by Helen Lowe
Yes, she acknowledged silently. For with road and river kept safe and people able to travel freely, she could see how peace and justice would flourish more readily in the cities. Reflecting on what she knew of Raven from Normarch and Caer Argent, Malian thought he and her father might well understand each other if they were ever to meet. Except one was Derai and the other Darksworn, the latter a term that also encompassed Emuun and Thanir, Nirn and Arcolin, as well as the demon Nindorith. And potentially my mother, Malian thought, remembering a long-ago conversation with her father. She could still hear his voice when he had revealed that possibility—and added that if it were true, the gods only knew what sort of twisted creature Nerion would have become.
Yet Raven was not twisted, and Nherenor had not seemed so either, before he fell to his death. Even the facestealer, Malisande, in Normarch . . . Ruthless yes, Malian thought now, and deadly, too, but I’m not sure I would have called her twisted. Yet Maister Gervon had been. Malian’s lips compressed, too, as she remembered the runes painted onto Arcolin’s arms with poison and the death cup he had sent to Ghiselaine. I have also killed, she reminded herself: on rooftops and battlements and far down in the darkness of Night’s Old Keep. Maister Carick’s hands might have been clean of blood, but Malian of Night’s were not. Kalan’s weren’t either, or Tarathan’s, Malian thought, remembering them both as they had been at the hill fort, and then again in Imuln’s dome at midsummer, splashed with blood that was not their own.
“Do we need to lose Crow and Raven?” she asked, changing the subject. “How likely is it that either Emuun or this Thanir will come after us?”
“That depends.” Raven was thoughtful. “Initially on how the conflict between them resolves, then on how badly they want us. Although Emuun followed you earlier, which suggests he didn’t recognize me. The hedge knight,” he concluded softly, “does not much resemble the long-ago prince of the Sworn.”
People also see what they expect to, Malian thought, even Darksworn hunters. “He thought I was Jehane Mor.” Briefly, she related what Emuun had said to her. “But now he knows I’m not . . .”
Raven nodded. “Unfortunately, you never could tell which way Emuun would jump, and I doubt he’s changed. As for Thanir—Arcolin, Nirn, or Aranraith would all want to stamp out anyone or anything that countered their magic, almost as a matter of principle. Thanir, however, will be intrigued. But his interest is every bit as dangerous as their vindictiveness.”
Like Nindorith, Malian thought, remembering the demon’s surprise when she countered his power in Caer Argent. Who are you? What? he had asked, speaking directly into her mind. And having caught his attention, she had barely escaped.
“It’s probably wisest to change identity,” Raven continued. “The Patrol, once we make our rendezvous, has cadres of adepts whose job is to turn aside unwelcome attention, exactly as happened in Ij last spring. But we don’t want to blaze a trail from Aeris to the Patrol’s door.”
“No.” Malian hoped there would be less chance of that now she had the medallion quarantined. Yawning, she shifted position again, but her mind was still wide-awake as she mulled over events at the night fair. She imagined that Emuun’s challenge to Crow would be put down to the usual rivalries between itinerant mercenaries, which frequently began or ended in fighting. Thanir, on the other hand, had not only stepped clear of the Darksworn’s traditional shadows, he had used magic and opened a portal in the most public way possible, practically inviting the furor the night fair incident would generate. Something’s changed, Malian thought again. The warrior-adept had not seemed troubled by his failure to net Emuun either. Playing a deep game, perhaps . . .
Malian realized she was gnawing her lower lip and stopped, although her frown did not lessen. The Swarm had been operating relatively freely, if not unchecked, in Ij and Emer, and now they had just created a major incident in Aeris. For all she knew, they could be as active in other places—while all this time the Derai had seen the Wall as a bastion, holding the Swarm back from the rest of Haarth. “Zharaan and Kiyan,” she murmured, and saw the shadow of Raven’s head turn.
“The Queen of Jhaine and her First? That’s an old story.”
“Yet even in the early years following our arrival,” she said softly, “Swarm agents were able to attack the priestess-queens in Jhaine, until Zharaan and Kiyan’s blood magic shut them out.”
