by Helen Lowe
The old man chose that moment to reenter the room, struggling to hold a tray with a steaming jug, a stoppered wine jar, and five earthenware goblets. His progress was unsteady and his hands began to shake, the contents of the tray rattling together as all three visitors turned their eyes toward him. When he stooped to set the tray down, the weight tipped too far forward and the whole array spilled onto the tabletop. The hot water flooded across the wooden surface, while the goblets bounced and rolled until one finally fell to the flagstones, shattering into fragments. Nirn’s head jerked and his eyes widened, the blindness gone.
Faro understood, then, that he had not fully appreciated just how large Aranraith was—not until the prince’s right hand shot out and seized the servant around the neck, hoisting him off his feet. Faro could see the old man choking, his eyes bulging out as Aranraith’s hand closed on his throat, while the serpents sunk their fangs into cheeks and forehead and lips. Each bite left angry puncture marks behind, with red inflammation spreading rapidly away from the wounds. Yet Faro knew the old man was already dead, his windpipe crushed, even before Aranraith threw his body away like a broken toy.
You should have run, old man, Faro thought, tears sliding down his face. You should have run.
“Almost, we had what we need,” Aranraith said, and his voice was shadow and power, equal to that of the storm. “But that’s why I need you back with us, Nirn, and all of us working together again with Salar, as we did when we wrought our will with Aikanor.”
Nirn’s smile was thin as the whiplash scar. “I’ve always thought Aikanor was among our finest work.”
Aranraith laughed, the sound slicing through the room. “It was. We can achieve such results again, too, if we combine our efforts.” His tone grew silken, but the note of power deepened. “I am weary of skulking in shadows, especially with the maelstrom rising again at last.”
Maelstrom . . . The word resonated, and Faro felt every hair rise across his skin. Aranraith’s garnet gaze swept the old man’s body, then the sea captain’s boy curled into a fetal ball with his eyes screwed shut, before stopping at Faro, rigid against the wall.
I should run, Faro told himself: right now. But even if he could have moved—could have overcome the agony of his ribs and his shallow, pain-filled breathing—the door was still too far away. Even uninjured, he would never reach it and flee through before they caught him.
Aranraith laughed again. “Behold the gutter rat, slinking along the wall while we look the other way.” Directly overhead now, the thunder pounded out its counterpoint to Faro’s terrified heart as the serpent prince turned to Arcolin. “You’ve had your fill of native vermin lately. You dispose of the ratlings. As for you, Nirn—” Again the serpents hissed, echoing the sibilance in the dark voice. “I want you back with us, as I said. It’s a small enough price to pay for your recent failures.”
The bone-white sorcerer looked back at him, his eyes unreadable in the skull-like face. “I could give you Emuun. That should be recompense enough.”
Aranraith’s smile was half a snarl as lightning turned the room blue-white. The brilliance flickered on Arcolin’s knife as he moved toward the sea captain’s son, who remained curled into his ball. Because he doesn’t understand their speech, Faro thought, so he doesn’t know . . . He wanted to scream out, to warn the other boy, but remained frozen as Aranraith spoke again, his voice sinewy with power. “You are not going to give me Emuun, Nirn. I am going to take him. Thanir will do that job, not these benighted acolytes that your immune henchman would eat alive.”
Lightning forked again and thunder crashed almost simultaneously, so that Faro could see, but not hear, as Arcolin wrapped one hand in the other boy’s hair, dragging the head up and back to cut his throat. So much blood, Faro thought numbly, as Arcolin let the twitching body fall: so much blood . . .
“The only recompense I consider acceptable,” Aranraith said, as the thunder ended, “is for you to make yourself useful to me again. And to Salar, who also insists on your return.”
Nirn’s head jerked back. “Salar? You would bring the basilisk against me, kinsman?”
Shadows moved in Aranraith’s face. “No one commands Salar, not even me. But neither of us will brook your refusal. Too much is at stake and we are running out of time. So be wise, come with us freely.” Without waiting for a reply, the serpent head turned back to Arcolin. “We’ll go now, before any Sea scum arrive. Finish up here, then follow.”
