Hinterland

by James Clemens

  Orquell leaned slightly, assuming a pose similar to Mirra’s.

  “And not just any Hands,” he added. “But the Hands of Tylar ser Noche, regent of Chrismferry. I believe you are still searching for him.”

  Delia swore, almost raising a blush on Laurelle’s cheek with her sudden and vitriolic vulgarity.

  “And for assurance, I’ll cross to the stairs without raising any fire, so that you may feel safer. This I swear. I will trust your darkness to cloak us and seal our bargain.”

  Mirra was plainly tempted, weighing the odds of just taking them. But there were risks in attacking a master of fire. Finally she spoke slowly, summarizing the bargain. “So if I allow you to proceed to the main stair, you’ll raise no fire against me, tell no one of my presence, and once you are free, you’ll stanch your pyres.”

  He nodded.

  “And I can take these three,” she added firmly.

  “I will not stop you. All this I swear on my crimson eye.”

  Mirra surveyed the room one more time. A bell echoed from some distance away, marking the passage of time. Finally, she nodded. “So be it. You are sworn safe passage.”

  Orquell bowed. He crossed to each pyre, spread a bit of powder, and whispered over it. He returned to the door. “The flames will obey my will. Once safe, I will extinguish them.”

  “Then let us be off. Sunset draws near.”

  “I want my hostages kept close,” he said. “No slipping them off in the dark. I will know.”

  She waved her arm impatiently.

  Orquell raised a palm to the pyre by the door and lowered his hand. The flames died down, while the others still flickered brighter. With no light ahead, Laurelle saw their shadows stretch toward the open doorway. Once they crossed the threshold, the darkness surged inside, sweeping around with a rustle of cloth.

  They were forced to follow Orquell. As soon as they stepped over the threshold, all light vanished. Laurelle gasped at the suddenness of it, as if someone had slammed the door on the firelit room behind them.

  She reached out a hand and touched a warm body. Kytt found her hand and grabbed it. Delia bumped against her, then their hands were locked. Together they were ushered ahead, surrounded by a darkness that stirred.

  They followed a zigzagging path that had Laurelle all turned around. She remembered Orquell’s description of a darkness so complete it strained the eye to the point of blindness. Her eyes ached, searching for light.

  She heard Orquell whisper under his breath. So faint she could not make out his words. But they had been intended for sharper ears, those of a wyld tracker.

  Kytt leaned forward, his lips finding Laurelle’s ear. He breathed so very faintly. “Be ready.”

  Laurelle nodded and squeezed Delia’s hand, silently warning her.

  Orquell spoke again, but this time loud enough for all to hear. “I believe I never answered your question, Mistress Laurelle. Before I go, I might as well satisfy your curiosity. You had asked what I see when my inner eye opens in the darkness.”

  Laurelle swallowed to free her tongue. “What do you see?”

  “Flames…”

  Suddenly a door burst open to the right, yanked by Orquell. Firelight blazed out of the room, sealed so tight that not a flicker had reached the hall. The one who hid in the room had plainly not wanted to be found, but did not dare sit in the dark amid a legion of ghawls.

  A cry rose inside.

  Laurelle spotted a familiar figure cowering near the back of the room. A thick torch in hand, bright with flame. He held it toward the door like a sword.

  “Sten…” Laurelle said.

  It was the captain of the Oldenbrook guard.

  His eyes widened at the sight of them—then he must have noted the surging shadows around the group. He suddenly sank to his knees in terror.

  “No!”

  Out in the hall, the firelight cast back the shadows, leaving Mirra standing only a few paces away, stripped of darkness.

  Orquell cupped his hands toward Sten’s torch. The flame leaped like a deer from the end of his brand and flew to the master’s hands. At the same time, he turned and cast the fire at Mirra.

  The flames struck her, bathing her face, lighting her gray hair like the driest grass. She screamed and fell back into the darkness of the deeper hall.

  Orquell shoved them all in the opposite direction.

  With the witch maddened by her agony, her ghawls were in disarray. They fled to the end of the hall and around the corner, where more firelight glowed at the end of the next passage. They had reached the habited sections of the tower.