“Salar’s children at work,” Raven replied. “Mostly they comprise those who ride the Wall storms, but some are adept at slipping through fissures in the fabric of reality, whether singly or in pairs, to wreak their havoc. But that doesn’t equate to a Swarm breakout.”
Malian knew from what he had told her in Stoneford that Salar was one of what the Darksworn called Ascendants, as Nindorith was also, and Amaliannarath had been. “But they’re breaking out now, aren’t they?”
“They’ll have to, if the maelstrom is rising.” Raven was matter-of-fact. “The Sworn are the vanguard. Always, they flee ahead of the storm, partly to open up a path for what follows, but to stay alive as well.” He paused to survey the night beyond their hollow, before continuing. “Even without the Golden Fire, the roots of the Wall go very deep. And despite some wavering, the Nine Houses have kept to their watch. That’s why this has been so long in coming. Still, it’s questionable whether the Wall is capable of withstanding a sustained assault anymore.”
Malian stared, not at him but into darkness, her heart hammering as she recognized the old fear from her earliest childhood: that without the Golden Fire, the Derai would fall as soon as the Swarm rose again. Beneath the blanket, her hands were fists, because even if she could bring Yorindesarinen’s weapons of power together, she knew it would not prevent what was coming. The weapons might have been made by the gods, but Yorindesarinen still had not prevailed against the Chaos Worm—and the Swarm was so much more powerful than any one monster it created, however great.
According to Raven, the Darksworn called the Swarm the maelstrom because it was raw power, which either absorbed or reshaped everything that came within its ambit. As for the minions, or demons, that the Derai also thought of as the Swarm, apparently they were born out of the wave edge of the maelstrom’s advance, although Raven was not sure how. “They were not the kinds of questions I concerned myself with when young,” he had said in Stoneford, with a certain grim humor. “Until, that is, I no longer had the opportunity to ask them.”
And I still have too few answers, Malian reflected. What she had learned from Raven was hardly comforting. The Darksworn claimed there was an awareness driving the maelstrom, but once it rose and expanded outward the surge of power was indiscriminate, unable to distinguish between friend and foe. In the past, Salar, Nindorith, and Amaliannarath had shielded the Darksworn Houses, but could only do so to a limited extent—so to survive, the remaining Darksworn had to break through the Wall’s containment.
Surely, Malian thought, there must be some way to defeat the maelstrom once and for all. She was grimly aware that was supposed to be her destiny, as Chosen of Mhaelanar, but the inevitable conclusion from her Stoneford discussions with Raven was that the Derai had never come close to doing so, not even when at their strongest. While now, with the Alliance fractured and the Golden Fire gone, Derai power was at its lowest ebb.
One secret Malian had not shared with Raven was that Hylcarian, the one-time Golden Fire of the Keep of Winds, lived on in the heart of the Old Keep. Yet his power was only a remnant of what it had been when the entire Wall of Night blazed with golden light—a fact Malian recalled every time she jolted awake in the dark hours, reliving the nightmare of Nindorith’s pursuit through Caer Argent. She and Kalan might embody the greatest powers born to the Derai in many generations, but even together they had barely escaped the Darksworn Ascendant. So although the Wall of Night might continue to hold for now, everything Raven could tell her only confirmed Derai history: that the dark tide of the maelstrom—or Swarm—would rise again, and when it did . . .
The Wall will fall
, Malian thought, the certainty tight as a fist, clenching in her gut. Unless, even if I can’t destroy the maelstrom outright, I somehow find a way to hold it back, buying time until I can search out a means to defeat it.
The same way, she countered silently—the fist tightening further around her doubt—that Yorindesarinen bought time when she stood alone against the Chaos Worm? And my starting position is so much weaker than hers was then.
Malian shivered, her breath misting against the night’s deepening cold. The horses were standing close together for warmth, and she knew Raven’s regular circuit about the hollow was as much about counteracting the cold as keeping watch. I need to sleep, she thought. But the cold clawed through blanket and cloak and coat, and her mind kept returning to Thanir and whether he would involve Nindorith in his hunt. In the end she gave in and extended her seeker’s sense again, searching for any hint of pursuit.
