The Dark Ferryman

by Jenna Rhodes

  You are correct if you have suspected that the mystery of your antecedents has intrigued me, and I have combined the investigation of your missing parents with other explorations of my own. You’ve been an apt apprentice and pupil to me, and it was no hardship taking you on. I fear that I can report little success other than to tell you that your mother did not abandon you intending never to return. It seems she met with an accidental death upon her travels, as it is sometimes the ill fortune to do so. As for your father, I have nothing but the barest suspicion, nothing I should tell you yet, and so cannot leave you anything but this barest of crumbs as my bequest to you.

  There is a book herein. Keep it close if you carry it with you. Not a few have died for it over the years. I have obtained it in my chase for the Old Deceiver and though I have but lightly reviewed it, I have hopes. There is one or more among us who came not on that great day but before and who are not listed in our numbers. It has long been rumored among certain Dwellers and Kernans and in their oral tradition that some of us walked Kerith before the great invasion. If so, who were they? Do they yet live? Did they lay the ground for our being here and if so, how? And for what purpose do they remain among us, if not as trickster or deceiver? I have long suspected that there is a singular one who moves behind us, stirring trouble, breaking treaties, spreading lies, quietly but effectively to restrain us. If there is such a one, he is deadly and will not hesitate to strike mortally to keep his secret. Therefore, be cautious, Sevryn. It is not only your life you may risk.

  Remember yourself and your teachings, and may they lead you on a long road indeed.

  Yours, Gilgarran

  Sevryn fought not to crumple the paper in frustration. Barest crumb? Not even that. Where did his mother die? Who gave that information to Gilgarran? How did he come by it? He clenched one hand, knuckles bled to white. As for suspicions, they were more than Sevryn had. Why not tell him so the truth could be found? Why not tell him, at last? Why?

  And worse, a traitor buried within them. Gilgarran had worried at the revelation for centuries, if Sevryn knew him. How could Sevryn deal with what Gilgarran could not? What evidence Gilgarran might have had of these treacheries were not found in this casket. Had they died with his teacher? Or were they buried elsewhere?

  The letter slipped from his numb fingers. He stared at it until his eyes went dry and he finally blinked. Then he opened his hand, reached out, and carefully folded it up, returning it to the coffer. He knew Gilgarran well. He knew the flowery script but not the flowery manner of his writing. Gilgarran was nothing if not direct. There might be more than he could see, and if he knew his old teacher, there would be a world hidden within that short missive. He would wait until he could think clearer, until he could puzzle his way in and out of the letter.

  The small book, leather-bound, slipped out of the ribbon easily onto his palm. It held no title, handmade it seemed, and quite probably one of a kind. Perhaps Gilgarran had even been the bookbinder. It was aged but still supple, and it looked as if it had been carried and read for quite a while before it had been archived. He opened it carefully.

  List of the First Days

  Sevryn read the title page twice. As he turned it, a small scrap of paper fell out, and he recognized this handwriting as more characteristically Gilgarran’s, hastily but carefully done. Daravan also searches for this book. Why? Keep it from him.

  Sevryn closed the book on his finger to think.

  Daravan. Another who delved into many secrets and shared few of them. Had they competed for this book? What knowledge did it hold that was not already on record in the great library of Ferstanthe? Did it hold truth or rumor, findings Gilgarran dared not repeat until he could confirm them, but he had diaries copied. What, then? Had chasing down the illegal weaponsmith and forges of Quendius cut short substantiating this book? Had he been in quest of the Old Deceiver? Gilgarran was not a man who doubted what he knew. What he knew, he knew well.

  Sevryn glanced upward, wondering if he should give the book to Feldari to be copied or if that would endanger the Kernan. How could Daravan know if he did so?

  Because Daravan seemed, as Gilgarran had, to be nearly everywhere and know nearly everything. He was a shadow without needing a sun to make himself appear.

  Sevryn chewed on the corner of his lip a moment before paging past the opening and beginning to read. As his fingers held the book close, he felt a roughness along the binding. Turning it over, he spied a rougher edge on the inside leaf. He took his dagger out and carefully eased it open. A slim and folded piece of paper slid out. He opened it with the blade’s tip and saw a map. Answers he needed. He glanced back at the book. There were more answers within, if he knew Gilgarran. Perhaps even the code to reading the map properly, for he would wrap puzzles about puzzles.

