“Unlucky indeed, I imagine. We have one at Highfast — a woman from Dyrkyrnon — who knows Aeglyss of old, from when he was young. She has nothing good to say of him. She is certain that he is the source of the disturbances that now torment all waking na’kyrim. I gather Yvane here shares that certainty. But the real question is how did this happen? What does it signify?”
Bannain looked from Orisian to Yvane, his eyebrows raised like a tale-teller teasing his audience.
“Don’t overdo it,” growled Yvane. “Orisian is as much a Thane as Lheanor is, don’t forget.”
Bannain gave no sign of being abashed by the scolding.
“The Council at Highfast has given much thought to these matters,” he continued, now setting his elbows on the arms of the chair and making a tent of his fingers. “This is as close to understanding as they have come: on that night, the night none of us — none amongst the waking — is likely to forget, something happened to this Aeglyss. Something that broke the barriers between his mind and the Shared.
“Precisely what it was hardly matters. The nub of things is this: Aeglyss has become something… new. Or very old, depending on how you look at it. There’s been no na’kyrim who could cast such a long shadow in hundreds of years. The Shared has poured into him — and a little of him has leaked back into the Shared. He may be capable of remarkable things now.
“And thus the essence of the message Cerys had me bring to Lheanor: be careful. Be cautious. However things may seem to be now, it is the judgement of Highfast that the armies of the Black Road are not the most dangerous thing in the Glas valley.”
Orisian stared at the young na’kyrim. “That much we already suspected.”
“There’s a little more,” Yvane said, and looked pointedly at Bannain.
“A little, yes,” he agreed. “Harder, though, to read its significance. There is a man at Highfast we call the Dreamer. He sleeps and speaks, now and again, of the currents flowing in the deepest Shared. Little of what he has said makes any sense, but some of it, some of it is very dark. It seems that the changes in the Shared have caught the attention of those best left undisturbed. The Dreamer whispers that the Anain are stirring.”
“Well, that…” Orisian shut his mouth. He had no idea what he could sensibly say in response. The Anain — the race unlike any other, implacable, unknowable — were as far beyond his experience as anything could possibly be. To him, they were little more than creatures out of strange, usually fearful, stories; hardly more real than the wolfenkind who had disappeared from the world over a thousand years ago. He knew, having seen it with his own eyes and heard of it from Ess’yr, that they were more than that to the Kyrinin, but the knowledge had done nothing to blunt his own ignorance.
“The Anain have not roused themselves in a long time,” Yvane murmured. “Not since they raised the Deep Rove, in fact: better than three centuries. All that time, they’ve taken no interest in what’s happening. If they’ve shaken off their indifference now, there will be trouble.”
Orisian raised his hands in exasperated helplessness.
“Not trouble I can do anything about, though.” He looked questioningly first at Yvane and then at Bannain. “Aeglyss, the Shared: these things are far enough beyond my grasp already. But the Anain?”
“Beyond the grasp of any of us,” conceded Bannain.
“But you do understand things that others might not,” said Yvane, that blunt insistence Orisian knew so well creeping into her voice. “Your mind is a little less closed against all of this than most. You had Inurian at your side for all those years. You were there — you saw what happened — when I reached out to Aeglyss. This… this is moving beyond the understanding of… Huanin memories are too short. You all think you remember the likes of Minon or Orlane Kingbinder, but it’s been centuries. You’ve all grown too used to knowing only na’kyrim like me and Bannain, with our silly, secret little talents. And the Anain: a hundred thousand swords would not suffice if they chose to wake from their slumber.”
“I see that,” said Orisian. “I do.” And he did, at least in part. All those hours he had spent with Inurian, all his fascination for the Kyrinin, the days he had spent in a Fox vo’an and the anhyne he had seen there: these things told him that there was more to the world than the machinations of Thanes, strengths other than those that resided in swords and spears.
“Lheanor said the same thing,” Bannain said. “He listened to what I had to tell him, and nodded, and said that he understood.” The na’kyrim smiled ruefully and let his head tip to one side. “But he didn’t really. He can’t truly see how furious the coming storm might be. How could he? How could anyone but we na’kyrim? Aeglyss is becoming a fever in the Shared. And the Shared is… it is the thought of which we are all the expression. Huanin, Kyrinin, na’kyrim: all of us.”
