Malthumalbaen cursed under his breath, but not at Brant, only at the truth in the young man’s words. The large man shrugged deeper into his rabbit-fur-lined longcoat.
The other guard, brother to the first, Dralmarfillneer, only chuckled and clapped Brant on the shoulder as he passed. “Winters always end, Master Brant. Soon Mal will be cursing the heat and swelter.”
“Shine my arse, Dral! You were just whining about the wind yourself.”
Dral opened the door for Brant. “Only because I had to empty my bladder, Mal. Once you unbutton, the wind climbs right into your trousers and grabs hold of your eggs. And when you’re as blessed as I am, it takes time to free yourself.”
“Blessed, my arse, brother,” Mal replied. “We’re twins. What Father gave you, he gave me.”
Brant was ushered into the hollow center of the Bone column. He heard Dral’s last retort before the door closed. “Not in all ways, Mal…not in all ways.”
The iron bar scraped back into place, securing the exit.
Brant shook his head and waved a hand over the stone post rising from the floor’s center. Immediately the floor under his feet began to push him upward, sliding smoothly along the polished walls, propelled by the rushing column of water beneath it.
The Grace-fed water chute carried him toward the castillion far above. While bridges and ladders led from the ice to the lowermost tier, the Bones led to the four wings of Lord Jessup’s castillion.
As he was whisked up, his ears noted the climb past the many levels. The snowy castillion lay at the top of the city, the thirty-third tier. He braced his feet as the end of the chute neared. He craned his neck. The ceiling rushed toward him. From the stone roof, steel spears pointed down at him. An extra assurance against the unwelcome intruder. The platform, when bidden, could drive its passengers into those spikes.
As always, Brant ducked his head a bit as he neared his destination-but his life was spared. The platform settled to a stop, and the door was opened by another loam-giant, a mute.
The giant sternly nodded Brant out of the Bone’s chute.
“Thank you, Greestallatum,” Brant said, returning the nod. He knew that only another giant dared shorten a giant’s name, and even then, they’d best be friends.
The giant crossed and opened the far door into the main keep. The western wing of the castillion, the High Wing, housed the eight Hands of Oldenbrook. Brant moved into the wide hall. As was traditional, windows lined one wall, facing out to Oldenbrook Lake. Along the other wall, eight doors marked off the private rooms to the castillion’s Hands.
Brant hurried along the woven rug. As the Hand of blood, he had the room at the far end, closest to the residence of Lord Jessup himself. The god’s chambers rose from the center of the castillion and its four wings. A giant iron hearth stood outside the wide double doors, used for cleansing traces of corrupted Grace from cloth, stone, and steel.
Otherwise, the hall was empty.
Where was everyone?
As if his inquiry were heard, a door opened on his left. A tall, lithe woman dressed in silver strode out of her room. Liannora, Mistress of Tears. She was one of the eight Hands, each representing one of Lord Jessup’s blessed humours: blood, seed, sweat, tears, saliva, phlegm, and both yellow and black bile. A Hand’s duty was to collect and preserve the assigned humour, rich in the god’s powerful Grace.
Such a duty was a rare honor, and one Liannora considered Brant to be undeserving of attending. She stood before him, as pale as the snow outside. Her long straight tresses flowed like an icy waterfall. The only true color was the blue of her eyes. She seemed to typify Oldenbrook in winter. Even the hue of her eyes matched the tiles of the city.
“Master Brant,” she said with a calculating glance over his leathers, furs, and sodden boots. “Have you not heard?”
“Heard what? I’ve only just returned.”
One eyebrow arched. “Oh, yes…traipsing in the woods.” Her disapproval hung about her like a dark cloud. She joined his step down the hall. “We’ve all been commanded to assemble in Lord Jessup’s greeting chamber. A most important guest arrives even now.”
Brant pictured the flippercraft. “From Tashijan.”
“Then you did hear?” Her manner hardened further, if such a thing were possible.
“I saw the ship descending, flying the Tashijan flag, as I arrived back at the city,” he explained, rather hurriedly, trying his best not to seem rude.
