Last Song Before Night

by Ilana C. Myer

Ned shook his head as if that might clear it of the confusion that had flooded him. “Can you get him out?” he asked. “Can you use your influence?”

  Lord Alterra looked more bent and old than Ned had ever seen him look. He said, “Even we cannot circumvent the will of the Court Poet, Ned. His power at court is absolute.”

  “What of Rayen Amaristoth? Where was he during all of this?”

  His father’s eyes were keen now. “Have you not heard? Nickon Gerrard ferreted out that Darien Aldemoor was spotted in the northern town of Dynmar with Rayen’s runaway sister. Lord Amaristoth left immediately—just before the arrest.”

  Dynmar. If Rianna had heard Darien Aldemoor was there, perhaps that would have been her destination? It would all depend how much she was in Lord Amaristoth’s confidence.

  He had been courting her, Ned reminded himself. In those situations, did a man not reveal everything?

  * * *

  THAT day Marilla could see, the moment he entered the house, that something was wrong. “What is it?” she said sharply.

  It was hard to meet her eyes, but when he did, he saw that they were hard and glassy as ever. For some reason, that did not comfort him.

  “I told you I am leaving the city,” he said. “I think you know why I need to go now.”

  “I heard the little girl ran away,” she assented, with a shrug. “But where will you go?”

  “You know that, too,” he said, though he could not be sure. But even though they never spoke of Marlen—he was no more than an unseen presence and threat—Ned had never forgot for a moment whose creature Marilla truly was.

  He thought he saw her lips turn down, just for a flicker of an instant. “You are so clever,” she said. “So it’s to be Dynmar, then.”

  “I think so.”

  “She may not have gone there, you know.”

  “I know,” said Ned. For the first time, he was gentle with her: he took her hand in his. “You will always mean something to me.”

  She smiled and withdrew her hand gracefully. “Then you are as much a fool as ever.”

  “True,” he agreed, and stood. There seemed no more to be said, and there was very little time. He wanted to be angry at Rianna, for running off into a world that was far more dangerous than she knew, but it was not in him to be angry just then. Ned left the house that had been his obsession for a time, that had changed him so much. And he wondered if the sadness living in him since he returned home would be a constant companion now.

  CHAPTER

  20

  MARLEN awoke to sunlight and the vertical blackness of a figure in the midst of it. Groaning, he lifted his head from the desk, even as the voice intruded on his dreaming once again.

  “What is it, Marilla?” he said. As his eyes adjusted, her face no longer seemed black against the sun. Her curls brushed his face as she bent over him, her nails cold and smooth against his cheek as claws. As he gained consciousness, another thought occurred to him. “And where have you been lately, anyway?” She could at least pretend to love him, if she wished to keep enjoying his generosity.

  Marilla brushed his forehead with her lips. “Out and about. As you must be today, if you are not to miss important events.”

  He shook his head. His mind was only now catching up to his body, the memories rushing back to him. “You know what’s happened?”

  “I know the version that has been put about in the streets,” said Marilla. “The proclamation and the announcement of a public funeral. Which you of course know nothing about.”

  “Funeral?”

  “For Hassen Styr,” said Marilla. “Apparently, Darien Aldemoor killed him.”

  Marlen jumped to his feet. “Show me the proclamation.”

  “It’s in the Court Plaza,” Marilla said. Her uptilted chin and trailing skirts gave her a regal appearance as she swept toward the door. “Come see.”

  He had no choice but to follow her, though he resented that she couldn’t just tell him what the proclamation said. Was it more jewels she wanted—had he outlived his use for her? The thought made his fists clench, aroused his fury and his desire simultaneously. And then he thought: Playing into her hands. She has trained me well, it seems. The anger drained from him. If he had allowed her to cause anger and lust to run together in his mind, he had only himself to blame. And what difference did it make? Perhaps she had corrupted him, but he had been flawed from the beginning, metal damaged already in the crucible.

