The Keeper of the Mist

by Rachel Neumeier

  “I will,” he promised her soberly.

  Keri looked at him for another moment. Then she stood up and took his hands in hers, pulling him into a light, quick embrace. Then she stepped back, but kept hold of his hands. “Call me Keri,” she said. “Since you’re going to be almost my brother.” Then she smiled at the look of honest surprise and pleasure in Osman’s dark eyes.

  —

  Tassel might not actually lose Nimmira altogether and forever, as Cort pointed out when Keri asked him whether he was absolutely sure that his cousin really did know her own heart.

  “She always knows her own heart,” he told her, sounding a bit rueful.

  Keri understood: he wouldn’t claim such a talent for himself. Well, neither would she.

  “Besides,” Cort said, “if both our lands have a boundary between us and Eschalion, maybe someday we won’t need a border between our Nimmira and Tor Carron. Maybe it can all be one country, someday.”

  Keri frowned at him. “I won’t let Osman the Younger rule Nimmira.”

  “Or not quite one country, then,” Cort conceded. “But good neighbors, neighbors who sometimes visit one another. Or, Keri, even if Tassel is part of Tor Carron’s boundary magic and can’t leave Tor Carron—even if their magic works differently and she’s something we haven’t a name for—she’ll still be my cousin and your friend.” He put an arm around Keri and pulled her gently against his side.

  And Keri had to admit this was true. She put her own arm around his shoulders, leaning against his solidity. He, at least, would never leave her. She knew that. Everyone else maybe, but not Cort.

  Nimmira settled into an uneasy peace, a peace that remained unbroken by any sign that anyone in Eschalion remembered it even existed.

  “But I don’t trust it,” Cort told Keri. He was frowning; he always frowned when he thought about the boundary. “I don’t trust it. Aranaon Mirtaelior is still King of Eschalion and looks likely to be King forever, and he’s still the greatest sorcerer in the world and probably will be that forever, too. Who knows what lingering memory of Nimmira he might eventually tease back to the surface of his mind?”

  Keri nodded and didn’t tell him that what she hoped for was that eventually Cort and she together might manage to push their own boundary outward. Outward a little, and then outward a little more, each time taking a bit more of Eschalion into Nimmira, freeing a few more villages and a handful of people from the rule of the Wyvern King. Without him ever quite noticing, or remembering that his borders had once been different. She hardly dared hope for that…but she did hope for it. Perhaps they might be able to push the boundary north quite far, if they didn’t have to guard their southern border against Tor Carron. She wanted to do that. She wanted it very much.

  But she didn’t put any of that into words just yet. She thought Cort might like the idea of challenging the Wyvern King better after he got a bit more used to the idea that they had all survived their first desperate encounter with him.

  In the meantime, she thought she was beginning to get used to being the Lady of Nimmira. It didn’t feel quite so much like a pretense anymore, at least.

  Part of that was due to Linnet. Now that Mem was gone, Keri had made Linnet head of staff for the House—making official a role that, she found, the girl had stepped into anyway during Keri’s absence. Someone needed to take on that task, and right away Linnet showed herself to be a good choice. She was calm and even-tempered, but she also proved quite ready to dismiss anyone on the staff of the House who said anything like But Lord Dorric never…or But Mem always used to….This meant that, very soon, everyone in the House acted as though Keri had been Lady for years and years rather than merely days, and that meant that Keri herself started to feel like she really was the Lady and not just playing a role.

  And, perhaps because of Linnet’s influence or perhaps on his own account, Domeric seemed to have become a solid support for Keri now, too. While she had been trapped in Eschalion, he had, of course, as their father’s last descendant left in Nimmira, taken charge of the House and Glassforge and the surrounding area, grimly organizing a defense in case she did not return and Aranaon Mirtaelior came instead. Or two kinds of defense, really: one if he suddenly found himself flooded with magic and knew he was Nimmira’s Lord, and another if the Wyvern King proved to have taken Nimmira’s magic instead.

  “Although the first was more a plan for defense, and the other more a plan for a slow surrender,” he told her, after everything was over and everyone had had a little time to recover. He’d come to her apartment and formally asked for an audience, which was something none of her brothers had done before. Then he very soberly explained everything he had done after the disaster at the player’s gap and told her what he had planned for the different contingencies. “I saw no hope for us if the Wyvern King took our magic for his own, and very little hope that you would have been able to stop him if you and your Bookkeeper as well as your Doorkeeper fell into his hands.”

  Then her intimidating brother was silent for a moment, and Keri saw how afraid he had been. She said gently, “When we all fell into Eschalion and were trapped there, I was glad you were here. Because I knew that even if the worst happened, you would try to protect Nimmira and our people.”

  Domeric shook his head. “I had no idea what to do.”

  “But you would have tried,” Keri repeated. “You would have done your best. I knew that. It was a comfort to me. Domeric…I don’t think it’s a traditional role for an heir, but I want you to take Tamman’s place as castellan.”

  “Me?” Domeric crossed his arms over his chest and scowled.

