Mystic and Rider

by Sharon Shinn

  Once they were gone, he ate the food, since poison didn’t seem to be among the hazards he would have to face here. Boredom might be, but he had the effective antidote to that, for the moment, anyway: exhaustion. He stretched himself out on the narrow bed and slept.

  It might have been midnight when there was another sound at the door. Trained to sleep lightly, especially in perilous circumstances, Tayse came instantly awake and scrambled to his feet. Automatically, he bunched his hand around a coil of chain. Not much of a weapon, but it made him feel as if he might have something to strike with after all if someone came in intending him harm.

  Two women entered, dressed in dark violet robes. He guessed the color signified some status, since both of them were older than the novices he’d seen so far. One looked patrician enough to at least be Thirteenth House; the other looked more rugged, like a peasant or a farmer. The patrician one spoke.

  “The Lestra has come to speak with you. You will stand unless she gives you permission to sit. You will address her always as ‘my lady.’ You will speak in quiet and respectful terms. Guards wait outside the door to enforce your cooperation.”

  “I will be happy to meet under those conditions,” he said.

  The women nodded and backed out.

  A moment later, the Lestra marched in.

  Despite the very real danger of his circumstances, Tayse’s strongest emotion was curiosity as he looked over the woman who had organized the Daughters of the Pale Mother. She was not exceptionally tall—maybe five and a half feet—but she was so solidly built and filled with such assurance that she had an instant presence. Her thick hair was a streaky gray and hung in a braid all the way to her knees, though wisps of it curled around her face as though to soften its strong, square contours. She was dressed in a black silk robe embroidered so heavily with silver thread that the darker color was hard to see. Tayse thought immediately of a winter sky at night, so laden with stars that it was possible to forget there was a sky beneath all the glitter.

  It was clear she considered herself the incarnation of the Silver Lady herself.

  In one hand she carried a lamp, held almost face high. Its globe was round and glowed with a rich golden light that set all her finery to twinkling but emphasized the harshness of her face. Tayse had a quick thought that this lamp was meant to symbolize the moon, and that the Lestra believed she was the Pale Mother, holding the night beacon in her hands.

  Tayse had even less reason than before to believe that she might be amenable to rational argument.

  She set the lamp down on the floor and drew up the single high-backed chair to face him where he stood. She had not seemed to calculate her movements, but he was quite sure she sat just outside the reach of his hand should he suddenly try to leap to the length of the chain. Her eyes, which she now turned in his direction, were wide-set and large. In the uncertain light of the chamber, they looked to be dead black.

  “So,” she said, and her voice was low and curiously musical. “They tell me you are a Rider named Tayse.”

  He nodded. “I am.”

  Her eyes moved expressively from the end of the chain attached to the window grill and down to the manacle on his hand. “Forgive our makeshift measures at holding you in check,” she said. “We are not used to accommodating prisoners here at Lumanen Convent.”

  “If you intend to take many more of them, perhaps you’ll need to invest in more traditional cells,” he replied.

  Her nostrils flared to indicate dislike of his impertinence, but she did not respond to him directly. “Tell me, Tayse, what are you doing on the road between Nocklyn and Gisseltess at such an inhospitable time of year?”

  “Carrying out the commission of my king.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “And what is this commission?”

  “I believe the king would prefer I not share his private business with you. Or anyone.”

  She nodded; it was a perfectly legitimate response. “You have been traveling for some weeks now in the company of several others, have you not?”

  “There are six in our party.”

  “Who are your companions?”

  He was silent.

  “I believe I can guess at some of their roles,” she pursued. “Two of them at least are mystics, for their antics have been described to me by those who have witnessed some of their more spectacular displays. Two of the others appear to be additional guards of some sort, though not Riders. The last one is, like yourself, in service to the king.”

  Tayse nodded again. “Most of that is accurate.”

  She leaned forward. “I am most interested in the identities of the women who are mystics.”

  “I wonder why that would be,” he replied.

  “It is always good to know the names and the faces of the people who are ranged against you,” she said with composure. “And these two, I think, are women with whom I am somewhat familiar.”

  “Oh?”

  Her fingers toyed briefly with the strands of her braid. “A golden-haired woman of noble birth with the skill of healing in her hands,” she said. “There are not so many mystics born to the Twelve Houses, and only one I can think of who fits that description. Kirra Danalustrous.”

  “A pretty name,” Tayse commented.

  She smiled. “And her traveling companion. Some years older than Kirra, with hair as white as a candle flame and the ability to start a fire with her touch. The only one I knew of with such power I thought had died some years back. But perhaps this is another woman.”

  Tayse shrugged. “I don’t know who you know and who you don’t.”

  “So you will not tell me their names.”

  “I am enjoined by the king to tell as little as possible.”

  She fixed those dark eyes on him. “I admit I am interested to know why your king—”

  “Your king as well,” he interrupted.

  She narrowed her eyes but did not bother to reprimand him. “Why he would send mystics on the road in company with Riders on a mission they are not eager to discuss.”

  Once again, Tayse declined to answer.

