The Keeper of the Mist

by Rachel Neumeier

  And she turned on her heel and walked out, ignoring Tassel, who didn’t look at all surprised, and the Timekeeper, who looked faintly startled and even more faintly relieved. No doubt it was a relief to him, to have gotten everything out in the open at last, now that it was too late for Keri to refuse the succession. How nice for him. In the next room, Keri stalked right past Linnet, who straightened up from neatening something or other and took a small step toward her, but then, catching a glimpse of Keri’s expression, changed her mind and didn’t follow after all.

  “A cake,” she said out loud. “With a pound of butter and a dozen eggs and the very best flour.” She wouldn’t think even once about the cost of the flour, and she would beat the butter and eggs to pale froth herself without letting the proper cook even near the bowl, and no one would dare say a single word because she was the Lady of Nimmira and she could make a cake if she wanted.

  Keri did not actually dislike Osman Tor the Younger, she decided. It was strange to realize this. She thought she should hate him. He was dangerous. Tor Carron could swallow Nimmira in a single mouthful and hardly notice. Lord Osman would make that happen if he could: that was why he was here. But even though she knew all that perfectly well, she couldn’t help liking him.

  He rose to his feet and bowed when Keri came into the small, pretty dining chamber, the garnet cabochon swinging below his ear on its fine silver chain and intelligent curiosity glinting in his black eyes. He said, “Lady, you do me much honor,” with a formal little inclination of his head. His voice was pleasant—a smooth, light tenor—and he looked at Keri with an expression that managed somehow to be simultaneously predatory and charming. He seemed a lot more like one of Nimmira’s narrow-faced tawny foxes than the bear that was the symbol of his people.

  Keri wished she could blush and look shy. She suspected she mostly seemed just awkward and uneasy. But she offered the foreigner her hand and made herself smile. “I hope you do not think me too forward, Lord Osman, in suggesting this supper.”

  “No, indeed,” murmured Lord Osman. “We shall be far more comfortable without the Wyvern, I am sure, as your people and mine must always be more comfortable when the Wyvern is far away.”

  The look in his eyes was uncomfortably shrewd. Keri cleared her throat. “I have been so interested in making your acquaintance. I believe you did business for years with my father, to the gain of both our countries. Or perhaps that was your father?” She hesitated and then added, “I am afraid I am very ignorant, but as you will have gathered, no one expected the succession to come to me.”

  “You are all that is gracious,” Lord Osman assured her. If he took this last comment as an offer to lay all of her worries on his broad, masculine shoulders, he was too polite to let this show in his voice or manner.

  Keri smiled again and sat down. The back of the chair was carved into a filigree of grape leaves and seemed so delicate she was afraid it might break if she leaned against it. She sat upright and nodded permission for Lord Osman to resume his seat.

  He said, “Your father did business with me, in fact, as these years my own father seldom stirs from his high castle in Tor Rampion, but entrusts all such ventures to me. However, I am sorry to say that I was never privileged to make Lord Dorric’s acquaintance.”

  “We have long been wary of our neighbors,” agreed Keri. “But I think the trade my father initiated between Tor Carron and Nimmira has shown that we may be friends.” She was not sure this sounded sincere, but Lord Osman smiled.

  “Indeed. Indeed, it does. I was most fascinated to hear that your land had made itself visible at last. I confess I have been exceedingly curious. Intermittently so, to be sure. One cannot quite seem to hold the existence of your Nimmira in the mind once one has traveled even a short distance from the border. How intriguing a phenomenon! One wonders how your own people managed to travel so easily back and forth through the boundary. Or one supposes they did so without difficulty. A charm, perhaps? Some small magic of finding one’s way?” He cocked an interested eyebrow at Keri.

  Keri smiled, hoping she looked mysterious instead of baffled. She made a mental note to ask Cort and the Timekeeper just how her father’s people had managed to get back and forth.

  “A fascinating and useful magic, the mist that guards Nimmira’s privacy,” said Lord Osman, apparently giving up on getting an easy answer to his curiosity and deciding to be more direct. “Mastering that kind of magic would certainly greatly benefit Tor Carron, if it could be utilized on a larger scale.”

