Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  Jill could, and she winced. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some sort of scuffling on the stairway and turned, irritably wondering who was profaning the wake. Two servants came clattering down, their arms full of Meer’s possessions, with the aged chamberlain, Lord Gavry, proceeding more slowly after. Jahdo came with him, arguing and sobbing all at the same time. Jill started over in time to hear what the trouble was: some of those goods were the boy’s, but Gavry had no time or patience to care.

  “Listen, you little snot-faced cub!” the old man snapped. “You’re naught but a servant, and your master’s dead. You don’t have a place here anymore. I’m minded to speak to my lord, and he’ll turn you out on the streets to starve.”

  “Let him! You do steal from me.”

  Gavry swung, slapping the boy across the face, and marched on. Jahdo burst out weeping and raced out the back door of the hall. Gavry started to hurl some oath after him, then caught Jill’s expression and shriveled.

  “Er, ah, well, my good sorcerer, the gall of the little snot, arguing with his betters, and all about some goods he claims are his. How would I know the truth of that? Servants and people of that sort always lie.”

  Since Jill had been born one of “that sort,” her mood darkened further. Gavry stepped back fast.

  “I doubt very much if he does lie, my lord.” Jill forced her voice level. “The bard’s drum and suchlike will have to be buried with him, but don’t you dispose of any of that other gear till you’ve spoken with me. Not one piece of it.”

  Leaving a stammering Gavry behind her, Jill stalked out of the hall and began looking for Jahdo. After a long search, she found the boy out behind some storage sheds by the dun wall. He was huddled into a corner, his arms wrapped round his knees, staring out at nothing. When she walked up, he turned his head away. Jill sat down on the ground next to him and merely waited until, at length, he looked at her.

  “I mourn him, too, Jahdo. He was a great man, and a good friend, and I’ll miss him.”

  Jahdo nodded, blinking back tears.

  “It’s a hard thing to lose a friend,” Jill went on.

  “It is that, especially here in this rotten place.”

  “What?”

  “In Deverry. Truly, my lady, I do hope I give no offense, but were I home, this thing would be a rotten sight easier to bear.”

  “Well, no doubt. If you had your family—”

  “That be not what I mean.” Jahdo paused, choosing words. “Ever since we came to Deverry, Meer and me, I’ve been thinking. First we were prisoners, and we were naught until you did speak up for us. You and Rhodry, too, though he were but a silver dagger himself. And then we had a place, a good place, because Meer were a bard and I did tend a bard. But now he’s dead.”

  “Ah. And now you have no place again?”

  “Just that. I do understand somewhat now, a thing my Da always told me. We are but ratters, he would say, the lowest of the low, but no matter. We have our place. We are citizens, citizens of Cerr Cawnen, and every bit as good as the grand folk who do live on Citadel. No one can turn us from our place, he would say. Well, there be no citizens, here in Deverry. There be only lords, and truly, in them I do see the Slavers that always I heard about, no matter how kind a single lord like Cadmar might be. And all the rest of us, we are naught unless the lords, they do give us some place.”

  Jill was too staggered to answer for some moments. She’d always known that the lad had wits far beyond the ordinary, but this outburst showed her the great man he’d someday become—if, of course, he lived to grow up. Jahdo glared, defiant.

  “You’re right as rain, lad,” Jill said at last. “Right as rain. And when you get home to Cerr Cawnen, I hope you tell everybody what you’ve seen and learned here, so they value what they have there.”

  It was his turn for the surprise, his defiance sagging to a gawk.

  “But I wouldn’t go talking about it now, not in the dun,” Jill went on. “It’ll get you into trouble, sure enough, if the lords hear you.”

  “Well, truly, I do know that.”

  “Good. Tell you what. For now, till the war’s over, you can come be my servant, and then you’ll have a place again. How’s that?”

  “Oh, splendid! I do thank you, my lady, from the bottom of my heart. Never have I begrudged working for my food, because my Da, he did teach me so.”

  “Done, then. Now let’s get your things moved into my chamber, before the chamberlain grabs them again.”

