Blackveil

by Kristen Britain

  “You . . . you knew I was there?” Karigan demanded. “And you didn’t tell me what I was going to do?”

  “No, I did not know, for you were but a blurring of the air. It was the king who told us a Green Rider brought the Sleepers. The last mortal to set foot in Eletia.”

  Karigan opened her mouth and closed it. This was not just bending her mind, it was twisting it into knots.

  “Why does Karigan get to have all the fun?” Yates demanded.

  “Fun?” She thrust her injured wrist into his face, then returned her gaze to Ealdaen. “If you knew the outcome for the Sleepers, why didn’t you tell us?”

  “We did not know. It had not happened yet. We were in a different thread of time. And as old memories vanish, different ones emerge. We had suspicions, however. There are those among us who can see across such threads. King Santanara was one, and his son, Prince Jametari, is another.”

  “Paradoxes,” Karigan muttered. “So confusing.”

  “Your species is limited by its linear and mortal mold. Eletians have eternity to contemplate such complexities.”

  “In other words,” Yates drawled to Karigan, “give up trying to make sense of it.”

  “If we had told you what we suspected,” Ealdaen said, “it might have created a false sense of confidence leading to failure. There are thousands of possible, ever-changing threads and we could have been wrong. This was but one.”

  Threads or no, Karigan could not get over the feeling she’d been masterfully manipulated yet again.

  REDBIRD

  A shock of crimson darted through the bleakness of Blackveil, the wings of the redbird beating a steady rhythm. The redbird did not pause in its flight, was unwavering in its route, for as a creature of etherea, it required no rest or sustenance. Predators did not perceive it as prey, but as the impulse of magic, and therefore they did not hinder it. It sped bright and fleeting through the trees and murk of the forest, a spell venturing on its way to fulfillment.

  Only when the redbird reached the break in the great wall did it pause, perching on a tree limb on the other side in the unfamiliar world of sunshine. It gazed upon the humans busy at work in their encampment, but the one it sought was not in this place.

  And yet not far away. The redbird launched from its branch and flew eastward, the wall flowing along its wingtip. It would not be long now before the redbird’s reason for existing came to fruition.

  Despite the welcome spring sunshine, a gloom settled on Alton’s shoulders as he left the pickets and headed across the encampment. It wasn’t Estral that darkened his morning, for she brought lightness and joy to his life. He now saw the world as more lovely than he’d ever perceived it before, and the music . . . How had he gone through life without music filling his hours? Estral woke him in the mornings with song, carried him through the days with lute music, and soothed him to sleep with lullabies.

  It was not just Alton who was uplifted by her presence, but it seemed the entire encampment was as well. She inspired countless campfire sing-alongs and performances by normally taciturn soldiers and laborers discovering hidden talents.

  The wall continued to mend in nearly imperceptible increments, tiny cracks filling in, retreating toward the breach. The hole in the roof of Tower of the Heavens continued to shrink, all thanks to Estral and her music.

  No, Alton’s gloom had nothing to do with Estral, but with the horses. The anxiety of Karigan’s Condor, Yates’ Phoebe, and Lynx’s Owl had increased steadily. The three had become restive enough that they’d had to be picketed separately from the encampment’s other equines, for their mood was contagious and a worried horse or mule was prone to injure itself.

  So Alton and Dale had made a concerted effort to keep a close watch on the messenger horses, and he’d gotten Leese to spare some calming herbs that he incorporated into a daily mash for the three. If Night Hawk was jealous of the attention he lavished on the others, the gelding showed no sign. Messenger horses were perceptive, seeming to understand more about the world and what was happening to their people than ordinary horses did. He would not have been surprised if the messenger horses conferred with one another in some unknown way; therefore, he kept Night Hawk and Dale’s Plover picketed close to them, but out of harm’s way.