“Come to Highfast,” Yvane said abruptly to Orisian. “Hammarn and I will be leaving tomorrow with Bannain. Come and talk to the people there.” She glanced at Bannain. “The Council of Highfast is not famous for stirring itself in aid of others, but they might. They might, if they believed you worthy of that aid.”
Orisian looked at her, and as he met her sharp, grey eyes he could have been looking into the face of Inurian: Inurian, who in the last few years had been the one person he had always felt he could trust and be certain of. Though Yvane was far less gentle and caring than Inurian had been, and Orisian had known her for only a matter of weeks, he did trust her. She made a great show of her indifference to the concerns of everyone else, but there were signs, now and again, that that was more out of choice and habit than nature.
“I’m going to Kolglas,” Orisian murmured. Highfast: a secret place, where Inurian had lived before he came to Kolglas. A year ago, he would have leaped at the chance to visit such a mysterious place, to make that kind of contact with Inurian’s history. Now, nothing was so simple.
“There’s one more thing you should know before you decide,” Yvane said. She nodded to Bannain. He leaned forwards a little.
“A surprise to me. I thought nothing of it, until talking with Yvane today. This woman — Eshenna — at Highfast, who knew Aeglyss all those years ago. She has mentioned someone else, also from Dyrkyrnon; has told the Council that there is some… some bond between Aeglyss and a woman named K’rina.”
Orisian recognised the name instantly. It was the name that Yvane had teased out of the Shared, when she had struggled with Aeglyss.
“I don’t know whether it has any significance, but Eshenna, just the day before I left Highfast, was claiming that this woman K’rina was… moving. And rumours have reached us — faint, unreliable little rumours — that there are White Owl bands on the move too, in the western reaches of Anlane,” said Bannain.
Orisian looked to Yvane. She shrugged and raised her eyebrows.
“I don’t know. I’ve dug up as many answers as I can. Something’s happening. What, I can’t say. Perhaps Highfast can tell us.”
“Is there a road from Highfast to Kolglas?” Orisian asked Bannain.
Bannain pursed his lips. “To call it a road might be to elevate it beyond its true worth,” he said. “But there’s a track — a good one — to Hent, and thence to the coast road at Hommen.”
Orisian nodded. He wondered briefly, as he had done more than once in the last few days, what Croesan or Naradin, Kennet or Fariel would do. Any of those who should have been Thane before him, but for the blind savagery of chance and misfortune. Inurian would have chided him for letting such distractions intrude, he knew. Anyara might too, if she could see what thoughts murmured inside his head. And they were right enough. For good or ill, the decisions were his to make. Nothing, and no one, could relieve him of that.
The air inside the warehouse was laden with aromas: spice and fur, oil and timber all ran together to make the darkness heavy with strangeness. The roof timbers creaked in the night wind. Somewhere up there, in the shadowed intricacies of the beams and planking, there was the chatter of
rats’ claws.
Ammen Sharp cupped his hand around the tiny flame of a candle. The two men on watch outside had warned him not to make any light in here, fearful of a fire that could consume the whole building, but it was too dark and unfamiliar a place for him without it. He crept amongst the great towers of boxes and bundles, exploring the unearthly landscape of this treasure house. There were clay jars almost as tall as he was, their stoppers sealed with wax; crates stood one on top of another like cliffs; long rolls of fabric were piled up as if the trees of some soft forest had been harvested; strange powders and dusts covered the floor, releasing bursts of scent when his feet disturbed them.
For all his nervousness, Ammen found it exciting. Here, it seemed to him, was all the world, all its most distant and marvellous lands, collected together in this great stone ship of a building. Hidden away in here might be pots of carmine Nar Vay dyes, cloths from far-off Adravane, whale oils from the wave-lashed Bone Isles.
