by Helen Lowe
“But you seem substantial,” Malian pointed out. She was remembering the strength in his hands as they grasped hers in the fire. “We all do.”
Tarathan nodded. “A strong mindwalker can give him-or herself substance and form, while those who are weaker or less well trained often appear as shadows or wraiths, pale images of themselves. Yet mindwalking is not the only way to come here. There are some, a very few, who have the power to walk here in their physical bodies, traveling from one place and time to another.” He paused, studying them, then continued quietly, “I believe this is what you and Kalan have done. You are both here in your physical bodies, which explains why I couldn’t find you on the physical plane.”
Malian and Kalan looked at each other. “Well,” the boy said eventually, “that’s a relief. I’ve been dreading waking up and finding myself back in the Old Keep, without food or water, in a room with impassable doors.”
Yorindesarinen laughed, a sound so infectious that the others laughed with her, even the herald. “Fear not,” she said. “I think you will find that there are few doors, on this plane or any other, that will prove impassable for the two of you. Particularly,” she added, sobering, “when you come into your full strength.” She looked up at the moon where it hung low amongst the trees. “But now you must go, before my moon sets, and find the friends who are waiting for you. I will provide a path back through the layers of the Gate, but you must remain watchful, for the mists can deceive the unwary.”
She rose in one graceful, fluid movement and led them to the edge of the glade. The second herald retreated before their approach, a shadow amongst the trees, and Yorindesarinen’s gaze pursued her. “It takes strength,” she murmured, “to hold a shield beyond the Gate of Dreams, let alone when mindwalking.” Her dark gaze shifted to Tarathan of Ar. “And you walked through my fire to find Malian, which also demonstrates considerable power.” She paused. “You know that word of what you have done will get out, not only amongst the Derai but also amongst their enemies? The attention that draws to your Guild may be unwelcome.”
Tarathan nodded. “Word always does get out, does it not?” he replied. “Jehane Mor and I considered this, but felt that our involvement was required, all the same.”
“It was essential,” Yorindesarinen agreed, “although not all would act as you have, if similarly placed.” Her voice was tranquil, but the darkness in her eyes was vast and comprised both memory and pain.
Malian, knowing the old, grievous story, thought she understood that darkness, but she wondered if the herald did. To her surprise, however, he took the hero’s hand and bowed over it, in what Haimyr had once described as the grand manner of the River; the hand, Malian saw, was crisscrossed with old scars.
“Life,” said Tarathan of Ar, “is a risk and so is death and one cannot avoid either. Jehane Mor and I are one in believing that a time for taking risks, perhaps even great risks, is upon us all.”
Yorindesarinen was smiling now. “It is a very long time,” she said, “since anyone kissed my hand in that way. It is not a custom of the Derai. You are quite right, though, it is indeed a time for risks, both the great and the small—although your Guild may not see that as clearly as you and your comrade do. But see, here is your road.” She pointed, and they all saw the path, silver touched, curving away between the trees.
The hero knelt and took Malian’s face between her scarred hands. “I am glad, Child of Night,” she said, “to have seen you at last. I believe we may meet again, but whether it will be soon or late, I cannot say.” She rose to her feet, her dark eyes crinkling into a smile. “But you must not go without a gift, something to remind you of me in the times ahead.” She unclasped a wide band of silver from her wrist and handed it to Malian, who turned it over in her hands. The armring was plainly wrought, except for a pattern of stars worked into a spiral around the band. “It will always fit you,” said Yorindesarinen, “but wear it around your upper arm for now, under your sleeve where it will be hidden from prying eyes. When you come into your power, you shall wear it on your wrist as I did. I have kept it for you a long time, so bear it well, Child of Night.”
“I will,” murmured Malian. “Thank you.”
The hero turned to Kalan. “And you,” she said, smiling at him. “What gift shall I give you, my unexpected friend?”
The smile deepened when he shook his head. She tugged a ring off her finger and closed his hand over its three strands of black metal, plaited together around a misshapen black pearl. “A friend gave it to me, long ago,” she said, “and he had it from another in his turn, down the long years. But you need not hide it as Malian must the armring: No one will remember it anymore.”
