The Heir of Night (39 page)

Kalan considered. “How did you know I was in trouble? Or where to find me?”

“I gave you the ring,” the hero said simply, “and you are still within the Gate, however deep you may have traveled.”

Kalan nodded. “The trees showed me both the Huntmaster’s mask and his crow, just before you came,” he said slowly. “The bird called me the Token-bearer and the mask said that a wise person knows the face of his enemies. The Huntmaster said the same thing to me, too, when I met him in the forest.”

The hero looked thoughtful. “As I said, you should pay attention to what this forest shows you.”

“But why would it show me the Huntmaster’s mask when you said that he disturbs it?” Kalan persisted. “What do you think it means?”

Yorindesarinen shook her head. “I do not know the mind of this wood,” she said. “I will help you where I can, but there is still a great deal that you will have to work out for yourself. And it is right that you should,” she added, “for your enemies are powerful and cunning, and you must be able to outwit as well as outfight them if you are to survive.” He frowned up at her, perturbed, and she smiled a little. “Do not look so troubled. I have faith, Kalan the Young, that you will find both the wit and the strength of arm to make your enemies fear you.”

“
‘It is a wise person who knows the face of his enemy
,’” Kalan repeated, still frowning. “Does that mean that the Huntmaster is really my enemy and I should know his true face? Except how can I, when he wears a mask? Or did he mean that I should be able to recognize who my enemies are, no matter what face they show me?” The frown deepened. “Or perhaps he is just playing a game with me?”

Yorindesarinen studied him, deeply thoughtful. “Sometimes, Kalan, it is necessary to change the way you listen, in
order to better understand what you hear. The one thing you may be sure of is that the Huntmaster will not have spoken lightly, given that he spoke to you at all.” She turned her head. “But it is time and more that you crossed back to the other side of the Gate—and see, the help I called is here.”

Kalan looked around and saw that the trees had drawn back while they talked and a golden light was flowing down the path, lapping against the trunks of the trees. “Hello,” he said. “You again.”

“I might say the same,”
the fiery voice replied, dry in his mind. The advancing light halted a few feet from where Yorindesarinen floated amongst the trees.
“Summoned, I come,”
said Hylcarian.
“Greetings, Child of Stars.”

“In need, I called,” the hero replied. “Time is short, old friend. This young dreamer must return to the other side of the Gate, but the wood has snared him. It will let him go now, I think, but he exists in both places at the same time, as do you—whereas my power is only in this world of dreams. He will find it easier to make his way back to his sleeping body if you lend him your aid, Hylcarian.”

“Time is shorter than you might think,”
Hylcarian replied.
“They are coming for him now, in the New Keep, and I cannot remain here long.
”

“I thought,” Kalan said curiously, “that you were fully occupied shoring up the foundations of the Old Keep, and likely to remain so for some time?”

So I am,”
responded Hylcarian,
“and must be, lest the whole Keep of Winds come crashing down around our ears.”

“Not quite the Fall of Night that we anticipated, eh?” observed Yorindesarinen, with a grin.

“Laugh then,”
said Hylcarian, but without heat.
“One cannot open portals into the void itself and expect there to be no consequences in the world on the hither side of that gate. Still, some good will come even out of that near disaster, for once I have sealed up all the rifts and cracks no enemy will penetrate the Old Keep again. I will make
very sure of that. For now, just be thankful that I have done enough work to have some strength left over for running your errands, Child of Stars.”

Yorindesarinen held up a hand, acknowledging the counter hit. “Forgive me, old friend,” she said, very grave, but Kalan could see the smile lurking in her eyes. He suspected that Hylcarian could see it, too.

“I must go,”
the voice of light said,
“and take the boy, before we both get stranded within the Gate of Dreams.”

“Go, then,” said Yorindesarinen, “and may the Nine go with you both!” She winked out like a star and the forest fell away from the Golden Fire as it flared through the trees like a sun track on water. Kalan began to run again, his feet flying along the path, faster and faster while the light blazed around him until he was not running at all, but arrowing up through a sea of light like a swimmer coming up for air.

