by Alec Hutson
Kjarl turned to Jan with an expression of mild surprise. He spoke quickly in Skein, and Jan gave a pained nod, then responded in the same guttural tongue.
Whatever Jan said seemed to amuse the Stag thane, for he chuckled and shook his head. “I can tell there is more to this story than I have been told. And I wish to know more, Lin from Shan, for it is rare we get travelers to the Frostlands, and this interests me. But the skald has agreed to compose a lay about our great victory here, so he cannot accompany you now. I will make you a guest of the Stag, though, and put you under my protection while you wait for him to finish. Then, perhaps, he will go with you.”
The Stag thane made a dismissive gesture towards her and turned back to Jan. Cho Lin opened her mouth to say more, but Verrigan shook his head and guided her away from the dais.
“Is good,” he said to her when they had moved back beyond the cook pits. “Kjarl says you are guest, so you can stay in the Bhalavan and no one will dare hurt you.”
“But I don’t have the time to wait!” she hissed angrily.
Verrigan shrugged helplessly. “What can you do? Bash the skald over the head and run away with him? No, I don’t think so. Kjarl likes the southerner, I can tell. He would not allow such thing.”
Cho Lin made a frustrated sound and peered back through the smoky haze at the figures on the dais. Others had come, a tall man with dark hair who lowered himself into the stone throne. There was another as well who hovered at his side, a boy with unnaturally pale skin and a gaunt face. His bones were etched so sharp he almost looked skeletal, and she felt a shiver go up her spine as his pale blue eyes found her through the smoke.
“Who are they?” Cho Lin asked, and Verrigan turned to the dais. A little shudder of revulsion passed across his face.
“That is Hroi, thane of the White Worm and new king of the Skein.”
“And the boy?”
“They say his name is Lask. He is shaman of the White Worm. Hroi found him in the snow when he was a babe, cast out of the Ghost clan. He never speaks, they say, except to the Skin Thief himself. He frightens me.”
“Why does the water turn red at sunset?” Keilan asked, watching the fiery horizon closely for the return of his father’s boat.
“Ah,” his mother answered, stroking his hair, “that is a wise question. It is because when the dying sun falls into the sea it cracks open like the egg it is –” she made a clucking sound with her tongue, “– and the yolk spills out. It spreads across the waves and then sinks below, where the fish eat it and grow fat and strong for your father to catch.”
Keilan pressed himself against his mother, his head resting on her hip. “If the sun breaks every evening, how is there a new one the next day?” He breathed deep of her smell, wanting to gather it all up into himself and hold onto it forever.
“Well, the great hen in the sky lays a new egg in the morning, just as our chickens do.”
Keilan giggled and glanced up at his mother. “There’s no great hen. The mendicants say the sun is Ama’s throne, and the warmth we feel is his love shining down on us.”
His mother’s face turned sorrowful, but he knew she was only playing with him. “My son, you would believe a stranger to our village instead of your own mother? Oh, what sadness.”
Keilan tangled his fingers in the long silver hair that fell around him. He twisted a glimmering strand around his thumb, careful not to pull. “I believe you,” he said softly, and was rewarded with his mother’s laughter.
The sun continued its slow tumble; the shreds of clouds remaining in the sky darkened, turning from pink to red to deep crimson. The sea glittered, as if strewn with tiny jewels. Upon the beach the waves whispered their secrets and began to creep towards where Keilan and his mother waited at the edge of the long scratchy grass.
“Ma,” Keilan asked, his thoughts drifting in the immensity before him, “where did you come from?”
He felt his mother’s fingers in his hair go still. She was silent for a moment, long enough that he wished he hadn’t asked.
“Somewhere far away,” she said finally, her voice as distant as the setting sun. “A place both wonderful and terrible.”
Birdsong woke him, and as Keilan opened his eyes the tattered wisps of his dream dissolved in the light. Across from his tiny cot, on the ledge of a small square window that had no glass or shutters, a large bird cocked its head and stared at him. Its sleek feathers shimmered iridescent, flashing red and green and blue as it hopped upon the stone, and around its neck a few of these feathers tufted up to form an elaborate headdress. Its black beady gaze held Keilan’s without a hint of fear, and then it opened its long, curving orange beak and trilled again, commanding him to get up. Keilan swung his legs over the edge of the cot. As if satisfied that its task was complete, the bird turned and leapt from the ledge, vanishing in a rush of flashing wings.
A place both wonderful and terrible
His mother’s voice echoed in his thoughts, clear as if she had been standing beside him. Had he been dreaming about her?
He glanced at the other cot in the room, but it was empty. Senacus must already have risen, though his bags were still piled on the floor, including the wrapped bundle that contained the Pure’s white-metal sword. What time was it? The sunlight pouring through the windows was burnishing the stones of the chamber a deep gold; it looked like afternoon light to Keilan. Had he really only slept a few watches since they arrived on the island?
Keilan quickly dressed, pulling his tunic on over his spider-silk shirt and buckling his sword around his waist. There were sounds coming from outside, and he thought he recognized Nel’s voice. He pushed through the door, shielding his face from the bright sun. His companions were seated around a table that was partially hidden from his view by a thick curtain of vines hanging from an intricate copper trellis.
