Anna von Wessen (16 page)

~

When she met with Anna next day, Vaya seemed somehow less disposed to factiousness; and even tried, when she entered the weapons hall, to offer Anna something of a greeting. The act appeared almost to cause her a sort of physical pain – but she attempted it nonetheless.

“I am sorry,” she began, “about your leg. It was wrong of me.”

The bone had healed much while Anna slept. Even now, while she walked along the wall examining the weapons, it moved hardly at all in its place; but still she was not willing to forgive such a grievous offence so easily. She made no answer, then, to Vaya’s apology.

“Will you learn a little of the weapons today?” she asked.

“If you like.”

“Come along, then.”

Anna began pointing to the instruments upon the wall, and introduced them individually. There were hooked throwing stars, designed to penetrate to the heart; barbed nooses, which wrapped like rope round the neck, and tightened till the head was no more; and many other little odds and ends, all constructed with the view of a quick dispatch in mind.

The last, and by far Anna’s favourite, were the infamous bolt-guns. “We must use these heavy bolts,” she told Vaya, “because the Narken’s hearts are too large to stop with normal bullets.”

She held up an example of one of the projectiles. Its body was thick and serrated, and its head was triangular in shape, with each sharp metal prong intended to prevent the victim from pulling it loose. In construction it was rather like a miniature metal arrow.

“Bullets,” Vaya murmured. “I never had much use for them.”

“Well, neither have we,” Anna rejoined. “Their design, you see – even when enlarged – is not suitable for the killing of Narken.”

“And how do you use – one of these things?”

Anna took a short-barrel pistol from her belt, and opened the chamber for Vaya to see. Then she showed her how to load the bolts.

“This is of my own design,” she said, “and can hold sixteen bolts at a time. You see? The chamber’s been reconstructed for more ammunition. The revolvers, though –” (she pointed to one of them) “– can only accommodate six bolts. But they’re somewhat more reliable, and are much less likely to jam.”

She pointed finally to one of the rifles.

“You see how the handle, here, just below the trigger – you see how it’s divided into three sections? Well, each compartment can hold a single cartridge. A single cartridge holds sixteen rounds. These are the ones to have handy, when you’re surrounded. But they’re even better for distance, on account of the scope.”

“Will you teach me to use one?”

“I’ll teach you to use all three, if you like. Why don’t we go outside, and start now? All the rest can wait for another day.”

~

A mere fortnight later, Vaya was nearly as adept in the use of Lumarian weaponry as was Anna. They practised together every day, for a goodly number of hours – and though their relations were not perfect, indeed they were much improved.

Anna had forced herself to forget, by then, the strange behaviour of her previous wound; and had also banished from her mind that inexplicable foreshadowing of doom, which she had viewed in the mirror, in the depths of her own eyes, the night before Greyson’s release from the tower. Surely it was all just a silly dream – so why dwell upon it?

Ephram was immensely pleased with the progress his daughters had made. He called them to him frequently, and bade them spend a part of the evening with him. Together, then, the three of them would sit quietly in his study, speaking hardly at all, but each thinking thoughts which were somehow more potent while in one another’s company.

It was getting more and more difficult for Anna and Vaya to get the better of one another, while in the weapons hall. Vaya ceased with her tricks; and when they fought cleanly, it seemed that their skills were so nearly equal, their movements constituted more of a dance than a battle. They moved almost in synchronisation, blocking blow for blow. If anything could be said to differentiate them, it was that Vaya was the stronger of the two, and that Anna was somewhat swifter. But these things seemed to balance themselves against one another, to create an equilibrium wherein the two of them would have done much more damage as a pugilistic coalition, than as opponents in the same ring.

For a bit of fun, they called to them Greyson and Clyde one day, so as to make of themselves two teams. Clyde arrived much enthused, and took up a sword with great vigour; but at the sight of Vaya and Clyde opposite him, preparing to attack, Greyson had a nervous fit. Anna assured him that the violence was for the most part simulated (though she failed to mention the instance of her broken femur), and that there was very little danger of losing his head.

