As I was throwing off my worst garments and swiftly darkening my face and hands with soot from the little grate, I begged a scrap of parchment and the use of pen and ink. I scribbled a brief note as Rikard went over the directions we had rehearsed.
“Back out into the corridor, turn left, take the first corridor to your right and then the little stairs down to the left. It’s not very far along, mind or you’ll miss it in the dark.” I folded the little scrap of parchment and tucked it in my scrip. Rikard handed me the dark lantern he had lit from his own lamp, and a small key. “Once you’ve got her out, bring her back here to my chambers. That’s the spare key to these rooms, so she can lock herself in here. Then you keep the rest of your bargain—keep straight along the corridor in front of this room, along to the end, then right, it’s the fourth door on the right, a big double door of old oak. You listen carefully outside that to see how the wind’s blowing. If you hear a lot of shouting, come in and be ready to defend yourself.”
“I’ll do my best. And Magister—” I caught his eye. “Thank you.”
“Get her out, son, and then you can help me bring down that devil,” he growled. “With Shia’s blessing, we’ll have done a fine night’s work between us.”
I nodded to him and slipped out into the corridor, dark lantern in my hand, keeping to the shadows and moving as fast as I dared.
Magister Rikard
I strode towards the meeting chamber. My heart beat faster, knowing that I finally might have a way to depose Berys. Hard proof, after all these years! I sent a blessing on Jamie’s errand, wondering briefly if I should have asked him to bring the girl before the assembly as further proof. No matter, if she was wanted she could be fetched once he had her safe in my quarters.
The doors to the chamber stood open, but unusually there were guards at the door. I didn’t recognise either of them, and they were roughly twice my size.
And very heavily armed.
If I had not chanced to meet with Jamie that evening, I truly believe I would not have noticed. Perhaps it was that little touch of fear, of his being discovered, that had me on the alert. The presence of two such large and well-appointed strangers at such a time was very peculiar indeed. I glanced into the chamber without going in. It was already full.
In fact it was brimming over. Every Magister—well, nearly every one, a few came along behind me and wandered in, chatting of nothing much—every student was there. Even the paid servers.
It was so very, very wrong.
And in the moment, there flashed before my eyes the sight of my old friends, Magistra Erthik and Magister Caillin, dead outside the door of the student Vilkas. I knew Vilkas, I had worked with him, and Erthik had known him even better. She had been tutoring him along with his inseparable friend, Aral. Those two young souls could no more have murdered Magistra Erthik than they could—
—than they could have withstood Berys if he’d caught them. He had called an assembly to denounce them for trafficking with demons even before the murders were discovered. I had never believed it for a moment.
I took a step back from the door. The guard on the right gazed at me. “What’s wrong, Magister? The Archimage is waiting, you are the last to arrive.” He reached out to grasp my arm.
I flooded his system with sleep and did the same to the other. They dropped between one breath and another. A second pair of like men were striding down the central aisle towards the doors, and I drew in a breath and made myself invisible.
Not true invisibility, you understand, that’s impossible, but any who sought me would not see me unless they were as powerful as I. Their eyes would latch on to anything else, anything at all, that was not me. I moved swiftly and as silently as I could, lest the other guards should have better abilities than I feared. One, indeed, went to the place I had been, but the confusion took him and he could see only his sleeping comrades. He bent over and began shaking them.
I backed down the corridor, going as quickly as I could without making noise. The few scuffs of my shoes on the stone floor were covered by the commotion that swiftly surrounded the sleeping guards.
When I was out of their line of sight, I ran, down the corridors and out into the courtyard, as far as I could go.
And if you must know, yes. No day goes by, no night have I spent since untroubled by my memory of that terrible, terrifying cowardice. I knew as certainly as if I had seen it happen that most, or all, of the people in that room were going to be dead before morning. I also knew—or felt—or feared—that I could do nothing for them by bravely dying with them. It was too late for warnings.
