"I tell you again," she said to the gray-cloaked stranger who faced her across the table, "Lord Min-drear sees no one. Tell me your business and I will inform him of it if I can."
"What, without seeing him?"
The stranger's voice surprised Arie. It had such a curious huskiness that he couldn't tell if a man or woman spoke—not that any Highborn lady would come among them like this. The visitor still wore cape and hood. His hands were clasped behind him, hidden in the folds of the gray cloak.
"Kendar, remember your place!" snapped the crimson-coated man.
"Hush, Kracarn. This is her place and we are guests. Warder, tell your lord that I have come to summon him to council at Gothregor a month hence."
Kethra gave a harsh laugh. "A summons from Gothregor! After all these years! The last time we answered, Highborn, how many of us ever returned? The White Hills are thick with the ashes of our dead and our hall is empty except for those." She gestured toward the tapestries. "Who would you have us send this time? Who is left? Old men and women, children, cripples . . . ?"
Involuntarily, her glance flickered past the visitors to Arie standing in the shadows by the door. He flinched, and so did she. Rage at her slip made the Warder turn all the more fiercely on the strangers.
"Five Highborn and a hundred Kendar gone from this hall," she said savagely, taking such an abrupt stride toward the intervening table that the gray bitch sprang up with a snarl. "We have paid our debt in blood to Ganth of Knorth's house. Leave us in peace!"
"Gently," murmured the visitor, dropping a hand, the left, to soothe the hound. "Others have loved Ganth as little as you. He erred badly in the White Hills. He had just come from Gothregor where he found his family slaughtered and rotting in the sun. He was not sane when he led your people against his massed foes. He was not sane later when, in exile, he drove the daughter of his second wife across the Barrier into Perimal Darkling. He was neither sane nor forgiven. He died with blood in his throat.
"But now Torisen, Ganth's son by that second wife, occupies the High Lord's seat. This council summons comes from him, although he never thought it would travel so far. I will speak plainly with you, Warder. My lord Torisen would do as his father did: gather the Kencyr Host and march against our foes here on Rathillien. He forgets, as his father did, that the true enemy is Perimal Darkling and that only border posts such as this keep the Barriers strong. Perhaps your lord can remind him of that. Otherwise, soon, the war summons may come again, and you will have to answer or be foresworn."
Kethra shook her head as if to clear it. That husky, purring voice had slid like velvet between her thoughts, half deadening them. "Torisen, Torisen . . . he was born in the Haunted Lands during his father's exile, returned to claim Ganth's power, wielded it as High Lord in a great battle at the Cataracts . . . So a wandering singer told us."
This time, she shook all over like a bear rousing itself. A look almost of fear came into her eyes.
"He had a sister. Some say that her father cursed her as a hell-spawn and cast her out. She fell into the Master's hands, but not even he could manage her and she escaped from his house back into Rathillien. They say that she can blood-bind, and that she has spoken the Master Runes so often and so recklessly that some of their power has bled into her voice. They call her the Darkling. Now in Trinity's name, who are you?"
Then, abruptly, there was someone else in the hall. Highborn and Kendar both pivoted to face the thin, white-gowned figure bearing rapidly down on them.
"Lady Nessa." Kethra gave Min-drear's sister a shaky salute.
"Have you found my brother yet?" The white figure fluttered anxiously about them like some ghostly moth. Only her anxious, red-rimmed eyes showed through the slits of her veil-mask. "Oh, I've looked everywhere, everywhere!"
"Even on the foundation level, lady?" the Warder asked with a note of desperation.
"Clever Kethra! No, but I'll search there immediately. Oh!" She stopped short, noticing the strangers for the first time. "Who are you?"
All three visitors bowed. "That is Kracarn of Tagmeth, that, Bender," said the Highborn, shaking back the gray hood. Underneath was a thin face marked by silver-gray eyes and high cheekbones, one of them with the faint white line of an old scar cutting across it. She gave Kethra a lopsided, almost rueful smile. "And I am Jamethiel Priests'-bane, the Lordan of Ivory . . . the Darkling."
"I am honored to meet you," said Nessa in a preoccupied way. "Now excuse me. I must find my brother." With that, she darted away, followed at a tactful distance by a Kendar attendant.
"Have you misplaced Lord Min-drear?" Jamethiel asked Kethra politely.
The Warder made an inarticulate sound. She suddenly stepped around the table, grabbed the other's arm, and wrenched her right hand into the light. Arie felt his stomach turn.
"You said only scratches," Kethra said fiercely. "By God, Ganth's daughter or not, you will carry no infection forth from this house!"
With that, she swept the flask off the table and emptied its fiery contents over the mangled hand. The Highborn shuddered violently but made no sound. Nor did she try to withdraw from Kethra's grasp any more than she had from the hound's jaws earlier. For a long minute, Highborn and Kendar locked eyes as liquor dripped unnoticed into a black pool on the floor between them. Then Kethra dropped the hand with an oath, hurled the bottle into the fireplace, and stormed out of the hall without a backward glance.
"Border hospitality," said Jamethiel. "I have on occasion been made to feel more welcome."
