by Helen Lowe
Because I always did what Nerion wanted, Nhairin repeated silently, and she bade me forget. The song had illuminated that truth, too, when it dispersed the darkness that shrouded her mind. Nhairin rocked back and forward on her heels, because she now knew the whispers had not ended with the worm, but increased—while the part of her that loved Malian, and was Derai to the core, struggled to break free of what seemed a waking nightmare.
Instead, Nhairin thought, I led Nerion straight to Malian when we fled, as unerringly as if she held a compass and I was north. My oldest friend, she added, rocking again, made me into a traitor to Earl and Heir and House, as well as to myself—Nerion, in whose cause both my face and my leg were cut open, holding the door against the Old Earl when he was bent on her murder.
The sense of betrayal was gall. Nhairin could taste its bitterness in her mouth.
The Madness of Jaransor had finally shut out Nerion’s whisper, but the words the Westwind guards called Nhairin—traitor, betrayer, scum—could always work their way into the core of the darkness and find her there, no matter how she had crouched and rocked, trying to hold them out. Traitor, betrayer, scum, Nhairin repeated silently: not because I helped Malian flee Night, but because of what I did at Nerion’s behest. Stilling, she pressed scratched hands to her face, because now that she had stopped long enough to think, she knew it did not matter whether she stayed ahead of winter or not. The Derai Alliance had no tolerance for traitors, and the outsider world, from what little she understood of it, had little truck for the Derai. “So I may have woken,” Nhairin whispered to the grit-laden wind, “but I’m still lost.”
Lost, the wind whispered back: friendless, homeless, lost . . . Slowly, Nhairin lowered her hands as another thought took hold: she could take her own life. The Honor Code allowed it where a Derai sought to atone for compromised honor or broken oaths. No one would know if she committed suicide out here, and few would care if she was never found, but it was the one way to be certain Nerion could never whisper into her mind again.
And compel me to do her will, betraying honor and every oath I ever swore, Nhairin thought, drawing her dagger. Besides, the act of restitution was what counted, not whether anyone knew of it.
“Lost.” The murmur gusted out of the wind as it veered around, blowing off Jaransor instead of down from the north. Nhairin’s heart thudded sharply, but the voice was a sigh against her ear rather than a compulsion in her mind. Yet although she remembered the Gray Lands’ wind well from crossing the plain with Malian, she did not think this voice had been in it then. “A filament for the lost . . . to find their way home by. May it find you out, Nhairin, wherever you are.”
May it find me? Nhairin thought, the knife forgotten. Wonder was a ball, lodged in her throat, the stinging in her eyes more than blown grit as dust spiraled about her. Hiding me, Nhairin realized—and although she could not see the filament the wind-voice spoke of, she could sense its presence, unraveling through the swirl of debris. And if she could keep moving, keep following where the thread led . . . Slowly, Nhairin sheathed the blade and rose, grimacing at the flare of pain from her leg, before turning into the wind.
It occurred to her, as she started out, her sense of a voice within the wind, hiding and guiding her, could simply be the Madness reasserting itself. Some people, she thought—the sort of reflection Nhairin-that-was would have entertained—might say that hope itself was a form of madness, and clinging to it further proof she was deranged. Regardless, she plodded on, and gradually another realization intruded. It was not just that the Madness, once she let it in, had been stronger than Nerion’s hold on her mind. Nhairin could not shake the sense that fact mattered, in some way she could not discern. As though it’s a story I need to tell, she thought, other than to the wind.
Yet even if she dared return to the Wall, Nhairin doubted anyone there would believe her tale. All she could do, she decided finally, was hope and plod on, following the thread spun for her out of dust and wind—even if that was a sure sign the Madness still held her in its grip.
