No price. For Rshan,” Shikhoza broke in. Her hand chopped the air when Liall would have spoken. “Will you listen? Vladei received a messenger last night, a rider from Magur.”

  Liall regarded her narrowly. Deceiving bitch. “And why did you not tell me this last night? Why wait?”

  “It was not an easy decision, Nazir. Whatever you think of me, I do nothing lightly.” Her hand dug in her skirt pocket and she handed him a piece of folded parchment. “Read it.”

  It was addressed to Eleferi.

  Brother,

  Magur is lost and we are betrayed by the West. I make for the place we agreed upon. Tell no one of this letter.

  “But Eleferi told you,” Liall said, glaring at Shikhoza. “Why?”

  Her smile told him much. “For years, Vladei has sought to be my husband, but if he had not been so busy taking his brother for granted, he might have seen that Eleferi had already claimed what Vladei thought was his.”

  Liall sensed her words were meant more to bolster Eleferi’s pride and soothe the betrayal the man was about to commit rather than any true affection on her part. “So you whore yourself with one brother while gulling the other. That is a song I have heard before from you, lady.”

  She did not rise to the bait. “If you want to see your t’aishka again, you will listen to me, prince. Cestimir’s sleigh was found on the temple road, yes? Why there, of all places?”

  “You are too late,” Liall went on, ignoring her hints and giving Eleferi a hard look. He thrust the letter in his step-brother’s face. “Jarek has already brought me the news that you carry in this missive. You betrayed your brother for nothing, Eleferi.”

  Eleferi turned pale.

  “And why the ruins?” Shikhoza demanded. “Melev has been heard speaking to Cestimir of the secrets of the temple ruins lately. Many times. Think, Nazheradei. I know you like to ignore the long history of our people and pretend that our gods do not exist, but think. Why would an Ancient wish to lure a Hilurin to that place?”

  Liall crumpled the letter in his hand, turning away, but froze when he saw Alexyin’s face. The bodyguard was staring at Shikhoza in shock and dismay. “Surely you do not believe this nonsense?” he asked his old teacher, scoffing.

  “Nazheradei... my prince, you saw what ser Keriss did in the great hall yesterday. You saw his magic.” Alexyin shook his head. “You were always such a poor history student. The Shining Ones and the Anlyribeth, do you remember? One channels the power of the other. They worked together to forge the great magic that created Rshan, before the Anlyribeth fled. Think what another such union could do in a place of power.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Liall said. “Place of power! That moldy old temple? And even if it could happen, Scarlet is not Anlyribeth and Melev is not a Shining One.”

  “Isn’t he?” Alexyin asked. “We have never known, have we? We think Melev is descended of their first children born here, but we cannot be sure of anything when it comes to an Ancient.”

  “It would be a betrayal!” Liall snapped. “This is Melev! Do you realize what you accuse him of?”

  “Do you realize what will happen to Cestimir if Alexyin is correct?” Shikhoza broke in.

  Liall rounded on her, intending her curse her and banish her from the room, and then he realized what she meant: Vladei gone, the boys missing from the palace, the wrecked sleigh. “Cestimir,” Liall repeated, stunned. “That was the price for delivering Cestimir to Vladei... a Hilurin.” The only Hilurin to set foot in Rshan in two thousand years, he thought despairingly. Oh gods...Scarlet. What have I done to you?

  “We need men,” Alexyin said to Jarek, taking charge as Liall stood there with his eyes hollow and his expression frozen in pain.

  “I don’t have many,” Jarek answered. “Perhaps a hundred, and what guards we have in the palace.”

  “Get them,” Liall croaked, his throat dry as weathered bone. “Get every man and woman who can hold a weapon and get them to the gates. We ride now.”

  10.

  The Ruins

  Scarlet dreamed. Liall and he were arguing again, in danger again, as usual, and Liall was trying to send him to safety. Scarlet refused to go and Liall shouted at him, but stopped when Scarlet pressed his mouth to Liall’s to shut him up.

  What do you do when home is a person, Liall? Don’t I have the right to fight for you?

  Scarlet stopped warring with it then, and admitted how much he had grown to love and need Liall. He swore if he ever got the chance, he would tell Liall so.

  Then Cestimir was shaking him and he opened his eyes to see the dim outline of a squat, stone fortress against a background of those pale ghost-trees. Vladei was not in the carriage with them.

  “Cestimir... where are we?”