“Ah,” Liannora said as they neared the hall’s end, plainly not mollified.
Brant headed for his room, glad to escape. He had never fully fit in here. The previous Hand of blood had been an elder statesman of the High Wing, well respected, revered, loved by all. It was a station Brant seemed to continually fail to fill: too young to respect, too quiet of disposition, and too darkly complexioned in a land of pale men and women.
“Where are you going?” Liannora asked as he stepped away.
Brant stopped. “To freshen and change.”
“There’s no time for that. I’m the last to respond to the summons. The party from Tashijan is already in attendance. You’ll just have to appear-” She waved a hand disparagingly over his clothes. “Few will expect otherwise anyway.”
Brant knew the words she didn’t add. For an Eighthlander.
Resigned, Brant headed toward the double doors. Before they could reach the threshold, one of the doors opened. A small figure stepped through, dressed all in black, from half cloak to boot. A hood was pulled up, and a masklin covered chin and lips.
A word escaped the figure, whispered, yet urgent. Brant’s ears, sharpened by seasons of hunting, picked the word out of the air.
“ Pupp… ”
Then the cloaked figure stiffened and went silent, spotting their approach. Under the hood, a pair of eyes widened, flashing from Liannora to Brant. The figure then glanced away, but not before a surprised second twitch in Brant’s direction.
“I’m sorry,” the figure squeaked out, proving herself to be a girl or young woman. She bowed her head slightly. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Here was plainly one of the visitors from Tashijan.
Brant noted a black stripe tattooed on each side of her face, running jaggedly from the outside corner of each eye to each ear. But it was not one of the illustrious Shadowknights of Tashijan. The girl here had earned only her first stripe, marking her as a page. It would take a second stripe to be called squire, and a third to be a full knight. Even her cloak was ordinary cloth, not the shadow-shifting cloak of a true knight.
“Be not afraid,” Liannora said with surprising warmth, almost oily. “Any servant of Tashijan is always welcome in our halls.”
“I only came to look.”
“Certainly,” Liannora said. “And we’d be honored to have you escort us to the greeting hall to join the others.”
The page bowed and retreated back through the door. “It-it would be my honor,” she mumbled, but in fact it looked as though she would prefer to run and hide.
Liannora stepped between the page and Brant. She touched the young woman’s shoulder lightly, in an oddly possessive gesture. “So I hear that Castellan Vail herself will be seeking audience with Lord Jessup. What a distinct honor to have one so highly ranked at Tashijan coming to visit Oldenbrook. I can’t imagine what would warrant such a strange appointment.”
The silence that followed hung heavily in the air.
Plainly Liannora sought to extract knowledge from the page, perhaps something more than would be formally revealed during the high assembly here.
The girl did not bend. She even stepped away from Liannora’s touch, not enough to be rude, but refusing to be lured.
Brant found a ghost of a smile rising unbidden to his lips, suddenly liking this girl very, very much. He remembered that second startled glance a moment before when they had first met. He had dismissed it as surprise at his rough clothes and poor appearance. But now he wondered. He sensed that such things would not m
atter to the black-cloaked girl.
So why the second glance?
The trio passed through the anteroom to Lord Jessup’s rooms, down a short curved hall, and ended up before the door to the greeting room. The door was already open. Voices, polite and jovial, reached them.
As he stepped to the doorway, Brant noted a mix of familiar figures, dressed resplendently in jewels and fine cuts of cloth. The other Hands of Jessup. Amid them mingled five black shapes, the entourage from Tashijan.
The leader stood near the center. A bright diadem at her throat marked her as castellan of Tashijan, the second in command of the mighty Citadel, after the warden himself.
Brant focused upon her. Castellan Kathryn Vail had played a critical role in ridding Chrismferry of the daemon in its midst. Few in Myrillia didn’t know her story-or that of her former lover, Tylar ser Noche, once named godslayer but now the regent of Chrismferry.