PART II
Shadow of the Wall
5
Blood Warrior
Kalan’s dream was of a brisk blue-and-white morning in the great seaport of Ij, with the city’s domes and spires gleaming against a bright sky. In his dream, the Aralorni ship Halcyon’s gangway thumped onto a wharf and the heralds’ great gray horses clattered down the tarred planks. Kalan would be leaving with the Halcyon again on the afternoon tide, but he followed the horses onto the dock to bid the heralds farewell. Inside his dream, he knew this was all as it had been: the smell of tar and salt, the cries of seabirds, and the voices of sailors, dock workers, and clerks from the Ijiri trading houses all raised about their own business, while Jehane Mor and Tarathan of Ar waited at their horses’ heads.
In the waking world, they had spoken of everyday matters, mainly the heralds’ advice, as experienced travelers, for Kalan’s continuing journey. He, in his turn, had queried how safe it was for them to be back in Ij after events there in the spring, even if all they intended was traversing the long canal from the harbor to the river port. But now, in Kalan’s dream, he gazed into the impassive mask of the heralds’ faces, which could have been wrought out of sculptor’s bronze, and asked: “Before we left Emer, why did you send the dream to Jarna? The one that said my fate led me away from Emer and from her?”
Even immersed in the dream, Kalan knew that he had never asked that question—not on that blue-and-white morning in Ij, and not at any time during the journey from Caer Argent. He had wanted to, but the time never seemed right. Now, though, the light in the heralds’ eyes pierced him as they spoke as one, their voices weaving in and out of each other in the manner of their Guild. “Because you did not love her, not in the way that she loved you.” The sculpted masks softened, although their eyes still looked deep into his. “But you asked us to save her life and she needed to be able to heal.’’
Perhaps, the dreaming Kalan reflected, the reason I could never bring myself to ask the question was because I already knew the answer. Briefly, the dream showed him Jarna again, lying below Imuln’s sanctuary in Caer Argent with her lifeblood soaking through leather and mail. He had thought she would die in that gray dawn, and the heralds had expended a great deal of power to hold her body and spirit to life.
Soft as a whisper, the dream shifted into his last memory of Jarna, with her face turned to the infirmary wall so she did not have to watch him leave. Reliving that moment, Kalan knew that the heralds had spoken truth: he cared for Jarna deeply and always had, enough to beg for her life in Caer Argent, but he had never loved her as she loved him. Oh Jarn, he thought, knowing this was as much a good-bye as their last farewell in Caer Argent—but the tide of the dream had turned, and the blue-and-white day in Ij was drifting away from him.
The heralds’ faces dissolved into a blaze of light, and Kalan came awake to the bump of the Halcyon’s hull against timber, followed by the thud of a hawser and a sailor’s call, answered by a jest in an unfamiliar accent. Grayharbor, Kalan told himself, but remained in his hammock while more sailors called news to those on shore. The gangway would go down soon, just as it had in Ij, although it would be some time before the captain and port authorities worked through the Halcyon’s bill of lading and he could disembark the horses. But when he did walk onto the Grayharbor dock, he would be wearing Derai armor for the first time.
Coming home, Kalan thought—ironically, because although he had been born into the warrior House of Blood, he also possessed the old Derai powers. For the past five hundred years, the Derai Alliance’s Blood Oath had forbidden his kind from becoming warriors. Among the warrior Houses, those with power were also barred from mainstream Derai life and confined to the Temple quarters in Keep and Hold. It was the Blood Oath, as much as Darksworn assassins, that had driven Kalan into exile with Malian of Night six years before. Now, his bond to Malian and the debt of honor they owed the Winter Woman, Rowan Birchmoon—who had been
murdered by Night honor guards—brought him back to the Derai Wall. But Kalan remained a renegade under the Oath, so although he would disembark wearing Derai armor, he could not use his true name.
An imposter as well as a renegade, Kalan reflected dryly. He had been uncertain how he would manage the transition from Emerian knight to Derai warrior, until the heralds had taken him to the great harborside market in Port Farewell. The market was famous for its trade in armor and weapons sourced from every corner of Haarth, which Tarathan had assured him would include Derai equipment. Kalan had found the herald was right, although most of what he examined had been the generic armament the Derai Alliance traded with the River and Southern Realms of Haarth. But because more Derai had been traveling south in recent years, mainly to the River, but a handful into Emer and Lathayra as well, he was able to find a scabbard with the House of Blood’s hydra stamp and a cuirass in the distinctive deep-red steel particular to the warrior House.