“A pleasure,” Arcolin murmured, his blue gaze fixed on Faro. Smiling, he drew a white cloth from his pocket and wiped the knife clean.
Faro’s brain was screaming at him to get away, but the best he could manage was the same leaden crawl toward the door. Pain and tears blurred his gaze and he was aware that snot was trailing from his nose—like a crying baby—but he could see no point in wiping it away. Over his shoulder, he watched his killer’s catlike approach.
An icy blast whipped through the house and a line of garnet flame split the air before the fireplace, dazzling him. When Faro’s vision cleared, the figures gathered there had disappeared. Black magic, he thought, gritting his teeth to silence their chattering. They told tales about that, too, in Seruth’s temple. He had shivered along with all the other listeners, delighted by the thrill of darkness and danger, never dreaming he might find himself at the center of such a story.
Arcolin was standing over him now. Faro did not need the lightning’s glow to see the black leather boots or the gleam of mail beneath the long black cloak. He did not need to hear above the thunder either, because Arcolin’s voice spoke inside his head. “Does one blunt a good blade on a rat? I think not. One just kicks it to death, against the wall.”
Instinctively, Faro curled tight, even though he knew it would do no good. He was aware, in a small, detached recess of his mind, that he hated Arcolin—hated his handsome face and vividly blue gaze—as much as he feared him. But he was far beyond the pride of trying not to scream as the first kick landed hard against his drawn-up knees. Outside, lightning seared simultaneously with the thunder’s crack, drowning his scream as the boot connected again, and then again, each blow precise and almost leisurely. “Let’s see,” the voice inside his head said, “if we can’t kick you apart like a chest full of wormwood.”
Another kick landed, this time against Faro’s arms, wrapped close about his head. His body jerked and the next kick drove into the small of his back, booting him away from the protection of the wall. Arcolin laughed as Faro shrieked, the sound torn out of his throat and lost against the boom of the storm—then laughed again, delivering another, harder blow. Pain and darkness exploded across Faro’s mind as well as his body. He could almost see the thin line that was his cry, spiraling out beyond the hall and the door with the ship’s prow above it, into the wild dark of the storm until it reached the next fork of lightning, flickering between heaven and earth.
And the lightning answered, tearing the sky apart in a blue-white blaze of power that leapt down the path of his scream and into the chisel blade left in the mer-horse’s horn. The ship’s prow exploded as the lightning tore through the head and neck of the mer-horse—and the door disintegrated, every nail in it hurtling outward. Faro shrieked again, his mind and body on fire as the smell of melting metal and burning flesh assaulted him.
I’m dead, he thought, I’m dead. When the dazzle of the lightning faded, he let his mind follow, down into darkness.
But the darkness, it seemed, did not want a scrawny street brat and spat him back out again. Faro tried to move, groaning as every bruise and muscle protested. His eyelids were glued shut and his tongue felt swollen; when he licked at his lips, he could taste blood. He could smell blood, too, and smoke, and melted iron. Slowly and painfully, he raised his hands and worked the gummed lids apart.
Faro blinked, orientating himself, then gritted his teeth against the pain and pushed himself up. Fires burned close by, mainly above pools of metal where the door had been. The rain was still falling, alt
hough the thunder and lightning seemed to have stopped, but Faro shivered anyway, remembering the spear of lightning splitting the heavens. His eyes slid to where Arcolin had been, but found him sprawled about ten paces away, where he must have been hurled by the force of the explosion. More fire burned between Faro and the body, making it impossible to determine whether his attacker was dead or unconscious.
Either way, Faro knew he needed to be gone, but did not trust his ability to stand upright. He crawled toward the doorway instead, and a gust blew rain through the opening and into his face. The chill shocked him wide enough awake to use first the floor and then the wall to propel himself upright. He could feel every place where Arcolin’s boot had connected, and clung to the wall, shivering—then jumped violently as a shadow fell across him. Shaking, Faro turned his head and met Thanir’s dark regard. The warrior stood by the fireplace, with one hand resting on the hilt of his curved-tip sword, and a helmet, crowned with horn and talons, tucked beneath his arm. He studied Faro, his expression incalculable. “Well, well. Here’s an unexpected turn of events. You, little rat, are supposed to be dead.”