“Very little!” he cried. “Shouldn’t you say none at all?”

Anna, Vaya and Clyde burst out laughing at this; and Greyson scurried quickly from the room, his sword clattering to the floor in his wake.

XVII:

The Night Council

T
he meeting of the Lumarian heads of state was scheduled to take place on the twelfth of June. Anna and Vaya passed the greater part of May in the weapons hall; and when June arrived, and the time had come to begin making plans for the conference, it was in that chamber that Ephram found them.

The
Council was to gather, this year, at Night House itself, in honour of Ephram’s return. He had been granted permission to bring with him two guests. Certainly Byron Evigan, too, would have been welcome as always, as he had not missed a meeting in all these many years; but it seemed that his friendship with Ephram had not been restored since their visit to the Endai. For Anna herself, she had seen nothing of him, and she doubted very much that anyone else had, either.

Valo, of course, expected for himself and Anna to be called –
for he little thought that Anna’s prediction would come to pass, and did not believe that Vaya deserved such a rapid restoration to their father’s house. But he was full shocked, when he himself was not asked at all.

“You will both accompany me to Night House,” Ephram said to Anna and Vaya. “But I trust that we shall display none of our familial disputes before Koro, as we did in April at the house of Balkyr?”

Anna and Vaya shook their heads emphatically. Koro was chief of all the world’s organised Lumaria (the previously aforementioned possessor of the second Sonorin), and had been for the past five hundred years; before which his father, Kryo, had filled that most-high position. Anna had heard horror stories aplenty of his cruelty and short patience, and Vaya was old enough to have witnessed a number of them firsthand.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Ephram. “For I do think that, if we
should
fall into a similar pattern, we would certainly all lose our heads! I am very glad, my darling girls, finally to be on one and the same page with you.”

He laughed cheerfully, and took his leave. Anna and Vaya were left staring nervously at one another.

For the meeting of the Night Council, the small party needed leave Drelho a day in advance. They would arrive on the evening of the eleventh, when there was to be a feast held in Ephram’s name. But the Lumaria, for obvious reasons, are never a people to make undue haste, or to combine business with pleasure – and therefore, the day of the feast would not be sullied by a conference.

Anna’s and Vaya’s anxiety did not much abate, all those days after they first learnt of their expected attendance. Anna’s nerves consisted mainly of the approach of something unknown, and much larger than herself; while Vaya’s, as you may well imagine, were rooted more in the Council’s pending decision concerning her fate. But, let their nerves have been whatever they were – on the evening of the eleventh, still their two shadows appeared alongside that of Ephram, in the gathering darkness over the grass before Night House. 

They were come to a lonely tract of land in Suffolk, just South of Ipswich. Had they arrived at the place more in the human way, it would have been some time ago that they passed the last lighted window. For perhaps a thirty-mile radius, Night House was surrounded by naught but empty lowlands, dry and firm in some places, but soft and boggy in others. There were special traps laid, too, by the Lumaria themselves, in an effort to prevent unwanted visitors from coming too near the house. When an animal was caught, it was freed without ceremony. When a Narkul was caught, it was either slaughtered speedily, or taken to the house to freshen the ranks of the servants. And when a human was caught, it was simply made a supper of.

Anna and Vaya stood on Ephram’s either hand, staring incredulously and uneasily (respectively) at the face of the house. But it was not a house, really, nor even a mansion. If it was a castle, then it was a much greater one than Drelho. For Anna, other words had more proper connotations. It was a dark bastion; a black citadel. In height it nearly doubled Drelho, in girth and length nearly trebled. It was not beautiful, not ornately wrought and carved like the stronghold Vyra Iyenov had designed. There were no turrets, no coloured windows. There were, in fact, no windows at all. The house was merely an enormous black block, made of impenetrable stone. It was a cold and vacant picture, this one – and a fearsome one, too. 

The travellers looked for a little upon the awesome fortress, encircled on all sides by empty expanses of land. There were no trees to be seen, no other structures of any kind. There was only Night House.

“We had best go in,” Ephram said finally; though truth be told he sounded much as if he would rather not have been obliged to do so.