  Keri smiled. She could tell he was not actually offended, merely taken aback. It was only that, on him, every expression looked intimidating. She said, “I trust you.” She did, now. She thought they had both finally come to terms with her own role as Lady, and his role as her brother. But she also thought Domeric needed to be more than just the Lady’s brother. She went on, “And I think you’d be good at it. If you can run several taverns—and I know you do a good job with that—then you can run the House and do whatever else my castellan needs to do. Tamman just went along with things, you know, and people got used to walking all over him. You’d fix that in a hurry. You can make decisions and tell people what you want and no one will argue with you.”

  “But—”

  “Linnet is more familiar with the castellan’s duties, so you can talk to her about it. I know my castellan has to work closely with my head of staff, so it’s important they get along.”

  “Huh.” But Domeric’s mouth twisted into the daunting expression that was his smile. “Well. I suppose that’s true.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Keri told him, pleased with herself and with her brother.

  So that was taken care of.

  Brann presented a different kind of problem, and required a different kind of solution. He was gone: he had left Nimmira immediately after the boundary had been repaired. He hadn’t spoken to Keri at all, but had simply walked away, south, into Tor Carron. Cort had let him go. Of course Brann had had to ask him, now that the mist had been restored. Cort had made the way clear and guided Brann’s steps through the mist. He told Keri about this after it was done, in an unyielding tone that made it clear he didn’t want to argue about it, but would if she insisted on an argument.

  “We don’t need him here,” he told her grimly. “I think Tor Carron is a fine place for him, and I hope he stays there. In fact, he’ll have to, unless he chooses to go back to Eschalion, and I think we can be quite sure he’s learned better than to put himself into the hands of sorcerers.” He hesitated, eyeing Keri warily. “He took some gold and more silver, you know. I let him take it.”

  “That’s good,” Keri assured him. She was actually relieved that whole problem had been solved so easily. “That’s fine. I’m glad he’s gone, but he is my brother. I wouldn’t have turned him out with nothing.”

  Cort shrugged, relaxing. “It’d have
been fair enough if you had. It’d have been only just to exile him to Eschalion. Naked.”

  “Oh—fair!” said Keri. “I suppose that would have been fair. Is that what we’re striving for?”

  “Exactly.” Cort touched her hand in approval and relief. “Exactly. That’s what I thought.”

  “Anyway, maybe he’ll find something useful to do for Tor Carron. After all, he is our father’s son, Lupe Ailenn’s great-great-great-great-great-grandson. He’s got magic in his blood. I’ll tell Osman to have his people keep an eye out for him when they start trying to make their own boundary. You’re smiling. Oh, you’ve already suggested that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” said Keri, and repeated, “I’m glad he’s gone.”

  She was. She was glad Domeric had decided he was on her side, and she was glad Brann was gone, and most of all she was glad Lucas had come through that horror in Yllien and the terror of the Wyvern King’s summer and had finished his play. Having everything cast as a puppet play made it all just unreal enough to her that she could more or less bear to think about it.

  After they had defeated the Wyvern King, Lucas had stayed up all night, working in the player’s library. Keri found out about this the next morning, when she thought of him and realized where he was. She didn’t go find him; she recalled creepy puppets that stood up and moved by themselves and stayed carefully clear. Anyway, she had told him he could write any play he liked about all the things that had happened, design any puppets he wished, as long as he stayed broadly to the truth. There had been too much deception, Dorric’s to hide what he had done and Keri’s to conceal Nimmira’s danger. The people of Nimmira deserved to know what had really happened, and what had come near to happening.

  She saw the play herself a day or so later. It was a good play, though Keri did not enjoy watching it. Lucas had indeed put in all the truth, as much as they understood it themselves, and it made all her memories too vivid. There was her father and his greed for gold that made him open up Nimmira. There was her own ascension—the player who took her role made her puppet act very young and uncertain. There was everyone else, including Magister Eroniel and the Wyvern King and his great golden wyvern, and the struggle to remake the boundary that had so nearly failed.

  Osman the Younger loved the play, and laughed at the smooth, predatory charm with which the player’s skill infused his puppet. Keri liked Cort’s part the best, but she thought Lucas had given her far too much credit. He’d made it look like she actually knew what she was doing, rather than scrambling frantically from one crisis to the next.

  “You’re much too modest, sister,” Lucas told her, smiling.

  “You’re not. I notice you gave yourself all the best lines.”

  But her brother only laughed. “I had all the best lines. You must have realized that at the time.”

  “Not really. Some of us had other things to think about, especially since we weren’t actually onstage—”

  “Of course we were. We’re all of us always onstage, sister dear. Didn’t you know that?” Lucas was still smiling, but he meant it, too.

  “I think Aranaon Mirtaelior would agree with you—”

  “There, you see?”

  “But that doesn’t mean it’s true,” Keri finished. “Cort is never onstage.”

  “Ah, well,” Lucas said easily. “I don’t insist on a complete lack of exceptions. Sure you won’t come to tonight’s performance? The puppeteers are finally smoothing the rough edges off their parts….”

