The Darkling Hills

by Lori Martin

  He knew her voice, and froze.

  She came down to the bottom stair, still behind him. “There’s no one here,” she informed the back of his head. “If anyone were to ask you tomorrow, you’d have to say you didn’t see a soul all night.”

  The guard opened his jaw. She added, “And you didn’t speak to anyone.”

  He closed it. His back stiffened again to attention, exactly as he had been before. Dalleena was satisfied. He was a good man, always had been.

  She slipped behind him and went along the passageway and down another side staircase. The door at the bottom on the left creaked a little. Knowing the room so well helped, as she was able to slide in without bumping the furniture. It was almost pitch-dark inside. She maneuvered past the sleeping couch that she knew to be somewhere on the left. The soft breathing of the servant came to her ears. Her hand hit the wall sooner than she expected, and she found the door and went in.

  “Lilli? Lilli, are you awake?” Dalleena’s whisper drifted down through the mist of Lilli’s dreams. Her mouth opened of its own accord and said, “Yes,” before her mind had had time to process the question. She blinked and sat up in bed.

  “I shouldn’t disturb you like this, but I felt that I had to speak to you right now. You have to do something for me.”

  “Sit,” Lilli invited, and Dalleena sat down cross-legged at the foot of the bed. “Didn’t any of your nurses give you the right training? Royal heirs do not pad around the palace in the middle of the night. If you wanted me you should have sent for me.” Lilli yawned.

  “That would have meant waking up Adrell and Phenna, and then they would have awakened that poor girl out there. It would have been too many people, and these girls always know too much as it is. I don’t want anyone to find out about this.”

  “What is it?”

  Dalleena shifted and pulled her feet up under her gown for warmth. It was too dark to see her face, but the moonlight fell across her lap, like a penitent pleading for forgiveness. “Do you know the Armasii by sight?”

  “What do you mean, which Arm – wait, the one at the festival?”

  “Yes. His name is Rendell. He lives on the Third. Boessus’s son.”

  “What about him?”

  “I want you to go to him,” Dalleena said. “Go to him and tell him I want to speak with him. I can’t send for him directly.”

  Lilli received the instruction in silence. It made no sense to her. She heard again Dalleena’s voice on the day of the festival, saying that something was going to happen.

  “Lilli?”

  “Get under the covers – you must be freezing.” She moved over in the large bed. “I don’t understand. Why do you want to talk to an Armasii again? The talk’s just dying down –”

  “It’s important. This isn’t my idea, Lilli. This comes from the goddess.”

  “From the goddess? But you’d be breaking Nialia’s own law.”

  “I had two seeings,” Dalleena said. “One just before the change in Holds – the night I was late and felt sick, remember? And the other at the festival. Both times I was with Rendell. There’s been nothing since.”

  “Both times?”

  “That’s when I met him. He found me in a faint outside the temple. He was there because Nialia led him there. I’m sure of it.”

  Speaking quickly, she poured explanations onto Lilli’s head. A great change was coming – remember the warning signs? And now everything waited. Somehow she would be the instrument of it –”Even Inama has seen me” – and so, she was positive, would be Rendell. Some task that needed the gifts of a Nialia and an Armasii, and they had been chosen. Only she had not been told what it was. If she saw Rendell, if she spoke to him ... perhaps he had been given a sign. Of course it was frightening. The fear had closed her prayers in her heart; she couldn’t even go into the temple. Maybe Nialia was testing her, waiting to see if she was strong enough. And Rendell – Rendell was a follower of the god of Strength –

  “But you can’t,” Lilli burst out. “You can’t break Nialia’s law!”

  “But I’m not! It’s a custom to keep the Nialians and Armasii apart. The law is against them having children together. Don’t you see? I only want to talk to him. I’m not inviting him into my bed.”

  “A nice legal quibble. Who taught it to you, the Armasii?”

  “Lilli,” she said in warning. Lilli heard the royal tone and was silenced. She wrapped her arms about her knees.

  “Will you do it?”

  “Of course, relas,” she answered. Dalleena repented immediately. She put a hand on her friend’s arm, trying to see the shine of her eyes in the darkness.

