Crier's Knife

by Neal Litherland

  “Will they try to stop us?” Dirk asked. “If there is anyone there?”

  Afra shrugged one shoulder uncertainly. “If there are any boys there, then mayhap yes, mayhap no. When we left several days ago, it was Naspar and Kaille caring for the beasts. One is barely old enough to shave, and the other is a season or two younger. Both are gentle, as boys go.”

  Dirk grunted. “Can we go around them?”

  Afra frowned, thinking. “We could, yes. Though it would take time, and leave us exposed. I had thought to get fresh mounts to make the journey easier, if any were to be had.”

  Dirk nodded. “A risk worth taking, then.”

  Afra licked her lips, and nodded. “That is not the only way station along the way. Some nights, though not all, boys that were once shepherds are made to stay in lay-bys to watch the night. Sometimes they go alone, but oft they go out in twos.”

  Dirk grunted. “And how many such places will we have to pass?”

  Afra thought, closing her eyes. “Four. Though there is a signal to give to let them know you as a friend so you may pass by without slowing.”

  “Will they ask questions?” Dirk asked.

  “It is possible,” Afra said. “Especially as I return with one guard, when I left with two. They have no love for Daerun and Gerd, though, so are unlikely to say or do anything that would draw ire if they believe you are either of them. A simple mistake to make, with that cloak, and in the dark.”

  Dirk nodded, and twirled his left hand, signaling Afra to continue. She drew a long, straight line, stopping at the edge of the dirt. She jabbed the stick into the ground, sending a small spout of soil into the air.

  “This is the temple. It is bigger than the greatest burial mound, and the only entrance is atop it. The stairway is watched at the base, and again at the summit. There are bells to wake the camp both at the base, and atop.”

  “Daunting,” Dirk said.

  Afra jabbed the fire with her stick, sending sparks flying. “And once atop the temple, there is the field of gods to walk. If you do not know the way in the light, then you will never find it in the dark. Even if you could pass the sentries in silence, you might wander among the statues for hours and still be no closer to the temple mouth.”

  Dirk said nothing to that. Instead, he examined the lines in the dirt. He thought back to the floor of the inn, and ran his tongue over his bottom lip. He chewed another piece of jerky. He swallowed, and nodded.

  “Your sisters are inside?” Dirk asked.

  “And my mother and father encamp at the base,” she said.

  “Tell me of them,” Dirk said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “So I will know them when I see them,” Dirk said.

  “My father is called Marren. He is not as tall as you, but he is thin and hard as a whip. His hair is beginning to gray, and he wears it in a single braid.” Afra touched her chin, just to the right of the cleft. “He has a scar, here, from where a ram butted him when he was young.”

  “And the others?” Dirk asked.

  “My mother Vara,” Afra said, her voice hitching on the name. She swallowed hard, clearing her throat. “She is shorter than me, with dark hair and eyes. “Her ear is split, here, from when she fell in a storm. Kelana is my elder, and perhaps a hair or two taller. When I left, she had shorn her hair near to the scalp. Draya is my younger. She wears her hair to her waist, and she has sun flecks along her cheeks.”

  Dirk nodded. He shifted as he sat, stretching his neck, his shoulders, and then his hands.

  “I will have to take the sentries before they can raise the alarm,” he said. “If you want to escape with your family, there can be no eyes to see you go.”

  Afra nodded slowly. Some of the color had gone from her cheeks. She did not meet Dirk's eyes, choosing instead to gaze into the fire. Afra took a drink, and Dirk did the same. When she had finished, he offered her a piece of jerky. She took it, and tore off a small corner. She placed it under her tongue, letting it soften.

  “Once we are inside the temple, what then?” Dirk asked.

  “It is... vast,” Afra said after a time. “Like a hornet nest. I have only seen some of the rooms. Many and most were declared forbidden to us. Those who entered and were caught received punishment. Some entered, and never came out again.”

  Afra scrubbed away the crude map with her heel, and began to draw again. This time she drew a long spiral, the line growing tighter and tighter as it descended inward. Dirk frowned, but said nothing, watching as Afra looked in her mind's eye at the place she knew, and tried to summon its image to her lips.

