by Helen Lowe
Jehane Mor and Tarathan rose and bowed as one, speaking their names and Guild house in the formal style, and the Ishnapuri heralds replied in kind. “I am Ileyra,” the young woman said, “and this is Salan, my brother in both blood and the Guild.”
“ ‘It is a very long way from Ij to Ishnapur,’” Salan quoted gravely, then added, with the ghost of a smile, “but we came by sea, which made the journey swifter. And safer, since I understand the overland route still runs through very wild country.” He sat down, reaching for the bread basket. “We have yet more meetings with the Masters today, but fortunately not until this afternoon.”
Ileyra smiled. “We stayed out too late with the festival—every night there is more to see and do.” She shrugged. “Yet why not, when the Masters of this so-great city are all busy ahead of their Conclave?”
Jehane Mor concealed her surprise. “I would have thought those on the Shah’s business would be given priority.”
“We have appointments,” Ileyra assured her, “but always there are delays. The Masters may be late from earlier meetings, or their advisers cannot get through the press in the streets.”
“But at night,” said Salan, with a gleam of white teeth, “we get to see something of the famous festival without detracting from our duty. You are also here for business, of course?” His tone made the statement into a question.
“Sadly dull stuff and none of it with the Masters.” Jehane Mor set her plate aside. “But we may see you if you are attending the evening revels. The whole world, Naia tells us, is to be at Prince Ath’s party. It will be one of the great events of the festival.”
Ileyra shrugged and held up her palms. “There are so many invitations. . . . And maybe we shall not see you anyway with all the masks, if it is such a large affair?”
“True, although I am sure that we shall meet again here.” Jehane Mor stood up. “But now we must be about that dull business of ours.” The sister nodded, smiling, while the brother pulled a sympathetic face. Jehane Mor opened the door into the hall and waited until Tarathan had closed it before mindspeaking: “Odd, don’t you think?”
“To come so far and be kept waiting? Yes,” Tarathan agreed. “And the Guild is so new in Ishnapur. Why would the Shah commission heralds for his business at all, let alone just one pair? I would have expected an ambassador, or special envoy at least.”
“Something doesn’t add up.” Jehane Mor lifted her gray cloak from a peg beside the door. “The last rumors I heard centered around trade treaties or even a maritime alliance. That would require a full ambassador.”
Tarathan tapped the paper with the Ilvaine seal against his hand. “I can’t imagine the Shah sending heralds for any other purpose than to announce the ambassador’s subsequent arrival. Odd,” he repeated, and the invitation tapped again.
Naia was sweeping the Guild House porch when they stepped out into the brightness of the morning. “I’ll have a groom take your horses down to the exercise meadow by the river port, if you’re busy today,” she said. “You could probably leave them there, if you wished, as the Guild keeps space in the port’s livery stable.” She straightened, looking around the small yard. “It will be a pleasanter spot for them and leave more stable room for newcomers here.”
Jehane Mor thanked her, and she and Tarathan spent the morning delivering the Ephor’s dispatches, as well as dropping off sealed reports from business agents in Terebanth to a series of merchant warehouses. They ate their lunch beneath an awning in the largest of the Westgate markets, with the heat of the sun on their backs and the last of the rain puddles disappearing from the cobbles. A clerk from one of the trading houses found them there, with a request that they call for more dispatches, and it was mid-afternoon before they turned toward Minstrels’ Island and the Inn of the Golden Lute.
The inn was located close to the great, golden dome of the College, and was a substantial, three-storey affair, with the upper levels built around three sides of a large courtyard. Timber balconies overlooked the central area, and the heralds’ boots thudded on the stairs as a servant led them to the topmost gallery. The afternoon air was heady with the scent of jasmine growing along the balustrade, and a College bell rang out the hour. The servant paused before a door of honeyed oak and knocked once before opening it. “Them heralds are here, your honor,” he announced, before slipping away.
Jehane Mor stepped into the room ahead of Tarathan and saw a man lounging in the window seat. “Ah,” she said. “I wondered if it might be you.”
