The Keeper of the Mist

by Rachel Neumeier

  “We didn’t find anything helpful,” Keri admitted.

  Lord Osman grimaced agreement. “No, neither did we. It’s all more of this gray stone and emptiness. If there are any doors that lead elsewhere—” He opened a hand, meaning they had found nothing of the kind.

  “Well, there must be a way out somewhere,” Keri said.

  Lucas shrugged. “Not necessarily, if you can come and go by magic.”

  A prison without doors. That was not a comfortable idea. Keri thought of Cort, who could open any door. Even he might be baffled if there were no doors anywhere.

  Besides, Cort could open any door in Nimmira, not here. And only if he held the magic he was supposed to. Which he might not by this time, even if they found him.

  She wished he were here anyway. Though that was selfish, when she should have wished he were in Nimmira, and safe.

  “This is pointless,” Brann muttered.

  Everyone looked at him. “I’m sure you’re right,” Tassel told him. “Let’s just stay here and see what happens when Magister Eroniel comes back.”

  Brann turned his face away.

  “What’s most frustrating is,” Tassel added wryly, speaking now to the rest of them, “if I were in Nimmira, I could probably reach out my hand and pick up some old book with a floor plan of the Wyvern King’s citadel as its frontispiece. With tiny writing in a difficult hand saying You Are Here and This Way Out.” She glanced around. “It all looks the same to me, too, I must admit.”

  Keri blinked. She asked, “Tassel…you still have your magic, right? If you had paper, do you think you could draw a floor plan and label it yourself?”

  Tassel stared at her. Then she moved her hand, opening and closing her fingers. She plucked the bone pen out of her hair and looked around vaguely, as though she expected to find a blank-paged book and a bottle of ink for her pen. Then she shrugged and scribbled quickly on the palm of her own hand and down her forearm, and even though her pen should have been dry, it was the Bookkeeper’s pen and she was the Bookkeeper and the ink came as she wrote, very black and distinct on her pale skin.

  Then she stopped, staring down at her hand and arm.

  “Well, your magic hasn’t yet faded, at any rate,” Keri observed. She was the first to step to her friend’s side and peer at what Tassel had written. Lucas put his hands on Keri’s shoulders and looked over the top of her head, and Osman put an arm around Tassel, ostensibly to steady her, though she did not appear to need steadying. Tassel glanced sharply up at him, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  Once she had figured out what Tassel had drawn, Keri found herself impressed by the Bookkeeper’s magic. She had not really expected her friend to be able to do anything of the kind, but Tassel had sketched lines that plainly showed a rather awkward, stretched-out version of the prison, as it would be seen from her angle of view. As soon as Keri had grasped that much, she could see that Tassel had marked a door in the far wall, in a place where no door stood. And beyond that door, she had written, in very small, precise letters, The Doorkeeper of Nimmira.

  The moment she saw those words, Keri realized she had never truly believed they would find Cort, not ever. Not really. She had thought they’d lost him. She’d thought she had lost him. She realized now that Cort mattered to her, not just because he was the Doorkeeper, but because he was Cort. She’d actually known that for some time, inside, where she knew all the truths that were most sure. Now she had found him, but not found him. He was here, but not here, and not safe. None of them were safe, and there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. Rage and terror and hope all tangled inside her, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. For a long moment, she couldn’t think at all. She turned and took a step across the gray room toward the blankness of the far wall, feeling her blood pound in her body. So close. Cort was right there. And she had no idea how to get to him.

  She turned sharply back to Tassel, trying to think past the fear and hope that shook her. “All right, suppose there is a door, only it’s hidden by magic. How can we make it appear?”

  Osman, his arm still around Tassel’s shoulders, frowned. He lifted a hand to touch the earring swinging from his bloody ear. “Illusion must after all be hiding that door from our sight, but I fear it is beyond my small strength to pierce that illusion, even with the aid of my little bauble.”

  “If Cort’s really right there…” Keri looked around, then up at her brother. “Lucas? What about your magic? Your player’s magic has to do with illusion, doesn’t it? Player’s magic is different from other kinds of magic! Maybe if you took Osman’s earring, you could see.” She felt shaky with hope as soon as she thought of this.