  They ran in a wild dash, fearful of what might be rallying at their back. But it seemed the ghawls had found another target upon which to vent their rage and their mistress’s pain.

  Sten wailed behind them, the sound barely human.

  Laurelle fled from his cry as much as from the ghawls.

  Finally, they reached the light. Rooms to either side echoed with voices, moans. Some doors were open, blazing with light. The smell of blood and bile was heavy. They had reached some makeshift healing ward set up on this level. Passing through, they found a gathering of knights at the stair’s landing. The knights eyed the strange and breathless bunch, but recognized a master’s robes and parted the way.

  Orquell stepped to the stairs and resoundingly clapped his hands. Laurelle noted a wisp of smoke sail between his palms. She eyed him inquiringly.

  “To douse the pyres. As I swore—when I reached the stairs, I would put them out.”

  Delia stared at him. “And you also swore not to raise a fire against Mirra.”

  “And I didn’t. What burned her was not a flame I cast or kindled. It was borrowed fire, already burning. It didn’t need raising.”

  Delia shook her head. “The witch was right. The word of rub-aki is as slippery as any lie.”

  “Before we stepped into the hall,” Laurelle asked, “you already knew about Sten’s fire?”

  Orquell tapped the mark on his forehead. “The inner eye is sensitive to fire. While communing earlier, listening to my pyres, I sensed a fire hidden near the edge of the witch’s darkness. I needed her cooperation as a bridge to reach it.”

  Delia turned to the upper stairs. “Before Mirra heals and collects herself, word must reach the warden and Castellan Vail.”

  Orquell remained where he was. “I cannot speak of it. This I also swore. But I know where I may prove of more use.” He took a step down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Laurelle asked.

  He pointed below. “With Mirra and her legion already above, her buried lair is most likely unguarded. If what I suspect is true, there may be something a rub-aki can accomplish that no one else can do.”

  “You’re going into the cellars?” Kytt asked, taking a step after him. “Down into her secret passages?”

  “If I can find an opening.”

  Kytt took the other steps. “I’ve been down there. While chasing the wolfkits. I can lead you.”

  Laurelle stared from Delia to the young tracker. Then she slowly took one step down, and another, almost disbelieving her legs. But she knew the truth. They would need her help more than Delia would, if only to carry another torch. And after all that had happened, she was not about to hole up in some room again, waiting for the end. She’d had enough of that.

  “Get word above,” she said to Delia. “To your father. To Kathryn. They must know what lurks here and where we are headed.”

  The woman hesitated—but she read the certainty in Laurelle’s eyes.

  Turning, Laurelle found Kytt gaping at her.

  “No,” he said firmly.

  Laurelle simply strode past him, rolling her eyes.

  Boys.

  When would they learn?

  20

  A PACT WITH A DAEMON

  AT THE FOOT OF THE CLIFF, TYLAR STEPPED OFF THE VINE ladder.

  He had never set foot in a hinterland before, but he had heard tales. Other knigh
ts, older knights, told gruesome stories of campaigns against hinter-kings and raving rogues. He almost expected his leg to sink into muck, his skin to peel, and his clothes to burn. But his boots found only loose scree.

  He moved away from the cliff, making room for the rest of their party. The way down from here was still steep, barely less of a slope than the cliff itself. Below, another dark forest beckoned, ready again to swallow them up under a canopy.

  But here, on this thin beachhead, the stars shone overhead. As Harp had predicted, the sun had sunk to a glow at the western horizon. The lesser moon hung full and low, as if wary of showing its face too high above this sinister land. Perhaps it would be braver when the greater moon rose later. Still, the meager moonlight did cast the spread of forest in a silvery light.

  Distantly, large pinnacles of rock protruded, looking like foraging beasts lumbering across a meadow. But Tylar knew they were just the broken landscape of the hinter, a shattered tableland, as if struck by a mighty hammer and upended in crumbled sections.

