by Helen Lowe
He paused as the blackbird sang again from the orchard, although she guessed he was not listening to its song, but gazing back down the tunnel of years to those long ago events. “Sun is by far the largest of the three nations of the Sworn, and Aranraith has been its prince for a very long time. He wanted the hero’s arms for himself, but the helm had vanished before we reached the battlefield. By the time Khelor recovered sufficiently from dealing with the sword to take thought for the shield, its shards, too, were gone. Aranraith was furious, and it was inevitable his wrath would fall on Fire, believing we had appropriated all three weapons. For that reason alone, Amaliannarath said that we would have to flee.”
“But Aranraith struck first?”
Raven nodded, his face obscured as he refilled her cup, so Malian watched the movement of his hands and the tattoos that circled his wrists, the lines blue in the early light. “Salar, Sun’s Ascendant, is subtle, although some would just say cunning. Between the two of them, they left nothing to chance.” Raven’s voice remained as steady as his hands, although he had glanced toward the sun, so Malian still could not see his expression.
“They asked Amaliannarath to undertake a deep seeing for all the Sworn, tying her power up in that, but Salar must have been blocking her, in any case. It was only the first deaths that broke his working. By then the worst was already done, because Aranraith’s forces had fallen on all three Lines of our Blood at once. Everyone died: Khelor of the First Line and Iriseult of the Second, with all their kin—and my extended family as well.” He set the pan down again, and now Malian wished she could look away from the bleakness in his face. “I was riding to my betrothal with a few close friends, our retainers and honor guards. You saw what happened, how they all died. I would have, too, except Amaliannarath snatched me away at the last.”
Raven paused, his bleakness shifting into the stern lines Malian recognized from the Cave of Sleepers. “She only had an instant, from becoming aware of the attacks to deciding how to act. Afterward, I raged against her for saving me and not Iriseult or Khelor, but she would only say that it was already too late for them and she very nearly could not save me.” If my vision was accurate, Malian thought, she was right. “Later, I was sorry for the recriminations I hurled at her. But at the time I was beside myself with grief, shock, and fury.”
Amaliannarath would have understood that—although Malian wondered if the Ascendant might not have been suffering from shock as well. The whole story had a similar ring to that of the Derai and the Night of Death, and despite the sun’s warmth, she wanted to shiver. “So it wasn’t just that you were sick of war,” she murmured, recalling Stoneford. “That you fled to Haarth, I mean.”
Raven’s smile was grim. “War-weariness was why we were apt to the sword’s influence. The reason we fled so far was survival. Fire had always been the smallest of the Sworn’s three nations, and we were reeling from the loss of almost all our Blood. We didn’t know whether Lightning had been part of Sun’s scheme either and we couldn’t wait to find out, not with Aranraith pressing his advantage.” The grimness faded. “But the reason we came here, in particular, was Amaliannarath’s decision, part of her foreseeing. From what you’ve said, it may also have been driven by her private bargain with the sword. And she said that she would take us all, that she was capable of the feat.”
Malian heard the grief, raw still after all this time, beneath his level tone. “‘I died a long time ago, so that they might live.’” Softly, she quoted the words from her conversation with the ghost in the Cave of Sleepers. “But what she did . . . She must have opened a Great Gate long before the Derai did, crossing time as well as worlds to bring you all here. And she did it on her own.”
Raven nodded. “Largely on her own, because as with the Derai, our Blood provided our greatest adepts.” The familiar sardonic edge touched his voice. “Aranraith’s efforts in that respect left us with a disproportionate number of immunes, which has been useful to us as the Patrol. But it did not help Amaliannarath.”
No, Malian thought. She half closed her eyes, studying the sun dots against her lids and recalling the Emerian folklore that whispered that the Patrol were demons, hiding their true nature behind masked helms. Once, if she had known they were Darksworn, she would have said that was true . . . Lifting her gaze, she met Raven’s again across the dwindling flames. “I am young, so perhaps that’s why I find it hard to comprehend just how long you’ve lived—that you were alive when Yorindesarinen died.” She drank the last of the chocolate, while the blackbird called again from further down the hill. “I know you crossed time with Amaliannarath and slept in the cave, but it’s not just you and Fire. Emuun and Thanir and Aranraith, they were all alive then, too.” Hylcarian had also warned her against Nirn in the Old Keep, which meant the sorcerer had to be at least five hundred years old. Malian guessed it was a lot more than that, though. “We thought the Golden Fire was immortal, or close to it, although the Derai never were . . .” Briefly, she wrestled with the enormity of it all. “Are you immortal now? Was that part of your bargain with the maelstrom?”