  The proclamation hung at the palace gates. It announced the discovery of Hassen Styr’s body. He had been slain with a knife to the throat, Marlen read. As no blood was found, it was assumed that Darien Aldemoor had killed Hassen in one of the darkest of the old magics: divination by blood.

  Divination by blood. This stopped Marlen dead for a moment, his head swimming. He had read of this. A practice employed only by a few, usually with the blood of animals. Some used their own blood. To slay another human—or a mortal, as the texts spoke of it—in the practice of divination was the darkest possible venture into the art, punishable by death. He had thought it a legend. Along with the rest, he thought. He had thought it all a legend. And would that it were.

  He continued to read. There would be an official funeral held for Hassen today, since the Crown saw him as the victim of a larger terror to the land. The reward for Darien Aldemoor’s capture, alive or dead, had been doubled.

  So many thoughts jostled one another in Marlen’s head. No one had given any thought to blood divination until Nickon Gerrard had made it a matter of public speculation today. Now he had simultaneously made Darien Aldemoor a monster—the advantage of that being obvious—and publicized an obscure, discontinued rite. What he had to benefit from that last, Marlen could not be sure.

  He thought of Piet Abarda’s derision when Marlen had questioned him about the enchantments. It keeps them in line, had been his words. Even he would be forced to rethink his position, now that the possibility the enchantments were real had been dragged out in the open.

  Marlen turned away from Marilla and began walking back to his apartments. He needed to think. She did not follow, nor did she call out to him.

  Absorbed in his thoughts, Marlen retreated from the sunlight into the house. Although he had not eaten yet, he poured himself a glass of wine. When you want to know why, his father had once said, look at the consequences.

  The consequences here would be twofold. The first was easy: all the Seekers would now be tainted with Darien Aldemoor’s alleged crime; they would be perceived as potential murderers themselves. They after all claimed to follow Darien Aldemoor, to seek the enchantments of ancient days. How far will they follow him, people would wonder now, and which enchantments will they resurrect? It could go so far, Marlen thought, as to cause the people to beg the Crown’s protection from these criminals. The Crown would be only too glad to oblige.

  As for the second … Marlen thought, Was it really necessary to mention blood divination? To claim that Darien had murdered his companion would already have turned the tide of public opinion against him and against the Seekers who claimed to follow him. To raise the specter of a long-dead practice was to risk its resurrection in the flesh. Nickon Gerrard must have known this.

  Marlen stirred in his chair. He would be expected to attend the funeral. He concentrated on his need to bathe, shave, and have his servant brush down his good clothes. As long as he thought of that, he would not think of Hassen Styr bloodless white in a casket, a black gash in his throat.

  “Marlen.” Marilla was back, unexpectedly.

  He lifted his head with an effort. “What is it?”

  As always she spoke without emotion, but she approached with unaccustomed speed. She circled him until he was forced to look at her, to meet her eyes. “I heard a rumor today,” she said. “That the Red Death is in the south. In Sarmanca. That by winter it will have reached Tamryllin.”

  “The Red Death?” Marlen shook his head. “Isn’t that another legend?”

  “Th
ey say it’s blood divination that brings the Red Death,” said Marilla. “That it was Darien.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  WHITENESS engulfed their boat on the still mirror of the bay. Since dawn the fog had been growing, and the chill air hung like a blanket. The only sound was the splash of oars in the white-reflected water, churning it in flashes of silver and green.

  Lin sat near the prow, staring out into the fog. Her dark hair curled and wafted around her neck. A thin line split the skin between her brows, as though in her mind she struggled with something. She was swathed in her black cloak, her face floating above it like a waning moon against night.

  Darien looked away; he didn’t want to look at her, even though she was all he had just now.

  The oarsman was silent; it was not in his trade to make conversation. His family had lived on the shore since the days of the earliest kings; and in the years since, each of the eldest sons bore the sacred duty of ferrying poets across the waters of the bay.