Kalan flushed and nodded, looking as though he would like to say something but couldn’t find the words, while Malian sank to one knee. “Farewell,” she said. “Even if this meeting does turn out to be just a dream, I will remember it forever.”
Yorindesarinen raised her up and kissed her on the forehead. “The path will become clearer, Child of Night, I promise you.” She gave Kalan a quick, comradely hug before he could either kneel or bow in his turn. “Farewell,” she said. “I will not say, ‘stay with her,’ for I think your two paths already lie together, without contrivance or encouragement of mine.”
Kalan nodded, sliding the ring onto his finger, but it was Tarathan who spoke. “We must go,” he said. “I fear for the safety of those we left behind.”
Yorindesarinen nodded. “Go well, my bravehearts, until we meet again—and do not leave the path!”
“Farewell,” Malian and Kalan called together, looking back as the mist thickened. “The Nine be with you!” The brume swirled higher, catching and echoing their words: “Farewell! Farewell!”
The hero turned and walked back to the fire, seating herself beside it again. She glanced up once at the moon, now very low amongst the tangled branches, but otherwise seemed absorbed by the play and flicker of the flames. If she noticed when the mist at the glade’s edge coalesced into a ball of golden light and drifted toward the fire, she gave no sign. As the ball moved, it grew until there was a small cloud hovering above Yorindesarinen. It was only then that the hero looked up. “Welcome, old friend,” she said. “It has been a long time.”
“Greetings, Child of Stars,” a voice of light replied, out of the cloud. “I was worried when I saw that the children had been drawn this way, until I realized who was charting their path.”
“Oh, they found their way with little enough help from me,” the hero said. “But you, my Hylcarian, have been busy as well. It gladdens my heart to see it.”
“Ay, but I am weak, Child of Stars. I cannot do all that I would have done once, or wish to do now.”
“You were hurt very badly on that night five hundred years ago, and then abandoned.” Yorindesarinen shook her head. “It is little wonder your recovery has taken so long. And now, when the Derai need the Golden Fire as never before, there are too few of the Blood left to bring you back to your full strength. So you must strive to rebuild that strength on your own. That is not how it is meant to be, I know, but there is no other choice.”
Hylcarian was silent and the hero’s fire burned lower. “You are sending the child away,” the fiery voice said at last.
“She must go, old friend. You know that as well as I,” said Yorindesarinen.
“You seem so sure,” Hylcarian replied. “You were always so sure … But who, beyond the keeps, can teach her what she needs to know?”
“Who can teach her in the keeps?” Yorindesarinen inquired dryly. “She must make her own way, find the allies that wait for her in the world beyond the Wall. That is her destiny—and the fate of the Derai Alliance, and of Haarth itself, is tied to it.”
Silence fell again until lightning crackled through the golden cloud. “Have you seen this, Child of Stars?”
“I see many things,” Yorindesarinen replied, “and understand only a few. But yes. I have seen it, both in the fire and in the stars.�
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“So much lost,” Hylcarian murmured. “So much broken or gone forever.” The light-filled voice paused briefly. “The weapons of your power are lost, too. Sword, helm, and shield all vanished when you fell. Yet how can she hope to withstand the Darkswarm without them?”
“There is always hope, old friend,” the hero replied gently. “You should know that better than any. Just as you know that it is heart and wit that make the hero, not swords and helms, however powerful.”
“All the same, the weapons of power would be very useful now. And they are her birthright, since it was for the benefit of the prophesied One that Mhaelanar sent them into the world.”
“So legend says,” agreed Yorindesarinen.
Again, lightning darted through the cloud. “Do you, who bore them, doubt it?”
The hero tipped back her scarred face and looked at the glitter of stars overhead. “‘Heaven’s shield by the Chosen borne; Terennin wrought me in time’s dawn,’ “ she chanted. “As you say, it was I who bore the weapons and I, too, who deciphered the hieroglyphs on the shield’s rim. ’Terennin wrought me,’ it says. There is no mention of Mhaelanar.”