“Why did we not simply shift inside?” Anna asked.

“None can shift into Night House. We must go first to the door – the only door, which lies directly ahead of us. We will request admittance there.”

He led them to the place he spoke of. Anna, for one, could not discern the outline of any door or gateway; but still Ephram raised his fist, and began to knock upon the stone. At first there was no effect. But, as if realising some small error in judgment he had made, Ephram moved his fist ever so slightly to the right, and knocked again. This time, there was a great booming echo that seemed to resound all up and down the wall, and all through the earth beneath their feet. Soon after, there came a small spot of light, seemingly out of nowhere, in the wall at the level of Ephram’s head.

“Who goes there?” was the inquiry.

“I am Ephram. I have come with my daughter, Vaya Eleria, and with Anna von Wessen.”

“Vaya Eleria is expected,” the voice rejoined. “But who was that last?”

“I have told Koro of her already.”

The hidden voice said nothing more; but immediately a yellow slit appeared in the wall, just as the spot of light had done. The single stone wall became two, as it began to draw apart. The open space grew wider and wider, till the light from within came to spill out onto the grass. The owner of the voice appeared, too, along with a great line of soldiers directly behind him. They all nodded respectfully to Ephram, and followed with rather a grudging salute for Vaya. To Anna they made no motion, for she was not known to them.

“The feast is about to start,” said the first soldier. “You are welcome to make your own way to Horn Hall.”

Vaya was looking round with jerking motions of her head, and probably the most anxious expression which Anna had ever seen her assume. Anna herself was very ill at ease; and if she was not frightened, still she was wary. So Ephram put a hand on his
daughters’ shoulders, and prodded them gently forth from their individual tasks. “Come now, dear ones,” said he. “There is nothing to fear.”

“That is very easy for you to say,” whispered Vaya. “It’s not your head what’s in question.”

“And neither is yours, my dear!” Ephram returned lightly. “Now, shuffle along a bit faster, do. They are waiting for us! And it is too late to turn around.”

“Never too late for that,” Vaya murmured, as her father tried to shove her farther along. “Never at all.”

Despite her verbal and physical protestations, however, she was dragged nearly bodily down the remainder of the long corridor. It seemed a long while before finally the walls melted away; the ceiling whirled dizzyingly out of sight; and the flagstone floor lengthened, and widened, out into an immense dark cavern. But the room, much in dispute with the house’s outer structure, was circular in shape.

“Welcome to Horn Hall,” Ephram said quietly.

“Why do they call it that?” Anna asked him. “It could not look less like a horn.”

“Let us see if I can manage the tale, in the time that it takes Koro to come to us. It is customary, you see, for the King himself to usher his guests into Horn Hall.”

Anna and Vaya looked across the distance which parted them from the opposite side of the room, and perceived a shadow-like figure stepping down from a crimson chair of great height. This figure then began to cross the space very slowly, presumably in order to add an air of politeness to his approach. Vaya, who was not eager for the figure to arrive too soon, gave ear to her father’s story; though of course she knew it already.

“Many centuries ago,” said Ephram,” King Kryo was engaged in war with a neighbouring enemy clan. They met in a low valley called the Horn of Alistov: so named for the Lumarian chieftain who had once called that land his stronghold. The fight was many days long; but when finally it ended, and Kryo had worked his own sword beneath the chin of the enemy chieftain, that fellow said: ‘I have been to your house, Kryo – and it is nowhere near so great as mine. I have even eaten at your table, in the room which is meant to impress your honoured guests. But it is only the little fish to my whale.’

“Kryo beheaded him on the spot. But that very night, when he returned to Night House, he could be seen for long hours pacing the floor of the dining hall. He looked about him with displeasure; and seemed to find something lacking. He remembered the insult of the enemy chieftain; and it made him cringe. Next day he issued an order for his artisans to begin work on a new dining hall – five times the size of the last, and grand in every detail. Its construction was engendered by the battle at the Horn of Alistov; so after a while it came to be known as Horn Hall.”

Anna knew not whether to laugh or no; and so merely smiled thinly. “Is that a
true
story?” she asked.

