The Heir of Night

by Helen Lowe

  Nhairin ground her teeth, wondering why they could not simply tell everything they knew without the need for these riddle games. If Asantir felt impatience, it did not show in her face or voice. “But,” she said musingly, “you were not alone.” Her keen gaze met the herald’s luminous one and Nhairin could not help feeling that they understood each other in some way that was hidden from her. “And the child,” Asantir continued, “what became of her?”

  “She was not overcome by the hunter,” answered Jehane Mor, “but she fell into a hidden place. I slowed her fall, but lost contact at the very end.”

  The others looked at each other. Nhairin cleared her throat. “So you don’t know where she is.”

  “No,” said Tarathan of Ar, speaking for the first time. “But we have both felt the touch of her mind on our own, so there is good hope that she can be found.”

  “Hope!” Nhairin exploded. “Do you have any idea how vast the Old Keep is? And how can we be sure that this child is Malian anyway, rather than some stray from the Temple quarter? Perhaps you’re just saying what you know we want to hear?”

  Haimyr touched her arm with light, restraining fingers. “Heralds do not lie, Nhairin. It is unwise to accuse them of deceit.”

  Nhairin folded her arms, held silent by Asantir’s look. “Nhairin speaks sharply out of her fear for Malian,” the Honor Captain said, “which reflects my own. We intend no discourtesy and ask your forgiveness if offence has been given.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Jehane Mor said quietly, but the subsequent pause stretched, becoming awkward, before Tarathan spoke again.

  “It may still take some time to pinpoint her location, if the Old Keep is as vast as the steward suggests. But once I do, I should be able to lead you directly to her, unless physically prevented.” He shrugged. “Jehane will be able to conceal my seeking and can shield a small search party from another who seeks as I do. But it will not help if we come face-to-face with armed enemies.”

  “I’ll deal with that,” Asantir said crisply. She drew a deep breath. “But if you are quite certain of this, then Haimyr is right. It changes everything.”

  Nhairin could not keep silent any longer. “But why should they help us? What is Malian to them?”

  “What indeed?” echoed Jehane Mor. She looked at Tarathan, an almost tangible silence flowing between them, and when she spoke again, her voice was reflective. “It is true that it is not the way of heralds to take on the troubles of others. We have our own sworn duties and must discharge those.”

  “But then,” Tarathan replied, “the Earl of Night has named us as his guests and we must repay the sacred bonds of hospitality.”

  “Should we simply turn our backs and ride away,” asked Jehane Mor in counterpoint, “because the lost child is Derai and has no claim on us?”

  “That,” said Tarathan with finality, “would be contrary to the code of heralds.”

  Nhairin folded her arms, refusing to be impressed. “And what is the price,” she asked deliberately, “for your aid? Heralds of the Guild, I’m told, do not come cheap.” She heard the jangle as Haimyr moved sharply beside her, but Tarathan spoke first.

  “Everything has a price,” he said. “But who can predetermine what the price will be or who will pay it?” The falcon’s stare raked Nhairin and involuntarily she drew back. “We have already spoken of the terror that stalked these halls last night, but what if we should meet it again, or others of its kind? Then Jehane Mor and I risk being subsumed by the hunter-in-darkness, a worse fate by far than physical injury, or even death.”

  Asantir was frowning. “Yet knowing this, you are still willing to enter the Old Keep?”

  “Life is a risk,” the herald replied, “and so is death. One cannot hide from either, and if we turn away now we will only find some other terror waiting around the next bend in the road. You have asked for our help, and we have agreed to do what we can. That is all.”

  “I do not pretend to understand why,” Asantir said, “but I offer you my heartfelt thanks. The Earl, of course, will offer far more, as befits a lord of the Derai.”

  “Even your thanks,” Jehane Mor said simply, “are a great gift. But now, if you will excuse us, we need to rest if we are to draw on our powers again so soon.”