  He put the map aside and bent to read once more as if his life—no, his and that of Rivergrace—depended upon it.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  AZEL D’STANTHE STOOD BY THE GATE to his small domain as if he waited for them, his burly figure swathed in voluminous robes against the now bitter cold of the forested north. A wind whistled through the great trees, ruffling their needled branches with a roar like that of the ocean, Meg told Rivergrace who had never been to the sea. The aroma of their sap and scent swirled around them, crisp and refreshing. Nutmeg freed one hand from holding the reins to wave in welcome.

  “How did he know?”

  “I’m not sure,” Grace answered. “He knows many things.” They rode up slowly, where she could see surprised delight on the historian’s face.

  “Welcome, welcome, Lady Rivergrace and Mistress Farbranch!” he boomed, and held his arms out to help them from their mounts. “My library shall be full indeed this evening! What a wonderful surprise for an old man.” He wasn’t that old for a Vaelinar though doubtless generations old for a Dweller, but he carried his prime years in a body that looked experienced. He beamed as he set them on the ground. “I shall tell my lads to lay down a second fire and warm the chilly old place up a bit. What brings the two of you here?”

  “Reading and to ask your advice,” Grace told him. “As usual.”

  “Alas, my last advice to you wasn’t that accurate, I fear.”

  “You meant well, and you were right in most ways.”

  Azel shifted inside his robes. “And wrong in the most important one. I told you that you were nothing more than a vessel to hold a magic not of this world. That is an error I’m glad was untrue. You have a life of your own and you’re most definitely meant to be yourself!” He whistled, and one of his young scholar apprentices came flying out of the library door, robes billowing behind and sandals slapping upon the ground, to take the horses to the stables. A second apprentice hung in the doorway to see if he was needed, and Azel bellowed at him, “More fires! More rooms! More cider to warm!”

  “Yessir, m’lord,” the youth relayed the order back as he disappeared into the great building.

  “Now,” Azel said, as he hugged both to him. “I await the bidding of Lord Bistel who had sent word he was on his way this day, but you two go inside and eat and have a hot drink . . . I insist, and so I will brook no argument!”

  He took their hands and led them toward his doors, laughing as he did. He left them inside the great stone arches. The building looked more like one of the great temples of Calcort rather than a home or manor, for there were only alcoves and no real sign of welcome until the apprentice led them to a side wing where fires roared and the stone warmed, and rugs appeared on the flooring, with chairs and small tables grouped by the fire-sides. In that room, they could smell the scent of a kitchen: coal and wood burning, and bread baking, and meat sizzling on a spit filling the air with its appetizing scent. The apprentice said nothing, but a wide grin flashed across his young, freckled face as he bowed and promised to bring them food back as soon as possible. He took to his heels.

  Nutmeg sat and primly tucked her legs under her chair. “I hope he’s right about hurrying.
I swear I could eat a book.”

  “A book! I doubt if that would taste any good.”

  “No, but chewing all that paper would keep me busy for a while.” She sighed. “And it has to be better than dried fish.”

  Rivergrace circled the room before picking a spot by the fire and warming herself for a while. Her sister’s humor and chatter had begun to thin, and an uncharacteristic frown line deepened between her amber eyes, letting Grace know that something profound worried at her, like a street dog at an old bone. She would talk more about it when she was ready, but Grace knew she wanted to find proof that she loved the right person and that it could work. For herself, she already knew the answer to that when the daughter of ild Fallyn turned Jeredon’s head so easily. Yet it was a realization that would have to come to Nutmeg when it came, and Rivergrace also knew that things could change and she could be wrong. No one could tell her how her destiny would be with Sevryn; that was something that would have to be forged between the two of them, and so it would be with Nutmeg. Or, as Tolby Farbranch would say, the seed is far from the sprig and farther still from the sapling which grows into the tree.