  “He... Vladei has not taken us home,” Cestimir said, looking out the window. “We are at the temple ruins.”

  “We’re in trouble.”

  “I’m afraid so. Very much.”

  Scarlet looked at the prince, wondering if he was frightened. He didn’t seem so. “He won’t dare to harm you.”

  “You do not know Vladei, Scarlet,” Cestimir said, giving him his right name for the first time. “You cross
ed the sea from Byzantur to Rshan, yes? That is the measure of difference between Nazheradei and Vladei.” He closed his eyes for a brief moment, as if he were summoning courage. “I’m so sorry I talked you into this.”

  The carriage door was thrown open and a hand reached for Cestimir. The prince flung it off and growled in Sinha. The figure, dimly-seen, backed off, and Cestimir dismounted the carriage with dignity.

  “Ser Keriss,” he called.

  Scarlet clambered out after him. His eyes, far more suited to the dark than Cestimir’s, adjusted immediately, and in the blue twilight he saw that they were surrounded by armed guards clad in red and gold. They were Vladei’s men, and had a look of villainy that he had not seen on any Rshani’s face since leaving the Ostre Sul. He realized that he liked a good many Rshani, now. Tesk, Nenos, Jochi, Cestimir, even the queen.

  The guards stood a bit apart from Cestimir and Scarlet and eyed them with hostility, and it was not lost on Scarlet that not one of the armed men bowed to Cestimir.

  Looming above them and sheltering them from the wind was a low, crumbling keep of stone, partially caved in on the north side. The ragged spike of a shattered tower jutted up into the star-pocked darkness above, and Scarlet could see that the place was a ruin older than memory. How many centuries had it brooded here, wasting away into the frozen mountain? It looked an angry place, and Scarlet quailed from the thought of going in there.

  The guards stood a little apart from them, watching them. The nap had given Scarlet new energy, and he cast a longing look at the gray sketches of the woods nearby. He was sure the guards could barely make them out, but to him they were plain as day. Cestimir saw and shook his head.

  “Don’t,” Cestimir mouthed, barely moving his lips.

  “You Rshani may have long legs, but you can’t run worth a damn,” Scarlet answered back, voice low. “If I make it, I’ll tell them where you are.”

  “You will not make it. If the cold does not kill you, the bears will.”

  “Are they going to kill us inside?”

  It was a hard question to ask a boy, but Cestimir stared back at him fearlessly, if sad. “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “Nothing to lose then.”

  “I promised you an adventure, Scarlet. I am sorry.”

  “Fine. You owe me one.” Scarlet glanced at the woods. “Care to give me a send-off?”

  One white eyebrow arched up, but Cestimir turned and strode peremptorily up to one of the red guards and thrust his face close to the man’s. “How dare you treat me in this fashion!” Cestimir struck the guard a blow across the face, not a glancing one, either, and tried to shove his way past into the ruins.

  Scarlet gave it a moment more before the shouting began, then bolted for the forest, quick as a hare. It was several moments before one of guards caught sight of him heading into the snow, and by the time the shouting had started, Scarlet was plunged into the blackness of the woods.

  He hadn’t expected thorns. There was a thick of them just beyond the stand of trees that lined the mountain road. Scarlet crashed into the frozen, leafless brush full-tilt, getting stabbed by the sharp points, stumbling and running, only to find that there was nothing beyond the stand, no ground to cross. The land dropped away from the path into a long, steep slope, down to the bottom of a hill. Running up on it blind, Scarlet lost his balance and began to fall.

  A hand seized his arm, dragging him back from the edge. Scarlet found himself caught against a frame as big as a snow bear, strong and warm. Hands, neither soft nor cruel, swept him along over the patch of thorns and set him on his feet on the edge of the ravine.

  Scarlet stared in shock. It was Melev, looking down at him with his milk-pale eyes. “Ser,” he stammered, out of breath. He pointed in the direction of the ruins. “They’re holding the prince prisoner!”

  “I know.” Melev’s great hand clamped around Scarlet’s wrist like an iron vise, and the dark blue sky turned over as he was picked up as if he weighed nothing.

  “I have waited centuries for one of you to cross the great sea,” Melev said, his deep voice rumbling through his chest and directly into Scarlet’s skin. “And now you are here. The circle will close, the curse will end, and all will be as it once was.”

  It was babble to Scarlet. Mad talk. “Please. They’re going to hurt Cestimir!”

