Clariel

by Nix,Garth

  None of the rooms had windows, but they were quite light, again thanks to Charter marks in the plastered ceiling and stone walls.

  Clariel had just finished reviewing this unpromising accommodation when there was knock at the door, followed a moment later by a whirlwind of people in blue aprons coming in with loads of sheets, blankets, towels, a more comfortable chair, a writing desk, a velvet lounge, a standing mirror, several baskets of clothes accompanied by a seamstress, and a whole gang of young girls and boys equipped with steaming cans of hot water, which they proceeded to pour into the bath.

  All of this happened under the direction of a middle-aged woman with a cheerful face and untidy hair, whose blue apron was trimmed with silver, setting her apart from the others. She nodded to Clariel and said, “I’m your cousin Else . . . Elseniel, that is, but no one calls me that. I’m the keeper of the house, so if you want anything within these walls, come to me. Palleniel here has some clothes that will probably fit with a bit of a tuck or adjustment, so take your pick. Yan said to have you ready within the hour, so pop in the bath right away. The water cools quickly anyhow, so get the best of it. Off you go now!”

  “Uh, yes,” said Clariel. “Um, thank you, cousins.”

  They might be cousins, but there were too many of them crowded around, in too small a room. Clariel fled into the antechamber, and drew the newly placed curtain shut. She could hear general milling around and bedmaking noises going on, but mercifully no one followed her in.

  The bathwater was still very hot, but it was welcome. Clariel hadn’t realized quite how dirty she had become in the prison cell, a state that not been helped by a night under a tree. There was new soap on the bath rim, good soap scented only slightly with lime. She used a lot of it, and turned the bathwater the color of a muddy puddle, before she climbed out feeling much cleaner and considerably more refreshed.

  Palleniel the seamstress was the only person still in the other rooms. She hardly spoke, her mouth full of pins already, but she had a very good eye as proved by her choices of linen undergarments and a leather hunting tunic that turned out to be very near a perfect fit. The knee-length leggings of doeskin were slightly long, but still only needing a quick turn and a rapidly stitched hem.

  “Are hunting clothes suitable?” asked Clariel. “I mean, I saw there is to be a feast in the hall . . .”

  “Hunting clothes are always suitable around here,” mumbled Palleniel through her mouthful of pins. “Himself never wears anything else, and what he wears is what we all wear. You’ll need some boots made, cousin, but there’s soft slippers here, which I can pinch in at the toe if needed, just slip your foot in, there . . . hmmm . . . not so bad. Stay still!”

  Palleniel made no comment when Clariel, fully dressed and ready to go, put the short knife Kargrin had given her through her belt. Almost as she did so, there was a perfunctory knock at the door and Yannael—or Yan, as it seemed most of the Abhorsens called her—came in. She was bathed too, but not so much changed as simply wearing clean versions of her previous hunting leathers.

  “He’s in the message-hawk mews,” said Yan, without preamble. “Come on.”

  “Thank you, cousin,” said Clariel to Palleniel, who smiled and waved.

  Clariel followed Yan along the corridor, but instead of turning left to go back into the hall, she stopped at the end and stood in front of a large painting, a hunting scene, that had been done directly on the plastered wall. For a moment Clariel wondered why her aunt was just standing in front of it, before she saw her move a horse’s head in the painting, sliding away a cunningly matched lid of paint and plaster to reveal a tiny keyhole. Then she extended an equally tiny key from the ring on her finger and turned the lock. The whole wall, painting and all, pivoted inward as she pushed against it, revealing a narrow stair. Not a dusty, unused stair, Clariel noted as she climbed up. It was lit by Charter marks, and was as clean as the rest of Hillfair had been, so it was perhaps not meant to be all that secret. At least not to wheover mopped the floors. Yan, as Clariel had come to expect, did not explain why they were taking this stair.

  They climbed up past several other doors, two of which looked ordinary enough and one like the painted wall below, though on this side Clariel could see the faint outline in the stone wall and the grooved arc cut in the floor where the wall slid back. Then they went along another enclosed corridor, around a corner and up again, this time a larger, straight staircase of polished wood.

