by Helen Lowe
“You are right, of course,” Rowan Birchmoon said quietly. “There is always a price. That, too, is part of the pattern: cause and effect, action and reaction.” Her gray eyes held Malian’s, very steady, very clear. “For myself, I want nothing. But for this world, for Haarth, I want everything. I do not want the darkness to devour the sun and the moon and blot out the stars. I want many more generations to share in the beauty of the hawk’s flight and hear the wind howl over the Winter plain. If you truly have power within you that can turn back the rising dark, then I ask that you use it to save this world, not retreat with your Alliance to another battleground.”
Malian frowned, taken aback, and caught her lower lip between her teeth. But Kalan spoke up hotly, while she turned the Winter woman’s words over in her mind: “The Derai have only ever retreated in the past when to do otherwise would be to suffer total defeat. We do not betray our allies or our oaths, even when keeping faith is not to our advantage.”
Rowan Birchmoon’s expression remained calm. “It does your heart credit that you think so, Kalan. But your histories suggest that the Derai Alliance have always used others’ worlds to fight their war, retreating from them when the struggle required it. Perhaps that explains why the Derai have never become part of Haarth, holding our peoples at arm’s length and shunning alliances with us. I will help you now anyway, but I would like to think that the path you follow offers hope for Haarth as well as for the Derai.”
Kalan opened his mouth and then closed it again—reflecting, Malian guessed, on how rarely the Derai made compacts outside their own Alliance. And there was a ring of unpleasant truth in the reason that Rowan Birchmoon had suggested.
“It may be,” Malian said, speaking with care, “that we lost the option of retreat anyway, when we lost the Golden Fire of the keeps. Even if the Fire returns, the Derai have fallen a long way from the old powers that enabled us to open gates between the stars.” She saw, from the flicker in the Winter woman’s eyes, that she knew this to be true.
Oh yes, thought Malian, you will have learned a great deal about the Derai in these past three years. And what of Haimyr? Is that why he serves my father, to learn our strengths and our weakness? If so, whom does he serve?
Her fingers touched the dulled silver of Yorindesarinen’s armring and she heard the faintest whisper of the hero’s voice: “… not all the forces that move and coalesce around you are enemies. There are many friends as well, some open and some still hidden from you.”
But am I their friend? Malian wondered. Will I keep faith with them? That is what the Winter woman is asking now.
“My father,” she said slowly, thinking each word through, “has traveled beyond the Wall and the Gray Lands. He has brought both you and Haimyr to live amongst the Derai. I believe that he at least may see the other peoples of Haarth as potential allies.”
“I believe he may,” agreed Rowan Birchmoon, without irony. “But it was not your father that I asked, Malian of Night, but you.”
Malian nodded, acknowledging the point. “I have chosen the path of hope,” she said, speaking more carefully still. “That is why I am here, having turned my back on my father and my House. I have pledged to come into my power and stand against the Swarm. I cannot promise you that I will succeed, any more than I can guarantee that I will live to make the attempt. But the Derai are part of this world now. I don’t think it would be possible to save one without the other.”
Something very like grief touched Rowan Birchmoon’s expression. “Thus the Derai,” she said. “Your words are always fair and carefully thought through, but you promise nothing—and in the end you hold only to your own, as you have always done. I can only hope, in the days to come, that you will think more on what I have asked. It may even be that you will find it in your heart to be as true to Haarth, then, as you are being to the Derai Alliance now.”
“It is my hope,” Malian replied stiffly, “that it will not be a matter of one or the other.” Yet inwardly she was ashamed of the careful words that denied one who was helping her to escape from her enemies.
She helps me for her own purposes, Malian told herself quickly. But memories swirled: of Haimyr, comforting her childish griefs; and Tarathan and Jehane Mor coming to her aid in the Old Keep, then again here in Jaransor—where Nhenir, the moon-bright helm, had found shelter for years beyond count. The falcon screamed, a wild cry, and for one dizzying moment she saw all the lands of Haarth beneath her eye, exactly as they were laid out on the tabletop in the Red and White Suite.
Malian took a deep breath, meeting Rowan Birchmoon’s eyes again. “I cannot promise for the Derai,” she said, “only for myself. But I will do all that I can to save Haarth, whatever the future may bring.”
Rowan Birchmoon sighed as though she had been holding her breath. “It is enough, for the moment,” she replied. “And time, in any case, for me to do as I said I would and help you vanish from sight and knowledge.”
Kalan frowned. “Won’t you be suspected, having been missing from the keep for so long?”
Mischief gleamed in the Winter woman’s smile. “But I am not missing,” she said. “I have gone out from the keep to hunt my animals, as I often do, accompanied by an escort of the guard.” Her smile deepened at Kalan’s uneasy expression. “My escort lies asleep in a cave not far from the Keep of Winds with all my beasts—my hawks, my hounds, and my wild cats—there to watch over them. When I return, the guards will wake and remember only that we have been hunting together. No one except ourselves will ever know what has happened here, or my part in it.”
