AMONG THE DEAD
3004
"Tell me a story," said one of the twins.
Anar clawed his way out of the past like someone scrambling up a rubble-strewn slope. Here were bits of his childhood at the scrollsmen's college, where he had been happy. Hard to remember, now, how that had felt. Here were the ruins of a beautiful, embroidered coat—Greshan's, probably, that cruel swine. Anar had often wondered about m'lord's childhood with such a brother, how much it might have influenced the man he had become. Here was a scrap of memory, charred at the edges, that still seared: a pyre and at its heart, a small, indomitable woman wrapped in flame.
Oh, Kinzi, and all the women of my house, burning, burning, the taste of their ashes bitter on my lips . . .
He scrubbed a dirty hand across his mouth and blinked up at the child on the hillcrest above him, dark against the slow, opalescent seethe of the Barrier.
Was it the boy or the girl? When not together, they were hard to tell apart. The same wild black hair, cropped short; the same eyes, storm-gray or silver as light or mood caught them; at seven years old even still much the same build, thin and wiry . . . there was even some confusion as to which had been born first. But one had fingernails and the other, this one, usually hid her hands because she didn't.
The girl Jame perched above the keep's straggly kitchen garden, watching him, waiting.
"A story," she prompted. "Something true."
"Not all stories are," he said absently. "You ask the singers about their precious Lawful Lie." Not that she could: the only singer to go into exile with his lord had been among the first to die.
He stared at the roil behind her of the Barrier that separated this world from the next. Beyond it, shadow folding into shadow, Perimal Darkling waited. That was true enough, ancestors preserve them. So was the Master's House, that nightmare looming out of a fallen past. He could almost distinguish the crooked lines of its many roofs, shifting in the shadows of countless moonless nights, its windows without number opening to the soulless dark within.
Trinity, but it was close. Only once before had it been closer. The garrison had been some three years into its exile then, long enough to see that it would only end in death. The sooner the better, they had thought, and so again followed their lord headlong into hopeless battle, this time against primordial darkness itself.
Death, at last, with honor . . .
Anar shuddered, remembering the slow churn of mist under that cliff of shadow that had confounded and dragged them apart. Only he and two score others had stumbled out. Some, gaunt with hunger, mad with thirst, said that they had been trapped for days, for weeks, in that murky limbo. Some only stared with hollow eyes, mouthing the same words over and over again:
" 'm hungry, 'm hungry . . . "
That had been the garrison's first experience with the haunts that gave this accursed land its name.
It was also when they discovered that their priest, Ishtier, had run off, taking his lord's Kendar mistress and his own priestly powers with him, just when they had most needed a pyric rune to deal with their own walking dead.
Of them all, only the Gray Lord had penetrated the shadows and come at last to the Master's Hall, or so Anar guessed. Where else could he have found that beautiful, nameless lady whom he had brought out with him to grace his bed and bear these children, brother and sister, with so much of her strange magic in the silver shadow of their eyes?
Words whispered in his mind, silken fingers meant to tease out memory like a snarl:
Let no one see . . .
See what? Of whom had he been thinking?
Anar floundered for a moment before the subtle sinews of his patchwork priest-craft steadied him.
He had come to this twisting of the way before—every time, in fact, that he thought or spoke of the twins' mother. Others looked puzzled if he mentioned her, as if she were a fading dream, half or wholly forgotten, a thread of sweet song, a movement of heart-breaking grace limned in moonlight, a fleeting glimpse of glamour.
Let no one see . . .
Only the children remembered, and the randon Winter, who had her own reasons, and the Gray Lord.
Anar felt his breath catch. Somehow, he had forgotten: there was the House, looming, and Lord Grayling had gone again, alone, to storm it, to reclaim the fey bride whom he had somehow lost or perhaps just misplaced. How long had he been gone? Days? Weeks? If he didn't return, what would happen to his people, who had gone into this bitter exile for his sake? Did he even care?
Pushing aside the thought, the scrollsman pulled up something that should have been a carrot. It was the right color, at least, but its tip twitched like a rat's nose and its white rootlets stung his hand. Anar snapped the root in two, ignoring its thin, piping shriek.
"Dare you to dig up a potato," said the child. "All those eyes, blinking. Ugh."
"At least they don't scream," said Anar.
He blinked, remembering the pile of limp vegetables that already lay in the keep's kitchen, some of them still mewling weakly and trying to crawl away. Since m'lord had stormed out, no one had felt like cooking or eating. What a waste. It had taken long, hard work to make the soil of the Haunted Lands yield even this sorry crop. Only the collective will of the garrison continued to make it possible—that, and Anar's own makeshift attempts at priest-craft which, he knew, were slowly unraveling his mind.
"I don't think you're mad," said the child, judiciously, "or at least not as mad as Tigon. He keeps trying to eat his own toes."
Sweet Trinity, he must have been thinking out loud again.
