by Helen Lowe
Malian watched them wistfully from her place down the hall. Derai custom demanded that the households of Earl and Heir be kept separate: ‘Ware to those who lose Earl and Heir in one night, the proverb ran, and history had proved its truth. Even before the civil war, Derai annals had been full of assassination attempts by the Swarm, with its tracking sorceries and insidious, creeping magics. Since the Night of Death, the Derai had added their own record of blood feud and knives in the dark to that bitter history, and the custom of separate households was strictly enforced. Once the Heir would have been surrounded by siblings and Blood kin, but Malian was the only child of the Blood of Night born into her generation, so her household comprised Doria, the maids, and various tutors, with no friends or companions her own age. She had been told that the Earl of Blood had a daughter of similar age and knew she had second cousins in the Sea Keep. But sometimes she longed to be like Yorindesarinen, growing up Heir of Stars in a citadel where Blood kin were as numerous as the constellations—although that hadn’t helped the hero when she faced the Chaos worm. Yorindesarinen had fought and died alone, all the stories agreed on that.
The first course was being cleared away when Malian heard a distant tolling from the keep gates. She saw Haimyr’s head lift, and her own surprise was mirrored in the faces around her. It was late for anyone to come beating at the Gate of Winds and there were no visitors expected from Night’s outlying holds, or emissaries from the other Houses.
Odd, thought Malian. She knew that no traveler would be turned away, here at the Wall’s farthest bounds, although the Lieutenant of the Gate would also never let any visitors proceed further until satisfied of their good faith. So she was not surprised that some time elapsed before the hall gong sounded.
“Tarathan of Ar and Jehane Mor, heralds of the Guild,” one of Nhairin’s stewards roared out, above the hubbub. “From Terebanth, on the Great River.”
Absolute silence crashed down as every face turned toward the man and woman who stepped through the door. The man had multiple braids of chestnut hair flowing below his shoulders, while the woman was fair, with a single plait twisted around her head like a crown. They were both of middle height and clad alike in gray, their long cloaks cast back. A badge pinned each cloak on the left shoulder and a dagger was sheathed at their belts. Both their faces were drawn and weary, their clothes mired from the road, but they walked steadily through the watching, silent hall until they stood before the Earl’s chair. There they stopped as one and bowed, first to the Earl and then, slightly lower, to the woman at his side. Malian’s eyes widened, and she saw the faintest of mocking smiles on Haimyr’s face, but no one else appeared to have noticed the graded courtesy.
The heralds straightened. “Hail, Earl of Night,” they said, their individual tones weaving together as if they had only the one voice between them. “Honor to you and to your House.”
“And light and safety on your road,” the Earl responded. He did not seem surprised that they knew the Derai greeting. “What brings heralds of the Guild so far into the Wall of Night?”
“We are charged with a message for you,” they replied. “It is held under sigil of silence, so you alone may hear it or know the sender, and no other may command it to be spoken.”
There was a collective hiss of breath, but the Earl held up his hand, commanding silence again. “Indeed?” he said. His dark gaze measured the two before him, who simply waited. Malian leaned forward, fascinated: heralds of the Guild actually here, on the Derai Wall! For a moment she even thought her father might break tradition and leave the feast. She held her breath, but released it, half disappointed, when he spoke again.
“You have traveled a long, hazardous road and I will hear you, but not now. This is a Feast of Returning, which our custom demands should not be broken unless we come under attack. Besides, you are weary.” He raised his voice so everyone in the hall would hear. “Heralds of the Guild, I welcome you as guests of Night. Eat now, and then rest. I will hear your message in the morning.”
The heralds bowed and spoke again as one. “As the Earl wills, so shall it be. For Night’s hospitality, we thank you.”
The watching Derai sighed and turned back to their feasting, while a page led the heralds to a place by one of the fires. The Earl and his household, too, resumed their conversation as though nothing unusual had happened. Malian pushed a piece of dried fruit around her plate. Open curiosity would be beneath her dignity as Heir, but she could feel the surreptitious intensity of the hall’s interest, matching her own, and was sure that the heralds must sense it as well.