  “There are two doors atop the temple. One faces to the east, and the other faces to the west,” Afra said. “They both lead to halls and receiving rooms. Past the outer layers, in the center of the temple, is a place Lanissara calls the Summit of The Sun. She said that, in the old days, it was lined with scholars and students, each teaching lessons and contemplating the wisdom inscribed on the stones. In the center of the chamber, at the end of the lessons, is a stair that leads into the temple itself. The teachers would ensure no one passed beyond them until they were ready, and only once the students had proved themselves were they privy to the secrets beneath.”

  Afra placed the tip of her stick at the beginning of the spiral, and began to move it slowly. Her hand paused as she talked, as if she were stopping before the doorways in her mind, glancing through them, and telling Dirk what lay beyond.

  “First are the study chambers. They are empty once the lessons have ended for the day. Past them are the rooms the girls are made to live in. The floors are hard, and we are only allowed a single, thin mat. Most of us sleep in one room, even though there are dozens. There is a strict sleep time set, and girls caught telling tales or sneaking round are punished without exception.

  “Below these chambers are the black rooms. No one is allowed into them, and far as I know there is no one who would enter even if they were told to. Something lurks in there, though the Vor Dak'ham protest that nothing in such a holy place would mean its new keepers harm. Past them are the libraries. Most of what is in them is dust, but Lanissara still sends girls into the halls to try to find words worth saving. Below the libraries are the kitchens and serving halls, and below them the Chambers of Contemplation. The priests live in the upper rooms, but Lanissara had gates put over the lower rooms for use as a place of punishment. That was where she was keeping Teller.”

  “And below that?” Dirk asked, noting the spiral kept going.

  Afra shook her head slowly. “Below that are the star rooms. Places where the walls and ceiling are filled with silver, marking the heavens. They are beautiful, but far too close to what lies below.”

  “The stone?” Dirk asked.

  Afra nodded. “It lies beneath the star rooms, before an altar of high honor. There are a dozen hallways and caverns that lead off of it, but they all come back to that damnable stone. It is the heart of that place, and if what Lanissara says is true, the temple was raised around it to keep it safe.”

  Dirk nodded, and held out a hunk of bread. Afra took it, but didn't eat. Instead, she rolled it from hand to hand as she watched Dirk. He ate in silence for several moments, taking a long, slow drink of water from his skin. Afra opened her mouth to speak, but when no words came out she took a bite of the bread instead. Dirk glanced at her, then turned his gaze to the fire.

  “What?” Afra asked.

  “You say nothing quite loud,” Dirk said. “Shall I give voice to the words you seem reluctant to pass?”

  “If it please you,” Afra said.

  “You are wondering if you chose the right path,” Dirk said. “And a part of you wonders if you should not turn around, and go the other way. If you should return to the terrors of the known, rather than walk into the terrors of the uncertain.”

  “Shy of the mark,” Afra said, letting out a slow breath. “But not by far.”

  Dirk nodded, finished his bread, and washed it down with another drink
.

  “You did not talk much with Teller,” Dirk said. “Only enough to know the direction from whence he came, yes?”

  “I told you as much in your sick bed last night,” Afra said.

  Dirk nodded. He put another piece of jerky in his mouth, and chewed slowly. He drew in a chest full of the smoky air, held it, and let it out slowly. It tasted thick, and slightly sweet from the green wood. Like blood that had been heated to a boil.

  “Every Crier is born with a Talent,” Dirk said. “It is great in some of us, and small in others. Some of us cook, or hunt, or fletch. Others have stranger Talents. Or more dangerous ones. Talents that require careful study to master, and measured purpose when they are used. It never fails, and no child on the mountain is given a name until their Talent shows itself.”

  Afra worried her lip. The bread she held was all but forgotten in her lap. Her brow furrowed, then cleared. Her eyes opened a little wider.

  “Teller,” she said, as if hearing the name for the first time. “That is his Talent, is it not?”