“One does not bargain with the maelstrom.” Raven had begun cleaning out the pan. “But one outcome of prolonged exposure to its power turned out to be greatly extended life. We can be killed, but none of us have died of old age for a very long time. Whether we are immortal or not remains to be seen.” He paused. “As our life spans extended, all three nations of the Sworn had fewer and fewer children; I was born into almost our last generation. And no children have been born to Fire since we came to Haarth, despite being separated from the maelstrom for so long.”
No children at all, Malian thought, shocked. There had been few enough in Night, compared with the River or Emer, and she wondered if that could be because her House stood farthest forward on the Wall of Night, closest to the maelstrom. Finally, she found her voice. “But Nherenor, the Darksworn envoy in Caer Argent, was young. I’m sure he was no older than me, if that.”
“True enough.” Raven finished with the pan and began packing away their food. “Yet I doubt he had many siblings or playmates growing up, if any.”
Nor did I, Malian thought—but she was beginning to appreciate just how hard Nherenor’s death would have struck Lightning. She frowned, recalling that misty dawn in Caer Argent and the Sworn youth laughing as he leapt to confront her. “Did you know Nherenor was Ilkerineth’s son?”
Raven nodded. “Nindorith’s presence in Caer Argent, and before that outside Tenneward Lodge, meant Ilkerineth had a hand in the game. When I saw the Lightning knights with their young lord at the tourney ground, I guessed the rest.”
Malian studied their small fire, still thinking of Nherenor as she had last seen him, one moment laughing and alive, the next dead on the cobbles of a narrow alley. No children, she repeated, and wondered how many in Haarth, and probably among the Derai as well, would think prolonged life worth that price. Raven shook his head when she said so.
“They might reconsider when all whom they call friend, or come to love, live far shorter lives. After a time, they would find themselves drawing back from a world in which nothing else endures as they do, and in which they alone do not alter. Among the Sworn, there have been many whose minds have darkened and their hearts cooled, losing sight of friendship and love as they saw failure, savagery, and destruction endlessly repeated.” He had not looked away from Malian in Stoneford, when he placed Yorindesarinen’s sword in her hands, and he held her gaze now. “Some seek feeling at second hand. Sun’s way, in particular, has been by inflicting pain. Others retreat into themselves or interact only within a small, closed circle. Some take their own lives.”
Malian was silent, thinking that no one seemed less isolated and more alive than he did. “Even among the Patrol?” she asked.
“One reason we took up that service,” he replied, “was to stay as close to the cycle of life and renewal, growth and change, as we could. The other was to earn our place in this world through serving it.” Mo
mentarily, his eyes dipped to the saddlebag he was opening, before meeting hers again. “Amaliannarath’s argument was that children are part of life’s cycle of renewal and change—and so, too, is death. Even before the sword, she felt that our alignment with the maelstrom had trapped us in stasis, which would end being worse than dying. ‘I died a long time ago, so that they might live.’” Raven repeated the quote. “She has already shared what lies at the heart of why we were apt to the sword’s will, as well as her sacrifice.”
He extracted a whetstone from the saddlebag and began to hone his sword. A swallow darted overhead, and Malian watched it for several seconds before turning back to Raven. “Given the current state of the Alliance, it’s hard to see how rejoining the Derai will deliver either hope or life.”
She caught the ghost of a smile as Raven sighted along the blade. “Whatever their flaws, the Derai have been proven right on one point: what the Alliance fights for is life itself. However stubborn and unbending, they remain part of that cycle, whereas the Sworn—” He paused as a second swallow joined the first, flitting from beneath the wayhouse eaves. “Fire’s choice has never been between the Sworn and the Derai. It’s between atrophy and life. That aside”—now the ghost smile became the hedge knight’s twist of the mouth—“Amaliannarath foresaw hope if we allied ourselves with you, Malian. I would not go so far as to say that we’re rejoining the Derai.”