  “Oh!” said Keri. She had not expected him to admit his interest quite so openly.

  He said gravely, “Of course the trade in grain and peaches and so on is very well, but Tor Carron would highly value any magic of illusion and misdirection and confusion we might learn. We have one or two protections against Aranaon Mirtaelior’s sorcery, and of course Eschalion has now and again blunted its aggression on the mountains of our border. But the Wyvern King never gives way. He will not cease his efforts until all the land between the frozen seas of the north and the burning deserts of the south belong solely to him.”

  Keri nodded. “Yes, of course, but I’m afraid I don’t know precisely how our magic works. We…we belong to our magic, here in Nimmira, and not the other way around. We aren’t sorcerers.”

  “A matter for learned men, of course, not simple soldiers such as myself,” Lord Osman said smoothly. “Perhaps it is not possible for us to learn the use of such magic. But when the mist cleared, Lady, I knew I must at least try to ask.”

  He leaned forward a little on that last, then blinked and sat back again, looking faintly embarrassed, as though he had said more than he intended. Lord Osman cared too much to entirely hide his feelings. That was when Keri decided she liked him. He cared for his land and his people, cared enough that the instant he had realized the boundary mist had faded, he had crossed the border himself with only a handful of men, though he had never met Lord Dorric and did not know anything of Nimmira except it had good orchards and powerful magic. It had not occurred to her until that moment that Lord Osman had been brave to venture across the boundary.

  She wondered if he had yet realized that Nimmira did not possess any soldiers at all.

  She wondered what he would think or say or do once he realized that.

  Lowering her eyes modestly, she said softly, “Future events are hidden in time, but I will confess that Tor Carron seems a more natural ally for Nimmira than Eschalion.”

  There, and she hoped that sounded like sympathy and possibly an offer.

  There was a soft clap at the door, and girls began to bring in dishes: early peas and tiny onions cooked in cream, little carrots glazed with sugar, dandelion greens tossed with vinegar and crisp bacon, soft bread with butter and honey, sorrel soup, chicken in pastry, lamb. There was wine, too: a light, crisp straw-colored wine that Keri had never tasted before, good wines being too extravagant for her mother and then even further out of reach after her mother’s death.

  Keri had been in the kitchens during much of the meal preparation, but the sheer extravagance still took her by surprise. She pretended she was used to such abundance. Lord Osman did not seem surprised. He was the next thing to a prince, of course, and he’d grown up knowing he was important; no doubt he was accustomed to elaborate meals.

  Even he looked twice at the cake when the girls carried it in, though. Despite everything, Keri was immoderately pleased about that. She hadn’t quite used a whole dozen eggs, but it was still a beautiful cake: five layers fragrant with butter and toasted ground almonds, with apricot cream between the layers and a delicate lacework of caramelized sugar decorating the top.

  “Lovely!” Lord Osman told her. “My compliments to your pastry chef.”

  Keri blushed. “I’m sure you have wonderful pastries in Tor Carron. Tell me more about your home. Is it true your father lives in a castle built into a mountain?”

  “Well, just the two or three lowest levels are actually within the mou
ntain, and you understand, the castle was only built like that because there was so little level ground on which to build….”

  It was actually fascinating. Keri asked questions and listened to Lord Osman’s descriptions and tried to imagine a huge stone castle carved into the stark mountains.

  “I’m told there are a hundred rooms, or perhaps two hundred,” Lord Osman said, smiling. “My nurse used to frighten me with tales of forgotten dungeons in the dark beneath the mountain, where all the walls were made of crystal and iron and where you’d find the bones of little boys who explored a bit too far and lost their way. One can see the point of such stories, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Keri. “So you never explored?”

  “I made very sure I never got lost. And of course I made sure to carry supplies. Such as this lovely cake. May I cut you another slice? No? Perhaps you will not mind if I reveal my gluttonous nature? I am surprised that your climate allows you to grow almonds. Only in the far south is Tor Carron warm enough for such delicacies.”

  Keri found herself blushing and didn’t know whether it was at the compliment to her cake or to her country. “In some years, the harvest is small,” she admitted. “But, yes, almonds and apricots and peaches do well here in the lowlands.”