The man laid aside his lute, rose gracefully to his feet and crossed to a table that was set with glasses, a flask of wine, and a plate of candied fruit. “I was unsure,” said Haimyr the Golden, the Earl of Night’s minstrel, “whether you knew that I was of the Ilvaine kin—although I suspected that you might.” The golden bells on his sleeve tinkled as he raised the wine flask. Both the flask and the goblets set around it were golden, too, wrought from the delicate and costly glass of Ij.
“It has been a long time since the Keep of Winds,” the minstrel continued, “but the two of you have remained in my thoughts. Would you care for some wine?”
Jehane Mor came further into the room, Tarathan’s shadow stretching alongside hers after he closed the door. “If that is an Emerian white in that flask, then yes,” she said. “To whom or what do we drink?”
“We must pour the libation for Seruth,” Haimyr the Golden replied, matching his action to the words. “It really is a very fine wine—and from Emer. I salute your perception, Herald Jehane!”
The herald accepted the glass he held out and sipped, regarding him across the rim while he poured a second glass for Tarathan. She noted the faint lines around eyes and mouth that had not been there five years before, but there was no thread of silver in the bright hair or lessening of mockery in the golden eyes. “I had forgotten that you were of the Ilvaine kin,” she said, after the wine had been duly appreciated. “But once we received the invitation, I reflected further on who might room so close to the College.”
“As a minstrel my business is with the College, so it makes sense to stay nearby.” Haimyr swirled the wine in his glass. “I could stay in the mausoleum they call our palace, I suppose, but I find all that marble and gloom of family history a little dismal.”
“We saw the banner over the Ilvaine trading house yesterday, the one on Westgate. Is that for you, even though you stay here?” Jehane Mor asked. “Or for another of your kin?”
“For me?” Irony glinted in Haimyr’s smile. “No, my illustrious great-uncle, the Prince Ilvaine, intends coming in for the festival, and another uncle and several cousins will be with him. Although some other of my cousins,” he added lazily, “will be coming by way of Emaln and Sirith.”
Jehane Mor felt Tarathan’s attention sharpen, but she said nothing, careful to hold her thoughts as still as her face. Haimyr smiled, watching the play of light through the golden glass. “But I did not invite you here to speak of my family. How long has it been, exactly, since we last met? Five years? Six?”
“Over five, since we waited by the Border Mark,” Jehane Mor replied quietly.
The minstrel looked at her, his eyes lambent. “And they never came,” he said. “I know this because the Earl’s agents followed you all the way to Terebanth to be sure you really had returned alone. He was, I regret to say, sadly suspicious of you both. It was not until the following spring that we knew for certain that Malian and her party had turned aside, becoming lost in the winter that fell on Jaransor.”
“Jaransor,” Jehane Mor repeated, shaking her head. “That information never made its way to the River, or to the Guild. I am grieved to learn it now. Such news makes ill hearing.”
The minstrel was still watching her face, but now he shrugged. “It is a long road from the Wall to the River, almost as great a distance, in its way, as the fabled journey from Ij to Ishnapur—which is quite the end of the world, would you not say?”
“Not entirely,” Tarathan replied. “B
ut I do not think you invited us here to talk of the distance between lands.”
“I suppose it is all in the way one looks at things,” Haimyr mused. “Perhaps heralds, who are always traveling the world, think less of distance than those who live more settled lives. But where was I? Ah!” He snapped his long fingers together. “News from the Wall: that was it. But I am forgetting my manners. We have poured the wine and made our libation to Seruth. Now we must be seated and comfortable in our talk.”
Jehane Mor smiled slightly and moved to a high-backed chair, while Tarathan remained standing behind her.
“How many years have you dwelt on the Wall of Night?” she asked.
Haimyr threw up a hand. “Over twenty now, since I first met the young Lord Tasarion and accepted his offer to see the Derai Wall. And there I have remained. Fate is a curious thing, is it not?”
“It is,” Jehane Mor agreed. “But I don’t think you asked us here to speak of that either. News from the Wall, you said, and that Lady Malian was lost in Jaransor. That seems a very strange road for any Derai to have taken.”
