But when the door opened, it was not Rayen who stepped through. “Do not fear,” said Valanir Ocune. “I don’t know why the portal chose this place … perhaps it was in your thoughts tonight.”
“Valanir,” she said with a sigh, and her fists unclenched themselves. She hated the weight of the dress, the way the boning of the corset cut short every breath. She was attired as if for a ball, some occasion where she would be presented before the nobility like a prize mare, praised over cool gold wine—disingenuously, and for all the wrong things.
“You found the scrolls,” he said. “We must talk. There isn’t much time.”
Lin noticed that the Seer was solid here, not transparent as he had been at the inn in Dynmar.
“You and Nickon Gerrard were thorough in your work,” she said. “But the thirteenth verse—”
“Is lost,” said Valanir. “But Lin, you have it in you. This I know. Or you will have it in you, when all is as it is destined to be.”
“Your visions are incomplete, Erisen,” she said, turning away from him. “Else perhaps we could have saved Hassen Styr.” Spires of frosted pine outside the window glittered a thousand memories, few of them good.
“You’re angry with me.”
“I don’t know how to trust you,” said Lin.
“His fate will forever be on my conscience,” said Valanir. “You must believe that.”
She turned to look at him again. “Very well,” she said. “Speak. What have you to tell me?”
“I can’t be sure of this, mind,” said Valanir Ocune. “But I believe—based on my research, and the visions I have had with the aid of Kahishian magic—that the key to the thirteenth verse is in the Tower of the Winds. There is some—transformation there, that awaits you.”
“The Tower of the Winds,” she said. “The place where songs are made.”
“Night after night, for hundreds of years, poets have sat each in a stone-carved cell and created verse,” said Valanir.
“Each by light of a single candle,” said Lin, recalling her own efforts to re-create that experience for herself, in this very room. She looked to her bed, saw that the blankets were still tumbled upon it, as if she had only just risen from a night of dark dreams.
“Yes,” said Valanir. “Think of it—for centuries, poets and Seers calling forth their songs from the night. By now there is a sacredness to the place. If a temple of worship for the Seers existed, it would be the Tower. If I am right, reciting the twelve verses there will open the portal.”
“I will need Darien’s help,” Lin mused. “The Masters would never allow it.”
“You must do it tonight,” said Valanir. “The stars are positioned in our favor. Once you have opened the portal, I will sense it, and join with you. You won’t be alone.”
“You make it sound so simple,” said Lin.
“Hardly,” said Valanir. “We already lost a good man. I pray we will not lose more.” He took a step toward Lin, let his hand drift in her hair. “Whatever happens tonight, Lin … you have done well.”
She caught his hand in a firm grip. “Valanir, if you want me to trust you, explain this: how can it be that I am the one in your vision? I am no one.”
He regarded her hand a moment. “You are someone,” he said. “I don’t know how or why. But I fully expect before long, you will show me. Show all of us.”
Lin woke with a start to someone pounding on the door.
* * *
DARIEN saw Lin had drifted into sleep when a sharp knock at the door brought both of them scrambling to their feet. Wide-eyed, Lin drew the coverlet about herself as Darien opened the door. It was Darien’s old teacher, Archmaster Hendin, looking solemn. Darien gripped the old man’s arm. “What is it?” A tightness in his stomach. Nothing short of an emergency could bring the old man to their door at such an hour as this.
“I’m sorry, Darien,” the man said. “We’ve received word from Tamryllin. Hassen Styr is dead.”
Dimly, Darien heard Lin choke behind him. “No,” he heard himself say dully. So useless. All he could think was that all the world had hung suspended in the moment before the Master had spoken, and was now altered irrevocably. The night and its blanketing peace stolen away.
“There is more.” Lin’s voice behind him. “Isn’t there, Archmaster Hendin?”
Darien recalled in that instant that the Archmaster had been Hassen’s teacher. He saw then what he had been too shocked to see before: tears in the old man’s eyes. “Yes,” said the Archmaster. “Yes, there is more. It is being put about that—that you killed him, Darien. To work enchantments with his blood.”