  “It is,” Dirk said. “Tales are like thread to him. He weaves them, bends them, and makes them into a cat cradle. He can take a simple story, one you may even know well, and make it into something new and wondrous. He spoke early, and often, but rare was the day where someone wished him to stop. His Talent is like a stream; sometimes swollen, sometimes thin, but always burbling from his lips. He could not cease it anymore than a river could turn tail and flow up a mountain.”

  Afra nodded, then stopped suddenly. Her lips parted slightly, then pressed into a long, thin line. Her jaw knotted, as if she were trying to hold in the words already settling on her tongue.

  “Your name...?” Afra asked, trailing off.

  “Before I came north, my grandmere gave me words of wisdom,” Dirk said. “She told me to leave my goodness at home. That I would not need it where I was going.”

  Dirk slowly unwrapped the bandage from round his right hand. The wounds were still there, puckered and sore. He flexed his scarred fingers, and squeezed his hand into a fist. His knuckles popped like pine knots on a fire. Afra jumped slightly. Dirk tossed the bandages into the fire. They blazed brightly, before charring into an ashy snake atop the coals.

  “Temperance is a habit when you are born with a Talent like mine. Because all it takes is a single, unguarded moment for it to slide from its sheathe, and do something that cannot be undone.” Dirk rubbed his hand, gently working the stiffness from it. “That stops now. I am here to get my cousin, and for you to save your family. I have no wish to shed blood, but you need know that if it must be done, I will not stay my hand.”

  “I do not wish you to,” Afra said. “That is the very reason I lead you to Lanissara.”

  Dirk looked at her for a time. Shadows danced along his hooded eyes, and in the down-turned corners of his mouth. He shook his head slowly, like a teacher whose lesson had found no purchase in a student's ears.

  “It is one thing to kill those you hate,” Dirk said. “Those who have wronged you, or who have hurt the ones you love. It is another thing to kill those who have done you no wrong. Those you have called friends, or those who share your blood.”

  “There is no-” Afra started to say, but she stopped when Dirk looked at her. His eyes were as cold and sharp as a winter razor.

  “If fortune favors us, and there is no one to stand in our way, then we will be there and gone like shadows,” Dirk said. “But fortune is a fickle thing, and what is may not be what you hope will be. This is why I tell you that anyone we have not come to take with us could die tomorrow. And not just die, but die by my hand. Before you close your eyes this night, I want you to think on that. Chew it, swallow it, and see if it settles inside you. Because if you cannot stomach that, I would know before I ride another mile at your side.”

  Afra had nothing to say that. Dirk nodded. He pillowed his head on the remains of his meal sack, slid the leather loop off his dagger's hilt, and closed his eyes. He would need to be sharp upon the morrow.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dirk opened his eyes to a world of gray shadows. Afra lay on her side near the guttering fire, her cloak wrapped tightly around her. Her face was tight, and the muscles beneath her cheeks and eyes twitched as if she were being chased by something in her dreams. Dirk squatted on his haunches, and prodded the coals until they grew cherry red. He took a brass-bottomed water skin, dumped in some tea leaves, and held it in the coals with his fingers looped through the leather carrying strap. He added some twigs around the base, and waited patiently. Just as the steam began to blow from the mouthpiece, Afra jerked awake. She lay there for a long moment, blinking and bleary-eyed, until she remembered where she was.

  “You look as if the night horses rode you far and hard,” Dirk said. He took a drink of the tea, swished it over his tongue, and swallowed. “Have some. It will help.”

  Afra rubbed at her face, and scooted closer to the coals. She drew the white cloak around her, pushing a thick tangle of hair out of her face. A wet wind ripped through their small hollow, and Afra drew in tighter on herself. She took the skin of tea, cupping its sides gingerly as she drank. Dirk added more wood to the fire, grinding the sticks into the coals as if he were trying to re-plant the trees they'd fallen from. Flames soon climbed the dead wood, and Dirk sat before them. He took out another of the small loaves, tore it in half, and offered a portion to Afra.

  “Are you not chill?” she asked, taking the bread.

  “Not much,” Dirk said. “Lowland cold is a cudgel. Mountain cold is a knife. Once it cuts you, other chills never seem so bad.”