"Yes," said the child, "you are, off and on. What does 'fey' mean?"
Don't think. Talk.
"A story," he gabbled. "You asked for a story."
But what story could he safely tell? M'lord had forbidden him even to teach these children their father's true name. Someday, he might inform his son and heir, Torisen, but never this fey, unwanted daughter, already too like her mother for comfort.
"That word again. 'Fey.' Is that why Father doesn't like me?"
Shut up and talk.
"Suppose," Anar said, desperately launching himself, "that there is a land where the animate and inanimate, the living and the dead, don't overlap."
"You can always tell them apart?"
"Yes. No. Most of the time. Suppose the lord of that land came home one day to find all the women of his family slaughtered."
"They didn't turn into haunts?"
"No. He had a priest speak the pyric rune and they all burned up. Crackle, crackle."
"Who killed them?"
"This lord had many enemies, but he thought he knew whom to blame and he set out to punish them."
Anar shivered, remembering the Highlord's rage as he turned from his grandmother Kinzi's pyre, his berserker madness that had infected them all.
"Did he make them pay?" asked Kinzi's great-granddaughter.
"No. He guessed wrong. I think. Anyway, there was a big fight and a lot of his own people got killed. After that, they didn't want him to lead them anymore, so they drove him away."
Why was he telling this of all stories? M'lord would kill him! Belatedly, Anar shoved half the carrot into his mouth to silence himself. The rootlets writhed and stung as he bit down.
Let me not speak . . .
"What happened to him? How does the story end?"
"I don't know." The words were slurred, his mouth already swelling. "So far, it hasn't."
The child waited to see if he would say anything more or, perhaps, fall over dead. When he did neither, only flapping a hand helplessly at her in dismissal, she jumped up and ran away.
* * *
THE HILLS of the Haunted Lands seemed to roll on forever, under a rolling sky. Jame ran down through the coarse, clinging grass and up, down and up, jumping off the crests, trying to fly.
From a rise, she saw the squat tower of the keep, dark against the Barrier except where the crystal dome over the lord's solar caught the evening l
ight. The sun was going down to the west; to the east, a gibbous moon slowly climbed the sky. A fitful, sour wind from the north ruffled her hair and combed the grass over her toes.
Turning southward, Jame plunged down again; then, more slowly, she climbed. Beyond, she could hear Winter grunting instructions:
"Here. Aim. The foot, so. Your shoulders . . . turn them into the strike. Better."
Jame dropped to her stomach and wriggled up to the hilltop. Through a fringe of grass she watched as their former wet-nurse taught her brother a fire-leaping move of the Senethar.
Winter, a big, raw-boned Kendar, towered over her young student, holding a large hand higher and higher to make him extend his kick. Scowling with concentration, Tori pivoted and struck. His bare foot slapped against her palm.
"Good," she grunted, and hooked his other foot out from under him. "Not so good."
Tori had landed on his back without adequately breaking his fall. The rock-hard ground smacked the air out of him and for a moment he lay there gasping.
"Up," said Winter. "Again."
Jame watched, idly plucking stems of grass and letting them snake through her hair. They wriggled and tickled as they tried to take root in her scalp. She thought they camouflaged her nicely, until Winter turned her long, horse-face up toward her.
"Come down," she said; and then, to Tori, "Enough for today. Practice that."
Jame clambered to her feet and skidded down the hill. Half way to the bottom, she launched herself at Winter, but the Kendar simply caught her in mid-air. The randon's hands completely encircled the girl's waist.
"Too thin," she grunted, swinging Jame around and setting her down beside her brother. "Eat more."
"Oh, Winnie, please teach me how to fight too!"
"She can't," said Tori, brushing dust off his much-patched backside. "You're a girl."
"So is Winnie."
"Was," said the Kendar, and knelt to put away the practice weapons. "A long time ago. You," she glanced at Jame, "are not a girl. You are a lady. It shames us all that m'lord will not let us treat you accordingly. Still, I would teach you too, if your father had not forbidden it."
"That's unfair!"
"Much is. Accept it."
"Anyway," Jame said to Tori, "while you were busy falling on your butt, I got Anar to tell me a story, all about a lord who got kicked out by his own people. So there."
Winter glanced over a shoulder at her. "So. The scrollsman has told you about the White Hills. Interesting. And about time."
Anar hadn't mentioned the White Hills. "Were you there?" Jame asked, probing for more.
Winter bound up the sword case. "Yes," she said, without turning. "Sere was too. He came at me in battle with the Highlord's madness in his eyes, and I killed him for the sake of our unborn child."
"You had a baby?" Tori asked. "What happened to it?"
"He was born here in the Haunted Lands, and here he died."
"How?"
Winter sat back on her heels, still not facing them. "Your mother had no milk. I was still nursing Tob, there being nothing fit in this accursed land to feed a child. Besides, he was . . . slow. Even then, two nurslings I could have managed. Not three."
