The Eye of Night

by Pauline J. Alama

  “He will not buy peace with your life,” I said grimly.

  “That is certain,” she said. “Be warned: if strange signs attend my death, the danger will be greater for you and Trenara. Jereth, my friend, you should never have come. I gave you the Eye of Night for a reason. Take it, and finish my quest while you still can. You have been a great friend to me, better than you'll ever know, and I will treasure this farewell in my heart, but—”

  “I'm not saying farewell,” I said. “I will either get you out of here or die with you, making all the Trouble for Var that the gods or the powers of earth or the unquiet dead will put in my hands. Whatever it takes, I will do. You're not shackled, thank the gods for small mercies. Now if only I can find a weakness in this cell—” I walked to one of the barred windows, above Hwyn's reach but not mine, and would have pushed against the bars had I not seen the feet of a guard march past.

  “What will you do? Break it down with your head?” she said. “Even if you could, what then? There are guards all around the stronghold. No, Jereth. You would accomplish nothing but to lose the Eye of Night and your own life—and I will never consent to that. Besides,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, “someone has to save Trenara. If Var finds out she's simple—”

  “Has it occurred to you that Trenara may be protecting herself in the best way possible?” I retorted. “Has it occurred to you that for her, to be charming and demure may be a better defense than sword and shield? Has the thought ever crossed your mind that you may be the one who most needs rescuing, because only you refuse to protect yourself?”

  “Why do you always think you can protect me?”

  “What do you expect me to do? Leave you here to die?” I raged.

  Hwyn was implacable. “There is no other way. You have done enough to prove your friendship to me, and it will ease my parting to know that you did not forget me. But there is no hope for me now. Go, and the gods go with you.”

  “No,” I said. “We are not so powerless, not now. I have the Eye of Night: what can withstand it? We saw with our own eyes how it shook down Kelgarran Hall.”

  “And we saw what it does to those who wield it for their own purposes. No, Jereth. The Eye of Night is not ours to command.”

  “Then why not see whether it has any commands for us?” I said. “Touch the stone, and see where it leads you.”

  “I did,” Hwyn said. “It brought me here. Maybe this was meant to be. Maybe, like the ghosts at Kelgarran Hall, I'll be more powerful dead than alive.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Jereth, think: how else could it end? I knew long ago that this was a journey to death. You read the prophecy yourself.”

  “I did, and I told you it had two meanings,” I said. “Besides, you admitted yourself that you were never meant to see that prophecy. Maybe this is the reason: so you would not give up the struggle too soon.”

  “I never expected to survive this quest,” she said. “Don't mistake me: I'm grateful for your care for me. I know your noble nature makes it hard for you to leave me this way. But I chose my quest and all its dangers. Leave me with what I have chosen. The only things you can do for me are to save the Eye of Night, Trenara, and yourself.”

  But I said flatly, “You can't make me leave you.”

  “Why won't you listen to reason?” she cried. “You told me once that you would be ashamed to turn me from my quest. It is your quest now: follow it, or all I have ventured my life for will be lost. Why can't you understand that? Why can't you do what I ask when the stakes are highest?”

  “Don't you know?” I said. “Haven't you guessed?”

  At her silence, I spoke more slowly, choosing my words carefully so she could not mistake my meaning, “Hwyn, is it possible you've traveled with me all these months without noticing that I'm far over my head in love with you?”

  She did not speak, and in the gloom of the dungeon I could not see her face. The silence struck me like the slap of a wave driving me under. Still, I had already broken open my heart and might as well pour out the rest. I went on: “I don't expect you to feel the same way about me. I can't ever be to you what you are to me: that flash of unearthly brightness across the dull prospect of a life without revelation, without purpose. You are my Firebird, to follow without reason, without reservation, for once I knew you, I could never be the same, never return to a safer life untouched by mystery without feeling an unbearable loss. I love you as you must love the Eye of Night, which called you out of your old way of life into a journey of peril and wonder, and for which you are content to die. I don't ask you to requite my love, and if it pains you to hear of it, I will be silent. I only beg you, don't ever ask me to leave you.”