There was another silence. “Terennin,” Hylcarian said at last. “The Farseer, Lord of the Dawn Eyes. He is also of the Nine, Child of Stars.”
“He is,” Yorindesarinen replied. “And you’re right, the weapons of power would undoubtedly be useful now. Unfortunately, there are still some things that are concealed from me, even dwelling here, and one is where those weapons are. They have been hidden well.”
Tongues of golden flame flicked again. “Their disappearance perturbed us greatly. Even before the Betrayal, it seemed that all had gone awry for the Derai Alliance since the time of your death and their loss. But our greatest fear was that they had been taken by the Swarm.”
The reflected firelight flared in Yorindesarinen’s eyes. “Not that!” she said. Her voice rang out; cold, clear, and true. “The Derai Alliance abandoned the Chosen of Mhaelanar in the darkest hour and so the god’s gift abandoned the Derai, to await the coming of another One, as was promised. Just as the weapons are dispersed and broken, so also are the Derai—and will be until the new Chosen claims her birthright and takes up her fate. Only in that hour will the lost be found and return to the Derai fold.”
The fire died from Yorindesarinen’s eyes and her head bowed. “So be it,” she said, in her normal voice.
Hylcarian echoed her words, sealing the prophecy: “So be it, in this hour and in the time to come.”
When Yorindesarinen looked up again the familiar, wry humor was back in her face. “So now you know as much as I do, seer or no. They always had a will of their own in any case, shield, sword, and helm. But you will know that better than I, having known them longer.”
“Long enough to know that like all objects of power, they are capable of finding their own path. As it would seem, from your prophecy, they have been doing for some time now.”
“Since the hour of my death,” said Yorindesarinen, dryly, then she shrugged. “Well, I cannot complain. They served me well and did not fail me, even at the end.”
“Some might say,” Hylcarian observed, matching her tone, “that they held by you in death, as in life. The prophecy I just heard clearly suggested that the weapons abandoned the Derai, with attendant consequences, because the Alliance abandoned you. They could, after all, have awaited the next Chosen quite easily amongst the keeps.”
The hero’s dark brows rose. “I had not considered that,” she said. “I suppose I still tend to see them as inanimate objects, despite their power.” Her expression became somber. “But if you are right, then they have punished the Derai far more harshly than I would have done. And despite what legend says, not all fell away. Rithor would have stood with me until the end, except that I commanded him to go—and Tavaral.” Her voice and expression softened suddenly. “I know now that he brought his wing forward, defying his own Earl, but came too late.”
“Ay, that surprised me, even at the time,” murmured Hylcarian. “He was well named, since Tavaral means faith keeper in the tongue of the ancients. But he paid for that faith keeping. He was stripped of his command and all his honors, and from that time to this his line have been barred from regaining them.”
“Thus the Derai mind!” exclaimed Yorindesarinen. “I could despair—except that there is too much to be done, counteracting it! But what of more recent events? What you have been doing, old friend?”
“Not nearly enough,” the Golden Fire replied, “but I have uncovered some secrets that you should know.” Reluctance, distaste, and even fear mingled in the summer voice.
“Let me see what you saw,” Yorindesarinen replied, “hear what you heard.” She dipped one scarred hand into the fire and scooped out flame, then touched the edge of the golden cloud. The two fires blazed and Yorindesarinen’s dark brows drew together, her expression grim. “I see,” she said at last. “Well, that explains how our enemy came to learn of her existence. You have done well, both to discover this and to guard the child as you have.”
“She is mine to guard, Child of Stars, as is this keep, and there is little that can be hidden from me in my own halls, now that I am fully awake. But I cannot act effectively in the New Keep, for in their anxiety to wall off the past, Night shut me out as well. Those wards are down, for now, but I am not grounded in that place as I am in the Old Keep. And until I am stronger, I must stay connected to the heart of my power.”