She smiled and raised a hand in a River fencer’s gesture, acknowledging the humor, then almost immediately sobered as the swallows darted again. Soon, she reflected, they too will be leaving, fleeing south ahead of winter while I journey north.
Raven resheathed the sword and put the whetstone away. “Time we moved on,” he said, and began extinguishing the fire.
Malian nodded and rose, stretching away the last of the night’s stiffness before retrieving the horses. Hani snuffled against her coat, hoping for treats, and despite the previous night’s violence, flight, and cold, as well as the darkness of her visions, Malian smiled. She also pushed the mare’s questing nose away. “Perhaps tonight,” she murmured, “if we can find a decent inn.” She looked around to find Raven watching her from beside Peta. Momentarily, her smile included him, before fading as she considered what lay ahead.
They were to rendezvous with the rest of Fire near the trading post at Hedeld, on the Telimbras, country that was almost far enough north to count as the Wild Lands rather than the River. The Patrol had a fort and training grounds there, ideal for a large muster—and apart from the main road through the Barren Hills, the Telimbras offered the clearest route north. Malian knew the country from her years in Ar, but now her thoughts returned to Amaliannarath’s whisper, ghosting through the Cave of Sleepers: I died a long time ago, so that they might live.
The dead Ascendant may have thought alliance with her would offer Fire hope and the potential for renewal, but events in Aeris, together with her visions, had deepened Malian’s doubt over what lay ahead. The Shadow Band adept had learned to keep her own counsel, but the Heir of Night, raised between her father’s scrupulous justice and the flame of Asantir’s valor, felt that in this case honor compelled honesty. “The Shield of Stars was broken.” Malian relived seeing the metal fragments underfoot as Raven swung into the saddle. “The Derai Alliance can no longer rely on the Golden Fire. And Amaliannarath, whatever hope she may have foreseen, is dead.” Death down every road: Malian felt the chill touch of fear although she kept her voice level. “Whoever stands with me will bear the brunt of the conflict that is coming, and despite your longevity you can still be killed. So riding in my shadow may not bring hope but the extinction of your House.”
Raven was motionless as a statue on Peta’s back, his expression unreadable. “What do you propose?”
Malian frowned up at him. “The Patrol has kept the road and river safe for a millennium, so taking it out of the River lands would be the same as taking the Ara-fyr away from the Aralorn-Jhaine border.” She resisted folding her arms in the face of his continued silence. “I’m not being altruistic. The peace of the River, even more than that of Emer and the rest of the Southern Realms, is vital to our supply. Disrupting that successfully, let alone militarizing the River against us, could well win the war for the Swarm.”
Raven was regarding her as closely as she had seen him study unknown terrain. “So you think the Patrol should stay on the River?”
“Yes.” Strategically, he can’t disagree, Malian thought. Unless taking the Patrol to the Wall will defeat the Swarm quickly—but we both know that’s not going to happen.
“I think you are being altruistic.” Raven, too, was level. “The River argument has merit, but the counter is that even if Fire won’t turn the tide of the war, having an armed force to command may open up opportunities you can’t foresee or won’t be able to exploit on your own.”
He’s right, Malian acknowledged silently. Sooner or later—probably sooner—I’ll need Fire. Yet the moment she thought it, the vision of Ar assailed by war rose before her, together with the aftermath of Yorindesarinen’s battle with the Chaos Worm. Foreseeing might never be certain, but both visions had been very clear.
“I’m the Chosen of Mhaelanar as well as the Heir of the Derai.” This time Malian did fold her arms. “If the prophecy of the One is going to work out in my favor, then arguably it will do so regardless of armies and powers. If it isn’t”—if prophecy is going to fail me as it did Yorindesarinen, she added silently—“then having the House of Fire with me isn’t going to change that outcome either.”