  Alton sought out Estral at her tent, the dining tent, by the wall, and in the tower, and could not find her. Could she have gone to the main encampment for any reason? He scratched his head, then remembered her horse had still been picketed, and she hadn’t mentioned any intention to travel. On a hunch he went to his tent and found her sitting on a stool in front of it, her lute case open beside her. She was flexing her fingers in preparation for playing.

  “There you are,” he said. “Why are you over here?”

  “For some reason,” she replied, “people are less likely to interrupt me at your tent, Lord Alton.”

  “Oh, I see.” And he did, for Estral tended to collect an audience when she played, even when she was obviously trying to concentrate on working out the mysterious measure from the book of Theanduris Silverwood. He could see how distracting that would be. Because of his own status, people tended to keep a respectful distance from his tent. “Am I interrupting?”

  “Not yet,” Estral replied. “I haven’t started yet.”

  A redbird fluttered its wings in a nearby tree, its feathers bright against evergreen.

  “How are the horses?” she asked.

  He’d explained to her the nature of messenger horses and so she knew what it meant when they were upset.

  “Still agitated,” he said. “Condor the most. I can only imagine what trouble Karigan has gotten herself into.”

  Estral gazed at her fingernails. The nails on her chording hand were shorter than those on her picking hand, which he’d learned from direct experience when she held onto him when they were alone together. The thought made him smile, and just as quickly he replaced it with a neutral expression, recalling what they were discussing. Karigan was still a difficult topic between them.

  “I often wonder what she and the others are encountering in the forest,” Estral said.

  “Me, too.” Even though Alton had spent time in Blackveil himself, he remembered few details, and those had been awful enough. He did not share his memories with Estral, not wishing to worry her further. Such thoughts only made him gloomier so he changed the subject. “How goes work on that measure of music? Any inspirations?”

  Estral sighed. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this even when I’m not actively working on it. I’ve tried so many variations, and none have been quite right. Sometimes I think I’m overthinking it, and at other times I remember what a genius Gerlrand Fiori was with music and I feel so very inadequate.”

  The redbird chirped as if to underscore her statement, and hopped to another branch.

  “Inadequate? I hardly think so.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Then more seriously he added, “If you want inadequate, think of how I feel about the wall. My ancestors built it, but I can’t fix it.”

  “You can’t fix it because I can’t figure out the music,” Estral said. “However, I’ve been trying to think like Gerlrand, musically speaking, and he did not always follow logical patterns. The existing notes from the book ascend as if asking a question.” She demonstrated for him, her voice rising in clear, ringing notes. “The assumption is that there is an answer. But what if there isn’t an answer at all, but only another question? And what if that other question does not mirror the notes we know of, but consists of still more measures?”

  Alton smiled feebly and patted her shoulder. “That’s why we’ve an expert on the job.”

  “The true expert would be Gerlrand. There are just so many possible variations.”

  She sang the notes again, this time carrying on with a continued ascension, then drifting into minor notes, the tone eerie, before soaring once again. Alton assumed she was making it up as she went and decided Gerlrand held nothing over his Estral.


  As she sang, the redbird launched from its perch and circled overhead. Alton thought nothing of it until it folded its wings into a dive; it dove directly at Estral like a crimson dart, dove and slammed into her throat. It all happened so quickly, and Estral’s song ended abruptly. No crumpled bird lay dazed on the ground after the collision. It had turned into a bloated serpent of red light that wrapped around her neck and slithered into her open mouth and down her throat. She gagged, gasping for breath.

  “Estral!” Alton tried to grab the serpent, but it was the substance of air. Estral scratched at her throat, tried to scream, but nothing emerged. Alton did not know what to do, but then the snake faded away. Estral remained on her stool, eyes wide and tearing, hands still at her throat.

  Alton knelt before her. He saw no marks on her throat except those she’d made herself. “Estral, are you all right?”

  She gazed at him, forehead furrowed. She shook her head.

  “What is it? What . . . what did that thing do to you?”

  She started to speak, but no sound came out.

  “Estral?”

