The Keeper of the Mist

by Rachel Neumeier

  It wasn’t the same at all. Keri liked baking cakes, but she had never tried to memorize formal rituals before. She thought she had better memorize this one, in case it did not spring readily to her tongue when the moment came. She didn’t really want to find herself speaking the right words without even having to remember them, because it was so strange to discover words on her tongue when she hadn’t ever properly learned them.

  She had also thought she’d better put in new bits about welcoming neighbors and hoping for good relations, and Tassel had listened to those bits and nodded, or shaken her head, or here and there suggested different phrases to say the same things. They all knew already that the Wyvern sorcerer was formal and haughty, and Tassel said that he would probably like flowery speeches and elaborate compliments—the more flowery, the better.

  Even more helpfully, Tassel had also brought Keri a book of poetry from Eschalion so she could choose the right kinds of flowery phrases. Neither she nor Keri had commented on Tassel’s sudden ability to find just the right of books ready to her hand, simply by turning around and reaching for them. If she couldn’t turn and pick up the right book, Keri thought no such book must exist, which was a grim thought, as she still badly wanted a proper, detailed explanation of the magic of Nimmira and so far Tassel hadn’t found anything like that. But the poetry was helpful. The Bookkeeper’s magic must be, Keri imagined, a lot like opening your mouth and finding words you hadn’t ever learned waiting on your tongue. She hoped that would happen to her now, because her mind seemed to have become as empty and blank as the sky, her thoughts no more orderly than the darting flight of the swifts.

  Cort looked nowhere near as cheerful as Tassel, but he also looked exactly like himself. He wore a plain outfit, not stark black like Domeric, but dark brown and light brown and copper. He looked as though he had shaken himself free of the earth of his pastures just that moment, but in a good way—brown and copper and tan in his coat and boots as well as in his hair and skin and eyes. The buttons on his coat were copper and gold, and there was copper and gold embroidery on his boots. Keri had no idea where he had gotten those boots and that fancy coat. Surely not from Brann, because she could not imagine Cort deliberately borrowing anything from Brann if he had three minutes together to arrange something else.

  Cort’s older brother, Gannon, was undoubtedly out there in the crowd, but Keri couldn’t see him, despite having looked. She had always liked Gannon, though he was old enough to be Tassel’s uncle rather than her cousin; he was steady and kind and never shouted at anyone. Keri did not know him well, but he must surely have come to witness his brother’s first public official act as Doorkeeper of Nimmira.

  Unlike Tassel, Cort hadn’t come upstairs this morning to see Keri, but he looked at her now with a straight, direct gaze that seemed to truly recognize her, even though she was wearing this elaborate dress and expensive necklace and a title no one had ever expected to be hers. Cort was frowning. But it was an intent expression, not an angry one. He looked solid as the earth and just a little impatient. It felt somehow restful just to look at him. After his father had died and he’d grown up, Cort had become all about duty and responsibility and meeting every single obligation. It was why he was so serious these days. She didn’t like him all that much. But she knew she could trust him completely, and right now that seemed more important than anything. Keri found she was glad he had become her Doorkeeper.

  Then the Timekeeper sent a piercing glance her way, and Keri knew it was time. She stepped forward. It felt a little as though someone else stepped forward, leaving her behind to hover in the shadows and watch from a distance. But it was really her. She was the one walking through the sunlight in a heavy rustle of skirts, with the crowd murmuring around her. She didn’t look out at the people, but she heard them, a wordless sound like the wind in the leaves. The swifts curved through their intricate minuet overhead, heedless of anything people did in the town below.

  The Timekeeper lifted a hand, drawing all her attention. His watch was cupped in his other hand, its crystal face glinting opaque with light so that Keri could not see its hands. For some reason, this invisibility of the watch’s hands added to her uneasiness. She tilted her head until the angle of the light changed and she could see the quick ticking movement of the second hand. The sapphire hand and the one of rose crystal and the arrow-slender silver one were all lined up one beneath the next, so that they made one combined hand of glittering jewel-edged silver that pointed at noon.

