by Helen Lowe
The Huntmaster gave a short, approving nod, but the hounds howled in outrage at being thwarted of their prey and surged forward as a pack. For the first time Kalan saw them straining in fury against the Huntmaster’s hold, striving with all their strength to break free. The Huntmaster did not speak or move, but Kalan could sense the powerful ebb and flow of wills and for a few brief, terrible moments he doubted whether the Huntmaster would prevail. Slowly, however, the hounds were drawn back to the master, heads lowered and tails clamped, to stand at his side, resentful still, but defeated.
Kalan swallowed. “What happens if you can’t control them?” he whispered.
The Huntmaster held up the stump where his left hand should have been. “There was only once when the matter hung in the balance. But it will not happen again.”
Kalan shuddered and looked back at the red and white chamber, but the veil had already thickened and the people in the room could only be seen dimly, like figures through a mist. “The Gate closes,” said the Huntmaster. “Our part here is done and now we must go.” He turned and strode away, the black cloak flaring and the crow flying above his head. The hounds flowed at his heels like a white tide with the hunters gliding along in their wake. Reluctantly, Kalan trailed after them.
At least Malian is safe, he thought. Then, with a sudden burst of pride: I saved her. I, Kalan, saved my friend, the Heir of Night—with the Huntmaster’s help, of course!
He turned one last time at the edge of the trees and saw what looked like a wisp of mist detach itself from the main fabric of the Gate. As he watched, it drifted across the hilltop, toward the protection of the forest and the blanketing fog. “What is that?” he asked.
The Huntmaster stopped. “Well, well,” the harsh voice said. “I had forgotten that siren worms have the power to detach spirit from body at death. That is what you see, the ghost of the worm or its soul, call it what you will, trying to return to its masters.”
“What shall we do?” Kalan asked. He felt uneasily certain that something must be done, aware of all the information that such a ghost could pass on to the Swarm: about Malian and the silver fire, or himself and the Huntmaster, even the mystery of the great, golden cat. It could not be allowed to escape.
The black mask looked at him. “No indeed,” agreed the Huntmaster. “But the remedy is easy enough. Here beyond the Gate it is safe enough for me to let the hounds slip their leash. The Huntmaster must still remain with the Hunt, but you dare not. You must go now, and swiftly, back through the woods to whatever portal you used to enter this place. Do not stay or turn aside for any reason, lest you be trapped here when the Hunt is loosed. Even I and the Token you bear may not be able to save you if that happens.”
Kalan shivered, all too aware of the hounds’ bloodlust, then hesitated. “I don’t know your real name,” he said, “but thank you for helping Malian. And me as well.”
He was aware of a deep amusement behind the blankness of the mask. “You are the Token-bearer, boy—Kalan. It was you who roused the Hunt and once that happens then the Huntmaster must also wake and master it, lest Mayanne’s binding unravel. As for my name, which concerns you so greatly, that goes with the ring, which should be clue enough for you. Now go! Time is pressing!”
He turned away with the white hounds pouring after him, their red eyes glowing. Kalan could just make out the pale ghost of the siren worm slipping into the woods, and thought for a moment that it might get away, after all. Yet even as he watched, the Huntmaster whistled and cried out to the hounds in his harsh voice. They answered with a deep, belling note and sprang away, streaming through the trees. The Huntmaster looked back. “Do not wait, boy—you won’t like what you see. You must go, before the door closes again or the Hunt seeks new prey. So run now! Run!”
Kalan ran and the tangled forest of his dream closed in around him again. He had forgotten, when walking in the Huntmaster’s shadow, just how dark and wild it had first seemed. Now the tree roots grew thicker and more contorted as he ran, conspiring to trip him, while the bare branches leaned down, clutching at him with twiggy fingers. He carried on, mindful of the Huntmaster’s admonition, but the path grew increasingly narrow and the way ahead darker until the forest closed in around him entirely, hemming him inside a dense, impenetrable thicket. Kalan stared up at the tangled canopy through which no stars shone, his throat very dry, and swallowed hard.
“What do you want?” he asked, but his voice sounded thin and insignificant, lost in the pressing tangle of the forest. No voice answered, although the acute, listening quality of the silence deepened. Kalan drew a deep breath. “I know you can hear me!” he said defiantly.
Something moved in the darkness between the trees, slowly coming into focus. Kalan held his breath, both hoping and half expecting to hear the fierce hum of the great spear—but the movement resolved itself into the black mask of the Huntmaster. The mask floated amidst the tangled arms of the trees and the hollow eyes regarded him, fathomless and dark. “It is a wise person,” the mask said, “who knows the face of his enemy.”
“Not again!” said Kalan in disgust. “Why bother me with this now, when you yourself told me to begone?” But the mask was already fading back into the twisted web of branches. The trees shifted as though a secret breeze walked through them, the leafless branches creaking. A crow hopped onto a bough where the mask had been, preening its wings and turning to look at him with a small, bright eye. “Token-bearer!” it cawed. “Token-bearer!”
Kalan stared at it, exasperated. “What?” he demanded, but the bird only gave another caw and fluttered off. “What does it mean?” Kalan asked, only more softly this time, speaking to himself.
