by Helen Lowe
“What did he say?” asked Kalan breathlessly.
This is just a story for him, thought Malian, not personal and terrible as it is for me.
“What, still expecting some hero tale?” Nhairin inquired sardonically, “some declaration of weighty defiance or desperate glory? Well, there was none. According to Doria, he only uttered one sentence: ‘The law of the Derai prevails in this keep, Earl of Night, and you are its upholder.’Disappointed?” she asked, when Kalan stayed silent.
“Well,” said Kalan, “it does seem a little dispassionate. I mean, the Lady Nerion was his wife.”
And the Old Earl, thought Malian, was both his father and his Earl. She wondered if Kalan could see the terrible nature of that conflict—and wondered, too, why she had never asked the steward about her wound, even when she was younger. Was it simply that Nhairin the lame, Nhairin the scarred, Nhairin the steward, was something that she had taken as a given all her life, like the keep and the Wall itself? Or was it because she had sensed that she did not want to know the answer? Malian shivered, forcing herself to concentrate on Nhairin’s soft, uninflected reply. “Childhood friend, the sweetheart of his youth, and then his wife—but no word of that was spoken.”
“Because it would have done no good, and well you know it, Nhairin.” Kyr’s voice was pitched from just beyond the vines and they all started. Malian wondered how long he had been sitting there, listening to them talk, and whether Lira was with him or still scouting the Jaransor night. She leaned forward as the guard continued to speak.
“The Old Earl was as harsh and unreasonable a man as ever led the Derai, and any word of affection or loyalty for Lady Nerion would only have spurred him on. He would have called it weakness, and he despised weakness, almost as much as he hated and loathed the priestly kind. I was there, too, Lady Malian,” Kyr added, “and your father did right to call on the law of the Derai, rather than any claim of emotion, or kinship, or common decency. He instantly put the Earl in the wrong of our own code, the laws and honor that he claimed to uphold. It may not sound like much, but your father turned the tide of events in that room, so that lives were saved and not lost.”
Malian hesitated. “But Kalan is right. It does seem cold, just focusing on the law like that.”
Kyr’s reply, out of the darkness, was slow and thoughtful. “Well, now, Lady Malian, you’re Heir of Night and so you’ve had a lot of lessons drummed into you, history and such that guards don’t need to bother with. But we still know the old stories down in the barracks, and it seems to me that whenever things have gone wrong for the Derai—I mean really wrong, like the Great Betrayal—it’s always because some great lord or leader thinks that he or she is above the law that’s meant to bind us all. We’ve all heard tales from some of the other Houses as well, suggesting that a fair few of their lords and captains don’t bother too much with the niceties of the law. Your father, though, the Earl Tasarion, he’s not like that. With him there’s only one rule, the same for him as for everyone under him, and no exceptions. If that makes him a cold man, then I’d rather have his coldness than his father’s bloody-handed passions, any day.” Malian heard him spit, as if to emphasize his words, and then he added, “Still, I wouldn’t exactly call him cold, myself. Would you, Nhairin? You’ve known him longer.”
The steward shifted as if to ease her leg again. “I wouldn’t have, when we were young together, but now I’m not so sure. After all, the law may have saved Nerion’s life that day, but she was still sent away and died of that exile as surely as she would have by the Old Earl’s sword. A cold death, rather than a passionate one perhaps, but just as dead. And the only reason we’re all here now is because the Earl intended upholding that same law again and exiling Malian, probably to no better end.”
The guard grunted. “True enough. But I still say that back then he had no choice, given he had Lady Malian and the House of Night to think of. Besides, you could argue that it was the lack of law where Lady Nerion was sent that killed her. Any shame for that lies squarely with the House of Adamant.” Kyr cleared his throat. “And he spared you, Nhairin, even if he couldn’t save his wife.”
“What does he mean, Nhairin?” asked Malian, when the steward did not answer.