  The scuff of rock and low voices announced the arrival of the rest of their party. They had all come down in pairs, joined by bonds new or freshly forged. Krevan and Calla had their shared heritage as pirates, leader and mate, but Tylar had begun to note Calla’s eye lingering occasionally upon Krevan, revealing a certain longing that never made it to her lips. Krevan seemed oblivious. Next came Malthumalbaen and Lorr, an unlikely pair, but both were sculpted of the same Graced cloth. It was this commonality that forged a bond between them. Last came Dart and Brant, also tied together by strange circumstances, her father stumbling into Brant’s life and dying.

  And of course, Tylar was no exception. He had his own shadow, too. One that had been with him from the start of his long journey as a godslayer.

  “I’m not climbing back up that,” Rogger said.

  Tylar did not argue with the sentiment. His entire left side ached, from ankle to shoulder. His hand throbbed and felt four sizes too large. But at least they’d been descending the ladder. His aches reminded him of Master Sheershym’s assessment: a spreading poison, weakening the naethryn inside him, and in turn, corrupting the spell that kept his body healed and Meeryn’s undergod tethered to this world.

  What if the naethryn died?

  Rogger continued his gripe. “When this is all over, I’ll just sit here and wait for the next passing flippercraft.”

  Tylar clapped the thief on the shoulder. “Why bother even leaving? From what I’ve heard of the hinterlands, I think you’ll fit in here just fine.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve heard the state of some of these hinter-villages. Not a worthy bottle of wine to be found.”

  “In that case, we should get you out as soon as possible. You’d die of thirst before the moon changes its face.”

  “True…true…”

  Despite their banter, there were no smiles. It was not humor that generated their words, but worry, both for themselves and for those they’d left behind. Tylar had especially grown anxious during the long climb down here. Another day ending and still no word of the state of Tashijan.

  Stepping away from the others, Tylar spoke softly a fear that still plagued him. “What if we don’t even need to venture into here? What if the storm is already broken?” He nodded below. “Maybe all this is for naught.”

  Tylar left unspoken his other concern.

  What if it was already too late?

  Rogger remained silent for a long moment, then spoke equally softly. “Raving or not, the rogues here are still enslaved. It wouldn’t be right to leave them in such a state. They’re still worthy of mercy.”

  Tylar remembered the grief expressed by Miyana, of the horror of seersong. He knew Rogger was right. Besides, the Cabal were behind this slavery, cultivating a great source of power and Dark Grace. It had to end.

  He glanced to the others, making sure everyone was ready. Brant bent down and untied his stone from around Pupp’s neck. They had attached it to him to draw Pupp into solidity. Malthumalbaen had carried him, with a look of pure adoration on his face.

  “Who’s the fearsome cubbie?” the giant intoned. He was still bent on one knee, running thick fingers through Pupp’s spiky mane. Pupp’s tail wagged and a good portion of his rump.

  Brant removed the stone, and Pupp vanished.

  The giant’s hand fell through empty air again. “Aww…” He stood. “He was like a tin of coals in a cold bed. All warm and steamy.”

  Dart hid a grin behind her own fingers.

  With everyone gathered, Tylar waved Krevan to lead. They needed to get out of the open. The hinterland’s dangers were not all twisted Grace and raving rogues. There were men and women worse than any ilked beast, who were happy to prey upon those who ventured into their fringes. Such folk lived lives barely better than those of the beasts, harvesting wild Grace and plundering where they could, often across borders. Though rogues might not be able to cross into a neighboring settled realm, men were not forbidden to do so.

  Before anyone noted their trespass, Tylar wanted to reach their sole ally in this strange land, even as untrustworthy as that ally might be.

  “Can you find Wyrd Bennifren?” Tylar asked Krevan.

  He nodded. “I studied the old maps of Sheershym. It should not be hard to find the Wyr encampment. If they’re still there.”

  The Wyr-lord had hired Krevan to secure the skull of the rogue god, the one who had fathered Dart. According to their pact, Bennifren had planned to remain at the fringes of the hinterland, awaiting word until the new moon. That came this night. Tylar feared if they delayed too long that the Wyr might simply move on.

  Krevan led the way. They descended the slope with care. The loose rock could easily twist an ankle, especially after the long climb down the cliff.

