by Helen Lowe
And you were right, Malian acknowledged silently: the only way to be sure of Emuun was to kill him. Moving slowly, she picked up her scabbard and resheathed the frost-fire sword. “He was invoking another power, using a tongue similar to Jhaine’s language of blood, but infused with pain and death.” The same way, Malian thought, the priestess-queens of Jhaine had desecrated the power that was their birthright. “It was magic of Haarth, not the Swa—orn, possibly another elemental trying to open a gate and rescue him.”
“From the whiff of power I caught, I’d put money on one of the elemental’s masters, or a cabal of them, since the Great Djinn rarely work alone.” Raven’s gaze narrowed on his kinsman’s body. “Emuun must have shown them a way of extending their reach, because until now both the djinn and their lesser servants have been bound to the southern deserts.” He paused. “His immunity came from his Fire mother, the facestealing from his Sun father, but he knew the runes as well as Arcolin or Thanir, and was adept at using them to glean others’ magic for his own ends.”
A magpie, Malian thought, but saw that Raven was watching her. “As you,” he said, still quietly, “appear to have absorbed the Jhainarian language of blood from the Midsummer rite. In Ishnapur, the magi also call it the Language of Imuln. It’s among the oldest magic in Haarth, as well as the strongest, but it comes at a price.”
“Blood must be shed,” she replied, as quiet as he. Drawing a dagger, she scored the tip across her palm, then stooped and pressed the bloodied line into the ground. Through the touch, she felt the song of Haarth again, a pulse within her hand. “I’ve already made one mistake tonight, using the Derai-dan. So you’re right, best to avoid another.”
He shook his head. “You used the language three times. Under the circumstances, it may be as well that Emuun died.”
Malian frowned. “I thought that death was only required for the great workings. Like Kiyan, sacrificing himself so Zharaan could shut Salar’s children out of Jhaine.” Or the nine deaths, she thought, that had been required to prevent the Cataclysm destroying Haarth. Although really it had been eighteen, since the nine high priestesses had also died, their power drained performing the rite.
“The larger the working, the greater the offering.” Raven spoke as though weighing his words. “In the Language of Imuln, blood and life are the same word. The way the story used to be told in Jhaine, that’s why Kiyan knew his life would be necessary for Zharaan’s rite to succeed. But what made the working so powerful, strong enough to keep the Sworn and their allies out to this day, was that Kiyan’s sacrifice was primarily made, not out of fear or even necessity, but love.”
A true offering, Malian thought, and supposed Yorindesarinen facing the Worm alone fell into the same category. She wrapped her jacket closer, her skin gooseflesh from the cold and the aftermath of the day’s violence and death. Neither her Derai heritage nor Shadow Band training had yet exempted her from paying their toll. “I just didn’t want to shout out Derai to any other Sworn who might be about.”
Raven nodded. “Emuun will have suppressed any link to Nirn while he was on the run, but I imagine the sorcerer will feel his death. Sooner or later someone will investigate.”
For the first time, Malian wondered how much of Emuun’s conversation Raven might have overheard, returning ahead of the others, or whether he had only arrived in time for the brief, furious endgame. “Do you want to set another trap?” she asked.
“For now, I’d rather lose them.” Raven glanced toward the sound of his guards approaching. “But facestealers must be burned, not buried or left to lie, so we’ll place him in the chapel and set fire to both. That’s Haarth practice, too, and since he was already a fugitive, with luck no one will look any further. Rhaikir’s cadre can see to it and make sure our trail’s wiped clear. And we’ll find a better resting place for Yris.”
“She deserves a place of honor.” Among her own, Malian thought, assuming the Patrol had graveyards despite their longevity.
Before Raven could do more than nod, his warriors filtered out of the trees. Their eyes gleamed through lowered visors, although they were not wearing either Patrol helmets or the armor Malian recalled from the Cave of Sleepers. Their plain dark mail could have originated anywhere between Ij and Ishnapur, although the helms had a more southern aspect. I suppose they’ve had a millennium to build their armory, she thought, watching them study Emuun’s body.