Perhaps if I had shouted to them, before the armed guards killed me, more might have escaped.
Perhaps I’d have just been killed with them, and even greater evil would have blighted all of Kolmar.
Let you take some comfort, then, in the fact that the name of “coward” from others does not affect me in the slightest. For it can never have the force from other mouths that it has from my own soul, red with spilled blood and black with leaden guilt, every day of my life.
V. Despair and Hope
Lanen
I woke, groggy, with no idea what time it might be. There was no hint of moonlight, though whether that meant she was yet to rise or had passed me by, I didn’t know.
I cursed to myself as I sat hunched on the hard bed, staring into the darkness and wondering with a kind of detached dread what Berys might have done while I slept. I felt no different, and to be honest, I suspected there was not a thing I could do about whatever it was at this stage. I ignored the possibilities as best I could, and quietly blessed my ignorance of demon matters. If something awful was going to happen that I couldn’t do anything about, I’d rather not know.
I found, as my eyes adjusted to the low light, that there was a tray on the floor with food on it—bread, cheese, cold soup, and water. I was starving and ate every scrap. I knew absolutely that it wasn’t poisoned. Berys would never be so kind.
For all that, I only just managed to keep it down. Thank the Lady, it wasn’t the deadly sickness Vilkas had healed me of—sweet heaven, was it only a week past? a little less?—just the normal sickness most women have to put up with in pregnancy. It was quite a deal less bothersome today than it had been the last few days. I didn’t know if that was because something was happening with my babes, or because after days of enforced fasting I’d had two meals this day, or if it was just the natural time for that kind of illness to end. I tried to remember what I knew of childbearing, but the little I could recall was that there seemed to be us ninny different reactions as there were women.
“Damn,” I said out loud—at least, my lips and tongue moved, and my throat shaped the sounds, and air rushed through, but nothing came out.
Alone in silence. Again. Still.
At least now I knew how Berys had discovered that I could speak with the True Dragons, the Kantrishakrim, in their Language of Truth. Bloody Marik must have told him.
O blessed Shia. I turned cold in an instant, head to toe. Marik,
who knew I was pregnant, and was only waiting for the advantageous moment to tell Berys. O Mother of us All, I begged, blessed Mother, as one to another I beseech you, protect my babes. Let there be no good time for my unnatural father Marik to tell Berys what he has learned. Let Berys curse Marik six ways in a se’ennight if it will keep my babes from the evil one.
I couldn’t even hear my prayer myself. Berys’s spell was strong and solid—I had tested it day and night ever since I had been taken, but as far as I could tell I was still held silent on all levels.
I cannot imagine how he managed to silence the Language of Truth. Until a few months past I’d only ever heard of it in legends, and now I missed it as I’d have missed a lost arm. There on the Dragon Isle where I first heard my beloved’s voice in my head, and replied without thinking, Varien had told me that I was the only human he had ever known who could use it.
At least until now. I had shouted in truespeec
h and Marik had heard me, curse him.
What a damnable twist of fate. Shikrar and Akor, attacking Marik’s mind, had opened it to truespeech. Which had been taken from me just when it would have been bloody useful.
Something caught in my throat and I coughed, silent still. Hells take it. Somehow the fact that I couldn’t even hear myself cough made me furious. I screamed aloud, just because I had to, for the sheer frustration of it.
Nothing.
I managed to stop myself this time, before I yelled my throat raw. I’d done that the first day of my captivity, after Berys had left with the marks of my hands on his misbegotten neck. Nothing had worked, and eventually I had grown weary of the effort. Anger is a wonderful tonic, but even anger could not let me forget that I was alive only through Berys s distraction with other matters, and only until he got around to accomplishing my damnation. At best it would only be a matter of hours.