  “The hour has come,” the Timekeeper said, pronouncing every word with precise ceremony. “Kerianna Ailenn, this is your hour and your time.”

  Keri took one more step forward. She found herself seized by a terrible conviction that she would open her mouth and nothing at all would come out: she would be as mute as the enchanted swans of the mountain lakes that only sang as they died. Brann would be so satisfied. Everyone who had wanted him to be Lord would be satisfied to see her embarrass herself. Domeric…She couldn’t guess what Domeric would think. Lucas would laugh, of course. Tassel would be so disappointed in her….Keri discovered that she was staring straight at Cort. He looked exactly the same: solid and a little bit impatient, as though he were resisting the urge to say, Come on, then, don’t we have important things to do? Let’s get this nonsense over with. As though he had no doubt whatsoever that she had important things to do, and no doubt that she could fluff little distractions like the ascension ritual out of her way with a wave of her hand. As though he had no doubt in her. That couldn’t be true. Cort least of all had that kind of trust in her, but he was focused on his new duties and he was sure she was focused on hers, and that was actually a kind of trust, wasn’t it?

  Keri lifted her chin, turned to face the gathering, and said, “It is the hour and the day and the appointed time. Lord Dorric has passed, and the sun has stopped in the sky, waiting.” She heard her own words echo as though she spoke in a small enclosed room rather than out of doors, and she couldn’t quite resist a quick glance upward at the sun. It had not actually stopped at her father’s passing. The sun stopping was merely a metaphor. No one could see the sun’s movement across the sky just in a glance. Yet somehow it seemed to her that the noon sun stood above the square, absolutely still.

  She was not the only one who had looked up, she saw as she brought her gaze back down. Everyone had. Even the Outsiders had tilted their heads back and shaded their eyes and looked at the sun. Osman Tor the Younger was frowning, his eyes narrowed against the light. Eroniel Kaskarian was frowning, too, and as Keri watched, he tilted his head to the side and sent her a slanting, curious look.

  “Lady,” murmured the Timekeeper, and Keri blinked, straightened her back, and opened her mouth. Once again, words were there. She recognized them this time, or some of them. She said, “I hold the heart of Nimmira, and its borders, and the span of its sky. I can name the winds that bring the rain and the summer warmth and sweep away the clouds: they are the southeast wind and the northwest wind and the wind from the sea. I know every furrow in the fields and every lamb in the pastures and every swift on the wind.” That part was familiar, but had she read those lines in one of Tassel’s books, or did she just remember them? She felt for one dizzying moment it might almost be true: that she might in fact know all the great winds and every minor breeze, that the fragrance of turned earth had risen up around her, that every quick-winged chimney swift left behind a lingering trail of light through the air when it darted and swooped. She thought she could close her eyes and point to each bird as it flew. She did close her eyes then, because the awareness of the darting birds and wandering winds confused her sense of balance.

  She said, and this time knew she had never read these words anywhere but simply found them ready on her tongue: “I know the measure of every road and the weight of every wagon, and where the seams run in the hills above Ironforge, and the age of every tree that is felled and the striving of every seedling that is planted in the forests around Woodridge.”
She opened her eyes then, and looked out at the crowd. All those people, but they were quiet now, silent and attentive.

  She found, to her surprise, that she did after all recognize some of the faces in this gathering. Yes. How could she have missed seeing the number of these people who were familiar? Cort’s brother was indeed there, right at the front. There were the owners of the two best inns on the square, standing shoulder to shoulder, frowning and serious; she thought of course she must speak to them both and find out what they thought and guessed about their foreign guests, especially the innkeeper from the east side of the square, because she did not know whom Eroniel Kaskarian might speak to, but surely the Bear soldiers, possibly even Osman the Younger himself, must gossip with the serving girls from the inn.

  And there was Mistress Renn, who, long widowed and severely respectable, owned and ran one of the best glassworks in Glassforge without inviting the least raised eyebrow. Of course Keri knew Mistress Renn. She had a taste for exquisite pastries and had been one of Keri’s most regular customers.