  That evening, clouds blew up from the south, a promise of rain, scudding before the wind in the last of the sun and sending long shadows racing across the besiegers. As Tren trudged up the ridge to the captain’s camp, he felt as insubstantial as one of those shadows. No one came near him; no one spoke to him; no one looked him in the eye. Any man he met by chance ducked away from him fast. Bad geis—he could almost hear them thinking it.

  In Hir-li’s tent, the other captains were already assembled, kneeling on the ground while the warleader paced back and forth, haranguing them. When Tren came in, Hir-li stopped, watching as the human lord took a place near the door and the two Horsekin closest him moved away. Off to one side of the rakzan, the high priestess sat in her wooden chair. Tren wondered if the Goddess would take over her priestess’s body and address her officers again—he rather hoped not. Behind her stood a squad of Keepers, hands on the hilts of their sabers.

  Hir-li spoke to a young human slave, a blond lad with a narrow face, and sent him down the long line of captains. Although Tren went tense, wondering if he were to be assassinated right there, the lad turned out to be a translator. He crouched directly behind Tren and whispered the gist of what was being said in what intervals he could find.

  “The priestess has already explained that she ordered you to kill the bard,” he murmured.

  “Good. Will you convey my apologies to Hir-li for being late?”

  The boy stood and did so, then knelt again. Hir-li looked Tren’s way and raised one hand in greeting, then returned to his harangue.

  “The master’s angry about the way the First Regiment acted when you killed the bard,” the lad whispered. “He’s about to call out the officers who were in charge.”

  Hir-li barked an order. Two Horsekin in gold surcoats rose and stepped forward, their faces betraying no feeling at all.

  “He’s telling them that keeping the men brave was their charge.” The boy paused, listening. “And they failed.” Another pause. “The Keepers will open their bodies up and take their hearts and send their souls to the Goddess for judging.”

  Tren winced. No one else, not even the doomed Horsekin, made the slightest sound or gesture. At Hir-li’s wave, the squad of Keepers grabbed the two officers, pulling off their surcoats, then binding their hands behind them. The assembled captains allowed themselves a slight sigh as the pair were marched off.

  “What will happen to the regiment?” Tren whispered.

  “Every eighth man will be raised on the long spears. That’s what always happens. It’s all luck who. They line them up and then start the counting out wherever the Keepers decide. No one can move once they start counting.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Hir-li spoke again, more calmly this time, pausing often to bow to the high priestess.

  “They need leaders to volunteer for a dangerous mission up in the hills,” the boy told Tren. “The men from the First who live through the counting out will go fight, to redeem themselves, like. But they need new captains.”

  Two Horsekin officers stood and bowed to the warleader. To judge from the scant amount of gold thread woven into their surcoats, they were of some low rank and eager for a chance to better their position. Hir-li nodded his approval of the volunteers, then bent down to listen as the priestess murmured a few words.

  “Lord Tren?” Hir-li called out. “Her Holiness wishes you to accompany her on this raid. She says that you’ll have a chance to kill the man who killed your brother.”

  Tren ro
se, smiling.

  “The Goddess’s will is my will, Rakzan Hir-li.”

  And in this case, he was speaking the truth.

  The silver river that flowed past Evandar’s pavilion broadened as it approached the sea. The army saw no tributaries feed into it; the river merely grew deeper and wider, though the water flowed slower and slower, until at the estuary it oozed like quicksilver through green rushes till it merged with a peacock-blue ocean, lying under lavender light. At the shore, slow waves crept up, foamed silver, and placed themselves, seemingly a drop at a time, upon pale sand.

  “Downward!” Evandar cried.

  At his signal, the men walked their horses into the lacy surf. The horses snorted, tossing their heads, then suddenly calmed when their hooves found sure footing. A long turquoise road led down an easy slope, down and down into the water, under the water, through the water, so that the army seemed to ride in a world turned to green glass. The sunlight dimmed as the road sank, till at the bottom among the waving fronds and tendrils there shone an emerald twilight. In the gloom, figures darted by, but whether they were fish or dolphin or humanlike was impossible to tell. Ahead, the road stretched level toward a mound of dark at the end of their vision.