Haimyr shrugged. “I think she and her companions were driven there, out of the Gray Lands. Night’s trackers found evidence of that before full winter fell across the plain. But the snow came earlier in Jaransor, overtaking Malian and her party—as it overtook us all,” he added musingly. “Even on the Wall there had never been a winter so long or so hard. Lannorth and a hundred-squad were bailed up for months in Westwind Hold, waiting for the spring before entering Jaransor.”
“The Derai sent numbers into Jaransor?” Jehane Mor could hear the frown in Tarathan’s voice.
The minstrel shook his head. “In the end, no. The Commander of Westwind forbade it, so only Lannorth and a handpicked few went in, with the best of the hold’s hunters and scouts.”
“Wise,” Tarathan said shortly.
“As you say,” Haimyr agreed. “The shamans of the Winter country believe that the gods walked Jaransor once, in the very dawn of time, and that their memory dwells there still.” He took another sip of the wine. “Ijiri lore, too, suggests that it is a place of ancient power, not to be ventured lightly.”
“Jaransor-of the-many-legends,” said Jehane Mor. She paused before speaking again, conscious of advancing the next pawn across an invisible board. “What did they find, the handpicked few?”
“Dead bodies, mainly.” Haimyr’s gaze held hers, before shifting to Tarathan. “Lannorth had wyr hounds, accursed beasts in my opinion, even if they can track their quarry across stone and through water. The hounds led them to the guards, Kyr and Lira. Their bodies were still frozen in snow, but they had died from battle wounds, not the cold. The searchers found the bodies of their adversaries as well, all of them Darkswarm. And more Swarm dead later, in a pass further to the south—yet no sign of the Heir; or the boy, Kalan; or Nhairin, the high steward, who were both with Malian when she left the Keep of Winds.”
“If no bodies were found,” said Jehane Mor slowly, “how can you be certain they are dead?”
Haimyr studied his wine with great interest. “The winter was severe and they had no provisions, even if they could have found shelter. But there are no habitations in Jaransor. The Westwind scouts thought it possible their bodies might never be found, not in that country.”
Jehane Mor was silent, recalling snow falling from gray skies above a tall standing stone: the flakes had floated down steadily, soundless as death. Behind her, Tarathan neither moved nor spoke, but she knew his eyes would be intent on the golden minstrel. On the windowseat, Haimyr drained his glass.
“I think something froze in all of us that winter, but with the Earl it is as though the frost has never lifted. For a long time he spoke only to give commands. He wouldn’t even talk to Asantir, who has been his right hand these many years.” The golden bells chimed as Haimyr shrugged. “Nhairin’s defection hit him hard—and what he saw as his daughter’s disobedience, even more so. He even spoke of striking Malian’s name from the record of their Blood.”
“They are a strange people, both rigid and vengeful.” Tarathan’s tone was dispassionate. “Who else would seek to disinherit one already thought dead?”
“Who indeed?” the minstrel said. “Although I think Tasarion spoke in the anger of the moment. He is not by nature a vindictive man. And he has too much else to occupy him, between reclaiming the Old Keep—vast, benighted place that it is—and rebuilding the Derai Alliance. Asantir, whom you knew as his Honor Captain, is Commander of Night now, and he has sent her to all the keeps along the Wall, strengthening Night’s old alliances and seeking to rebuild those broken in the civil war.”
“What of allies beyond the Wall?” Jehane Mor asked. “Does Night, too, send envoys to the Masters of Ij?” She paused. “Perhaps that is what brings you here, just in time for the Conclave?”
Haimyr laughed. “The Earl of Night has sent no embassy here—and even if he had, I would not be part of it.” He rose and refilled their glasses and his own before returning to the window. “This is certainly a very fine vintage,” he said appreciatively, “even for an Emerian white. As it happens, I am aware of the Derai in Ij, but that is not what brought me south.” He raised his glass in salute. “The main reason I am here is to speak with you.”
Not a pawn this time, thought Jehane Mor: I think the queen just moved down the chess board. Or the Heir, as the Derai would call the same piece. She waited, and felt Tarathan wait with her, their minds an opaque mirror behind expressionless faces.