The cuirass had given Kalan pause, because he could not imagine a Derai voluntarily parting with House armor, especially when careful examination showed that the owner’s personal device had been removed. The job had been well done, though: he had to look closely to find the evidence. Besides, the pieces were too good to pass up. With the red steel and the hydra device on his scabbard, few would question that he was anything but a Blood warrior returning home.
Another trader had been keen to acquire Kalan’s Emerian armor, so he had broken even overall. The only weapon he would not trade was the dagger that Lord Falk had given him, on the first anniversary of his arrival at Normarch. It was a fine weapon, with a blade of damascened Ishnapuri steel, a ball of Winter Country amber for a pommel, and Lord Falk’s own red fox device stamped into the scabbard. Currently, the dagger lay at the bottom of his travel roll, together with the oak-tree buckle Audin had given Kalan for his last birthday, and the yellow tourney favor bearing Ghiselaine of Ormond’s lily insignia. All three were wrapped in waterproof cloth and stitched closed—underlining that the Emerian life, like Kalan’s armor, belonged in the past.
Like Jarna, too, he supposed, although it was not a happy thought. Similarly, when he had farewelled Tarathan and Jehane Mor on the Ij quayside, their embrace had been that of friends who do not know if they will meet again. But they had not spoken of that, or where the heralds’ next commission might take them.
Into danger, Kalan reflected, as likely as not—just as he intended walking into the heart of the warrior House that was bitterest in its suppression of those with the old Derai powers. Still, given the opportunity for advancement the contest of arms represented, warriors would be flooding into the Red Keep from all Blood’s holds and outlying forts. And on the road from Caer Argent to Port Farewell, the heralds had helped him layer a series of wards in place, designed to lock his powers deep beneath the outward seeming of one more warrior among many. The protective layers were an Oakward art, but Jehane Mor’s aptitude for concealment, woven together with Kalan’s own, had achieved a result that was close to invisible. Detection would require either a powerful spellworker or a level of scrutiny he was unlikely to encounter in the Red Keep.
“Unlikely,” Kalan murmured now, “but not impossible.” Listening to the activity above deck, he considered the other question he could not bring himself to ask: not on the ride from Caer Argent to Port Farewell, or on the voyage to Ij. He had glanced Tarathan’s way several times toward the sea journey’s end, but each time his will to ask had dissipated like the Halcyon’s wake, creaming away southward beneath an escort of seabirds. Something had happened between the heralds and Malian in Caer Argent, though, he was sure of it—and almost certain that it had more to do with Tarathan than Jehane Mor, despite the fair herald gifting the Heir of Night a medallion.
“Keep it,” she had told Malian, “for my sake.”
“For both our sakes,” was all Tarathan had added—but then he had kissed Malian on the mouth. Kalan had a fair idea what the Normarch damosels, and also Jarna, would have said about that. Nonetheless, his question had remained unasked.
Outside, the Halcyon’s gangway thudded down onto the Grayharbor dock and someone came up it, whistling. Time to move, Kalan thought—but he still took care over his armor, paying attention to every buckle and binding. In Emer, a knight learned how to arm himself, but it felt odd to be doing so without any of the comrades he had lived and fought alongside for the past five years. Kalan slid the longsword and scabbard with the hydra device onto his belt and buckled it on, realizing that it was almost the first time since he had fled the Keep of Winds with Malian that he could recall being alone. Yet the most disconcerting step was donning the crimson cuirass of Blood, the House that had expelled him as soon as his old powers manifested at seven years of age.
“What are you, boy? Who? . . . None of our family ever had such powers!” Kalan heard his father’s voice again, from that long ago day when he had been banished from family, Hold, and House. “You are no more son of mine.”
