Keeper of the Keys

by Janny Wurts

  'Emien?' he called, though he had not intended to speak aloud.

  Hard, spurred fingers clamped Jaric's wrist. The connection broke before the man in the tower could answer, and Ivainson felt himself jerked backward, into the violet-tinged shadows of a corridor beneath the earth. 'Stay close,' admonished his Llondian guide. 'Heed, or risk your mind. If you stray, I cannot shield you from the dream-melding of the burrow.'

  Jaric shared the jumbled reactions of many in the instant before the demon released him. 'Ivainson, Firelord's heir; strong-willed, yes? Look, he seeks the Dark-dreamer before time.'

  'Dark-dreamer?' the boy said aloud. 'Do they mean Emien?'

  The Llondel hurried forward without answer. Presently it paused, pointed through a side door, and jabbed Jaric's mind with a fleeting impression of Taen Dreamweaver's face. The boy needed no further incentive. He entered the chamber hard on the demon's heels and stopped, blinking in the glare of unshielded candles.

  Forced to squint as his vision adjusted, Jaric made out the hooded forms of three Llondelei clustered around what appeared to be a wooden tub filled with hot water. Through the steam which drifted and coiled above the rim, he saw a dark, wet head, and the flushed features of the girl whose memory had haunted him since the moment they parted at Landfast.

  'Jaric?' Taen's voice was weak, but tinged with unmistakable reproach. 'Corley said if you followed Moonless from the Free Isles, he'd skin you with the dullest of his knives.'

  'Well, he didn't. After four weeks of worry over you, every blade on Moonless had an edge that would split a cat's whisker.' Astonished by the tightness in his throat, Jaric rushed to embrace her. Quickly as he moved, the demons reacted first. One behind him caught him by the shoulder and yanked him back, while two in front sprang to their feet and caught his hands. Spread-eagled and helpless, Jaric struggled to reach Taen; but Llondelei thought-forms hammered his protest to silence.

  'Never you touch, not now.' The command was qualified with an impression of his inner self perpetually locked into sympathy with Taen's powers as Dreamweaver. Jaric saw his potential as Firelord's heir rendered impotent at a stroke, all because he had ignorantly embraced the Dreamweaver before her illness left her. Llondian images detailed a ruinous sequence of catastrophes which mankind could suffer as a result: cities burned, refugees starved, and civilized Keithland crushed before an onslaught of demon foes.

  Released with a suddenness that jarred thought, Jaric stumbled to his knees. Shaken, afraid to rise, he searched the demons' inscrutable eyes. Then, rubbing a cut where a spur had accidentally scored his wrist, he appealed at last to Taen. 'I don't understand.'

  'How could you?' A trace of an impish grin touched her lips. 'I don't guess the mysteries of the Vaere are part of the Landfast archives.'

  'No.' Jaric responded to a prod from the demon at his back, and seated himself on a mat at Taen's side. Though the glistening skin of her shoulder was close enough to touch, he clenched his hands tightly in his lap.

  'The Vaere were desperate when Cliffhaven was endangered by demons. I was sent to intervene,' Taen said. 'At the time, my Dreamweaver's mastery was incomplete.'

  But Jaric knew she left out details to spare him. Taen had been dispatched to Cliffhaven to preserve his own life from the combined effects of Anskiere's geas and the Kielmark's unpredictable temperament. Against the will of the Vaere, she had stayed on and engaged her talents in Cliffhaven's defence so that he could recover the Keys to Elrinfaer in safety. Anguished that Taen's suffering had begun with disobedience on his behalf, Jaric covered his face with callused palms.

  'Ivainson, no, you can't blame yourself!' Taen rested her cheek against the rim of the tub. Wearied by the inadequacy of speech, she engaged her craft as Dreamweaver.

  Her thoughts touched Jaric's mind as softly as a falling leaf. Gently she made him share an understanding she had only recently acquired through the Llondel who cured her illness. The powers of the Vaere-trained were created through a bond with a living matrix called Sathid. Upon maturity, the crystals caused an incompatibility with the body, which developed into a coma. At that time, the crystals would procreate by transforming the living tissues of the body into seed-matrix. Death was the usual result. Yet since Llondelei also derived their imaging abilities from Sathid bonding, they knew ways to separate the mature crystal from the body without harm. The process was easily disturbed; physical contact at the wrong moment could cause the matrix to cross-link, augment the imprint of a second mind alongside that of the first master.

