by Helen Lowe
“It is not ours to look at,” she said, “or even to touch. The door may have opened for us, but not to make free of the heralds’ possessions.”
“So very scrupulous,” sighed Haimyr the Golden. “So very Derai. I will forgo looking more closely at this treasure, my punctilious friend, but we had best go before temptation proves too much for my slender virtue.”
“Good,” said Nhairin shortly, refusing to unbend as he bowed her out the door with a flourish. She limped down the stairs ahead of him, her boots heavy on the stone treads. “Who is J’mair of Ishnapur anyway?” she demanded, pausing in the tower door.
“Was,” said Haimyr, coming to stand beside her. “He lived nearly a thousand years ago, but is probably the greatest poet produced by any of the civilized lands since the passing of the Old Empire. It may help you to understand my desire to look and touch a little better, my Nhairin, if I tell you that an original work of J’mair of Ishnapur is a treasure beyond price.”
Nhairin recalled the slender volume’s faded leather binding and shook her head in disbelief. “Beyond price,” said Haimyr firmly, with a flash of mockery for her incredulity. “And that,” he added, very softly, “makes me wonder how it came into the possession of a herald, when their kind are meant to forgo wealth and worldly goods.”
Nhairin shrugged. “A gift from a patron,” she said impatiently, “or a family heirloom? But these heralds—from whom or what exactly, are we seeking aid?”
“A fair question,” replied Haimyr. “I will tell you as much as anyone knows, who is not themselves a herald.” His voice took on the minstrel’s lilt. “The Guild emerged out of the ruins of the Old Empire, when its last vestiges were swept away in fire and fear. But there were still some who sought to hold to their posts, to wrest some form of sanity out of the chaos of those times, which we now call the Anarchy. The old imperial posting corps was one group that clung doggedly to their duty. They strove to maintain communication, at first just between the cities of the River, but gradually along the roads to the north and south as well. The times were savage, though, and the members of the posting corps had to protect themselves. That is when so many of their uncanny skills, such as the ward fires, were developed. Eventually, when the world slowly widened again, they became the official couriers and heralds for all the new realms between Ij and Ishnapur.”
“The Guild of Heralds,” said Nhairin thoughtfully. “Fitting, then, that they should be housed here, given that the House of the Rose fulfills a similar function for the Derai Alliance. Or did,” she added.
Haimyr shrugged. “The heralds, I suspect, are something other than the one-time diplomats and power brokers of your House of the Rose.”
“So you are sure,” Nhairin pressed him, “that one of these heralds is what we would call a seeker? We are not just chasing shadows?”
Haimyr shrugged again. “It is a skill they are said to have developed during the Anarchy, a knack for finding the lost. One of every herald pair has such powers.”
A finder of the lost—and Malian was undoubtedly lost. Nhairin’s hands clenched into fists at her side, flooded with shame at the thought of having to beg outsiders for help. Anger followed, deep and bitter, for once aid was accepted the Derai would owe the heralds a debt of blood and honor that must be paid, whatever the cost. Nhairin bit her lip, frowning darkly. “Yet the Heir must be found,” she muttered. “That is all that matters, to find her!”
Haimyr rested his hand on her shoulder again, pulling her back from her dark thoughts. “Fretting and gnawing away at yourself will not locate her any more quickly, my friend.”
She turned her frown on him. “But what if these heralds of yours will not help us? And can we rely on them if they do?”
“If they will not help us, then they will not.” The minstrel’s expression grew distant, considering. “Still, it is part of their code, to assist those in need. And the one thing that all the stories agree on is that heralds never betray a trust, once they have taken it on.”
“Then we had better find them,” Nhairin said. But her expression, as she shrugged off his hand and limped away, remained unhappy.
8
A Finder of the Lost
Nhairin grew unhappier still as the next hour passed. By the time she and Haimyr reached the stables, the heralds were long gone. A passing guard thought they had been seen in the Warriors’ court, but a page said, no—the High Hall. Yet every lead proved empty. “Where can these heralds be?” she demanded. Haimyr shrugged.