  The others all rose and bowed to them, even Nhairin, although she fixed her eyes on the scratched desktop as they walked past. She only lifted them, with considerable reluctance, when Jehane Mor paused in front of her. The luminous eyes seemed to search down into Nhairin’s very soul as the herald’s hand shaped, but did not touch, the scar etched into the steward’s face. “The cut of the blade that maims flesh,” Jehane Mor said, “need not scar the spirit, Nhairin of the Derai—unless you will it so.”

  Nhairin struck the hand away, bleak with anger and offence. “Neither my spirit nor my scars are any business of yours, Herald!”

  Jehane Mor inclined her head. “As you say,” she agreed, and walked out in a drift of gray cloak, Tarathan of Ar behind her. The door of the office swung shut in their wake and Nhairin put her hands over her aching face, her fingers pressed up into the line of her hair. “Who,” she demanded tautly, “do they think they are, with their cryptic talk and cursed prying ways?”

  Asantir’s tone was even. “Nhairin, I can’t even imagine what you were thinking, speaking to any guest like that, let alone those whose aid we need. Anyone would think you do not want their help.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” muttered Nhairin. “What do we know of them, after all? They are outsiders and some sort of priest kind, too.”

  “Doubly damned, then,” murmured Haimyr.

  Nhairin lifted her head out of her hands. “I don’t mean you, Haimyr, as you well know. It’s their cursed uncanny ways that bother me.”

  Haimyr shrugged. “That is just the manner of heralds, my Nhairin. I think they must teach it in the Guild houses, the same way I learned to play scales at the college for minstrels in Ij.”

  Asantir grinned briefly, then shook her head. “We must be practical, Nhairin. We don’t have a seeker and we need one. Should we refuse their help because their ways are strange to us?”

  Nhairin folded her arms. “I suppose not,” she conceded, “but I don’t have to like it. It’s obvious they’re powerful, but we don’t know their motives and they themselves said that everything has a price. We may not like theirs when we finally learn what it is.”

  Haimyr threw up his golden arms in exasperation. “Must you box at every shadow?” he demanded, amidst a cascade of bells. “There is a risk in everything, as they also said. But the danger of their unknown motivation seems far less, right now, than the risk of not finding Malian at all.”

  Asantir was still watching Nhairin. “I agree with Haimyr,” she said quietly. “Their aid is invaluable, for it means that we no longer need numbers, which we don’t have anyway—not enough, not after last night. With the herald Tarathan to seek Malian out, and Jehane Mor to disguise our presence, we can risk a much smaller, more mobile force that can get in and out of the Old Keep quickly. And with luck, without attracting unwanted attention.”

  Nhairin rubbed at her scar. “Does it not gall you, Asantir, that we must go cap in hand to outsiders and strangers for aid?”

  The captain sighed. “Would you sacrifice Malian for our Derai pride, Nhairin?”

  The steward shook her head, defeated, and Asantir nodded. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “Now I must speak with the Earl.” Her departing step was lighter and brisker than it had been, and Nhairin grimaced before retreating into her own bleak thoughts.

  Haimyr lingered, watching her. “Are you sure you are well?” he asked eventually.

  Nhairin looked at him. “I was thinking,” she said slowly, “that only yesterday what happened last night was unthinkable, but now everything that we thought certain is crumbling around us. Priests, outsiders, the Heir missing—I feel as though we are all poised on the edge of a knife, not knowing which way the blade will
turn.”

  The minstrel reached out and took her hands, holding them between his own. “Malian will be found, Nhairin, I am sure of it. As for the rest, we must trust in those things that were as certain this morning as they were yesterday: the Earl, and Asantir, and every person in this keep, great and small, holding to your Wall.”

  “The path is dark,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “I cannot see the way ahead.”

  He gave her hands a little shake. “Need we see it?” he replied gently. “We are not the captains and commanders, Nhairin. All you and I must do is the thing in front of us that needs doing, the task that comes next.”

  “Our duty?” she inquired ironically. “Now you sound like a Derai, Haimyr the Golden.”

  He shrugged, smiling crookedly. “Well, I have lived amongst you a long time. But in this at least I am serious. We must remain of good heart and not give in to our fears.”