“Enchantments with his blood,” Darien repeated, dazed.
“Yes,” said Archmaster Hendin. “Blood divination, the oldest and darkest of the enchantments. Lord Gerrard is saying that you’ve attempted it.”
“This is—this is much bigger than the original charges,” said Lin. “Darien, he must think you’re very dangerous. It must mean we’re close.”
Darien closed his eyes. “What matters that?” he said through his teeth. “They killed Hassen. He did.”
“It matters,” the old man said, “because it appears the Court Poet believes you might find the Path. And will stop at nothing to prevent your finding it.”
Darien nodded, taking this in. “Then it’s simple,” he said. “We must stop at nothing to find it.”
Lin tripped toward him, her feet tangling in the concealing blankets. “Darien, Hassen knew where we were going,” she said. “They might have got it out of him. They might be on their way here right now.”
Darien found himself moving very quickly, yet smoothly, as if through water. He shoved her, hard, so she had to catch herself on a chair to keep from falling. “Don’t ever say something like that again,” he said. “Hassen was my friend, and he was no traitor.”
“Darien!” Archmaster Hendin said. He shook his head. With an abrupt turn, he departed the room.
Lin turned away, too. “I’m getting dressed,” she said. Her voice reedlike, as if someone held a knife to her windpipe. Then she turned back to him, met his gaze steadily. “If you are wise, you will ready yourself to leave,” she said. “Not for my sake. For theirs.” She inclined her head in the direction of the doorway and the departing Archmaster.
“Very well,” said Darien. It was sinking in, along with Hassen’s death, what he had done. “Lin—I should not have done that. I’m sorry.”
She turned away without answering. Not troubling to warn him before she grasped the hem of her shift and flipped it over her head, as if he were not in the room. He caught sight of a bony back and hips before he turned away.
“I had a dream of Valanir Ocune,” she said as she dressed. “We need to get to the Tower of the Winds. You must take me there.”
“I really am sorry,” he said.
“Shut up, please,” said Lin. “This is important. He believes that with the verses in the Tower, we can open the way to the Path. And now there is very little time.”
Darien nodded. “Let’s be off, then.”
Lin strode to the door and opened it. And was instantly seized by the wrist by what felt like a steel clamp. With a shout, Lin drew her dagger and slashed at what had to be a hand. She heard a strangled cry in the shadows of the hallway as her arm was released, and then Darien was beside her in the doorway, sword drawn. Lin saw the glimmer of steel in the moonlight that streamed into the corridor, a face that contorted in pain above the shining path of Darien’s sword. He withdrew it immediately, reeling back. A body tumbled to the floor with a crash, armored and liveried in the red and black of the king’s guard. Blood was already puddling beneath the corpse and sinking between the stones of the tiled floor.
They stared at each other in shock.
Lin breathed, finally, “They’re here.”
Darien seized her arm and together they ran down the corridor. Pulled beside him, trying to keep up, Lin forced out, “What are you doing? They’ll be everywhere.�
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“Not where we’re going,” said Darien. She stared at him. He returned her gaze with a wild grin. “To be honest,” he said, “I’m a little offended that they only sent one to get us. But there will be”—he caught his breath—“more downstairs.”
At that moment, he plunged down a stairway that had materialized before them. “Then why are we going downstairs?” Lin demanded.
He didn’t answer, and she had no choice but to follow, trying to move quickly without taking a tumble down the treacherously smooth, narrow steps. They seemed to descend forever, skimming past three floors and descending still lower, until at last the moon was lost and they were plunged in darkness. But she could hear a metallic commotion in the halls upstairs. “Where are we going?”
“Hush,” he said. “They might hear us. Trust me.”
At last they reached the end of the staircase. Torches burned here, and in their light, Lin could see no other stairs. The walls here did not appear to be cut stone, but living rock as in a cave. It occurred to Lin that they had reached the deepest part of the castle.
