“What I had in mind,” continued Elasirr, “is something quite more basic, and yet less dramatic. We’ll draw up a written contract, Your Grace and I. In that contract we’ll list all matters of concern, such as the Regency’s need for strong internal alliance, and the Guilds’ need for a greater autonomy. Chancellor Lirr shall serve as moderator. And this written agreement will serve as an excellent beginning of a mutually beneficial relationship.”
The Regent sat back, and took a big breath, tugging at his beard. “Indeed. What am I to think of your insolence now, Lord Guildmaster?” He shook his head, staring at Elasirr with a mixture of consternation and a sense of inevitability.
“Well, Your Grace, my lord,” said Elasand, before the blond man would launch upon another glib response, “I see I may leave the two of you now, and begin preparations for my trip tomorrow.”
The blond’s hand shot out in a stopping gesture. “Hold it, Vaeste. We’re not done yet.” His words were commanding, more than insolent. For an instant Ranhé wondered why the Regent was allowing this man to talk in such a way, and why Elasand was also allowing him this manner. But then she remembered what was known about Bilhaar, and knew that this man before them held to a law all his own, and in some ways was the true ruler of the City.
“One of the points of this contract of ours,” said Elasirr, “is that I am to accompany the Lord Vaeste on his mysterious mission tomorrow. It’s all a matter of good faith, of course.”
“But—” started Hestiam.
“Out of the question!” said Elasand loudly.
“Come now,” said the Guildmaster of the Assassin Guild. “Are you afraid of my company, Elasand-re?”
“There is absolutely no need for your company,” said Elasand. “You’ll hinder my plans, and frankly I don’t want you there.”
“How wrong you are,” spoke the blond, his lips curving into a dangerous half-smile. “You need me there. Don’t you see, my lord, that I will be your best protection on this trip? Not only will I be responsible for your life, but furthermore I’d have no alibi to harm you in any way—for I know you still believe I am out to do you in, my friend. In that, I again insist, you are quite wrong.”
“I have a perfect bodyguard, right here at my side,” said Vaeste, glancing at Ranhé. “She has saved my life twice already, and one of these times had been fighting your very own Bilhaar.”
Elasirr allowed his suave expression to be superseded by a true frown. “My Bilhaar? How many times must I insist you are mistaken?”
“I fought a set of black-clad assassins wearing the infamous uniform,” said Ranhé very softly, all of a sudden. Everyone turned to look at her who was not to speak unless spoken to.
The man with the sun-hair turned to face her directly. “And you think those were my men?” His voice was soft, and as intense as a blade.
“I know of no other black-clad professionals,” said Ranhé, staring back at him with an utterly blank gaze.
“Even if someone were masquerading as Bilhaar,” said Elasand, “it would be senseless.”
“It makes perfect sense to me,” said Elasirr. “Or is it that you have no other enemies to think of? Someone in whose interest it would be to throw suspicion upon me, and widen the rift between us further, Vaeste?”
Hestiam watched them somewhat nervously. “I could never understand this problem the two of you always seem to have, my friends,” he said eventually.
And then, before anyone else would interrupt, the Regent continued, “It is settled then. Elasirr will accompany you, Elasand-re, on this—thing of yours, tomorrow. And as of this moment, Bilhaar will come to a definite agreement with the Regency.”
“And the Council of Guilds?”
“I promise to convene it after—after the matter with Lord Vorn is concluded,” added the Regent hurriedly.
Elasirr smiled mockingly. “Excellent, Your Grace. You see how easy it is when we all agree so well? Should’ve done it months ago. If I’d known Vorn was to be such a prominent factor, I would’ve invited him here myself. Indeed—now I believe I’ll invite instead our friend the Chancellor, who is more than proficient at drawing up contracts.”
“Yes, well. You mean, on paper? Is that really necessary—” began Hestiam.
“On wonderful tangible paper, Your Grace,” concluded Elasirr, adding, “It is for Your Grace’s peace of mind, of course.”
“Good. You do that,” said Vaeste tiredly. “It is finished, then. Your matter has been set in motion.”
Elasirr appraised him with a subtle look. “Yes, you can get out now, my good Elasand-re. Go on, get ready, I set you free. For I will see you at dawn.”
But Ranhé thought she saw something else contained in that look, something approaching in nature that what is called black, as she followed Vaeste out of the chamber.
A killing smile.
Sudden evening came down upon the Vaeste Villa, like a cloak of erotene velvet. They had dined in silence in an empty house. Most of the servants had been allowed to attend the second day of the Wedding festivities put on by the Regents. Elasand had been mercifully spared any further obligation to attend Dirvan, because of his voluntary yet Regent-approved mission the following morning.
After the meal, thoughtful, he had gone outside into the gardens of his villa, and paced in the darkness, watching the monochrome glow of light in the windows of the building. Above, the sky was boundless, an upside-down abyss. And all around, the evening wind.
Ranhé did not follow him at first. They had been silent, the two of them, ever since returning from the audience with Hestiam. Vaeste’s silence was remote, absentminded. Ranhé, however, couldn’t fathom her own mood, which was like fragile ice.