  Demon thought-forms defined the matter further. Swept into an explanation of dreams, Jaric observed that the Stormwarden of Elrinfaer's formidable control of wind and wave derived from two Sathid matrixes. The crystals formed the foundation of his powers, and to protect them from enemy meddling, he sank them in a capsule beneath the polar ocean. Driven beyond the icy deeps, the boy traversed a series of interlinking associations called forth by Llondian consciousness. In a whirl of past events, he saw enemies march from Shadowfane. They murdered Llondelei guardians and stole the last of their native stock of Sathid matrix. The crystals were pure, never having bonded previously; no others could replace them, except on Homeworld under the scarlet star. Once returned to Shadowfane, hostile hands experimented with the matrix and discovered what Llondelei always knew. At the time of separation, Sathid crystals could bond again; any who attempted to share the influence of an impressed matrix risked total subjugation to the will of the original partner. And since the matrix itself inherited the experience of each successive master, the crystal itself grew stronger, wiser; it, too, might contend for mastery. Thus had Jaric nearly destroyed a balance when he tried to touch Taen, and thus did the compact at Shadowfane create pawns to commit atrocities against mankind.

  Freed from the imaging, Jaric recalled the caustic burns which had disfigured Emien's hands since the hour he had murdered his mistress, Tathagres. Abruptly he remembered Taen's presence. He stopped his speculation, but not before the Dreamweaver caught the direction of his thoughts.

  'My brother stands in grave danger. The Llondelei know Tathagres served Shadowfane. She carried Sathid already impressed by demons in a collar of wrought gold.

  Though the witch herself was not matrix-linked, the enemy controlled her by the crystal's influence. Through her they channelled their designs against Anskiere and Cliffhaven. But when Emien broke the band from her neck, the matrix contacted his skin. Very likely he will succumb to direct possession. Any talent he has could be developed to the detriment of our kind.'

  Jaric felt the breath constrict in his throat. For a suspended interval he studied Taen's face through the steam which clouded the tub. The girl's eyes showed fatigue, their colour shadowed under lashes like ink; but her expression reflected concern rather than grief. As yet she seemed unaware that Emien was held captive at Shadowfane. Dry fingers brushed Jaric's arm. He started and found a Llondel crouched at his shoulder.

  'Once, she saw,' sent the demon. Its touch intensified in his mind. 'The girl received the image in delirium, and for the sake of health, we let her believe she experienced a nightmare. But she cannot be kept ignorant much longer.' Slitted nostrils flared; and drawing the boy into sympathy, the creature inclined its head towards the Dreamweaver.

  Jaric beheld the chamber and its inhabitants through the altered perception of Llondian eyes. Candlelight threw off a hurtful, greenish cast; and Taen's person shimmered with the blue-violet aura which accompanied the maturing presence of a Sathid bond. Its pattern radiated changeless and clean as light refracted through dewdrops at dawn, then vanished, blotted into darkness by a second view of the black-haired captive huddled within Shadowfane's walls. In contrast, the patterns emanating from Emien's form gleamed an angry scarlet, contorted as a hillwoman's knotwork.

  The image faded away. Subjected to the expectant regard of the Llondelei, Jaric realized the demons expected him to intervene. Logic demanded that he develop his sorcerer's potential to combat the anguish Emie
n would unleash against Keithland. But the revelation that all Vaerish powers, even the Cycle of Fire itself, were derived from mastery of a Sathid matrix changed nothing. Tierl Enneth's plight had affirmed his aversion to sorcery more deeply than ever before.

  Frustrated to despair, Jaric challenged. 'Why should you care what becomes of Keithland? Kordane's Law holds all demons alike. What separates your kind from the builders of Shadowfane?'

  The Llondelei hissed with affront. Taen cried aloud, but her warning went unregarded. The demon at Jaric's side caught his wrist in a crushing grip. Its spurred palm drove deep into his flesh, and he tumbled headlong into an inferno of heat and violence.

