The Heir of Ariad

by Niki Florica

  The Robin’s eyes glowed vivid green. “Perhaps that is why you are the Heir.”

  If Kyrian’s jaw could have unhinged, it would have done so then.

  Rydel of Robinsdwel dropped to one knee. “I know not all that I have said and done to you . . . the last days are dark in my memory. But I can despise you no longer. I do not wish to despise you. I expect no forgiveness, but I offer you now both my thanks and my most loyal allegiance. You are the Heir of Ariad. I know it now, and if you would set my wrongs aside for a time, I shall guide you to the skyladder in the west, as was my vow. Then—” he swallowed—“then, if you wish, I shall vanish forever.”

  He was avoiding Kyrian’s gaze, face turned down in humble disgrace until Kyrian knelt to one knee and drew the eyes—bewildered and uncertain—to him. They were so bright now, so unnervingly, intensely bright. He searched the glowing irises for black flecks, and found none.

  As if caught in an act of rebellion, the Robin looked miserably away.

  “Robin,” Kyrian said quietly, gravely. The rusty lashes raised. “I know not what darkness you have seen these last days, nor the pain that has robbed you of the memory. I know only what I have seen . . . and if you do not recall it, I see no reason to burden you. Let the past fall where it lies. I am willing to forget it.”

  “Forget?” The creature’s bright eyes narrowed, as if to study him for the first time. “Skyad,” he rasped, “who are you?”

  He choked on a laugh. “Kyrian of the Rain Realm, son of Brondro Tarmilis. And the Heir of Ariad, to leave nothing unsaid.” He listed his head, sobering. “You remember?”

  A slow blink. “Yes . . . I remember. The name . . . the trial . . .” He winced. “The beginning.”

  Kyrian turned his eyes self-loathingly to his feet. “Perhaps,” he reflected, “we ought to begin again.”

  He debated it only for a moment before he slipped the knife from his belt and held it to the Robin, hilt-first. The Green accepted it, but uncertainly, and it was a long hesitation before understanding dawned in his face, like sunrise on a dark horizon. He stood and rounded to Kyrian’s back, and promptly the blade of a Naiad dagger settled against Kyrian’s neck.

  “What do you wish me to say?” asked Rydel of Robinsdwel, quietly.

  “Begin at the beginning, I suppose.”

  An instant of silence, then, “I cannot remember.”

  “Use your imagination.”

  The Robin thought for a moment, his silence pensive, then said—creatively—“Who are you, Skyad, and what is your business in these Lands?”

  “I am Kyrian of the Rain Realm, seeking Rydel of Robinsdwel on a mission of utmost importance . . . and if you know him, I would greatly appreciate it if you began by telling me so.”

  The pressure of the knife relieved and Kyrian turned to find the Robin holding it to him, hilt-first, with something light and diffident brightening his face. “Look no further,” he replied. Bowed, with an imaginary sweep of an imaginary feather. “Rydel of Robinsdwel, at your service.”

  Kyrian grinned, slipped the knife into his belt, and extended a hand. “Robin.”

  “Skyad.”

  “Are we sufficiently acquainted?”

  Rydel of Robinsdwel shrugged, easily. “I have seen worse introductions.”

  The pines whistled with the rising dawn wind, and Kyrian almost balked at the realization that Skies ablaze he was jesting with the Green son of Robinsdwel. He ground his hands into his eyes and heard himself laugh—the bleary, borderline-hysterical laughter of a weary warrior exchanging pleasantries with an enemy whose blade was once held to his throat. “We could have spared ourselves a world of misery if we had simply begun that way. But you are willing still to be my guide?”

  “If you wish it,” the Robin answered, meekly. “Many dangers lie between us and the Azure coast to the west, but I believe I know enough to avoid the worst. But you have not slept. We need not begin until you have rested. The Oenghi Sands lie ahead.”

  Kyrian hesitated, knowing his senses were dangerously blurred, but painfully aware of the dark clouds building above Dunbrielle and the small, insignificant distance separating them now. Something was changing in the sour, chilled wind. A storm was brewing, mounting. He could feel it.

  He drew a breath and gestured ahead, southward. Homeward. “Lead on.”