No, he thought. Falk of Normarch was far more of a father to me, even if I was just one of a castle full of aspiring squires. Yet when he gazed down at the crimson breastplate and Derai-made armor, it still felt right, as though this was indeed his birthright, no matter how much House and family might wish to deny him. Kalan pulled his shoulder-length hair clear of his face with a leather tie—and hoped those in Grayharbor who had dealings with the Alliance really would see a Derai warrior and not an Emerian imposter.
“So you are awake.” The Halcyon’s bosun greeted Kalan with a wink as he emerged onto the deck with his saddlebags and travel roll on one shoulder, and his helmet hooked over the other arm by its strap. “And ready for business, I see.” The man’s expression was friendly enough, but Kalan could see he was reevaluating former impressions. “Their honors said you were a northerner, but I had my doubts until now.”
“I’ve spent some time in the south.” The ship must have crossed the bar at dawn, because despite a gray sky the day was already fully light. Kalan wanted to scan the port for any sign of Sea House vessels and take in details of the town, but instead nodded toward the hold, where wool bales were being hoisted clear and swung onto the dock. “And my horses are Emerian. How long before I can take them off?”
The bosun glanced over the gunwale. “If you can wait until the tide’s high enough to use the lower ramp, that’ll make disembarking ’em easier. Otherwise we’ll have to use the hoist and your roan devil won’t like that.”
“I’ll wait,” Kalan said, but checked on the horses anyway. They had objected to coming on board, Madder in particular evincing a strong desire to kick his stall to matchwood and hole the ship’s hull. Eventually both horses had adjusted to the enclosed space and the movement of the ship, but Kalan had still needed to spend a great deal of time with them, especially when a squall blew up a day out of Port Farewell. “Because Jarna,” he murmured to the roan destrier now, “would curse me in this life and into the next if I let any harm come to you. As for you,” he added to Tercel, offering the bay a slice of the apple he had kept back from his previous night’s supper, “we’ve known each other a few years now, so we have to stick together. And keep this fire-eater in his place,” he added, as Madder thrust his head over the divide to demand more of both the attention and the treats.
Since anything further must wait on the tide, Kalan decided to visit the shipping offices and if necessary find an inn. The bosun assured him they would keep watch over both the horses and his belongings, so he left his gear in Madder’s stall and walked down onto the dock. The first few moments were disorientating, as the apparently solid quay continued to move with the same rhythm as the harbor swell. He had experienced something similar in Ij, but the heralds had promised him the sensation would pass, so Kalan placed a steadying hand against a wool bale while he gained his bearings.
Ports, he decided after a few minutes, must be much the same everywhere. Of the three harbors he had now seen, Grayharbor was distinguished
only by being much the smallest. His initial impression of the town was one of narrow houses crowded close together, interspersed by only the occasional dome or spire. The buildings he could see clearly were built chiefly of grayed timber, with shingle roofs sloping sharply up toward the overcast sky. Even the harbor was a dull gray-green, almost as though the Wall were casting its long shadow this far south.
Don’t be fanciful, Kalan told himself: it’s just the weather today.
The nearest shipping office was little different from the one in Port Farewell, a small room just inside the wide double doors of a ship chandler’s warehouse. The names of ships were chalked onto a blackboard beside the office door, but the clerk pursed his lips, assessing Kalan much as the Halcyon’s bosun had done. He looked like he might have been a sailor himself once, with a silver ring in one ear and callused hands that reached for a leather-bound ledger. “You’ll be wanting a Derai ship, then? I take it you’re going north?”
Kalan nodded, watching the man flip through the ledger while his keen hearing sifted the rustle of the pages from the drone of another clerk’s voice deeper in the warehouse, checking off stores. He caught a back door’s creak as well, and the scuffle of mice around grain bins. The clerk placed a metal rule on the pages, to hold them flat, then pushed the ledger across the counter. “Here you are.” He watched closely as Kalan swiveled the ledger around.
Does he think I’m unlettered? Kalan wondered. Even in the House of Blood, with its fixation on warrior training, every child learned to read. Or perhaps the clerk was checking that he could read Derai. If the man had dealings with the Alliance, he might well be wary of those he did not know. Kalan examined the page. “Nothing for a week. Is that certain?”