  “Yes.”

  Melev hauled him effortlessly up the side of the ravine, back to the ruins. Scarlet fought him, but it was like trying to push a mountain over.

  Vladei waited for them in front of Cestimir and a squad of red guards, his arms folded and a wry smile on his face. Melev dumped Scarlet at Vladei’s feet in the snow and one of the red guards grabbed Scarlet by the neck and shook him.

  “Are you content, Melev?” Vladei asked, his hands perched on his hips, as if he knew Scarlet would be caught all along.

  “I have the price of my assistance, as promised.”

  “Melev,” Cestimir intoned, as if breathing the name of a god. “How could you do this?”

  “It is worth one man’s life to return Rshan’s magic to her, to restore the glory of the Shining Ones.”

  “What magic? What nonsense is this?”

  “The Anlyribeth stole the magic of the Nauhin, the Shining Ones. They took their revenge because we kept them in slavery. They were our curse, and never since has there been a slave in Rshan. This one,” Melev clamped his hand on Scarlet’s wrist again and dragged him closer. “Will restore the balance, and give back what was taken.”

  “Fairy tales!” Cestimir shouted. “This is madness, he’s only a pedlar. An illiterate, peasant pedlar from Byzantur!”

  “So it would seem, to all eyes but mine.” Melev began to drag Scarlet towards the temple ruins.

  “Leave him be!” Cestimir started after them and Vladei stunned the young Prince with a fist to the back of his head. Cestimir fell to his knees, moaning.

  The guards brought both of the prisoners into the gray, barren fortress, and Scarlet saw what awaited them there: the hooded man, the shining sword, and the wooden platform. Scarlet felt sick and terrified at once. To die fighting was one thing, but to be led calmly to slaughter was far, far worse.

  The executioner straddled the steps of the short wooden platform, his face hidden by a dark hood.

  “They’re going to kill us,” he said needlessly to Cestimir.

  “Not us,” Cestimir got out, stumbling as Vladei shoved him in the back.

  A red guard pushed Scarlet along again and he tried to tear his hand out of Melev’s grasp to help Cestimir.

  “Cesta!” Scarlet rounded on Vladei. “He’s your brother!”

  Cestimir had reached the steps and turned to speak to Scarlet calmly. “This happens here all the time, ser Keriss. It is nothing new.” He gave Scarlet a small, nervous smile as the hooded man stepped down to bind the prince’s hands behind his back. “At least, I will not be a prisoner in a throne room all my life. This way, I am free forever.”

  They tried to pull Cestimir up the steps, away from Scarlet. Scarlet reached out, clawing at Melev’s arm to pry him off. “You can’t do this, he’s only a boy! Let him go!”

  Vladei stepped forward and slapped Scarlet across the face. “He is a prince of Druz, meeting his death with dignity. Cease your wailing.”

  “Bastard!” Scarlet would have thrown himself on Vladei, but Melev picked Scarlet up effortlessly and turned towards a dark corridor that led into to the depths of the ruins. They led Cestimir up the steps, and the last look Scarlet had of Cestimir was the young Prince kneeling carefully on the wooden platform, as if afraid he could not do it with grace. Cestimir lifted his chin and turned his head to catch Scarlet’s eye a last time. Astonishingly, there was pity in the prince’s eyes. Not for himself, but for Scarlet.

  “Cesta!” Scarlet howled, his voice ringing and bouncing off the stone walls.

  Melev dragged him away, ignoring his cries. He even begged him. “Please, please, save him. You can’t just let him d
ie like that, please!”

  Melev did not strike Scarlet to silence him. It was worse than that. Scarlet did not even seem to exist to the Ancient as he was pulled along the dark, cold corridors with their broken walls and crumbling arches, across shattered floors and through pitch-black passages, until at last they came to a large, round chamber already lit by many torches. This place was not like the rest of the ruins. There was evidence of recent repair in the wooden frame buttressing the arch, and the cracked floor had been swept free of pebbles and debris.

  There was a sunken pit in the center of the chamber, round like the room. Melev tossed Scarlet into it and he fell, rolling. Melev stepped in after him, swifter than any man his size had a right to be, and grabbed Scarlet’s wrist. Scarlet heard a clink of metal and felt a cold circle clamp on his wrist as Melev chained one of his hands to a round iron ring set into the sunken floor. Scarlet kicked and tried to pry him off before he could chain the other one, and failed.