  Tylar kept watch on the forest ahead. It did not look all that much different from the highlands above, except that the lowland trees grew taller, the canopies wider. They appeared true monsters of the loam. A few flickerflies flashed in the deeper wood, warning them back. Tinier wings buzzed ears and exposed skin. It remained the only sound, except a trickling of water.

  They discovered a spring. Its waters spilled out of the bottom of the scree and flowed over broken shale toward the forest, vanishing into the darkness.

  “According to the map, we should follow this,” Krevan said and set off.

  But once they reached the jungle, it seemed impossible to enter, tangled with vine and bush, creeper and sapling. Anything that could stretch a leaf to the sun grew at the edge. They would dull their blades trying to hack more than a quarter-league through here.

  Instead, Krevan stepped into the stream and scuttled down its rocky course. He had to crouch, but it was passable.

  “Mind the moss,” he said. “It’s slick.”

  They followed in a line. It was more like entering a cavern than a forest edge. The scent of wintersnap filled Tylar’s nostrils, its leaves ground under the tread of the pirate in front. They didn’t have far to go. The tunnel of brush slowly rose and thinned. Deeper under the canopy, away from the sunlit edge, the underbrush strangled away to vines and low bushes.

  Tylar’s boots sank into the spongy layer of decaying duff.

  All around, the march of tree trunks struck Tylar like the columns of a grand palacio. Ropes of moss streamed this woodland hall, softly aglow in the darkness. To either side, other creeks and brooks trickled through the forest, all flowing ahead, downhill. The combined babble and echo of water over rock sounded like a mighty river. This was how the highlands drained into the hinter, creeping in tentative dribbles, like their own approach.

  “Don’t look so bad,” Malthumalbaen muttered.

  Tylar agreed. The forest seemed no different from other dark woods. The depths of Mistdale, all black pines and dread wood, struck a more ominous demeanor.

  “Don’t be fooled,” Rogger said. “We’ve barely crossed the border. The deeper you go, the more the landscape is warped and woven by wild
Grace into maddening design.”

  As if wanting to prove his point, a nesting winged beast took flight with a sudden burst of a flaming tail, streaking like a fiery arrow. It screeched, alerting others. More flames shot through the dark in fright.

  “So much for a quiet approach,” Rogger said.

  They continued onward, led by Krevan.

  No one spoke, wondering what other strangeness and horrors might lay deeper in the hinterland. For four thousand years, rogues had wandered these lonely lands, maddened both darkly and brightly. Some rogues were burnt into dullness, others into a malicious sharpness. But all leaked wild Grace into this unsettled land—into loam, into water, into air—where it corrupted in both subtle and monstrous ways.

  Tylar compared it with the settled lands. He remembered the daemon inside Chrism describing the first settling of a realm, how Chrism was chained and bled against his will, punished for his murder of children during his raving. What was done with vengeance proved the greatest boon to Myrillia. Chrism’s ravings faded as the wild Grace that had burnt his sanity bled into the land. The knowledge of this boon spread. Other gods followed his example, and the Nine Lands settled out of the centuries of raving and destruction into a long peace. Grace was harnessed, shared, and traded, blessing Myrillia into a new era, raising man out of its cycle of rule and ruin during the unending wars of its ancient human kings.

  Tashijan itself rose out of one of those ancient keeps, ruled by the last human king, until the man swore his fealty and pledged his knights to the gods of the First Land, beginning the long line of shadowknights. The pact set by this ancient king protected the lands around the keep, free of any one god’s rule. Wards had been set up at the borders, to forbid even the trespass of wandering rogues.

  The pact had been unspoiled for four millennia.

  And now all was threatened.

  Krevan stopped. A large outcropping of rock rose ahead. One of those bastions Tylar had noted up by the cliff. It looked like a crooked finger raised to the sky, perhaps warning against further trespass.

  Tylar hobbled to Krevan’s side. He certainly could use a rest, but they dared not. Not yet. Tylar controlled his breathing as he joined Krevan, hiding his exhausted, rasping breath.