Dark Mist Rising

by Anna Kendall

  Tom said, ‘Don't be daft, Jee. Nobody would bring a little girl to—'

  The princess emerged from the woods.

  She clutched her nurse's hand, and her little face was as bloodless as the stone I had given Tarek. Panic filled her eyes. Behind her walked her guard and six or eight of the palace folk. Tom craned his neck, looking for Alysse. She was not there.

  When Stephanie reached the edge of the hole and looked down, puzzlement crossed her face. It was replaced by realization, and she opened her mouth to scream.

  Instantly Jee ran towards her. ‘No, it be all right!' he cried, and she turned to see who had shouted. Before Jee could reach her, the princess's guards seized him and threw him against a tree. Immediately he was on his feet, shaking his head and starting again towards the princess.

  ‘No, Jee!' I called, and ran towards her myself. So the savages would touch him if he approached the princess. They would kill him. But not me. These men had seen Tarek permit me into Stephanie's tent last night. They let me go to her, kneel beside her, be clung to by her trembling little arms.

  ‘Your Grace, do not scream. I mean it. You must be brave.'

  ‘Here, lambie,' the nurse said, trying to take Stephanie from me. She clung harder. Blood streamed down Jee's face, twenty feet away.

  ‘You are not alone, Your Grace. Don't scream. I am here.'

  She nodded. I picked her up with my one good hand and the stump of my other wrist. The nurse scowled at me jealously and the guards glanced at each other. But they permitted it. Their expression said that these death rites, whatever they were, had nothing to do with them. Let the slave folk of the conquered country complete this quickly so that the march home could resume.

  Then no one did anything, and I saw that it was going to be up to me, the antek.

  With a princess's head buried against my shoulder, I walked to the edge of the grave and said loudly, ‘We commend the soul of Lady Margaret to the ... the sky, and we ... uh ... commend her body to the earth. She was a gracious lady. A good woman, who helped many and was loved by all. Lady Margaret, farewell. Nurse, take the princess away, and you others follow. Kevel bik ben tekir, semak.' ‘You two there, cover the body with dirt.'

  The two soldiers I pointed to with the stump of my wrist looked startled, then glanced at each other. But they moved towards the shovels leaning against a tree. The palace folk, equally startled to be ordered about by someone who had once been the queen's fool, nonetheless obeyed. The nurse took Stephanie from me, even as I whispered, ‘Be brave. I will come to you later.' Jee followed her with his eyes. In a few moments only he, Tom, I and our two guards remained in the clearing, watching the savages shovel dirt over Lady Margaret's body.

  Then Jee moved towards the grave. The guards edged away from him. The boy leaned over and threw onto the dirt a twig pulled from a holly bush. There were no flowers this late in the season, but the bright red berries and glossy green leaves glowed on the mound of fresh dirt.

  There was a moment of silence. Then Tom said, ‘By damn, I wish I'd thought of that. But why didn't you give the proper graveside speech, Peter?'

  Because I had never heard one.

  It began to rain.

  All morning it drizzled, a cold grey rain that made walking a misery, especially since the rain blew from the west straight into our faces. Not that the savages seemed to mind. Each step brought them closer to home, and they marched through the mud singing, even when a booted foot slipped on the downhill trail and the soldier landed on his arse. His fellows laughed and taunted him, at least when their captains were out of hearing distance. I learned several more bawdy words in Tarekish.

  Not so the folk from The Queendom. Servants, now slaves, trudged beside the one remaining pole-conveyance. Tension stretched every line of the servants'

  faces as they bent their heads against the rain. What is this place we go to? What will happen to us there? For me, the question was more immediate: What would happen to me tonight, when Tarek sent for me for the instruction he no longer seemed to believe in?

  ‘You are quiet, Peter,' Tom said. He walked beside me, the length of rope between his ankles shortening his stride, Lady Margaret evidently already gone from his thoughts. ‘There's Jee disappearing every ten minutes and Alysse not walking with the women and you with a face like a crushed potato and ... Peter!' His face, rain running down it from his yellow hair, brightened and he leaned towards me conspiratorially. ‘Is tonight the night? Will you – you know?' He pantomimed drinking ale and then, with a theatricality that should have put him in a playhouse or a gaol, pretended to choke and die.