The twins waited. They both knew which two Father would have chosen.
"Your mother was so beautiful. Tob ran to her, and I let her hold him. In her arms, his soul left him. I . . . dealt with what was left. It was the only time I ever saw her cry except for once more, when she gave you into my charge."
The twins looked at each other. Jame asked for them both: "Do you still love us?"
At last the Kendar turned. "Of course," she said. "You were my nurslings."
Jame collared her by the leg. Winter ruffled her hair, plucked out the wriggling grass, and tossed it into a patch of snap-weed where it was immediately torn to pieces.
"Now go." She tipped up the child's chin to regard a fading bruise. "Stay close to the keep, but away from m'lord if . . . when he returns."
The twins ran off, chasing each other turn and turn about over the swooping hills. Jame pounced her brother, catching him off guard and in the face with her elbow. He yelped in pain. They rolled down the slope, scrabbling like puppies. At the bottom, she broke free, dashed up, and threw herself down on the crest. Tori joined her, wiping a bloody nose on his sleeve.
"Why did you do that?"
"Winnie told you to Practice. Besides, I wanted to see how you would block the blow. You didn't. I was trying to learn something."
"Father says it's dangerous to teach you anything. Will the things you learn always hurt people?"
She considered this. "Maybe. As long as I learn, does it matter?"
He snuffled loudly and wiped his nose again. "It does to me. I'm always the one who gets hurt. Father says you're dangerous. He says you'll destroy me."
"That's silly. I love you."
"Father says destruction begins with love. Anyway, you did hurt me."
"Crybaby."
"Little girl."
"Daddy's favorite."
"Freak."
She hid her hands in her armpits but drew them out again almost immediately to gnaw on her nail-less fingertips. "They itch," she said, defensively. "I hate them. When I grow up, I'm going to have a different pair of gloves for every day in the week. Winnie's child . . . d'you think he was the third? Remember? We used to dream that there were three of us. We used," she added wistfully, "to have the same dreams."
"We were children then," he said, not meeting her eyes. "I don't dream anymore. Much."
Father beat him when he did. Somehow father always knew.
"Shanir's dream, boy. Are you a filthy Shanir?"
After that, Tori had begun to sleep less and less, often keeping his sister awake with him. For the last two nights, neither of them had slept at all.
They rested now, watching the Barrier. The setting sun cast rays of light slantwise across it, veiling what lay within, but a low, continuous rumble betrayed its presence. Snake-tongues of lightning flickered back in the dark.
"Father is still out there, looking for Mother," said Tori, "but two nights ago she left footprints in the dust beside our bed. That's proof. She is still here."
"I know. Last night she must have been dancing through the death banners in the hall. You know the one with the man with the wart on his nose? Well, you can't see it now, the wart or the nose. He turned around to watch her."
"She shouldn't hide from us," said Tori, tearing grass with his fingers, ignoring a tiny chorus of cries. "Father has a right to her. So do we. She belongs to us, doesn't she?" When his sister didn't reply, he repeated fiercely, "Well, doesn't she?"
"I . . . don't know where she belongs." Jame gave him a sudden push and sprang to her feet, away from his angry eyes and bewildered pain. "I know: hide-and-seek. You be Father, I'll be Mother. Catch me if you can!"
And she was off, plunging down the hillside in a swirl of flying hair, thin legs, and tattered rags, running headlong toward the keep.
* * *
THE GREY HORSE stumbled, its gaunt sides foam-flecked and heaving, black with sweat. The grass of the Haunted Lands had proved treacherous fodder and this, Ganth's war-horse, was the last of the garrison's mounts. He gouged its flanks again with cruel spurs, ignoring the rattle of its breath and his own parched, aching throat. He would win through these shifting veils of light and shadow. The House loomed before him, no closer than it had been an hour, a day, a lifetime ago, but he would lay his white bones on this endless bleak moor before he gave up.
"Gerridon!" he howled at that bleak filmy facade. "I have come for my lady. Return her to me!"
The stallion shied, stumbled, and fell. Ganth Gray Lord rolled to his feet. Wavering shafts of light fell through the Barrier as if through dark water onto the matted turf, a world in shifting shades of gray.
A black-clad figure had emerged from the long shadow of the House. Under its hood, its face shifted. One corner of the mouth hitched up nearly to a hidd
en eyebrow in a lopsided smile, then quivered nearly straight again.
"Believe me, Grayling, my blood wouldn't agree with that blade."
Ganth's hand dropped from Kin-Slayer's hilt. "No, not Gerridon. Keral, his faithful dog. Where is your master?"
The changer glanced over his shoulder at the House. A continual rumble came from it, stone on stone, as if, at a glacial pace, it was grinding forward. Silent lightning played across its many angles. "He is coming, room by room, out of the depths of the House, but not to meet you. Dead or alive, you will never stand in my lord's hall again."
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