  “I’m not ordering you. I couldn’t. You might get in trouble yourself. But I’m asking you, please. Please do this for me.”

  Lilli surrendered. “I will,” she whispered.

  Dalleena sighed and stretched out on her side of the bed. “We’ll have to figure out where and when. You know, Lilli, he seems to understand me somehow.”

  On the brink of tears, Lilli started to laugh instead. “ ‘Proseras bless him then, he’s wiser than I,’ ” she said, quoting an old saying.

  “Oh hush.”

  Eventually, as the shaft of moonlight moved across the floor with the hours, Dalleena fell into a deep but troubled sleep, tossing and moaning. Lilli remained upright, breathing softly and staring into the night.

  Rendell came down the sidetrack of the road, his horse tied up behind him. Dalleena was waiting at the end of a farmer’s property, wrapped in a teal-and-white cloak borrowed from Lilli. She nodded at him, easy and confident, but Rendell said warily, “You wanted to speak with me, relas?”

  His tone brought a pucker to her brow. She gazed at him for a moment. In a court voice she said, “I was under the impression, Armasii, that you wished an audience with me.” In the farmer’s lane the idea sounded a little absurd, but she kept her eyes steady.

  Rendell tried a look of bland surprise. “I, relas?”

  “Well, after all, you have been following me everywhere.” Her mouth twitched. She could no longer hold back the smile. “Haven’t you?”

  His shoulders slumped and he sat down abruptly on the ground, his cloak bunching up in the dirt. His hood fell to his neck. “I’m sorry.”

  It had a sound of defeat. Dalleena knelt down beside him, wanting to understand. She had thought it would be easier than this, that somehow they would be ready friends, but he was too afraid of her. “Rendell, why have you been following me?”

  “I don’t know.” His eyes stared out over the winter fields. “I don’t seem to have control of my own actions or the strength to stop myself.” He paused. “But that’s our worship, that’s what I follow. The power over oneself, the strength to do what should be done – and the strength to stop, when it is time to stop. When I was young, Armas called me to his service. And now I’m betraying it.”

  Dalleena hesitated. She did not know how to lead him to it. “Rendell, do you remember when you were called? Do you really remember the way it felt?”

  She saw his thoughts go back, deep into himself. For a time they were silent. Finally he said, “It was a push. A push from outside, working inward. A voice saying, ‘Come. Do this for me.’ ”

  “All right. Think now and tell me with all truth, did you have that same feeling of being pushed whenever you were following me?”

  For the first time he really looked at her. “Yes. Yes, I did. But the voice wasn’t the same – it couldn’t be –”

  “No, it wouldn’t be the same, not for you.” Her fingers closed on his arm. “It’s Nialia calling you this time. No, no – believe me – do you think I don’t know what I’m saying?”

  “I’m hiding behind trees,” he burst out. “I’m dodging the guards, sneaking behind you, for no reason that I can understand myself or ever explain. It’s not right or truthful; it can’t be divine.”

  Again, as she had with Lilli, she tried to explain. From her seeings she knew only that the
re “would be a hard task” and that it required the two of them together. There would be great difficulties, anyone could see that, but it was the Mother’s command. No, she didn’t know what it would be, not yet. “She will make it clear when she wishes,” Dalleena finished. “This is her way. I know how strange it seems, but we’ve both heard her. Remember what you said. You have to answer an immortal.”

  He nodded, but his look was still troubled.

  “Rendell, do you believe me?”

  “You are true-chosen,” he said softly, and then repeated it. “You are true-chosen.” She had given him a reason and a way to see himself, and he did believe it. But the longer he gazed at her the harder it became for him; whatever feelings these were in his heart, they could not be part of the goddess.

  Her eyes were shining and her lips were parted in a wide smile. “In the meantime, while we wait for knowledge, let’s at least get to know each other better. Come and walk with me.”

  Rendell nodded again, smiling back, but some part of him saw the flush in her face and heard the catch for breath in her speech. She rose from her crouch and put out her hand as an invitation. When he stood beside her their hands intertwined for a moment. Then they began to walk, with their hands in the folds of their cloaks.