“He is referring to the end of my sorry tale,” Nhairin replied, although she sounded reluctant. “The Old Earl threw me into prison because I had stood against him at that door. I would have stayed there until either I died of my wounds or he had me executed as a traitor, except that he didn’t live much longer himself—finally worn out by the violence of his passions, no doubt. When Tasarion became Earl in his turn, he released me and made me High Steward, and the rest you know.”
“Not quite all of it,” said Kalan. “Where was Malian found, in the end?”
“Ah,” said Nhairin, “that turned out to be a genuine mystery. The whole keep searched high and low, but Malian could not be found. Until that evening, when the duty priest went to renew the holy fire on Mhaelanar’s altar and found her lying on the Defender’s sacred shield as though it were a cradle. There was a huge outcry about it at the time. Warriors and priests alike said that it was a sign from the Nine, that you, Malian, must be favored of the gods. Some even said that you must be the long prophesied Chosen of the De- fender himself. It was all such a business that even the Old Earl was forced to put a good face on things. But no one has ever been able to say how you got there.”
Kalan whistled softly and Malian shook her head, remembering what Garan had said when he knelt and swore to her, in the Hall of Mirrors: “Chosen, Shield of Mhaelanar, beloved of the Nine.”So many of those around her must have known the story yet said nothing, bound by her father’s command of silence—but that knowledge would have shaped their response to the revelation of her powers in the Old Keep. “It makes my head ache,” she said, “just thinking about it all.”
“Of course it does,” said Nhairin. “Why not, when it has made both my leg and my face ache all these years?”
They all chuckled, but no one argued when Kyr suggested that they get some sleep while he took first watch. Lira was still not back and Malian could not sleep, not with her thoughts churning around everything Nhairin and Kyr had said. She knew that Kalan, too, would be lying awake, waiting for Lira to return so that he could try and build his shield.
Does he pity me, she wondered, for having so grim a heritage: a grandfather consumed by hatred and unbridled passions, my mother’s disgrace and exile, and a father who upholds the law at the expense of family love and loyalty? Malian hunched a shoulder and turned away.
I don’t need pity, she thought, especially not from a novice priest who has been cast out by his own family as well as by his House.
“Ay, that is what your grandfather would have said, wanting no one’s understanding and despising anyone who showed compassion or mercy.”The thought drifted into her head, delicate as the starlight, and she realized that one hand was clenched tight around the silver armring.
Yorindesarinen?Malian asked silently, but the voice did not speak again. After a moment she realized that other voices were talking softly, the words drifting back from where Nhairin had gone to sit with Kyr on the other side of the vines. Their speech was accompanied by a soft chirring sound, and she realized that one of them must be sharpening a blade.
“I thought you were hard on the Earl before,” Kyr was saying. “He did his best in a difficult situation, I always thought.”
“Well,” Nhairin answered, with a curious little edge to her voice, “you should know.”
Malian heard the pause before Kyr replied, a touch of anger in his voice. “I tried to do my duty then, as I do now, to House and keep.”
“Still,” Nhairin said, “I notice that you didn’t tell Malian where you stood on that day.”
“What’s the point of raking over cold ashes?” he asked, weariness replacing the anger. “The Old Earl and Lady Nerion are both dead; let the past die with them. Still,” he continued, when she said
nothing, “I don’t think Earl Tasarion adheres to the law because he’s passionless, but because he sees that’s what the Derai need. It’s one reason why he’s finally been able to start rebuilding the old allegiances. The Alliance is beginning to realize that he stands for more than just his own personal interest, or even that of Night. And he seems to love the Winter woman well enough, for a so-called passionless man.” Kyr paused and Malian imagined him shaking his head. “Although I admit that doesn’t help his cause with the other Houses.”
The weight of Nhairin’s silence was an answer in itself. The quiet lengthened, and Malian felt her mind turn to the murmur of the night breeze and the slow movement of the stars. She could follow the breeze, she realized, her fingers clasped around the armring, just as she had followed the vision of the hawk earlier in the day. She flowed with it across the hillside, letting the little wind show her the fallen stones beneath the grass and the scurrying path of some small night creature. Malian could hear Lira’s footsteps, almost lighter than the breeze, as the guard made her careful way back to them. And she could sweep high, too, far above the hills, and make out the whole length of Jaransor stretched out below her, just as the hawk must have seen it spread beneath its wings.