“Well, that makes life a lot simpler.” She recognized Sarathion by his voice. “I did wonder how long we’d manage to hold him, especially on a march across wild country.”
“He’s carried a debt for our Kin and Blood a long time,” said another warrior, one Malian had not heard speak before. “In the end, we’ll hold all those who do to account.”
Blood demands blood. Malian suppressed a shiver as she realized that Fire was resuming a conflict that had already been ancient before the Empire that Haarth called Old was founded. All the same, their mood was more somber than exultant, and she supposed the bonds of kinship must complicate the debt of blood.
We were as brothers in our war. Malian stifled another shiver as Emuun’s words slithered across her mind. She was hungry as well as cold, and the day had been long. Stepping back, she tacitly ceded the site to what she guessed must be Rhaikir’s cadre, preparing to wipe away any magical residue. Studying the shape of their power, she began to see what Raven had meant, outside Aeris, about turning aside unwelcome attention—and understand how the Patrol had been able to deflect doubt or questions until they and their helms of concealment were as much part of the River landscape as the Ijir itself.
An owl hooted again from the nearby trees, while farther off Malian heard the clip of many hooves on the forest road and guessed it was Aithe returning. As her attention shifted back to Emuun, her foreseeing flared, superimposing an image of Yorindesarinen’s riven body over his corpse. The vision wavered, a candle flame against the void; when it steadied, the face of the dead hero was Malian’s own.
Death down every path of seeing. This time, Malian could not repress her shudder as the image vanished and Raven and the cadre all looked her way. They must have detected the spark of power use, but no one spoke, and the warriors who had been about to lift Emuun onto a cloak tied between two spears resumed their work. They had barely disappeared into the trees when Aithe arrived to say that the horses were waiting on the road, at the point closest to the ruin.
No foreseeing is ever certain, Malian reminded herself, as Raven spoke quietly to Rhaikir. The cadre, she gathered, concentrating fiercely to combat the vision’s chill, were to follow the main company to the muster ground once Emuun’s body was burned and their work in the forest complete. She fell in beside Raven as the rest of the escort prepared to leave, but although she caught his brief, sidelong scrutiny, their walk to the road was a silent one.
When they reached the horses, Malian found that her gear, together with the gray horse, had already been brought from the ruin. She could see Yris’s cloak-wrapped body, too, trussed across the back of a horse as so many of the Normarch squires had been after the battle at The Leas. Sorrow for the pilot filled her, because although Yris had helped bring down her killer, Emuun’s demise would not bring her back. Yet Malian knew that part of her melancholy arose from the fleeting glimpse of her own dead face. Self-pity, she told herself, and mounted up.
“Ready?” Raven asked, and Malian nodded, because however dark the road ahead, it was the only one open to her. She had made her choice six years ago, understanding the likelihood of her own death before she left the Wall. The owl’s call, soft and sad from the trees, sounded like a farewell as she brought the gray alongside Raven’s horse. Briefly, Malian wondered if it was the same bird that had helped her earlier. But the horses were already turning toward Hedeld and the Telimbras, their hooves muted by drifted leaves as they left the night, and the ruin, and Emuun’s body to the pyre’s leap of flame.
38
Dawn Wind
Fire’
s camp was not at the Hedeld fort, but in meadows close by the last, wild reaches of the Telimbras before it joined the Ijir. Familiar with night riding from her years with the Shadow Band, Malian had dozed in the saddle once they reached the main road north. Consequently, she was alert as she dismounted in a darkness that was still well shy of dawn, and knew there were not nearly enough tents for a muster of Fire’s full force.
“This is just the vanguard,” Raven said, when she asked. “The rest will wake when the preparations for the march are complete.” There was no time for more questions, because the horses were being led away, the gray together with the rest. Malian saw her gear taken into a separate tent before entering the adjoining command pavilion with Raven, accompanied by Sarathion and Aithe. The interior was brightly lit, with maps and lists stacked on trestle tables, and more of Raven’s officers waiting for them.