  Lucas gave the garnet earring a wary glance. “Keri, my talent in that direction is very small.”

  Keri wanted to shout at him. She made herself count to four twice before she said, calmly, “Not that small, it isn’t. That creepy puppet was as tall as my arm.” She held her hands apart illustratively.

  “Well, yes. But making a puppet get up and move isn’t the same as weaving or breaking illusion. If she were here, my mother—” He stopped. Then he visibly braced himself and turned to Osman. “Naturally, I am willing to try my blood against this illusion, if you’ll permit me.”

  Infused with blood and magic, Osman’s garnet earring seemed to glow even in the twilight-dim room. Even Brann stepped close, glowering suspiciously. Osman lifted a hand and touched it, then quickly took it from his ear and held it out.

  Lucas hesitated.

  Keri, seeing her brother’s nervousness, checked him with a touch on his wrist and said to Osman, “This is safe for Lucas, isn’t it? Is there something about blood sorcery I don’t know?”

  Lucas and Osman both paused, with astonishingly similar bland expressions. Lucas said, just a little too airily, “It’s perfectly safe, I’m sure.”

  Osman glanced at him and then added smoothly, “It is a trifle unpredictable, like everything my grandmother makes. But I think there is scant chance of harm.”

  Tassel straightened her shoulders and said warningly, “Osman…this would not be a good time for any little deceptions.”

  He turned to her at once, spreading his hands. “I promise you, I do not lie. Well,” he conceded at her skeptical look, “of course I am happy to lie when it suits me, but you have never yet been deceived by any lie I have told. Will you allow yourself to be deceived by the truth? This is made of my blood, for use by those of my blood. Yet I know of no harm that will come to the Lady’s honored brother should he allow it to taste his blood. I think it is too small a thing to take more than a mere taste. But, no, I am not certain. Blood sorcery is always unpredictable. But what else should we do?”

  “He’s right. We’ve no choice,” said Lucas.

  “Don’t trust him,” Brann said abruptly. “The Bear’s not our friend.”

  Tassel rolled her eyes and looked at Keri.

  “Look!” Keri turned on her brother, hearing the tightness in her own voice but not able to hide it. She gestured expansively at the surroundings. “Cort’s hidden somewhere here, and even if we find him, we’ll still be trapped, and surely I don’t need to remind you that until we get out of this, we’re all on the same exact side.” She turned to Lucas. “I think you’d better try it. If it doesn’t work, we’re not worse off, and if it goes wrong—” She cut that short and said instead, “I don’t know what else to do if you’re not willing to risk this.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” snapped Brann.

  Lucas paid no attention to his older half brother. He gave Keri an unreadable look, braced himself, and held out his hand, and Osman, unsmiling, tipped the garnet earring into his palm. Brann threw up his hands and shook his head in disgust, but Lucas held the earring up by its wire and gazed at it. “Not so very small a trinket, is it? It feels powerful to me. It feels complicated. Must one wear it properly? My ears are not pierced….”

  “An unfortunate failure of style among your countrymen,” agreed Osman. “I
have no knife, but if you will notice, the wire is both sturdy and sharp. That will furnish the blood required. If you will allow me?”

  Lucas gave him an edged smile. “I think not. No offense, Lord Osman. Keri can do it.”

  Osman lifted an eyebrow, but he said smoothly, “Of course, if you prefer. We admire caution in Tor Carron. Though not so much as we admire boldness.”

  “Indeed, indeed, Lord Osman, I’m sure. But no one admires stupidity.” Lucas turned to Keri, the earring glinting in his palm like a drop of blood.

  Keri hadn’t expected this. She hesitated. “You’re sure you want me to do it? Tassel’s mother pierced her ears when we were little, I remember watching her do it, but I’ve never pierced anybody’s ears myself.”

  “Just be quick, that’s the trick of it,” Tassel advised, coming over to lend moral support as Lucas handed Keri the earring.

  “Oh, because you’re so experienced?”

  “Well, no, but it must be easier that way, don’t you think?”

