Last Song Before Night

by Ilana C. Myer

  The castle courtyard was quiet and had not changed in the years since Darien had gone. A statue still dominated its center, of a king upon a throne, and at his feet a poet strumming a harp, head uplifted in song. In his student days, Darien had aspired to become that poet, for there was no honor higher than playing in the presence of the king.

  It was only now that Darien noted the subservient position of the poet, sitting at the king’s feet. He wondered if it was a statue of King Eldgest, imposed upon the Academy courtyard in a gesture of dominance. For the first time, alongside his pride in being an Academy graduate, Darien understood that this place—which he had alternately regarded as a sanctuary and a prison, depending on his mood—lay in the shadow of greater powers. For the first time, he realized that it may not have been safe to come here, to the place he had once regarded as a haven from the world.

  Shadowless and still under an overcast sky, the courtyard seemed a desolate place; Darien felt something like loss tug at his heart.

  He stole a sidelong glance at Lin, who was trudging at his side. Her face was expressionless.

  There was no one in the vestibule of the castle. Archmaster Myre led them to a chamber that adjoined it. It was a room with a long oak table, benches lining its sides. They were followed by all the men, who each flung back his cowl as he sat. Now Darien could see their faces—some he remembered as friendly, others not; but all were Archmasters, the highest rank of instructor at the Academy. One in particular, Archmaster Hendin, had nearly been a friend, though Darien’s standing as a student had made a true friendship impossible. Hendin’s brown eyes were creased with what looked like worry. When Darien tried to meet his gaze, Hendin glanced quickly away.

  Archmaster Myre spoke. “Sit down, Darien Aldemoor. Lady Kimbralin.”

  Without showing any surprise, Lin sat on one of the benches. Darien followed her. He said, “How do you know who she is?”

  A silence. Lin spoke. “Darien,” she said, “didn’t you notice that the Masters who met us outside did not ask who I was?”

  “We received word from Lord Amaristoth.” Archmaster Lian, speaking for the first time. Well did Darien remember those gravel tones and the cold authority they held, directing a much younger Darien to reposition his hands on his harp again, again, and again. “A brother’s instinct, perhaps, told him you might come this way. We were instructed to send word to him if you did.”

  Lin held out her thin arms, palms up; a gesture of surrender. “Masters, I am in your hands.” Her chin was lifted, and Darien found himself surprised at her composure.

  Archmaster Myre’s masklike features did not change. “What is it you seek here?” he said then, his eyes turning toward Darien, and Darien felt then exactly as he once had as a student: fidgety, inclined to be rebellious. To charm his way out of a scrape only to allow his sense of mischief to get him into another one almost immediately. It was as if nothing had changed.

  Darien tried to remind himself that he was no longer a recalcitrant student. “You have surely heard that I seek the Path,” he said. “I wish to search the archives for information that might be relevant. A few days is all I ask, and then we shall be on our way again.”

  The old man’s brow furrowed; Darien did not know if it was with anger or something else, some response engendered by mention of this most treasured of their legends. At last the High Master spoke, his voice heavy as if weighted with every one of his years. “You waste your time, children,” he said. “For hundreds of years, others have tried to make sense of Edrien Letrell’s writings, to find the Path with the information we have here. And some of our finest scrolls were—requisitioned, by the Court Poet. You will find nothing here to help you.”

  Darien held the other man’s gaze. “Nonetheless,” he said. He could almost feel the coiled tension in Lin at his side. The key, he thought. The one thing they had that might give the lie to the High Master’s words.

  Archmaster Myre’s expression grew dark; he was silent. Darien’s gaze slid to the other men, their features slack with careful neutrality. Immovable sentinels, they were, recorders of events. When his eyes locked with those of Archmaster Hendin, the other man looked away. It would not go well for Darien if Hendin seemed to favor him. Darien understood.

  A new voice, faintly melodious, threading into the silence. “As I understand it,” Lin said, and all eyes turned to her. “It is the right of every Academy graduate to have access to the archives. Darien Aldemoor has earned his ring; therefore, he has that right.”

