The Keeper of the Mist

by Rachel Neumeier

  Magister Eroniel turned to glare at her, and she knew he was furious that Nimmira’s magic should dare try to get away from him. He took a step toward her, but both Tassel and Osman stepped in front of her. Keri ducked, trying to see around them, and then a great golden heat rolled through the room and all shadows fled.

  Even now, Aranaon Mirtaelior did not so much as glance at Eroniel, but the golden wyvern spread its wings and hissed. Eroniel backed away, seemingly involuntarily. Then, though the golden wyvern hissed a second time, Eroniel stopped and straightened his shoulders and stepped forward once more, again summoning his coldly glimmering magic. The air and the very light between the two sorcerers seemed to crack and shatter, shards of light breaking like sheets of glass. Keri pulled Cort hastily back, trying to think of something useful to do.

  “It would be nice to slip cleverly away at this point,” Lucas murmured in her ear.

  Keri shook her head and whispered back, “We have to free Nimmira’s magic! Look, you can see it’s trying to get away from Eroniel!”

  “Yes, well, perhaps I should have asked this earlier, but how are we going to do that?”

  But Keri did not know. She glared furiously at Magister Eroniel and tried to think of something.

  Then Eroniel moved forward, one step and another, toward the Wyvern King. The King lifted one hand, palm out, in a languid gesture, and the air flashed and burned between them. The little golden wyvern crouched and batted its wings and screamed, a thin sound like a knife blade, and the black one leaped into the air and flew at Magister Eroniel’s face. But Eroniel flung up his other hand, and the air rang like a bell, and the little black wyvern sheered off sharply and fled across the room. It went out the window and came back in with a tangle of sunlight in its claws, the air shivering and glittering around it as though it flew through a cloud of sunlit dust.

  It was all impossibly strange, and Keri looked away from the battle, down at Cort’s face. His eyes were ordinary brown, human brown. He returned her look and gave a little nod, as though understanding something she had said, though she had said nothing.

  The black wyvern flew in a fast circle, and Aranaon Mirtaelior rose to his feet and took a single step forward, and Magister Eroniel said a few brief words that Keri could not quite make out. Each word seemed to strike the air between himself and the Wyvern King with a sharp, hard hammer blow, as though it had carried actual physical force. The King tilted his head and smiled, a distant, unreadable curve of the lips like a statue’s smile, and Eroniel stopped again and stood completely still.

  He was actually glowing, he was using her magic that he had stolen, she knew he was, it was pent up inside him, trying to get out, and Keri suddenly leaped forward, tore the earrings out of his closer ear—his left—flung them down, and stomped on them as hard as she could. Light flared under her foot, and she was distantly aware that Aranaon Mirtaelior was smiling slightly, without real amusement, a soulless lift of the lips, the way a player’s mask might smile.

  But she had no time to think of the King. Eroniel swung around and tried to slap her, but Keri grabbed his hand in both of hers. Touching his skin was like touching light, like touching fire, but it did not burn. Shimmering magic was already fountaining out of the crushed crystals, but that didn’t matter to Keri because that magic wasn’t hers. Her magic fled to her from Eroniel, leaping from him to her across their linked hands, and though the sorcerer tried to pull away, she did not let go. The magic fled toward Cort as well, and a little bit toward Tassel; Keri was aware of that, too, though more distantly. She gasped, feeling that she had actually taken her first breath in hours, then let go of Eroniel’s hand, and leaped back.

  Tassel’s eyes were wide and astonished, but Cort gave a short, jerky laugh and held up a heavy ring of keys. Keri had no idea where they had come from; they hadn’t been there a moment ago. Cort drew her to his side, hung the jangling keys on his belt without seeming to notice them, and unsheathed a farmer’s little belt knife instead. He drew two fingers of one hand across the edge of the knife, then held his other hand out to Keri. Keri laughed, too, surprising herself, and took his hand.

