by Helen Lowe
“Was that the Golden Fire?” Lira, one of the honor guards standing with Sarus, was staring at the cone lamps. “Has it come back?” Her voice was full of hope.
“Perhaps,” said Asantir. “But it may simply have been some property of the lamps themselves. Do not hope too much, Lira. We need to be sure.”
She returned to the door where the living guards were sorting out the wounded from the dead. Ber and Mareth looked much like the dead priests, their seared eyes still staring at some horror only they could see. Two others lay sprawled in death beside them, while Soril moaned on the ground, her intestines oozing from the terrible wound where a blow had cut clean through her mail shirt. Korin had removed her helmet, and Soril looked up at Asantir with pain-glazed eyes.
The guard’s lips moved as though she were trying to say something, but all that came out was another agonized moan and a trickle of blood. Asantir knelt at her side, bending close to hear the words she was trying so desperately to say.
“Mercy …” The whisper was wrenched out, followed by another bubbling moan.
Asantir held Soril’s eyes with her own, gripping the guard’s hand. With her other hand, the one that Soril could not see, she slid a fine, slender dagger from its sheath in her boot and bent close. “Go well,” she said and slid the dagger in under Soril’s ear, into her brain.
Asantir continued to kneel, her head bent over the dead guard as she murmured the invocation to Hurulth, Lord of Death, the Silent God—and then she stood up, her mouth set in a hard line. “Lay our dead to one side,” she said, “and cover them with their cloaks.” She swept a cursory glance over the bodies of the attackers that lay across the threshold. “As for the others, make certain they’re really dead before you get too close. Once you’re sure, drag them well clear of the door and leave them. But they are Darkswarm, so best put them where we can still see them.”
“Otherwise we wait and watch, is that it?” Sarus spoke from his post by the smaller door.
“As before,” Asantir agreed, “until our friends here get back from wherever it is they’ve gone.” She looked around at their reduced numbers, narrowing her eyes at the golden motes that still shimmered in the air. “Let’s hope they don’t take too long.”
11
The Gate of Dreams
Malian was dreaming again, but this time her dream was not of darkness but of light. Light burned around her, as though she were standing in the heart of a fire, except that she felt no heat and the flames did not consume her. Voices murmured, but as with the hunters’ cries in the Old Keep, Malian could make no sense of them: They hovered just beyond the boundaries of understanding.
The flames spiraled up, whirling around her in a white-gold conflagration and then separating to leave a clear space in their center—a window that Malian could peer through, into the room on its far side. A rose motif was repeated in the wall hangings and other furnishings, and a deep winged armchair had been placed before the fire, which burned silently in a small grate. A man lounged in the armchair, his long legs stretched out toward the blaze. His clothes were as golden as his hair and he was reading a slender book with a tattered cover. “Haimyr,” said Malian, leaning forward, but a shadow moved in the corner of her eye and she drew back.
Haimyr looked up from the book, and Malian realized that the shadow must be someone entering the room in which he sat. “Nhairin,” he said, in his golden voice. Malian could not see the steward but she could hear them both, as clearly as though she, too, stood in the room.
“What are you doing here?” Nhairin’s tone was sharp.
Haimyr’s answering smile was lazy. “Why, reading, my dear Nhairin.” He had, Malian remembered, always enjoyed teasing the more serious and upright steward. “It’s quite all right, this time I have asked permission, both to be here and to read the book. But I could ask you the same question.” He laid the volume to one side and straightened a little in the chair. “Why are you here?”
Nhairin’s voice was restless. “Looking for you, of course. It’s been so long, half the day and well into the night already, and we’ve heard nothing. And I thought about this fire, that it might be possible to see through it the other way and learn something of what is happening.” The shadow moved, unsettled as the voice, on the periphery of Malian’s vision.