  Finally, five or six levels up this stair, Yan opened a door onto a long verandah or wide balcony. Heads turned as they came out, the heads of half a dozen message-hawks, their fierce yellow eyes fixed on the arrivals for a moment before they lost interest and looked away. Message-hawks, bred and trained with the help of Charter Magic, were never hooded, and they stayed on their perches without the need to be tethered by jesses. These ones, on their perches out on the verandah, were ready to go at a moment’s notice, as soon as they had a message imprinted in their minds.

  There were a dozen more message-hawks on their perches inside the mews behind the verandah, a large, fairly dim room that looked like it had been added on to whatever building they were in—which wasn’t the hall, because she had seen the roof of that from the verandah. Despite that, Clariel wasn’t sure which end of the hall she’d been looking at. Hillfair could prove just as easy to get lost in as the city, she thought, and she liked it no more than she liked Belisaere.

  The Abhorsen Tyriel was sitting at a writing desk in the middle of the room, reading a transcribed message. A clerk with inky fingers sat next to him, writing with a quill but not looking at what he was writing, because his eyes were fixed on the message-hawk that sat on its perch two inches from his face, something you would never do with a hunting bird. Hearing a confidential message, Clariel presumed. She knew the message-hawks could speak if they were so instructed, but it wasn’t unusual for them to carry messages that could only be “heard” inside the mind, and only then if the correct marks or passwords were given to the hawk.

  “Ah, Clariel,” said the Abhorsen. He had changed, but like Yan, only into a different set of hunting leathers. He still wore the collar of silver keys. At least he didn’t smell of horses and blood anymore, Clariel was pleased to note as she approached his desk. “We’ll talk outside. You may return to the feast, Yannael, and give the toast. I may be some time.”

  “Yes, Father,” said Yan. She shot her niece another swift look that defied interpretation but was probably just pure meanness, Clariel thought.

  “Come,” said Tyriel, walking out to the verandah with Clariel close behind. The hawks once again turned their heads in unison, one look at the moving humans and then back again, out toward the open sky. Though their behavior was controlled by Charter Magic, Clariel thought they still had the primal urge to fly. Only now all they could do was look, until they were dispatched upon their next mission.

  “I have had a lot of messages about you,” said Tyriel. “Messages from Kargrin, and Captain Gullaine, and Governor Kilp.”

  “Kilp!” spat Clariel. “He killed my parents!”

  “So Kargrin says,” said Tyriel. “But Kilp claims otherwise. Indeed, he sends to ask for my help, or at least to stay my hand—in the name of my daughter, who is now Queen.”

  “What!” said Clariel. She clenched her fists, blood rising in her face. “She’s dead. I was there! I saw my father killed. Mother made me run with a Charter spell, and then . . . then she charged Kilp’s guards . . .”

  “Go back,” said Tyriel. He made no move to comfort Clariel, or wipe her tears, or anything a real grandfather might do. “Tell me everything, as you saw it.”

  “Why do you care?” asked Clariel bitterly. “You thought Mother was a kinslayer. Aunt Yannael said she’s been dead to you for years.”

  “Yannael feels deeply, and holds onto pain,” said Tyriel. “I do not, and as the years have gone by, I have wondered . . . even now, I hold a small hope that Jaciel lives, that we might talk again, n
either of us in anger.”

  “I do not think there is any hope,” said Clariel. The anger was flowing away, like water from a holed vessel, she had nothing to contain it now.

  “Tell me,” said Tyriel.

  Clariel told him. How they had visited the King, and the kin-gift, and then to the Governor’s mansion. Jaciel touching the goblet, the sudden fight, her flight and capture, the prison hole, the paperwing flight to Hillfair.

  “So,” said Tyriel heavily, when at last she had finished. “I believe you are right, and now only one of my three children lives.”

  “Can’t you . . . go into Death to see?” asked Clariel. She was remembering what Bel had said about Tyriel never wearing the bells, perhaps not even having read The Book of the Dead.