  “No,” said Keri. “Thank you.”

  “Come, say yes,” he coaxed her. “My mother will be there, you know. She’s playing the Wyvern King. You haven’t met her yet, have you?”

  That, Keri hadn’t known. “Lucas! Really? She got out of Yllien in time? That’s wonderful! How?”

  Lucas smiled, pleased that he had managed to surprise her. “You were right after all: it was Magister Eroniel who destroyed Yllien, not the King. My mother was there when Brann showed him the player’s involution. She realized almost at once that Eroniel wouldn’t want anybody else coming and going that way—and that he would be furious ordinary people had hidden even so small a gap from sorcerers. The players couldn’t stop him from destroying the town, but he’s no Aranaon Mirtaelior. A good many got out before he did it. My mother. The other players. The smith…She married the smith, can you believe it?” Lucas rolled his eyes in assumed shock and outrage, but behind his theatrical manner, Keri thought he was pleased about this, too. “Anyway, when the mist came up again, she noticed—player’s magic, you know—and decided to slip across the boundary and see how we all finished the tale. She’s just the same as ever,” he added proudly. “Hasn’t changed a bit.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Keri said again. Then she looked at him sharply. “At least, it’s wonderful as long as Cort knows and approves of her coming and going.”

  “Now, sister, you must realize that players have their own ways to come and go.” Lucas hesitated and then added in a quieter voice, “Very slender ways. Ways closed to the rest of us. I did ask Cort, in fact. He said…Never mind. But I don’t think I’ll ever cross the border again. It will mean…It will mean I won’t be a player. Not for much longer. But Nimmira is my home. In case you wondered. Sister.”

  His manner forbade too much sympathy. Keri said, “You can be a playwright, then. That’s what you like best anyway, isn’t it? Nimmira is a small land, but I hope you will be able to content yourself here. And I’m glad you’re staying. Brother.” But, though Lucas smoothly assured her that he had every intent of assiduously avoiding Eschalion for the future, she understood the sorrow in his tone. Because she knew without asking that his mother would not stay in Nimmira. Players never stayed anywhere for long. And she was a woman of Eschalion, in the end.

  Even so, Lucas had his mother back, at least for a little while. Keri refused to be jealous. But she spoke to Cort herself about the players’ coming and going.

  “Lucas is right,” he told her. “Players have their own ways into and out of every country and across every border. But I promise you, after this, no one will open any involution, no matter how tiny, through our boundary. Most certainly not unless I’m right there, watching. And I won’t lightly allow it.”

  Keri nodded, then hesitated. “Did you actually forbid Lucas to come and go?”

  “He had to choose,” Cort said gently. “Whether to be a player and his mother’s son, or Lucas Ailenn and your brother. Eline is one thing, but it’s not safe for us if anyone belonging to your father’s lineage puts himself under the Wyvern King’s eye, and far less wise for such a man to draw attention as he steps back and forth across the boundary, and so I told him. He already knew it. He’s no fool, for all he likes the role.”

  Keri nodded. She realized Lucas would have understood Cort’s warning immediately. “He needs something important and useful to do. As it happens, I think I could use someone clever to help me deal with the people of Tor Carron. Between Lucas and Tassel, I don’t think Osman—or even his grandmother—will be able to get away with much.”

  Cort gave a short crack of laughter. “Once those two put their heads together, we won’t have to worry about Osman buying Nimmira, no matter who our new Bookkeeper proves to be. If he’s not careful, he’ll find he’s sold us Tor Carron. And for a very fair price.”

  “Exactly. You don’t mind the idea of Lucas crossing between our Nimmira and Tor Carron?”

  “He won’t go to Tor Carron. They’ll come here. And none too often, unless they do succeed in flinging up a new boundary between themselves and Eschalion. Maybe they will. I wouldn’t bet against Osman and Tassel managing even that.” Cort put his arm around Keri’s shoulders. He touched her much more freely these days. He seemed so much less impatient, somehow, though no whit less stubborn. But he said, “I hope they succeed. I know we can’t close Nimmira off completely, not forever. That never works, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be wise. That’s what Aranaon Mirtae
lior’s done, you know. Stepped into his own dream of summer and closed himself away behind a mask and a dream and a monster….”

  “Yes,” Keri agreed seriously. “I mean, no, we can’t close every single gap forever. But I didn’t know you knew that.”

  “Well, I do. There are some kinds of mistakes I don’t need to make. Or keep making, at least. That seems to be one of them.” Then he gave her a wry, teasing look and took her hand. “Who knows what the future might hold? I don’t need our new Timekeeper to tell me we must live in this day.”

  Keri smiled, and laid her other hand over his, and knew exactly who he was, and who she was, and where they stood, rooted to the earth of Nimmira.

  RACHEL NEUMEIER is also the author of the young adult novels The Floating Islands and The City in the Lake, as well as several adult fantasy novels, including the Griffin Mage Trilogy. She lives in rural Missouri, where she has a large garden, a small orchard, and a gradually increasing number of Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Learn more about Rachel and her books at RachelNeumeier.com.

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