by Alec Hutson
Vhelan jumped as Telion slapped his shoulder with a huge hand. “Don’t worry, Lyrishman,” the big man said jovially. “There’ll be fighting soon enough. But it’ll be better if they come to us.”
Keilan awoke with an aching head, the memory of his unsettling dreams washed away by the morning light. He lay curled on a woolen blanket beside the hearth, and though the fire had died during the night, someone had thrown open the window’s shutters to welcome the unseasonably warm day. In another room he heard the clatter of pots and the sound of something being chopped as a woman sang in a language he didn’t know. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was a child again, his mother preparing breakfast while his father snored away the day.
But the snoring he heard now wasn’t his father’s. Keilan shifted so he could look upon Senacus. The paladin seemed much the same as he had last night, though perhaps there was a bit more color in his pallid cheeks. A blanket covered him, and Keilan was tempted to pull it away and see how his wounds were faring, but he didn’t want to disturb the Pure if he was sleeping well.
Keilan sat up, arching his spine to try and banish the stiffness that had settled in his lower back. Nel was right – he had gotten used to the soft beds of the Scholia. The accommodation at the pirate lord Chalissian’s manse had been even more luxurious, and the guest quarters on his grandmother’s island had been comfortable enough. He was no longer used to sleeping on the floor.
The other two pallets near the fire were empty – Marialle’s boys had bedded down in them, but like every farm, there were chores to be done before the sun had risen. Senacus’s unsheathed sword and Keilan’s own jeweled blade were leaning against the wall, and piled nearby were the travel packs that the Lady Numil had given them so long ago.
Keilan blinked, coldness settling in his stomach. His pack was untied and open, clothes and various sundries strewn about.
The dagger.
Keilan scrambled to his feet and rushed over, dreading what he’d find. To his relief, he saw the carved rosewood box nestled at the bottom of his pack. Tamping down his apprehension he unlatched the lid and flipped it open.
There it was. A gleaming blade of dark crystal, similar to obsidian but more opaque, with blacker strands threading the strange material. Crimson Shan characters were carved down its curving length. Its hilt was unadorned silver, though its pommel was wrapped by lines of more spidery Shan symbols that seemed to squirm as he stared at them. Now that the box was open he could feel the sorcery coiling within the dagger like a serpent preparing to strike, and he hurriedly shut the lid again. The container somehow muted the dagger’s sorcerous emanations, which would explain why Alyanna had not yet noticed what he carried.
Then who had rummaged through his pack? And why? Nothing seemed to be missing. Even his coin pouch with the little money he had left after giving most to his father was still there.
Shuffling steps made him look up. The younger of the two boys had entered the room carrying an armful of lotus roots. He put his head down and tried to walk quickly through to the kitchen where his mother was still singing and chopping, but Keilan stopped him with a word.
“You,” Keilan said, and the boy froze. A lotus root squirmed from his arms and fell to the floor, and the boy’s face colored like he had been caught doing something embarrassing.
“Did you look in my bag?” Keilan asked as the boy crouched to scoop up the wayward vegetable.
“No . . . my lord,” the boy said haltingly as he stood again.
“You know who did?”
A moment’s hesitation, then the boy nodded once. “Yessir.”
“And?”
“Was your servant, sir. With the dark skin. She took something an’ went outside.” The boy paused, swallowing. “She’s talkin’ to herself in the orchard. I seen her.”
Talking to herself?
“Please, my lord, I have to give these to my ma. She needs ‘em.”
Keilan waved the boy away, lost in his thoughts. Who was Alyanna talking to?
The orchard. He stumbled to the door and slipped out into the morning. There was a bit more bite to the air, but still it felt like an early spring was coming. He looked around, blinking, shielding his eyes from the bright sun.
There. Alyanna was at the edge of the orchard, on her knees, facing away from the farmhouse. She was hunched over something on the ground, and the boy had been right – Keilan heard her voice rising and falling, like she was carrying on a conversation. Confused, he peered among the trees, searching for who could be out there.
He crept closer, hoping to catch her unawares, but Alyanna jerked her head around before he’d gotten within a dozen paces. Her lips were pursed, her eyes narrowed.
“Keilan,” she said, and there was a surprising edge to her voice.
“Alyanna,” he replied, stepping closer and trying to see what was set on the withered grass in front of her.
Surprise shivered him. It was the doll Sella had found on Niara’s island, a lump of cloth with straw for hair and a mouth of stitches. Black buttons stared sightlessly at Alyanna and the lattice of branches beyond her. What was it doing here? Sella must have slipped it into his pack before she’d returned home – she had mentioned something about how the doll had likely belonged to his mother, and that he should keep it as a reminder of her. Then another thought came to him with a tingling chill: Sella had said the doll had spoken to her. Could it have somehow moved itself into his pack on its own? But that was impossible.
“You’ve been busy,” Alyanna said, holding his gaze meaningfully.
“What?”
Alyanna’s head snapped back to the doll on the ground. “I know who that is!” she said in exasperation.
Keilan took an uncertain step backwards. What madness was this?