At the last moment, on the very edge of breaking through the surface of light, the Golden Fire checked him.
“Wait! There are two messages that I would have you bear for me into your New Keep. The first is for the Child.”

“For Malian?” said Kalan. “I’m listening.”

“The Child of Stars says that the Heir of Night must leave and go out into the wide world. I, too, see that it must be so, although it grieves me. Tell Malian of Night that she must seek for the lost arms of Yorindesarinen there: the sword, helm, and shield that were lost to us when the hero fell. I searched for them mightily, even after the others gave up, but found only darkness, silence, and death.”
The fiery voice paused.
“The one thing I learned in all that time was that the armring is the key to their finding. Tell the Child she must use that key, for she will need the arms to defeat her enemies and fulfill her destiny.”

“I will tell her,” promised Kalan. “But where should she look?”

“I do not know,”
said Hylcarian.
“Even Yorindesarinen does not know and they were her arms once. The important thing is to look, for even now, I believe, the weapons will
be rousing themselves to answer the Child of Night’s need. But she must be very secret. No one else must suspect what she is doing. No one! So tell only the Child what I tell you now—and let no other overhear. Do you understand me, boy of Blood?”

“I understand,” said Kalan, compelled by the Fire’s urgency. “But what is the second message?”

“That,”
said Hylcarian,
“is for the Honor Captain, a warning to the wise, which is that siren worms always hunt in pairs. Where one is, the other will not be far away. They are cunning and patient, but not particularly courageous, except in pursuit of blood feud where they rival even the Derai. Your captain should be prepared for what will come. Now go, and swiftly, for they are coming for you.”

“Who—” Kalan began, but Hylcarian had already let him go; the golden light fragmented and soon it had vanished altogether. Kalan found himself safely back in his body, on the verge of waking, and with someone speaking his name.

23

M
alian sat up in her bed, wide-awake. The red and white room was filled with a clamor of voices; Nhairin was leaning one arm on the mantelpiece above the fire, her expression bleak; and a tall woman in a priestess’s robes had taken the steward’s place in the chair. Asantir was standing by the tapestry with her sword drawn, a pale green ichor dripping from the blade onto the floor, while the guards searched the room. Haimyr strolled over to the bed and perched himself on one corner, carefully settling the fall of his sleeves. Perplexed, Malian stared from him to the young priests at the door.

“What,” she said, “are you all doing here?” She tried to take everything in, to work out what had happened, then shook her head. “I had the strangest dream,” she muttered, as much to herself as Haimyr. “Kalan was in it, and the hounds in the tapestry had come alive.” She shivered. “Their eyes were full of fire and their voices cried out for blood.”

“Old tales to scare children with,” Nhairin said, although she sounded shaken. “I should have known that Doria would fill your head with them, given half a chance.”

The priestess in the chair glanced at Nhairin, her expression curious, but Malian shook her head again. “No,” she
said, “I’ve never heard of these hounds before. Or the masked huntsman that was with them.” She frowned. “There was a cat, too,” she added slowly. “It was as big as the hounds. But it wasn’t in the tapestry. It was here, in this room.”

Nhairin shrugged. “It was just a dream,” she said, but Malian was looking at Asantir.

“What are you all doing here?” she asked again. “And your sword—What happened, Asantir?”

Everyone else stopped talking. “An attack,” said Asantir. She indicated the severed head and the thick gray-black body that still twitched at her feet, then looked more closely at her sword blade. “Nine, this stuff must be caustic! It’s pitting my sword.” Carefully, she wiped the blade clean on the edge of her cloak.

“A vile thing!” Nhairin said, with some violence, while Malian leaned forward to peer at the body more closely.

“What sort of creature is it?” she asked, shaken.