  They reached the Oenghi Sands just as the golden sun broke over the hazy east horizon, still untouched by the building clouds in the north. Jardenith had thinned and dispersed as dawn had progressed until the landscape was a bleak, stony moor scattered with thin clumps of straggling pines. Suffering was heavy here, in the stunted grasses and withered trees, and every step disturbed a cloud of dust screaming of want and thirst. Kyrian tried to ignore it. His immunity seemed a cruel advantage here, and he almost wished to thirst again, if only to have something to share with this suffering world he was meant to save. The Naiad flask, half-empty and worthless to Kyrian, still hung in his belt.

  They stood upon the border of the sands now, in the golden heat of the rising sun, their feet buried partly in the fine, yellow dust stretching south and west as far as the eye could see.

  “Oenghi Sands,” the Robin intoned. “This desert once crawled with sprites, stworfs, earth-gnomes, all of them thriving in their markets. The stworfs of the desert sold ore to the gnomes, purchased here by the Adamun for weapons. Oengh’iron is the strongest in Ariad.”

  Kyrian glanced at him. “I suppose most Skyad weapons are made from it, then. We once traded melsith for weaponry with the Adamun. My father was—is—a swordsmith.”

  He nodded. “I often admired his workmanship until the Nelduith left me with only half of it.”

  Kyrian’s brows shot skyward. “Your knives? Your green-hilted knives?”

  “Made at my grandfather’s request. The green, I believe, was Brondro’s addition.”

  “I cannot believe it.”

  A faint smile. “It is the truth.”

  “He was truly skilled, then. The Skyads always said he was a master of his craft.”

  The Robin cast him an approving glance. “The greatest in his craft, in my grandfather’s words, and I have never known him to exaggerate such things.” His expression clouded, and all the lightness had fled his voice when after a moment he murmured, “I never knew him to exaggerate such things.”

  A moment passed in silence, discomfort thick between them.

  “The sands,” Kyrian said at last, brusquely, drawing their attention to the desert ahead, where sun gleamed on curling dunes and golden, wisping sand. “Do you know the way?”

  The Robin swallowed, focusing. “It is a small desert between this forest and the next. I have not walked it, but I can find a path. The Skies are clear, so we need not conceal ourselves from eyes above, but it is unfortunate that we could not begin before sunrise. It will grow very hot very quickly.”

  This proved true. The sun climbed in a cloudless blue sky and burned fiercer by the moment, down upon the Robin and the Skyad half-blood walking doggedly across the ever-shifting sands. Though they were exposed to the Skies Kyrian left his hood on his shoulders, for there were no clouds overhead and the heat was wicked enough to justify the exposure. Every footfall was treacherous, no step solid, and it was long before the moors behind had drifted from view. Still, the heat increased.

  Kyrian was considering abandoning his sky-cloak completely when a thin, silver shadow in the Skies drove all thoughts from his mind, and he froze.

  The Robin continued one pace, then another, before noticing and halting, feet perched atop the sand. His expression was questioning but his voice remained ever quiet and steady. “What is it?”

  Kyrian squinted at the sky. Scoured the sweat from his vision and squinted again, cursing his right eye and the exhaustion lending shimmers to the landscape before him. “A cloud. Do you see it?”

  The Green gazed into the glaring sky without shading his eyes. “A Silvercloud, yes. To the west.”

  “Do
es its shape change?” Kyrian drew a suffocating breath. “The shape of the cloud, Robin. Does it rend with the wind or remain intact?”

  Another long and agonizing moment of skyward scrutiny. “It does not change.”

  Oh, for all the Skies.

  This was not happening. Surely, it could not be happening. Nearly eight days in the Lands without a sign of pursuit and a Silvercloud appeared now, at this moment, when the Heir of Ariad, Silver fugitive and bearer of the long-coveted Sword of Kings, stood exposed in a coverless wasteland, in broad daylight.

  Kyrian released an incensed growl and ripped a handful of black hair from his scalp.

  “This is an ill fate?” the Robin mused, more an observation than a question.

  Kyrian shook his head, jerking his hood over his face. “It is a scout ship, a vessel of the Silver Guard. It seeks me, I know, but I cannot be seen, Robin. You must believe that I cannot be seen.”

  His ruddy brows creased. “This vessel would be a swifter means of reaching Rosghel, would it not?”

  “Only if its occupants do not kill me first.”

  The hunger-lean creature cocked his head in an oddly bird-reminiscent gesture. “It seems waste to allow such an opportunity to pass. It approaches from the west but moves southeast. It shall miss us and pass over the Seiri Wilds, unless I am mistaken.”