“I doubted it, too, when I first heard it,” said Vaya; though still her eyes were fastened upon the figure which was drawing nigh. “But take it for truth, do. For even in a people of life unending, still vanity is a mortal flaw.”

“I could not have put it better myself,” said Ephram.

This, however, was the last opportunity for comment; for it was then that Koro came to them.

“Ephram!” said he. “It is so good to see you – home at last! To meet but once a year is not enough, you know, for friends such as us.”

“You are quite right, Koro.”

“Do I not know it? But we need not speak of it anymore; for now –” (he looked first to Vaya, and let his blank gaze linger for a moment upon her face; and then turned to Anna, with a countenance no more meaningful) “– you are back where you belong. So come to my table, and we shall dine.”

Before taking Ephram’s arm, however, and proceeding to lead him across the hall, Koro turned his eyes once more on Vaya. He stood very still, and utterly silent, merely gazing at her. Still there was no distinct emotion present in his gaze. He looked, rather, as if he were merely trying to comprehend something. Yet he asked no questions, and spoke not even a word.

In stature, the King of the Lumaria was somewhat smaller than Ephram; considerably shorter, and distinctly less muscular. Yet there was a certain steadiness, a certain fixedness in his expression, which bespoke of an incredible intelligence and depth of thought. Whenever you looked upon him, it seemed as if he were thinking of either one or several things of great importance – though for the life of you, you could not make out just what those things might be. His face was youthful, in the manner of the Lumaria; but, like in Ephram’s, there was a solemnity, a gravity in his countenance, which made him look almost an old man. And while Ephram’s hair was neat and fair, Koro’s hung down nearly to the middle of his back, and was coloured a sort of steel-grey, a shade which again undermined his apparent agelessness. It seemed that his eyes were always that heavy, coal-black, which only took hold of most Lumarian irises in moments of great rage or hunger. Anna was unspeakably relieved that he never turned those eyes directly upon her. In some way they were empty – small portals of nothingness which led in turn to an equally vacant inner hollow – and yet they were also replete with dangerous understanding. They were like sharks’ eyes.

Finally he dropped them from Vaya’s face, and started across the hall with Ephram. He gave no word or sign to his other guests. Vaya kept her place for a moment, staring after him; and did not appear afraid, but merely chagrined. It was perhaps half a minute before she shook away the mild anger which accompanied this event, and motioned for Anna to follow her.

They strode along together, far in the wake of Ephram and Koro, and under the gaze of thousands of eyes. The hall was situated much like that of Drelho (save for the fact that it was perhaps three times larger), with numerous tables laid in an orderly row beneath the great head table.
At the very centre of the latter table was that aforementioned crimson chair, which Koro presently settled himself upon. At his right-hand were his dukes and duchesses (more to be said about them shortly); and at his left there was a chair set for Ephram. Next came two more empty chairs, which were obviously set for Anna and Vaya; and then came Josev of Wisthane, who stood up at Ephram’s approach, and reached for his hand. He was a very small Lumarian – very neatly groomed, and almost handsome, but still only five feet in height. Vaya made no attempt to meet his pointed gaze (possibly for reasons identical to those which made her so unwilling to face the rest of the hall; but probably for something that had more to do with the late Tokin Black).

At Josev’s left-hand, there were a goodly number more chairs set; some occupied, and some vacant. These were the places of the remaining members of the Night Council and their guests; and from what descriptions Ephram had earlier given her, Anna had
little trouble in distinguishing one from the other. Already in attendance were Eirich of Ireland, Devin of Scotland, and Ursula of Poland. The gentlemen looked very like one another; for actually they were brothers, both born in Ireland of the late King Eiros. When Eiros was slain by the chieftain of Scotland’s wild Lumaria, Eirich assumed the throne; but some one-hundred-and-twelve years ago, his brother Devin crossed the sea to Scotland, and there warred against the chieftain Sorno for some three months. Finally he took his head; declared the Lumaria of the land his own; and made a project much as Ephram had once done in America, of shaping them into something in which the Council could take pride.