Given Raven’s ability to detect power use, she was not surprised when he looked her way. “For the moment,” he said, “I think we’ve gotten clear.”
For the moment, Malian repeated silently. She had not forgotten that Emuun, like his First Kinsman, was immune—or that she had not known Raven was present, watching her encounter with the Ara-fyr. She stood up, stretching stiff limbs and flexing her gloved hands. “I eluded Nindorith in Caer Argent, but only just. Now the night fair incident seems certain to attract his attention.”
“Except Nindorith holds to Lightning, not Sun, so neither Thanir nor Emuun will solicit his aid, except as a last resort.” Raven paused. “So far, too, your measures to counteract Nindorith’s seeking appear to be working.”
Malian nodded, before realizing that he would not see the gesture. Again, she reexamined her memory of Nindorith’s power blasting through the midsummer dark. “Nhenir told me that if I looked in the earliest annals of the Derai Alliance, I would find the demon there.” She stopped, silently cursing her tiredness. “I’m sorry. I should say Ascendant.”
“It’s probably best.” Raven’s silhouette continued to face the hillside, and humor, rather than offense, colored his tone. “Otherwise, to be consistent, you’ll have to refer to every Golden Fire in the same way.”
Malian’s truthsaying, seeking, and seer’s sense all quickened, telling her this apparently throwaway remark mattered. Perhaps she made a sound, because Raven’s head turned as though she had spoken, and she sensed his scrutiny through the darkness.
“I assumed you knew,” he said slowly. She had never seen him taken aback, but thought he sounded close to it now. “It never occurred to me that the Derai could have allowed themselves to forget anything so fundamental.” They had both been keeping their voices low, aware of how far sound could carry in the isolated terrain, but now he spoke more quietly still: “Amaliannarath and Fire, Nindorith and Lightning, Salar and Sun—and one Ascendant, too, for each of the Derai’s Nine Houses.”
The room at the heart of the Old Keep of Winds had twelve doors, and the table at its center was divided into twelve parts, not nine . . . Recalling that, Malian felt the same hollow sensation as when Nhenir had said she would need all three of Yorindesarinen’s weapons to fully access their power. She was also remembering that although Nindorith had subsequently taken the form of a unicorn, his initial manifestation in Caer Argent had been as fire. Later, she had guessed Nindorith must be the unicorn on Lightning’s insignia, but her mind had not leapt to the winged horse device of Night as it did now. Yet surely the winged horse was just a device, because flame had always—always—been the only form taken by the Golden Fire: either as the individual entities that once infused the heart of the Derai’s nine strongholds, or in its collective aspect.
I need to say something, Malian thought. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I don’t. Even the term Darksworn is almost forgotten among the Derai. I learned it from Kalan, and the old priest who told him the secret said the Alliance could shatter if we discovered that our own kind were also the Swarm’s foremost adherents.” She did not add that she had not fully accepted that truth until midsummer, when she had seen her own face reflected in Nherenor’s features.
Raven’s silhouette studied the dark hillside again before turning back to her. “If I were being true to my Sworn heritage, I would say that I’m not surprised the Derai want to forget. But you are Heir to the House that leads the Derai. I believe you need to know.”
Life is a risk, Malian thought, despite the hollowness at her core. And Asantir had always said she needed to know as much about her allies as her enemies, a philosophy that had tallied with Elite Cairon’s Shadow Band tutelage. She stamped her feet, silent on the pine needles, and drew the blanket closer. “I’m listening,” she said.
17
Faces of the Moon
Through the link between them, Malian was aware that Nhenir was listening, too. How much of this do you know? she wondered. But Raven was already speaking, his voice acquiring a storyteller’s rhythm. “Sworn or Darksworn, demons or Ascendants, the distinction in names drives to the heart of the original conflict that sundered the Sworn from the Derai.”
She guessed that was how he had first heard the account, much as fireside tales had introduced a young Malian to the traditions of the Derai. It might also seem an easier way to recount a difficult history. Which, she reflected, I may be the first among the Alliance to have heard told—in how long, aeons?