“The Old Keep’s a vast place. We must expect them to be some time. But as for the fire …” The minstrel’s voice was measured as he looked into the flames—and it was as though he gazed straight at Malian, through her window. His eyes flared, golden and lambent as the fire itself, and she was sure that he could see her. She stepped toward him, but before she could speak he bent forward, picked up a log, and tossed it onto the blaze. A shower of sparks, hot and fiery, flew up in Malian’s face as the fire flared, licking across the window so that both Haimyr and the rose room disappeared. The last thing Malian heard was his voice, smooth as silk. “You know how it drew you in last time, in spite of yourself. Best not to meddle, lest we open ourselves to forces we cannot deal with.”
What forces? Malian wondered, as the window disappeared. Couldn’t he see it was me? She wanted to try and open the window in the fire again but something else was tugging at her attention, insistent as a tide. “What?” she demanded crossly.
The light in her dream contracted, the flames spinning together before gradually paling and drifting apart. She found herself in a dark forest where the crowns of the trees were so tall they hid the sky, and the moon and stars seemed to be caught in the net of their branches. Her feet brushed against long grass that was chill with dew, and tendrils of white mist swirled around her knees. She was standing on what appeared to be a small knoll above banks of white fog, with trees stretching away on all sides and a narrow path running down into the whiteness.
Malian shivered and wondered where her dream had brought her.
A slight sound made her spin around to see Kalan walking out of the fog, materializing first as a shadow and then as a creature of substance and life. “What are you doing here?” Malian asked. “Isn’t this my dream?”
Kalan frowned. “I thought it was mine. I saw you walking away from me into the mist and thought I should follow. There didn’t seem much point in staying behind.”
Malian had a feeling there was more to it than that, but she couldn’t quite remember what. She looked doubtfully at the thick, white fog lying between the dark trees. “Well, waking or dreaming, we’re both here now. But there’s something very strange about this place.”
Kalan, too, was looking around uneasily. “I know, something uncanny. It feels as though it could be dangerous, but isn’t. At least, not right now.”
Malian felt the tug at her awareness again, steady and compelling. “Something’s calling to me, pulling at me to follow the path into the trees. I’m not sure I should, though.”
“Well, we can’t just stay here.” Kalan shrugged. “And if this is a dream, we’ll probably wake up back where we started anyway.”
“If it’s a dream,” Malian said thoughtfully. Memories of stepping through a golden gate into white mist were starting to come back to her and she tilted her chin at the dark forest. “So let’s see where this leads us.”
They walked down into the fog, which rolled up to meet them and was so thick and wet and eerily white that they could barely see the path ahead. But they had only covered what felt like a short distance when the whiteness began to lift, revealing vast trunks that soared skyward. The pattern of stars had shifted and the moon, too, had sunk deeper into the net of branches.
Malian sniffed. “Do you smell smoke?” she whispered.
Kalan pointed to a tendril of darker mist, curling through the trees. “There,” he said softly. “Woodsmoke.”
They continued on more slowly, peering around the dark trunks and into dense, tangled shadows. Initially, the scent of woodsmoke grew fainter as trees and undergrowth closed around them again, but it strengthened when the forest opened into a narrow, moon-washed glade.
A fire was burning in the center of the clearing and a figure sat beside it, wrapped in a dark, hooded cloak. “You may come closer,” the cloaked figure bade them, without turning around. The voice that spoke was a woman’s, low and clear and pleasant. “It’s quite safe.”
The voice inspired confidence, but Malian and Kalan were children of the Derai and knew that enemies came in numerous guises, many of which could seem fair on the surface. They wanted to see the face inside the dark hood, if there was one, before they came too close. As though reading their thoughts, the woman reached up and pushed back the hood, revealing a face that was unmistakably Derai. A net of tiny white stars held the cloud of her black hair in place, while the moonlight revealed high cheekbones above a strong jaw, shadowed eyes, and a humorous curve to the woman’s mouth. “Welcome to my fire,” she said, and patted the ground. “Sit. I would speak with you a while before the moon wanes.”
Malian sat down on the opposite side of the fire and Kalan squatted beside her, letting the rose and orange flames dance between them and this woman they did not know. “Will the moon wane?” Kalan asked. “I mean, isn’t this a dream?”