Alyanna scooped up the cloth doll and shook it at him. “The babbling. How can you stand it? Whatever passed for a mind in this thing must have shattered into a thousand pieces.”
Keilan swallowed, his eyes flicking from the doll’s crudely stitched face to Alyanna and back again. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly.
Alyanna blinked, her brow furrowing. “You can’t hear it?”
His wide eyes must have been answer enough, as her expression became more thoughtful. “Interesting. I wonder if that is because you haven’t developed your Talent fully yet. Or perhaps Niara put some enchantment on the soul so that it couldn’t bother her, and you also are unable to hear it because you share her blood. I’ve been listening to its cries ever since we fled Theris, though it took me a while to realize where the noise was coming from.” Alyanna raised the doll to her face, peering into its button eyes. “The Silver Sorceress,” she mused, and he sensed she was speaking to herself now. “In hiding for a thousand years, and now dead by the hand of her own grandson.” She looked at him again with a slight smile. “This is why I never had children.”
“It was an accident,” Keilan whispered, staring at the doll fearfully. Sella has been right all along – there was a spirit inhabiting this little piece of cloth and straw. If that was true, then the rest of the story Sella had told him must also be true.
“What else is it saying?” he asked.
Alyanna shrugged. “Nonsense, mostly. Sanity is hard to maintain for a soul after being ripped from its flesh. And I suspect with Niara’s death whatever sorcery she used here has started to deteriorate, hastening the descent into madness.”
“So this . . . spirit was once a woman?”
Alyanna gave him a queer look. “I thought you understood. The spirit said she explained it to your friend.” She brushed the doll’s hair back in mock tenderness. “This was once your aunt.”
“My aunt?” Keilan cried, aghast.
“I suppose in the end it was Niara’s desire for solitude that resulted in this. After we performed our great sorcery beneath the mountain – and
it was difficult to convince her to join that, let me tell you – she vanished. I searched for her for a while, but eventually gave up. I assumed she’d run afoul of one of Ama’s faithful, or delved too deeply into dangerous sorceries. Now I have learned she retreated to a private sanctuary so that she could perform experiments even more ambitious than my own.” Keilan heard what he thought was grudging admiration in Alyanna’s voice. “But such work required more sorcery than any single Talent could draw from the Void. And so Niara tried to make her own Talents.” She shook her head, as if awed by the audacity. “Many children over many years, all in the hope that one of her blood would be born with the same depth of Talent as herself. And in the end, it was the daughter who got away that gave birth to the one she was looking for.” Alyanna paused, and her next words were delivered like she was explaining something to a simpleton. “That would be you, Keilan.”
His head was whirling as he struggled to make sense of what Alyanna was saying. “How did the spirit of my aunt end up in the doll?”
Alyanna’s brow furrowed. “Its constant babbling is confusing. From what I can piece together, Niara did not want her daughters – and her children were always daughters – to grow old and die. The idea of caring for her babies until they were crones, and then having to watch them slip away into the dark – all while she remained forever young – must have horrified her.” Alyanna stared at something he couldn’t see, her voice growing distant. “The idea terrifies me as well, in truth.” She shook herself, returning her attention to the doll. “So before they grew too old, she destroyed their mortal bodies and bound their souls to these dolls.” Alyanna thrust the limp doll towards Keilan. “This one is the reason you exist. Somehow, she learned how to speak with the living. She claims she was the one who told your mother what would happen to her, how her own mother would sacrifice her flesh and blood and bind her forever to cloth and straw. It was why your mother fled Niara’s island.”
Keilan accepted the doll from Alyanna, turning it over. There was nothing to suggest a soul was trapped inside, struggling to be heard. Was there a room somewhere back on his grandmother’s island filled with dolls like this, each with a soul inside like a weakly guttering flame? How could they stave off madness? Trapped and alone forever, slowly edging towards oblivion. The thought made him shiver.
“What should we do with it?” Keilan asked, tracing with his fingertip the jagged stitching of its mouth. “No, not it. Her.”
Alyanna held out her hand to take back the doll. “I will wring what knowledge I can from this thing. Niara was a brilliant sorceress, in many ways my equal. If what the doll says is true, her ambitions may actually have outstripped my own.”
“Will you make her suffer?”
“She’s already suffering. Her mind is slipping away while she’s trapped in the body of a doll. But perhaps she can still be of some use.”
“Some use,” Keilan said quietly. He reached down into himself, grasping his sorcery and twisting it into one of the few spells Niara had taught him.
“No!” Alyanna cried as blue flames erupted from his hand, enveloping the doll. “What are you doing?” she hissed angrily as the cloth and straw blackened and turned to ash.
“She was my aunt,” Keilan said, steeling himself in case Alyanna tried to use her own sorcery to dampen the flames. But the sorceress just watched him with her jaw clenched. “And she deserves to be at peace.”
“Fool,” Alyanna said, but she sounded more tired than angry. She stared at the doll until it was utterly consumed, her mouth set in a thin line. “Sentimentality is a weakness, Keilan, one you must learn to transcend. There may be hard choices coming. Will you be able to sacrifice that girl inside the house if it is necessary to stop the Chosen?”