Her heart fluttering, she said, “Where are we, Darien?”
As if in answer, two robed figures emerged into the light. Students, both of them must have been, for they were young; but in their eyes Lin could see some measure of age and acquired wisdom. Not beginning students, then, but men who had learned the ways and secrets of this place, or some of them.
“Good morrow,” Darien said pleasantly. “My companion and I seek passage.” He held up his ring, still attached to its thong about his neck.
“You may pass,” said one of the men. “But a woman may not set foot on the planks of these boats. You know the laws.”
“To be honest,” Darien said, his voice still smooth, “I don’t give a damn about the laws. I’ll slit your throat if you try to stop her coming with me.” He raised his blade. The blood of the guardsman shone slick in the dim light. “I’ve already killed a man tonight.”
The men stood still and silent, as if his words had possessed the power, like that of Davyd Dreamweaver, to turn them to figurines of stone. At last one of them said, “Break this law, and a curse will fall upon you.”
Lin felt a thrill of foreboding. In this place beneath the earth, one could believe such things were true. In a night already soaked with death—of Hassen, of the guard they had killed.
Darien seemed to feel it too; he shivered slightly. He said, “So be it, then.”
Gripping Lin’s arm, Darien strode past them without another word. She followed, not sure whether to laugh or weep. It was wrong: Darien was a soul of light and music—not murder, not blood. His smile at the students had seemed bloodstained to her.
They came to a portcullis, beyond which the torches revealed dark, still water. An underground entrance to the lake. Darien silently worked the mechanism that raised the portcullis as Lin lowered herself into the boat. He joined her moments later, looking tired.
“So much for the Tower,” he said. “So much for the Path. So much for all of that.”
“Would you have killed those boys?” she said as they each grasped an oar.
He shook his head. “There was no need.”
“The curse…”
“It’s probably nonsense,” said Darien, rubbing his eyes. Ahead was enough moonlight to see the black outline of the banks upon the water. He said, “If I had left you behind, they would have taken you.”
“I know,” Lin said quietly. No more was spoken between them as they rowed. They had lost the night’s peace, the song that had been cut off so abruptly. Everything they had worked for had come to this: shadows on black water. It seemed to her that Hassen Styr was a presence in the boat, as if they rowed him to the Underworld. Or as if there was still something more, something they did not yet know of, to be done.
CHAPTER
24
A TINY new cut, like the prick of a needle, had blossomed on the joint of her left thumb. Raw, red skin had already cracked over Rianna’s knuckles; blood oozed thinly into the grey water where she plunged each dish.
The sleeves of the man’s shirt she wore were rolled up to the elbow, her arms and elbows also beginning to show signs of red and cracking. She gritted her teeth against the burning sensation that had come to seem almost commonplace. The first few days, she had paused occasionally to gape at the destruction of her smooth skin, only to be reprimanded for “mooning.”
Irma had done her a favor by taking her on, and would certainly not let her forget it. The busty, sharp-eyed innkeeper had wasted no time assessing Rianna as useless, but said she felt sorry for her. She had been fooled not a whit by the masculine guise, yanking off Rianna’s cap that first day to crow over the tumble of long gold hair, dulled and dusty with a week’s worth of travel. An animal’s mane, the innkeeper said, was better cared for.
A week had passed since that humiliating day, and Rianna was becoming accustomed to the grinding mindless rhythm that dishwashing entailed. It was constant: there was no surcease of plates and bowls and tankards and pots that needed to be rinsed or scoured. She stood hour after hour by a tub filled to the brim with water afloat with pearly suds, soap that was relentless both on the dirt and on her skin. At first she had been disgusted at the thought of scraping plates and bowls with half-eaten remains of mash and bones, and even more disgusted at the thought of plunging her own hands into a tub with them hour after hour. But by now, disgust seemed like a luxury, and her prevailing feeling, throughout the day, was the longing simply to sit and rest her legs. She was given three meals of bread and cheese a day, and she looked forward to each not for the food but for the simple act of sitting. But she dared not complain—one wrong word to Irma, early on, had taught her that. The woman had struck her on the behind with her spoon, as if she were a child, and barked that she’d be out the door if another word was spoken.