Even on the Wall there were a great many stories told about the heralds of the Guild. According to the legends heralds rarely failed in their duty, no matter what difficulties were encountered, and would only reveal a message to the designated recipient. It was said that heralds had died rather than break that trust. The message must be of considerable importance then, to justify sending a herald pair so far from the cities of the River—but the Derai had their own messenger corps, so the message must also have been sent by an outsider. Malian’s eyes narrowed, full of speculation, for the Derai had few dealings with outsiders.
She glanced at her father who was listening to Gerenth, his expression courteous but unrevealing. He looked as though he had dismissed the heralds from his mind, although Malian was sure that he had not. Almost against her will, she found her eyes drawn to the gray-clad figures sitting by the fire. They looked ordinary enough as they concentrated on their food, but Malian suspected that appearances were deceiving. As if in answer to her thought, both heralds looked up before she could glance aside. Their eyes met and held hers, keen-edged as lances.
Malian wanted to wrench her eyes away, except that would suggest she was afraid of the power in their gaze. So she made herself bow instead, a grave inclination of the head that they answered as gravely. Yet Malian could not shake that suggestion of power. She wanted to know more, to speak with them herself—but right now the gathering was calling for Haimyr. The clamor fell into an expectant hush as he rose to his feet.
Malian—looking from the corner of her eye—saw that even the gray-clad heralds were leaning forward as the minstrel waited, holding the hall in his silence. Then his hand touched the strings and the golden voice soared, sweeping them into the old, old tale of Kerem the Dark Handed and Emeriath of Night. Kerem was one of the elder heroes of the Derai, a solitary hunter and warrior who wreaked great havoc amongst the Swarm and rescued Emeriath from the Maze of Fire. It was a dark story, like all the great hero tales, but with a rare bright ending, for Kerem and Emeriath won clear of the Maze, despite desperate odds.
Malian found herself caught up in the emotion and power of the tale, even though she had heard it many times before. When it was done, everyone cheered and clapped, calling for more, but Malian found herself yawning. She was tired from her explorations in the Old Keep, and one benefit in being underage was that she need not remain at the feast until the Earl left. Malian caught his eye and he nodded, half raising a hand in salute as she stood up to make her formal bow. Teron said something and her father turned, allowing Malian to slip away while the hall’s attention was focused on Haimyr.
She did not think that anyone else had noticed her departure, unless it was Asantir, who noticed everything. Yet when she paused by a side door, she saw that both the heralds were watching her, their faces colored by the fire. Again, their light-filled eyes held hers and Malian paused—but a page bowed, offering the heralds more food, and the moment was broken. Malian turned and left the hall.
Despite her earlier tiredness, Malian could not shake the memory of the heralds’ eyes. She stood quietly while Doria helped her out of the black dress and combed out the cloud of her hair, but her thoughts were busy, circling the puzzle of the gray-clad strangers.
I should go to the old library, Malian told herself. The records there are bound to hold something about the heralds and their guild.
She waited patiently after Do
ria left her, letting the comings and goings in the outer room die away and watching until the last light was extinguished. Eventually, she heard a chorus of gentle snores from the nurse’s chamber and slipped out of bed, pushing a pillow down under the covers so it would seem that she slept—at least so long as the room remained unlit. The legend of Kerem claimed that he could see in the dark, and Malian longed for the same ability as she groped for her clothes, bruising her shins against a chair. She made her way by feel to the back of the room, moving her fingers carefully across the wooden panels until she found the place she wanted, and pressed. The panel swung silently back and she felt the cool air from the narrow passage beyond, which led into the maze of spyruns that crisscrossed the keep.