Kracarn came forward quickly, wrenching a white scarf from his neck. "Damn these people anyway, Highborn and low," he said angrily, wrapping the scarf around her hand. "I think they must all be mad! Why did you let them treat you that way—you, the High Lord's sister!"
She flexed her hand carefully, painfully. "There. More mess than damage, I think. That Warder is so upset she hardly knows what she's doing. But why? Something is very wrong here, Kracarn. When I know what it is, I'll know how to react, won't I?"
Tarin emerged from his recess, expressionless, and gestured to the woman to follow him. As she left the hall with the gray dog still at her side and the thin, silent man at her heels, Arie saw that she was absentmindedly licking the last traces of liquor and blood from the tips of her long, white fingers.
In her wake, the hall seemed very empty and silent. Silent? No. There was a throbbing, a deep pulse. Arie felt as if his head was swelling with it. He desperately willed it to stop, willed himself not to see, but already the hall before him was fading. In its place was a much larger, grander hall, its high roof supported by black marble columns, its floor paved with green-veined stone. Thousands of death banners lined its walls. Tapestry faces grimaced. Threadbare hands clutched at rotting fabric. All was dead fiber, and yet the walls beneath were stained with blood.
Arie backed away. "No," he said out loud. "No, it isn't there. It isn't real."
He tripped on steps, then turned and scrambled blindly up and up, past the second level gallery, into the close turnings of the highest tower. The wind came whistling down to meet him.
At its summit, the tower opened out on all four sides. Arie sank down beside the sheer drop, trembling. Then he began to cry. It wasn't fair. He hadn't asked to be so weak, or crippled, or—or cursed with these visions. No one here understood what that was like. Kethra certainly didn't. He hadn't even dared to tell her when he had begun to see things. She would think he was feeble-witted on top of everything else or, perhaps, going mad.
Arie rested his cheek against the cold stones and closed his eyes. The wind rushed about him, slowly stripping away his fears. He began to sing to himself, very softly, first songs that the wandering singer had brought to the keep more than a year ago and then songs of his own. The wind deafened him to his own words but seemed to make them ring all the more clearly in his mind. He worked them this way and that, changing, polishing them, and for a while was content.
It was nearly sunset when he opened his eyes ag
ain. Light streamed between the two opposite peaks to the west and shadows slowly rose in the Pass below. To the north, a premature darkness clouded the Barrier. Its surface moved restlessly in patterns that must have been miles across, and lightning flickered inside. There almost seemed to be something solid within the mists. Each flash half defined shifting outlines as of roofs and chimneys and gables as if at any minute the haze would roll back and there would stand the Master's House, looming over the mountains, the High Keep, over all Rathillien. It was a mirage which often appeared before one of those terrible spring storms from the north, from Perimal Darkling, that shook the keep down to its very roots. Arie picked up his crutch, shivering. It was more than time that he went below.
As he stepped out of the stairwell onto the second level, he heard his name called. Here the western wall opened into a long, rib-vaulted gallery lined with windows through which light poured. Someone sat under the center arch in the heart of the blaze.
"You sing well," said the High Lord's sister.
"Y-you heard me, lady?"
"I have a good ear for a wind-borne voice. Sing again."
Arie surprised himself by obeying, and even more by using the words he had been trying to write down earlier that day. Since then, the song had grown. As he sang it, he strained to make out the figure against the white flame of the sun. The gray cloak was thrown back now, revealing cream-colored riding leathers, a short byrnie of rathorn ivory, and high buff boots, all travel stained. Arie had never seen any Highborn lady but Nessa, and very little of her. This woman seemed impossibly slim compared to the powerfully built Kendar among whom he had grown up, and infinitely more graceful, with a hint of underlying tension. Even in repose, she seemed poised for sudden movement.
"Very good," she said when he had finished. "You have the true singer's voice—and sight. How did you know that the Master's hall is paved with green-veined stones?"
Arie gaped at her. "I—I didn't know. I just saw . . . "
Then stammering, he told her about his visions—the corridor extending into infinity, the window opening on such a landscape as Rathillien had never known, the black marble staircase ascending to a doorway barred with red ribbons as if it led to a lord's bridal chamber.
"I remember those stairs," said Jamethiel in a low voice, as if to herself. "Someone was waiting beyond those ribbons, and perhaps still is. When did you see these things?"
Arie told her.
"So," she said thoughtfully. "It all began when the patrol brought back that wretched 'almost human' creature from near the Barrier soon after Mid-Winter. Yes. That makes sense . . . but what a half-witted thing to have done!"
"Lady?"
"Nothing—I hope. Arie, how long has it been since the High Keep had a direct clash with the Master's folk?"
"Centuries, I think. Lady, it's been so long since the Master's fall. Is he really still there beyond the Barrier, still waiting?"
"Oh, yes. Listen to your own song. The man bargained for immortality and got it, he and his people both, after a fashion. Then, too, time passes more slowly in Perimal Darkling than here. The Master can and will wait until we forget him, as my brother has, until we lower our guard. But your leg hurts, doesn't it? What did you do to it?"