  Archmaster Myre’s face grew darker still; Darien resisted the impulse to glare at Lin. She had to know it was already an insult that she was here, a woman in this castle. Silence should have been her only recourse under those circumstances.

  Archmaster Lian spoke again. “And what is a woman doing, quoting our laws?”

  Lin said, “I was tutored by one of your own, one Alyndell Renn. Had I been born a boy, it would have been my wish to attend the Academy; hence I commissioned Master Renn to teach me all that he knew.” She spoke evenly, appearing more in her element now than Darien could remember her being.

  “He acted against our laws,” Archmaster Myre said grimly.

  “I know,” said Lin. “But however wrong it is that I know those laws, still they stand.”

  “I have no need to be instructed in our codes by a woman, however highly born,” said the High Master. He looked at Darien, said, “Do you have any idea what you’ve started? Our graduates have begun resurrecting ancient rites, in your name. Rites best left alone.”

  “How does that hurt you?” Darien asked.

  The old man’s lips thinned. “You cannot imagine the havoc it has created. Something is stirring, awakening with the acts of these men. There is no telling what they may unleash in their ignorance.”

  “Then perhaps,” Darien said, “it is best if I find the Path and put an end to it all.”

  “Once men have tasted power, they will not stop,” said Myre. “And besides, you will not find it. Cease to speak foolishness here.”

  “Will you deny him his right?” Lin said again. As if she did not notice the ring of hostile eyes trained on her.

  Myre wheeled on her as if in fury, but to Darien’s surprise said, “I will not. I cannot. His ring grants him a right that I cannot take from him.”

  Not a flicker of emotion crossed her face. Darien said hastily, “I thank you, Archmaster Myre.”

  The High Master did not turn from his regard of the small woman seated on the bench. “You, however…” he went on. “You have no rights here to speak of.”

  Lin bowed her head. “As I said, Master, I am in your hands.”

  A glint in the old man’s frost-blue eyes: emotion, or a trick of the light? This was a man who, for more than forty years, had never left Academy Isle, never even set foot on the planks of the ferry. The laws of the Academy were most severe upon its most powerful.

  “You,” continued the High Master, “will remain here for so long as Darien Aldemoor does, provided that you abide by our rules. You shall not have access to the library. You shall not converse with the students. And you will apparel yourself as befits a woman.”

  Relief flooded Lin’s face. “Agreed.”

  “We have had guests in the past,” said Archmaster Myre. “Nobility. I shall let it get out that we have noble guests here, a lord and lady. We have apparel, left behind by one noblewoman, that may fit the Lady Kimbralin.”

  “You are generous,” said Lin. “I thank you.”

  “My dealings with your family over the years have not been numerous,” said the old man. “But they have one and all been … memorable. Your parents taught you well, Kimbralin Amaristoth.”

  Lin bent her head in a polite nod. “I thank you, Archmaster Myre,” she said. “No doubt they did.”

  * * *

  CHILL that evening, deep inside her. It may have been the ocean winds that wended through the narrow casement. Lin drew Leander’s fur cloak about herself, for comfort as
well as for warmth. From here she could see mountains, not the sea, but she could hear the sighing of the waves. The mountains piled up impenetrably black against the blue-black of the sky.

  This is where Alyn was. All the tales he had told her of his days in the Academy, all the lessons; she had carried them within her the way an oyster carries the resplendent agony of a pearl in its shell. And now the tales were given shape, faces bestowed on anonymous old men. He had told her of Archmaster Myre; she’d had some idea what to expect.

  What became of you, Alyn? It felt like a betrayal of self to wonder, but still she did. Was he among the Seekers, or had he done as she suspected, taken flight across the border, where the wrath of Rayen Amaristoth would not find him? It was hard to imagine him one of these blank-eyed men who claimed to follow Darien. But in the end—as it had turned out—she had not known him at all well.

  Just as she had not known Leander Keyen very well, either. A flaw in her character, or in theirs? Or simply the nature of things? A surface, she reflected, exists for so many reasons, concealment only one. For it may also serve to protect, from others and from oneself. And perhaps, in an unexpected twist, to protect others from oneself.

