by Helen Lowe
The shrines of Serru were isolated, often no more than a cairn at a lonely crossroads, or a small, lime-washed chapel tended by a lay priest from the nearest farm or village. Occasionally, Malian would be pointed to a temple more like those found in Emer and the River, with a community serving the god, but the priests were still drawn from the surrounding countryside. Two of these communities, she found, were sworn to serve the god in silence, which rather ruled out, she thought dryly, the possibility of listening in on their conversations.
“And not one sign of the Lost yet,” she said to Nhenir, “although we must be very close to the border country now.”
Summer began its turn toward autumn, and now they passed harvesters in the small fields. Malian still sweated through the dusty days, but the nights held a hint of coolness, and the strange constellations rose higher as she rode even further south. The villages grew smaller again—more like those in Normarch, she thought: a straggle of cottages around a larger farmstead, or a knight’s hold comprising a single stone tower. The shrines, too, grew sparse, and Crossgate directed her on to Hurdle, which in its turn sent her further east to Lowcliff.
She rode into Butterworth as the poplar leaves became gold tinted. The village had an alehouse as well as a forge, with a crumbling stone tower on the edge of the nearby chestnut woods. “Although only owls live there now,” the girl who was sweeping the alehouse step told Malian, before bringing her a tankard of cool brown beer and filling the trough beside the step with water for the cob. “Shrines of Serru, is it?” She shooed away the hens that had come pecking around the door. “There’s none here, nor as far as Thorpe, from what I hear.” She gazed beyond the dusty yard and the hens to the nearby chestnut woods. “You could try the Ara-fyr, although—” She crinkled up her eyes, her tone growing apologetic, as if she feared disappointing her visitor. “They may not have shrines to Serru or even Imul. They’re uncanny strange in their ways.”
Malian took a long draught of the beer. “Worshippers of the . . . third?” she asked, letting herself sound surprised and a little nervous at the same time. She did not speak Kan’s name, knowing that country folk on the River feared that it brought ill luck, the very act of naming drawing the dark god’s attention.
The girl made a warding sign anyway. “Never say it!” she exclaimed, the words half a gasp, then twisted a finger in the strand of pale golden hair that had fallen free of her kerchief. “I don’t know. The Ara-fyr keep to themselves, but Baz at the forge says . . .” She raised her shoulders high, then let them fall again. “I think they worship other gods.”
A new voice spoke. “Mainly, Baz at the forge says that you talk too much, Jan Butterworth!”
The girl jumped, flushing crimson as a man limped around the corner of a lean-to shed. Despite his muscular build, he looked as though he had been badly injured once, and Malian could see the lines in his face left by old pain. His short bronze hair was dark with sweat; the eyes that regarded her were a vivid gray-hazel, but right now their expression was wary.
Malian eyed the smith’s hammer in his right hand. “I meant no offense,” she said, with the uneasiness a scribe might well display. “I’m on pilgrimage to shrines of Serru.”
“I told him there’s none in these parts,” Jan put in quickly.
“That’s not all I heard you saying,” the smith said. His vivid, wary gaze never left Malian, although he still spoke to the girl. “What questions did he ask you?”
She shook her head. “None. Just about the nearest shrine.”
“Well, then.” The smith addressed Malian directly this time. “Like Jan said, there’s no shrines in these parts. Thorpe’s the road you want—or Stoneford, although you’ll find it a ride.” He remained there, watching as she set the tankard down and remounted without a word. She bowed to Jan from the saddle—a scribe’s awkward bob—before turning away.
Ara-fyr: Malian said the name silently as the cob clopped out of the village, following the Thorpe marker. The Ara-fyr, who must not be talked about and who worshipped strange gods. At last, she thought, as Butterworth disappeared behind a curve in the road.
She made camp that evening in a spinney with a clear view of the road, lighting no fire and setting trip wires for unwelcome visitors. Her seeker’s sense could detect no enemies, but if Jan of Butterworth’s Ara-fyr were the Lost, then she could not rule out the possibility of pursuers being shielded. Malian thought she might find sleep difficult, but instead dropped quickly into a dream of the solitary tower on the edge of the Butterworth woods. The wind, full of secrets, rattled through the nearby trees.