  “Bah!” she said, withdrawing her hands and rising to her feet. “You’re only an outsider. What do you know?” They both laughed as he, too, rose, throwing a friendly arm around her shoulders. Yet the shadow remained in her eyes, despite the laughter, and she knew in her heart that she was still afraid, she who was never afraid, not even of the one who had lamed her and laid the bitter scar across her face.

  9

  The Twelve Doors

  Malian floated in the middle of a vast, slowly spinning blackness. The world of light still pulled at her, but only pain lay in that direction and she fled from it, further into the dark. Yet even the darkness offered no respite. It was filled with movement, currents and eddies that swirled around her—and the echo of voices: “We must find her, and quickly. Quickly, Asantir! “

  “… the Heir must be found! That is all that matters, to find her! “

  Her father’s voice, and Nhairin’s … but if anyone answered, Malian did not hear them. Instead she sensed minds, cold and hard, sifting through the layered dark: seeking, searching.

  They were looking for her, Malian realized with a jolt, and would have fled again, except that she could not move.

  “They were stronger than we thought.” The first voice was a hiss deep in her mind, sibilant and metallic, but the one that answered it was ice.

  “They had allies, that is all. Now we must do by cunning and stealth what we could not achieve by force of arms.”

  The third voice was smooth as obsidian. “They have lost their Heir, you say, so we have not failed yet. We must find her before they do.”

  “All that can be done, shall be done.” The cold voice was implacable. “And they have no seekers, so we have the advantage there. But what of the Raptor? Can we rely on it now?”

  Once again, Malian heard no answer, but she felt the force of their minds: questing, hunting. Their power was like their voices, impervious but sharp edged, and they did not mean her well. But still she could not flee. She remained frozen in place, as though she were the center around which the universe revolved, but no matter how deeply she lay hidden, Malian knew that they would find her in the end.

  Light grew slowly through the blackness, a ghostly star that called to her, mind and spirit, even as she was repelled by the same bitter chill that had characterized the unknown voices. Tendrils of pale fire reached out and Malian could only watch, detached, as her hand rose, seemingly of its own volition, to grasp the nearest flame.

  “Do not touch the fire!” The command was soft but clear, sheering through the eldritch lure, and Malian pulled back as though scorched. A will other than her own propelled her toward a new light that had appeared far above. The spectral glow dwindled as the second light strengthened, dazzling Malian’s eyes and lancing into her head until the whole world was a blaze of pain.

  Eventually, the blaze resolved itself into a pale nimbus around Kalan’s head, and Malian realized that she was lying on a hard, tiled floor. Her skull felt as though someone had split it with an ax and her mouth was so dry that it was difficult to swallow. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, and this time Kalan’s square face and gold-flecked eyes sharpened into focus.

  “Thank the Nine!” he said simply. “For a while there, I thought that you had stopped breathing altogether.” He studied her with obvious worry. “Are you really all right?”

  It was hard to speak, but eventually she managed a whispered croak. “I’m … not sure.” Malian tried to look around but there was too much pain. “What’s happening here?”

  Kalan grimaced. “I don’t know. You’ve been unconscious for what seems like hours, and the Fire has disappeared, taking most of the light with it.” He leaned down and spoke very quietly. “All the doors are impassable. I’ve tried every one but the mist filling them is impenetrable. Trying to step through feels like walking into glass—you can’t see the barrier but it’s there.” He kept his voice steady, but Malian could hear the thread of fear. “We’re trapped here.”

  She moved her head, trying to find a position where the pain eased. “You were cursing,” she said. “I remember now.”

  She thought, from what she could see of his face in the dim light, that he looked embarrassed. “I was yelling at the Fire,” he explained, a little stiffly. “I heard your mindcall to arms; I think both keeps must have rung with it! But then you started screaming and immediately after that it was as though you couldn’t breathe. You were gasping for air and clawing at your throat—and your face turned blue.” He paused and Malian realized that he was shaking. “I thought you were dying. And that cursed Fire had said it would protect you!”

  Malian closed her eyes as the pain surged behind them. “Here,” she whispered. “It said it could protect me here, but not necessarily in the New Keep.”