  “And I’d wager that she hides inside,” Evandar remarked. “Menw, you and the men stay here. My brother and I will go see what we can see.”

  Shaetano tossed up his head and looked this way and that, but he said not a word against the plan—he didn’t dare, Evandar assumed. They dismounted, turned their horses over to Menw for safekeeping, and walked together toward the undersea hill. They’d gone not a few yards when Shaetano’s foot kicked something lying on the road. When it drifted up with a flash of light, he stooped and caught a little bell, worked of gold with a handle of amethyst.

  “And who would have dropped a trinket like that?” Evandar held out his hand. “Give it over, brother.”

  With a snarl, Shaetano did so. Evandar slipped it inside his shirt as they walked on. To either side of the road, the drifting shapes swam closer, hovering above the water weeds and waving kelp. In the murk, they could make out the flash of a golden eye here, the glitter of a silver fin there, but no one called out or said a word to them. They’d gone a fair ways farther when Shaetano’s foot slipped. He dropped to one knee, then rose, laughing at his clumsiness.

  “And what did you pick up, brother?” Evandar held out his hand. “It looks like a silver horn to me. How careless these people are, to scatter their roads with treasures.”

  Shaetano drew his lips back from his fangs, but he handed over the horn.

  They could see now that the hill stood all crusted with red coral. Purple and yellow anemones bloomed among the branches; tiny fish darted back and forth in front of a silver door, set into the side of the mound, and not more than three feet tall.

  “We’ll never get through that,” Shaetano snarled. “While we’re wasting our time down here, Alshandra could be working harm to your precious Elessario, you know. I say we’d best go look for her somewhere near the child.”

  “Do you, brother?”

  Evandar stooped down to peer at the door, engraved with strange symbols and letters. On it hung a silver ring. He was just reaching for it when he heard a deep-pitched musical note throb through the water. He straightened up and spun round to find Shaetano tossing away a curled conch, striped purple and blue—or rather, he was attempting to throw it. In the water, it drifted down slowly, accusing him.

  “My apologies,” Shaetano stammered. “It was just a shell. I didn’t think it would make a noise.”

  “Indeed, brother?”

  When Evandar turned back to the door, he found it gone. Coral and kelp crusted the flank of the hill as if naught else had ever been.

  “Well, brother,” Evandar said, “you’re right enough. We’ll never get in there now. Let’s go back and fetch our horses.”

  A subdued army rode up the turquoise road. All round them, the sea turned silver as they burst through the surf and urged their horses out onto the sand. Overhead, a gull wheeled, crying out in mourning before she flew away, heading inland only to disappear in a glint of sun.

  “Hah!” Shaetano barked. “She fooled you again, brother of mine.”

  “Not her, but you,” Evandar said. “When you blew upon the conch.”

  With a snarl, Shaetano wrenched his horse’s head round and jogged off toward hard ground. Among dunes where sea grass grew coarse and olive green, Evandar gathered what remained of the conjoint host. Just like an arch of foam will spring out from the breaking waves only to merge back when the water hits the lands, so had more of their collective lives joined together. When he glanced found, he could count some two hundred left all in all, men both of the Dark Host and the Bright. Evandar rose in the stirrups and called out.

  “Very well. Soon you’ll be free to return to the pavilion for feasting and song. But come ride with me a little while more, and I’ll show you a marvel.”

  At a slow walk they set off, straggling in an untidy line across the dunes. Ahead hung a veil of opalescent mist, swirling round but strangely confined, as if caught twixt two invisible pillars. As they rode through, the air turned cool and rich, smelling of dirt and wet grass. They came clear of the mist into the rolling meadows of western Eldidd, just at a bright cool dawn, and paused their horses.

  In the misty sunrise, the flower-dappled grass stretched out to a semicircle of trees round a little pond, where a few water birds glided, calling to one another. Beyond rose the emerald hills, brindled with the darker green of trees in their folds and coombs. Peace lay palpably over the scene, the sort of peace made more poignant by being so brief, a moment of music in the endless clash of life with life. Even Shaetano fell silent as if to listen.