  When the echoes of my voice died down, I could hear her sobbing.

  “Hwyn, forgive me,” I said. “I should not have burdened you with this confession. Let me be as I was before, your friend, your follower—even your servant—”

  “Hush, Jereth,” Hwyn said. “Don't you understand? Of course I love you, my true companion. What else could I do? But you—can you really— Oh, gods, Jereth, don't say such things out of pity!”

  I reached out blindly in the dark to touch her, then knelt to wrap my long arms around her and press her to my heart as I had yearned to do. I felt her respond with the same desperation I felt inside me, her face against my shoulder, her bone-hard fingers clutching me as if she would never let go. “Hwyn, my heart,” I said, “I have ached for this so long. I was never whole till now. Oh, gods, I can never let go of you.”

  “Why did you never tell me till now, when we have so little hope left?” she said.

  It is little hope now; it was no hope a little while ago, I noted to myself, my heart racing. “I thought you knew. I thought I had all but told you. In the mountains I was trying to tell you. Why didn't you give me any encouragement?”

  “What encouragement could I give to a love you never spoke of?” Hwyn said, clutching me tighter than ever. “How was I to know what you meant, till you told me? Of course, I knew you cared for me—you were always so kind—but I thought it was in a brotherly way. It is so long since I gave up hoping that love of this sort could ever be for me. Why didn't you tell me plainly?”

  “At first I thought you might be in love with Warfast,” I confessed.

  “Warfast!” she cried indignantly. “Jereth, I explained that already. It was the Eye of Night that wanted him.”

  “Then I thought, when you were Halred's acolyte, that you meant to be celibate. I knew she had no husband, and I noticed that though many men watched Day and Night, none seemed to court them.”

  “I never thought of celibacy as a choice,” Hwyn said. “My face has kept me celibate all my life. How should I dream you were trying to speak of love? You sent me away once, and once proposed to leave me!”

  “What do you mean? When?”

  “First when you were wounded, you sent me away. Then in Folcsted, you offered to go on without me.”

  “Hwyn, as the gods hear me, those were the hardest things I ever did. I sent you away when I thought I would die, and did not want you to risk your life guarding a doomed man in a barren land. And when I offered to take the Eye of Night alone and leave you in Folcsted, I was offering you my life, Hwyn: my whole chance of happiness in exchange for yours, to live maimed so you could be whole.”

  She gripped me tighter than ever and shook me a little. “Never do that again, do you hear? Never!”

  “No,” I said, “I was wrong. I see that neither of us can be whole without the other. Can you see now, Hwyn, what you do to me when you tell me to accept your death and leave you?”

  “I left you,” she whispered, “when you bade me in the name of my quest.”

  “You came back,” I reminded her. “You were scarcely gone when you came back with willow bark to ease my pain. And though I must leave soon, I will be back. Gods grant I can bring you some hope of freedom.”

  “What hope can there be for me now?”
>
  “Not much, maybe,” I said, “but maybe the gods have not abandoned us. I have the ghost of a plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “I can't speak of it now,” I said. “If it succeeds, I will tell you.”

  “No, Jereth,” she said maddeningly. “You must take away the Eye of Night, or far more than my life will be lost. Do not think you can save me; I have never expected to live long, not since I first got the wounds that mar my face. Don't risk your life guarding a doomed woman in a nest of enemies.”

  “Do not think you can spare my life by sending me away,” I told her. “If you die on the third morning, I will die with you. I will sooner give the Eye of Night to a beggar than leave without you. I'll come back screaming of Var's sister's bones and be hanged with you.”

  “Gods on the Wheel,” Hwyn said, “how you frighten me!”

  “As you frightened me,” I said. “Hwyn, don't you understand how I need you? If I had not met you, where would I be? I would have gone back to the monastery and realized that I had come full circle without hope of change. Then I might well have hanged myself on the nearest tree with the hempen belt of my cassock. I was dead when you found me. Did you not see that?”

