The Lightkeep

by Catherine Miller

  “I will not deny that encouraging the younger people toward our cause has been a difficult one. They are harder to convince, and prefer evidence rather than accepting ancient texts as legitimate proof.” Penryn did not need to turn her head to sense Lameston’s discomfort. For all his faults, she supposed he was to be commended that he had taken the vows at all, regardless of his reservations. Or perhaps it was merely foolish, to dedicate his life to something he did not entirely believe in.

  Except that was the crux of the matter. Sages were not told the whole of the history until they had sworn their lives to its keeping. To leave meant execution.

  She did not often pity the sages, and was not certain she could fully embrace such an emotion now, but there were the beginnings. To swear a life of fealty and faithfulness to a mystery, then be disappointed by the outcome...

  Then the reminder, grave and unyielding.

  At least they had been given a choice at all.

  She had not. She had been plucked from the common-people, draped in ritual and sacrifice as a justification for her kidnapping.

  Lameston would hardly win a competition of who was the most disappointed in their lot.

  “Then I suggest you alter your approach,” Penryn answered, her tone harder than she had intended. “For I fear our accord will not last if it is not given the proper respect.”

  She smoothed her palms across the tabletop, trying to come back to the point that mattered most. It was not her commission to convince doubtful sages of their place in the world, of the importance of their task.

  They should have settled that long ago.

  “My lady,” the elder nodded in deference, before he too took a breath. “As to the other matter, I feel we are equally powerless to prove our innocence. We allowed none through. We have planned no attack upon your person, have never thought to waylay your Journey. If your kind is in danger, it is not by us. Of this I swear.”

  She wanted to believe him. Desperately wished it to be true. His eyes, milky with age, were imploring as he regarded her, his hands outstretched as if opening himself to whatever weapon she chose to wield against him.

  Penryn swallowed, knowing she had to be firm, that she could not be distracted by supplication, not when so much was at stake.

  But he spoke truly. If they were innocent, how could she be convinced? Just as Lameston wanted a pair of wings to steady his faith, there was no such action they could provide that would show what they had not done.

  “Give me an explanation,” she entreated at last. “Give me some reason that your kind might have been beyond the Wall without you having broken faith with us?”

  The sages looked amongst themselves before eyes settled on the tabletop. Not in despair, but in thought, their brows pulled together, mouths in tight lines as they tried to supply something she was not convinced could be given.

  “If you would,” one of the silent sages cut in, and all eyes darting to him. “It might be helpful if you could describe his dress. And he had a mount, you say? Was it the sort that Edgard used to escort you to us?”

  “I do not know its name,” Penryn answered regretfully. “But no, it was not the same sort. Edgard’s beast seemed calm in nature. This was...” Even now she could readily recall its hot breath against her cheek, the sharp teeth glistening with drool and malice, although that seemed fuelled by its rider more than its own nature. “A very different sort,” she finished lamely, shaking her head. “Large, with long teeth,” she tried to form an example with her fingers, but she feared it looked more like an insect than what she intended. “With a great coat of fur.”

  A few of the sages looked at her rather than each other, but none seemed to think her mad. Perhaps they had creatures of that description? If so, she was quite sorry for them, as they seemed a very great terror.

  “There are those that resemble that description, but they keep to the mountains to the east,” Henrik cut in, nodding to the man beside him, whether seeking approval for speaking to her once more or for verification of agreement, she did not know. “We do not have them here.’

  “That is hardly proof of our innocence,” The man to his right interjected. “We could have captured a few and brought them down with us to train.”

  Henrik gave him a sharp look. “And how exactly did we send the trained beasts across the wall? By catapult?” Penryn did not recognise that word, but she was not going to ask for an explanation, not when Henrik’s tone already dripped with animosity.

  The sage that had questioned him looked briefly annoyed, but smoothed his expression at a quick glance at Penryn. “A fair point,” he conceded, the group growing quiet as they retreated to their own thoughts.

  “Defectors,” one cut in at last, offering another suggestion. “Timed between patrols.” He gave a sheepish smile in Penryn’s direction. “It is a very long Wall,” he added, almost as an apology. “Could they have climbed over and grown angry when they found the wilds not to their liking?”

  Penryn gave him a dubious look. “So in answer they chose to attack the Lightkeep?”

  The man shrugged. “Merely posing a possibility. The point is that the attack, nor their presence there, was sanctioned.”

  Penryn’s voice was low. “The treaty is clear,” she reminded him. “That it is the responsibility of both parties to keep their kind from trespassing. Sanctioned or not.”

  She had questioned that, at times, claiming that such treatment was unfair. To punish an entire people for the foolish actions of a few, but the sages had been firm. There must be necessity in keeping the boundaries secured, and consequences for that failure.

  Even if they seemed harsh to a young mind filled with thoughts of justice and perhaps, a little too much leniency.

  “The rider,” another entreated. “What of him?”