  * * *

  The night-dark forests of Homeworld exploded into fire, slashed by energy weapons carried by invaders. Jaric watched a stand of torched trees buckle and fall. Droves of batlike fliers took wing, shrilling piteously as the flesh seared from their bones. A small band of Llondelei fled the conflagration. Driven from their burrow in confusion, blinded by smoke, and disoriented by the cruel brilliance of the flames, they ran only to be captured. Darts tipped with drugs whined through cascades of airborne sparks and struck the running forms. One after another, Llondelei tumbled to earth and lay still.

  White-suited creatures advanced across the swath of smouldering vegetation. Their bodies resembled a man's, but instead of faces, their heads were glassy, featureless windows with blackness inside. Jaric screamed in terror. Yet the dream did not relent. Bound to memory of Llondian disaster, he watched helplessly as the enemy piled their stunned captives in a fearsome metal wagon. The vehicle jolted into motion with a roar, and the dream-image went dark. Jaric endured a period of jostling movement and noise. Then, like a beacon in a sea of confusion, he heard a human voice.

  The woman's accent was foreign, her tone openly distressed. 'Commander Keith, I must protest! The inhabitants of Llond's world aren't dangerous. My God, they don't even have space travel yet!'

  A gruff voice replied. 'They register psi strong enough to ruin us. That's enough to list them among the enemy. Complaints don't count a damn since Starhope was besieged. And God? If Corinne Dane's mission fails, if mankind doesn't find a defence against powers such as your Llondelei possess, the only human survivors will be those colonies enslaved by the Gieij. Since the Book of Revelation didn't mention that ending, you can assume the rest of old Earth dogma was fiction also. Now get back to your post!'

  Jaric strove to make sense of the words. Denied sight, and confused by religious references whose meanings seemed strangely skewed, he puzzled over the term Corinne Dane. Llondelei consciousness caught the name in his mind, and the dream upended, flung him with sickening vertigo into a vista of blackness and stars. Adrift in the vastness of space, Jaric beheld a vast, metal engine. Its surface was cluttered with incomprehensible symbols, and a shiny, bewildering array of struts and vanes and lights. 'Corinne Dane, star-probe-ship,' sent the Llondelei who imaged the dream. An explosion of blue-white light followed; the engine shot forward like a meteor, scribing a line of fire across the dark.

  Tumbled through sequence after sequence of images, Jaric at last understood; the Blessed Fires praised by Kordane's priests were nothing more than a corrupted reference to this same ship, Corinne Dane, which once had sailed the vast deeps of the heavens. The Llondelei granted no time to examine the impact of this discovery. Images patched Jaric's thoughts like mosaic work. He saw scores of Llondelei caged in metal while Corinne Dane's mighty fires transported them across inconceivable distance. Twelve races gathered from other worlds shared the confinement of the Llondelei. Gierj, Karas, Mharg, Thienz, and frostwarg, and other demons whose shapes Jaric did not recognize: all huddled imprisoned in the ship's dungeon. With restless thoughts and endless hatred they plotted against the humans who had captured them; humans whose lonely, isolated minds made them such easy prey that now their last outpost among the stars battled desperately to stave off extinction.

  Joined with Llondian consciousness, Jaric shared the suffering of captives who pined for the forests of Home-world. He cringed from the tortured scream of machinery as other demons' vengeance wrenched Corinne Dane's guidance systems out of sequence. Rudderless as a ship in a storm, the great craft hurtled through the atmosphere of a far, uncharted planet. Smouldering wreckage smashed and scarred a barren landscape with the marks of the Great Fall.

  Jaric screamed as his sight again went dark. Beset by the pain of Llondelei survivors, he breathed air that was dry and thin, hurtful after the moist damp of Home-world. One with demon memory, he crawled from the wrecked framework of Corinne Dane, a castaway on an unknown world. Forced to forage for fish and lichens, Jaric endured cruel cold and blizzards. He knew the discomfort of seasons set out of harmony with his anatomy. Sorrow and despair beset him as companions weakened and died. Weeping for release, he suffered the hardship of the Llondelei who survived and reproduced. Even after the humans at Landfast seeded the first forests upon the barren hills of Keithland, the exiles never ceased to mourn for the lost land of their ancestors.

  Jaric screamed. Battered by generation upon generation of Llondian grief, he recalled the thoughtless words he had uttered before the images trapped him. 'Why should you care what becomes of Keithland?' As if his guilt keyed release, the dreams fled from him like shadows before light.