He clambered up over a mound of what he guessed were seal pelts, and onto a stack of crates. He squeezed into a space between two of them. He felt more secure now that he had a corner to call his own, hidden from view, and blew out the candle. He listened to the rats running, the faint knocking of anchored boats outside at the quay, the rattle of a loose shingle somewhere in the roof far above. He rested against one of the crates and imagined what it would be like on the road with his father, and in Skeil Anchor. People would know Ochan the Cook, he was sure. In the roadside inns and the fishing villages they would know Ochan, and they would see Ammen at his side and soon know him too.
A scraping sound disturbed his reverie. He shifted onto his knees and peered out over the bare expanse of stone floor towards the front of the warehouse. The little door by which the guards outside had let him in earlier was open once more, admitting a shaft of light from their lanterns. A thickset figure with a staff and a huge bag slung over his shoulders was stepping in. It was his father.
“Ammen,” hissed Ochan. “Ammen Sharp. Where are you, boy?”
“Here,” Ammen called, rising up and waving even though he was unsure whether his father would be able to see him.
“Quiet!” Ochan snapped. “Keep your voice down, you idiot.”
The door closed behind him, and the warehouse’s secretive gloom was restored. Ammen heard his father curse, and there was a thump as he dropped his bag to the ground.
“I can’t see a thing in here,” Ochan the Cook complained. “Have you got no light, boy?”
“They told me not to, but yes, I’ve got candles. I’ll light one.” He ducked down again, scrabbling about in search of the candle he had put out earlier. A splinter stabbed into one of his fingers and he gave a soft yelp.
“Oh, don’t bother,” Ochan muttered down below. “I’ll get a lantern from the watchmen.”
There was shouting then, and a sudden clatter of running feet.
Ammen sprang to his feet, but his father snapped, “Stay down, boy,” and he did as he was told.
He heard the door smash open once more, saw sudden bursts of torchlight rushing across the walls, careening through the roof beams, as men came in out of the night.
“What do you want here, you little…” he heard Ochan rasping.
“Hold your tongue,” came Urik’s sharp, agitated voice.
Ammen Sharp could not resist the temptation to poke his head around the edge of his sheltering crate. To his horror, he saw his father facing half a dozen men, the squat shape of Urik the Wardcaptain to the fore. They all carried the iron-banded cudgels of the Guard; three of them held torches, the flames stretching out and crackling in the wind from the open door. Wild shadows spun crazily around the warehouse.
“I’ll hold your tongue for you, if you come any closer,” Ochan said, and Ammen clearly heard the danger, the threat in the words.
“Be still,” cried Urik, raising his cudgel.
He sounded almost frantic to Ammen, on the verge of panic. This could not be what the Wardcaptain had wanted. He was surely too afraid of his own corruption being exposed to willingly allow Ochan to be cornered like this. Something must have gone wrong, Ammen thought as a cold, fearful anticipation ran through him.
“You’ve been followed half the day, Ochan Lyre,” Urik was saying. “Don’t think you can escape now.”
“Escape? Escape?” Ochan’s voice was rising, his anger with it. “And do they know about you, these thugs you’ve brought with you? Do they know-”
Urik howled and rushed forwards. Ochan was fast, though. He snapped the tip of his quarterstaff down and landed it square on Urik’s forehead, sending the stocky little man staggering. Had it only been the two of them there in the warehouse, there would have been no doubt about the victor. But Urik was not alone. The other Guardsmen closed in on Ochan at once, cudgels flailing.
A cry lodged frozen in Ammen’s throat as he watched the blows rain down. He wanted to leap out of his hiding place and fly to his father’s aid, but his legs were locked as if his knees had rusted in place.
Ochan had gone down on his hands and knees. Urik stamped up to him, blood running in rivulets down his face.
“You bled me!” the Wardcaptain screeched. “You bled me!”
He hit Ochan once, hard, on the back of his head with his heavy iron-clad club. Ammen saw his father fall to the ground and knew in that instant, from the leaden slackness of his limbs, the wet limpness with which his head smacked onto the stone, that Ochan the Cook was dead.
The other Guardsmen restrained Urik, who was still shouting furiously. Ammen shrank back, trembling, into his little dark corner. He closed his eyes, held his hands to his face, pressing down on his mouth and the moans that were rising towards it. Lights were dancing inside his eyelids.
“Drag the body out,” he heard someone say far, far away. “We’ll get a wagon to take it.”