  “It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?” Evandar said. “And it’s your birthright. Did I not promise you new bodies, all harmonious and of a piece? You shall have them here, in this green country.”

  For a moment, the silence hung like the mist among the distant trees. All at once a man cheered, then another, voices ringing out through the dawn. With a laugh, Evandar flung up a hand to quiet them down again.

  “When the time comes, we will ride here together. For now, home!”

  In a wave of shouts and cheers, they turned their horses and galloped back through the misty veil. They emerged onto the bank of the silver river and could see, far ahead, the gold pavilion waiting and the ladies of the two Hosts, dancing in a rising sun.

  “Menw, lead the men home, and take our horses,” Evandar said, “I must have a word with my dear brother.”

  Shaetano winced and swore, but he dismounted upon an order and tossed his reins up to the lieutenant. Evandar did the same. Once the Host had trotted off, they walked over to the river and stood looking down at the water, slow among the rushes.

  “I’ll be hunting Alshandra on my own,” Evandar said. “While I’m gone, I don’t want you working malice behind me.”

  “Shall I come with you then, brother dear? Or will you kill me here?”

  “Neither.” Evandar smiled gently. “I shall leave you to flourish.”

  A puzzled Shaetano seemed on the edge of speaking, but Evandar threw both hands into the air and clutched the astral light—or so it seemed to him, this working, that he could gather handfuls of light from the sky and pull them down. With a yelp, Shaetano tried to jump away, only to find himself rooted, shivering and screaming at the sight of his brother’s hands gushing silver. Evandar tossed this captured light over his brother’s vulpine form, and as it fell, it seemed to thin out to a fabric, a shroud wrapping Shaetano so quickly that he was trapped. Bark wound him round and stilled his shivering. Leaves sprouted from the branches of his upraised arms, roots burrowed into the earth from his booted feet. With an anguished howl, he peered out of the cleft of the trunk for one brief moment; then bark and sprouting twigs covered his face.

  “You’ll be perfectly safe, you know,” Evandar said to the oak. “Y
ou shall flourish beside the river till I lift the enchantment. Though you’d best hope, brother of mine, that I win this little battle with Alshandra. Otherwise, you’ll stay a tree forever. So wish me the best of luck when you happen to think of me.”

  The branches shook and rustled in rage, then stilled as the soul within took on the nature of the tree without and abandoned rage and motion both. Evandar laughed and danced, so well-pleased with his jest that he never noticed the raven, flying by high above him as she passed through his country on an errand of her own.

  PRESENT FALLING

  Cengarn, 1116

  TRISTITIA

  An evil omen, some say the most evil of all those that can possibly fall into any of the lands of our map. And yet, such is the nature of Nature, that no thing be unmitigatedly evil nor immaculately good, if certain peculiar configurations of omens do occur, then this figure does bode well for two most disparate matters, fortifications and debauchery.

  —The Omenbook of Gwarn,

  Loremaster

  IN THE PARK LAND below the gates of Lin Serr, a muster was proceeding. Three abreast, dwarven warriors lined up behind the red and gold standards of their companies, while at the rear, two-wheeled carts, each pulled by a pair of dwarves, formed into a marching order—seven hundred fifty fighting men instead of the five hundred promised. The news of the slaughter at the farms had produced too many insistent volunteers to deny them all. Although the men wore leather caps and carried their axes, their armor rode on the carts. With the dragon gliding overhead to scout, they didn’t need to worry about being taken by surprise. What counted now was speed.

  Up at the head of the line, Garin stood talking with Rhodry, while Arzosah lounged nearby, yawning hugely in the brightening dawn.

  “We can march faster without mules,” Garin said. “And with the farms gone anyway—”

  “Just so,” Rhodry said. “When we get near Cengarn, I’ll fly on ahead and see if I can find the relieving army. It’s got to be assembling by now. Cadmar’s allies are honorable men, and they won’t be leaving him to rot.”