And what in all the merry Hells had he meant by saying I was become precious to him? Obviously because of my changed blood, though what it might mean to him I could not imagine. Kantri and Gedri mixed—yes, that was what I had agreed to when Vilkas saved my life. My babes had been killing me, for their blood was Kantri and Gedri blended and they all unwitting fought for their lives nearly at the cost of my own. I would surely have died if not for Vilkas, that tall, dark, reserved lad with so great a well of kindness in him. Vilkas and his comrade Aral put forth more power than I knew existed, and with my consent changed me into a creature neither truly human nor truly dragon. I yet reeled from that deep change; I yet knew not what it might mean for me in the march of time; but to my heart it mattered not a whit. My babes were safe, my body was able to support them, and that would do for now.
I tried to breathe deep, tried to relax, but it was no use. My heart began to race, my breathing quickened, as if I could hear the tramp of the guard through the thick blanket of silence that covered me. I think what bothered me most was that I could not rest. Every instant I expected the door to fly open, every moment that passed I waited for Berys to return and accomplish my damnation. Whatever that would feel like. Surely I would no longer be myself. A body without a soul, like a breathing doll, no volition, no intelligence… I shuddered again, from fear, from cold. The first gleam of moonlight had stolen through the high grating, reminding me of passing time. It couldn’t be long now.
I forced myself to calm down and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. If I stopped to think about Berys and what was surely going to happen, I wouldn’t have the courage to breathe at all.
Start small, Lanen. You’re still alive, don’t give up yet.
I had no idea how Berys had brought me to this place, but it had happened in the blink of an eye. As far as I could tell I had been imprisoned two, maybe three days. Maybe four. My beloved husband Varien and I, and the Healers Vilkas and Aral, had all been exhausted after we brought the Lesser Kindred to their new life. We all could barely stand from weariness and had taken a moment after that day and night of work to rest, when suddenly the air had turned thick with demons. I had been torn from Varien’s side to be dropped at the feet of a man I’d never seen before, but whom I guessed from his association with demons must have been Berys. I had heard of him and knew that he was older than my mother, but this man looked barely older than me. He had grabbed me, stepped onto a small platform made of rock, and suddenly we were here.
It all seemed a great deal of trouble to go to. And why in the Hells was my peculiar blood so useful to Berys?
Back to that again, around and around my thoughts trudged like a dog turning a spit.
I shook myself, there in the cold darkness. Think of something else, girl!
Oh, yes. Something else. What will it be like to be a body walking about without a soul, once mine is stolen away. Where would I be? Tormented by demons for all time? Or somehow aware of my empty shell being put through its paces by Berys the Damned?
I shivered harder in the gathering cold. Goddess help me. Either one sounded terrible beyond belief.
Marik must hate me desperately, to hand me over to Berys.
Well, it was mutual now, and all the Hells mend him because I surely wouldn’t. He knew about my babes, and he would surely tell Berys eventually if he had not already. For that alone I would kill Marik if I had the chance. It occurred to me that I should feel some kind of guilt at having tried to murder my father, but to speak truth I felt only anger at myself for having failed.
I had spent most of my life blessedly ignorant of all of this. I had known nothing of my true father and had been abandoned by my mother after little more than a year. My dear friend and heart’s father Jamie had raised me as best he could, but it seems that even he could not keep my fate from finding me. For reasons best known to himself, Marik had chosen last autumn to make good his promise to the Rakshasa, and had hounded me across the western sea to the Dragon Isle.
There he had received his due reward. The Kantri—the True Dragons, the great creatures of legend that can speak and reason—had broken his mind. The last time I had seen him ere this, he had not been able to walk unassisted and he could not speak. His Healer, Maikel, had held out no hope of Marik’s ever being able to regain the power of conscious thought.
I shuddered to my bones. Perhaps that would be my fate, afterwards. At least I won’t be there to know about it, I thought grimly.
Then, even more grimly, Probably.
Enough, girl, I told myself sternly. Think. The door was opened once. Maybe there will be another chance. When they come for you, perhaps?