Malian estimated at least fifteen gathered about the long, central trestle, some in Patrol uniforms but most wearing the same plain armor as Raven’s escort. For the first time, she saw Patrolers with their visors raised, but regardless of uniform, the expressions regarding her ranged from neutral to openly assessing. She detected something of the Cave of Sleepers, too, in the resolution that characterized their faces. Raven introduced everyone present, but she retained only a handful of names: Valadan, tall and stern faced, was second-in-command of Fire, while Kair was a cavalry commander, and Daile had come from the Hedeld fort . . . Learning them all was going to take time. But a night’s rest, Malian reflected wryly, should also help.
Unsurprisingly, the initial discussion centered on Emuun’s death and the loss of Yris. When Malian recounted absorbing the pilot’s dying gift of memory, she saw she had surprised those present. “I didn’t think gifting was possible outside of Fire.” Valadan frowned at Raven. “Do you think that’s another consequence of the geas?”
“It turned out Amaliannarath and the sword made a second bargain.” Raven was at his driest. “The blade’s return was tied to Lady Malian accepting us, but before doing so, she asked if we were willing to accept her. When I said we were, an unforeseen effect may have been that she became part of Fire.” Formally, he bowed apology to Malian. “I did not perceive that possibility until you told us what Yris did.”
I didn’t either, Malian thought, concealing her surprise. Valadan was still frowning, and she could see others visibly striving to absorb Raven’s explanation. Finally, Sarathion spoke. “How would Yris know, though?”
Instinct, Malian thought. In Yris’s last moments, intuition could have outweighed logic.
“She must have known that she could trust you,” Daile said, his tone and look equally thoughtful.
“As for the Heir of Night taking us as her own,” Sarathion continued slowly, “I thought we were going to have to earn a new place with our service, but also our deaths if need be?”
He did not speak her Derai title in Rhaikir’s cool, dismissive manner, but Malian still understood that now was the moment she had to begin winning them in her own right. “It was a gift,” she said quietly, “as much as a bargain, just as the return of the sword was, too, in the end.” She waited, holding them with her stillness, the way Asantir had once held the Old Keep rescue party to her, before their return to Night. “By its nature, a gift needn’t be earned. As for service, you have delivered that many times over during your thousand years in the River.” Her eyes met theirs, one by one. “Death may lie down every path of seeing,” she said, and perhaps because of tiredness, she felt sorrow rise again, “but I do not want yours.”
“Because life is your gift; I foresaw that long ago.” The mindwhisper was a breath out of air and shadow, one Malian had heard twice before: first when she conversed with a ghost in a cave full of sleepers, and more recently in Stoneford, when Amaliannarath’s shade had spoken to her again through the frost-fire sword. At the time, she had assumed it was part of the geas, but now she wondered—except there was no time for speculation as Valadan spoke again.
“If it was a gift, as you say, that would enhance Yris’s ability to bequeath her memories to you. Does it also mean you will honor your pledge to accept us, regardless of whether we fight for you or not?”
“Effectively, Lady Malian already made that offer on our road here.” Raven, too, spoke quietly. Several eyebrows rose, but Malian thought she detected an alteration in their regard—as if this particular group of Fire warriors was beginning to evaluate who she really was, rather than simply seeing a Derai and potential interloper. She inclined her head, acknowledging Raven, but answered Valadan.
“Yes. The alliance I have made is based on an exchange of gifts between equals: the Heir of the Derai and the Prince of Fire.” She was conscious of a hush, not just outside in the night, or inside the tent, but within herself as understanding unfurled a deeper layer. “But it is as Chosen of Mhaelanar that I have taken Fire as my own, an acceptance that reaches beyond the old ties that bind the Derai and, I believe, the Sworn.” Or severs them, she thought.
“Or severs them,” Aithe murmured, and Malian wondered if they all felt the coolness that shivered through the lamplit tent.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, and although she felt no stir of prophecy, her truth sense rang. “But it’s past time for what was broken by the Sundering to be remade.”
They were just words, and the deeds required to realize them likely to prove difficult if not impossible. Those gathered about her knew that, too. But this time, Malian was sure of the alteration as her gaze traveled around their watchful faces, a shift that said Raven’s officers were prepared to give her the chance to make the words real.
