The Shadow at the Gate (16 page)

“The anbeorun walked the world and kept watch against the Dark. Centuries passed. There was peace; oh, perhaps not in the world of men, for your kind are ever given to war and the Dark has always left its shadow in your hearts—but in the realms of the anbeorun, there was peace. But the Dark is patient and time means nothing to it. The four anbeorun wandered far and no longer remembered each other, though they had sprang into being together, brothers and sisters. They walked their own separate ways and so disappeared.”

She fell silent. The room was warm with sunlight, but Ronan shivered under his blankets. Fear gripped him. This was only the beginning of the story and, no matter how strange and fantastic it sounded, he knew for a certainty it was true.

“How do you know all this?” he said. “What has this to do with you?”

She turned blank eyes on him.

“I am the sea.”

She stared out the window, looking past the rooftops and houses, gazing at the sea shimmering in the afternoon light. When she spoke again, it was almost in a whisper.

“I fell asleep. I fell asleep and did not wake for I do not know how long. Hundreds of years, I think. But a nightmare came and shook me from my sleep. For in my dream I saw that the Dark, though far from the world, had worked its will and slain one of my brothers. This could not be, but my dreams do not lie. If they lie, then I am untrue, and I cannot be untrue, for I am the sea. I rose from my sleep, troubled and wondering, for if one could be slain, then all could be slain. What terrible magic could have wrought such a thing? And so my path led me from my beloved sea here, to the world of men, to your world. An answer is here in this city and I will find it.”

“But surely there’s nothing here to stop you,” he said. “The wizards are all dead.”

She wrinkled her brow dismissively, a slim girl who looked light enough for him to lift with one hand. “You speak of things you know nothing of,” she said. “The wizards are not all dead, but they are irrelevant. However, there’re other things in this world. Things that hearken back to the times when the Dark walked in openness. Something has come that can lay a hand even on the four anbeorun—on wind, earth, and fire. And on me. It is because of this that I am reluctant to show my hand in this city, for I am not sure who my enemy is. Hence, my need of you.”

He dared a last question, though sleep was taking hold of him.

“Which of the four was killed?”

She did not answer for a long time, and he could not keep his eyes open any longer. From a long way off, just as he fell asleep, he heard her voice.

“My brother the wind. He was killed with a knife.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE DUKE OF MIZRA

That next morning, in the second week of the Autumn Fair, the duke of Mizra came riding to the gates of Hearne with all his retinue about him. The watchmen on the tower sighted them long before the first outriders came up the long, sloping rise that meets the eastern walls of the city and also marks the mouth of the Rennet valley.

“Ware the gate!” bawled one of the soldiers, and old Bordeall trudged up the stairs of the tower keep. It was a cold, clear day, for autumn had finally arrived. The leaves on the maple and ash were changing colors on the hills of the Highneck Rise district. Down in the valley, the stands of trees blushed with the first reds and golds of the year. Bordeall squinted into the sunlight.

“Mizra,” he said. “Nobbut else runs a black and gold banner. Here, you—take a horse from the stable and ride up to the castle. Find the steward. Tell him the duke of Mizra will be at the gate within the hour.”

A soldier hurried away at his bidding. Mizra was the last of the duchies to arrive for the Autumn Fair. The other duchies had already sent their delegations, along with the countless traders and merchants and all the other folk, rich or not, who desired to spend the month in Hearne, gawking and buying and selling. And being swindled, more likely than not.

Bordeall spat over the side of the wall. The fair was good for the city, no doubt, but he didn’t care for it himself. Too crowded. Too many foreigners. Still, it brought money to the city and, every year, reemphasized the fact that Hearne was still the center of Tormay.

He walked down the wall. The old ash spear felt good in his hands. It hadn’t tasted blood since the Errant Wars thirty years ago. He had been a young sergeant then, with more muscle than brain. It was a wonder he had come out of those campaigns alive. He hefted the spear. Still as light as a feather, and his eye was just as keen. He permitted himself a smile. None of the striplings on watch had been able to spot Mizra’s colors.