  “Your land is so…generous. It seems made for orchards. For summer and the scent of peaches. Here, one can’t quite imagine secret dungeons or lightless caverns of crystal and iron.”

  “We do have mountains. The town of Woodridge lies in the hills, and Ironforge in the mountains near…our other border.”

  “But I think your country’s inherent nature is much gentler than mine.”

  “Yes,” admitted Keri. She knew the mountains around Woodridge were not bare stone. They were forested. Pine and birch and maple and, lower down, beech and oak. And below the forest were pasturelands where cattle grazed. When she closed her eyes, she almost thought she could smell the pine needles and the damp loam and the sunlight on the standing hay.

  She opened her eyes again. “Yes,” she repeated. “Tor Carron sounds very different.”

  “Very different, and yet surely we are natural allies in the face of the Wyvern.” Lord Osman turned to her with a gallant little bow and went on smoothly, “Lady Kerianna, as you say, your land has long protected itself against the Wyvern through sorcery—a remarkable magic of secrecy that persuades all those outside your land to look past your beautiful country. I have ventured to hope such magic might encompass other lands—might even spread to encompass the whole of Tor Carron, so that the Wyvern’s eye looks past our mountains and perceives only the distant sea. It would have to be a great magic, I know.”

  This was all so flowery and elaborate. “Yes?” Keri said warily. She didn’t dare explain about Lupe Ailenn and Summer Timonan and how the border of Nimmira had first been drawn in blood as well as magic. The moment Lord Osman heard that story, he would know exactly how impossible it would be to try to protect the much larger Tor Carron that way.

  “Of course, I am aware such magic must be difficult and perhaps dangerous,” Lord Osman said, possibly reading something of this in Keri’s face, despite her attempts to look graciously interested rather than nervous. He went on, “Yet, if we could establish a clear alliance between our two peoples, your Nimmira might benefit as well.” He paused, took a breath, turned to meet Keri’s eyes, and went on in his most formal tone, “For example, Lady Kerianna, if you and I were to be handfasted, no one could doubt your commitment to our alliance. Not even my father. It’s true he might not precisely expect any such, ah, happy but abrupt event. But I am quite certain he could be brought to understand the advantages—”

  Keri held up her hands in protest. “This is very sudden,” she said weakly. Osman Tor the Younger seemed to think this was his plan; he’d taken it right out of Keri’s hands and moved two steps ahead when she’d just meant to take half a step, and everything was happening much too fast. She didn’t know what to do. Though the part about looking young and vulnerable, that part was undoubtedly working beautifully. She wasn’t so sure now that had been a good idea at all.

  Lord Osman reached across the table to capture one of her hands in both of his. His hands were strong and warm, and though Keri couldn’t quite keep from flinching, she couldn’t actually jerk away without embarrassing them both. She sat still in her chair, unable to move. Lord Osman’s garnet cabochon earring swaying below his ear like the pendulum of a clock, ticking its way into the future. It caught Keri’s attention. She found herself watching its gentle motion.

  Lord Osman said in a swift, urgent tone, “You and I are natural allies, Lady Kerianna. There is no chance of peaceful relations between your people and Eschalion; never think it! The Wyvern King has not sent his sorcerer to Nimmira to admire it and go away again! Eroniel Kaskarian has come as the eyes of his king, and he will go back to Aranaon Mirtaelior and tell him yours is a graceful, pretty land, a land well worth the small trouble required to conquer it, and then no matter how swiftly you raise up your boundary magic, the Wyvern King will make certain he does not forget again! You must ally your land with Tor Carron, and there is no better proof of your intention—or ours, of course—than a handfasting agreement. You must see that. Tell me you see that.”

  Keri took a deep breath. Then she drew another. The garnet earring swung back and forth below Lord Osman’s ear, back and forth, drawing a crimson arc in the air, and she blinked suddenly and jerked her gaze away from it. She found her breath coming quick and hard, as though she had risen out of a lake into the air and discovered, shockingly, that she had been near drowning.