“Can you not guess?” a familiar voice asked from above his head, and he looked further up, meeting the down-bent gaze of Yorindesarinen. A crown of spring stars, misty and bright, gleamed in the dark coronal of her hair and her armor was burnished silver. She floated cross-legged in a space between two large trees and he could see clear sky behind her head, where only a few moments before there had been a tangled thicket.
“You’re not really here either, are you?” he asked.
“Not really,” she agreed. “Not in the way that you are here, at any rate.” Her smile was as he remembered it—warm and friendly, a comrade’s grin. “You have made your way very deep within the Gate, young Kalan, and this is not my wood. It is much wilder, older, and stronger; even I have difficulty imposing my will here.”
Kalan rubbed a hand across his forehead. “But can you make it let me go?” he asked.
“Not easily,” the hero replied, “unless it is ready to do so, but I think it could be persuaded. Besides, I have summoned help.” She tilted her head, as though listening to something he could not hear. “Ay,” she murmured, “I know. You are ancient and deep-rooted and you do not like to be disturbed. Yet now the Hunt has been loosed and the Huntmaster, too, has awoken.” She looked down at Kalan again. “These things have not happened for a very long time and the forest sees that you have had a hand in them.”
Kalan shifted. “The Huntmaster said that, too,” he admitted. “He told me it was because of the ring that you gave me, which he called the Token. He said that Terennin himself made it, time out of mind ago.” He met her dark eyes squarely. “Did you know that, when you gave it to me?”
“I knew,” she replied, with the ghost of a smile, “that the ring was an ancient treasure, but not that it had a direct connection to the Huntmaster. It was given to me by a friend, as I said, and that, too, was a long time ago now.”
“The Huntmaster,” Kalan said abruptly, “also said that he was older than you, and much, much darker. But not,” he added conscientiously, “necessarily stronger.”
Yorindesarinen chuckled. “Did he really?” she asked. “Well, that is an admission indeed!”
“So do you know who he is, exactly?” Kalan asked. “I have never heard of him before, or read about him in the annals of the Derai.”
“No?” Yorindesa
rinen replied. “But then, as you have already learned, not all the powers that walk beyond the Gate of Dreams are Derai. The Hunt and its master are an ancient power and a very strong one, whatever he said to you. They dwell deep within the layers of the Gate and rousing them has disturbed the peace of this forest, which is a thing not easily done.”
Kalan looked around at the trees that were still crowding in on him. “So is the forest angry with me?”
“Angry? Not exactly,” said Yorindesarinen, “but it associates the cause of its present unease with you, perhaps even resents you a little. You will have to be wary when you go walking in your dreams in future, my Kalan, for there are other forces like this forest, both ancient and vast, beyond the Gate. It is not wise to disturb them.”
“Perhaps,” said Kalan, very boldly, “I might be a less disturbing influence if I had not accepted the gift of a hero’s ring.”
Yorindesarinen grinned. “Indeed you might,” she agreed. “Nonetheless, it would still be prudent to remember that the Gate is a dangerous place for the unwary, however innocent their intentions.”
Kalan considered. “How did you know I was in trouble? Or where to find me?”
“I gave you the ring,” the hero said simply, “and you are still within the Gate, however deep you may have traveled.”
Kalan nodded. “The trees showed me both the Huntmaster’s mask and his crow, just before you came,” he said slowly. “The bird called me the Token-bearer and the mask said that a wise person knows the face of his enemies. The Huntmaster said the same thing to me, too, when I met him in the forest.”
The hero looked thoughtful. “As I said, you should pay attention to what this forest shows you.”
“But why would it show me the Huntmaster’s mask when you said that he disturbs it?” Kalan persisted. “What do you think it means?”
Yorindesarinen shook her head. “I do not know the mind of this wood,” she said. “I will help you where I can, but there is still a great deal that you will have to work out for yourself. And it is right that you should,” she added, “for your enemies are powerful and cunning, and you must be able to outwit as well as outfight them if you are to survive.” He frowned up at her, perturbed, and she smiled a little. “Do not look so troubled. I have faith, Kalan the Young, that you will find both the wit and the strength of arm to make your enemies fear you.”
“‘It is a wise person who knows the face of his enemy,’” Kalan repeated, still frowning. “Does that mean that the Huntmaster is really my enemy and I should know his true face? Except how can I, when he wears a mask? Or did he mean that I should be able to recognize who my enemies are, no matter what face they show me?” The frown deepened. “Or perhaps he is just playing a game with me?”
Yorindesarinen studied him, deeply thoughtful. “Sometimes, Kalan, it is necessary to change the way you listen, in order to better understand what you hear. The one thing you may be sure of is that the Huntmaster will not have spoken lightly, given that he spoke to you at all.” She turned her head. “But it is time and more that you crossed back to the other side of the Gate—and see, the help I called is here.”
Kalan looked around and saw that the trees had drawn back while they talked and a golden light was flowing down the path, lapping against the trunks of the trees. “Hello,” he said. “You again.”
“I might say the same,” the fiery voice replied, dry in his mind. The advancing light halted a few feet from where Yorindesarinen floated amongst the trees. “Summoned, I come,” said Hylcarian. “Greetings, Child of Stars.”