  “No,” Hwyn said, “I was lost in my own needs. I saw that you were kind and brave and something beyond that: a seeker, one who is not content to see as others see. I knew you were sad, but in my selfishness I thought you could never be as terribly lonely as I was. I never thought you could need me as I needed you.”

  “Did you need me, then?” I asked.

  “Can you doubt it?” she replied. “Have you ever noticed how often people shrink from me, how they avoid touching even my hand? When we were in the rudderless boat, I began to cry, and you put a hand on my shoulder. It was like discovering food or water for the first time, something I had always been starving for and never known how to name. Do you remember how you woke to find me weeping, during the Feast of the Bright Goddess? It was because I was sure you would leave me once you came to your senses.”

  “And then you would not tell me why,” I said, “and I quarreled with you, because I thought you didn't trust me. What an oaf I was! How strange it seems now! But, my beloved, the gods have brought us together, and I will not despair. I will go now and try what I can to save you and Trenara without losing the Eye of Night. Trust me.”

  She turned her face toward mine as though to answer, but before she could speak, my lips found hers and all words were lost. I left shaken, knowing I had more to lose than I had ever had in my life, and only a desperate gamble of a plan to preserve it all from destruction.

  When I left the gloom of the dungeon, the low red light of sunset almost blinded me. It was the autumn of the day, and thus the hour to gather at the temple in honor of the Turning God. The more pious festival-goers were leaving the market, and I followed them to the northern rim of the town where the temple lay. Most of the people still hung back in the marketplace, more for the chance of squeezing one last bargain out of the day than for any festivity. All in all, I thought, this festival was little distinguishable from a successful market-day. There were, as Alcorel had told us, few players to stoke the feeble flame of merriment. Small wonder, if Var had been killing lunatics for years. In the shadow of coming winter, who's to lead the dance but madfolk? Who sings in hard times but a fool?

  At least in the temple court, some semblance of holiday reigned. Four priestesses sang and beat drums while acrobats performed the traditional Turning Dance in front of the temple. But one of the priestesses kept falling behind the beat as though her mind were occupied elsewhere, and the acrobats looked more tired than they should. It was only the second day of the festival, but already its spirit seemed half extinguished.

  After the evening prayers, I walked away from the temple lost in thought. Once I imagined I saw Hwyn among the crowd in the temple court, and I half laughed, half grieved to see how hope could trick my senses. I prayed I was not similarly deluded in my half-conceived plan. In the meantime, I scrounged a pauper's meal of fruits and sweets fallen from the carts of vendors, and drifted toward the fields that encircled the town, now gleaned of their crops and deserted for the winter. The sky darkened from deep blue to black. Under the cover of darkness I picked a place in the far fields, barely within the walls of Berall, for the task I had in mind.

  What little I'd read about necromancy during my studies at the monastery was a warning against its use, not a handbook of the methods; but like any scholar, I'd heard the usual rumors of its practice. Perhaps the rumors would prove wrong, and nothing would happen. But I had to try.

  In the dust I traced a figure like a wheel with twelve spokes, then marked the end of each spoke with a small stone I had gathered at the roadside. In the center I placed the Eye of Night. The autumn wind nearly took my words away from me, or perhaps it was fear that made my tongue falter as I spoke words of binding, dangerous words: “By the power of the World-Wheel, by the Eye of Night, by my name, Jereth son of Garmund, and by yours, Lord Conor Kelgarran, I call you to this place.”

  There was a storm within the circle as the ghost of Lord Conor Kelgarran appeared glowering over me, his chest drenched with the blood of his death wound. “What fool dares meddle with powers beyond his strength?” As he looked closer, his expression turned to amazement. “You! Tarvon priest, I thought better of you. If the torment of my soul does not move you, could you not at least be warned by the downfall of Dannoth? Do you expect to escape his fate?”