The next morning she rose before the sun and by the time the dawn chorus faded was already well into the wood. She let the horse pick its way along narrow deer tracks, her seeker’s awareness fanning outward for any sign at all, physical or psychic, of the girl Jan’s Ara-fyr. The Band’s wards against scrying would offer some shielding, but without Kalan or Jehane Mor’s level of protection there was no question: if the Ara-fyr were the Lost, they would know she was here.
As I want them to, Malian thought, stopping to eat a scant midday meal of stale bread and cheese among the roots of a forest giant. Her muscles ached, and she felt tired and keyed up at the same time. When she opened her awareness to the song of Haarth, she found the same quiet melody that prevailed throughout Aralorn, shot through with the chatter of birds, the shy movement of woodland animals, and the ceaseless rustle of leaves. If there was anything alien in the composition, it was very well concealed.
By the time evening fell she had reached the forest edge again and was gazing down on Butterworth with its solitary donjon. A few lights winked from the village, and she could sense the presence of people there—but nothing at all from the tower. The forest shadow lay black and impenetrable across the open ground, and every time her mind touched the donjon’s periphery her awareness would slip away from it again. She narrowed her eyes, recalling what Kalan had told her about shielding and anomalies in the natural pattern, five years before.
Anomalies, she repeated to herself: an absence, rather than any more obvious sign—and turned her horse’s head toward the tower.
Eastward, the fading moon was a chill paring of its former self, and a ground mist was rising across the fields as Malian circled the donjon. The entrance lay on the side farthest from the village, a crumbling arch with no door to bridge its span. She ground-tied her horse some distance away before approaching to within a few paces of the opening—and waited, patient as earth and stone, while both the mist and the paring of moon rose higher. An owl hooted softly from the nearby woods.
“I need to talk with you,” Malian said, pitching her voice just loud enough to penetrate the darkness beyond the arch. “Is that so impossible?” She waited again, but nothing stirred and the silence wrapped around the tower remained as impervious and resolute as anything Nhenir could manage. Stubborn, she thought. Then again, she could be persistent—and had other resources at her command. Turning back to the cob, she removed Nhenir from the saddle, her breath catching as the phoenix wings gleamed silver and pearl, stripped of all illusion. “You think they’re here as well.”
Nhenir did not answer; it did not have to. Malian put the helm on her head and strode back to the tower, lowering the visor that had been crafted to resemble the dawn eyes of Terennin, the farseeing god. Seen through its medium, the donjon that rose before her was no longer crumbling, but sheer and smooth. A solid wooden door filled the entry arch, and robed and hooded figures crowded the tower height, many with owls perched on their shoulders. Three more hooded figures waited before the door, their faces concealed in shadow. Malian stopped at the same distance that she had before. “Was the walling out really necessary?” she asked, speaking in Derai. “What harm can it do, to hear me out?”
“We know who you are and what you want.” The central figure of the three replied using the same language, his voice harsh. “Do you think you are the only one with prescience here? We foresaw your coming—but want no part of
you, or your call to return to the Wall.”
“A Derai who practices the arts of Ka.” The second speaker used the Aralorn version of Kan’s name, her voice sharp with contempt.
“Yet,” the third speaker said, his tone more thoughtful, “her aura is also that of Haarth. Intriguing.”
“I have walked the path of earth and moon,” Malian replied, “and become part of this world as you have done, binding yourselves to this border country. But I am still Derai—and so are you.”
“We do not deny it,” the first speaker said coldly. “We know who we are, and what—the Ara-fyr, those who keep the hearthfires of Aralorn burning in this empty country, and hold the bloodlust of Jhaine and its queens at bay.”
“Aralorn,” the second speaker added, “has both offered sanctuary and given us purpose and a place of honor, as opposed to being immured and reviled on the Wall.”