Malian had discovered the maze long ago and like the Old Keep it had become one of her favorite places. She had scored trails along the different routes with her dagger so that she could find her way by touch, even in the dark. She had never met anyone else traversing its secret ways and so had come to think of it as hers alone. Now she clicked the hidden door closed behind her and moved along the narrow route, her fingers tracing her blazed trail, to enter the library by another concealed door.
The chamber was disused and dusty, with books and parchments crammed from floor to ceiling around all four walls. The first thing Malian did was light a lamp, which cast a small circle of golden light and threw mysterious shadows over the bookshelves. The library was so rarely used that she was sure that no one else would come in, especially not tonight, but she locked the door into the corridor anyway. She took off her jacket as well and pushed it into the crack between door and floor, because it would only take one overly zealous guard to investigate the light and find her out. Then Doria would scold, and Nesta would frown, and Nhairin would talk sternly about the responsibilities of being Heir. Her father would punish her, too, if they told him, for disobeying those he had set in authority over her. Malian pulled a face and checked the bolts on the inside of the door a second time.
It took some time to find a book that held any reference to heralds and she judged, from the mildewed cover and archaic hand, that it was very old. She ran her forefinger under the thin, spidery writing, working out the sense of the words, and realized that it must have been written in the early centuries of the Derai arrival on Haarth.
“As for the peoples beyond the Wall, although diverse in their ways they remain united in their hostility to our Derai Alliance, with its great fortresses and vigilant watch against an enemy that they do not yet perceive. Doubtless, too, they fear our strength on the borders of their own divided realms. Recently, however, they have sought to know more of us, and sent emissaries from the caste or society they call “heralds.” These are of some interest to me, for they are always sent in pairs and function in a form of symbiosis that we cannot yet fathom, but is demonstrated most overtly through their habit of speaking in unison. We wonder, too, about the exact nature of their power, for even the strongest and most subtle of our mindspeakers cannot read them. I find this alarming, but our adepts seem convinced that it is simply that their minds are still alien to us. After all, we have never before encountered another people with powers to match our own—except for the Swarm of cursed name, and its minions cannot be termed “people.” Still, I wonder—and believe that we must learn more about these heralds.”
The writing continued, but the remaining entries were all of Derai life on the Wall; eventually the handwriting changed, as though someone else had taken over the record. Heralds were never mentioned again in any detail, although Malian pored over the faded pages and tried several other volumes. It was tedious work and soon she was yawning steadily. Her eyes grew heavy and she kept jerking her head back up after it nodded forward, thinking that she would read just a few more pages and then return to bed.
Malian woke to pitch darkness, lifting her head from where she had slumped forward over the book, and realized that the lamp must have burned out while she slept. Her heart was fluttering, high and hard in her breast, and the night was pressing in. She strained her ears, but there was nothing to hear, only a silence comprised of musty air and the tiny noises of the library. And then she did hear it, the thing that had roused her from deep sleep to instant, heart-pounding wakefulness. It was not an external sound but a voice, clear and certain in her mind. The voice spoke just one word, dropped like a stone into silence: “Flee!”
3
Whispers in the Dark
Kalan was hiding from his fate in the broom cupboard on the lowest level of the Temple quarter. News of the Earl’s successful expedition had run through the keep and Kalan had wanted, suddenly and quite desperately, to be part of the camaraderie of the High Hall. He could not bear to sit down to his usual plain meal with the other novices and then return to an evening of dusting books in Brother Selmor’s study. His heart was hot with rebellion when he thought of the laughter and storytelling that would fill the High Hall—and that he was excluded simply because he had been born with the old powers. He had had to get away, to escape the everyday sameness of his peers; and although the cupboard, with its jumble of mops and brooms and buckets, was a poor alternative to the Feast of Returning, at least he could brood over his wrongs in peace.