“In need, I called,” the hero replied. “Time is short, old friend. This young dreamer must return to the other side of the Gate, but the wood has snared him. It will let him go now, I think, but he exists in both places at the same time, as do you—whereas my power is only in this world of dreams. He will find it easier to make his way back to his sleeping body if you lend him your aid, Hylcarian.”
“Time is shorter than you might think,” Hylcarian replied. “They are coming for him now, in the New Keep, and I cannot remain here long.”
“I thought,” Kalan said curiously, “that you were fully occupied shoring up the foundations of the Old Keep, and likely to remain so for some time?”
So I am,” responded Hylcarian, “and must be, lest the whole Keep of Winds come crashing down around our ears.”
“Not quite the Fall of Night that we anticipated, eh?” observed Yorindesarinen, with a grin.
“Laugh then,” said Hylcarian, but without heat. “One cannot open portals into the void itself and expect there to be no consequences in the world on the hither side of that gate. Still, some good will come even out of that near disaster, for once I have sealed up all the rifts and cracks no enemy will penetrate the Old Keep again. I will make very sure of that. For now, just be thankful that I have done enough work to have some strength left over for running your errands, Child of Stars.”
Yorindesarinen held up a hand, acknowledging the counter hit. “Forgive me, old friend,” she said, very grave, but Kalan could see the smile lurking in her eyes. He suspected that Hylcarian could see it, too.
“I must go,” the voice of light said, “and take the boy, before we both get stranded within the Gate of Dreams.”
“Go, then,” said Yorindesarinen, “and may the Nine go with you both!” She winked out like a star and the forest fell away from the Golden Fire as it flared through the trees like a sun track on water. Kalan began to run again, his feet flying along the path, faster and faster while the light blazed around him until he was not running at all, but arrowing up through a sea of light like a swimmer coming up for air.
At the last moment, on the very edge of breaking through the surface of light, the Golden Fire checked him. “Wait! There are two messages that I would have you bear for me into your New Keep. The first is for the Child.”
“For Malian?” said Kalan. “I’m listening.”
“The Child of Stars says that the Heir of Night must leave and go out into the wide world. I, too, see that it must be so, although it grieves me. Tell Malian of Night that she must seek for the lost arms of Yorindesarinen there: the sword, helm, and shield that were lost to us when the hero fell. I searched for them mightily, even after the others gave up, but found only darkness, silence, and death.” The fiery voice paused. “The one thing I learned in all that time was that the armring is the key to their finding. Tell the Child she must use that key, for she will need the arms to defeat her enemies and fulfill her destiny.”
“I will tell her,” promised Kalan. “But where should she look?”
“I do not know,” said Hylcarian. “Even Yorindesarinen does not know and they were her arms once. The important thing is to look, for even now, I believe, the weapons will be rousing themselves to answer the Child of Night’s need. But she must be very secret. No one else must suspect what she is doing. No one! So tell only the Child what I tell you now—and let no other overhear. Do you understand me, boy of Blood?”
“I understand,” said Kalan, compelled by the Fire’s urgency. “But what is the second message?”
“That,” said Hylcarian, “is for the Honor Captain, a warning to the wise, which is that siren worms always hunt in pairs. Where one is, the other will not be far away. They are cunning and patient, but not particularly courageous, except in pursuit of blood feud where they rival even the Derai. Your captain should be prepared for what will come. Now go, and swiftly, for they are coming for you.”
“Who—” Kalan began, but Hylcarian had already let him go; the golden light fragmented and soon it had vanished altogether. Kalan found himself safely back in his body, on the verge of waking, and with someone speaking his name.
23
Throw of the Dice
Malian sat up in her bed, wide-awake. The red and white room was filled with a clamor of voices; Nhairin was leaning one arm on the mantelpiece above the fire, her expression bleak; and a tall woman in a priestess’s robes had tak
en the steward’s place in the chair. Asantir was standing by the tapestry with her sword drawn, a pale green ichor dripping from the blade onto the floor, while the guards searched the room. Haimyr strolled over to the bed and perched himself on one corner, carefully settling the fall of his sleeves. Perplexed, Malian stared from him to the young priests at the door.
“What,” she said, “are you all doing here?” She tried to take everything in, to work out what had happened, then shook her head. “I had the strangest dream,” she muttered, as much to herself as Haimyr. “Kalan was in it, and the hounds in the tapestry had come alive.” She shivered. “Their eyes were full of fire and their voices cried out for blood.”
“Old tales to scare children with,” Nhairin said, although she sounded shaken. “I should have known that Doria would fill your head with them, given half a chance.”
The priestess in the chair glanced at Nhairin, her expression curious, but Malian shook her head again. “No,” she said, “I’ve never heard of these hounds before. Or the masked huntsman that was with them.” She frowned. “There was a cat, too,” she added slowly. “It was as big as the hounds. But it wasn’t in the tapestry. It was here, in this room.”
Nhairin shrugged. “It was just a dream,” she said, but Malian was looking at Asantir.
“What are you all doing here?” she asked again. “And your sword—What happened, Asantir?”