“I believe,” the priestess in the chair said calmly, “that this is the darkspawn known as a siren worm. Their song ensorcels all who hear it and their bite is death.”

Malian shivered again, for although the details of her dream had begun to fade as soon as she woke, she was sure that she could remember a sweet, almost cloying song and finding it difficult to breathe. But Asantir was watching Nhairin. “What I want to know,” she said, “is how it got so close to Malian without your seeing it, when you were here in the room?”

Nhairin frowned. “I cannot explain it at all, unless Korriya is right and that thing ensorceled me.” She pressed her fingertips into the corners of her eyes as though they pained her. “All was quiet, all well, that is all I remember until the fire flared up and you burst through the door. But how did
you
know there was something wrong, enough to bring these others here with you?” She glanced at the initiates by the door with distaste.

Asantir shrugged. “I didn’t know. It was just a feeling that kept gnawing away at me. Then Haimyr spoke of the same
uneasiness and Sister Korriya, too, sent word that she was concerned. Reason enough, given recent events, to investigate further. Then when we got here …” She paused and looked hard at the tapestry on the wall. The others followed her gaze and Malian gave a little gasp. “What’s wrong?” the captain asked her.

“It’s changed,” Malian said slowly. “Again. It did the same thing before I went to sleep as well, which is why I asked Nhairin to stay and keep watch. I knew it had changed, but it seemed so strange that part of me didn’t really believe what my eyes had seen.”

“Understandably,” murmured Haimyr, to no one in particular, but Korriya remained grave, intent.

“How did it alter before?” she asked Malian. “And how is it different now?”

Malian glanced into the gray eyes and worn face and then as quickly away, because it was strange to think that this stranger was her only blood kin, aside from her father. “At first it always looked the same,” she explained. “The white deer fled from the hounds with the hunters following behind, carefree and laughing. But earlier this evening the scene definitely altered. The prey looked more like a small unicorn than a deer, and the hounds were bigger and a lot closer to it. The hunters’ faces had all turned aside, or were concealed in some way, and none of them were laughing—but now look. You can only just make out the unicorn, disappearing amongst the trees, but see how the hounds mill and swarm! Clearly they have run some other prey to ground—although there’s only the one black-cloaked huntsman present, with no other hunters to be seen.” She hesitated, puzzled. “The huntsman has never been in the tapestry at all, before this. But he was in my dream.”

“I don’t suppose,” Asantir said, with some asperity, “that either of you thought to tell anyone else about this?”

Nhairin sighed. “As Malian said, she half thought she was being foolish. And to be honest, I couldn’t see anything different about the tapestry. It looked very much as it always had.”

“I see,” said Asantir. She examined the weaving closely and then shook her head. “But Malian’s tale does fit what I saw as we came through the door—not just the worm and a ring of silver fire around the bed, but the tapestry opening to Nine knows where!” A ripple of uneasy murmurs indicated that others had seen the same, or something very similar.

“I don’t suppose,” Haimyr said, pointing to the severed head and still twitching body of the worm, “that we can dispose of
that
before we go any further?”

Asantir regarded it indifferently. “I want to keep my eye on it for the moment,” she said. “I assume,” she added, speaking to Korriya, “that fire is the course you recommend for such vermin?”

The priestess nodded. “It is the only way to avoid contamination from any evil still clinging to their dead flesh. And we don’t want such shadows to linger here.”

“No,” said Asantir, “we’ve had more than enough shadows lately.” She turned back to Nhairin. “What more can you recall of what happened here? I want to hear everything you know or suspect.”

Nhairin’s tone was troubled. “I’m not sure how much more I can tell you.” She spoke slowly, as though trying to clarify her recollections. “As I said, the room seemed peaceful enough and Malian soon went to sleep while I drifted with the play of the flames, half awake and half dreaming. I could hear a sweet, wordless song, but thought that was just the dream. I felt tired, my body weighted down, yet I felt no threat, no danger until the moment you arrived.” She sighed. “The rest you saw for yourself.”