  “You do not look to be a stupid man, Tayse,” she said. “I will have to assume you made some observations during your trek through the southern provinces.”

  “I have noticed that the Daughters of the Pale Mother have achieved some influence with the southern Houses. There are not so many shrines and moonstones to be found up near Ghosenhall.”

  “More shame to the king and the northern Houses, then. For the Pale Mother is all present. Her eye looks everywhere; her light falls to the farthest corners of the world.”

  He shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen.”

  She smiled, a rather grim expression. “You will yet be amazed at what you see, Tayse.”

  That seeming to require no answer, he gave none.

  She shifted in her chair. “As I said, you do not seem like a stupid man, but I am thinking you are perhaps untaught. You do not know certain things. You are not evil so much as uneducated.”

  “Evil?” he repeated before he could stop himself.

  She nodded. “The mystics are evil, Tayse, and those who worship them are evil as well.”

  “I don’t worship mystics. I don’t worship anyone. I am loyal to my king. I am faithful to my fellow men. Those are the only covenants I strike.”

  She lifted a finger as if in admonition. “Ah! So your soul is as yet unclaimed by either the sweet light or the bitter darkness. Yet you are in danger, Tayse, great danger, for you have consorted with sorceresses and you are tainted down to the last drop of your blood.”

  Again, he spoke before he really took the time to review his words. “I feel like I’m in more danger here in your presence than I ever was while I traveled on the road with mystics.”

  She gave him that chilling smile again. “But then, you are unenlightened, and you do not understand the difference between physical and mortal danger.”

  He smiled back. “I understand death,” he sa
id. “Are you dealing in that? The mystics did not, while I was with them.”

  “They could kill your soul, Tayse. They could blacken it with sorcerous fumes till it turned so dark you would never get it clean again. A mystic’s touch is degrading. It may, for a time, exhilarate the flesh, but it ultimately eats away every living organ beneath the skin. Have you been consorting with mystics, Tayse? Have they corrupted you? Is the flesh even now barely binding together a heart that is veined with ill intent and blood that runs black as tar?”

  He was almost speechless. Both her venom and her imagery made his skin crawl with distaste, and every one of his warning senses screamed danger. But there was practically no defense to make. “I consider myself an honest man,” he managed to say. “I believe myself corrupted by no one.”

  The Lestra leaned back in her chair. “I hope for your sake that is true, Tayse,” she said. He wished she would stop using his name. “But your king has already fallen prey to magic.”

  For a moment, he stopped breathing. “What do you mean?”

  She lifted her arms in an uncertain gesture, as if the boundaries of good and evil were so amorphous she could not describe them with a single arc of her hands. “He has allowed himself to be tainted, Tayse. He has gone into the embrace of unhallowed women. He has allied himself with enchanters. He will bring ruin to his whole country.”

  “He is a good king,” Tayse said.

  “He must be destroyed,” she replied.

  If he had not been standing already, he would have leapt to his feet. He could not even say he was surprised, but shock lanced through him in a single pulse of fury. He managed to refrain from speaking until the spell of darkness passed. “And you would consider yourself the agent of his destruction?”

  “It is the task the Pale Mother has given me,” she said simply.

  “Then yours is the heart that is black,” he said in a quiet voice. “For you will bring death and bloodshed to the Twelve Houses of Gillengaria.”

  She nodded. “There are those who will see it that way. So it always is for those few who have the insight and the strength to wrench a country away from its headlong, disastrous course. I am prepared to be despised because I know I am righteous. I will eventually be honored. So is the course of every savior.”

  “How do I fit into your plans?” he asked.

  She considered him, as if she had just now noticed him. “It is unclear. I am sure your king has a great interest in recovering you, which makes you very precious to me. If I harm you, he will wish to harm me in return. I am not prepared yet to open hostilities. Thus, for the moment, you serve me better alive. But now that I look at you, I have to wonder: Is there not a way I can serve you as well?”

  She was a raving lunatic. He kept his voice neutral as he said, “What could you possibly mean by that?”

  She leaned forward again. “You are a man hovering between influences, Tayse. I feel it so clearly. You have long been your king’s most loyal vassal—a good man, according to your lights, and I respect your dedication, your commitment to a cause. But lately—I can sense this, I can feel the disturbance in your heart and your mind—lately you have begun to waver. You have begun to fall under the spell of one of these mystics—these enchanters. You are so close to being consumed by magic. Your white heart is on the brink of turning to cinder and ash. I can rescue you from this fate. I can turn your heart back to the light, back to the way of silver. I can make you a soldier in the Pale Mother’s army, which is the path to certain glory. I can save you—and you in turn can pour your strength into my cause.”

  For a moment, he absolutely did not know what to say. It was seriously disturbing that she had picked up on his divided loyalties, for he had no doubt that part of her could read his growing obsession with Senneth, though she had not correctly divined the nature of that attachment. But the last person he would go to for aid or salvation was this ranting fanatic caught up in her own austere rapture. Yet he was not in a position to alienate her entirely. He could neither laugh in her face nor brush past her and walk out.

  “I—I don’t know how to answer you, my lady,” he said at last.