  The apprentice and a kitchen maid interrupted her thoughts just as the fire had toasted the icy wind from her bones very nicely. They each bore a tray of piping hot bread, slices of juicy meat, fresh fruits and cheese, and a mug of steaming cider. They pulled the small tables together to make a bigger dining table, tucked large napkins about each of the girls, and left them to enjoy their feast.

  Nutmeg put down a sandwich and a half before mopping her mouth and chin and sitting back. “Now, what is our plan of attack?”

  Grace who could eat as much as any hearty Dweller although she always did so at a much slower pace, raised her eyebrows in surprise, her mouth and hands full of food. “Attack?” she managed between chews.

  “Azel will want to know what it is we want to know, and do we tell him or do we come armed with a well-placed distraction.”

  “Lie to him?”

  “Put it that way, aye. Shall we lie to him? Iffen we do, what shall we say?” Nutmeg took up a small plum and polished it on her sleeve before biting into it.

  “I don’t know that we have to do that.” Rivergrace finished her bite and swallowed slowly, considering. “He’s always been truthful with me, even bluntly so.”

  “That he has. A-course, his job here is to preserve the truth, isn’t it?” Nutmeg looked across the table at her. “A different job from that of a Warrior Queen.”

  “I know. She does things for a deeper purpose than you or I can guess. She has centuries of history behind her and ahead of her, and she has been trained for all that. I don’t want to try and doubt her reasoning.”

  “She is flat-out wrong about you and Sevryn. That I know,” declared Nutmeg, sitting back in conviction that was only a little marred by the fruit juice dribbling down her chin.

  “She might see something in the pattern of the weave we can’t.” Rivergrace ate the last bite of her sandwich, chewing as though it were the problem before them. “It’s like your mother at the loom, but Lariel has decades and decades of time to choose the threads.”

  “She can be as wrong as anybody. And, seems as if I have to be the one to say it, Azel is a Vaelinar and she is a Vaelinar.”

  “As am I.”

  “No,” Nutmeg told her. “You’re my sister, and something more than Vaelinar, that’s what they all think, an’ a few have said it—they don’t know what, and it scares them.” She punctuated the air with a poking finger. “You’ve seen it, though you’ve not said much to me, and I’ve seen and heard it. Lara doesn’t know what to do with you. I imagine she’s had Azel lookin’ through all the piled-up words here trying to help her decide. So, is the twig going to be bent or straight?”

  Rivergrace opened her mouth to answer, when a quiet footfall sounded behind their chairs, and a commanding voice noted, “It is a poor guest who comes to a host for aid and lies about what help they wish, intending to steal what cannot be offered.” She snapped her lips shut as Bistel Vantane stopped beside their table. “Are there leavings for me?”

  Nutmeg hopped up and made a plate for the warlord, her face flushed and her own mouth pinched, but she said as she gave it to him, “That doesn’t deny the fact that’s behind us and brought us here.”

  Bistel sat down heavily, smelling of horse and leather and the evergreens. He balanced the plate on his knee. “And I won’t deny it either. Lariel is more like her grandfather than many know, following in his footsteps. He was always a quiet man, keeping much that he knew and wished to know to himself, for voicing either answers or questions would leave a trail that he didn’t want anyone following but himself. She has that caution in her. As for fearing you, Rivergrace, can you blame her? When the two of you met, you feared yourself. As for now, well.” He took a hearty bite, chewed and swallowed before finishing, “If you’ve come to Azel for help, let him give it as fully as he can. Otherwise, you’ve made a fool’s journey to do a fool’s task.”

  “Trust in Azel.”

  “You cannot trust halfway. Either you do, or you don’t. Either you trust, or you distrust and deal with caution.” He shrugged. He finished off the sandwich Nutmeg had made him in two more bites, then leaned forward to the table and made himself a second, a massive sandwich larger than his hands, and placed it on his plate while stabbing a slab of cheese.

  “And what do you do here?” Nutmeg asked pointedly, refusing to give way before the warlord.

  He examined her closely. “I’ve come to do a ritual.”

  Rivergrace found her hands shaking and dropped them quickly into her lap to hide it. His statement had a finality about it that scared her. “Before you go to war?”