He didn’t mind commanding the city. The lads were well-trained and knew their places. Gawinn saw to that. The drill sergeants were good. Nothing much happened that necessitated a stern hand these days. Oh, there were the fights in the taverns every once in a while, but they mostly stopped short of killing folks in such brawls. Besides, the innkeepers kept a lid on such things. The Guild was behaving itself nicely these days as well.

Still, he wished Gawinn was back. It had been almost two weeks now, and there’d been no word from him. One more week and then he might send some riders out. Not that he doubted the Lord Captain’s safety. Owain Gawinn was the best man he’d ever seen with a sword, excepting for old Cullan Farrow. Bordeall reckoned there wasn’t a man alive in all the duchies of Tormay who knew more about battle than the Captain, and that was a good lot of men who had ridden east with him. All veterans of the Errant Wars. East and a tad south. That was where the village of the little girl was. Toward the rising sun and the Mountains of Morn.

The regent of Hearne was in the stables with the duke of Dolan and several other of the visiting nobility when the news came.

“Beauty, isn’t she,” said Botrell. A yearling trotted the perimeter of a small enclosure, gently urged on by a trainer who held her traces in one hand and an unused whip in the other.

“I suppose,” grumbled Hennen Callas.

“The last of Riverrun’s get,” said the regent, leaning on the fence. “And the best, I warrant.”

“Her lines are drawn in lovely places,” said the prince of Harth.

The regent barked a laugh.

“Perfectly said, my lord Eaomod,” he said. “It seems that the folk of Harth talk like books.”

“Rather,” said the prince, smiling gravely, “I think it the books that are written like the speech of Harth, for is not the word first spoken before the scribes set it down to page?”

“A question which has perplexed the wizards since the dawn of time,” said old Maernes, “and much too complex for the confines of a stable. For such headaches we need the medicines of wine, comfortable chairs, and full bellies.”

“My lord duke of Hull,” said the prince, bowing, “surely an hour could not be spent more pleasantly than in such pursuit, unless it be on the battlefield facing a numerous and determined foe.”

“Ah,” said the old duke. “We are in agreement.” The relationship between Hull and Harth would have grown even more cordial, had not a steward hurried into the stable.

“My lord regent,” he said. “My lords. The duke of Mizra has been sighted approaching the city.”

“Splendid,” said Botrell, rubbing his hands together. “Now all the duchies of Tormay are assembled for our fair—”

“Except Harlech, of course,” said Hennen, but no one heard him.

“Come, my friends. Let’s make haste to the gate to welcome Mizra.”

They clattered out of the castle gate and down the winding streets of Highneck Rise, past old manors and stone walls and through the first autumn leaves drifting in red and gold around the horses’ hooves. A detachment of the Guard rode before the party, for the regent was fond of their uniforms and the way the silver and blue pennants fluttered from their halberds. The elegance of Highneck Rise soon gave way, descending to the more cramped streets of the city, through rows of tall, narrow dwellings so jammed up against each other that it was impossible to tell where one building left off and the next began. The party made good time, though, for the crowds cleared easily enough for the Guard. They came to the gate of the city, with its tall tower rising to one side. Banners snapped in the wind upon the wall. The massive doors of oak and iron were open and, through them, the vanguard of the duke of Mizra was visible cresting the rise at the top of the valley. A flag fluttered at their forefront—a gold dragon on a black field. Brond Gifernes had come to Hearne.

The trumpets sounded a flourish. The soldiers on the wall snapped to attention and the party of the duke of Mizra came riding through the gate. Nimman Botrell swung down from his horse. A horseman cantered forward and the rider alighted. He was a tall man, young, looking to be barely past twenty years of age, with a long arm and a long face in which reposed a pair of startling green eyes. His hair was shorn closely to his head and it was as gold as the dragon of his banner, both locks and dragon gleaming in the sunlight. He grinned and took Botrell’s hand in his own.

“Well met, my lord regent,” said the newcomer.

