The Land of Night

by Kirby Crow

  Scarlet’s stomach plummeted, and he realized that he might never come to the end of Liall’s secrets. He only stared at the mocking man in dismay, and Vladei laughed and made the gesture of dismissal one makes to servants, shutting Scarlet up for good. Vladei’s show of contempt had almost prompted Scarlet to lie, to say that he knew all about this Jarek, and he was ashamed of how he had nearly betrayed his own honor just to satisfy this sneering brute. Why isn’t the truth good enough? he asked himself.

  Scarlet closed his eyes and pretended sleep, damning Vladei silently to ten different hells.

  Vladei began to speak lowly to Cestimir in Sinha, and suddenly the carriage turned north again, away from the palace. Despite his best efforts, exhaustion claimed Scarlet and he drifted into darkness.

  ***

  By the hour that marks the beginning of the later afternoon, scouts had found the dead horses and the wreck of the carriage lying far below the mountain road. There were tracks leading off from the path into the forest, but Rshani take no chances. They wasted valuable time scaling the cliff with ropes to check the carriage, and finding no one inside nor any blood trail that would have told tales on any scavenger stealing a body, the scouts sent runners to follow the tracks. They ended in a spot near a hill where fresh sleigh tracks crossed them, and there also ended the search, for the tracks led back up into the mountain, where it was snowing heavily.

  A rider in blue brought the ill news back and asked new instructions of Liall, and Liall had to physically stop himself from hitting the man.

  Vladei was not inside the palace and nowhere to be found. Liall knew what had happened.

  So, apparently, did his mother. As the night-hour approached, he went to give her the news and found Alexyin at the entrance to the second tier, barring the door.

  “She is ill,” Alexyin said, holding up his hand. “No visitors.”

  “I am no visitor,” Liall said, deeply shocked and insulted.

  Alexyin looked pained. “Forgive me, I did not mean it like that. Just... my prince, she is very old and this news has brought her low. The healers can do nothing.”

  Liall wondered if Alexyin were telling him what he thought he was. “She will recover,” he said.

  Alexyin shook his head slowly. “She will not, Nazheradei.”

  Liall swallowed in a throat suddenly dry. “But...”

  Alexyin put his hand on Liall’s shoulder, and his face was kinder than Liall could ever remember seeing. “Go back to your apartments and wait. I will come when there is need.”

  Liall’s walk through the palace was long and lonely, and Scarlet’s absence seemed like an open wound. For the first time he truly felt the cold here, and marveled that Scarlet had borne it all this time without complaint.

  Scarlet. Oh, gods. Scarlet and Cestimir. Where were they? Were they dead already, or in pain, or afraid? What was happening to them? Liall had to fight the urge to go out after them on his own, armed with only a sword in his hand and a horse under him. He knew it was what Vladei wanted, and he knew it would be the death of them all if he went. The only chance he had to keep Scarlet and Cestimir alive was to stay in the Nauhinir, where he was still a threat to Vladei, and so prevent his step-brother from playing his final hand. If Vladei took Liall prisoner, Vladei would kill him as well as Cestimir and Scarlet, and then claim the throne.

  Liall passed the library and found it deserted. Stepping in, he breathed in the smell of polished woods and leather bindings and paper. Scarlet had thought this place a miracle: an entire hall just for books. Scarlet had never seen a library, nor more than one or two books in his life. The jeweled globe that Scarlet had admired spun under Liall’s fingers as he sat by the window, his mind mired deep in tangled thoughts.

  A fragrant lamp burned in the corner, and Liall remembered how the lamps on the ship had painted blue-tinged hollows in Scarlet’s cheeks and left thin streaks of indigo in his black hair. He had often looked at Scarlet as he slept, stealing minutes like coins, locking them away in his heart. Even as he swore never to let Scarlet go, he had been envisioning the day when time would part them. Hilurin lives were so brief. He was already older than Scarlet’s long-dead grandfather would have been. Inevitably, Scarlet would age past Liall.

  I will remain little changed while he grows older, his youth brief a mirror-flashed aimed at the sun, Liall thought. Will he love me then? Will I love him? And what is love? Is it merely bodies, a fancy for a certain face, a shape, a pair of midnight-dark eyes, And if it is more than that, if my love for Scarlet is a thing of the soul that base flesh can never change, why then does the thought of losing the sight of his beauty grieve me so? Scarlet... you should have been born one of us, but then I would not have loved you.

  A storm brewed up from the northeast and hurled ice and sleet at the windows, and still the palace slept on. Liall brooded in the library until the large tallow candle burned to the marker of the second hour past midnight, and then he could delay no longer. He went back to the apartments with a heavy step, dreading what news he would find. Nenos opened the door and shook his head when Liall asked if there had been word. Liall went into the den that Scarlet had preferred over the formal common room and sat with his hands clasped on his knees, waiting.

  ***

  They came for him two hours before morning. Liall had been expecting it, but his heart seized in his chest when he heard a line of footsteps approaching the door to his apartments. He heard Nenos admit them, and then they entered the common room.