  And the Golden Fire had saved her. Together they had fought the Raptor of Darkness and won. She remembered the others that the Fire had pulled in to help them fight, and that last final touch of another mind, deep and cool on hers. “Do you have any idea where the Fire is now?” she asked.

  “No,” Kalan replied softly. “I think it said something about having to hide you before it disappeared, but I’m not sure. I wasn’t thinking very clearly then myself.”

  So they were still in danger, then. But Malian had known that already, just as she had recognized the cold minds and voices in the darkness as enemies. She shuddered, remembering the eldritch light, and knew that she must think, make plans. The pain lessened if she kept her eyes closed and didn’t move, but when she did that she felt herself slipping back into the tide of darkness—and there was too much danger that way. She had to stay conscious, despite the pain.

  Malian struggled to lift her eyelids and focus on Kalan. “They are looking for us,” she told him.

  He frowned and she saw the deep weariness beneath his worry. “Who?” he asked. “Our friends or our enemies?”

  “Both,” she said. “I heard voices—our enemies were there, but I also heard Nhairin and my father. He was speaking to Asantir and saying that I must be found.”

  “The Honor Captain?” Kalan asked, and she heard the sudden hope in his voice. “Would she come after you herself, do you think?”

  Malian dared not nod, but she reached out and touched his fingers with her own. “For me, yes,” she said honestly. “And if anyone can find us, Asantir will.”

  “This is a very strange place.” Gloom replaced the hope in Kalan’s voice. “Maybe no one could find us in here.”

  Malian refused to be daunted. “The Fire may come back,” she said. “If not—We must find our own way out, that’s all.”

  Kalan grinned. “That’s all,” he echoed. “Well, perhaps we should expect to find a way, given everything else that’s happened!” His expression sobered again. “And we’ve got no food or water, so we have to find a way out sooner rather than later. But you’re hurt and I’m the expendable one, so I go first when we try those doors again.”

  Malian closed her eyes briefly, remembering that terrible force of will bent solely on finding her. Even thinking about it see
med to bring the danger nearer, as though she were drawing her enemies’ attention. She forced herself back into the steady throb in her head. “We need to go together,” she said, surprising herself with the clarity and strength of her voice. “I to find the way, and you to hide us from our enemies.” Her fingers tightened over his. “Neither of us will make it on our own. And even if one did, there is no guarantee of finding the way back here again.”

  She felt the ring of truth in her words and saw the answering recognition in Kalan’s face. “It seems very plain when you put it that way,” he agreed, then looked away from her, frowning. “Truthsayer,” he said under his breath, so low that she almost did not hear him.

  Truthsayer. The word buzzed in Malian’s head, sharper than the pain. Truthsaying was one of the old powers, like mindspeaking—and casting fire, although at least she hadn’t done that yet. The other two powers were more than bad enough. Deliberately, Malian closed her mind to everything she had done—was doing—would mean once she returned to the New Keep. Right now, all that mattered was finding a way to return at all.

  “Help me up,” she said, grasping Kalan’s arm. “I want to take a closer look at those doors.”

  The agony that knifed through her head as she rose was so intense that Malian nearly fainted again. She wavered, white faced, and Kalan supported her until the waves of pain and the accompanying nausea receded. His arm felt like rock, holding her up, but once her vision cleared Malian could see the fear and uncertainty in his eyes. She gave him her best attempt at a smile. “I’ll manage,” she said, trying to strengthen her voice. “Truly.”

  She circumnavigated the room with agonizing slowness, stopping at each of the twelve arched portals. It was exactly as Kalan had said: The veil of mist that had shimmered across each doorway had been replaced by a wall of impenetrable fog. The whiteness looked soft and yielding, as though she could put her hand into and through it easily, yet each time she tried the barrier was hard and cold as marble, repelling her touch. Malian peered at the detail of letters and symbols carved deep into the doorframes and realized that each door was different, as though every arch had a unique message to communicate—unmistakable as the distinct shock of power beneath her hand. At some doors, the primary feeling was one of indifference; at others hostility or a mix of emotions. But not one door would let Malian through.