  “No,” replied Tyriel, very shortly. “Death is not to be entered save when . . . needs must.”

  “What are you going to do about Kilp then?” asked Clariel. She felt two conflicting urges inside her. One was as it had always been, to get back to the Great Forest. The other was the desire to destroy Kilp and Aronzo, to take revenge for her parents’ deaths, to join the force of Abhorsens that was surely going to help the King.

  “We must consult with the Clayr, and Gullaine and Kargrin in the palace,” said Tyriel. “There is also the matter of the Summer’s End Hunt, one of the most important in our year . . .”

  Clariel felt some of that anger that had leaked away return. How could the Abhorsen be concerned with a ceremonial hunt, when there was urgent business at hand? The Borderers didn’t go hunting stags for pleasure when there was a wolf pack in the Forest.

  “There is also the question of what to do with you,” continued Tyriel. His voice held no menace, but even so, Clariel found his gaze upon her very disquieting.

  “I would like to go to Estwael,” she said quickly. “To my aunt Lemmin, my father’s sister.”

  “That, at least, is out of the question,” rumbled Tyriel. “You would not be safe. Kargrin says that Kilp needs to establish you as Queen under his control. A puppet, if you will, for he cannot continue to claim Jaciel will take the throne. No one will believe him if he cannot show she lives. Kargrin also told me . . . about your encounter with the Free Magic creature.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” asked Clariel. “She . . . it’s captured. You’ve got it stuck in a bottle.”

  Tyriel didn’t answer for a moment, but kept looking at Clariel, his eyes unblinking. She tried to meet his gaze, but eventually found herself casting her eyes down.

  “Kilp may have other such allies,” Tyriel said finally. “I think we must keep you somewhere safe, in case of abduction. Or if things change and Kilp needs all of the closest royal heirs dead, safe from assassination.”

  “I’d be safe in the Great Forest,” said Clariel desperately, seeing yet another prison looming in her future. The city had been one, albeit a relatively open prison, and then the pit . . . and now . . .

  “You most assuredly would not be,” said Tyriel. “Have you considered that the Borderers get their orders from the Governor, or as he now styles himself, the Lord Protector?”

  “No . . . but I know the Borderers near Estwael,” protested Clariel. “They wouldn’t . . .”

  “There is already a warrant out of the city calling for you to be found and ‘helped’ to return to Belisaere,” said Tyriel. “Apparently you took flight when the King was killed by rebels and did not know your mother has become Queen. Kilp is a glib hand with such stories.”

  “But if I told Sergeant Penreth the truth, she wouldn’t—”

  “Would she be able to ignore a properly sealed warrant from Belisaere, backed up by the gold that Kilp has spent widely to buy people in every city watch, among the Borderers, and in the Wall Garrison? No, you must be kept safe until we are ready to move against the traitors. You will go to our old house, and the sooner the better. I will take you there myself.”

  “But . . . how long will I be there?” asked Clariel.

  “As long as is necessary,” said Tyriel. “As I said, there are many matters to be considered. The King is secure in the Palace, there is no need for precipitate action. A few months, perhaps more—”

  “A few months!” exclaimed Clariel. “No! I can’t be shut up again!”

  She turned to run and found herself caught by the wrist. It hurt. The pain shot through to her elbow, and then to her chest, and it was as if a friction light had been applied to a line of resin and pitch, flames flaring all along the way, heading for that secret, internal place where her berserk fury was contained, but the bonds were weakening . . .

  “No!” said Clariel. “No! Not now!”

  She was talking not to Tyriel, but to herself. Frantically she tried to slow her breathing, to keep that breath inside, and not take another one too soon. Where was her calm place, the willow arches, the stream in the forest? She couldn’t see it, she could only feel the pain, and the fire inside and then—

  The rage came, roaring up unstoppably inside her. It filled every muscle with sudden, furious energy that could not be gainsayed. Clariel jerked her arm and Tyriel’s grip came free. She howled and drew her small knife as everything turned red and she saw a shadow ahead of her, knowing it only as an enemy, not as a person.