  Nenos bowed. Behind Alexyin was a crowd of barons and guards, Ressanda among them. Alexyin did not speak, only motioned to Liall to come out and follow. Liall rose woodenly. Two of the guards came further into the common room and took up station by the fireplace. Liall wondered at their presence.

  “They will keep watch for your t’aiska,” Alexyin said gently.

  As Liall passed Nenos, he touched the servant’s shoulder. “If any word at all comes, send to me at once.”

  Alexyin’s face was drawn and set. He did not speak, but turned on his heel, expecting Liall to follow him. In the outer hallway, the barons fell into step behind the two men. They were some ways into the palace before Liall trusted himself to speak.

  “When?”

  Alexyin glanced quickly at him, and for a moment, he looked the bodyguard almost frightened. “Soon,” he said, his voice rough. “Before morning, certainly. It...” he trailed off. “It is not sudden, this thing. We have seen it coming for some time.”

  They reached the queen’s apartments, and Liall was enormously glad that Shikhoza was not among the women who huddled in a loose and distressed group of silk and velvet before the doors to the queen’s third tier, her bedroom. Alexyin’s face was drawn into lines of grief, and he looked much older than Liall remembered as a boy, when Alexyin was his best teacher.

  “Not sudden,” Liall said, pitying him. “But no easier, I’m sure.”

  “No. I thought it would be. We have been friends for many years, your mother and I. We have fought for the same thing, struggled to train a king fit for Rshan, and now…” Alexyin broke off, shaking his head. His voice shook. “It cannot be. We must save him.”

  Liall knew he meant Cestimir, not Scarlet: Cestimir to save an empire, Scarlet to save only him. It was logical. It was what was best for Rshan. But for Liall, in that moment, all he could feel was the cold weight of his heart threatening to swallow him alive if he lost his love.

  The door opened and Bhakamir bowed to let them enter. Liall began to say something to Alexyin, perhaps not to let the queen see Alexyin’s suffering and guess the news they had of Cestimir, but Alexyin’s face, when Liall turned back to him, was neutral and smoothed of distress. Alexyin was a Setna.

  The room was dim and smelled of strong incense, and as the doors closed behind them and they approached the queen’s sickbed, a curae hurried away with a basin covered by a towel.

  Nadiushka was propped up on pillows, her face slack and lined, the long collar of her
silver bed-gown rucked up into untidy rolls around her neck. Bhakamir came with another glass of the clear liquid and held it to her lips, then tenderly smoothed her collar, making her presentable. His eyes glimmered with tears. He had served her since Liall was a bawling child and he a gallant young man.

  Nadiushka caught Bhakamir’s hand and pressed a kiss to it, and the man made a small sound of protest in his throat.

  “I shall not need you again, my friend,” she wheezed. “Go now.”

  Bhakamir shook his head swiftly, but she smiled at him. “You were a handsome young courtier when you came to serve me, and I was still a beautiful queen. Spare me the knowledge of knowing you witnessed the very messy demise of an old woman. Let me die with one last vanity.”

  He bent his head over her hand, trembling, and she whispered some words to him too low to hear. Bhakamir sniffled and wiped his face with his hand, but the smile he gave her was brilliant.

  Bhakamir left them and the doors closed. They were alone with his mother, Cestimir’s surrogate father and Liall. She signaled for them to come closer.

  “Sit here.” She patted the bed.

  Liall did, and Alexyin put his hand on Liall’s shoulder as she breathed shallowly and closed her eyes for a moment, then started awake. She gazed at the two of them for a long time. He finally took her hand.

  “Mother,” he choked.

  “Shh.” Her head rolled on the pillow. “No, Nazir. It’s too late for that. No tears now.”

  Liall nodded, his head down.

  “Tell Cestimir,” she said faintly. “Take care of your brother.”

  “I will,” he said, then saw she was looking straight at Alexyin. “Tell him,” she struggled to speak. “Tell Cestimir... take care of Nazir.”

  Liall was astonished. Him, take care of me? But Alexyin’s hand tightened on Liall’s shoulder and the bodyguard nodded. “I will, my lady. My queen.”

  She still looked at Alexyin. She seemed to have forgotten Liall was there, though he still held her hand.

  “He loves him so much,” she went on in that faint voice. “It is strange that the strongest of men often have this weakness, this flaw of the warrior’s heart. He loves too deeply. I fear there is much sorrow ahead for Nazheradei.”

  Alexyin nodded. Her eyes drooped and closed, and then she opened them and saw Liall. “Nazir,” she said tenderly, like a girl. “Where have you been? I missed you.”

  Liall swallowed. “I’ve been away, Mother. For a very long time.”

  She nodded, her brow creased as if recalling some old and half-forgotten pain, then she smiled and the years fell from her. “I have ruled a small piece of earth,” she proclaimed in a bright whisper, like a secret.

  Alexyin’s fingers dug into Liall’s shoulder. Nadiushka closed her eyes and did not open them, and some minutes later she drew her last breath. Her chest fell and did not rise again, and Alexyin, so composed before that, took a shaking breath and knelt by the side of the royal bed, hiding his face in his hands as the death bell tolled in the Shining Tower.