  He recovered awareness, shivering on his knees in yet another underground cavern, but this chamber was smaller than the one which had sheltered Taen. Jaric raised himself shakily from the floor. Wetness slicked his thumb, blood from the stinging puncture left by a Llondian spur. The demon who had inflicted the wound waited at his shoulder, motionless in the violet light of the lamps. It offered no image as the human boy recovered his composure; and shamed to the core, Jaric was too embarrassed to speak. He stared at the far wall, and there saw a board laid generously with bread and fruit.

  The Llondel bade him sit down. The boy complied, startled to awareness of his own hunger. But the influx of alien thought-images had left him feeling vaguely queasy. His awareness seemed oddly separate from his physical body. Perception of solid reality frayed at the edges, unintegrated as oil on water. Aware that time spent among the Llondelei could only intensify such disorientation, and that madness lay at the end, Jaric buried his face in his hands.

  He did not hear the demon rise at his back. Its feet made no sound as it stole from the chamber, leaving the curtain open for another who entered in its stead. Unsteady on her feet, one hand braced to the wall for support, Taen Dreamweaver tugged at the wool robe the demons had loaned her. She regarded the bent head of the Firelord's heir and managed a wan smile. 'Why don't you eat? Illusions don't smell like peaches, and if I tried, I could count the knobs on your backbone from here.'

  Jaric spun round. 'Taen?' He scrambled awkwardly to his feet and hesitated, arrested by uncertainty. 'Are you ...'

  'On the mend,' Taen finished for him. 'Except this darned wool itches like the thistle cloth we used to rub down goats.' She stepped to his side, bringing freshness and a calm that dispelled the nausea brought on by demon thought-image.

  Abruptly suspicious, Jaric helped her to sit on the mat. 'You aren't using your powers to steady me, are you?' Through the contact he felt her trembling. The weakness of her appalled him.

  'No.' Taen picked up a peach and bit into it. 'A Dreamweaver's aura can heal. Had you forgotten?'

  'Yes.' Recalled to manners, Jaric reached for a loaf and broke a piece off for the girl. 'We have to get out of here.'

  Taen looked at him with her mouth full. A tinge of colour had returned to her cheeks, and her blue eyes were laughing. 'You make a terrible sailor,' she observed. 'Always wanting to change the wind. Will you eat that chunk of bread, or are you just going to sit there bleeding on it?'

  Jaric dropped the crust with self-conscious embarrassment. He looked for a napkin to blot his thumb, but found none and had to settle for a strip from his cuff, which was torn anyway.

  Taen continued as he bound his cut
. 'The Llondelei will free us in their own time, I think, but not before the Sathid matrix expelled from my body fully crystallizes.'

  Jaric regarded the board as if the bread were an enemy that had betrayed him. 'We might have been here days already.'

  Taen punched him, ineffectively, but with the fire of her usual spirit. 'It's only nightfall outside. That makes one full day, and the last without supper. Eat, or I will use my powers. You'll need your strength. If my legs don't stop wobbling by tomorrow, who else do I have to carry me back to Moonless?'

  * * *

  The Llondelei returned when the last of the peaches were consumed. Two of them escorted Taen to a place where she could rest; illness that preceded the maturation of her Sathid matrix had left her exhausted, and even through his preoccupation, Jaric noticed she had difficulty keeping her eyes open. Though he would rather have sat with her while she slept, the Llondel who remained forbade him.

  'Follow.' The image that touched the boy's mind was tinged with urgency and an indefinable weight of regret.

  Taen's presence had eased the immediacy of his despair. Jaric dusted bread crumbs from his shirt and went where the demon directed.

  It led him deep into earth, yet the timber-shored walls of the burrow held none of the dank chill he might have expected. The tiled corridor they traversed was dry and warm, if eerily lit by the violet-paned lamps. With no image offered in explanation, the Llondel guide stopped and flung open a door. Jaric entered the chamber beyond at its command, his feet rustling through a mat of sweet rushes. The room was large, even more sparsely furnished than the others he had seen. Here the air had a close smell, as if animals were kennelled nearby. Suddenly, in the gloom of the far corner, Ivainson saw movement, Llondelei; but these differed from any he had observed so far. Four grey-skinned youngsters tussled like puppies on the rushes, and something about the savagery of their play set his hair aprickle.