by Pati Nagle
“Tell me about our visitor.”
Eliani took a larger swallow, feeling the tea's warmth spread through her. “Lord Turisan, son of Lord Jharan.”
Heléri smiled. “I remember Jharan well. He and Felisan were inseparable in their youth. They were always hunting or exploring, here or in the south, until the Midrange War redirected their fates.”
Eliani nodded. She had heard many tales of their adventures together, both at Heléri's knee and at her father's. Some, from the time of the war, had been wrought into song.
“What is Lord Turisan like?”
“Well … he has Greenglen coloring, is tall and comely, and is very gracious.” Eliani glanced up at Heléri. “It is clear he was bred in the high court. No doubt he finds our humble hall quite rustic.”
“Has he said so?”
“He would never be so uncouth. He does not have to say it; it is in his eyes.”
“Ah.” Heléri smiled. “So you have mastered the art of reading the soul through the eyes.”
Eliani felt her cheeks warm. “No.”
“Then do not be hasty to judge.” Heléri put down her cup and gazed at Eliani, who had to make an effort not to look away. “What is it that troubles you?”
“Nothing.”
“Has Lord Turisan brought bad news?”
“None we did not guess. He tells us the kobalen are increasing along Southfæld's borders, especially near Midrange Pass. Lord Jharan is summoning the Ælven Council to Glenhallow.”
“Ah. You will enjoy visiting Southfæld.” Eliani thought of Lord Jharan's letter to her. Had he meant to encourage her to attend the Council?
She frowned. Even that morning she would have greeted an invitation to visit the south, or indeed any ælven realm, with unabated plea sure. She wanted to know of the world beyond her homeland. Why, then, did she now feel hesitation? She looked up at her elder-mother.
“I fear change. I can feel it coming, and I do not want it.”
Heléri's brows rose slightly. She set aside her cake and took Eliani's chin in one hand, gazing long into her eyes, making her feel that the light words about reading souls had masked a deeper truth. Through Heléri's hand, Eliani felt the resonance of her khi, a silvery tickle against her own energy. Heléri's eyes held hers, the blue glowing like dusk in the firelight, filling all Eliani's being until at last they closed and she was released.
The fire snapped, and Eliani started at the sudden sound. She looked up to see Heléri sipping from her cup.
“You would remain forever as you are?”
“N-no. But I would not lose what I have.”
“We do not always have the choice of that.”
Eliani had no answer. She had expected words of sympathy from Heléri, assurances that her feelings were merely nervous ness about her coming majority. Instead, Heléri drew her loom toward her and began again to weave.
Eliani looked at the spools of color on the table. Blue and violet were her favorites—Stonereach colors—and she wanted never to give them up. Beryloni would carry them away with her, in this very ribbon that Heléri wove for her, but henceforth she would align with clan Steppegard and wear their colors as her own.
Eliani glanced up at the handfasting ribbon that hung above Heléri's door: white and gold entwined with the violet and blue. White and gold for Ælvanen, oldest of the ælven clans, governors of Eastfæld, of which she knew but little.
Heléri seldom spoke of her homeland. Eliani had never met any other from that realm and had seen Ælvanen's colors only in this ribbon. Letters of silver were woven through it, commemorating the joining of Heléri and her Stonereach lord, Davharin, who once had governed Alpinon and who long since had crossed the gray border into the spirit realm. The ribbon was all that remained of their union in the physical world.
More than a little magecraft went into such ribbons, for the ceremony of handfasting was also a binding of the couple's khi, and the ribbon not only an artistic masterpiece but a focus for its resonance. Heléri's ribbon was centuries old, yet the silver script gleamed as if it were new. Davharin's ribbon, the mate to it, was tied around the conce that marked where he had died, ambushed by kobalen. Eliani had seen it while riding patrol high in the mountain passes. That ribbon was every bit as fair and bright as this one. She had always felt a little in awe that such a delicate thing could last so long.
Heléri picked up the silver thread. “I would like to meet Lord Turisan.”
Eliani watched her fingers ease the fine strand into the weaving, then shifted her gaze to the fire. “He is certain to pay his respects.”
“Is he? Not every visitor to Highstone thinks to call on me. Some are never aware that I am here, and others are day-biders and only leave messages while I am at rest.”
“That would be unlike him. He will come.”
Eliani sensed Heléri watching her. She looked up at her eldermother, who smiled and silently returned to her weaving.
Nightsand
A sliver of red sunlight slipped through draperies that were not quite fully drawn, spilling across the stone floor of Shalár's audience chamber. She frowned at the intruding light and lifted her head to command its removal. A glance was all that was needed to send an attendant scurrying to adjust the heavy drape. No one cared to court Shalár's displeasure.
She shifted in the massive darkwood chair from which she held audience, uncomfortable despite its deep cushions. She was not usually in the chamber so early, but this night she had a decision to make and wanted to give it due consideration. She had called an audience just after sundown so that lesser matters could be settled quickly and put out of her way.
Two oil lanterns on pedestals, so recently lit that she could still smell the sharp smoke of their kindling, gave the chamber its only light. Their flames flickered against the ceiling of black volcanic stone and glinted in the metal threads of the one ælven tapestry that had been brought across the mountains when she and her people had been forced to abandon Fireshore.