  Keri supposed this was true. The earring felt warm and alive in her hand, but that might have been just her imagination. She wanted to ask Lucas if he was sure, but since he had plainly barely been willing to do this in the first place, it seemed unwise to now try to talk him out of it. Especially since she could see no other reasonable option. She glanced one more time at Osman, warningly. He gave her an earnest little bow. So then she nodded to her brother, who knelt at her feet and tilted his head. Still, at the last moment, she asked, “Lucas?”

  He smiled. “What’s life without risks? But anything that drinks blood is better in the hands of a friend. So you’ll do well. Yes, go ahead.”

  “Um,” muttered Keri, uneasily flattered that Lucas would consider her a friend. The earring was not large, not quite the size of her thumbnail. Its silver chain was about as long as a finger joint, and appeared delicate, but the wire was good steel. It was indeed stiff and, when she tested it gingerly against the tip of her finger, seemed more than sharp enough.

  “All right,” she said. Holding Lucas’s head with one hand, she ran the wire sharply through the lobe of his left ear. A drop of blood welled up and ran down the silver chain. Then another. The blood touched the garnet and vanished. Lucas didn’t flinch, but he went white and closed his eyes, and his staff, which he had left standing in the air, clattered sharply to the floor.

  Tassel, alarmed, caught his arm from the other side to steady him.

  Keri hovered, wanting to pat her brother’s cheek or maybe shake him, but on the other hand not wanting to do anything that might hurt him. She settled for asking urgently, “Lucas! Are you all right? Osman!”

  Osman the Younger shook his head. “It takes one that way. Well do I recollect it.”

  Lucas blinked, blinked again, shook his head, and opened his eyes. He caught Osman’s wary gaze. “A slightly more specific warning would have been nice.”

  Osman spread his hands in something that might have been an apology. “Anything that awakens to blood is liable to bite. But I think the jewel’s bite may have been fiercer for you than for me. I suspect that your mother may have had powerful blood? Or perhaps we, also, are distant cousins.”

  “My mother is descended from a line of players, not sorcerers,” Lucas snapped, unamused by this suggestion.

  Making a conciliatory gesture, Osman said, “Indeed? Well, who can be quite certain where one kind of magic ends and another begins, eh? But the question is whether you now perceive any new doors in our prison.”

  Lucas touched the garnet cautiously with a fingertip, rubbed his eyes, got to his feet, and gazed at the blank wall across the room. Then he turned back to Keri. “It’s there.”

  The wall still looked blank to Keri. But some of the fear that had been knotting her stomach began to relax. “Truly? You can see it?”

  “I feel quite deprived,” Osman said, glancing from Lucas to the blank wall. “I shall ask my grandmother many close questions regarding her gift, which gives another man vision when I remain blind. Alas, she will only cast aspersions on my skill and dedication.”

  “You think I possess skill and dedication?” Lucas asked. His dry tone did not quite conceal his tension.

  “I think you possess many hidden depths, and far more magic than I expected,” murmured Osman. His voice was faintly mocking, but there was no mockery in his eyes. “But can you pass through the hidden door?”

  Lucas gave an abrupt nod. “Let’s find out.” Turning, he walked away from the little group. He paused for a heartbeat in front of the far wall. Then he stepped forward, and disappeared.

  Keri exchanged a glance with Tassel, and both girls moved toward the wall. Osman shifted as though to follow, then hesitated. Keri touched the wall—so did Tassel, a foot away from her—and they glanced at each other once more. “It’s a wall,” Tassel said, and Keri nodded. It was bitingly cold and utterly smooth and completely impossible to disbelieve in. She ran her hand across its solidity and wondered, a little desperately, whether any of them were ever going to see Lucas again, or whether he, too, would be lost.

  Then he came back. His mouth was tight with effort and he was staggering, but Keri hardly noticed, because he was carrying Cort over his shoulder.

  Cort, stocky and muscled from farmwork, was probably heavier than Lucas himself. It was instantly plain that Lucas had just barely managed to get him up at all and was not going to be able to carry him more than a few steps farther. Keri jumped forward, Tassel with her, and together they lowered Cort to the floor. Keri touched Cort’s cheek. Beneath his farmer’s tan, he was ashen, and his skin felt cold. He didn’t stir awake at her touch, but then he wouldn’t, if being heaved up and bundled around by Lucas hadn’t woken him.