“Keilan’s awake!” he heard Sella exclaim as he bent to slip on his boots, which he’d left outside to dry. He grimaced as he laced them up—still damp.
Sella appeared from within the veil of green tendrils and beckoned for him to hurry, the excitement clear in her face. “Come on, Kay! Come quick!”
He stepped forward but hesitated before he touched the vines—they were writhing slowly, almost worm-like, and tiny red flowers bright as blood-drops were opening and closing along their lengths.
Wonderful and terrible.
Keilan skirted the edge of the trellis and found that he was staring down at the beach where they had arrived. The waves were fiercer now, crashing with a fury upon the black sand. Of the figure he had seen earlier, there was no sign.
“How do you feel?” Nel asked from behind him, and he turned back to his friends. They had all found seats around a wooden table laden with food: there were slices of cheese and fruit, a brown loaf of bread that had already been ripped apart, and a haunch of glistening red meat, all fairly glowing in the bright sunlight. Sella was eating with the abandon of a hungry child, but Senacus and Nel looked to have barely touched what was in front of them.
“Rested,” Keilan replied to Nel, sliding into an empty chair. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Half the day,” Nel replied, rolling a grape between her fingers. “I didn’t sleep. Someone had to keep watch.”
“Watch for what?” Sella asked as she chewed, crumbs falling from her mouth.
Nel shrugged. “Spirits,” she said, staring pointedly at Keilan.
“I saw her,” Keilan insisted. “Standing on the sand, watching us coming closer.”
“But no one else did.” Nel’s gaze softened. “You’re exhausted, Keilan. We all are. I know you wanted to see her so badly, but we don’t know yet if she’s really here.”
Keilan gestured at the feast spread before them. “Where did the food come from, then?”
Nel tossed the grape she held back on the table. “After the robed things brought us
to these huts and told us to rest, I waited and watched to make sure they didn’t return with axes to cut us into little pieces. Well, they did return, but they were carrying this table and the chairs and the food. They set everything up and disappeared again.”
“So you haven’t seen anyone else?”
“I did try and do a little exploring,” Nel said, glancing at the stony path that led farther up the side of the mountain. Several larger buildings of black stone were visible on a higher ledge, pressed against the mountain’s flank. “But one of those robed things blocked my way and told me to go back.”
“She’s here,” Senacus said softly. “This whole island… everything I’ve seen so far… it thrums with sorcery. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“I can feel it too…” Keilan began, his words trailing away as he glimpsed something coming towards them down the path.
The distant figure was a woman, and even from far away he could see her waterfall of silver hair, shimmering in the sun. She wore the same blue dress he remembered from that morning, and she was using a white-wood staff to navigate the descent.
But that wasn’t what made Keilan gasp. Following her was a creature unlike any he had seen before—though it bore some resemblance to the illustration of the Dymorian tiger he remembered from his copy of the Tinker’s Bestiary. Like the tiger, it was also a huge cat, and its coat was similarly patterned. Instead of orange and black, however, the stripes this creature sported were red and white. A mane of strange russet tendrils fringed the creature’s neck, each strand far too thick to be made of hair.
And its size. Unless the woman was shorter than Sella, the creature was as large as a pony—the sorceress leading it looked to barely come up to its shoulder. Keilan swallowed as he watched it descend the rocky path with fluid grace, its muscles rippling beneath its fur.
“Senacus,” Nel said warningly, “perhaps it is time you went and got your sword.”
“No,” Keilan said, holding up his hand. “She’ll know you are a paladin of Ama. We don’t want to threaten her.”
Nel jabbed her finger at the giant cat flowing like water down the mountain-side. “I feel threatened! That thing could tear us apart like we were mice!”
“Just wait!” Keilan said firmly. “This is her home. If she wanted us dead, she wouldn’t have brought us here.”
Nel subsided into her chair, muttering. Keilan saw her fingers playing with her sleeves, and he knew she was struggling to keep herself from drawing her daggers, Chance and Fate.
“I will not let her know what I am,” Senacus assured him. “I agree that is best for now.” His hand went to the fingerbone amulet he wore, as if making sure it still hung at his chest.
Keilan’s heart quickened as the woman approached where they waited. This close, he could see that her face was the same as the sorceress in Jan’s memories—slightly narrower than his mother’s, but otherwise a perfect reflection. Her pale blue eyes matched the dress she wore, and the only jewelry he could see was a silver pendant shaped like a butterfly.
She stopped a dozen paces from where they waited around the table, leaning on her white staff. The great red and white cat settled on its haunches, watching them disinterestedly with eyes of liquid gold.
“Whispers have come to me on the wind,” she said. “They say Vera Lightspinner is dead, and her son has come to the islands.” A pang went through Keilan as he listened to her speak—so familiar, yet there was a hardness that he had never heard in his mother’s voice.
The giant cat yawned, displaying teeth longer than his fingers. Steeling himself, Keilan stepped forward.
“I am Keilan Ferrisorn. My mother was Vera. She… she looked like you,” he finished lamely, wishing he could have his last words back.