  Even now, however, Magister Eroniel did not seem to have been defeated. He faced his King again, ignoring the others, as the King faced him and ignored all else; the two sorcerers might have forgotten that anyone besides themselves existed in the whole world, so Keri supposed the contest was not yet resolved. Eroniel’s hands were open at his sides, his face remote and calm. His King’s face was even less expressive. The two sorcerers looked for all the world like two sides of the same coin, silver and gold, dusk and day, ice and fire. Yet the Wyvern King also seemed now somehow more real, more present, as though in some way he had become more substantial over the past few moments, and Eroniel less so.

  But Keri did not spare the two sorcerers more than a glance. She stood hand in hand with Cort, looking almost shyly up at him. He was gazing back at her, his eyes warm and human and ordinary. His mouth was set with determination, and he held his left hand cupped, blood welling slowly across his fingers and pooling in his palm.

  Keri nodded.

  Without a word, Cort took a step and turned his hand over to let a single drop of blood fall. The crimson drop vanished into the fiery colors of the rug, invisible, but Keri knew it was there. She could feel the blood fall; she could feel it turn to mist and magic. Catching the mist with her free hand, she nodded again.

  Cort took another step, and let fall another drop of blood. Keri walked with him, step for step in a wide circle around Tassel and Osman and her brothers, gathering the magic, weaving it, defining inside the circle as part of Nimmira: from the rugs underfoot to the glowing magical lights floating above, this was Nimmira, and everything beyond the circle was Outside, foreign and separate. They walked steadily, together, never missing a step, pacing out a line that divided the world—Cort making himself into that line and Keri making the boundary real, creating a self-contained fragment of Nimmira inside the Wyvern King’s strange summer. A narrow line of mist followed them, insubstantial but unquestionably there, curving from floor to ceiling—sinking down into the earth and rising up into the sky—it was hers, her mist, her magic, Cort’s magic and hers, and together they made their circle into a part of Nimmira and separated it from the rest of the world.

  In all the time it took to carve out this circle in the midst of the Wyvern King’s fiery citadel, neither Magister Eroniel nor the Wyvern King himself appeared to notice what Keri and Cort were doing, though the mist did not seem to veil sight. Keri expected for one or the other or both together to turn at any moment and…what? Something. Exclaim in anger, reach toward them to interfere, crush Nimmira’s magic beneath their own greater, more aggressive power. Something. But the sorcerers were engaged in their own battle and did not turn. Not yet. Keri could feel them striving against each other, but dimly; they were enormously powerful, but it was not her kind of power.

  Cort took one final step. Keri followed, a heartbeat after him. The circle closed with a soundless shock, a vibration in the air. Cort staggered. Keri, already holding his hand, caught his other arm to steady him. “Cort?” she asked, worried. He had lain in the cold, alone and ensorcelled, for hours; Magister Eroniel had stripped away his magic, which had only just now poured itself back into him. And unlike hers, his part of making that circle had been hard; he had made the boundary out of his own life, and she had only told it what to bound. No wonder he looked so haggard and exhausted. She thought of Summer Timonan, who had first drawn a boundary around Nimmira for Lupe Ailenn, and had died of it. Cort had not done so much, but he looked like the small circle he had made had been more than enough.

  But he said, though heavily, “It’s well. I’m well. Keri—” He turned suddenly to take her shoulders in a hard grip, shaking her a little. “What are you doing here?”

  Keri patted his arm. “Yes, I know, I’m sorry, that part was an accident.” She was distracted by the sorcerers. Magister Eroniel had taken a
step forward, but Aranaon Mirtaelior had not given way, and now, even through the mist, she thought she could almost see sorcery, balked in every direction, piling up between them. Both little wyverns were crouched, one on each of the Wyvern King’s shoulders. Their wings were spread, their long, snaky necks extended, their narrow jaws gaping wide as they hissed. They had fangs like vipers, Keri saw, and wondered if they were poisonous.

  But she didn’t really worry about that. There were other things to worry about, like all that loose, violent sorcery; and Cort’s drawn face; and the way they were all trapped here in this little pocket of Nimmira, surrounded by battling sorcerers and the Wyvern King’s impossible midsummer kingdom.