  Temhas had come to dinner looking carefully unkempt. Sillus was amused at the precision of the dishevelment, but recognized the message. Rendell’s younger brother might seem insignificant, but there was more beneath the surface.

  “More wine, Temhas?”

  “Thank you, I will.” Sillus nodded to the wine steward, who poured another round for the three at the long table. Sillus waited while Carden gulped down a long draft and refilled, then dismissed the servants.

  “Well, Temhas,” he said as the doors to the dining hall closed, “it was good of you to come and keep us company while my wife is away. She has gone with the queen, as you may know, on her visit to the Second Hill.”

  “It was kind of you to ask me.” Temhas was wary. He was still uncertain as to why Sillus was so accommodating to his son’s friend, more accommodating, in fact, than he was to his son.

  “The queen took a very small entourage,” Sillus continued. “But my wife is always an indispensable member of her company.”

  Temhas smiled. Sillus’s demands on the royals in the name of family and obligation were known even to him. “Such a noble woman could hardly be otherwise,” he said.

  “Oh, come along, Temhas,” Carden blurted. “You’ve hardly spoken to her.”

  “Her fame goes before her,” Temhas said sweetly.

  “But really –”

  “May I help you to more of the roast?” Sillus interposed.

  “Thank you, it’s excellent.”

  “I understand your father has also been honored by royal attention,” the older man said. “I trust his health will be able to stand the trip to Mendale. He will be an excellent ambassador. The king chose well.”

  Carden opened his mouth to protest that Sillus had had a hand himself in the decision, but was frozen by a look of ice from his father. He was silent.

  “He’ll stand it,” Temhas said. “He’s tougher than he looks.”

  “Your brother now, I believe he’s an Armasii?”

  “Yes.”

  “And older than you.”

  Temhas nodded, still wary.

  “I saw him at the festival. He escorted my niece, when she left.” Carden avoided another accusing glare. “He’s quite a man, it seems.”

  His guest made no reply, but continued eating.

  “The two of you are alone in the house?”

  “Except for the servants, during the day. Most of them live farther down the Hill and go home at night. The ones that normally live with us have gone with my father.”

  “I imagine you must be very close to your brother, especially now, when you are more dependent on each other,” said Sillus.

  Temhas inhaled angrily. He had already given the man more information than he had intended. “Hardly,” he snapped.

  “But you are together a great deal? Keep track of one another, in fact?” Sillus persisted.

  “No.”

  The older man pulled at his beard, registering surprise. “I should have thought that being alone together in the house, you would have drawn closer, always knowing where the other one was.”

  Temhas kicked Carden under the table. Sillus’s son said hastily, “It’s a big house, Father. I expect they hardly see each other.”

  “A pity,” Sillus drank from his wine goblet. “I really am very interested in your brother, Temhas.”

  “Yes, that’s becoming clear.”

  “Perhaps what is most interesting to me is my niece’s interest in him. She is, after all, forbidden to socialize with an Armasii, and it is not like her to break such a law.”

  “She’s so damn self-righteous,” Carden muttered.

  “Yet my sources tell me she sometimes turns up in odd places lately. It may have nothing to do with what happened at the festival, of course, but they didn’t seem to be strangers to each other, did they? And if her activities now do have something to do with that, then I’d like to know about it. So you see why I am questioning you as to your brother’s comings and goings.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Oh, I think you do, Temhas.” He beamed encouragingly. “You want to protect your family from scandal, don’t you? And I am very concerned for Dalleena. Her parents are rather indulgent, and I doubt if they see the danger. I feel obligated as her uncle to watch over her. Between the two of us, I am certain something can be worked out.”

  Temhas put down his fork, and pushed away his plate. He leaned over the table, putting his face close to Sillus’s own.

  “See here, Councilor. I don’t like my brother very much, and I hate my father, but if you think I’m going to let a member of my family, or myself, become a tool of yours for your own personal gain, you had better think again. What is it you’re after, and what’s in it for me? And please don’t use this honey diplomacy. Save it for the palace.”