It would help if I’d had any faint idea of where I was. Nothing looked even slightly familiar. The walls were thick and stone-built, but that could be anywhere. I shivered, mostly from the cold, and began to pace the tiny room—no more than two steps from wall to wall, but it kept me from freezing.
The most maddening thing was that I kept gazing, will I or nill I, at the little barred window high up on the wall. It faced towards the south so that I never saw direct light of sun or moon, only the scattered glow of either but sometimes I could catch a glimpse—I went to drag the chair over, but the chain pulled me up short.
Though perhaps—I stood on the chair where it was, standing on tiptoe—yes, there she was! The rising moon. She was just past the full, the Ancient Lady of the Moon, and she smiled at me, fair and comforting even in this dark and desperate place. I gazed as long as I could, but I could only perch like that for a very short , time. Eventually a wave of dizziness swept over me and I sat down, hard. I was in such a hurry to get down that my backside clipped the edge of the chair and I fell into a muddled heap, heedless now J of the cold, my anger gone and with it my strength. With my legs drawn up to my chest and my manacled arms wrapped around my legs, I rocked myself back and forth, small movements, as if I were terrified even to admit to myself how frightened I was. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Jamie rocking me when I was a child, disturbed by an ill dream, but thinking of Jamie made things worse.
And what did not?
The unnatural silence rattled me. All that I did happened in a complete absence of sound, bar those few moments with my tormentors. It made everything feel like a dream. No, a nightmare. A nightmare that never ended, that on waking was as hopeless as in the depths of sleep. All I could look forward to was a painful death—or worse yet, a short life in agony, if there was anything left to feel agony after the soul had gone to the deepest Hells. Left in this cage, without hope, without sound, with nothing to comfort me and all I loved taken from me.
My body began to protest the compression and I let go my legs. I felt my belly quavering, a peculiar movement, and it struck , me—was that the first movement of my babes? Or only my stomach protesting the food I’d eaten?
Goddess, Mother, aid me, I thought, my heart pounding in my ears. I can’t even be sure I’ve felt my poor babes move. I can’t even take my own life and protect my children from Berys by killing them.
Damn Berys. Damn and blast him to all
the Seven Hells, i demons take his liver and feet it to the dogs …
My whole body was shaking now, fear and rage together leaving me unmanned, for I was furious with myself even as I trembled in every limb. Every time I tried to think my way out of this hole I came to this place of fear, of gut-tightening, muscle-cramping, uncontrollable terror. Dear Goddess, what evil have I done to merit this end? I cried in the depths of my soul, longing beyond reason for the ability to shout or scream if only to relieve my anger. And my poor children, my unborn babes—I had fought for them, poor little souls, fought already for all of our lives nearly at the cost of my own. I had consented to be changed to a creature not entirely human that they—that we—might live, and now my empty sacrifice mocked me to my bones. At the time I had blessed the Healers for saving my life. Now I wished I had simply died, and my littlings with me. At least then we might walk together in the High Fields of the Lady.
By now, whenever now was, Berys surely knew that I was with child. I drew my knees in again, gently, and wrapped my arms around my middle. It was the nearest I could come to embracing my poor childer.
I pray now only that we will all go down to death together, my sweetings, and I will protect you with all the fire of my soul until the Lady comes to gather Her innocents to Her breast.
I had no doubt that their lives would end in as much pain as possible once Berys learned of them.
I bowed my head as black despair washed over my soul, for I could see no escape even in death for us all three.
I realised as it crashed over me that I had never faced true despair before that moment. Sorrow, weariness, anger, fear—all of these are the common lot of humanity, but always before there had been hope somewhere behind all. Hope, for me, had always lain behind my days. Always there was a prospect of a brighter future, of a time when this ill would be past or that obstacle would be overcome: but now I could see the future, clear and sharp before me, and it held only pain and fear and horrific ending, and all too soon.