  “Before I go to this war, yes, m’lady Rivergrace. I doubt I will have time to do it elsewhen. I’ve promised Queen Lariel to meet her, so I leave as soon as I’ve done.”

  “Where is Azel?” Rivergrace picked up her mug of still warm cider and held it tightly.

  “Out with a few guards looking at the border of this small corner of the lands. I thought I saw the lean and hungry man who shadows Quendius on my heels as I rode through. Now there is a man whose story I would like to see in the Books. He might have much to tell us.”

  “Narskap.”

  “That’s the one.” He nibbled on his crust.

  Rivergrace and Nutmeg traded looks. Had he followed them there, trailing them without the girls knowing it? The thought made her cold in spite of the warm drink in her hands, and she took a hasty gulp of it. “He was with Quendius when he . . . they . . . killed Osten.”

  “I know, lass. War falcons flew fast and hard to carry that sad news. I would be after Quendius even now, but the queen is determined to put Abayan Diort in his place. She has some reason for her stubbornness, but she hasn’t enlightened me. Still, I am here, on my way to the battle.”

  “Because of trust.”

  “Trust and honor and loyalty.” Bistel nodded, the light in his blue eyes fierce. He paused, then added, “I wish I could say I knew your father and mother, lass, but I can’t. Yet that doesn’t mean you don’t have a rightful place among us. What it means is that their names were forgotten, obliterated, or never brought to light.” He thought a moment, then said, “In the old days, those of us who had no lands or titles risked the anathema of creating Ways to gain those things. Ways were made and sometimes unleashed such terrible power that, so we would not end up like the Mageborn, they were outlawed. Still, some would try. They usually failed. A Way is a feat of great magic and most of us aren’t capable of it, or if we open one, we can’t control it. Bloodlines which broke those laws were subject to death. One might hide their children from that sort of justice if they knew they were going to take the risk.” He looked squarely at Rivergrace. “Your name may not have been known except in the records of those death sentences. It would not be written anywhere else, but here, in those cases.”

  His words stunned her, and it fell t
o Nutmeg to stammer faintly, “Thank you, Lord Bistel,” in Rivergrace’s stead.

  “It’s little enough help.” He finished his supper and stood, putting his metal plate back on the table. “Perhaps I will see you later this evening, when Azel breaks out the good liquor.” He winked and left with the confident long stride and straight shoulders of a leader of men, his white hair looking like a torch of light as he disappeared into the depths of the library.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A GREAT WIND RACED through the night. Narskap bent in it, perched upon the tiles of the high roof of the library. He would have shivered, but that might have given him away, and so he found a stillness and wrapped it about himself and endured. It would be daylight soon, with hopefully a bit of sunlight to thaw the winter a little, and he would live to see it.

  He had doubled back to keep a watch on his master and found him watching prey, and so trailed the tracker. A nagging worry about the true intentions of Quendius proved well-founded when Narskap caught him after Rivergrace and Nutmeg. Where Quendius had lost them and turned back only to disappear himself, Narskap chose to follow Rivergrace and her short sister for reasons he did not entirely know. Perhaps he followed in place of his master, perhaps he followed because as a hound, keeping to the trail was required of him. He found the Ferryman waiting for him on the bank of the small river. The phantom took him without query or coin to the other side where he quickly caught up, staying to cover as the forests grew thicker and greener and colder until they reached Ferstanthe.

  Then, and only then, Narskap left them, tethering his horse in a small dell outside where the beast could crop grass and find water, and yet still be waiting for him when he returned. He slipped past the guards and the vigilant Azel, and heard of the visitations expected and unexpected, and made his way to safety upon the rooftops. From there, he would take whatever opportunities presented themselves to him, to slip through whatever cracks the enemy might leave open to him. He slept, fitfully, on the roof, his ear pressed to the tile as if he listened to a better life within. Then, as the first of the sun tried to crack open clouds that curtained it, he crept to the wing where chimneys puffed out thin, gray columns of smoke, and found an eave and a window. He shinnied down to test the window and slipped, his hands and body still half numb from the cold, and banged against the closed shutter. The sound it uttered was not all that great, but he scuttled back to the shadows and clung, holding his breath, to see what he might have roused.