  For perhaps if she had never known of Alyn’s lie, she would not have run. None of Rayen’s pummelings over the years, none of the threats, had had the same effect as that simple unveiling of the truth.

  The door opened, illuminating the room briefly, revealing two narrow beds, a washstand, a chair. They had the same amenities that were given to students. Darien closed the door and flung himself down on his bed with a sigh.

  Lin said, “No luck?”

  Darien groaned. “I remember now why I never spent more time than I had to in the library. Did you know there is a book about the Academy sewage system? Lays it all out quite nicely, with plenty of four-syllable words.”

  She could not help but laugh. “An important topic, I suppose.”

  “Easy for you to laugh,” he grumbled. “Resting here while I do all the work.”

  “Confined to a drafty room without distraction,” she pointed out. “I’d much rather do the work, as you put it.” She rolled her eyes, then relented. “There,” she said, motioning to the chair. “They left a tray of supper for you. I’ve had mine. And we’re invited to dine with the High Master tomorrow evening.”

  “Splendid,” Darien mumbled into his pillow. “Dry bread and an even drier invitation.”

  “I’m excited,” Lin said wryly. “I’ll have a chance to leave this room. I was told that exploration of the castle was … discouraged.”

  “I’ll say,” said Darien. “They’re afraid you’ll seduce the students. Can’t have that sort of thing.” He pulled himself up, rested his forehead in his hands. For all his talk, he was clearly spent. “I saw no sign of a locked door, nowhere to use the key. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, if Valanir Ocune had seen fit to explain himself.”

  “I suspect that Archmaster Myre is right,” said Lin. “Though there is much that the books may tell us, others before us have had access to the Academy library and found nothing. The answer must lie with the key.”

  “I agree,” said Darien. “I’ll keep looking.” He looked at her from under weary eyelids. “Thank you, by the way. For your help today.”

  Lin shrugged. In the old days, she knew, they would have garroted a woman who had learned their secrets. She had known the risk she took, had banked on the times being different … and on the Academy, now in a diminished state, fearing the wrath of House Amaristoth.

  “Maybe Hassen is all right,” Darien said, almost to himself.

  Lin turned back to the window to hide her face. She wanted to reach out to him, and she knew he would hate her for it. She let silence drift between them, the sound of distant waves.

  CHAPTER

  22

  AT dawn he left her sleeping, and still bleary-eyed made his way to the kitchens, where he knew the cook would give him an early breakfast, for old time’s sake. From there he would return to the library, a cavern of books and scrolls that seemed to stretch for miles beneath the island’s rock.

  He already hated it: inching through stack after musty stack of tomes, unrolling fragile scrolls that whiffed dust into his nose, made him sneeze. Darien had never been one for books. It came to him—so natural and painful a thought—that Marlen had been better at this sort of thing. Or perhaps, simply more driven, goaded by the sting of his father’s taunts.

  How did I not see?

  As he clambered down the narrow, winding stairs, Darien remembered a spring day years before in this castle. He had entered the room that he and Marlen shared, and his friend had been sitting, slack-jawed, legs outstretched, on the mantel beside the window. It was Marlen’s first day back from a long visit home. Darien had said, “Just what I knew this room was missing. A gargoyle.”

  Marlen turned his head toward him, shaggy dark hair dangling about his ears. Both hair and shadow conspired to hide his face. “So happy you missed me.”

  “So how was it?” said Darien, sensing an awkwardness.

  A short silence, then: “Charming,” said Marlen. “I told my father I was the best student, except for you. Do you know what he said?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “First,” said Marlen, “he said I was weak for allowing anyone else to be equal to me. Then, once he had wearied of that theme, he suggested that I poison you. One, two drops in your wine at dinner, and no one else the wiser. Who would suspect your dearest friend?”

  Darien kept his face expressionless. “Well, now I can see where you get your direct approach to problems,” he said. “What was your response?”