  Darien remembered mornings after he and Marlen Humbreleigh had sneaked into Dynmar for the women and drink, returning on the ferry, singing as loudly as they could—sometimes still sodden drunk. Occasionally other students had joined them in their mischief, Hassen Styr and Piet Abarda among them. Naturally Piet was always angry by the end of the excursion, always vowing by the time they reached the boat the next morning that he would never accompany them again. Usually it was due to some insult from Marlen, Darien recalled. Lounging in the boat, Marlen and Darien would sing, and joke, and boast about their conquests of the night, while the other poets laughed enviously and Piet sat hunched and glowering. And then they would reach the Isle and the masters would berate them for their disobedience, punish them with dinners of biscuits and roots for a week.

  Marlen and Darien always agreed it had been worth it. Especially since they could usually charm the cook into giving them meat scraps on the sly.

  It was not the task of the ferryman to determine if a poet was worthy of entering the Academy Isle. He only determined if the man was in fact a poet: in order to ride the ferry, a poet must show his harp and ring. Darien had foreseen this difficulty before he and Lin had reached the man’s cottage, had instructed Lin brusquely, “We’ll say you’re my servant.”

  “A female servant?” said Lin. Her hair was longer and wilder by now, almost to her shoulders.

  “He won’t notice that you’re a girl. Trust me.” He let a bit of nastiness drip into his tone, even though he knew she didn’t deserve it.

  It had been his choice to abandon his friend. He knew that. When Lin had rushed into the room that night and told him what had befallen Hassen Styr, Darien had jumped from the bed and scrambled for the door, his sword already half-drawn. He knew where the town hall was, where the guards would be keeping Hassen.

  “Darien, think about this,” Lin had cried, catching his arm. “It’s a death sentence for you if you attack them.”

  “And for Hassen if I don’t,” he said. “My gods, Lin. Are you such a coward?”

  He tore out the door of the inn and ran in the direction of the town hall. He could hear the light patter of Lin’s pursuing him, see her shadow by his side in the predawn light. Through the twisted streets they ran, and Darien knew that what he did was folly. They ran in silence until they reached the town hall. It was modest like the rest of the town, a squat wooden structure with only a clock tower to distinguish it.

  Yet even before they came to it, Darien saw the guards, their black armor smoothly shining against the red livery they wore. Catching his breath, Darien stared at them from behind a hay bale. There were at least fifteen.

  “There will be more inside,” Lin breathed, speaking for the first time.

  “I know that,” Darien hissed back. “Maybe you don’t know there is such a thing as honor—for men, at least.”

  In the dimness he could still see her close her eyes, briefly. She had drawn her knife. “Do you think I care if I die?” she said, her eyes like dark caverns when they met his. “I loved him too, Darien. What can we do?”

  There behind the hay bale Darien felt as if something sharp had punctured him, draining all the air out of his lungs in one gust. He collapsed to the ground, breathing hard and deep as if he might vomit. When Lin touched his arm, he flung her off so roughly she nearly fell over.

  They journeyed in silence in the days that followed. Lin seemed to see the violence in his eyes, and to understand. She approached him only when she had a specific question. As the days went by and they were by turns rained on and buffeted by winds, she looked more and more bedraggled and sad, yet he could not reach out to her. It was all he could do not to sit down on the ground somewhere in the midst of the northern forests, and weep.

  He was following me, he thought, and it was like a refrain, a lyric carried by cold voices on the wind.

  Hassen Styr is worth ten of me, Darien thought. Where are we now?

  There was no way now but forward. He could certainly not run back, into the arms of Marlen and Nickon Gerrard.

  It was during one of the nights in the forest, hunched over a small fire as the wind howled that Darien said, “I’ll kill him.” It was in a flat, dead tone that he didn’t recognize. Not the voice of a man who sang playful songs to crowds and ballads to a gold-tressed merchant’s daughter.

  Lin eyed him. “Who?”

  “Who do you think?” Darien said. “You’re not stupid, are you?”

  “I’m still with you,” she said. “So to be honest, I’m not sure.”