"Kethra put me on a half-broken colt when I was a child. I—it reared and fell on me."
"I see. Come to the window."
Arie hesitated, then limped shyly forward, only to stop again abruptly. The darkness at the Highborn's feet had risen. It was the gray bitch.
"Give her your hand," said Jamethiel.
Arie would rather have bolted. Instead, he found himself holding out a shaking hand, bracing himself for the pain which he felt sure would come. The dog sniffed it. Then, incredibly, his fingertips were wet from her tongue.
"Good," said the Highborn. "Now, after me, you are her master. Sit down . . . please."
Arie sat on the window ledge. He could see the visitor's face clearly now in the failing light. It looked very young and tired.
"Does your hand hurt much?" he blurted out.
The thin lips lifted in a wry smile. "Considering the things that have happened to me and that I've done to myself—yes, including that idiotic recklessness with the Master Runes that left me croaking like this—these wounds hardly count." She raised her bandaged hand and looked at it. Her smile slipped away. "In fact, compared to the binding of a creature's body and soul, these scratches are beneath contempt, and I have forced this hound to sell its freedom for a few drops of blood!"
Her long fingers curled stiffly into a fist.
"Lady!" Arie cried, and caught her injured hand in both of his as if to prevent it from striking out at the nearest stone. Its warmth and the feel of fine bones just under the skin startled him. Somehow, he hadn't quite believed before that this strange woman was mere flesh and blood, however much of the latter he had already seen.
"Sorry," she said with a crooked smile, withdrawing her hand. "But this keep. It's so old, so . . . fragile. Like an eggshell. I can feel darkness tapping on the outside, tapping at my self-control, too. How easy it would be to fall in a place like this. Arie, listen: to protect yourself, you have to know what's going on. Somehow, the will of this keep's defenders has been badly undermined, so much so that Perimal Darkling lies just beneath the surface here. Patrolling the Barrier is hardly enough when that sort of rot sets in. And each time the rangers bring back a darkling, things get worse because every creature out of the shadows brings some of them with it. That 'almost human' thing certainly did. So far, no one but you has seen these visions, but soon everyone will if this goes on. This entire keep is in danger of becoming no more than a shadow of that greater fortress in Perimal Darkling, the Master's House."
Arie wrestled with this. "Then, when I saw the room with the green-veined floor . . . "
"It was because Bender and I had just been in your hall, the counterpart of the Master's," said Jamethiel bitterly. She glanced at the gallery wall. Arie, also looking, started violently. The rapidly fading daylight cast both their shadows on the stones, but the Highborn's was darker and had a human face. There stood Bender, as he must have all this time.
"That is an unfallen darkling," said Jamethiel. "I am another one. We both were inmates in the Master's House. Neither of us consented to his evil, but we were both changed nonetheless. Bender is . . . as you see him. And I?" She shivered suddenly, and drew her cloak around her as if for warmth. "I have darkness in my veins now. Enough to blood-bind this poor brute to me body and soul. Enough to cast the very shadows I fight."
Thunder rumbled nearer, louder, and a cold northern wind breathed down the gallery. It was nearly dark now. To the north, verdigris lightning played across the Barrier as through the heart of a black opal.
Then from below came a booming sound. It echoed up the stairwell like some great shout of warning from no human throat and the gallery rang with it.
Jamethiel sprang up. "What in God's name is that?"
"The alarm, lady." Arie lurched to his feet. "Someone has sounded the Keepguard Horn in the lower hall. We must be under attack."
Below, the large room was rapidly filling as the keep Kendar poured into it in answer to the alarm, hurriedly buckling on armor as they came. Kethra stood by the extinct fire, silent and grim. Before her on the table lay something long and pale. It was Nessa's body.
The crowd parted for Jamethiel. She bent over the still form.
"Dead," said Kethra thickly.
"Yes, and already beginning to stiffen." She reached for the mask, which, out of respect, no one else had touched.
"But where is her gown?" asked Arie in a thin voice from the foot of the table.
Kethra looked at him, then at the corpse. What she had taken for the familiar garment in the stress of the moment was in fact only the first of many under-tunics.
"I'm afraid that isn't the only thing missing," said Jamethiel, and turned back the veil. Shock rippled through the hall. Under the silk was a grin
ning, bestial face whose eyes long since had gone to feed the crows. "I suggest you look on the northern battlement for the head of this poor lady," the Highborn said soberly. "Now. Before dawn brings back the birds."
Kethra turned on her, shock and rage at war in her face, but before she could speak, a Kendar burst through the crowd and threw himself gasping at her feet.
"Warder! In the lowest corridor by the western foundation . . . Tucor, Erlik, and I on guard duty . . . we found Lady Nessa's servant all broken and then . . . w-we saw her in the shadows, beckoning. Erlik and Tucor went to her. I-I saw her put her arms around them and then . . . she began . . . to squeeze. Warder! She crushed them, she crushed them both. I-I ran. Forgive me, but I couldn't fight her."
"Who?" roared Kethra.
"I-I think it was the High Lord's sister, but she wore Lady Nessa's gown . . . "
Blood and Ivory-A Tapestry Page 16