“They went in to see the Earl as soon as the priestess left.” Teron nearly bumped into them, more lists and maps piled in his arms, as he came around the corner. His scowl clamped down. “I was excluded from that meeting as well, but I heard there were some strange doings associated with it.”
“The sigil of silence,” murmured Haimyr. “It is as I told Nhairin here, heralds are queer folk.”
Teron’s scowl deepened. “The Nine know,” he muttered, “we have enough queer folk of our own without importing any from outside.”
Haimyr clapped the squire on the shoulder. “You are undoubtedly right,” he agreed. “I have hopes of your wisdom yet, young Teron.”
Nhairin shook her head, exasperated with them both. “Do you know where the heralds have gone now?” she asked.
“Of course I do!” Teron was indignant. “Apparently they intended to depart as soon as their message was delivered, as is their custom, but the Earl has closed the keep. No one,” he said with gloomy satisfaction, “is to leave. The captain sent Garan to see them back to their quarters, but Kyr told me they went by way of the battlement towers.”
“Near the main gate,” said Nhairin, meaning: away from areas where fighting took place. She frowned. “But the battlement towers? Why would Garan take them there?”
“To keep them out of the way? Make sure they don’t see anything they shouldn’t?” Teron shrugged, then shivered. “There’s nothing up there to see.”
Haimyr looked thoughtful. “Perhaps not to those who dwell here. But there are so many tales told about the Wall of Night in the River cities, each one stranger than the last. To come so far and not see it, that is not the way of heralds.”
Nhairin pulled a face, but said nothing until they had left Teron behind. “You’d think they’d be afraid, given last night’s fighting and rumors of demons loose in the keep. Or alarmed, to find that they cannot depart at will. But instead they go to the battlements.” She paused. “What if they’re spies?”
She watched Haimyr closely but he only shook his head, half laughing at her as they began the steep, winding ascent to the battlements. It was difficult going but Nhairin gritted her teeth and persevered, wondering what the outsiders would make of the Wall’s bitter peaks and razor-edged crags. Even on a good day the battlements were too windswept for the guards to do more than patrol at intervals. The main watch was undertaken from lookouts placed at strategic points along the keep’s walls.
She had stood watch there herself in years past and knew that the gritty wind could turn knife sharp in an instant. And on a bad day—well, on a bad day no one even looked out onto the battlements, let alone walked them. The guards would batten the storm shutters closed and huddle in their cloaks, closing both ears and minds to the tempest’s berserker voice. Some claimed that voice could drive the unwary mad, and the wind itself was violent enough to flay flesh from bone.
Today, however, was mild and the storm shutters were open, allowing Nhairin to look out through reinforced glass, across the massive battlements, and up into gray, swirling sky. It was a gloomy, oppressive scene and she was not surprised that the heralds had not stayed.
“A forbidding place,” Haimyr commented, but his tone was light.
“Yes.” Nhairin turned to go, ignoring the knowing looks exchanged by the guards. She had given such looks herself once, but now she simply felt relief as the inner and outer doors of the watchroom thudded closed, shutting out the wind’s low whine. Both she and Haimyr
descended in silence, emerging into the network of galleries that ringed the Warriors’ court.
It was here, finally, that they found Garan and the heralds, stopped to watch the hive of activity in the garrison’s training hall. Weapons were being brought in and stacked along the walls, supplies sorted and packed, and guards allocated into squads. Nhairin glanced sidelong, wondering whether the heralds should be seeing all this, and saw that their attention was focused on a solitary figure on the training floor, immediately below. The warrior seemed oblivious to the noise and bustle, her expression remote as she flowed through the training forms. Every movement was smooth, powerful, and seemingly effortless, despite the bandage around one shoulder.
Asantir, thought Nhairin, recognizing the characteristic style even before she saw the warrior’s face. The patterns were as familiar to her as breathing, but she too felt their spell as one form melted into another in a ritual that was at least as old as the Derai Alliance.