  Marlen smiled then. It was a smile that Darien would always remember, especially when he watched his friend in the act of seducing wide-eyed girls. Half-wondering if he should warn them.

  For the first time Marlen faced Darien full-on, the shadows falling away. He said, “I told him I have more reasons to kill him.”

  He turned away, but not before Darien had seen the crusted red slash that crossed his friend’s face from cheek to jaw. It took many weeks to heal. Now, remembering that day years later, Darien thought perhaps it never had. Marlen Humbreleigh carried a scar with him and within him and Darien had mistaken it for worldliness, for humor. He had joined Marlen in mocking the weaker students, the ones inept with irony. People like Lin’s partner, Darien thought, who was no match for their games … their ferocity.

  She had told him what had befallen Leander Keyen. He remembered now.

  * * *

  AT breakfast, Darien had allowed himself an hour to reminisce with the cook about old times. The only woman generally permitted in the castle, she was portly and middle-aged, her husband the head of the household staff. Like most women, she had always had a soft spot for Darien, always feared Marlen Humbreleigh just a little. She clucked sympathetically at Darien’s story and gave him an extra cake for his pains. It tasted as he remembered: honey, cloves, and ginger. She still smelled like onions, garlic, and sage; her kitchen was still warm and rich with smells both enticing and foul, herbs and raw meat and animal’s innards thrown away as waste. He told her that he loved her, and she shooed him away with her wooden spoon.

  The smells of the kitchens followed Darien as he descended deeper into the heart of the castle and toward its most subterranean chambers. He wondered why they chose to keep the books so far down, but he was grateful; this way, he could escape where it was quiet. Otherwise the sounds of the Academy aroused memories that distracted and saddened him. Echoing down the hall, a chorus of song; a class practicing with a traditional lay Darien knew well. The ageless solemnity of their voices catching in his heart like an arrow. Darien retreated down the stairs, and down.

  He had been researching many areas of ancient practice, discovering scraps of lore. His teachers had mentioned portals only in passing, and none seemed to know how they were opened. As it turned out, the world was riddled with portals: some of these led to
the Otherworld and its manifold dimensions, others to a place between—which was commonly experienced as a dream.

  Darien read an account of a poet who in a dream had dined with a giant king and a host of eldritch servants at the king’s table. He had feasted upon meat slathered in a thick red sauce and drunk many goblets of ale. And come morning when he awoke from his dream he was sated, dizzy, and red sauce stained his shirt.

  The man with the khave, Darien remembered, grim. The dream that had led to Lin. He would have been willing to bet his own harp that on those two occasions he had passed through a portal, into the between-state the books described. But the ways to do that were few. And the deeper one sought to penetrate—to the Otherworld itself—the higher the price to be paid.

  Darien scanned the story for some possible insight. Before his adventure with the portal, the poet had been a guest in a noble household and entertained his host with a song he had written about the kingdom of the giants. And that same night he had found himself in the gilded and massive great halls of the giant king, at the opulent abundance of a table laden with dishes of meats, pheasant, capon, duck. And of course, great quantities of ale and a wine that burned like sweet fire when the poet tasted it from his gem-encrusted goblet.

  The giant congratulated him as they dined, saying, “You carry my fame to all the world.” The feast was his reward.

  But that was a tale, one that could easily have been invented by a poet and taken for history at a much later date. Such things happened. The book was replete with questionable material, superstitions and myths, the likes of which Darien had not heard since his grandmother died. She, who had been the first to urge him to become a poet. She had believed them all.

  One phrase the books repeated often, until it was nearly a refrain: There is much that we cannot know.

  Darien leaned back in his chair—stout wood and hard beneath him—and closed his eyes. He inhaled the thick odor of vellum and for a moment could understand why some might find it comforting: all the centuries that had passed, and still all this was here; would be here, by the blessing of Kiara, until world’s end. The candle danced, enlivened by his breath. One other student worked at a table some distance from him, but each table was surrounded by a barrier, creating the illusion of privacy. It certainly served to make Darien feel isolated. He thought of Lin and then, inevitably, of Hassen and Marlen. So many more losses than gains.