  And there was Timmet, who sold the finest flour in town; Kerreth, the apothecary, whose medicines were said to be some of the most efficacious in the whole of Nimmira; Derrin, whose shop sold heavy, intricately carved furniture to wealthy households. Keri knew others amid the crowd. Not every one was her friend, but she knew them. All of them, even, though that did not seem possible.

  Standing in their tight clump among the people of Nimmira, Osman Tor the Younger and his men seemed unutterably foreign, Eroniel Kaskarian even more so. Foreign in a wholly different and much more profound sense than Keri had previously realized. If it had been pitch-dark on a moonless night rather than bright noon, she thought, she would still know exactly where each foreigner stood. They might as well have been limned with fire in her mind.

  She didn’t like them. She didn’t like any of them. It was wrong, those strangers standing right here in Nimmira. The stones of the town square seemed to tilt around them, as though they were too heavy for the ground to bear, as though the very earth beneath them wanted to shrug them away. The impression was so strong that she had to look again to be sure the flagstones had not actually moved.

  She was frowning, she realized. She tried to smooth out her expression, but wasn’t certain how successful her efforts were.

  Then she blinked, and it was noon, and the sunlight lay warm on her shoulders, and the stones of the town square rested level and steady on the earth. No one had moved. But the sun had. It had continued its slow path through the sky and was perceptibly farther over toward the west. Keri felt suddenly as weary as though she had gotten it moving by climbing into the heights of the sky and setting her shoulder to it herself. She let her breath out and wished she dared clutch the Timekeeper’s arm for balance.

  But Cort moved forward just then. She put her hand on his arm instead and tried to lean unobtrusively. His strength beneath her weight seemed endless. Keri started to say something to him, she didn’t know what, but then she said to the gathered crowd, not even thinking about it, the words coming automatically to her tongue, “My Timekeeper you know. This is my Doorkeeper, who opens and closes all doors and roads of Nimmira.”

  After that, it seemed only natural to look for Tassel, and to find her near at hand—she must have come forward without Keri noticing, or else Keri had taken several steps herself without noticing, it was impossible now to guess which. But she put her hand out, grasped Tassel’s graceful hand, and said aloud, “This is my Bookkeeper, who notes down all that comes and goes in Nimmira, and records all the joyous births and sad deaths and the names of everyone between birth and death.”

  Tassel blushed. Keri squeezed her hand and patted her arm before letting her go, though for whose comfort she was not sure. Her other hand and quite a lot of her weight still rested on Cort’s arm, but the weariness seemed to be passing now. She blinked hard and looked once more out at the gathering.

  Osman the Younger was watching her steadily, his black eyes sharp and wary. Domeric was scowling impartially on everyone. On the other side, Magister Eroniel had turned his head and was gazing thoughtfully at the empty air, as though Keri were not important enough to hold his attention and so he watched something else only he could see. Brann…Brann was looking blandly scornful. Keri saw him turn and murmur a few words to Magister Eroniel, and the sorcerer glanced at him, then looked at Keri and smiled a thin, amused smile.

  Keri blinked with the effort of not looking away. She took a deep breath. Then she said clearly, “We of Nimmira welcome our guests. We bid Osman Tor the Younger and the people of Tor Carron welcome. We welcome Eroniel Kaskarian of Eschalion, and greet all our guests with goodwill, and look forward to friendship between our peoples.”

  Lord Osman inclined his head, an acknowledgment more than an assurance, Keri thought, but acknowledgment was enough if it meant he and his men would be polite. And the Wyvern sorcerer might lift his eyebrows, but he gave her a tiny nod that was more or less courteous as well. So there was no indication, yet, that any of the strangers had realized how great a bluff Keri was attempting.

  And all through the crowd, her own people were nodding and smiling in relief, because now they knew Keri really was the new and proper Lady of Nimmira, and because they, too, believed Keri’s story about opening the boundary on purpose. Keri felt terrible for lying to everyone, and hesitated, but there were all those strangers still. So she could say nothing.