Shalár stared at the weaving, her frown deepening. It depicted a simple scene on the wooded seashore near Hollirued, the first ælven city, capital of Eastfæld. The weaver's work was merely competent, though superior to anything that had yet been achieved by Shalár's people. Clan Darkshore had neither the techniques nor the resources for making such colors—bright colors that lasted for many decades—nor had they yet succeeded in crafting metal thread that would hold its shine. So many skills had been lost to her people when they were driven west.
Someday we will reclaim all that was taken from us.
Shaking her head slightly, she straightened and glanced around the chamber. Only a handful of petitioners had come this evening. She looked to Dareth, her steward and consort, who stood beside her chair. He was lean and handsome, pale-skinned as were all her folk, his silver hair almost as bright as her own. His tunic was of black linen, supple in weave, the finest to be had in the Westerlands. She liked the way it clung to him.
He felt her gaze and met it, black eyes waiting for her command. Shalár nodded, and he called forth the first supplicant, a thin-faced female cloaked in homespun cloth who put back her hood and knelt before Shalár.
“Bright Lady, I come to ask your aid for my family. The kobalen we had for our use has died, and my partner is not strong enough to capture another.”
“So you wish me to give you one?”
Hollow eyes were raised in a furtive glance at Shalár, then quickly hidden. “Bright Lady, you have many kobalen—”
“They are reserved for the use of my house hold and the city guard.”
The female bowed her head. “Nightsand has great need, I know. I hoped you might spare but one.”
“And if I spare but one kobalen to you, then what can I say to the next who begs to be given what she cannot get for herself?” Shalár leaned forward in her chair, fixing the petitioner's gaze with her own. “Are you unable to hunt? Or merely unwilling?”
“I have tried, Bright Lady. The
re are few kobalen to be had near my home.”
“Go into the hills, then.”
“My partner is ill—I cannot leave him—”
Shalár tossed her head to get her hair out of her eyes. She was losing patience with this fretful female. “Put him in a neighbor's care.”
“But I …”
The petitioner's khi darkened with fear. There was something else, and she did not wish to tell it. Shalár looked at her with renewed interest, waiting.
“Bright Lady, you are wise and just.”
And strong, and cruel. Shalár said nothing, knowing the thought had been finished in the mind of everyone present. Her reputation was deserved, and she took pride in it. Those qualities—all of them, particularly cruelty when needed—had preserved her people.
The supplicant's shoulders sagged in defeat. “I have a child, too young to be left behind.”
“A child?” Shalár leaned forward. “How young?”
“Fifteen summers.”
Shalár glanced at Dareth, whose face remained impassive. She drew herself up in her chair.
“Fifteen summers. Too young to be left, yes, but not too young to be of use. Pledge your child to my service and I will give you your kobalen.”
The female looked up sharply, fright widening her eyes. Her lips formed the word “no,” though she did not speak it. Did not dare, Shalár knew.
“Under my care, your child will live as well as any in Nightsand. Better than most in the Westerlands. And it will have the advantage of being near other children. Thirty years' service.”
“She would be nearly of age by then!”
“Yes, and raised in better circumstances than you can give her. Do you not wish this for your child?”
The supplicant stared at the stone floor, looking thoroughly miserable. Shalár understood the female's reluctance but was not about to encourage others to implore her aid by granting this one her wish for no return. Charity belonged to the ælven. Clan Darkshore, who struggled to survive in the Westerlands—still struggled after centuries—could not afford it.
“Thirty years, then she is free to return to you. During that time you shall have your kobalen, and if it dies and you can show the death was not malicious or careless, it will be replaced. In addition, I will send a healer at once to attend to your partner. Perhaps he will regain his strength enough for you to conceive another child.”
Shalár gentled her voice for this last, intending to give the petitioner both hope and praise for having achieved conception. Few could do so. Shalár, to her infinite frustration, had not.
A female who had conceived and survived childbirth had a fair chance to conceive again, a better chance than the childless. Shalár knew the importance of every birth to her people's survival and honored this female for her accomplishment even while she envied it.
They had been so few, those who had reached the haven of Nightsand Bay. Eleven hundreds, no more. Their numbers had grown with painful slowness to a mere three thousand souls and of late, to Shalár's great dismay, had begun to diminish again. Hardship, the despair of having lost Fireshore, grief for those who had fallen at Westgard—all had taken their toll on the survivors. And hunger, always hunger—the hunger that had cost them everything.
Shalár turned away from such useless thoughts. Finding that her gaze had strayed to the tapestry, she looked back at the petitioner. The female was sitting on her heels, staring blankly at the floor.
“Take a night to consider my offer. You will be received when you return.”
Shalár signaled to an attendant, who came forward to help the female to her feet and lead her away. Dareth waited until she was gone from the room before calling the next.
The rest of the petitions were commonplace, and Shalár dealt with them swiftly. She could have entrusted them to Dareth or even to an underling, but she preferred to keep an eye on her people as much as she could.