“Is it?” the woman replied. “And if it is, is it impossible that dreams should have their own times and seasons?” She shifted slightly and Malian caught a glitter of silver beneath the black cloak.
“It feels like a dream to us,” Malian replied. “But if it is a dream, are you in our dream or are we in yours?”
The woman smiled. “Well asked, my dear,” she said. “The truth, as you are beginning to discover, is that the Gate of Dreams opens to many places and in more than one direction. But the two of you had the power to walk through and find your way to my fireside. I am impressed.”
“Who are you?” asked Kalan bluntly. “How do we know that what you tell us is true?”
She grinned at him across the fire. “You can’t know,” she said, “either who I am or whether I speak the truth.” Her smile widened as both Kalan and Malian blinked. “Not for certain. But you can learn to trust the judgment of your heart, both to discern truth and sift out falsehood.” She paused. “Besides, you do know my name, Kalan of the House of Blood, just as I know yours—and that you have a true spirit.”
Kalan flushed and looked suspicious at the same time. “How do you know that I’m from the House of Blood?” he asked. “Or anything else about me?”
“Dear lad,” the woman replied, “it’s obvious—as obvious as the fact that you are sitting at my fire with a child born into the House of Night, of the Blood itself if I’m not mistaken.” She arched a slender black eyebrow in Malian’s direction as if to say: Am I not right?
“Yes,” said Malian, answering the unspoken question. She stared hard at the woman, frowning. “Your voice is familiar,” she said slowly, “and yet I don’t think we’ve met before.” She continued to frown and then exclaimed, “It was your voice I heard, just before the Fire rescued me from the Raptor of Darkness! It was you who told me to hold on!”
“Yes,” the woman replied gravely. “You were very close to me then, which is why I could speak to you directly and you could hear me.”
Malian shivered, wondering if that was because she had been close to death; the compassion in the woman’s eyes confirmed her suspicion. “It was you later, as well,” she said slowly, pushing away the horror of the Raptor’s attack. “In the darkness, when the eldritch fire almost caught me. You told me not to touch it.”
The woman nodded. “The limbo in which you floated was on a plane between worlds and time. It is connected to this place, which also lies beyond what we call the Gate of Dreams, so I could reach you quite readily—which was just as well, under the circumstances.”
Remembering the pale fire that had reached out to entrap her, Malian had to agree. But that did not tell her who this woman was, or why she had helped. She studied the fire-tinted face opposite. “You said that we know your name, but not that we know you. And you may have spoken to me twice now, but I still don’t think we’d met before that.”
“Yes and no,” the woman answered, smiling at her. “No and yes. It is true that we have never met before, but I am not unknown to you. And I have been waiting for you, my dear, for a very long time.” She included Kalan in the smile, a hint of melancholy tingeing her expression. “You, however, I did not expect. And born to the House of Blood as well; now there’s a mystery. Still,” she added musingly, more to herself than to him, “I was promised that she would not be alone.”
Malian’s hands clenched into fists. “Who promised?” she demanded. “Why have you been waiting for me? Who are you?”
The cloaked woman picked up a stick and poked the fire into a flurry of sparks and flame that swirled into the night, revealing a long scar, which ran in a pale, jagged line down the right side of her face, from hairline to jaw. “Warrior kind,” said Kalan, before he could stop himself. But the woman only smiled.
“Warrior kind I am” she chanted, “and priest kind am I,
Born of the night and of the light,
Sword wearing, fire bearing,
Who then am I, child of the Derai!”
Malian and Kalan looked at each other. “House of Stars!” they exclaimed with one voice.
Kalan grinned, but Malian continued to study the woman intently. Her mouth opened slightly as though to speak, then shut again. Eventually she swallowed hard and said in a sort of croak: “You said that we know your name … And the rhyme belongs to the House of Stars, but everyone knows that it particularly applies to the one we call the Child of Stars. Yet surely that’s impossible …” Her voice trailed away.