Hating Irma as she did, Rianna did realize that she had been fortunate. Matters had taken a turn for the worse soon after her flight from Tamryllin: the wagon driver had discovered her within hours—stowed within the secret compartment beneath the crates of oranges—and demanded a fee in return for the continued journey, and his silence.
Soon after the contest, Master Gelvan had taken Rianna aside, showing her the secret exit from the kitchen out into the garden he’d built shortly after the death of his wife. In case of need. He had refused to explain what that meant. Now Rianna could only wonder if her father had foreseen, or at least had some intuition of, his own arrest.
The fee the wagon driver demanded was exorbitant, costing Rianna all the coin she had taken from her father’s stores. But they had been in the midst of windswept hills that stretched for miles in all directions, and he had threatened to throw her out right there. Rianna still had nightmares about all that emptiness, of being lost in it. She had paid him.
She could not tell him that she was Master Gelvan’s daughter, not with the merchant in prison. At least she hoped he was alive, in prison. But that was one of the thoughts she avoided.
So she had sat beside him right above the horses as the wagon lurched and jounced, and the driver—whose job was a lonely one—regaled her with tales of his drinking exploits in various villages, and of his strapping sons and daughters. Once, perhaps when he had tired of the sound of his own voice, he had said, “You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?” Rianna shrugged. Too many words and he might guess that she was a girl. It was the beginning of a regret that she would come to know well: the necessity for caution, even when need was strong. She wanted to confess everything, to this man who claimed to have children of his own. But something held her back. Maybe it was that he had been willing to extort money from a thin boy or leave him to the mercy of the road, or maybe she had learned—perhaps from Marlen Humbreleigh’s betrayal—the deadly consequences of trust.
With barely any money and no idea what to do next, Rianna had asked the wagon driver to direct her to Dynmar’s inn. There she had found out that she could not afford
to buy even the most modest of the meals, let alone lodging, and it could perhaps be considered luck that Irma had discerned her horror and taken an interest. Within moments, Rianna was hustled into the kitchen and set to work, with the promise of food, lodgings, and a tiny wage for each day ringing in her ears. Her life of a serene house and wind chimes was a dream washed away. Her days were simple, reduced, as if viewed through a keyhole: she washed dishes from dawn to dusk and slept—or tried to sleep—on a thin pallet on the floor of the kitchen. A kitchen boy slept there too, on a pallet nearby, and tended the fire. He and Rianna did not speak much, but she was grateful that he let her alone.
Irma wasted no time telling Rianna that she would have been eaten alive if left to herself on the streets of Dynmar. Seeing the sorts of men who blustered into the inn every day for food and especially drink, the quick and battered lives they led, Rianna realized this was true. The dawn she had once loved to watch break over the rooftops of Tamryllin, which had seemed a renewal of hope, she now realized was nothing more than the mechanism of a returning sun that had no care for the people on earth or their dreams. It was all withering away: the promise of love she had shared with Darien Aldemoor, the image she had entertained of herself—only half-consciously—as the remote and immaculate Snow Queen. The image she had seen reflected in Darien’s eyes. Now she was a kitchen maid, lower even than a kitchen maid, with her once-smooth skin turned scaly red and her muscles aching all over, all day. And all for the purpose of earning passage back to Tamryllin, which she no longer felt was home. She would be a fugitive when she returned and forced to seek protection with Ned Alterra’s family. Ned, she knew, would not begrudge her; but she thought it cruel to him nonetheless.
But now, seeing what it meant to be in a strange town alone, Rianna knew she had no chance of finding Darien Aldemoor on her own. It had been an idiot plan. And sometimes, amid the perpetual motion and fatigue and ache in her legs, she felt a pang of fury at her lost love. You left me, she thought, addressing his handsome face in her mind’s eye.
Last Song Before Night Page 26