The castellan’s gaze swept over the latecomers. Above her masklin, Kathryn Vail’s eyes found her page and hardened to fire-agates. The young girl hurried to the castellan’s side. So the page served the castellan. No wonder the girl had been so sturdy in the face of Liannora. She had been forged in fires hotter than any Liannora could muster.
As the girl reached the castellan’s side, she glanced once more back at them. No, back at him. Then away again.
This time, Brant knew what lay behind those cornflower blue eyes.
Recognition.
And with that realization, the same occurred to him. As she turned, a slip of hair fell from beneath her hood. She tucked it back, but not before Brant recognized the distinct yellow-blond curl.
Memories disassembled and came together in a flash. He stumbled as he entered the hall, bumping into Liannora, who shot him a daggered look, then left his side, as if proximity to him might taint her.
Brant stared at the girl. He remembered the night he had been chosen from among his fellow students, when Jessup’s Oracle had placed a stone into his waiting palm, claiming him as his new Hand of blood. Prior to that, down below in the chamber beneath the High Chapel, Brant had defended a young girl from the bitter words of other students.
The same girl now hid in black here.
Like Brant, she had been chosen that night, to serve as a Hand of blood for the daemon-possessed Chrism. But then after the Battle of Myrrwood, when the daemon had been vanquished, she had vanished. Few noted her disappearance on a night when gods were slain.
Now she was here.
Alive.
A girl named Dart.
For a full quarter bell, Brant kept to the shadows of the gathering and edged along the room. He kept watch on his quarry as he maneuvered around the chattering islands of castle gentlefolk and mingling visitors. He approached no closer, preferring to study the castellan’s page from afar.
What was the girl doing here?
Before any answers could be discerned, the resonant strike of a gong echoed across the greeting hall. All chatter stopped, and eyes turned toward the arched back door as it swung open.
Lord Jessup, god of Oldenbrook, entered the reception hall. As was his custom, he wore the simple cloths and leathers of the sailfolk that plied the great lake: soft bleached boots into which were tucked the hems of his baggy black trousers, a billowing white shirt hooked at the neck, and a peaked cap of blue velvet.
The only bit of true decoration was an azure sapphire fixed at the base of his throat, an ancient gift granted to Lord Jessup shortly after settling this realm. The sapphire had been discovered by a fishwife as she scaled and gutted one of the mighty lake shaddocks, the fierce bottom dwellers found only in the deepest depths of Oldenbrook Lake. Pulled from the shaddock’s gullet, the gem was a blue that matched exactly the hue of the lake, and all knew its portent, the lake welcoming its new guardian and god. Lord Jessup had come to cherish the gem as much as he did the people and the lands here.
As the god strode slowly through the gathering, the jewel glowed slightly, a reflection of the god’s shining Grace, like moonlight on still waters. Reaching the high seat in the room’s center, Lord Jessup settled to the cushions.
The god’s eight Hands, including Brant, lowered to one knee.
The emissaries from Tashijan bowed, even Castellan Vail.
Lord Jessup waved them all up. “Kathryn ser Vail, Castellan of Tashijan, Magistrate of the Order of the Shadowknights, be welcome,” he said formally. His manner then melted to warmer tones with a tired smile. “It is an honor to have you gracing Oldenbrook once again.”
“My lord,” the castellan said, bowing more deeply, then straightening with a shift of her cloak.
“How long have you been away from our shores?”
“I believe six years, my lord.”
Brant recognized the slight pause, the inflected lowered timbre in her voice. It was an awkward subject, one to be skirted. And with good reason. It surely had to be a tender matter still to the castellan. She had been betrothed to Tylar ser Noche, a shadowknight once in service to Lord Jessup. All in Oldenbrook knew their story. Balladeers still struggled to capture the pain and tragedy in strum of string and chord. For the ballad of Tylar ser Noche, a shadowknight stripped of cloak and love, remained unfinished. First lover, then murderer, then broken knight and slave, and finally godslayer…now risen anew as regent of neighboring Chrismferry.