There waspower in the land. Malian could see it flowing like a river—but deep, far down in the earth. The hidden river only bubbled up at intervals along the crest of the hills, in a series of evenly spaced springs. The springs, she realized, matched the ruins of the watchtowers that had once stretched the length of Jaransor: Kyr was right, the ruins were centers of power still. And then she sensed the chill of another force, alien but aware as it probed the night.
Where?Malian wondered sharply. She drew back and waited for the wind to tell her, which at length it did, showing her the wide braids of the Telimbras, shrouded in night. Darkness seemed to pool by the western bank of the river, impenetrable even to the little breeze, which took fright and fled away.
They have already crossed the Telimbras, Malian thought, her awareness drifting beneath the white glitter of the stars. They are here in Jaransor.
She shuddered, hovering between her mind’s flight and her grounded body. In that one, brief moment she sensed another presence hidden behind the wind, concealed in the swirling dust of the Gray Lands. The impression was so fleeting that Malian almost missed it—but not quite. The afterimage of a solitary, cloak-wrapped figure, its pony’s tail and mane blown forward by the wind, burned behind her eyes in the darkness. “Who?” she asked on a half breath, then realized that Kalan was up on one elbow, staring toward the entrance.
“Lira,” he said. “I think she’s back.”
No, thought Malian, not Lira. There is someone else, someone who follows the followers.
She strove to restore the fragile link, but any sense of a hidden presence was gone. After a moment she let it go, for at least Lira had returned safely and Kalan could begin to build his shield. For now, the rest could wait. Sighing, Malian pulled her blanket close.
An unearthly shriek split the night, distant but piercing as it spiraled upward to a knife-sharp point, then fell away again in a long, bubbling wail. The black horses plunged, terrified, and Malian jerked upright, her heart pounding in rapid hammer beats of fear.
“The Nine preserve us all!” Nhairin cried in a hoarse, strained voice. “They have brought some sort of demon with them!”
27
The Border Mark
A thin, shrill wind had risen in the night and was blowing steadily from the north. It brought a cold dawn with it, creeping across the Gray Lands and around the Border Mark. The pillar of weathered stone had been standing long before the Derai ever came to the world of Haarth and the inscriptions on its surface were worn down by time. No one could read them anymore, just as no one knew who had placed the pillar there. It served now to mark the boundary of Derai influence and the end—or beginning—of the road that snaked south into low, rounded hills, toward the River lands.
The country was both lawless and desolate, but there were way stations all along the road’s length, established by the River merchants who traded with the Derai. The last—or first—of these was tucked into the low hills around the Border Mark and comprised little more than a wood pile and a ring of blackened fire stones. The dawn light, stealing into this camp, revealed a fire’s cold ashes; two great gray horses were tethered amongst the wind-stunted trees, with their saddles and a modest amount of equipment trussed into the branches overhead.
The riders were harder to detect. They were cloaked in gray and sat as still as stone amidst the tree shadows, looking out toward the morning. The wind caught at their cloaks, but otherwise only their eyes seemed alive, snaring the sun’s light when it finally crept up and over the horizon. Its warmth was muted, veiled behind a baleful haze, and the horses moved uneasily, tossing up their heads. The cloaked figures stirred as well, standing up and stamping their feet against the morning chill. One walked to the edge of the camp and looked out over the Gray Lands while the other remained hooded in shadow, reverting to stillness while her companion quartered the plain with his eyes.
“Well,”Jehane Mor said, using mindspeech so that no sound broke the night’s silence, “what news does the dawn bring?”
“None out of the Gray Lands.”Tarathan did not turn his head. “Ican see nothing except a hawk, climbing high toward Jaransor. Yet, there is something stirring all the same—in the hills, and hidden behind the wind. I can feel it.”
He stared toward the dark bulk of the Jaransor hills and Jehane Mor’s gaze followed his. “Jaransor,”her mindvoice murmured.“Is it part of this?”