  Crouching at Cort’s other side, Osman touched his throat. He eased open one of Cort’s eyes and then the other, inspecting the pupils. “It could be a philter,” he told Keri. “Or it might be sorcery, or it could be a blow on the head, but I think not—there’s no sign of injury, and his pupils are the same size. His heartbeat seems strong enough, though slow.”

  Keri nodded, then nodded again, then made herself stop and tried to think. “If it’s sorcery, can you wake him? Lucas, can you?”

  “If I could have woken him, I’d hardly have hauled him around like a barrel of ale,” Lucas told her with some bitterness. “I think I strained my back. And my shoulder. And my neck. Every muscle I own, in fact. Your Bookkeeper would be a good deal easier to rescue. Please keep that in mind next time!”

  But there was something under Lucas’s foolery. Keri thought it sounded like fear. She hesitated, her hand resting on Cort’s cold face, and lifted her gaze to meet her brother’s eyes.

  Lucas told her reluctantly, in a very different tone, “Keri, I think it’s sorcery binding him asleep. That’s a room meant for sorcery if ever I dreamed of one, and Cort laid out in it like…I don’t know. There were black jewels on the palms of his hands and on his eyelids. Candles were burning at the corners of the…table, platform, whatever. But the fire was black and cold and burned with a cold mist rather than smoke. And…look here.” Reaching out, he tipped Cort’s head to the side.

  Keri saw for the first time that Cort’s left ear was now pierced: five tiny black crystals traced its curve. Without thinking, Keri touched them, and found that they burned her fingertips with a violent cold. She snatched her hand back, shaking her fingers, and stared at Lucas.

  “I know,” he told her. “I mean, I don’t know. I have no idea. This is…this is real sorcery, the real thing, not player’s tricks nor anybody’s half-remembered magic. I have no idea, and that’s the truth.”

  “Take them out,” Brann said sharply. Everyone turned to stare at him, and he glared back at them all defiantly. “Take them out,” he repeated. “Jewels and crystals are never meaningless in Eschalion. Five earrings means something big, something powerful. For Cort, they can’t mean high birth or great power, but they mean something—and nothing good for him or for us.” He
met Keri’s eyes. “Take them out, Keri.”

  Keri thought this was the very first time her oldest brother had ever called her by name. Without a word, she began to remove the crystals from Cort’s ear, handling them gingerly and shaking the sting out of her fingers every time she dropped one on the floor. Lucas drew a breath as though he might say something, but then he shook his head and was silent. Osman touched one of the discarded crystals cautiously, but hissed between his teeth and jerked his hand back sharply. He took out a square of cloth and gathered them up in that, careful not to touch them.

  Keri found she was whispering vehement curses under her breath, words that would have shocked her mother, but she didn’t stop. If ever there was a time for cursing, this was surely it.

  She took the last of the earrings out with fingers that trembled and gave it to Osman. Then she touched Cort’s cheek again. She wanted him to wake…she thought he would wake…she told herself he would wake…but he did not. He only lay bonelessly still, his breathing shallow and quick, his heartbeat steady and slow, his skin pale and cold….Keri couldn’t bear it, and stood up and turned her back. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and stared blindly across the empty, somber room. The shadows lay more deeply in the corners and doorways, for the daylight that came through the high windows was failing. She could hear the endless waves running against the cliffs below, and her own breathing. She was cold. She felt she would never be warm again.

  “Keri—” Tassel began, but then she stopped, stood up, put her arms around Keri, and drew her into a tight embrace.

  Keri didn’t cry. She wanted to, but she didn’t. She wouldn’t. Pulling away from the other girl, she said furiously, “We have to do something!” And she turned and glowered at them all where they knelt around Cort, but even then she didn’t cry. Everyone stared back at her. They were waiting for her to think of something, Keri realized. She felt helpless, and tired, and cold, and she had no ideas at all. And poor Cort did not look like he would ever wake again.