“Really,” Haimyr murmured, “she is very good.”
Nhairin hunched one shoulder, but it was Garan who answered. “Good?” he said, with friendly contempt. “She is the best of us.”
The fair-haired herald looked up. “What does it take,” she asked, “to be the best of you?”
Her voice was beautiful, like cool water running over stones, and Nhairin could not help looking to see if the face that went with the voice was the same as the one in the ward fire. She thought the eyes seemed alike, both luminous and deep—and difficult to meet. Nhairin let her own eyes slide away, focusing on what Garan was saying instead.
“Aptitude, of course, but that’s not enough. You have to train relentlessly, every day from early childhood on. But that’s not enough either.” Garan paused, then shrugged. “She’s the Honor Captain, that means she’s the best. And if we didn’t know it before,” he added, half under his breath, “we do now, after last night.”
“How so?” the other herald asked. He spoke quietly, but his voice was resonant and dark as the tone of a bronze bell, pulling Nhairin’s eyes around to meet his gaze. His eyes were as dark as his voice, and clear and fierce as a falcon’s. She stared, unable to look away until he shifted his attention back to Garan, who was speaking again.
“We all fought bravely last night, but that wasn’t enough. We needed a strategist, someone who saw the patterns in the chaos all around us and made the right decisions at the right time.” Garan rubbed a thumb along his shadowed jaw. “Commander Gerenth got himself and the keep garrison’s vanguard cut to ribbons; Captain Asantir pulled the remains of his company out and regrouped our forces. The rest you know.”
“Garan,” Nhairin warned. Her tone said: Be careful what you say; she particularly meant, before outsiders. She caught the glint in Haimyr’s eye that said that he at least understood her unspoken caution, but Garan met her eyes squarely. “It’s no secret, Steward Nhairin. Everyone knows.”
Nhairin bit back a tart rejoinder, to the effect that the heralds at least might not have known—and that to call the Honor Captain a strategist, setting her alongside the legendary Derai war leaders, was going too far. Garan held her gaze a moment longer, his humorous face unexpectedly serious; but after a moment, as if by unspoken agreement, they both turned back to the training floor.
“She trains in the old way,” Nhairin said at last, grudgingly, as Asantir snapped through a series of movements that were clearly designed for combat at close quarters, then spun, somersaulted, and kicked from one side of the floor to the other in an explosion of power.
“What way is that?” asked the dark-voiced herald. With an effort, Nhairin remembered his name: He was Tarathan of Ar, that was it, and the woman was Jehane Mor.
She avoided his falcon’s stare. “We call it the Derai-dan, the armed and unarmed combat forms that have been with our alliance from the beginning.”
“But the old way,” Garan added, when it was clear Nhairin did not intend to explain further, “is where will and intention are as integral to combat skill as ability with weapons.”
“But a warrior’s will and intention are weapons, are they not?” Tarathan of Ar replied. “Or so we believe.”
Nhairin and Garan both looked around at him. “Do you have similar forms?” the guard asked, surprised.
The herald nodded. “Tradition says that our forms came down to us out of the Old Empire, but there are few, now, who keep the ancient skills alive. The assassins of Ij are amongst their number, and some say the Patrol also, although I cannot be sure of that.”
“And parts of the old forms,” Jehane Mor added, “are still taught in the temples of Jhaine and amongst the Shah’s elite, in Ishnapur.”
The flow of movement below had stopped and Asantir was standing on the edge of the training floor while others of the guard gathered around her. Tarathan of Ar’s gaze shifted from Nhairin to Haimyr, and then back again. “But you have other matters to discuss with us, have you not?”
Nhairin was shocked into staring at him again, then looked as quickly away. “You gazed into the ward fire,” Jehane Mor said quietly, “so we knew to expect you.”
Nhairin frowned. “So it was you, in the fire.”
The herald shook her head. “I cannot tell what you saw.”
Nhairin flicked a quick look at Haimyr. “We should go somewhere private,” she said. “Such talk should not be overheard.”