Keilan released his sorcery and the blue flames vanished. All that remained of the doll was a few twisted black scraps. “I would find a way without giving her up.”
“There is not always that choice,” Alyanna said fiercely. “You must be prepared to do anything. The creatures we are trying to stop . . . they are not encumbered by any morality. Their only desire is to end the rest of us. To make the world suffer for what was done to them.”
“And what was that?”
Alyanna frowned. “I don’t know, exactly. But I have my suspicions. I believe they were human children once, and sorcerers corrupted their bodies and spirits, twisting them into monsters. And now only one passion animates what remains: vengeance.”
“How are we going to stop them? Where are you taking us?”
Alyanna looked to the north, tucking a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. She was disconcertingly beautiful, Keilan thought. How could someone who looked so young and innocent harbor such an ancient and vicious soul?
“We are going to the Crimson Queen. She is marching into the Frostlands with her army to confront the Chosen.”
“The Chosen? You said that before. You mean the Shan child-demons? I have heard them called the Betrayers.”
Alyanna snorted. “It seems they have a more generous understanding of their own nature.”
“And wait,” Keilan said, confused. “I thought the queen was your enemy?”
Alyanna shot him an annoyed glance. “She was. But there is a greater threat now. We have . . . settled our differences, or at least set them aside. I contacted her to warn her about the dangers posed by the Chosen, but she was already aware. She said the bard, Jan, was captured by them. If we can free him, the strength of four Talents should be enough to overcome the Chosen and their allies.”
“We are going to the queen,” Keilan said slowly. It seemed that they would not need to steal Alyanna’s flying disc after all.
“Yes. But we cannot dally here for too long. We must leave the paladin – he will not recover in time. And every hour we delay makes it more likely we will arrive too late to help Cein d’Kara in the Frostlands when she will need it most.”
The Frostlands. The very name sent a thrill through him. It had been a mythical, far-off place when he was a boy listening to tales at his mother’s knee, a once-glorious realm of warriors and wizards and dragons, now forever locked in ice and sorcery. Preserved like bones in rock, dead but not decaying.
Keilan rubbed his palms together, trying to brush away the last black fragments of the doll. He jumped as Alyanna’s hand flashed out and grabbed his wrist, turning his arm over.
“What is that?” she asked, her brow creasing.
Keilan’s heart fell when he saw that the veins near his wrist had once more become black and inflamed. He had been feeling better since the episode in Chale, and he’d hoped he was finally recovering from this affliction.
“I have an infection,” Keilan said. He tried to pull his hand away, but Alyanna held tight, her slim fingers tracing the distended black lines, lingering on the faint red mark where Niara had cut him with the dagger.
She shook her head.
“An infection? No. This is not natural. I feel traces of sorcery . . . and something familiar. Where did you get this cut?”
The look on her face was making Keilan worried.
“On the island. My grandmother’s island.”
Alyanna’s concern turned to confusion. “This is Niara’s sorcery? But that doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen veins like this before, under the corpse-flesh of the Chosen. And their taint is here, though subtle. You must have been exposed to them.” She tilted her head to the side, her face thoughtful. “Saltstone? You were there the night of the attack, as were the Chosen. You did not come into contact with them at that time?”
“I . . . I don’t think so.”
She sighed, her frustration plain. “The doll told me in its ramblings that you killed Niara. Was she allied with the Chosen? Were they on the island as well? Why did you seek her out?”
Keilan swallowed, flustered under the barrage of questions. Should he tell the sorceress ev
erything? He knew from his time in Jan’s mind that Alyanna was consumed with her own selfish ambitions, and was capable of great evil . . . but they were united now by a common purpose. He flicked his eyes towards the farmhouse. Nel had told him to keep the dagger secret, yet Alyanna might be the only one who knew how it could be used against the demons.
He made his decision. Taking a deep breath, he told the sorceress what had happened since the attack on Saltstone: their pursuit of Senacus south to Lyr, the summons by the Oracle, the vision of what might happen if the Chosen were not stopped. Alyanna’s face was impassive, though a flicker of consternation passed across her face when he spoke about the vision he’d had: the black temple in the ruins of the Selthari Palace formed of twisted corpses, and the arrival of Niara to challenge the demon children.
“So after the end of the world, the Silver Sorceress finally emerges,” she said with a trace of bitterness, shaking her head. “Of course. That would be very much like Niara.”
“They had sent one of their number to kill her. She was carrying its head when she arrived, and threw it in the grass at their feet.” With a shiver, Keilan remembered the mouth of the Chosen opening and closing like a fish taken from the water.
“They feared her,” Alyanna mused. “But why?”
“She had a weapon. A dagger that could hurt them. Niara claimed it could even destroy the demons. This was what cut me, on her island.”
Alyanna leaned closer, interested. “Why was this dagger special?”
“My grandmother said that centuries ago a warlock of Shan had sought her out. He wanted to banish the Betrayers forever, but there was no one in the Empire of Swords and Flowers who could perform the sorcery necessary to craft this dagger. They had blood and hair from one of these children, taken long ago.”
“Yet in the end they did not use the dagger to destroy them.”