The other half of the tragedy stood here. Tylar’s betrothed and lover. Forced to damn him with her own testimony, she was equally cursed, banished and humiliated into a secluded life. Some even whispered that an unborn child had been lost to her sorrow and heartbreak. But her wheel had turned also, and she rose again as castellan of Tashijan.
But did the song end even there? One served in Chrismferry, the other in Tashijan. And with no true end, the balladeers struggled for a satisfactory final chord.
But Lord Jessup held no such conflict in his heart. “It is good to have you here again,” he said. “What brings you from the Citadel to our shores with such haste?”
“Haste arises because of a dire storm due to strike from the north. Wyndravens sweep south out of Mistdale and Five Forks with messages of a last great winter squall, the worst of them all, one raging with snow and bitter winds. The northern edge of Mistdale forest lies blasted and dead, trunks burst with ice. The rivers of Five Forks are frozen solid to the sea, and the freeze continues to flow south, crushing ships, stalling all movement.”
“I have felt the echo of pain through the waterways,” Lord Jessup said. “Is that why you have come with such speed?”
“I come also at the behest of Warden Fields.” Stiffness entered her voice. “He has asked that I personally attend each god of the First Land and announce a ceremony of noted distinction to be held at Tashijan, one which is meant to heal a rift across our Land.”
“And what ceremony might that be?”
“The sanctifying of a knight to a new cloak.”
Lord Jessup’s brow pinched with curiosity. Brant could almost read his thoughts. It was a common rite when a knight first gained his shadowcloak for the god whom he first served to oversee the sanctification, to bless the moment with the god’s own Grace. But then why come with such a distinguished emissary for such an ordinary event?
Understanding suddenly smoothed Lord Jessup’s face. “The knight to be cloaked?” he said. “Am I to assume this is Tylar ser Noche, regent of Chrismferry?”
Castellan Vail bowed her head in acknowledgment.
“Is Ser Noche not already a knight? Did he not bend a knee where you now stand when I first blessed his cloak?”
“And that cloak was stripped,” the castellan reminded him in a pained voice. “The ceremony I come to announce is one to reinstate Tylar-Ser Noche-to the Order of the Shadowknights. He will receive back his cloak and his diamond-pommeled sword, certifying his station. Warden Fields has asked that I request all the gods of the First Land to send high representatives to Tashijan for the event.”
Lord Jessup raised his h
ands, steepling his fingers before his lips. He spoke between them, one eyebrow lifted. “And so to heal a rift…”
Brant read the layers of meaning in those few words. The knighting ceremony was more than an attempt to right an old wrong. It was fraught with layers of import and consequence. All winter long, rumors had abounded of a continuing tension between Tashijan and Chrismferry. Whispers spread of how Warden Fields had employed Dark Graces during his bloody and savage pursuit of Tylar, back when the broken knight had been declared a godslayer. As such, there continued to be enmity between the two most powerful men in all the First Land. It could not last. All of Myrillia looked to the First Land for stability and guidance. The histories of Tashijan and Chrismferry stretched back to the Sundering, when the gods first came to Myrillia and settled its Nine Lands out of savagery.
The growing rift threatened all.
The knighting ceremony plainly was intended to unite Tashijan and Chrismferry once again, to spread a healing balm over the recent frictions. And the gods were being called to witness and bless the new union.
It now made sense why Kathryn ser Vail had been sent as emissary. The woman stood between all: between the two men, between the two strongholds, between the past and the present.
“When is the ceremony to be held?” Lord Jessup asked.
“In a half-moon’s time.”
“So soon?”
“Thus the urgency.”
Lord Jessup nodded his head once. “Then we must hope that the coming storm is truly the last dying breath of this interminable winter.”
As final matters of scheduling were discussed, along with minor issues of trade and conflicts, Brant’s attention drifted.
Motion drew his eye.
Castellan Vail’s page-the girl he had once known as Dart-was staring hard at him. Or rather at his knees. Brant glanced down, fearing his leggings were soiled or torn or somehow offensive enough to warrant such heated attention.
But nothing appeared amiss with his wardrobe.
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