“Brond Gifernes,” said Botrell, “welcome to Hearne.”

The duke of Mizra and his party were escorted through the city. They were weary with their travel, for the road to Hearne from Mizra was a long one, winding east through the canyons of Mizra and the pass in the Morn Mountains beyond. From there, it was several days’ journey, past the southern edge of the Lome Forest and then along the reaches of the Rennet valley. The duke had brought a score of retainers in his retinue, with their horses and pack mules. What’s more, there were three hunting dogs in the group—big beasts who trotted obediently at the heels of their handler.

“I’d like to do some hunting here, my lord,” said Gifernes to the regent. “Your flatland deer are remarkably swift and I thought to test my dogs on their scent. They’re excellent at short bursts of speed, but I’m not sure of their wind for long chases. However, we’ll see soon enough. Once they’ve the odor of a prey, they never forget.”

“Of course,” said Botrell. “We’ll take them up onto the Scarpe in the morning. This evening, however, I have a dinner planned in your honor. Just a small, unassuming affair.”

The duke of Mizra laughed. “I doubt it’ll be unassuming. The reputation of your board is well known in all of Tormay.”

“Horses, wine, women, and a good meal,” said Botrell. “There’s little else of worth under the sun.”

As the duke of Mizra suspected, the small dinner turned out to be anything but small. The great hall in the castle burned with countless candles, glimmering from sconces and the chandeliers that were let up and down by silver chains on wheels. Fires crackled on the hearths. The windows were open to the dark gardens beyond and the sound of the fountains that played invisibly in the night.

An endless procession of servants drifted across the expanse of polished black marble, bearing every manner of delicacy that could be desired. Roast swan with gracefully curved necks swam upon silver platters. Suckling pigs, crisped brown and exuding such a fragrance that it caused tears of joy to spring from the eyes of dedicated trenchermen, slept in splendor upon beds of roast potatoes. Tiny ducklings flew upon skies of sweet rice. Airy fantasies of pastry and quail floated by. Masterpieces of mushroom. Soufflés spun out of audacity fell apart into impossible perfection at the touch of a fork.

The chatter of a hundred different conversations was borne upon the tinkle of gold utensils on gold plates and bowls and buoyed by the sound of a string trio playing up in a balcony overlooking the hall. At the head of the table sat the regent, loud and exuberant and flushed with wine. On his right, in the place of honor, was the duke of Mizra. On the regent’s left sat the prince of Harth, honored for his father’s sake and, truth be told, the fact that Harth did so much trade with the city of Hearne. For all of his profligacy, the regent was a reasonably practical man. Further along were the other dukes and duchesses present—old duke Maernes of Hull, the Callases of Dolan, the Galaestans of Thule, the Rostannes of Vo, and Elloran, duke of Vomaro, as fat as a pudding and gleaming with sweat as he attacked his overburdened plate. From there, the seating continued on down the table to the hall’s end according to relative importance and perceived rank, with each place allotted to the minor lords and ladies, various noble bastards, and rich merchants.

Levoreth had ended up in the middle of the table. On either side of her, rows of faces bobbed over their plates and turned from side to side in conversation with their neighbors. Mouths opened and closed on food and words. She had no energy to listen. Her head was aching again. Her aunt smiled at her from further up the table.

A sceadu came traveling to Hearne, disguised as a poor wayfarer.

The old cat’s words crept through her mind. The unease within her had been growing ever since they had come to Hearne, but talk of a sceadu from yet another of the lords of the
nyten
, the four-footed kin, was grim news indeed. True, it had been many years ago, but the wolves had spoken of one as well. Such had been her dismay, though she had hidden it from them, that she had agreed to return with them to the Mountains of Morn to hunt the creature down. The hunt had been futile.

Levoreth frowned down at the soufflé on her plate. The worst memories, no matter how old they were, always persisted with painful clarity. Why was it not so with the pleasant memories? There were times when she could not remember Dolan’s face, and then the only thing she could do was to look at Hennen Callas until some stray bit of light recast his features into the old, familiar, well-beloved face.