  Blood magic, blood sorcery: it wasn’t real, or Keri had never thought it was real, or at least she had never thought it could be real anywhere but in Eschalion, in the Wyvern King’s halls, where everything was magic, where magic rode the very sunlight. But in stories and plays, a sorcerer might use blood to make a magic that would haunt a paramour’s dreams, or tempt an enemy into rash action, or persuade a stranger to pledge undying loyalty to a cause that wasn’t his.

  “Lady Kerianna,” Lord Osman said. His eyes had narrowed.

  Keri drew her hand free. She did not scream or gasp or jerk away. She pretended she was playing a role on a stage and everything was just part of the story. Despite her fears, Lord Osman let her go. She rose to her feet, stumbling a little and catching herself with a hand on the edge of the table.

  Lord Osman rose with alacrity as well. “I mean no offense,” he began.

  “No,” Keri said. She knew she sounded breathless, but she couldn’t help it. “No, of course not, Lord Osman.” She couldn’t accuse him of using sorcery to try to make her agree with his suggestion. But she was sure he had tried. Almost sure. But now she couldn’t quite remember what his magic had actually felt like. She was surrounded and steadied by the scent of almonds and sugar and, from the gardens outside, the fragrance of cut grass and damp earth. Nimmira filled her, and whatever magic Osman the Younger had brought with him was a small magic. She met his eyes as she became more certain she was still herself and not at all likely to suddenly agree to his suggestion.

  She said, trying to sound firm, “I think you will find that when I bring back the boundary mist, even Aranaon Mirtaelior will forget, as he did before, but—but I will discuss your offer with my, my advisors.” Advisors sounded official, didn’t it? “We can speak further tomorrow, or the next day, perhaps.”

  “I shall live in hope,” Lord Osman assured her gallantly, with a smooth bow and only the merest trace of a frown.

  Keri escaped from the room with a feeling of deep relief, and instantly found herself seized upon by Tassel and, almost as quickly, Cort. Keri began to blurt out her suspicions, but Cort was plainly at the far end of his patience and waved away her stumbling attempt to describe Lord Osman’s earring. “Your impression of Lord Osman can wait! This is important, Keri, listen—”

  “Wait your turn!” protested Tassel, elbowing her cousin firmly in the ribs.
“I want to know about the supper! How did it go, Keri? Did you make him think you might give him Nimmira? Did he seem to believe you?”

  Keri turned to Tassel in relief, though Cort glared at her in irritation. She said, before he could interrupt, “I didn’t have to put the idea in his head! It was already there! He made me an offer of alliance, but only if we handfast right away. Tassel, did you expect him to propose handfasting himself? And not only that—”

  “Keri! No! Really?” exclaimed Tassel. She looked impressed. “He is bold. I thought he’d surely wait for you to lead him into the dance before trying to whirl you away.”

  Cort, who a moment earlier had obviously meant to break in with his own news, had stopped dead. Now he found his voice again, glowering at Keri as though this were all her fault. “Bold! Is that what you call it? I call it offensive! He’s barely met you!”

  “Well, it was sort of the plan—” Keri began.

  “It’s a stupid plan! And he’s an arrogant son of a—”

  “It wasn’t either a stupid plan,” Tassel objected. “It’s just he’s picked up Keri’s signals and moved faster than we expected. He’s confident, that’s all. And he certainly does know what he wants.”

  Cort said grimly, “Too well he does! How dare he?”

  Keri hesitated, torn between trying again to confide her suspicions about sorcery and holding her tongue. Blood sorcery was for children’s stories. Tassel wouldn’t laugh at her, but Cort?

  Cort was going on, though, and the moment was lost. He declared, “We need to bring the mist back, strengthen the boundary before we lose it altogether, and get rid of all these foreigners! And we can. Because, Keri, I know what your father did to make the mist fail!”

  Keri stared at Cort, caught by his tone: he seemed both grimly satisfied and furious. I know what your father did. That should be good, shouldn’t it? That would solve everything quickly and easily, and never mind about whether Osman the Younger might be using a little bit of blood magic. She said hopefully, “You think we can get the mist back? And get rid of all those foreigners, and hide Nimmira properly again? That is what you mean?”