  ‘Stop that, Tom!'

  ‘Yes, all right. But is it? Is tonight the night?'

  ‘I don't know.' True enough words. I knew nothing for sure. Although one thing I suspected: It was not Tarek who would be next to die.

  ‘But do you think that—'

  ‘Oh, hold your tongue, Tom!'

  He scowled and adopted an injured tone. ‘Just as you say. Here comes Jee – you'd probably rather tell him.' Tom moved away, all wounded dignity and dripping sodden hair.

  Jee slipped into step beside me. The blood had congealed on his face into a fresh scab, vivid and clean in the rain. ‘I saw,' he said to me now.

  ‘You saw Princess Stephanie?'

  ‘Yes. She pushed aside the cloth and looked out. She still be crying.' And then, very low, ‘Her nana be dying next, yes?'

  ‘I don't know,' I said. But I did know.

  ‘Then after the nana, ye will die in yer sleep?'

  ‘No.' But honesty took over. ‘I'm more likely to die at Tarek's hands. Listen to me, Jee. If that happens, you must leave the camp. Take Tom with you if you can, but if not, go yourself. Go back over the mountains.' What was I saying? Telling a ten-year-old to cross the Western Mountains with winter coming on? But I had nothing better to offer him. ‘Escape. Go back to Maggie.'

  ‘I maun not leave her,' he said.

  ‘Yes, that's right – you must not leave Maggie. You must—'

  ‘Not Maggie. The princess.' He looked up at me, rain streaming down his face. ‘I maun not leave the princess with these by-damn savages.'

  Love. Even for a ten-year-old, it reversed loyalty and blinded sense. As it had for me over Cecilia, and Maggie over me. Still, I saw the struggle on Jee's upturned face. He loved Maggie. He loved Stephanie.

  ‘Jee—'

  But he was gone, a small shadow slipping through the rain.

  Several hours later we halted for the midday meal, although there was no glimpse of the sun to say that it was actually mid-day. We ate sodden gruel and mouldy cheese. I lay down, wrapped in my cloak, and despite the drizzle fell instantly asleep.

  ‘Are dreams a pass to Witchland?' Tarek had asked me, and I had replied, ‘Only for anteks.' Now I tried to make myself dream of my sister, as I had told Tarek to dream of the white stone. If I could make her come to me in a dream, I might obtain more information from her without actually crossing over to the Country of the Dead. Always before I had dreaded dreams of my sister—

  — green eyes, glittering with madness, calling my name in the fog—

  —but now I sought to dream of her. Tarek had made himself dream of what he chose.

  But I could not. No dreams came in that brief sleep. Then we marched again until dusk fell and the rain, mercifully, stopped. Blazing fires dried out everything, but not very much. All too soon my guard motioned me impatiently towards Tarek's tent for the nightly instruction, just as if the Young Chieftain still believed in it. This might be the last time I stood in the land of the living.

  I said nothing to the others. Tom would only charge around, making everything worse, and I had already said what I must to Jee. I had told Princess Stephanie I would come to her later today, but I did not think I would be able to fulfil that promise. Like so many others.

  But I did have a plan. Desperate, stupid but nonetheless a plan. ‘Help her,' Lady Margaret had said of Stephanie, and Lord Robert Hop
ewell, in the palace dungeon, had told me it was my duty to rescue the princess. But neither Lady Margaret nor Lord Robert swayed me as much as another child: my unborn son. I could not help him, could not go to him even if I survived, lest I lead my mad sister to discover he existed. Nor could I do much for Jee. So I would do what I could for Stephanie, the third child caught in this deadly war that none of them, nor I, really understood.

  We reached Tarek's tent and I entered.

  43

  The Young Chieftain stood in conference with one of his captains. They broke off as soon as I entered, and the captain gave his raised-fist salute and left. He did not glance at me. I might have been as invisible as Jee, from the belief that I was a witch – or as invisible as an insect, from the belief that I was both negligible and soon dead.

  ‘ Klef,' Tarek said.

  He had not called me antek. The only thing I could do was strike first, hoping to catch him off guard.