“It was the lightning,” Faro whispered, as Thanir strolled closer.
“Was it?” Thanir was meditative. “But what am I to do now, having found you alive? Undoubtedly, you should be dead. But then again, my instructions were precise: to find out what had delayed our poison master.” His brows drew together and he angled his head as though listening to another speaker. Faro, in equal parts mesmerized and terrified, noticed for the first time that the warrior had jeweled clips in his hair, an odd contrast against the barbed armor. “Agreed,” Thanir murmured. “If spared he will owe me a debt for his life. But of what value is that?”
Faro licked at his lips and slid sideways again, but Thanir took one long stride and occupied the empty doorway. He spared a brief glance for the remains of the door, scattered at his feet, then extended a hand to hold Faro in place. Seen this close, the decorations in his hair were not clips at all but the heads of long pins, each one the preserved body of a beetle with a jewel-bright carapace. Faro stared at them doggedly—but Thanir’s other hand tilted his chin, so he could no longer avoid the warrior’s dark searching gaze.
“The lightning, you say? Intriguing.” Thanir was still meditative. “And a street rat in my debt for his life; that will be a new thing.” Faro tried to open his mouth—to say that he would honor the debt, that the great warrior would not regret it—but Thanir laid two fingers across his lips. “Never speak of it, little rat. Let it be our secret, yours and mine.” He lifted his hand and stepped clear of the doorway, the shadows thickening around him. “Well,” he said softly, when Faro did not move. “What are you waiting for? Run, if you value your life.”
Faro did not run, he could not, but he bowed his head and staggered through the door, to lose himself in the rain.
4
Lost
At first Nhairin fled blindly, filled with the mysterious song that had woken her out of darkness and opened her prison door, leading her past oblivious guards and through gates that opened at a touch. Gradually, as both the song and then the memory of it faded, fear replaced both: the terror that now she was awake, Nerion would find her again, because Nerion had always been able to find her.
Whenever those memories crowded in, Nhairin would run before them, even if instinct insisted some things could never be outdistanced. Turning away from the Wall of Night, she zigzagged across the Gray Lands in an effort to confuse pursuit. Sometimes she would double back for the same reason, or lie hidden beneath straggling scrub when her lame leg gave out. She was badly out of condition, but whenever she stopped fear would swirl to the surface again, driving her on as soon as scant breath and her leg permitted.
She might be unfit and only just released from the darkness—the Madness, Nhairin thought, shuddering because release brought knowledge together with memory—but at least she had snatched up some weapons and supplies as the song led her out of Westwind Hold. As well as a water bottle and a pouch of food, she had a dagger, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows, and was soon thankful for all three. Gray Lands’ game might be scant and wary, but Nhairin saw plenty of ’spawn sign, far more than she remembered when fleeing this way with Malian and the small company from Night.
Her face, already disfigured by the old scar that cut across it from temple to chin, twisted further as she recalled the end of that journey, when Nerion’s mind-whisper had urged her to kill Malian’s friend, Kalan, with his inconvenient ability to turn away seeking minds. She had tried to do it, too . . . Nhairin swallowed against the dust that clogged her throat and sipped tepid water from the flask, reflecting that she would much prefer not to remember. And, in fact, the Madness had flooded in very soon after that.
Perhaps, she thought now—stoppering the bottle without a second sip, to ensure it lasted—because it was easier to give in to the roiling chaos of Jaransor, which had begun pressing at her mind as soon as she crossed the Telimbras, than to live with the shame of her actions. She recalled, too, how other whisperers had reinforced Nerion’s compulsion after the attempt to knife the boy had failed. Their combined pressure had sliced through Nhairin’s mind like blades, insisting that she “pursue” and “slay” after Kalan and Malian had fled from her into low-lying cloud.