  She crumpled into his arms, heaving with silent sobs.

  Alton carried Estral into his tent and sent for Leese. The wait was agonizing. Estral would not respond to his questions or his touch. She lay curled in a fetal position on his cot, buried her face into his pillow, and would not move.

  Leese finally arrived and while she examined Estral, Alton paced outside, awaiting some sign. He heard the mender’s murmured questions within, but no answers from Estral. Not a word.

  Dale came and sat on a tree stump. “What happened?” she asked.

  Alton explained what he’d seen. “Some sort of magical attack.”

  “From Blackveil?”

  “Where else? She seemed all right after,” Alton continued. “Frightened, but unharmed—at least outwardly. But unable to speak.” He felt strains of concern from the wall guardians. They’d responded to Estral’s music like nothing else, and now there was only silence and their dismay.

  Leese slipped through the flaps of her tent, blinking in the sunlight.

  “Well?” Alton demanded.

  “I’ve given her a little something to help her rest,” the mender replied. “She was very upset, which is not surprising.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “It’s beyond my experience,” Leese said, “especially if what you say about magic is correct. I can identify no injury or sickness. The only thing I can find is that her voice is gone. Totally and absolutely.”

  Alton clenched and unclenched his hands, feeling the urge to pound on the wall—or anything hard—as he had not in quite a while.

  Dale bunched her eyebrows together. “Seems like that spell was intended directly for Estral.”

  “She must have been getting too close to finding the right notes,” Alton said. “It was cast by someone who does not want the wall fixed.”

  The three fell into a heavy silence, the gloom penetrating into a deep dark within him. He would make whoever had done this pay, not just because it prevented Estral’s music from fixing the wall, but because of what it had done to her, taking away an intrinsic part of her—her ability to sing.

  Yes, he’d make whoever was responsible pay, even if it meant confronting Mornhavon the Black himself.

  GOD AND A MIRACLE

  A wave of disorientation rolled over Grandmother and she almost blacked out.

  What was that? she wondered, passing her hand over her eyes. Good thing she’d been sitting. She’d felt movement, a displacement of the world, and its subsequent reordering.

  The others appeared unaffected, unaware. Deglin tossed another stick of wood on the fire, and Min and Sarat discussed what to do about cooking utensils since Grandmother had “ruined” one of their pots. Cole stretched his back and shoulders, and Lala played string games.

  Somehow she had the vague idea that Deglin and Sarat shouldn’t be there, and that their little group had moved to the edge of the grove after awakening the Sleepers because of all the destruction, not remained where they were. It must have been a dream of the sort one exhausted to the core dreamed, a dream close to reality but not, and darker.

  It was a good thing they hadn’t moved to the fringes of the grove because that appeared to be where most of the destruction to the great trees was concentrated. The inner trees remained unchanged. There had not been as many Sleepers as she’d expected and she was not sure of what God’s response would be. She looked into the fire, recalled that she’d seen what Birch was up to, and that God had come to her. Hadn’t He? At first He was pleased, and then . . . enraged? Perhaps she remembered only the dream, and her memories of it were quickly fading.

  But not the part about Birch. How strange. She shrugged. No matter, she’d done what she came here to do, and after she rested for the night, they’d begin their journey home. Maybe they’d even survive it.

  “Have another cup of tea,” Sarat said, pressing a mug into Grandmother’s hands. “We must have you strong for our journey back.”

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  A strong gust of wind rippled the surface of her tea, bent the flames of their campfire sideways, sending sparks tumbling along the ground. The vast limbs of the grove trees groaned and carried on an angry dialog among themselves.

  Grandmother set her tea aside. “Help me rise,” she told Cole, and he did, resettling the blanket over her shoulders.

  “What is it, Grandmother?” Sarat asked, her hands trembling.

  They were pelted with pine needles and twigs, and damp, decaying cones. Leaves whirled along the forest floor in dervishes. The ground shuddered.