“Agreed,” Yorindesarinen said briskly. “But you can certainly act now, in the Old Keep, to ensure that the child and her friends return safely to the New. I, too, will bend all my power to that end—but for now, my moon has nearly set. We must both go.”
“Farewell, Child of Stars.” The fiery voice was full of regret. “It was good to see you again, if only for a brief time.”
“And you,” Yorindesarinen replied. She let the handful of flame slip back onto the fire in a shower of sparks that flared briefly, then extinguished. Slowly, the moon disappeared from view—and the fire went out altogether as the hero vanished. The golden cloud began to contract, dwindling again into a ball of light before it, too, disappeared; only the trees, and the distant stars, and a circle of charred earth remained. In a while the white mist came flowing in over everything, damp and cold, as though the glade and the fire had never been.
13
Path Through the Mist
The fog pressed in, blotting out both moon and trees, so that the four on Yorindesarinen’s path walked in a blank, cold world with no reference point except the glimmer of silver ahead. When Kalan looked back he could see no sign of the way they had come; the pathway behind them had disappeared.
“There is no going back, not through these mists,” said Jehane Mor, whose presence had grown more substantial as the glade disappeared. “Don’t be afraid,” she added, as Kalan shuddered. “Even without this path I would still trust Tarathan to find his way.”
“I’m not afraid,” Kalan said quickly, although he was. He could imagine wandering along this track forever, caught in some endless whorl of time. Frowning, he rubbed at the ring on his finger; it was real, tangible—reassuring, Kalan thought. He might not know the herald Tarathan, but he knew every hero tale that Brother Belan had ever recounted of Yorindesarinen the Bright: the most powerful enchanter ever born to the House of Stars; the Chosen of Mhaelanar, foretold by prophecy; the brightest star in the long darkness of the Derai struggle against the Swarm. And she had slain the Worm of Chaos, which everyone had said could not be done.
Even beyond death, Kalan thought, Yorindesarinen would be a force to be reckoned with. He looked back again and met Jehane Mor’s calm, gray-green gaze. “Are you not?” she asked. “I am. This is a very dangerous place and more dangerous still when the mists roll in. The Great One’s path is like a ropewalk above vast deeps, with no knowing where a misstep might lead.”
Kalan shivered and looked at Tarathan walking ahead. The herald seemed c
ertain of where he was leading them, but it felt strange having to trust in someone who was not Derai. Kalan studied the ring on his finger again and wondered if this was not all some fantastic dream, and whether both ring and mists might vanish when he woke, back in his narrow bed in the novice dormitory.
“It is a hero’s gift,” Jehane Mor said quietly from behind him, “and should not be underestimated, particularly considering the place where you received it.”
But who in the Temple quarter would believe me, Kalan wondered, if I told them the story? He wished he had summoned the courage to ask Yorindesarinen who had given the ring to her, and why—what its story was, since the hero had implied that the ring was already old when it came to her. The history might be hidden in a musty scroll somewhere, but if they were to leave the Wall, he would never get the chance to search for it.
If we leave the Wall… Kalan shook his head, remembering what had happened to other priests who had tried to flee the Wall of Night.
Malian said something to Tarathan, her voice very low, as though she feared there might be hidden listeners in the mist. Kalan reminded himself to concentrate, stretching his keen hearing to detect anything other than their own breathing and occasional murmured word. For a long time he heard nothing, but eventually detected a whisper beneath the white silence. The whisperer was chanting something, a cantrip or a curse, and Kalan sucked in his breath as he recognized that cold, sibilant tone.
Tarathan turned, his eyebrows raised in question. “There’s a voice,” Kalan said, whispering, too. “I’ve heard it before, when the Darkswarm invaded the New Keep.”
“They are searching everywhere, questing blindly through the whiteness for their quarry.” Jehane Mor’s reply was even softer than the whisper, and Kalan realized, with a sharp little jolt, that she was speaking directly into his mind. He saw the sudden flare in Malian’s eyes as she turned toward the herald and knew that she, too, could hear the mindvoice.