From what Nhairin could remember of her guards’ conversation, the background to her long sojourn in the Madness, Malian and Kalan had died later anyway, just as Kyr and Lira had fallen while attempting to delay the Swarm pursuit. So it was all for nothing, Nhairin thought. If Malian had lived, she might have contemplated returning to the Wall for her sake, but not now. In fact, she would not go anyplace those from her past might think to look, especially Nerion.
Terror welled again as Nhairin recalled her childhood friend’s unerring ability to locate her, however carefully she hid. But I can’t dwell on that, she told herself: I mustn’t think about Nerion at all. I have to keep moving or find somewhere safe, someplace she would never associate with me.
The extent of darkspawn sign ruled out travel by night, since darkness would aid most ’spawn’s stalking abilities more than it concealed her. Instead, Nhairin found nighttime hideouts where an enemy could only come at her from one direction. She hunted for water, too, but preferred seeps found in shallow scrapes of rock, rather than waterholes or streams where both darkspawn and Derai patrols might come—including patrols specifically hunting her.
If possible, Nhairin would not have stopped at all, because as soon as she halted for any length of time the fear would return. The pain in her leg became a constant, like the wind and dust, but she still pushed on until the muscles spasmed, because when her leg was on fire and exhaustion closed in, the memories were also held at bay. Her other constants were the certainty that the Wall offered no succor, and the reluctant conviction that she would be safer if she kept close to Jaransor. Nhairin would never willingly go into those hills again, but although even their silhouette, seen through the Gray Lands’ haze, made her shudder, she knew both ’spawn and other Derai would feel the same aversion. Besides, proximity to the Telimbras and the hills beyond, however dangerous, meant more game to hunt.
On my way to where, though? Nhairin thought, peering at her dirty face and bedraggled hair in another shallow pool. As soon as she stopped, she noticed the chill in the wind, blowing down out of the Winter Country. For the first time, she realized that autumn was upon her, and she needed to think beyond her crisscross traverse and the imperative to keep moving. To where? she asked herself again. If she turned north, into the face of the wind and oncoming winter, she might eventually find the nomads of the Winter steppe. But death seemed a more likely prospect, even if the Winter People were prepared to take her in.
Nhairin frowned at her reflection, because despite erratic progress she had gradually been working her way southwest. Eventually, she would reach the Border Mark—although not, given her lameness and recollection of distance, before winter overtoo
k her. Yet even if she survived that far, only the unknown lay beyond the Border Mark: first the Barren Hills and then all the alien realms of Haarth.
The reflected face wavered, as if disturbed by Nhairin’s doubt rather than the wind—because until the evening when Malian’s company crossed into the Gray Lands, she had never left Night’s territory, let alone the Wall. She had not traveled with Tasarion and Asantir to the River lands, all those years ago, in the time before Tasarion and Nerion even talked of being married. She had wanted to go, but Nerion had intended visiting her Sea Keep kin and wanted Nhairin to come with her—
“And I always did what Nerion wanted.” Nhairin whispered the words aloud, and the wind caught them up. Always, always, always, it sighed back at her.
Ay, always, Nhairin thought—just as I could never hide from her when we were children, playing truant in the Old Keep. She shivered, remembering how she had never liked to go far into the echoing, lightless halls. At the time, she had thought that was why Nerion always discovered her hiding places so easily, although she could never find her friend.
Nerion always wanted to explore further into the darkness, too, Nhairin reflected, and she never got lost, while I always did. She shivered again and huddled her arms close, remembering how the Westwind song had not only cleared her mind of the Madness, but illuminated secrets she had previously kept hidden from herself.
No. Nhairin shook her head sharply. Not secrets—truths that I would not allow myself to know. This time she shuddered, reliving how Nerion’s voice had whispered into her dreams on the night the Keep of Winds was attacked and so many had been slain, Malian’s household among them. The whisper had told Nhairin what she must do, how the keep’s alarms could be silenced. Later, the same whisper had held her immobile, staring into the fire, while a siren worm crept close to kill Malian as she slept. In both cases Nhairin had barely recalled either the whisper or the compulsion afterward, beyond fragments she assumed were dark dreams.