  Keri wanted Cort at least to sit down, but of course he wouldn’t, not even when Tassel urged him anxiously and pointed out that they couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, so what difference did it make? Even then, Cort stayed on his feet. Keri wasn’t surprised; she already knew he was stubborn. Yet he let Osman bandage his fingers, still sluggishly bleeding, with only a long, hard stare for Tassel when she vouched for the Bear Lord with a nod. That he would let Osman help him surprised Keri, but perhaps it was too obvious now that they were all on the same side for even Cort to be obstinate.

  Lucas leaned his elbow on a floating table that had happened to be included in their circle. His attitude radiated negligent unconcern, but there was a crease between his brows and he kept reaching up to touch the garnet pendant earring he still wore.

  Brann, standing a little apart from them all with his arms crossed and a frown on his aristocratic face, was watching the near-silent, almost motionless struggle between the sorcerers with careful attention and no pretense of disinterest. He had been a sort of ally of Eroniel Kaskarian, of course, but Keri had rather an idea that he had learned better. She suspected that of them all, he was the most afraid that Magister Eroniel might win that struggle. Though surely Eroniel would lose, especially now that he had lost the magic he had stolen.

  She herself wanted, badly, for Aranaon Mirtaelior to just win. The Wyvern King didn’t exactly frighten her less than Eroniel—if anything, he frightened her more—but above everything, she wanted this to be over.

  That was foolish, though, that impatient longing for something decisive to happen. Because whatever it was, whether the Wyvern King or his rival won, whatever happened next would surely decide the fate of Nimmira. She knew she needed to seize the chance Cort had made for them, not let herself be driven into one desperate choice after another. She wished she had had time to learn to be a better Lady for Nimmira—the Lady Nimmira needed, the Lady they all needed. She was desperately afraid she was going to let everyone down, but she had no idea what to do.

  Though setting a boundary between her people and the sorcerers of Eschalion was certainly a good first step.

  She made Cort sit down at last by the simple expedient of dropping onto the rugs herself the moment he began to speak to her, so he had to either sit down next to her or else loom over her. He couldn’t do that, so he half sat and half collapsed, frowning at her because he knew what she’d done. But he only said, “If we could connect this little fragment up with the greater part of Nimmira, I think we could just step from one to the other. But, Keri, this place, I don’t even know where we are; this isn’t any ordinary place—”

  “It’s a memory of the Wyvern King,” Osman said, dropping to one knee beside Keri so he could talk to her without shouting. “It’s not precisely real. Or it’s only as real as the King makes it. Or so I believe. My grandmother told me of something I think was like this. I shall have to describe all these exciting events to her when I next have the opportunity.” He gave Cort a straight look and inclined his head. “Doorkeeper.”

  Cort answered, a little stiffly, “Lord Osman. I gather we’re all friends here.”

  Keri exchanged a glance with Tassel: Men. She said, “We’d better be, since we all share exactly the same enemies! Osman, if this isn’t real, then how can we be here? Are we here, or are we somewhere else?” No one answered—of course no one knew, no one could even guess, any more than Keri herself. So she said, “But then, if we aren’t really here, if this isn’t real, we should be able to be somewhere else, isn’t that right?”

  “I’m not certain it’s that kind of not-real,” muttered Lucas, also kneeling beside Keri. He started to say something, only just then the silence and stillness beyond their circle shattered. Gray shadows struck like daggers through the brilliant heat all around the room, then broke apart under the merciless sun and disappeared again. A chill wind carried the scent of pine and frozen stone through the Wyvern King’s summer, fought with the fragrance of roses and sunlight, and vanished.

  His lips curved in a smile like a mask, the Wyvern King moved one step toward Magister Eroniel, and Eroniel took one step back. He did not cry out or even gasp, but that single step backward was like an admission of defeat. Only then he flung up his hands, and a shimmering glow gathered around him. It couldn’t have been the magic of Nimmira—maybe some other kind of magic? And was it stolen from someone else, too? But wherever it had come from, thievery or learning or native talent, the cool, frozen light condensed around his fingers. It became a long spear of light, striking at the King.

  But it dissolved, all the light simply absorbed by the summer heat.