  Afra drank more of the tea, curling an arm around the skin and holding it against her. She ate slowly, the way someone who'd fallen might get up when they weren't sure whether they'd been hurt or not. Dirk tied the sack shut once he'd finished with his minimal meal. He took the cloak down from where he'd hung it, and shook it out. It didn't smell much better, though a heavy layer of wood smoke covered the other, less pleasant scent of its previous owner.

  “You cried last night?” Dirk asked, glancing out through a gap between the trees as color bled back into the countryside. Afra nodded. “Did you vomit?”

  “I tried,” Afra said. “But the sick sat in my stomach like a stone.”

  “It is different for everyone,” Dirk said. “My words were bitter, but true. How do they sit now?”

  “I do not care for them,” Afra said. “But I have chosen my path. I will not turn from it now.”

  Dirk nodded, and slung the worn cloak round his shoulders. Afra drank the remainder of the tea, before throwing a handful of dirt onto the morning fire. It coughed and sputtered before it died. Dirk pulled the hood of the cloak up, and adjusted it.

  “Prepare the animals,” Dirk said, pushing the downed limb aside and stepping out of the hollow. “I will return shortly.”

  “Where are you going?” Afra asked, a note of fear in her voice.

  “To gather fresh wood,” Dirk said. “As you said, I do not want to return this way, and huddle in the cold and dark.”

  Dirk walked round the Haff Na-Gar, taking care to move quietly. There were no bird songs around him. No pad of paw, nor flutter of wings. Despite the coloring leaves on many of the trees, the forest was as quiet as if deep snows had buried everything. Dirk spiraled his steps outward, picking up fallen limbs and dead sticks as he came across them. The shadows had barely moved by the time he ducked back through the entryway. He settled the wood in a pile near pit, and hunkered. He crumbled some dead leaves between his fingers, sprinkling the powder in the center. Then he laid the sticks in a cross-hatch around them.

  “We do not have the time,” Afra said.

  “It is always the small nicks that ruin a perfect blade, as my da says.” Dirk laid another stick. He examined the wood, and nodded. Then he dusted his hands, and stood. “Good enough. Let us be off.”

  Afra led the way back onto the trail, and set a brisk pace. Crispa was more than happy to go,
and Masan followed her gamely enough. Every hour or so they gave the beasts a short rest, and checked the lay of the land. The day was cool, but other than a few scudding clouds, the sky was a clear, empty blue. They crossed occasional game trails, and old wagon roads overgrown with disuse, but saw no outriders or sentries. Then, as the sun reached its zenith, the signs of beasts began to fall away as well. All that was left was the oppressive green of the looming hills, and the high, shushing grasses that rolled like sea waves in every slight breeze. The shadows had just started to grow again when Afra pulled rein.

  “We are close now,” she said, keeping her voice soft so it would not travel. “If they are to come upon us, it will be soon. Keep back a short way, and see that your hood is up.”

  Dirk nodded, and did as she asked. They slowed their pace from a canter to a walk, and the mules seemed glad of the respite. Afra urged Crispa over a shallow hill, and Dirk followed. Once he crested the mound, he saw the Karran Harr.

  The black road burst forth from beneath the hill they stood on, cutting a perfectly straight path into the green. Every stone as was flat and as smooth as if it had been laid mere days ago. Not a single blade of grass grew over the road, and the trees all leaned away from it as if bent back by a mighty wind. Shadows pooled on the glassy stones; as if the absence of light was a liquid thing that would drown someone who lost their footing atop the causeway. At the far end there loomed... something. Dirk squinted, leaning forward in his saddle. A dark bulk squatted in the distance, half-concealed by the forest. A breeze swept along the stones, and carried a scent to them. It was an absent smell; a tomb where everything inside had rotted away to naught but dust and memories.

  A dozen yards from the road was another of the sheltered stands of trees. It was longer than the one they had stayed in the night before, the trees shorter and stumpy. It also bore a hanging cover of woven grass instead of relying purely on the branches for cover. No smoke rose from the treetops, and no light flickered between the trunks. Afra dismounted, and took Crispa's lead.