  “Grandmother?” Sarat asked, her voice pitched higher.

  “I am not sure,” she replied, but the air was bloated with expectancy—the forest strainng against some imminent collision, the rising of a storm tide, something momentous, a shattering of all they’d known, and a thrill shivered through her.

  The mist pushed away leaving a giant man-shaped space in the air.

  “I HAVE COME.”

  “It is God,” Grandmother whispered. The mist billowed and roiled, filling in the image of the man shape until it no longer existed.

  “I AM HERE.” The thunderous voice erupted this time from Deglin.

  They turned as one to face him. His body was straightened in an attitude Grandmother had never seen in him before. She did not recognize his eyes—they burned as molten coals. He raked them with an imperious glare.

  “Finally, our time is congruent.” He laughed half hysterically, not at all like Deglin. He snapped off his laughter, looked around the grove, his face grave with disapproval. Then he speared Grandmother with his stare. “But you have failed me.” His words were quiet, but Grandmother’s knees turned fluid and folded. Cole caught her and helped ease her down so she did not crash to the ground and injure herself.

  “My ... my lord, I’ve awakened the Sleepers.”

  “You allowed most of them to escape through time.”

  Grandmother did not understand the statement, but something niggled in the back of her mind. The dream, maybe.

  “Who are you?” He demanded.

  “You do not know?” she asked. How could God not know?

  His gaze lost focus and He appeared to look inward, then He nodded to Himself. “This one has told me all that I need to know.” He must mean Deglin. He gazed at Grandmother once again, but this time His assessment was more approving. “You work against the Sacor Clans in my name to return the empire to its glory.”

  “Yes, my lord. It is what I live for.”

  “Then you shall return across the wall to continue your work. I shall see that you have safe passage through this land.” Sweat streamed down the face that was Deglin’s, his cheeks flushed.

  “What of you, my lord?”

  “The others are still here. There is one among them whose taste I know. They will not receive safe passage.” He gave her a grim smile, Deglin’s fles
h turning redder as if he were burning up.

  Grandmother knew her God was not a gentle God, but she had never feared Him before. She did now. Sarat had wilted to the ground sobbing, and Min and Cole kept their heads bowed, eyes averted.

  Lala watched him curiously, and then like a miracle, she opened her mouth and a clear bright note came singing out of her. Everyone stared aghast at her, even God. The note rose up and up into the mist and limbs of the great trees, the voice of an angel.

  God laughed again and strode over to Lala, steam rising from Deglin’s body, and He placed His hand on her shoulder. “This little one has some power in her. Teach her well.”

  “I will, my lord,” Grandmother replied, stunned by how well the spell of the redbird had worked. Perhaps the presence of God had enhanced Lala’s new, glorious voice. She concentrated for a moment, directed her thoughts toward the wall, but heard no music there; felt only consternation and grief.

  “I must go now,” God said.

  “I love you,” Lala sang out.

  God patted her on the head, then Deglin’s body slipped limply to the ground like a shed skin. Wind gusted once again through the grove. Grandmother crawled over to Deglin, but found no life in him, though his flesh burned so hot that she could only conclude that God’s presence must have boiled him from the inside out.

  Lala sang a dirge that broke them all down to weeping. They held each other, comforting one another in a strange combination of grief and joy. It was a day of loss, and a day of miracles. God had walked among them, and Lala sang with an angel’s voice!

  Grandmother assumed that the others God had mentioned were only going to know His wrath. She smiled through her tears, holding Lala close.

  THE CHOSEN MASK

  The companions set off through the spiraling ways of Castle Argenthyne. The Eletians, with Lynx, had sealed off the grove entrance and blocked the corridor linking to the chamber with the moondial to stop, or at least slow down, any pursuit by the remaining Sleepers. After considering their options, Ealdaen decided their best route of escape would be through the castle, traveling inward to its core, then turning outward and westward to the spiral of the castle that loomed over the lake they’d seen from the forest, the Pool of Avrath.