“You left out being a Dancer of Kan, a scholar, a sometime bargee, and a priestess-queen of Jhaine.” Peta tossed her head at the same time as Raven spoke, momentarily distracting Malian from the fact that he was smiling at her: not with the hedge knight’s sardonic expression, or Aravenor’s graver smile from the Stoneford chapel, but an easing into light and warmth. The smile reminded her of Nherenor—and she wondered if she was catching a glimpse of another young prince of the Sworn, before war and betrayal, long years and bitter loss, transformed him into someone that even Emuun, a close kinsman, did not recognize.
I’m staring, Malian thought. But then Raven spoke again, with the hedge knight’s familiar intonation, and the moment, like the smile, had passed. “I think we both know that prophecy doesn’t work that way. Fortunately, Amaliannarath was farsighted and gave us the means to hedge against exactly the concerns you raise. Fire will march, but the Patrol will not leave the River.”
Now it was Malian’s turn to remain unmoving, keeping her arms folded and her regard cool while she traversed her first recollection of the Cave of Sleepers, from the moment of her arrival until she spoke with Amaliannarath’s ghost. The cavern had been immense and entirely filled by Fire’s sleeping warriors. Yet when she had returned during the Midsummer rite, while walking the path of earth and moon, the cave had been empty, even its ghost presence departed. Reality or illusion, Malian wondered now, knowing that in the realms beyond the Gate of Dreams the dead were always more powerful than the living. Illusion, though, was the only solution that matched Raven’s riddle. “The Patrol isn’t all of you,” she said. “Some of Fire never woke from sleep.”
His answering look was grimly appreciative. “Initially we all woke, but it was part of Amaliannarath’s spell that we could sleep again at will. A few have stayed awake throughout, but the rest have taken turns through the long years, serving with the Patrol and then sleeping again, while dreaming the passage of events.” The appreciative look grew rueful. “I intended discussing all of this once we reached Hedeld, but I should have known you would be thinking well ahead.”
Not far enough, Malian thought, to have decided on a strategy for when I reach the Wall. Afraid Raven would read that truth in her face, she shifted her gaze to the swallows, chasing each other through the bright air—and her seer’s power coiled around her again, swifter than the snake that the Aeris caravan guard had called war. Only this time, Malian’s inner sight opened int
o the oak forest that was the Emerian portal into the Gate of Dreams.
Drifts of mist lay between black trunks, and a russet fox slipped out of the undergrowth, stopping with one paw raised to gaze at her from eyes she knew would be the color of barley ale. Above its head, a knot in an oak trunk twisted into a fox’s mask, before shifting into the face of Lord Falk, Castellan of Normarch and leader of the Emerian Oakward. The russet fox slipped away.
“Ah,” Lord Falk’s expression was as inscrutable as any Raven could muster. “I wondered when you would come calling on me again.”
“I believe we need to talk,” Malian told him. “Keep the horses close,” she added to Raven, as the blackbird trilled again from the abandoned orchard—and she opened up a portal through the medium of her vision, stepping out of the daylight world and into the Gate of Dreams.
19
Rift
The far side of Thanir’s portal was hot, the air dry enough to suck the moisture out of every breath. Yet despite his armor, he showed no sign of being affected by the heat. Instead he waited, one hand resting on the pommel of his curved sword as he studied this particular pocket universe within the Gate of Dreams. Ahead of him, dunes climbed ochre and tawny through layers of heat, their crests wavering toward the baleful glare of a molten sun. He turned, the shield on his arm flashing, and took in a wide, dry riverbed, dotted with spines of thorn brush, and low brown hills beyond. Nothing moved, but he could hear a steady insect drone nearby.
The body was staked over mounded earth on the far side of a thornbush. The drone was from flies clotted on the wounds where eyes and nose, lips and ears and genitals, had once been. A pattern Thanir recognized as runes had been carved into the victim’s skin, and he could see the red lines where the blood had run, despite the skin having burned raw in the sun. His gaze swept the surrounding terrain again but it remained empty, motionless except for the layered heat. Returning his attention to the corpse, he placed his shield against the thornbush, snaring the sun’s reflection in its burnished surface. Yet neither Thanir nor the shield cast any shadow across the arid ground as he stepped away from the body. When he spoke, his tone was conversational. “It’s always surprised me that you and Aranraith don’t get along better. You have the same appetite for pain and death.”