  Darien had glared at her but did not reply. He knew he was being far too hard on her, yet could not seem to stop himself.

  But now in the blanketing silence of the bay—it was so quiet Darien could hear his own breath in his ears, thought he even heard the slow thrum of his pulse—he felt his resentment evaporate, to be replaced with a vast tiredness. It was said that a man crossing water left his past behind on the shore. It was true that with every stroke of the oars, he felt the quietness around him enter his soul.

  “Did you ever think you’d be coming here?” he said to Lin Amaristoth. Across the length of the boat, he extended the question like an offering. It was as near to an apology as he could imagine getting just then.

  She looked surprised, almost pitifully glad that he had spoken. But still wary—he could see that, too. He remembered his first impression of Lin—that something had happened to her once. “I didn’t think so, no,” she said. “I never expected to leave my parents’ home, except to be married.”

  Darien tried to imagine a life like that. He had spent most of his life unfettered, whether it was running in the fields with the village children, or wandering with Marlen Humbreleigh on every road they cared to explore. Into every township, every castle, every bed.

  Lin tightened the cloak around her, gazing away again toward the fog. “My mother was mad,” she said. “I don’t think I realized it, until recently. Maybe it wasn’t my fault that I turned out this way. Maybe it wasn’t even Rayen’s fault that he is what he is.”

  And what are you? Darien thought. Something he had never considered in their time together.

  As if she could hear his thoughts, Lin looked him in the eye and said, “You don’t know me. But that’s all right.”

  “I was just thinking that there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with you,” said Darien. “Only that you seem unhappy.”

  Lin smiled at him, but looked as if she might weep. He glanced away; he couldn’t bear that sort of look right now. It swept him back to thoughts of Hassen, and the pain and rage that accompanied them. If he could, Darien wanted to leave those feelings on the shore. At least for now.

  Darien noticed then that he could hear birds—the calls of seagulls and owls intermingled. The next moment, he saw the dark cliffs of the isle rearing through the mist. He had never before seen the entry to the Isle as something intimidating, but now he could see how it might be.

  “Now whatever happens,” he sai
d, “let me do the talking.”

  Lin was silent, looking out at the water and the cliffs ahead.

  As their boat glided toward shore, grey-robed figures came into view. They stood as if carved from rock, their faces shadowed by cowls, and watched the boat as it proceeded through the glassy waters.

  Darien expelled a long-drawn breath, said a bit wonderingly, “Well. I’ve never received such a welcome.”

  “Are you sure that’s what it is?” said Lin. Her speech was slow and relaxed, as if the calmness of the water had at last worked its effects on her.

  Darien shrugged. “I know these men,” he said, with more conviction than he felt. It had, after all, been nearly two years since he had left Academy Isle for the last time.

  She nodded, but said nothing. When the boat reached the shore, they tumbled out silently, with only a quick word of thanks to the boatman, who did not look their way.

  As one, in smooth formation, the robed figures advanced to meet them. And then surrounded them in a circle, five men in all. Most had beards of grey or silver-white.

  Then the one who led, whose beard was pure white, lowered his hood to reveal his face. With skin that was sandpapery and pale, and blue eyes sunk deep in their sockets, Darien thought he looked older than ever. And tired.

  Darien inclined his head respectfully. “Archmaster Myre,” he said. “It is an honor to be in your presence again.”

  In a voice unexpectedly deep for such a fragile throat—a voice Darien knew well—the man who had been High Master of the Academy for decades said, “Darien Aldemoor. You are a hunted man.”

  Darien forced a laugh. “Master,” he said. “You’re not usually given to stating the obvious.”

  The High Master did not smile. “Come with us,” he said. “Both of you.”

  Even as he spoke, the men surrounding them began to move in the direction of the grey towers that rose above the trees. Darien and Lin fell into step with them. Darien was keenly aware of the figures that followed them behind and beside, as if escorting criminals to their cell. He wondered whose faces lay behind the cowls, for he knew them all as well as he did his own family. In some ways, even more.