  I replied, “In a moment I will break the circle and set you free. I have no wish to keep you bound. But the one who freed you from long bondage is in prison now awaiting the gallows. If this news does not move you, then do what you like with me. My name is Jereth son of Garmund: use it to bind me or kill me for all I care.” With that I swept a hand over my crude magic circle, erasing part of it and breaking the bond that held Conor. “Conor of Kelgarran, I release you!”

  The specter vanished and I thought for a time that I had simply lost him. But then I was aware of a presence, and when I turned, there he was beside me, sitting on the ground like an ordinary field hand tired out with swinging the scythe. His death wound was no longer visible; I began to wonder whether he controlled its appearance and used it for dramatic effect.

  “Jereth son of Garmund, you're a fool,” he said, a hint of a smile playing at the edge of his mouth. “Now tell me the troubles.”

  So I told him as much as I could explain of Hwyn's quest, of our travels since leaving ruined Kelgarran, of her untimely burst of prophecy in Berall Hall, of Var's dreadful edict and Hwyn's imprisonment. “She is doomed to hang as soon as the festival ends, three mornings hence. And she seems resigned to it. I almost feel she's trying to make a sacrifice of herself, crying prophecies to enrage a powerful lord and lose her life. She says the Eye of Night brought her into prison, and it may be where she's meant to be.”

  “What can I say against it? She may be right,” Lord Conor said. “She may be some sort of mage, and they can be more powerful dead than alive. I have seen such things happen. She may be completing this task of hers in the best way she knows, and you, trying to save her, may be hindering her.” I recoiled, but he only shrugged and spoke again. “But all the same, you love her, don't you, and nothing much matters beside that, does it?”

  “Has everyone seen through me except Hwyn?” I said. “And yes, I love her, and no, nothing else much matters, and I'd be likely to throw away the whole quest for half a hope of saving her, if it weren't that she'd never forgive me.”

  “Well, I like you the better for it. Someone should love her. Still, I must say you've become everything the good people of Berall fear most: not only do you carry the Sky-Raven's Egg, packed full of Troubles, but you've used it to summon a ghost to this peaceful town. You've gambled high for this parley. What is it you hope I can do?”

  “Give Var the fury you held back from Dannoth,” I said. “I've seen your power.”

  “It's waned since
spring,” the ghost said. “I am less a part of this world than I was when you met me, more ready for whatever lies beyond. My brothers have reconciled themselves and left this earth; only I remain, and not for long, I think.”

  “Why are you the last?”

  “More sins to atone,” the ghost said dryly. “But even I will soon be done. My power to affect this world is fading. Much of it was spent in your escape from Kelgarran Hall. If you were hoping I could shake Var's fortress to the ground, you'll be disappointed.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but perhaps you could shake his mind. Suppose you appear before him and convince him he is mad. Then he will no longer dare hang strangers for madness.”

  “That may not necessarily follow,” Conor said. “But I will do all I can. She may be right to accept her doom, and you wrong to prevent her, but I have always preferred to be gallantly wrong. I will appear to Lord Var as appallingly as I can, and then I will slip through the house in secret and see what I can learn that may help you.”

  “Could you seek out the Lady Trenara and ask her to meet me by the scullery door tomorrow evening? She may be in danger there.”

  “I'll look for her.”

  “What shall I offer in return for all your aid?”

  “Invite me to your wedding.” Lord Conor grinned. “And next time you need me, leave the Eye out of it: call, and I'll answer.” With that, he was gone. I pocketed the Eye of Night, carefully brushed away all traces of the Circle of Power, then found myself a meager shelter from the wind in some hedges. The weather had turned colder, a foretaste of winter. Wrapped as tightly as possible in my long cloak, cursing the loss of my provisions in Berall Hall, I wondered if it were possible to sleep in such cold and wind and still wake in the morning—yet I did both.

  When I visited Hwyn again the next day, I told her I'd asked a friend to exert some influence on her behalf.

  “What friend do you have in this town?” Hwyn demanded. “The apple grower? I wouldn't expect him to have much influence on Var.”