The woman looked at her very kindly. “The rhyme is indeed mine,” she said.
Malian swallowed again. “Then you must … Yet how can you possibly be … Are you—Yorindesarinen?”
The woman clapped her hands together in soft approval. “Yorindesarinen, I am,” she said, “called by some the Bright, born of the House of Stars.”
“Er, excuse me,” said Kalan stiffly, when Malian remained silent, staring across the fire in amazement, “but didn’t you, um, die?” His voice gained strength. “In fact, didn’t you die a long time ago, before the Derai even came to this world?”
Wordlessly, she opened her cloak so they could see the mail beneath, gleaming silver in the moonlight. While they watched it became dull, hacked in a hundred places, with blood dried black around the wounds and in slow runnels across the armor’s surface. “In the world beyond the Gate of Dreams,” Yorindesarinen replied, “I did indeed die long ago, slain in my battle with the Worm of Chaos, even though I killed it at the last. We died for each other, that Worm and I.” As she finished speaking, the hacked and bloodied armor transformed into gleaming silver again.
The hero grinned at Kalan’s expression. “Are you afraid that I’m a ghost? I assure you, I am neither ghost nor ghoul.
If you know my story you will know that we nearly lost to the Swarm in that great battle, or series of battles as it actually was, because of the Worm of Chaos. It was huge, ferocious, and terrible; wherever it came, our forces broke and fled before it. It had to be stopped, but in the end only I was prepared to go against it. There was no one else left, either comrade or sword kin, willing to stand with me. So I fell. I died on that field before I could realize the destiny I was born to fulfill.”
“You stood alone.” Tears pricked Malian’s eyes. “Yet even alone you defeated the Worm and so saved the Derai and all the worlds we fought to protect.”
Yorindesarinen smiled sadly. “It sounds grand, does it not? Yet I hope that you will never have to know the loneliness that I knew then, or the dread that froze my blood, or the agony as I lay dying with the Worm’s wounds on my body and the Worm’s venom in my veins. And it should not have been so.”
She lifted her face to the moon, caught in the net of tree branches. “It should not have been so,” she repeated softly, “for I was born to unite the Derai and lead them to the final victory against our enem
y. That was the destiny written in the stars in the hour of my birth—but the Swarm, too, can read the stars. It brought the Worm against us to thwart prophecy, so that I had no choice but to slay it or see the destruction of the Derai and all worlds.” She paused. “Yet I was promised, even as I lay dying, that another would come to unite the Derai and that one would not have to stand alone—would not be alone. I was promised, too, that I might wait for the One-to-Come, for she would need my aid. So wait I have, and watched, all these long years.”
“For me?” Malian asked faintly. “You can’t possibly mean me.”
“No?” inquired Yorindesarinen. “Why not?”
“Well, I’m just an ordinary person,” Malian protested. “I’m not anyone special, a hero or an enchanter. I’m just myself.”
“Just yourself,” said Yorindesarinen musingly. “That can be a very large thing or a small one, depending on the person. And what does it mean in your case? Who are you, my dear? What is the sum of this ordinary self of yours?”
Malian drew herself up, straightening her spine despite the hero’s kindly tone. “I am Malian,” she declared, not without pride, “daughter of the Earl, Heir to the House of Night—the first and oldest of all the Derai Houses.”
Yorindesarinen bowed, her dark head bending so that the starry jewels glittered and danced. “Greetings, Heir of Night,” she said formally, and then her smile glinted, bright as the stars in her hair. “Yet is that not something more than ordinary, to be the Heir of Night? And clearly you have other powers as well, to have passed the Gate of Dreams and found me here.”
“But,” said Kalan, speaking up abruptly, “that doesn’t make her the One of the old prophecies, which all say that the One-to-Come will be born of the Blood of the House of Stars.” He grinned a little at Malian’s surprised expression. “They make novices learn that kind of stuff. Besides, the prophecies are one of Brother Selmor’s special studies. He said that no one bothers to learn them now, outside the Temple quarter, and even inside the temples most regard them as peripheral.”