  Carden gasped. He was horrified and delighted to hear someone speak to his father in such a way, and he shivered, expecting a storm to break.

  Instead, Sillus burst into laughter. “I knew you were a man to be reckoned with!”

  Temhas leaned back in his chair and waited.

  “Forgive me. You must understand few people at the palace or in council talk like that, particularly to me.” Sillus was now in complete good humor. “Well then, let’s get to it. You asked what I’m after. It’s simple enough. I want someone reliable to watch Dalleena and this brother of yours, and find out if they spend any time together, and what they’re doing.”

  “Why? Are you looking for evidence that will disgrace the relas? I can’t see how that will help you. Short of committing murder in cold blood, there’s not much she could do that would actually stop her from inheriting the Chair. You’ll never be king, Councilor.”

  “I think the information might be useful.”

  “Could we blackmail her?”

  “Don’t be so crude, Carden,” Sillus said with weariness. “I don’t want her jewelry. But I would like a hold over her of some kind.”

  “I see.” Temhas was thoughtful. “And Rendell?”

  “He matters little to me, just in himself.” Sillus twirled his glass in his hand. “There’s one more thing. As I said, it’s not like Dalleena to act this way. She must have a very compelling reason. I want to know what it is.”

  “So you simply want me to watch them, and then report to you?”

  “No, to Carden. It would look better.”

  “Why should I?” he demanded.

  Sillus looked at him. “Carden tells me your father refused to let you go to the festival, although you were certainly entitled.” Carden winced again and moved his chair back, out of range of Temhas’s foot. “It doesn’t seem likely that he will help you advance, does it?”

  “
He’s ignored me for eighteen years. I doubt if he’ll change now.”

  “Exactly. And your brother is an Armasii. It’s an excellent position, but it has few court connections. If you wish to advance at court, I can help you.”

  Temhas swallowed and stared down at the table. His hands clenched. Sillus was a powerful man, offering him a chance he had never had before. It was as if after years of longing outside on the threshold, the door had suddenly swung open.

  He struggled with himself. “I don’t like the idea of being a spy.”

  “It won’t hurt anything,” Sillus said mildly.

  “Are you certain of that? You won’t harm Rendell in any way?”

  “I thought you didn’t like him.”

  “I don’t. But he’s my brother. Anything that disgraces him will disgrace me, and Pil –” He broke off. He had a hidden affection for his sister, which he had buried so successfully neither knew it existed.

  “I told you, I only want information. Dalleena is my concern here, not your brother.”

  Temhas thought with anger of the years of neglect, with Rendell in the place of honor. He could have prevailed upon his brother to help him in some way, but Rendell had already dismissed Pillyn’s idea of Temhas becoming an Armasii, saying he had not been called. That was true enough – who wanted to be a god-follower? This could be his only opportunity to get into court life.

  “All right, Councilor. I’ll do it,” he said.

  The tops of the streams were still covered with ice, but Dalleena maintained her prophecy of an early spring with confidence. They faced the cold at every meeting, not daring to go indoors, sticking to deserted areas. Dalleena continued to wear Lilli’s teal-and-white cloak and muffle up her face. They never went near Marlos-An; she would be recognized, and Rendell had no business at the palace. The occasional passing farmer saw only a couple seeking privacy, and most were too concerned with their own affairs to wonder at lovers who neither held hands nor gazed into each other’s faces.

  Discussion of almost everything had become easier. Rendell soon knew more of the king’s ideas and plans than many of the councilors – and on one occasion knew more than Raynii did himself. Councilor Mimpyra earned the king’s wrath that morning by suggesting that they stop the support of court servants too old to work. The resulting shouts could be heard all the way out to the courtyard. Dalleena said the real reason was that he was on edge without the queen. Ayenna had been forced, after her visit to the Second, to travel to the Fourth, to hear firsthand of the problems now beginning in the temple of Simsas. Moaning and sobbing sounds were being heard in the entranceway. On the First, some of the lesser priestesses found Nialia’s continued quiet ominous, but Inama said nothing.