When the last supplicant had been ushered from the chamber, Shalár stood up and stretched, the pointed sleeves of her dark red tunic brushing about her legs. An attendant brought forward a tray of fruit and roasted nuts. Shalár took a morsel, though she hungered for another kind of sustenance.
All her people hungered so. It was the single thing that bound them to her more than any other. That wretched female who had lost her kobalen hungered desperately, no doubt.
She would return to accept Shalár's offer. Shalár wished to help her, but it must be at a price. Clan Darkshore could not afford that she should give away their resources. The pens held kobalen, yes, but fewer than most knew. The numbers remaining had dwindled dangerously low. Shalár knew she must take action soon or her people would face a cruel winter.
It was to her they looked, and not only because she provided kobalen to ease their hunger. It was she who had gathered the straggling, starving remnants of Clan Darkshore after they had been driven across the mountains by the combined armies of the other ælven realms. She had been young then but determined to survive. Because of that determination and because she had carried her father's sword, they had followed her.
Morshalan had been head of Clan Darkshore and governor of Fireshore. Shalár had collected what remained of his people and had led them westward, away from the danger of ælven pursuit, until at last they had arrived at Nightsand. They had no love of the ocean, but the black sands of the bay reminded them of the shore at the foot of Firethroat, north of Ghlanhras, the city that had been the governor's home. It was both strange and familiar, and in their exhaustion Clan Darkshore had halted there to rest. They had never left.
She turned to Dareth, who stood patiently waiting. Constant Dareth, ever watchful. One of the few left from Fireshore.
Many of the original refugees had given up the fight, unwilling to face the cost of survival. Dareth himself had wished to return to spirit at one time. She had persuaded him against it by seducing him, and he had been her chief companion ever since.
She reached out a hand to him now. He bowed as he took it, deferential as always. His khi tingled against her flesh, waking her hunger. She fought back a craving to draw upon him. Dareth was too important to be used so.
“To the pens.”
Dareth escorted her from the chamber, outside to the stone shelf that gave access to the Cliff Hollows, her home overlooking the city of Nightsand. They paused there to gaze out over the bay.
The sun was down now, and the dusk swiftly rising. Westward a ruddy smudge hung over the ocean horizon. To the south Nightsand Bay sprawled inland, its waters black in the growing darkness, stretching southward to lap at the feet of Blackheart, that restless mountain whose rumblings and belchings of smoke also reminded her people of home. Small points of firelight gleamed here and there along the bay's eastern shore, marking lesser villages and homesteads outside the city. Nightsand itself was brighter, the more so as folk stirred and opened their windows to the night.
Across the bay there were no lights. Kobalen sometimes roamed there, but though Shalár's people never crossed the bay to gain that shore, the kobalen rarely showed themselves. They knew they were hunted, though perhaps they did not know that her people would not cross the water to reach them. It mattered not. They would reach them in any case, though it meant a long trek around Blackheart.
“I must summon a hunt soon.”
Dareth nodded, his smile fading. “You will excuse me, I hope.”
“It would please me to have you along.”
“But the governance of Nightsand would suffer. Remember the last time I hunted with you.”
She nodded, sighing. It had been many de cades since, several hunts since. True, the chaos of petitioners and problems that had met their return had annoyed her, but she would accept that gladly as the cost of hunting with Dareth at her side.
He stood gazing at the last blur of light on the horizon. She watched him, wishing for the boldness he had once shown. He turned to her, a wan smile on his lips. “I used to watch the sunset every day. Do you ever miss
it, Shalári?”
Anger flared in her. She turned cold eyes upon him.
“Never call me that! I have no ælven name, nor have you, Dareth!”
She gathered her khi, focusing it in a spot in the center of her torso, then sent a hot pulse forth toward Dareth and saw him wince as it penetrated his own khi. She sent her khi flowing through him, around him, tightening her hold on him. Her hunger sharpened at the exertion, and again she was tempted to draw on his khi, but she resisted. Only once had she done that, and had nearly lost him for it.
He bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “Forgive me, Bright Lady.”
She held him for a long moment. “Say my name, Dareth.”
He stood breathing shallowly, eyes closed. At last he opened them and glanced up at her beneath white brows.
“Shalár.”
She released him, then held out her hand, allowing him to take it once more. They turned southward along the broad stone ledge.
The black volcanic cliffs above Nightsand were riddled with natural caves worn from the hard rock by water and wind. One series of them, overlooking a broad view of the bay, had been enlarged and carved into the graceful rooms of the Cliff Hollows. Others, smaller yet more numerous, served as holding pens for kobalen and captives. They were reached from the same ledge that fronted the Cliff Hollows but were far enough away that no khi from those kept there could disturb her.
A network of tunnels connected the pens. At the near end a cave had been enlarged for the use of the keepers, and at its entrance two guards in Darkshore red and black yielded the way to Shalár and Dareth.
Shalár noted that the scarlet trim to their tunics was wearing thin. It was difficult to keep her guards in clan colors. The red, especially, was precious, for it could not be made so bright in the Westerlands. It had to be salvaged from cloth brought from Fireshore. All that the original survivors had carried with them was long gone, returned to dust. From time to time fresh supplies had been captured, but the most recent of those, too, was nearly gone.