The minstrel had been watching them with the familiar glint in his eye, but now he straightened. “Down first, I think. The captain needs to hear this, too. If you will,” he added, with a bow sketched somewhere between the two heralds.
There were still guards around Asantir when they reached the ground, and Nhairin’s lips compressed as several more moved out onto the floor to train. “I thought you were meant to be focused on finding Malian.”
Asantir looked up. “We are,” she replied quietly. “But we need numbers if we are to search the Old Keep effectively, and it takes time to assemble and equip numbers. We are doing that work now, as you can see if you look around. In fact, we are nearly done. But none of us are made of iron and the training floor helps us to relax—and to loosen up after last night’s fighting.” Her tone softened. “Trust me, Nhairin. The search will begin very soon.”
Haimyr forestalled Nhairin’s reply with a dramatic gesture. “It may be, Captain, that you will not need numbers, after all.”
Asantir threw aside the towel she had used to wipe away sweat. “Why is that, Haimyr the Golden?”
“We need to speak in confidence,” he told her more seriously. “You, Nhairin, and I—and these heralds.”
Asantir raised one winged brow. “We should go to the Honor room, then. Garan, find Sarus and let him know that I’ll be a little longer than expected.”
The Honor Captain’s room was located close to the training hall and was a well-worn space with not much furniture but an impressive array of weapons, including twin swords in unadorned black scabbards set on top of a battered war chest; an equally plain black spear was mounted on the wall above them. Asantir perched on a corner of her desk, swinging one booted foot, while the others disposed themselves on timeworn camp chairs and—in Tarathan’s case—the war chest itself. A delicately carved silver lampshade, which was the only decorative element in the room, threw a filigree of light and shadow over them all.
“Now,” said Asantir to Haimyr, “why may I not need numbers for the Old Keep, after all?”
“‘One to seek what is hidden, and to find; one to defend and conceal—both to bind.’ “ Haimyr’s gaze was enigmatic. “The rhyme is an old one, Captain, but it refers to the heralds of the Guild.”
“He thinks,” Nhairin interrupted, “that one of these heralds is a seeker who could pinpoint Malian’s location.”
“Ah.” Asantir looked from Jehane Mor to Tarathan of Ar. “Is this true?”
“Yes,” Jehane Mor replied calmly. “Tarathan is the seeker. I am the one who shields and conceals.”
“I see,” said
Asantir. She drew a deep breath and ran a hand through her sweat-damp hair. “Indeed, I do see.” Again she looked from one herald to the other. “I know little of your ways, except what I saw earlier today, but would it be possible to obtain your aid? For we, as you may know, need to find someone important to this House, who is also very dear to us all.”
Jehane Mor nodded. “You seek the child who fell into darkness.”
“What do you mean, fell into darkness?” Nhairin asked sharply. “What do you know?”
“We know many things,” the herald said. “What is it that you wish to learn, Steward Nhairin?”
Asantir held up a hand, forestalling Nhairin’s reply. “We seek the Heir of Night, the Earl’s daughter whose name is Malian. What makes you believe that she is this child that you say fell into darkness?”
“We saw her for the first time last night, in your High Hall,” Jehane Mor replied, “and felt the touch of her mind on ours, like a star in the twilight of this Derai Wall. We felt that touch again, last night, when the first alarm sounded and the demon hunted through the keep. They fought each other, the hunter-in-darkness and the girl.”
Nhairin thought that Asantir seemed remarkably calm, despite this alarming speech. It was Haimyr who asked the question that burned in her own throat. “You said before that the child fell into darkness? Does this mean that she is dead?”
Jehane Mor shook her head quickly. “No, she lives. But she would have died if she had not had help, for the hunter’s strength was terrifying and the child, although very strong herself, is untrained.”
Asantir was watching both heralds intently. “Who helped her? Was it you?”
The herald inclined her head. “We did help, but even Tarathan and I could not have defeated the demon on our own.”