  She said instead, to her own people, the townsfolk and craftspeople and farmers and everyone, “Thank you for coming to witness my ascension. I never looked for it, but it landed upon me, and so we must all trust that Nimmira knows what it wants. So I will hope…I will hope for your support and confidence, and I promise you”—one bit of truth, at least—“I promise that I will serve you and Nimmira as well as ever I can.” Finished, Keri bowed her head. She only hoped she could fulfill her promise…but at least she had promised only to do what she could.

  “Well said!” cried Lucas, and applauded with enthusiasm. Keri blushed, wanting to slap Lucas, but conscious that really she should thank him. A ripple of laughter and approval ran through the crowd, and here and there someone else took up the applause, and then others, until the town square rang with…not approbation, but at least hope. Nothing of that acclaim sounded hostile. Questioning, maybe, but Keri thought that actually seemed perfectly reasonable.

  “You must greet Lord Osman of Tor Carron and Magister Eroniel of Eschalion in twenty minutes precisely,” the Timekeeper informed Keri as soon as she had retreated into the House from the portico.

  “Twenty minutes!” Keri had already turned toward the stairs, thinking she would go back to her new apartment, which had already come to seem more like hers in even these few days, now that there was so little of her father’s left in it. Tassel had come to her side, Cort followed, and Lucas trailed behind them both. But Keri hadn’t realized the Timekeeper had followed as well, until his voice pulled her around. She said again, trying not to sound plaintive, “Twenty minutes?”

  “They were promised, Lady, that you would greet them in person after your ascension.”

  “Yes, I remember that part!” Keri snapped. “It’s not that I don’t remember! But why does everything have to be so crowded together, as though there aren’t more than a thousand minutes in a day?”

  “Fourteen hundred and—” the Timekeeper began.

  “However many! What am I supposed to say to them?” But Keri rubbed her face and took a breath, because she actually knew she had to persuade the foreigners that she’d opened Nimmira on purpose. That she’d invited them in herself, not just found herself unable to keep them out.

  She could make them believe that. She had to do it, so she would do it. She just didn’t feel at all prepared to do it now.

  But…it was true she didn’t think she would have felt more prepared tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. A few minutes of planning, snatched right here in the great hall, wasn’t what s
he’d had in mind at all. She caught her friend’s hand and drew the other girl a few steps aside. “Tassel, maybe I can just let you do the talking, do you think? You’d be good at it!”

  “No, Keri, you’ll be fine, you can do this,” Tassel assured her. “Think of it like flirting with boys—like a cross between flirting with boys and coaxing passersby to purchase your biggest, most expensive cake. It’ll help that there are two of them. Who wants someone else to get the best cake, right?”

  Cort drew himself up. “It’s hardly right for the Lady of Nimmira to flirt with foreigners.”

  Tassel gave him an innocent look. “But, Cort, why else would a new young Lady of Nimmira have opened up her borders to foreign lands, except if she’s looking for a strong husband to rule Nimmira for her? Flirting is exactly what Keri needs to do. Let them court her and try to win her. That young Bear Lord will certainly believe it; he’s that type. I bet girls have melted at his feet all his life, you can see it in his eyes. But even Eroniel Kaskarian will believe it. I mean, he’s scary. But he’s still a man, even if he’s also a sorcerer.” She turned earnestly to Keri. “Don’t look like that, Keri. This will work. You know how men are always willing to believe a helpless girl needs them to take over all the hard decisions. Foreign or not, they’ll both be happy to believe you want to just hand Nimmira to one or the other of them without the least trouble. Oh, they’ll detest each other!” She bounced a little, cheerfully.

  Keri didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “I knew you’d have ideas. But—”

  “No, it’s a clever ploy,” Lucas put in before Keri could quite frame her protest. He was regarding Tassel with great approval. “I wondered about putting them in the same room for anything, but if they’re to be rivals, well, there you go. It’ll certainly keep them nicely occupied and give them little time and less reason to think of conquest by force. I wish I’d thought of it. I’m sure I would have, if I’d had just another moment.”