  “He wore no shirt,” she recalled. Grimult had no need to disrobe him when studying his cooling body, to see the smooth lines of his back proving his race. “Paint decorated his skin, here,” she mimicked the lines she had seen on her forearms, “And here,” fingers smoothing down her cheekbones before rising to place three dots along her forehead. “His skin held a golden hue, as if he had spent much time in the sun. But his hair was shaved, so I could not tell you the colour.”

  She paused, waiting for any to interject, but continued when none yet could give an answer. “His breeches were fashioned from some kind of skin, but tanned and prepared. Not something I would imagine was accomplished alone, although I suppose it could have been so.”

  She wished she had studied him more carefully, could relate some mark or feature that could identify him to the men at the table, but she could not. Her attention had been consumed with Grimult, with the devastation at being kept so fully uninformed of their purpose.

  Of the realisation that their kind were not the only in the world.

  “Explain how he came to be there,” she entreated. “Was it truly that you have grown lax in your patrol? In your explanation to your people what should happen to them if they attempt to cross?”

  Henrik shook his head, his mouth a tight line. “I assure you, we have not taken our duties lightly.”

  She wanted to call for a reprieve, for time to pass between them so they could reflect on her words and offer a solution, but the more she related the story, the more she began to question certain details that suddenly seemed confusion in nature. If the sages spoke truly, the rider’s mount was a wild creature. It would have to be tamed enough to even be a mount, which suggested a great deal of time.

  So if it was a defector as had been suggested, the act was done long before. Years, at the most recent possibility.

  “There was only one?” another sage enquired, and she nodded. “But your impression was that there were more like him?”

  Another nod, the dread even now settling in her belly. “Yes.” Of that she was certain, although she could give no claim as to why she could be so.

  They fell silent for a long while, lost in their own t
houghts, and she was beginning to despair at ever receiving an explanation when the elder spoke out, his voice calm even as it wavered. “When the first accord was put into place, the boundaries were the first matter to be discussed.” He did not look to the others for confirmation, and none argued with him. There were few texts from Penryn’s home about those times, as the responsibility had been the land-dwellers to fashion the divide with their technologies. It troubled her that she could not readily confirm the sage’s words with her own context, but she leaned forward, hopeful.

  “A great enough portion devoted to your kind,” he gave a nod to Penryn. “But not so much that too many of our own people would be displaced.”

  He quieted, allowing all to think on his words, and Penryn was the first to give answer. “Suggesting that some were?” she queried, her head tilting as she tried to understand.

  The sage gave a slow nod of assent. “A great many,” he affirmed. “Entire villages rounded up and brought to the other side to rebuild.”

  She tried to envision such a happening, and struggled to do so. She had never known loyalty to a home, to a place where her ancestors had toiled and sacrificed. Where vows had been shared and children born.

  Only to one day be told that that they had to move on. To take what could be carried and be given a new strip of land, to build, but not restore what had been taken. Not truly.

  She swallowed. “And all went? They did not try to fight?”

  The sage eyed her steadily. “I did not say that.”

  Penryn did not immediately know how to respond to that. The books in her Keep were written by those who had survived the hunts and established the accord, and they spent little time detailing how the boundaries had been erected. There were maps, ones she even now could sketch from memory if given a bit of charcoal and a parchment, but she thought of the dwelling she had found with Grimult, his discomfort at seeing that which was forbidden.

  Not merely a dwelling.

  A home.

  With surrounding lands that presumably had been a farm before a treaty had demanded the lands be emptied.

  She swallowed thickly. “Do you believe,” she began when she felt she was able to form the words without making a fool of herself with an emotional display. “That some might have found a way to remain behind?”

  The sage steepled his fingers. “It has always seemed to me that the texts were arrogant in their reports of the ease in which it was done. Some hinted at the conflict, but most suggested that all were compliant.” He tilted his head, regarding her critically. “If you were suddenly informed that you would be vacating your ancestral lands, would you take that order lightly?”

  A coil of tension tightened in her belly. “Of course not.”

  The sage nodded. “I would suggest, given the manner of dress and even the mount itself, that rather than a defector or one sent by our order to trespass beyond the Wall, you caught a glimpse of a remnant of what once was.” He leaned forward. “And if they attacked you, I would take that as a grave warning. It is possible they do not understand the significance of your coming, of the maintenance of the treaty they likely detest, but if they do...”

  He shook his head. “You are fortunate you made it through alive. I doubt the next would be so fortunate.”

  Penryn tried to think, tried to make sense of what he was telling her. If it was true, which a begrudging part of her was beginning to accept that possibility, they had never truly been safe. Not in the whole of the wretched time of Lightkeeps and sages, of sequestering an entire people from any they thought might hurt them.

  Even while an entire set of people nursed old wounds and grudging resentment at being so thoroughly displaced.

  Perhaps that was not truly the case. Perhaps they had moved on, become nomads until settling elsewhere, finding the places where the Wall ended and navigating either the mountains of the sea, depending on their determination. Maybe the attack had not been directed at her specifically, but she had merely been the first he had noticed, and it did not mean her successor was in danger, that the future of the treaty was in peril.