Malian waited, counting the voices of the night insects in hedgerow and field. “ ‘If Night falls, all fall,’ ” she quoted at last. “I, too, bear the old powers and am as much one of the reviled as any of you. But if the Derai and the Wall fall, the whole of Haarth will fall with it, including Aralorn.”
“Perhaps the Derai should have thought about the Fall of Night before they swore their Blood Oath.” The harsh voice dripped bitterness. “And who are you, when all’s said and done, to demand such a sacrifice of us?”
He meant the question rhetorically, Malian knew, a challenge to the Derai hierarchy of Blood—but she would answer what was asked. She held up her arm, touching the fire of her mind to Yorindesarinen’s armring. “I am Malian,” she said clearly, “the Heir of the House of Night. I bear Yorindesarinen’s armring and wear her helm, Nhenir, which is the first of the hero’s lost arms to be found again. I have spoken with the hero herself, beyond the Gate of Dreams. The Swarm is rising, as I’m sure you know: duty and honor call all Derai to the Wall.”
The woman laughed, but the sound was edged. “Duty and honor,” she mocked. “We broke with Derai notions of that when we left the Wall—as did you, Heir of Night.”
Malian bowed her head. Nhenir could be light as air, but she felt the helm’s full weight as she raised her eyes to their shadowed hoods again. “I have also given my word to one who is now dead that I will do all that I can to save Haarth. But I cannot do it alone.”
The Lost were silent, although she could feel their eyes fixed on her from within the concealing hoods. One of the owls cried, mournful, from the tower height.
“Ay,” the first speaker said at last. “You need us: that is what this is all about. You will spend our lives and blood to honor your vow and defend a Wall that we disown.”
The woman spoke again. “You may have the helm, but where are the sword and shield? Without all three of Yorindesarinen’s arms, you are defeated before you begin.”
“And we are just priest-kind,” the third speaker added, although he sounded regretful. “Born to power, yes, but few of us have even a fraction of your strength. We have learned to achieve greater potency by working together. But for you to return to the Wall and deal as an equal with the Alliance, let alone hope to defeat the Swarm—Heir of Night, you do not need us. You need a House at your back.”
“The whole of Night,” the second speaker observed dryly. “And you will never have that while your father lives.”
“So why should we sacrifice ourselves in vain?” the first concluded.
Is this what Yorindesarinen faced, Malian thought, when seeking allies to defeat the Chaos Worm? She studied the tower with its hooded figures, massed against her as surely as if they still held their shield in place, and wondered why she had ever thought they might consider, let alone answer, her call to sacrifice and duty. Just because a vow had seen made to Yorindesarinen as she lay dying—that her successor would not have to stand alone—did not mean that the Lost should sacrifice themselves to give it effect. Am I even right, she asked herself, to seek their aid?
Right or not, if she returned to the Wall with just Nhenir, there was every chance that she would be dooming both Kalan and herself—failing, Malian thought grimly, before I’ve even begun. Yet because of Kalan, she not only understood their reluctance, but empathized with it.
The silence stretched, filling the night while she tried to summon an argument that would bring them willingly to her cause. “Whether you and the rest of Haarth love or hate the Derai, this world will still fall with the Wall of Night.” She spoke quietly, the way she had seen Asantir do. “And from Grayharbor to these hills, whether traders or Guild, Patrol or Oakward, Haarth has helped save you. I have made a vow to one who has died—but you also owe a debt.”
“Which we repay here,” the first speaker replied, swift and hard. “A service you would have us abandon, just like that!” He snapped his fingers. On the tower, the owls all turned their heads to gaze at Malian with glowing eyes.
“After all,” the woman said in her edged voice. “Aralorn is not Derai business. What matter if its border lies open to the corrupt ambition of Jhaine’s hierarchy?”
If I had not walked the path of earth and moon, Malian reflected, that is exactly what I might have said: that greater issues are at stake. But without the Ara-fyr here, their power a counterweight to the priestess-queens, what is to stop conflagration breaking out, one more conflict in the Swarm’s harvest of war? “Except this time,” she said silently to Nhenir, “I will have sown it. And the enemy I will set loose on these sleepy villages is the conjoined serpent of Jhaine, with its hunger for blood sacrifice.”