“So what is going to happen?” Malian asked.
“I will open a door through Winter,” Rowan Birchmoon replied, “into my own country. My sister of Spring and brother of Summer await your coming and will ensure that you lose yourselves in the vastness of the Winter lands. From there, they will send you to a place that is hidden from your enemies. Even I will not know where it is.” She looked from one to the other of the heralds. “But it would not be wise for you to disappear at the same time. You must return quietly to Terebanth by the expected road, and at the appointed hour—so it would be best if I returned you to the Border Mark.”
Tarathan looked at her keenly. “Can you do such a thing, open a door into more than one place? Dare you even attempt it, with Jaransor rousing?”
The Winter woman’s brows drew together. “Rousing, ay, and must be lulled to sleep again. Now is not the time to have Jaransor waking in the daylight world.” Her expression eased. “But it is not I that does these things, it is Winter. And Winter’s strength is at least as great as Jaransor’s, once it has been called into its power.” She looked from Malian to Kalan. “You will not be afraid to go amongst strangers, alone into the Winter Country?”
Kalan shook his head. “We crossed the Telimbras three days ago. For us, there is no going back.”
Rowan Birchmoon smiled at him. “And now you must continue that journey.” She held out the messenger horses’ reins. “You had better take back what is your own. You will need horses in the Winter Country.”
As soon as Malian and Kalan were back in their own saddles, she had them all turn to face the north. The snowstorm rose in strength, raging all around them, but Rowan Birchmoon still held it clear of their small group. For a moment Malian thought that nothing was happening, then the Winter woman began to sing.
It was more of a chant than a song, a resonance that spun into the deepening storm. The black horses flared their nostrils, as though the chant was a living thing and they could track its path. Perhaps they could, Malian reflected, since Derai legend claimed that messenger horses could see the wind itself. The rhythm of the song rose and fell around her until she should have felt sleepy, but instead was more alert than she had been in days.
She stole a look at Rowan Birchmoon’s face and saw that every hollow and angle was stark, like a mask sculpted from bone. She looked the other way, toward the heralds, but their expressions remained as calm as ever. O
nly Kalan stirred and gave her a wry grin before looking straight ahead again—as though he, like the horses, could see that line of sound extending through the storm. The snow in front of them began to take on form, and soon Malian could make out the blurred outline of posts and a curved lintel, with a sliver of blue inside the frame.
The song went on, rising and falling but never faltering, and Malian began to hear other voices joining in from the far side of the door. The blurred outline solidified and the span of blue on the other side grew wider. Beneath it, Malian could see a white plain that seemed to stretch away forever, and fur-clad people with their hands raised in welcome as their voices wove through the chant. A tall man, thickset as an oak tree, and an equally tall but slender woman stood closest to the frame, their eyes fixed on Rowan Birchmoon.
“My brother of Summer and my sister of Spring, with others of our people,” the Winter woman said, a world of longing in her voice, although the chant continued unbroken. Malian blinked, but Rowan Birchmoon reached out a gloved hand and touched her, very gently, on the cheek. “You and Kalan must go through now. Take great care, Heir of Night.”
Malian clasped the Winter woman’s hand, feeling a moment of connection between their power, just as she had with Haimyr. “I will,” she said simply, then smiled as her eyes were snared by the unyielding gaze of the hawk. “Farewell, brother of air.”
She turned to the heralds, impassive on their horses, but Jehane Mor forestalled her with a gesture. “Let there be no word of thanks between us,” she said, “for are we not friends? Fare well, Malian, and you also, Kalan. May your Nine Gods watch over you both.”
“Now go!” said Tarathan. “Both of you!”
Malian nodded, and she and Kalan urged the black horses toward the span of blue and the strangers who waited there. Kalan did not look back, but Malian turned once, to raise a final hand. The salute was not just for those who watched, but for Kyr and Lira with the snow falling on their dead faces, and for Nhairin, perhaps captive, perhaps mad, abandoned to an unknown fate in Jaransor.
The snow swirled behind the two black horses; when it cleared again the sky beyond the door was not blue but a patch of gray above a tall standing stone. “The Border Mark,” said Rowan Birchmoon softly, “and the road to Terebanth.”
“What of you?” asked Tarathan, his look searching as the hawk’s.
“Why do you ask,” she replied, “when you have already seen it, perhaps more clearly than I? My fate lies with the Derai and the Earl of Night.”
“Nothing is written in letters of stone,” he said. “The pattern can always be changed.”
She shook her head. “Do not tempt me, Herald. I know the path I must walk and hold to it.”
He bowed. “We bid you farewell, then, Lady of Winter. For your aid, we thank you!”
“Hold to your course, Herald,” she said, “and that will be thanks enough for me.”
“We will,” Tarathan and Jehane Mor replied, their voices weaving together. They both bowed deeply, then let their horses step through into the gray world of the Border Mark. The snow blew wildly behind them and the door disappeared, leaving Rowan Birchmoon alone in the pass. The snow tugged at her, fraying the shape of rider and hawk and horse until they seemed half made of its whiteness. The Winter woman listened intently for a time and then began to sing again, but now the tune was more gentle, a lullaby.