  Penryn smoothed her hands down her skirt, trying to order her thoughts, scattered and jumbled as they were becoming.

  She had asked for an explanation. She had not expected it to frighten her so much when it was proffered.

  “By the terms of the alliance,” Penryn began, her voice suddenly small and she had to force herself to speak clearly. “Would you not be obligated to assist in dealing with such persons?” She glanced about the table, looking for some sign of agreement. “They were yours too originally, and although I can appreciate the difficulty of the task, the accord was clear that their exile was to be dealt with by you.” The words felt harsh and utterly lacking in compassion, and she did not like how hollow they sounded even to her own ears. She was accusing them of not being harsh enough, of not taking more care as they drove people from their homes, even if it was for the protection of her own kind.

  “That might have been true,” the elder sages acknowledged. “But we are bound by different impediments than we once were.”

  He must have caught the brush of confusion from Penryn for he elaborated. “To cross now would be a breach of that same accord, if we were even able to do so, which we are not.”

  Penryn grimaced at that. Some sort of construction could be crafted that would make it possible, but at what cost? And to what explanation for those sent to fight?

  And what if they saw the lands on the other side and decided not to retreat to their proper place, but surge forward instead, either in a lust for exploration or resources.

  Penryn looked at the sage. “Then what do you suggest?”

  He sighed deeply and if she was not mistaken, there were tinges of pity in his returning glance. “That we sign our treaty as we have always done. And then your people may attend to whatever threat befalls you, in whatever means you deem necessary.”

  A war? That was what he so nicely suggested without ever using the word, without speaking of the blood and the trauma, the fighting that seemed never ending when she read countless battles recounted through numerous perspectives.

  But what alternative did she have to offer? Everything in her rebelled at the notion of allowing them to cross the Wall, the ultimate failure on her part if she permitted it.

  But the sages had given her no suggestion of what to do in these circumstances, and she was angered by that.

  So very angry.

  Why had no one noticed? In all the centuries that had passed, never had any seen even a glimpse of a land-dweller left behind.

  So why now?

  Her legs itched to pace, to move, to urge some great revelation into her uncooperative mind, but that would indicate unease, and she could not afford to show her agitation. Not to these men.

  If she believed them.

  It was one man, one attack. Easily outfitted with deceit so that she would... what?

  Urge them over the Wall?

  Allowing more weaponry, more warriors across under the promise of aid, only to find themselves bearing the brunt of the assault, the enemy they thought never having existed?

  She wanted more than anything to blurt out that she was unprepared for this, that she would appreciate council on how to proceed, but she could not. They may look much the same as the sages in her Keep, but their interests were with their kind. Not hers. And she was the only one to speak for her people.

  Keep the peace. She was to do that, first and foremost. Keep the accord, and maintain the line of Lightkeeps that would follow.

  And then, although the task was generally one and the same, she had to make sure that the Lightkeep to follow would make it safely through once more.

  The thought of that, of another poor soul subjected to the same life that she had lead thus far, filled her with dread. She did not want that for another, but the thought of enduring the same, only to be met with violence and death once free of the Keep’s reaches...

  That was f
ar, far worse.

  They were looking to her for some indication of where the talks should lead next. No one else offered a possible explanation, and the silence was a tense, oppressive thing that hung between them all as they waited for one another to speak first. It made her skin prickle, made the lump in her throat meld and tighten, threatening to choke her even if she dared be the one to attempt it.

  How long could they keep at this? Speculating and debating recounting histories and experiences that could no longer be verified.

  Their faith was being tested, in each other and in the system that had been created long before any of their births. They might not like it, Penryn least of all, but she did respect it.

  Although even that was difficult most days.

  She shook her head, standing from the table and going toward the document held behind her. A lantern illuminated it well, hanging on a bolt deep within the stone, similar to the one she had carried from her own keep. The treaty itself was held against a swathe of blood-red cloth, embroidery of flames and starbursts adding pinpricks of light in golden threads.

  For all her imaginings, she had thought little of the treaty itself, worn and old, but she could feel its weight all the same just by looking at it. The words themselves were tightly written by a careful hand, ancient and formal in their language, her eyes squinting as she tried to read it for herself. The vellum was well cared for but the ink had been replaced in areas that necessitated the endeavour. There were other copies of it, that she knew, if time proved the ultimate enemy and destroyed the physical treaty even if the intention of it lived on.

  It was the bottom that intrigued her most. There were no names, no written record of what monikers had been used by those before her. Only the constant repetition of the Order from whence they came, and the year they had refreshed the alliance.

  She wanted to touch it, to feel some connection with those who had come before, but she was certain the oils of her skin were not good for a document so old. She felt Henrik come up behind her, and although she did not feel he was the best one to sign, it was not her place to argue the point. “I almost feel that an amendment should be made,” Penryn mused, staring down at the words, some faded, others crisp in their newness. “Some sort of acknowledgement for what we—”