The helm’s pause was ambivalent. “Your choice,” it replied at last. “Because you could compel them. Even working together, which is their strength, they will be no match for you and the armring. And me.”
True, Malian thought. She also knew that she would not do it, because of the questions Yorindesarinen had put to her at Midsummer. “That is not,” she said, tasting the bitterness of defeat, “the kind of leadership the Derai needs.” Something, she realized, understanding at last, that my father has known for a long time.
She had been standing silent, but the Ara-fyr were still watching: waiting for her next move. And fearing it, too; Malian could sense that now. Perhaps they had foreseen her compelling them—but were nonetheless determined to resist. She lowered her left arm and let the fire in the armring die, then raised Nhenir’s visor. The Ara-fyr remained visible to her; they must have let their illusion wall go. “I will not compel anyone to serve me,” she said tiredly. “And faith must be kept, even if it is a new one. Otherwise the Wall will fall as surely as if we abandoned the bastion keeps.”
The Lost were quiet within their hoods. The owls shifted, restless on the shoulders that bore them, until the third speaker cleared his throat. “I believe you are right, Heir of Night. And we are not truly Derai anymore.” Malian heard both loss and acceptance in his voice. “We have not been for many years. What we have left of the old sense of duty and honor now binds us to our service as Ara-fyr.”
One by one the hooded figures withdrew into darkness, leaving her to the night and her defeat. Except that when she returned to the cob, she realized that she was still not alone. The smith, Baz, was standing beside the tower, his expression impossible to read beneath its shadow. Malian did not speak, and neither did he until she picked up the cob’s reins and began leading it toward the village.
“There’s an old woodcutter’s cottage a mile or so down the Stoneford road,” he said, “if you need somewhere to sleep the night.”
Unutterably weary now, Malian simply nodded. The smith made a small gesture that she could not read, perhaps because he checked it so swiftly. He cleared his throat, much as the last Ara-fyr speaker had done. “I’m sorry,” he said.
So am I, she thought, but just nodded again. What, after all, was there to say?
“Thank you,” he said, exactly as if he had heard her silent question. And pressed his raised hands together and bowed, in the salute those in the southernmost realms
used to honor a queen.
Chapter 54
Serru’s Shrine
Malian’s dreams later that night were shot through with visions of stone cairns and corvids’ wings shrouding a lonely tower, while hoofbeats drummed steadily along a road she could not see. Kalan, she thought, rousing briefly, riding to meet the doom that she had made for him—or perhaps it had been the heralds on the road that first took them north.
When she slept again, her dream showed her the interior of the Keep of Winds for the first time since she had ridden through Rowan Birchmoon’s door into winter, five years before. She saw her father sitting by a cold hearth, his shoulders slumped as though the armor he wore had grown too heavy. A grown-up Teron stood by the door, his face set like stone; his eyes, fixed on the Earl of Night, were full of pain. Malian’s vision shifted and she saw Haimyr, his golden head bent over his harp while his hands drew a delicate wordless melody from the strings.
Blackness pressed in, blinding her, and the delicate melody became a woman wailing for the dead, her voice so full of sorrow and despair that Malian thought her own heart might break. The lament slowed into a formal dirge for a warrior slain, and a dark, wild, powerful voice wove through the woman’s song until the dream echoed with their shared grief—and desire for revenge.
In the morning the weather had turned bleak, the wind sharp beneath gray skies. Malian turned north into it, her mood mournful as the day. Physically and mentally, she felt exhausted, her failure to persuade the Lost a vast weight on her spirit.
Baz had been right when he said that Stoneford was a long ride. By the time she reached the shrine in the early evening, untended amidst a grove of gnarled olives, pain was drilling into her temples and it was all she could do to slide out of the saddle. The wind’s bluster had increased and a spattering of rain fell as she stepped onto the wide covered porch. The acrid scent of earth, touched by the rain’s damp, rolled off the dry ground. Malian stopped, her hand on the latch and her forehead resting against the rough oak planks of the door.