  She nodded. “Yes. You are conflicted. You are bound deeply by old vows. I would not expect you to suddenly swear fealty to me. I could not trust a man who could so blithely cast off old associations. But I will work with you. I think you have promise. I think you could be a brave knight to our most gracious Silver Lady.”

  He bowed his head and judged it safe to say nothing. He heard the rustle of fabric as she came to her feet. “Tayse,” she said, and he looked up. She tossed a small gleaming object his way, and he caught it by instinct. It felt cool as glass in his hand. He opened his fingers to see what he was holding.

  A moonstone the size of a bird’s egg. When he looked back at her, she was smiling.

  “It does not burn your skin,” she said. “It does not make you cry out in pain. You are not so far gone as you think, Tayse. You are still open to the influence of the goddess.”

  “Does this mean that you can trust me?” he asked.

  She laughed, a sound so merry that it was almost bizarre, in this place, under these circumstances. “Oh, Tayse. It will be weeks and weeks before I can trust you. But it means that you are not hopeless. It means you have not given your soul to evil. Would you like to keep the stone?”

  Why not? “If I may,” he said.

  She nodded. “I will be happy to leave it with you. I hope the goddess sends you peaceful dreams.”

  This seemed to be a benediction and farewell. “I would wish the same for you, my lady,” he replied gravely.

  She paused with her hand on the door. “We will talk again,” she promised. “I am looking forward to it.”

  He nodded so deeply she could take his response as a bow, but he did not speak again as she opened the door and went out.

  He very much doubted his dreams would be peaceful. He very much doubted he would sleep at all.

  SENNETH and her companions traveled slowly down the path that Tayse’s captors had followed, trying to avoid the hazards of the road. Indeed, they were so careful that, from time to time, Senneth thought their greatest danger lay in driving Justin mad. The young Rider was trying very hard to tamp down his impatience and his fear, but their cautious progress south and then west clearly made him want to run them all through with a sword.

  They ignored him as best they could, which was easy enough as they were all preoccupied by different tasks.

  Kirra had taken hawk shape and flown ahead to scout out the road, making sure no soldiers lay in ambush. Cammon gave most of his attention to controlling the raelynx. Donnal remained in dog form, following Tayse’s scent, though Senneth was pretty sure where the trail would lead them: to the Lumanen Convent in the unclaimed land between Nocklyn and Gisseltess.

  Senneth was wholly absorbed by planning what she would do when they arrived at the gates to the convent. She could already feel a faint headache building at the back of her skull, a warning to hold her fury in check. So she made an effort to keep her shoulders relaxed, her mind clear, her thoughts orderly. She would not be much use to anyone if she practically destroyed herself every time she lashed out with magic.

  “They can’t hurt him. A King’s Rider? That would be stupid,” Justin was saying. He had continued this litany more or less continuously since they had set out from the site of the ambush this morning. “I mean, if they kill him, the king will send his troops to the convent to destroy them. What have they gained then? They’re all dead.”

  Unless Gisseltess guards and Nocklyn soldiers were massed before the convent awaiting the assault. Unless the very thing the southern rebels wanted was a pretext to go to war. Senneth did not offer these observations.

  “I mean, killing a King’s Rider would be like assassinating the marlord of one of the Houses,” Justin went on. “It would be suicide.”

  Cammon looked at Senneth as if she was the only one beside him on the road. “Are we goin
g to ride straight through or stop for the night?” he asked.

  “Ride straight through,” Justin said.

  Senneth shook her head. “Stop for the night.”

  Justin was incensed. “What? And leave him there—leave him unprotected for another eight or ten hours? No, no, you don’t leave a fellow Rider in danger that long. We go straight to the convent.”

  Senneth looked at him, willing him, for just a moment, to shut up. “Coralinda Gisseltess is the handmaiden of the moon goddess,” Senneth said softly. “She is strongest at night. I want to take her on when we have some chance of defeating her.”

  “But Tayse—”

  “I don’t think she will act so soon,” Senneth interrupted. “He is too rich a prize to throw away on a whim.”

  “She would be a fool to harm a Rider,” Justin said.

  “Yes,” Senneth said, “she would.”

  It was not quite nightfall when Kirra returned to the riding party and resumed the shape of a woman. Even at such a critical time, Senneth was fascinated to watch her transformation. Donnal’s shifts between human and animal shape tended to be swift, melting exchanges that were impossible for the eye to follow or the senses to absorb. But Kirra altered shape more slowly, metamorphosing in discrete stages. The hawk landed practically at their horses’ hooves in the middle of the road, then craned its neck, which stretched and stretched to a ludicrous length. The spread wings rolled into slender shapes and brightened from feather dark to skin light; the thin, taloned feet grew plump and pink. The transmogrification still took no more than a minute or two, but it was so deliberate that Senneth was sure Kirra was thinking through every single stage. Donnal, she thought, operated purely on instinct as he flicked from being to being. Though Donnal sat quietly panting in the middle of the road and showed no inclination to become human at all.

  “How far is the convent?” Senneth asked when Kirra was done.