“I have lost something that is very dear to me,” Haimyr continued smoothly. “And dear to friends of mine, also. I believe that you may have the ability to help us find what we seek, however well concealed.”
“Lost,” Jehane Mor inquired, “or stolen?”
Haimyr considered this point. “Some might say stolen,” he conceded, “but really, I prefer ‘lost.’ ” His eyes held hers. “I must have been quite dull-witted all these years, not to have thought of you both sooner. You have found her once before, after all—and under extreme circumstances.”
“Her?” Jehane Mor echoed, although she already knew what would come next.
“Her,” the minstrel confirmed and set his glass down. “I want you to find Malian, the Heir of Night, and bring her home to the Keep of Winds.”
Chapter 3
Revelry and Masks
The silence in the room was so intense that sounds from the yard below were no longer a background murmur, but immediate and distinct. Jehane Mor put her own glass aside. “I am sorry,” she said, “but I don’t think we can help you.”
“Do you not?” Haimyr picked up his lute and began to strum it, a little dissonance of notes. “I was so sure that you could.”
“You have told us,” she replied, “that Malian perished in Jaransor, five years ago. Even if we found her restless ghost, we could not restore her to this plane of existence.”
The long, slender hand swept a flurry of notes from the lute. “But you asked me how I could be certain she was dead. And in fact I did not say that she was—‘lost’ was the word I used. I take no responsibility for what the Derai may or may not believe.” The lute strummed again. “At first, given the winter, I was inclined to believe the worst. But I was puzzled by Lannorth’s report on Kyr and Lira. They had died fighting, yet their bodies were found laid out as though by a comrade.”
“By the comrades who were with them, surely?” Jehane Mor shook her head. “All that proves is that Kyr and Lira were not the last to die.”
The lute twanged, a mournful eerie sound. “Then, of course, there is Nhairin.”
“Who was also lost?” Jehane Mor was careful to keep the question in her tone.
“At first, yes.” Haimyr looked up from the lute. “A routine patrol from Westwind found her the following summer, wandering the border between Jaransor and the Gray Lands. Her body was emaciated and covered in terrible sores, all her clothes were rags, and her mind was filled with the madness of Jaransor. Her
body has healed since then, but her mind—” He shrugged. “Some thought she should have been executed as a traitor, but the Earl would not have it. He could not, he said, put to death someone who was incapable of speaking in her own defense. Besides, there was the hope that she might recover and we would learn more of what happened in Jaransor.” The minstrel played a short sequence of regretful notes on the lute. “But she is too far gone.”
“Jaransor,” Tarathan observed somberly, “is a dangerous place.”
“Especially for the Derai.” Haimyr shrugged again. “All we have pieced together from Nhairin’s ravings is that Kyr and Lira turned back to fight in hopes that the Heir would escape. So Malian and the others would have been far away by the time the guards fell and could not have laid them out. And their enemies, surely, would have let them lie. So who else, I have asked myself, would—or could—have done it?”
“Even if your belief that the Lady Malian still lives is justified,” Jehane Mor replied, “five years ago you wanted her to flee the Wall of Night. Why this sudden urgency to have her back?”
“On the Wall, every boundary patrol of Night sees action now.” Haimyr spoke almost to himself. “Asantir says it is the same for all the forward keeps and holds. A great storm is brewing, we all feel it, and this time the ramparts of Night may not hold.”
“Not without the Child of Night, is that what you mean?” Jehane Mor asked.
Haimyr smiled. “Ah, the acuity of heralds. That is exactly it. Malian has not been supplanted or disinherited so she is still Heir of Night. This spring she will turn eighteen and be of age, able to claim her place at the Earl’s council table and amongst the Houses of the Derai as of right—if she can be found.”
“If she is alive,” Tarathan said. “You seem to have as little evidence of her life as you do of her death, and no leads for any seeker to follow.”
“Even,” said Jehane Mor, “if we were free to help you, which we are not. Our services are contracted well into next year.”