“What the Sworn call Ascendants,” Raven went on, “took the form of rare beings, distinct in kind but close in friendship with what were once twelve allied peoples. When the maelstrom first rose, the friendship had endured for as long as anyone among the nations could remember, perhaps since the dawn of time. The twelve became aware of the maelstrom shortly after it appeared in the space between worlds, but the expedition they dispatched to learn more was sucked into the maelstrom’s maw and came close to perishing. All would have been lost if the Ascendants present had not joined with the strongest of the expedition’s adepts and pulled the survivors out.
“Nonetheless, despite all that went wrong, some felt they had begun to communicate with an intelligence at the maelstrom’s heart. They argued for persevering with communication, while others, led by Salar, highlighted the potential to harness the maelstrom’s power for the twelve’s benefit. But the majority who returned were adamant that the maelstrom threatened all life and must be destroyed before it expanded beyond their ability to contain, if it had not already done so. Eventually those differences hardened into divisions between the twelve peoples.”
They would, Malian thought, reflecting dryly on what she knew of both Derai and Haarth history. She flexed her hands to warm them, while Raven checked their perimeter before resuming. “As the maelstrom expanded with increasing rapidity, consuming everything around it, the divisions fractured further. Those who saw it as an opportunity dwindled, while the ranks of those who argued for destruction swelled. Increasingly, they sought a weapon strong enough to counteract the maelstrom’s power and eventually focused on the twelve Ascendants. Only their strength, it was argued, could withstand the maelstrom. Absolute unity would be essential, too. Individual Ascendants could not be permitted to withdraw unilaterally, while the whole must be able to compensate if a component part was wounded or destroyed. To increase the likelihood of success, the twelve’s greatest adepts would act in concert with, and where necessary direct, the enhanced entity—or weapon, as in fact it was.”
Malian’s mind flew to the serpent of power, the conjoined force of the priestess-queens of Jhaine, that she had confronted when walking the path of earth and moon. She was also beginning to perceive how this must end. Waiting for Raven to confirm it was like watching the executioner’s blade begin to fall—but Malian did not think she could have spoken, even if she wanted to.
“The plan’s adherents argued that binding the Ascendants was the price of preserving life itself: a necessary evil, but of short duration. Those who opposed them called it enslavement, the betrayal of free beings that were
also friends, and swore never to accede to such a deed.” Raven paused. “Then the first of the twelve’s home worlds was consumed by the maelstrom.”
Now the blade was falling, and Malian wanted to hasten the end by whispering, And? But her lips refused to open.
“And,” Raven said, as if she had spoken, “all those who had argued for the binding of the Ascendants decided that the time for discussion was over. They enacted a great working to achieve their end, and drew on the power of the Nine Gods themselves to create the binding. Those who had vowed to defend the Ascendants’ independence—calling their faction the Sworn—became aware of the working in time to flee before it could take hold. But they were outcast, devastated, and betrayed, as well as vulnerable to the Derai Alliance and the newly forged power of the Golden Fire. So although the Sworn did not immediately join the maelstrom, it was inevitable that they would be drawn into the only alliance powerful enough to counter not just the Derai and the Golden Fire, but what they saw as abandonment by the gods themselves.”
The Golden Fire: Malian’s truth sense was raw edged, jangling that this was true, true, true . . . She felt as though she had just stepped off a precipice into deep water, with the cold and the dark closing over her head. She was falling, drowning, lost—while all that she had held as certain, and believed the Derai to be, was flotsam, whirling away. The need to be alone seized her, to get away from whatever judgment or condemnation, or careful lack of both, might follow Raven’s tale, and think . . . But every Shadow Band instinct warned against showing weakness, so she spoke calmly as she laid the blanket aside. “You were right, I did need to know that.” Rising, she moved to the opposite side of the hollow. “I’ll cast a wider circuit before standing watch, double-check we’re really alone out here.”
Raven said something that Malian did not catch because she was already gone, slipping between the pines and her own trip wires. Beneath the surface calm, her heart was racing. If possible she would have folded the blackness around her like a second cloak, shutting out every word of Raven’s story. This truth, she thought, curled like a worm at the heart of the Derai Alliance.