  The King’s little wyverns took flight, the black one and then the gold, and Keri blinked and stared after their curving flight because it seemed to her that the air through which they flew was denser and hotter and more golden than the air elsewhere in the room. That where they flew, sunlight fell somehow more thickly.

  Magister Eroniel took another step back, his expression blank and still, his mouth tight with strain and, perhaps, at last, with fear.

  Then he flicked out, like a shadow fleeing before the light. The wyverns followed him, the gold one and then the black braiding around each other in the line of their flight, striking down into the empty air where Eroniel had stood, disappearing one after the other, except that just as each one vanished, the little wyverns seemed to expand hugely into creatures far too large to fit within this room; into dragons with a wingspan that would overshadow the whole mountain, but they were gone in the same moment, leaving the rushing wind of great wings beating and a lingering impression of something terrible that had almost happened.

  Keri caught her breath, staring at the place where the wyverns had stooped and vanished. She had no idea where Magister Eroniel might have gone nor how far the wyverns would pursue him, except she suspected that he wouldn’t get away from them in the end. She wondered whether they would tear him apart when they caught him. Or, if they didn’t, what kind of prison the Wyvern King might create out of sunlight and roses. Something no one would ever escape, she suspected. Something filled with thorns and merciless fire.

  She stood up, hissing a little under her breath, stiff even after so brief a rest. Lucas jumped up, and Osman came lightly to his feet and extended a hand to Tassel. He offered the same help to Cort, and to Keri’s surprise, Cort accepted it, and let Osman take a good bit of his weight, too, as he climbed to his feet.

  Then they stood, all together, even Brann, though he kept a little apart. But they were clearly together, facing the Wyvern King, who stood now quite alone in the midst of the streaming light and heat and the heavy fragrance of roses.

  Now more than ever, the Wyvern King seemed to Keri to have been poured out of honey, or polished out of amber—fashioned, somehow, rather than born. Surely he could not ever have been a child or a boy or a youth or anything but a beautiful, inhuman statue. That passionless golden face seemed a player’s mask; the smooth curve of his lips was not a smile, no more than the mouth of a mask could smile. In one graceful hand, upraised, he held a single rose: a heavy crimson bloom that nodded on its stem. A thorn had pricked his finger; a single drop of blood showed like a garnet against his golden skin, exactly the color of the rose. His eyes passed across them without a sign of interest; he migh
t have been blind. But where his gaze lingered, a still, smothering heat seemed to rise from the air.

  Keri realized she had been holding her breath, because suddenly she found herself gasping for air. The air was heavy and hot, fragrant with roses. Great black-and-gold bees hummed in and out of the window; somewhere near at hand, Keri could smell the familiar sweetness of warm honey, ready to be poured into a cake or brushed across sheets of pastry and rolled into shatteringly delicate confections.

  She had not known she was going to say anything, but she said, almost involuntarily, “It’s so beautiful here.”

  The Wyvern King turned his head slowly and smoothly, like a player acting the role of the Wyvern King, and Keri thought suddenly and clearly, Why, he is acting. But she couldn’t tell whether it was a role he had played so long he had become the mask, or whether behind that still, golden mask he was a different person. She could not imagine what kind of person he might actually be. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be able to guess.

  Although he was the kind of person who would rule a kingdom for two hundred years and every year expand its borders. She knew that.

  Also, the kind of person who would create this place, trapped in a dream of summer like a gnat trapped in a bead of amber.

  She tried to meet his golden eyes, but it was like trying to see past the sky. She could discern nothing human in his face, only something immense and ancient that she couldn’t recognize. She blinked, feeling off balance, as though the floor had shifted under her feet. She caught Cort’s hand in hers, grateful for his ordinary human solidity next to her. But she said to the Wyvern King, “It’s beautiful, your dreaming summer, but it’s not ours. We don’t belong here. We don’t belong to you.”

  The Wyvern King tilted his head in a studied pose of amusement and curiosity. He said softly, “The round of the year belongs to me; the turning seasons have brought you to me. My dream is not yours, but your dreams are mine.”