  Liall knelt on the floor with him, and Alexyin did not chide him for weeping, for all men are little boys when their mother dies.

  ***

  Blue and silver for a queen, gray and violet for the dead. There would be no elaborate robes of death for Nadiushka, as there were none for any other monarch of Rshan. In death, all were equal.

  Neither would there be any peace for Liall. An hour after Nadiushka drew her last breath, as Liall sat mourning with Alexyin in the third tier where courtiers usually waited, he began to be aware of a noise in the palace that was steadily increasing. The everyday sounds of the Nauhinir rose to a new pitch and blended into a dull, diluted roar not unlike the sound of the sea, until finally Liall could not ignore it and sent a page to see what was amiss.

  The page – a young boy of ten or so clad in blue and silver livery - was back very quickly, hurrying and nearly tripping over the hem of his long virca. “Khatai Jarek has returned!” he said in a voice more suited for a barn than a funeral. Alexyin hushed the boy immediately, but Liall took the boy’s shoulders and drew him closer.

  “Where and with whom?”

  “The army, my prince,” the boy said breathlessly. “She is approaching by the eastern road, and the queen’s army with her.”

  “Queen no more, little one,” Alexyin told the page. “Nadiushka is with the Shining Ones. The army is Cestimir’s now.”

  Liall made no comment to that, though he could see that Alexyin was hoping for one. Perhaps he was hoping for Liall’s confirmation of Cestimir’s inheritance, but that matter was already settled in Liall’s mind. Cestimir would be king.

  “Go on, boy.” Liall ruffled the page’s hair and pushed him to the door. “Go to your mother for now.” He stood up as the page scampered off, taking pains not to look at Alexyin. “After all these years, you think I would take my brother’s place?”

  “I said nothing, my prince.”

  “You said everything,” Liall retorted, wounded. “Damn you. Of all the people to doubt me now, why must it be you? Can you not see that I do not wish to be king? That I never wished to be king?”

  Alexyin remained silent.

  “Of course,” Liall said slowly. “No one could ever see that, could they? Not even my own brothers. Only my mother saw me as I am, and now she is gone.” And Scarlet, he thought with an ache. Scarlet sees me for who I am, but where is he? Even he had his doubts, or else we should never have quarreled and he would be here right now, safe in my arms. He did not trust me with his secrets, and for good reason.

  “Let us go and greet the khatai, and hear what news of Vladei’s rebels,” Liall said, gathering up his cloak. His posture was stiff and offended, and Alexyin could only bow his head and follow. There were no words to be said between them. Suspicion had taken them all away.

  ***

  It was not the entire queen’s army that rode to the main gates of the Nauhinir as the page had thought, but only a large cohort of soldiers with Jarek at their head. On the wide stone steps that Scarlet had been so fearful to ascend, Liall received Jarek’s obeisance and searched the khatai’s face. Snow shimmered down in the blue twilight, deadening the sound of horse’s hooves, the jangle of harness and the creak of armor.

  “What news?” Liall asked.

  Jarek stood there with her helmet under arm and raised her voice for all to hear. “The rebels of Magur are no more!” She stood tall and proud with her boot on the first step, three steps below Liall, and her long hair blew behind her like a white cloud.

  There was a rousing cheer from the onlookers, who were few. The hour was late and many were mourning the queen or preparing for the funeral wake that was soon to come.

  Jarek’s face was lined with worry. “We heard the bells,” she said.

  Liall nodded. “And they toll, as they always have, for the passing of royal blood. It was Nadiushka, Jarek. Not Cestimir.”

  He had divined her fears. Jarek sagged a little in relief. “Let us go where we can speak in private,” she murmured. “There is much to tell.”

  “This way.”

  Their procession through the Nauhinir was not interrupted, mainly because the presence of Jarek’s young soldiers, their forbidding faces and the well-worn armor that had seen recent use in battle kept all but the most powerful of nobles away. To those Barons who would have stopped them, Liall spared only a nod and a rough “Later!” to allay their anxiety.

  Liall took Jarek back to the queen’s tiers. His own apartments would have been more practical, but they were further away and there were no guards to keep the curious out, no invisible veil of the taboo to stop their knocking. Even dead, Nadiushka wielded a presence in the Nauhinir.

  Alexyin closed the door, and Liall poured Jarek a cup of strong wine.

  “Tell me,” Liall said.

  Jarek stripped the chain maille glove from her hand and loosened her heavy leather hauberk. The hauberk had many little, neat, v-shaped slices in i
t: arrowheads turned aside by the thick metal plates inside the layers of leather.

  Here is another thing Scarlet would never think to defend against, Liall thought with a pang of fear. Arrows were the weapons of cowards in the Southern Continent. He doubted that Scarlet had ever even seen a bow.

  Jarek drank all of the wine in one gulp, and now Liall could see her weariness.

  “Magur is no more. We have taken Vladei’s ancestral cities and his request for aid has been refused by the Barons of the east. A large band of Vladei’s red guards survived and escaped. My men are chasing them down, but many eluded us.” She wiped her mouth and set the cup down, nodding to Liall in thanks.

  “But his men were among the rebels?” Liall asked sharply.