  An enemy who must be killed.

  Clariel struck at her enemy, but somehow it twisted away, making her angrier still. She charged forward, hitting strange objects whose tops erupted into flurries of movement and piercing cries, confusing her as they flapped about, and behind them her foe kept backing away. There were strange flashes of light, and trails of glowing sparks that lashed her, but still she went forward, her knife slashing. Then the trails of light wrapped around her, trussing her up like a spider securing its prey. She was suddenly down on the floor, shaking and gibbering, her hand jerking as even then she still tried to stab the enemy, the enemy who must be killed . . .

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  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ACROSS THE BRIDGE, INTO THE HOUSE

  So you do have your mother’s fury,” said Tyriel.

  Clariel opened one eye, and saw the Abhorsen looming above her, a red-streaked sky and a hawk on a perch behind him. She opened the other eye, and saw more perches. She was still on the balcony of the mews, but it was some considerable time after her last conscious memory, for the sun was beginning to set.

  There was something soft under her head. She reached back for it and felt a pillow, realizing with the motion she was not bound, as well as she might have been after trying to kill her grandfather. They could bind her easily enough now, thought Clariel, for she felt as if she could hardly move, there was no strength in her at all.

  “The rage crops up every now and them among us,” said Tyriel. “I have had some practice in dealing with berserks. I saw you try to hold it back. I suppose I should have expected something of the sort, for it often gets out of control after . . . things that stir the emotions . . . deaths and trouble . . . and Kargrin had told me you had the rage.”

  He was sitting on a wooden stool, the kind milkmaids used, Clariel saw. It looked rather incongruous. He saw her staring at the little three-legged affair, and added, “My knees aren’t what they were, and I didn’t want to leave you. It’s best to let a berserk stay where they fall, they come back to their senses faster that way. How do you feel?”

  “Weak,” whispered Clariel. “And foolish.”

  “You should not feel foolish,” said Tyriel. “The rage is both curse and blessing. Learn to rule it, and it can aid you to incredible feats of strength and daring. Let it rule you . . . I’m sure you can imagine how that would end.”

  “I can,” whispered Clariel. “I won’t let it.”

  “There is an excellent book that has proved to very helpful for our various berserks,” said Tyriel. “I believe there is a copy at the hou
se, I will send word to have the sending librarian find it for you.”

  “I will not stay there,” muttered Clariel.

  “You will,” said Tyriel. “It won’t be as bad as you seem to imagine. The Abhorsen’s House is very pleasant, it has gardens, there is fishing, and a multitude of sendings to tend to you. Some of them are even remarkably fine cooks.”

  “And jailers?” asked Clariel.

  “For your own safety, they will make sure you do not leave the House,” said Tyriel. There was a tone in his voice that brooked no further questions. Clariel sighed and let her head slump back.

  “Can you walk? I expect you would feel more dignified than if you have to be carried to a horse—I presume you can ride, for that matter? Your mother loved to ride.”

  “Did she?” asked Clariel woozily. She rolled over and managed to push herself up to a sitting position. “She never got on a horse unless we had to travel. But I can ride well enough. And walk . . . just give me a minute or two.”

  “Take your time,” he said. “It’s a short ride along the riverbank.”

  When Clariel was ready to walk, they didn’t go back down the secret or semi-secret stair, but instead down a broad and open staircase at the far end of the mews balcony. This went all the way down to ground level, ending in a kind of alley between buildings. There were grooms waiting there holding horses, and a dozen or so people already mounted. Half of them wore gethre plate hauberks, with shields, helmets, spears, and swords; and the other half in lighter mail without shields, but had short bows in saddle-cases above their left knees and quivers on their right. They were the first inhabitants of Hillfair that Clariel had seen not wearing hunting clothes.

  “I doubt that there are any assassins lurking so close,” said Tyriel. “But I am a great believer in caution, it cannot be overrated. You are sure you can ride?”