  ‘My lord, you begin to think I am not an antek.' The language was a barrier; I did not know the words for ‘lose faith'. But I had his attention. The blue eyes narrowed and studied me. He said nothing.

  ‘Before, you told me to go to Witchland and bring back something. I told you the arts of an antek cannot be hurried.'

  ‘Yes.' His expression sharpened. Tarek, the soldier, recognized a frontal attack when he saw one.

  ‘I will do this, but not now. Not tonight.'

  ‘Why not?'

  ‘Because I am an antek, and an antek does not break his discipline, not even for his leader.'

  Tarek said nothing. For a long moment I thought I had lost. My gamble was that an antek in his own sphere did indeed owe first loyalty to his art. If I was wrong, I was dead, and Tom and Jee with me.

  Finally Tarek said, ‘That is true,' and I breathed again. ‘When does your discipline send you to Witchland? I tell you this, antek: It must be soon.'

  ‘It will be soon.'

  ‘When?'

  ‘It will be when you set aside the princess.'

  His brow furrowed. ‘Set aside?'

  I had used the only word I knew of Tarekish that might fit: ‘discard', as a knife that had been broken. Obviously it was not the right word. The white stone sat on Tarek's three-legged stool. Was he planning to return it to me, in dismissal and contempt? With my one good hand I picked up the stone, squeezed it hard to quell the trembling in my fingers and gathered my courage to try again.

  ‘I will go to Witchland for you when you say the princess is not your wife and that she must go back to The Queendom.'

  This time he understood. I rushed on, like a man who has entered rapids and cannot escape the river until they end.

  ‘The queen is but a child, not a true wife for such as you. And she is without discipline. You saw that last night. Your people will not like her. She can be discarded. I say this from a big, big reason: I was wrong last night. I made a mistake. Princess Stephanie's dreams may come from another witch.'

  In one stride Tarek crossed the tent, seized me by the front of my tunic and all but lifted me off my feet. I could feel both his strength and his rage, lightning running along his body into mine. The smell of him filled my nostrils: male sweat and animal fur and anger. My hand, still holding the white stone, flailed helplessly, but some primitive part of my brain stopped me from even trying to strike back.

  ‘ Antek, you lie.'

  ‘I do not!' I gasped. ‘My lord ...'

  He dropped me and I staggered, barely staying on my feet. Words tumbled from me so fast I scarcely knew what I said. ‘Did you make ever a mistake in your art? In war? All make mistakes sometimes. I told you last night that the princess was not a ...' What was the word for ‘victim'? I could not find the words I needed. ‘That no witch had killed Lady Margaret. That is true. But the queen's nightmares – I told you that only an antek can use dreams as a pass to Witchland. I told you! Last night I dreamed. Now I know more than last night, because of the dream. Queen Stephanie is attacked by a witch, and it is not me! But she is without blame, my lord. The witch seeks to attack you through her, as a warrior might conquer a weak country in order to attack a strong one ...'

  I had made a mistake.

  I knew it from Tarek's face. He was not a soldier who used the weak to attack the strong; that would have been beneath him. As was torture. There was a foreign code of honour here, and I felt, like a stab in my belly, the moment I had insulted his honour past repair. I had failed.

  Tarek drew his knife.

  I blurted, ‘Wait! I will go to Witchland now!'

  It bought me a second's hesitation from him. I clamped my teeth hard on my tongue and crossed over, before Tarek could send me over permanently.

  Darkness—

  My father had said I could cross over provided that I brought nothing back.

  Cold—

  Even Alysse had admitted that a hisaf's crossing did not widen the breach in the wall.

  Dirt choking my mouth—

  The breach in the wall, the pulled threads in the web ...

  Worms in my eyes—

  Then I stood in the Country of the Dead, and a figure raced towards me from fog. Not my sister, not a hisaf, a dumpy figure whose face contorted with fear and indignation—

  Stephanie's nurse.

  She barrelled into me at full tilt, nearly knocking me over, even as I struggled to understand what must have happened. She was dead. She was not yet in the quiescent and mindless trance of the Dead. Therefore she had died only moments ago.

  ‘Roger! Where am I?'