The sorceress pursed her lips and appeared to be studying him carefully. “I have thought she was dead for eighteen years.” She moved closer, cupping his chin with her slim white fingers. Keilan flinched, but he did not pull away. She searched his eyes and face, as if looking for something. After a few long moments, she let him go and stepped back.
“You have little of her in you,” she murmured. “But perhaps I do sense something of myself.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Talent, Keilan. Vera had only the lightest smattering of the gift. But you have great potential. I can feel it roiling within you. Raw. Untrained and dangerous.”
Dangerous? “Yes. I spent some time in a school of wizards, but I had to leave before they could teach me how to harness my sorcery.”
“Talent alone does not make you my grandson,” she pronounced, and there was an edge to her words, though her face showed no emotion.
Grandson! Keilan’s breath caught in his throat.
“Perhaps,” the sorceress continued, her eyes narrowing, “you are some clever ploy by the Weaver to infiltrate my sanctuary.” As if sensing its mistress’s thoughts, a deep rumble came from the great cat.
Keilan swallowed. “I have something she gave me. Let me show you.”
The sorceress nodded slightly, and Keilan turned and dashed for the door of his small hut. The writhing vines clutched at him as he pushed through them, and then he was inside, scooping one of his bags from the floor. He undid the drawstring as he hurried back, pulling out what was within.
“These books,” he said, holding one of them out for her to take. “They are written in High Kalyuni.”
The sorceress accepted the book, some distant emotion trembling her face for the first time. Holding the spine in her hand she opened the book and began to leaf through the yellowing pages.
“I read her these stories when she was a child,” she whispered, pausing to study an illustration of a great white hart perched on a rock in a forest glen, its silver antlers glimmering in the light of a swollen moon.
“The Folk Tales of the Middle North,” Keilan said softly, knowing the book’s title even though he couldn’t see the cover. “She read them to me, as well.”
A single tear trickled down the sorceress’s cheek, but she ignored it. Gently, she closed the book and handed it back to Keilan. “I believe you are Vera’s son,” she said, letting go of her white-wood staff as she stepped closer to him; it did not fall over, remaining upright, as if it had suddenly set down roots. “Welcome to my home.”
Keilan wanted to embrace her; it would be like holding his mother again, he was certain. His body ached for it. But he held himself back—there was a distance to this sorceress, a coolness that suggested she did not fully trust him yet.
She seemed to sense what he felt; perhaps she saw the struggle in his face. The tear that had trickled down her cheek was gone, as if it had never been, and she looked at him clear-eyed. “Strength, Keilan. You must rule your emotions, lest they rule you.”
“Emperor Chalcedon, Beneath God,” he said softly, recognizing the quote. “In the second letter to his younger brother.”
“Vera taught you something,” she said. “But what you truly needed to learn was beyond her knowledge. It is good you came here, for there are few in the world who can show you the way you must follow.” She glanced up the path, at the buildings higher up the mountain. “Now come. I have much to teach you.”
“I don’t even know your name!”
The sorceress turned back to him as she took up her white staff again. “Niara. That is what the wise woman who pulled me from my mother named me. I was born in a yurt to the chieftain of the Devashii, in a place that no longer exists. When I came into my Talent, they called me Lightspinner and sent me far away, to the Star Towers of the Mosaic Cities.”
“Niara,” Keilan whispered.
“That will do,” the sorceress said. “‘Grandmother’ would make me feel too old. Now come with me, Keilan.”
“What about them?” he asked, gesturing towards the table, where his companions had watched this exchange with open-mouthe
d astonishment.
Niara seemed to notice them for the first time. She frowned slightly, as if they were an annoyance she would prefer did not exist. “You are my guests,” she said without a trace of friendliness. “But you must stay in these huts while you are here. There are dangerous things on this island, and delicate experiments. Do not,” she said, her voice hardening, “venture anywhere else, even down to the beach. Only here can I assure your safety. All your needs will be taken care of, I promise you, and if you wish to speak with Keilan while he is with me you may pass your message to one of my servants, and what you say will be relayed to him just as you have spoken it. Do you understand?”
She did not wait for their reply but turned away in a swirl of her blue dress. The great cat stretched languidly, its long claws carving furrows in the dirt, and then padded to her side as she started upon the path.
“Keilan…” Nel began, moving towards him, but before she came too close Keilan held up his hands and she stopped.
“I will be fine,” he said, sparing a glance at the sorceress and the great cat. “Wait for me.”
“Be careful!” Nel cried. Their eyes met and he saw her fear.
“Wait for me,” he repeated, and hurried to catch up with his grandmother.
“What was this place?” Keilan asked when they reached the higher ledge and its collection of ancient buildings. They were all constructed of black stone veined with lines of quartz and in various states of disrepair—some had entirely collapsed, while others had been buttressed crudely with chunks of granite that looked to have been pulled straight from the mountain. Trees grew among the ruins, huge fruit unlike any Keilan had ever seen hanging pendulous from their branches.
“It was a monastery,” Niara said as she guided him towards the most impressive structure still standing. “Before the sea flooded these lands it clung to the top of a mountain, and sorcerers made pilgrimages to beg for a glimpse of the hidden knowledge the monks had collected here.”