Dawn was in the air when she left them, although the darkness outside remained unbroken and the air chill. Daile had brought more reports from the Patrol, but that was Raven’s business unless it touched on her role as Chosen of Mhaelanar. “My focus,” Malian told both herself and Nhenir, “needs to be on my return to the Wall, where the Sundering is only the final item on a long list of everything that needs to be remade, starting with the Alliance itself. And the Blood Oath must be overturned, reintegrating priest and warrior kind. At the same time, I will have to persuade the Nine Houses that a Darksworn army can fight alongside the Derai.” Her eyes lifted to where dawn would break above the forest’s blackness. “And then there’s Hylcarian, and whatever others may remain from what we called the Golden Fire.” Seeking to restore their order was both duty and debt for the Chosen of Mhaelanar—if it could even be done.
“Like the shield,” Nhenir murmured, and Malian checked a nod, aware of the sentries guarding the command tent. She was too keyed up to believe sleep would come quickly, so crossed to the nearest fire and added branches to build it up. She heard an exchange, too low to catch, among the sentries, before a warrior brought her a camp stool and a bowl of soup from the nearby mess tent. “Duar, Lady Malian,” he said, when she asked his name, and she nodded, recognizing his grim voice from the forest.
She murmured her thanks, and he saluted before returning to his post. The camp was stirring, with warriors and horses moving through the darkness beyond the firelight, but no one intruded on her privacy. The soup was as warming as the fire, but weariness returned in its wake, blurring the individual flames into a wash of color. Like Yorindesarinen’s fire, Malian thought, in the glade between worlds . . . She had foreseen so much in its heart, without realizing it at the time: Nherenor lying dead on the Caer Argent cobbles; Raven when he was young, at the point Amaliannarath snatched him clear of Sun’s massacre; and Kalan, wearing warrior’s garb and accompanying a Derai wedding caravan.
“Kalan.” Silently, she repeated his name, but knew it would do no good. The empathy bond between them, which otherwise might have allowed her to bridge the psychic gulf between the Wall and Haarth, was only one way. So although he might be able to reach through to her, she could not readily contact him.
Malian set down the empty bowl and watched the flames, absently tracing the pattern on her armring while
her mind emptied of fear and doubt. Gradually her eyelids grew heavy and the flames receded, until she felt she was watching their dance from a vast distance, the colors constantly changing as the shapes disintegrated and reformed. Like figures, she thought dreamily, coming and going on a darkling plain where the aftermath of a great conflagration still smoldered . . .
A slight figure, in Derai armor but with a fearful, tear-stained countenance, crept close to a dead warrior, only to flee again as an army drew near, its banners like streaming flame. The army’s leader bent and picked up a sword as the dance of flames leapt high. When they died away, a lone warrior stood amid the destruction. His black armor was honed to spur points at shoulder and elbow, but he ignored the dead hero and went to the Worm that lay nearby. The flames gusted as he stooped—and the warrior that straightened up again wore crimson and bronze. The banners that flew above the armed company behind him were crimson, too, flying beside garnet-and-gold pennants. They were the only color on all that vast plain, where the last brushfires had burned to ash and two mounds rose where Yorindesarinen and the Worm had lain.
The last warrior stood by the smaller mound for a long time, although he did not weep. Instead he turned and issued orders, and an eight-guard from among his following disinterred Yorindesarinen’s body, transferring it to a coffin they had brought with them. Before the lid was closed, the commander took a ring from his finger and placed it on the dead hero’s hand. A friend gave it to me long ago . . . He looks like Kalan, too, Malian thought, only older.
As if the thought had been a summons, the colors ran together and Kalan’s face appeared in their midst. “I am to fight a duel to the death,” he said. A wood knot snapped out sparks. “. . . I have failed you . . .”
The face dissipated as swiftly as it had taken form, and Malian was falling, falling—as though she could plumb the blaze and find Kalan, just as Tarathan had once found her in Yorindesarinen’s fire. Only she was not within the Gate of Dreams and it was not Yorindesarinen’s hand checking her pitch forward—