“I fear,”Tarathan replied,“that it may be. The power that slumbers there is waking. I sense confusion and an ancient wrath burning in the land itself. It is slow as yet, but it is moving.”
The first sunlight touched the top of the hills, separating tor and outcrop from the shadows below. “Dare we risk that power?”Jehane Mor asked reflectively. “Do we even need to? It may have nothing to do with our business here.”
Tarathan shook his head. “Itdoes. Every time I seek for Malian and Kalan I am drawn to Jaransor, like a compass finding north. I suspect they have been lured into those hills, or driven. They may even be part of what is rousing there. But they are also in grave danger. The awareness of it presses in on me—and the danger is growing.”
“Are they caught up in what is happening there?”Jehane Mor was thoughtful. “Or are they the catalyst, the pebble that has started the avalanche? They are Derai, after all, and Jaransor has little love for their kind.”
“The Madness?”Tarathan frowned. “Perhaps. But I don’t think Jaransor needs to wake for that particular curse to fall.”
Jehane Mor’s slim brows drew together. “So where does this leave us? We could wait out the month here, in accordance with our agreement, then return quietly to Terebanth without shame or dishonor. That is one option.”
“It is.”Tarathan turned back to the plain. “There is something concealed behind this wind,”he said again. “But what?”The wind riffled the braids of his chestnut hair. “Is there another option?”
“Of course,”she told him. “The one that you prefer. We can follow your seeking into Jaransor and see what we find there.”
His lips curved in a brief, fierce smile. “I do prefer that option. But what does the voice of caution advise?”
Jehane Mor’s answering smile was slight. “That doing so will be extremely hazardous—and is not required by our herald’s oath.”
He turned, his eyes very dark in the early light. “But are we willing to abandon Malian and Kalan to whatever fate has drawn them into Jaransor? Shall we do only what is required of us and no more?”
Her smile deepened. “We never have before, that I can recall.”
“It is good,”he said simply, “that we are of one mind.”A gleam from the rising sun caught in his hair and in his eyes, turning both to fire. “But we should not ride blindly into whatever is brew
ing in Jaransor. First we must pinpoint Malian and Kalan’s location, if we can.”
Jehane Mor looked resigned. “You intend seeking for them through the Gate of Dreams. Is that wise, given what we know of Jaransor?”
Tarathan shook his head. “Almost certainly not, but we need to find them quickly. And if what we have been taught is correct, Jaransor is one of the few places that exists both here and beyond the Gate of Dreams at one and the same time.”
“Which makes seeking the logical choice.”Her gray-green eyes met his, grave and very level. “But if Jaransor is indeed rousing, that could make the risk of using the Gate far greater. We know so little about Jaransor’s power, but what we do know is a litany of unpredictability, terror, and madness. It may very well overwhelm us both.”
“Jaransor is a danger,”Tarathan agreed soberly, “but one that may be lessened if only I pass beyond the Gate, while you hold your shield on the border between this plane and the dream realm.”His glance swept the small, exposed campsite. “It might be best, in any case, not to leave ourselves unprotected here.”
Jehane Mor’s look was still grave. “If I remain on the border between realms that will also lessen the strength of my shielding once you pass the Gate. I should still be able to screen out unwanted scrutiny from the Swarm, but as for Jaransor itself…”Her shrug left the outcome hanging. “You will have to be wary.”
He grinned, then. “When am I anything else? Besides, do we not have a destiny to fulfill? I do not believe that I am fated to die in Jaransor.”
She shook her head, glancing out over the brightening plain. “Destinies may change, you know that as well as I. But we had best make haste, for neither the day nor Jaransor will wait for us.”
They ate quickly while the wind strengthened and grew colder, then saddled the horses and led them further into the trees. “Best to stay out of sight of prying eyes, and be ready to leave quickly.”Tarathan’s horse danced a little, scenting the wind, and he patted its neck. “Gently there, my brave-heart,” he said aloud. “Although you are quite right about this wind. I don’t like it either.”