“Sleep,” Rowan Birchmoon sang, “rest now, O Jaransor, slumber deep ye powers profound; sink back again into silence, drawn far down into earth. Sleep well, sleep soft, sleep deep, sleep long: sleep now. Sleep. Your time will surely come; it will come. But it is not now, it is not yet, it is not the season or the hour, so sleep—slumber long, slumber deep.”
She sang until a great stillness filled the hills and only the snow continued to flutter down: soft, steady, endless. “As it will,” she murmured, “for a long time to come.” Her task done, she simply sat, watching it fall.
“The rest,” she said to the hawk at last, “I must leave to others. They will come again when the time is right, to walk in these hills and shake the power in the land awake. But what of you,” she asked, as the bird turned its head to meet her gaze. “Will you stay here, or will you come with me for now?”
The falcon continued to hold her gaze a moment longer and then launched itself off her arm, beating a strong path up through the falling snow until it was only the shadow of a hawk flying, and then was gone. “Farewell, then, my brother of air,” she said softly, “my braveheart, my valiant. Do not forget me, here amongst your hills.”
The white horse stamped its hooves and snorted. “Ay,” she agreed, “time to take our own road home and collect our sleeping friends on the way.”
She turned the horse, and without undue effort—for the power of Winter still filled her—opened another door through the snow, this one into a quiet, sheltered place not far from the Keep of Winds. The keep’s lofty towers and the bitter peaks of the Wall loomed together, high above her. “Welcome home,” the Winter woman said to herself, and there was a twist to her mouth, half sweet, half bitter.
One last thread she spun, before departing Jaransor, a filament for the lost to find their way home by. “May it find you out, Nhairin, wherever you are,” Rowan Birchmoon murmured. Then she bade the white horse take her through the door, leaving the snow to close in behind them and winter to obliterate any trace of her passing.
Here ends Book 1, The Heir of Night;
To be continued in Book 2, The Gathering of the Lost
The Wall of Night, Book Two
Glossary
Aikanor: the Heir of Night at the time of the Great Betrayal.
Akerin: chief healer in the Keep of Winds.
Alkiranth: maker of the black blades, in the deeps of time.
Alliance: a common term form the Derai Alliance; see also nine Houses.
Amboran: of the House of Night, second husband of Nerith of the Sea Keep.
Anarchy: the chaotic era that followed the ruin of the Old Empire.
Antenor: a figure of Derai legend, with a spirit bond to Maron, his blood brother and closest friend.
Antiron: Night’s Master of Messengers.
Ar: a city of the River.
Armar: an initiate priest serving in the Temple of Night.
Artificer, the: see Terennin.
Artisan, the: see Terennin.
Asantir: the captain of the Earl of Night’s Honor Guard. See Honor Captain.
Ban: a guard serving the House of Night.
Barren Hills: the uninhabited hills to the south of the Border Mark.
Belan: see Brother Belan.
Beloved of the Nine: see Mhaelanar.
Ber: a guard serving the House of Night.
Betrayal, the: see Great Betrayal; Night of Death.
black blades: weapons of power, commonly associated with the hero Kerem.
blood oath, a: a powerful binding used by the Derai where the one swearing draws their own blood; once sworn it can never be broken.
Blood Oath, the: an oath that has bound the Derai since the Time of Blood and institutionalizes the schism between the warrior and priestly castes; grounded in lifeblood drawn from every scion of the Blood of Night, the shades of the civil war dead, and in the secret names of the Nine Gods, it has endured beyond the deaths of those who first swore it. See also Oath.
Blood of Night, the: the direct bloodline of the Earls of Night. See also greater line.
Blood, the: includes the Earls of the Derai and any of their blood kin. Traditionally, the Blood have been closely linked to the power of the Golden Fire.
bond: see spirit bond.
Border Mark: the stone pillar that marks the boundary between the Gray Lands and the Barren Hills.
Brother Belan: an old priest in the Temple of Night, now dead, who was fond of storytelling.
Brother Selmor: a scholar priest in the Temple of Night.
chamberlain: an official of the Keep of Winds.
Chaos Worm: according to legend, the deadliest foe ever sent by the Swarm against the Derai. See also Worm of Chaos.
Charge of the House of Night: a war song of the Derai.
Child of Night: see Malian.
Child of Stars: see Yorindesarinen.
Chosen of Mhaelanar: the prophesied hero who will unite the Derai for the final victory and be born of both the House of Stars and the House of Night. Also known as the Chosen, the One, One-to-Come, and the Shield of Mhaelanar.
Chosen, the: see Chosen of Mhaelanar.
Citadel of Stars: the stronghold of the House of Stars.
Cloud Hold: a satellite fort of the Keep of Winds.
Commander of Night: the overall military Commander of the Keep of Winds and of the House of Night.
Count of the Rose: the hereditary ruler of the House of the Rose.