And thus she sat alone in a comfortable chamber that had been given her. And she glanced down from the window into the pit of darkness that was the evening outside, seeing shadows of the swaying gardens, the ebony foliage, and then suddenly, his silhouette.
At the sight of his shadow, her pulse began to race in her temples, and she knew, admitted to herself at last what she had been unable to face before.
Ranhé stood up, and walked to the door. She paused, feeling the cold filigree of the metal handle, while a sense of inevitability began to rise in her, something alien and cold and uncertain that originated in the solar plexus. And then she walked outside, into the corridor, down the spiraling staircase—while a carousel began to turn in her mind—and out into the gardens below.
It was not difficult to find him, despite the dark, despite the swaying silver shadows. At one end, where the path wound past lush growth, and the cultivated trees strained apart into a clearing, Elasand stood looking at the impossible dark that was the sky.
She approached silently, afraid for the first time in her life. And yet, sensitive like a night thing, he knew her coming, and turned. He was but a black demon silhouette, and so was she.
“My lord,” she said, “I am sorry to disturb you.”
“What is it, Ranhé?” His subdued voice carried in it no emotion, rather, a flatness of affect, but at the same time, gentleness.
What is it? her mind wanted to scream. What is it but that I need to be here, in the same place as you stand, having the same wind flow about me, or else I will die?
But she only said, “A soft evening, my lord. I had to come outside also to smell the wind.”
His eyes glinted, a pale monochrome reflection of the glowing windows. His face was not smiling, but she realized it was out of his own inner preoccupation, not out of disregard for her.
“Join me,” he said simply. And then added, “Although, I doubt that your bodyguard duties need extend into our company tonight.”
He misunderstood her reason for being here. And for a moment, she was willing to let him assume.
The moon was rising, a three-quarters-full swollen crescent, a section of broken orb. For a moment he remained silent, letting her simply stand there, staring at him, boots planted in the gravel, while the wind tugg
ed at his long raven hair, at her tendrils of braid.
“Have you ever had strange dreams, Ranhé?” he spoke then, continuing to observe the gradually lightening sky, as the metallic moon sailed higher.
“Yes,” she almost whispered, thinking of that one shared dream, thinking that he did not know.
He turned to look at her then. “Have you seen gods in your dreams, ever? Or, what might be gods?”
I have seen them in yours, she wanted to say, and a bond has been forged between us, since that night.
“You have seen something, lord,” she said simply. “Is that why we are going tomorrow? To follow that dream of yours?”
He was visibly startled. But she was no longer strong enough to play such games, to withhold anything from him.
“I know everything, my lord,” she said softly. “I too have seen the violet. And I had seen the bright lady. That night, when we first met, in the White Roads Inn, I was—somehow, inexplicably—within your dream.”
“You what?”
Elasand drew close to her suddenly, grabbed hold of her shoulders, and turned her so that the moon illuminated her face with gray pallor.
“What did you just say, Mistress Ylir?”
Her eyes were opened to him. She breathed the wind, the coolness.
“That night,” she said in a barely audible voice, “I awoke in the barn of the inn and opened my eyes upon a violet world. I saw it all, and I saw you, within the transparent inn—I could see through all things then. I followed you. You walked outside, and then, somehow, you were within the other place, a garden, and there was a woman in that place, like a queen. Her hair was so liquid, so bright, and she too, was violet, and she spoke to you. . . .”
“My gods, yes!” He stared, his expression so focused upon her that Ranhé thought he could read her mind.
“I could not hear what she said to you, this lady, this queen. And neither could I hear your answers. But I could see your passion. Your words to her must have been more intimate than I was meant to hear. And all along, there was a sound, wonderful, like a great river, like bells within a stream. . . .”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before, Ranhé?” His eyes were inches away, earnest, glistening with liquid moonlight.
Ranhé took a deep final breath before speaking. “Because, my lord, it was not my right to speak of this. Because you did not ask. My lord—this was one of the reasons why I agreed to work for you. It had changed my mind, this sharing of your intimacy with her.”
“Oh, Ranhé,” said Elasand. “I wish I had known earlier! I wish—” And then he looked away, staring off into the night, and began to speak, strangely, quickly, like a man drowning. “This woman, Ranhé, I love her. She has been haunting me since last winter, when I first saw a glimpse of her and of the violet in a snow landscape through a frost-covered window. . . . Then, I would see her everywhere—in shadows, in a bowl of still water, in the fading sunset, in my dreams.
“At first I merely attributed this to some kind of wishful fantasy, an unattainable ideal. She was so different from the women I had known, so perfectly of the spirit. And she was beyond mortal beauty—truly, that was not what had drawn me. What she was drowned my self. She was—is love incarnate. She knows me, perfectly. And thus, I recognize her for who she is—Laelith.