  Kyrian did not tear his eyes from the pale wisp. “What are you proposing?”

  Rydel of Robinsdwel was a creature of few words, and he made no attempt to soften his intent. “I suggest we follow it and seize it for the purpose of the Heir.”

  Kyrian stared skeptically at him. “What of the skyladder? Of our dwindling time?”

  A single-shouldered shrug. “We have the Sword. With a ship you could return to Rosghel before the next sunset. The skyladder may already be beyond our reach.”

  A valid concern, one Kyrian had not allowed himself to consider since Rosghel had begun its race to the west, bearing the skyladder farther from his reach with each dry day. The flocculent Silvercloud listed to starboard, and through the grainy haze of his vision he watched its bow veer southeast, as the Robin had predicted, setting course to miss the sands completely. A bead of sweat traced his temple and he tossed his hood, useless without mist, onto his shoulders, seized by indecision as the Robin’s daring proposal rested heavily in his mind and the skyladder drifted farther, farther from his grasp.

  “The choice is yours,” said the Green, plainly. “Know that I shall guide you upon whatever path you choose.”

  The sun’s shimmering rays lent a stale heat to every breath in his lungs as Kyrian watched the Silver vessel list again, countless leagues away and sailing swiftly in the direction opposite their course. It seemed a gamble, and a monstrous risk, but if he was already too late for the ladder . . .

  When he started forward, toward the south and the distant cloud, the Robin’s eyes glowed with approval, and anticipation lent new vitality to his light, moccasined footfalls as he danced across the curling dunes, guiding Kyrian’s way. He left little print upon the sand, seemed scarcely to sink into its surface; facing a new direction now, he paused only once to survey his route, gazing into the hazy distance as if answers lay in the golden fog that was the extent of Kyrian’s vision.

  “A day’s journey and more, at such a pace,” he remarked. “The forest is far ahead.”

  The Silvercloud seemed to quicken its pace, mocking them from the painful blue sky.

  Praying that fate would deem his choice a wise one, Kyrian turned his back upon hopes of the skyladder, loosened his borrowed collar, and ran for the ship and the Seiri Wilds.

  Twenty-Three

  Kyrian had seen Rydel of Robinsdwel walk a willow bough without bending it. He had seen him ascend the enclave-ladder to Robinsdwel as easily and as swiftly as if he were upon solid ground. He had watched the creature slice a gash in his own palm without flinching, seen him tread a sea of shifting sand without sinking; he had sprinted with him, across the blazing Oenghi wastes, for too many excruciating hours, without once hearing him plead for respite, or gasp for laboured breath.

  It was not until the creature collapsed in the sand, coughing and wheezing, that Kyrian realized he had not seen him drink since Robinsdwel.

  The Naiad flask, half-empty, he pulled from his belt and held out to the hacking harmony of the Robin’s seizing lungs. “Robin,” he beckoned, worrying the flask, “drink.”

  The creature drew a breath, spat sand, shook his head. “No. Spare it. I am fine.”

  “Spare it for whom?” This is no time for selflessness, creature. “I have no use for it. It may as well be yours.”

  “I am fine, Skyad.”

  That familiar title again—in a tone that was not quite hostile, not quite amiable. Kyrian found the strength in reserve for a meaningful roll of his eyes. “Spare me, Robin. You cannot continue this way, denying yourself to your own demise. Who is it you are trying to protect? Robinsdwel? Your people are beyond your sacrifices now.” Green eyes snapped to him. “That is your intent, is it not? You starve yourself, exhaust yourself, take of the least to spare your people the most. I realize you care for them, but—”

  “I know.” The Robin cut him off and passed a filthy hand over his filthy face. “I know it is fruitless now. They are beyond me. I know.”

  Emitting a sigh of exhaustion, Kyrian sank to a seat in the sand and swept the perspiration from his brow with a grainy wrist. The sun was sinking in the west, the horizon painting it tawny against the faded blue of the western Skies. He could feel the rapid pounding of his heart in every bone, every vein of his body, his lungs weary but willing to oblige him when he asked it. “Can you see the forest?”

  After another parched cough, the Robin glanced into the dim distance. “Yes. Within a day’s journey now,” he managed, his voice barely a rasp. “Still too far.”

  “The Silvercloud moves slowly,” Kyrian offered. “Against the wind it has long to travel.”