And then, soon, they were gone and the door had closed behind them. And Ammen Sharp was alone with the dark, and his horror.
VII
“Aewult will not be happy when Taim marches,” Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig was saying softly. The Thane seldom spoke loudly these days. He sat in a capacious high-backed chair. He did not fill it as Orisian guessed he might once have done. Lheanor was hunched forwards a little, hands laid across one another in his lap, shoulders pinched in.
“No,” Orisian acknowledged. “He might not. I don’t want to cause trouble for you, but I may leave some behind me.”
Lheanor’s right hand stirred, the fingers fluttering as if to dismiss such a minor concern.
“A little more trouble will make no difference when there’s so much of it already in the air. We’ve been told no Kilkry spears will be needed in the coming battles either, you know. Aewult wants our men scattered, sent home, even the ones Roaric brought back from the south. My son’s… unhappy.
“And to bind the wound with salted bandages, I am requested — requested, mark you — to help in defraying the costs of this war, and that against Igryn. It’s not the Chancellor himself who asks, of course. One of his scribblers, his counters, comes quietly and does the asking for him.” Lheanor shook his head. “They’ll not come knocking on the door of your treasury yet, Orisian. Not until you’re back in Anduran. But knock they will, and stretch their greedy hands out.”
“You’ll give them what they want?” Orisian asked.
“Oh, yes. I bent the knee to the Haig Blood, as has every Thane of my line since Cannoch. And what’s the value of an oath if we set it aside when the fulfilment of it becomes onerous, painful? The only other choice would, sooner or later, be war with Haig, and with Ayth and Taral. That way lies chaos: the very thing the Bloods were made to end. Anyway, it’s not a war we could win.”
The Kilkry Thane leaned sideways in his throne, looking past Orisian to the ranks of his shieldmen arrayed along the far wall. Rothe was there too, standing tall and alert despite his still-bandaged arm.
“Let us walk in the gardens,” Lheanor said as he rose, hea
vily, from his chair. “I find it does not help my mood to sit still for too long.”
They went out into the chill air. Their guards followed behind, out of earshot but close. Orisian thought Lheanor would be cold, but the old man gave no sign of discomfort, as if the state of the world around him could no longer impinge on his thoughts. They set out along one of the garden’s broad paths, curving away around the side of the hillock that supported the Tower.
“You’re going to Highfast, then?” Lheanor said.
“Yes. I’ve seen — and heard — enough to make me think… I’m not sure. Perhaps armies are not the only kind of strength we need in this. But I’ll stay there only briefly. I mean to meet Taim Narran at Kolglas. I’m told there’s a good path from Highfast across the Peaks to Hent and then down to the coast.”
“Good? I don’t know. Passable, yes, if you don’t wait too long, and if you’ve no wagons to haul. The Karkyre Peaks can be nasty in the winter.” Lheanor flicked a glance at the sky. “Not quite yet, though, I suppose.”
“What did you make of the word Bannain brought from Highfast? About Aeglyss, the Shared?” Orisian felt like a charlatan, pretending to discuss weighty matters with the Thane of a True Blood. He wondered if he would ever feel as though he belonged at the side of such a man.
Lheanor shrugged. “I worry about grain harvests, about tithes, about the Shadowhand’s games. The worries of na’kyrim… well, some problems are best left to others. How can the likes of you and I oppose things that cannot be met with a blade, or an emissary, or cold coin? Don’t mistake me, though: Cerys and her people at Highfast, they’re a precious thing. Giving that place to the na’kyrim was not the least of Kulkain’s wise deeds, not by a long way.”
“Have you said anything about it — Bannain’s message — to Aewult?”
“Ha! You really think the great warriors of Haig would care what a few na’kyrim think? Aewult would not listen to any counsel drawn from such a well. It would only feed his contempt for us, to learn that we gave it any credence ourselves. We have a few slender threads of tolerance left for the children of two races, your Blood and mine. But Haig? No. Even if they believed it… oh, there are old hatreds that could easily be stirred back into life. If people start to think there are na’kyrim mixed up in this war, how safe do you suppose any of them, anywhere, would be?”
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