“It isn’t fair!” Kalan whispered, striking one fist hard against his leg. “Everyone else can go the feast, no matter how low their place, everyone except us!” He sat with his chin pulled up to his knees and stared hot-eyed into the darkness. It wasn’t as though he had ever wanted to be a priest. He came of the House of Blood, one of the great warrior Houses and Night’s long ally—and all of his family without exception, for generations beyond count, had been warriors. As a very young child he had wished for nothing more than to grow up and join their ranks.
Kalan’s face darkened at the thought of his family. He had been the youngest of seven children, somewhat lost underfoot but well loved enough until the old power emerged during his seventh year. Kalan still remembered the cold, closed look on his father’s face, and his siblings’ hostility as they performed the ceremony that had declared him dead to his family, shutting him out from the mainstream life of the House of Blood. The quiet click of the door to his family home, closing behind him when the ritual ended, had been absolute in its finality.
Even now, that memory hurt. It did not matter that Kalan knew this practice was common amongst the warrior Houses and that his family had not turned him out to starve. Word had been sent to the priest in his hold, and when the door swung shut behind him Kalan had found guards waiting to escort him to his new life. The realization that his siblings’ hostility sprang from fear that they, too, might carry the priestly taint did not help either. Seven years on, the unfairness still cut deep and a slow, hot anger, against it and them, smoldered in his heart. “Unfair,” he said again, as he had thought it so many times before. His jaw set and his fists clenched. “Unfair, unfair!”
The word struck a chord in his memory: Sister Korriya, the temple’s senior priestess, looking down her aristocratic nose at him the first time he had dared to say that he thought his fate unfair. “Unfair?” she had rapped out. “Unfair? I daresay it is. And so is a great deal more in this life, as you’ll find before you are too much older. You had best accustom yourself, young man!”
She was right, Kalan thought, but he still loathed the turn his life had taken. The House of Blood was the most extreme of the warrior orders, exiling all but a bare minimum of those with the old powers—usually to one of the priestly Houses. There were days when Kalan was grateful that the Temple of Night had been short of novices and so he was still part of the forbidden warrior world, even at a distance. But at times like this it made his lot seem that much harder.
At first, his resentment had taken the form of pranks, or absconding from lessons and chores—and he had incurred his fair share of punishment from Sister Korriya, who had a sharp eye for novice misdeeds. Yet Kalan sensed sympathy in her as well. She had overlooked the stolen hours that he had spent
with Brother Belan, listening to tales of the great Derai heroes. Belan, the oldest of the priests, had known all the stories of the priestess Errianthar and her twin, Telemanthar, and how they had beaten back the Swarm of Dark. Telemanthar, the old priest would mumble, had carried a hero’s sword, but Errianthar had called the Golden Fire with her mind and hurled it against the onslaught of the Swarm. Belan could recite the Saga of Yorindesarinen, too, despite his faded voice, and would whisper that Kerem the Dark Handed, Kerem of the subtle mind, had also wielded the old powers as well as a sword.
Back in the good old days, Kalan thought bitterly, when warriors had the old powers and priests trained in the fighting arts—before the civil war and the schism between the Houses.
Brother Belan had died three years before and his stories, the brightness and solace of Kalan’s life, had died with him. Since then, Kalan had retreated further into his own company, exploring the less-used parts of the Temple quarter and discovering the warren of storerooms at its lowest level. The warren made it easier to absent himself at will, although he tried to time his disappearances to avoid unwelcome attention. But lately, Kalan had found his moods of despondency becoming more frequent. It was not just his exclusion from the life of the wider keep, although that galled him deeply, or even the tedium of temple life. Soon he would complete his seventh year as a novice and be required to take the initiate’s vow; after that, there would be no going back.
Until recently, Kalan had indulged a fervent hope that his powers might disappear again as suddenly as they had emerged. Dogged but determined, he had continued to practice the beginnings of the warrior training, learned in his father’s house, in secret. But as his fourteenth birthday drew closer he had begun to despair, knowing that he was bound, whatever his personal aspirations, into a life that promised to be narrow, circumscribed, and dull. He did not know if he could bear it.