  The Robin wet his lips with a dry tongue. “It makes no difference. The ship shall pass over the Seiri Wilds long before we may intercept it. We are too late.” His eyes darted briefly to the flask in Kyrian’s hand, lit with a flame of unconcealable longing beneath sand-encrusted lashes. “I was wrong, Skyad. We cannot reach it before nightfall.”

  Kyrian held out the flask, and this time the Green did not refuse, his throat bobbing heavily with each deep, desperate draught as he lifted the waters to his lips and drank. After a time they continued on, walking now, with an air of despondency between them. The Robin’s movements were less effortless, weighed whether by weariness or by guilt for his sour counsel Kyrian did not know; he had not the motivation to relieve him of whatever responsibility he felt for their failure. After a time, when the sun had sunk so low as to paint the sands bloodred, the Green paused to glance back at Kyrian, eyes strangely ochre in the light. He reported a scattering of boulders ahead, he thought a gnome encampment, and suggested resting there until morning lit their way. He said it with irresolution. Hesitant, as if his failed advice had robbed him of all confidence in his savvy. But Kyrian, still trusting his keen eyes, agreed.

  Dusk followed sunfall, sheer sands turned stony beneath their feet; the dunes became marred by boulders or rocky outcroppings too solid and steadfast after hours upon the ever-shifting wastes. The dunes of Oenghi rose from a golden sea into a great pyre of dust and black stone, crowned on its brow by a stand of great boulders, black and smooth and ominous against the paleness of the sky. They ascended the treacherous embankment by the sun’s dying light, struggling against the shifting sand and unsettled stones, conscious of nothing but their own climb and the grating of their breaths.

  The Robin reached the summit first, Kyrian close behind, and for a moment all the world fell away beneath them as they stood silent, breathing and watching, alone upon the brow of Oenghi’s head.

  The great black stones that the Robin had seen stood in silent vigil, deliberately placed, higher than Kyrian’s
head, worn smooth to the touch of his hand. Like ebony sentinels they gazed out from their crown into the endless sea of sand in all directions, dusty grey now with the falling of the sun, but still warm with the blazing daylight that had turned it to liquid gold. Kyrian ran a hand along one stone in vague fascination, surprised by the frigid chill that seeped through his fingers, along with something deeper. An ancient purpose, a long-forgotten oath. Whispers of a time and a covenant long passed that had not released its hold on the watchers of obsidian stone.

  The Robin passed through the midst of the towering stones to stand in the centre of the hilltop, as far from any one of them as he could possibly retreat. He propped one foot upon a rock and drank again from the Naiad flask as Kyrian leaned wearily against one, relishing its dank chill, its solidity.

  “That is the last of it,” the Robin reported, quietly, gazing with regret at the flask in his hand.

  Selfishly grateful for his immunity, Kyrian replied, “Had I more, I would give it to you.”

  He frowned, dropped the flask to the sand, and both had retreated into their own thoughts when suddenly, with a moan, the great boulder heaved to life. The Robin was thrown from his place but was upon his feet in a blink, sand thick in his rusty hair and both knives drawn and gleaming.

  The stone shifted of its own accord. Creaking, expanding, unfolding, until in a shower of dust there stood before them a creature with short, stout limbs, a round frame, and features chiselled from the stone itself. It stood no taller than Kyrian’s waist. Deep-set, earthen eyes gleamed out from a tangle of mossy beard and shone with both interest and surprise.

  “By the Boulders of Namgarr, a Skyad!” it exclaimed, miraculously. “Or something Skyad-like, rather. Not quite there, not quite. Lacking in height, and there is something distinctly peculiar in the features.” With a creaking groan, the little creature sauntered a slow circle about Kyrian, studying him with a squinting, earnest stare. The Robin’s knives lowered. “Skyad garments, I see. Very rare among the Greenfolk. Rare, indeed. But unless I am quite mistaken there is something distinctly un-Skyad in this one. I am not half so sharp as I once was, mind you, not after these last centuries. Very trying upon the memory, very trying.” He returned to his former place and clasped stony hands behind his back, craning to meet Kyrian’s eyes, speaking as if to himself. “A peculiar study, to be sure, but I am quite decided. Not Skyad. Half-blood, I shouldn’t wonder, though I cannot recall the last time I beheld one with my own two eyes. ‘Tis a great honour, indeed.”