  A word filled my mouth: Witchland. I could have told her that, and she would have perhaps believed me, as Blue soldiers had once believed me. Then the nurse might stay awake here and I would have more time, endless time, to question her. But I could not do that to her. She would be alone and living among the quiescent Dead. It was too terrible a fate, and although I had imposed it before, I had not known then what stalked the Country of the Dead. So I ignored the nurse's query and thrust at her, with the immediacy and sharpness of a sword, my own question.

  ‘What happened to you? Tell me!'

  ‘I ... I was asleep ... There came a young girl. I couldn't see her clearly but she was crowned, and her eyes – they were mad, they were!'

  ‘What did she say to you?'

  ‘I ... I ...'

  ‘ What did she say?'

  ‘She said, ‘'Die, die, my little one.” It made no ...' And then she understood. ‘I am dead. Like Lady Margaret.'

  ‘Nurse, no. Don't—'

  Her body sagged against mine and her face went slack.

  I laid her on the grass. Then I tried shaking her hard – it is old women, after all, who are most willing to talk to me, but the nurse was not old enough. I could not rouse her. And what more would I have asked? She had con-firmed what I already suspected.

  My sister killed in dreams. She could not use dreams to directly reach anyone in the land of the living except those with talent in the soul arts, and she had found such a person in Princess Stephanie. But how had my sister killed Lady Margaret and the nurse? Desperately I tried to account for this. A web, Mother Chilton and Alysse had both said, a web of being that connected the living and the dead. Power flowed along the filaments of the web, the immense power of death that must eventually claim us all. I pictured power flowing from my sister to Stephanie as the child lay asleep – sleep, the little death. Certainly it was during sleeping dreams that my mad sister reached me.

  And somehow she had sent that power through Stephanie's sleep to the sleeping Lady Margaret. Both Lady Margaret and the nurse had been intimately entwined with the princess's life, with her thoughts, with the affec-tions of her heart. There had been no marks of injury or illness on Lady Margaret's body. Her heart had simply stopped.

  Stephanie was both the conduit for these murders and the reason for them. While Lady Margaret and her beloved nana lived, Stephanie could not be taken over by my sister. But now both women were dead. Web women could not
reach the princess while she was so closely guarded. But my sister had had no such barriers. She had used the little girl in the most monstrous way, and Stephanie did not even realize it. I hoped she never would.

  But what did my sister want from Stephanie in the first place? I didn't know. Mother Chilton had not given me any information about the princess, or else hadn't had any. Alysse had said that Stephanie would be better off shot, but she had also dismissed the child as unimportant.

  My father had not so much as mentioned her. That argued that none of them had known how my sister could reach others through the princess. Only I knew. And what could I do about it?

  ‘Help Her Grace,' Lady Margaret had said.

  I kicked at a boulder, a stupid display of anger that merely bruised my foot. Why did everyone expect of me things I could not deliver? Lady Margaret, Tom, Jee, Lord Robert. All people without soul arts, whereas those that had them urged me to not use them. How was I supposed to save even my own life? I was seventeen years old and at the mercy of events I could not control.

  But at least I could bring something back to Tarek. Piss on Alysse's scolding and my father's advice; it had not helped him avoid capture! I walked a little way into the fog. Best would be a soldier with some old-fashioned item that Tarek would recognize but would know I could not possibly have already concealed on my person. I searched for a tranquil warrior.

  Instead I saw an entire circle of the Dead disappear before my eyes.

  The fog had lessened a little. Through light wisps I spied the circle, ten strong and holding hands, and I walked towards it. In the centre was a dense dark patch of fog: Soulvine watchers. Even as I lurched backward, ready to flee, the dense patch began to whirl. Its faint humming grew louder. Faster and louder the fog rotated, until it was a spinning vortex. Then came a large clap of sound, like lightning striking the ground, and the ten Dead disappeared, along with the vortex.

  Gone. Just gone.

  Despite myself, I stumbled forward. The pervasive fog over the landscape had also disappeared. I could see again for miles, along the mountains and valleys of the Country of the Dead. But there was nothing to see where ten Dead had sat awaiting eternity. The grass was not even charred. It was as if nothing, and no one, had been here at all.