“I had thought I was going insane for a while, because the frequency of those visions grew. Normally, I am a rational man, known to be aloof. For that reason, I could confide in no one. Only, because of the visions, I was growing more and more distracted in my everyday existence. When you came upon me that first time, and we fought the Bilhaar together, it had been thus. I had just barely awakened from a daydream of her when the attack came, and had been distracted enough to allow the danger threaten me and the lives of others. And yet, even then, I had not learned my lesson. The vision came back that night. That one physical dream in the White Roads Inn, was the first in which I felt myself truly transported within another place. I was with her, and I could speak with her. For the first time, I could speak! I could tell her what was about to explode within me, an urgency, a mad need. I spoke to her, and she answered me, perfect and divine. . . . She responded to my soul in a way that was more intimate than I thought possible! And yet, I knew that was not the way to be with her. Just as she was about to reveal to me something of utmost urgency, the greatest truth, the dream dissolved.”
Ranhé listened, while fever interspersed with ice moved in waves through her body. His gaze was averted, and probably he never noticed the turbulence within her.
“And that is why,” Elasand continued, “I must find out what she was trying to tell me. I must go to her. For, what she has to tell me will change more than just my life. What she has to tell me is the only hope we have, all of us, this sorrowful damned City. . . .”
Ranhé swallowed, trying to fight a constriction that was inevitably building in her throat. “Then, we are going somewhere . . . far, my lord?” she managed to whisper, while the knot again tightened, pulling at her, so that moisture began to well in her eyes, and the image of the gray moon shimmered with a pale bright auric corona, and began to double.
In that instant, Elasand turned to look at her, and it was just in time to see that single expelled tear, that damned traitor globule that had escaped from her, despite the perfect composed stillness of her face—not a single twitch in her facial muscles.
He turned, and he saw. “Why—Ranhé, are you crying?” he said softly, with genuine surprise.
“I am not . . . my lord . . . of course . . . I am. . . .”
She could not finish. If she were to say another word, the dam would burst. And that must never be. And so she was silent, and she breathed, gradually stilling that what was within her. She was ever proficient in killing that which tried to surface from within, having had years of practice.
But Elasand Vaeste—looking intently at the upturned moonlit face of this strange young woman, her dilated intense liquid eyes, the single tear crawling like a bit of the moon upon her cheek—knew at last. He recognized the longing, the divine madness in her (having carried the same within himself), and knew it was directed at him.
And for a moment he felt a pang of something for her also, and then, he felt so utterly sorry for this one, because she was feeling for him what he was feeling for another. He knew now why she was here, at his side, why she agreed to be with him, why she would never let anyone harm him.
He knew, that if she must, she would die for him.
And he knew that—no matter what she had told him about someday leaving him, about how she, unpredictable and changeable in her loyalties, would abandon him, maybe even in his hour of need, about how there were to be no promises, how she refused to swear an oath of fealty to anyone—he knew that she would never, never leave him now.
She was his, this Ranhéas Ylir, mercenary woman warrior.
She was in love with him, hopelessly, and despite herself.
And Elasand, noble and perfectly fair as always, allowed her a moment of stillness to compose herself, because he could not return those feelings, nor did he feel it was appropriate to do so. For, he was Lord Elasand Vaeste. And she was—
Who was she, indeed?
He had trusted her from the start, by instinct, because she had appeared into his life at a moment of heightened adrenaline-laced danger, and she had fought at his side. That was all he had to recommend her.
And now, there was this bond.
He must never hurt her then, for, although her loyalty was unexpected, it will now be assured, perfect. And he could only respect and try to overlook this one weakness in her—the weakness toward himself.
And as he thought these things, observing her with silent sympathy, Ranhé gathered herself at last, and completely put down the mutiny of emotions that was brewing within her.
As the moon illuminated her pallor, her liquid eyes, she lifted her hand to wipe her cheek where the tear had shone, not bothering to hide the gesture. An
d then she smiled, directly, openly, facing his eyes.
“Forgive me, my lord,” she said, her voice again steady. “There was something so sad in your story that it touched me, that is all. I am all right now. We have a long road ahead of us, and it is time for me to sleep, for I am now tired indeed. Tell me one thing, only, where do we go, truly?”
“We go, my Ranhé,” he replied gently, “to a place outside the City, somewhere in the forests, possibly two days’ ride away. In the old days it had been called the Shrine of Light. I believe I can find it. Within it lies the answer to my visions, and to the future of us all.”
“Then we will go there, my lord,” said she, eyes glittering with liquid intensity. “And I will be there gladly at your side. Good night . . . May you come to see the lady of violet, and may you be fulfilled.”
And saying that, she turned away, quickly, and walked along the garden path in darkness, back into the villa.
Elasand stood looking at the shadows in her wake, and he whispered, “Yes, good night. . . . May we all be fulfilled.”
And the moon, and the gardens, and the shadows, and the gentle wind of the night, all answered him with living silence.
PART III
Darkness
CHAPTER 13
Yes, I am still here, still with you.
But now it has grown very dark. And you are no longer so sure. And yet you continue to move forward—or is it inward—while behind you and ahead of you is an endless fluctuating sea of darkness and veils. . . .
More than ever, you must now strain to look, and listen.
* * *
It was still dark when a knock sounded on the door of her room. Ranhé awoke from the abyss, disoriented, her lungs drawing in the first deep breath. Nausea tugged at her as she got up, and her head throbbed from lack of proper sleep.
“Ranhé?” came Elasand’s gentle voice from the corridor.
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