Bloodheir

VIII

They went deeper, along narrow, rough-hewn passageways, down dark stairwells. There was a door, massive and thick, that took them into a wider corridor where there were oil lamps and a paved floor. And then Orisian saw something that brought him to a halt: a child. She was running towards them, smiling. She came on light, quick feet, arms outstretched and trailing the fine sleeves of an old, faded dress. A na’kyrim child; a pale, almost luminous presence amidst the shadows and weight of the fortress.

Orisian stopped so abruptly that Yvane walked into his back. She grunted in irritation and looked over his shoulder.

“What’s the matter?” she demanded.

“Nothing. It’s just… I’ve never seen one before.”

“One? The child? Ha! Did you imagine we sprang into being already haggard and aged?”

Orisian shook his head. He watched the young girl. She had wrapped her arms around Bannain’s thigh and grinned up at him as he ran a hand over her hair.

“It’s not surprising she’s the first you’ve seen,” Yvane said, more gentle now. “Too many walls between Huanin and Kyrinin these days. Half the babies that do get themselves born are probably killed as soon as they’ve drawn breath, still wrapped in their swaddling cloths. That’s the world we’ve all made for ourselves. That’s why, whatever its faults, I’d not unmake Highfast. There’s few enough places that girl could find safety: here, Koldihrve, Dyrkyrnon, one or two others.”

“How many children are there here?”

“I don’t know. When I left? Only three or four. We’re a rare breed, and growing rarer.”

The girl walked with them to the end of the corridor. She held Bannain’s hand. He halted outside a door and knelt to whisper something to her. She laughed and nodded, and then darted into the room beyond when Bannain held the door open for her.

“Our herald will announce our arrival,” he said with a smile.

Within, half a dozen na’kyrim were waiting. All were dressed alike in plain robes; all had the same still, erect posture. The little girl had run to the side of a woman who wore a crude, thick iron chain around her neck. The child spoke a few soft and excited words, then moved to stand apart, an expression of shy anticipation on her face. The woman took in Orisian and his motley companions with a single sweeping gaze. Orisian drew breath to speak, but she settled her cold attention upon Bannain.

“You left alone,” she said, “yet return with a multitude.”

To Orisian’s ears, her tone was level, impassive. It appeared that Bannain detected more pointed sentiments, for his shoulders sagged a little and he stepped forwards with none of the brashness that Orisian had come to expect of him.

“It seemed wise, Elect. It seemed prudent.”

“Prudent,” the Elect repeated. Her eyes were on Orisian now. “You are the Thane of the Lannis-Haig Blood?”

“Yes.” His voice came out with less authority than he would have liked. “I was told I might find good counsel here,” he went on with what he hoped was more firmness, “but if we are not welcome, we will not trouble you. There are other places I should be.”

“You are not unwelcome,” the woman said, though her tone hardly lent credence to the words. She signalled Bannain to stand amongst the little group of na’kyrim gathered around her, and he obeyed without hesitation. “I am Cerys, Elect of the Council of Highfast. You, Thane, I now know. And Yvane, of course. Who else has Bannain brought with him?”

“Rothe, my shieldman. Ess’yr and Varryn, of the Fox. And Hammarn, who came with us from Koldihrve.”

It was only Hammarn, Orisian noted, who seemed to earn some softening of the Elect’s demeanour. She nodded in the old man’s direction, to his embarrassment. He smiled, then frowned, then took on an empty, wide-eyed expression as if he had no idea what to do with his face.

“You have strange travelling companions, for a Thane of the Haig Bloods,” Cerys observed with a hint of a narrow smile.

“So I’ve been told before.”

It took Orisian a moment to realise that what he felt — a nagging sourness of the moment — was the crumbling of unacknowledged hopes. He had, without recognising it in himself, hoped he might find Inurian here: an echo of the warmth and understanding that he remembered. Ever since he had discovered that Highfast had once been Inurian’s home, he had vaguely imagined it to be a place of welcome and safety; a place suffused with all those things he had lost since Winterbirth, and since Inurian’s death. He felt, as those imaginings withered away, sadder and more like a child than he had done in a long time. He blinked at Cerys, and did not know what more to say.

“And what are these matters on which you seek our counsel, Thane?” she asked him softly.

“He came to speak of Aeglyss, Cerys,” Yvane said before Orisian could reply. “He’s as close to a friend as you’ll find outside the Tower of Thrones, and he’ll hear more of what you’ve got to say than Lheanor would.”

Slowly, deliberately the Elect turned her head to meet Yvane’s gaze with her own. To Orisian’s surprise, and unease, it was Yvane who looked away first.

“We did not expect to see you here again, Yvane. How many years have you been gone?”

“I told him he would be welcome here, even if I was not,” Yvane said. Still she kept her eyes down. “I’d rather you didn’t make me a liar.”

“Your preferences, and your reputation, are not our first concern here,” Cerys said.

“Elect,” Orisian said, a touch more sharply than he intended, “I came here because of what Bannain told me in Kolkyre. I wanted to learn what you know of Aeglyss, because he stands among enemies who have killed my family and my friends, and because na’kyrim whom I trust — Yvane, and Inurian too — judged him a danger to me and to my people. If you are willing to talk to me, I will listen. If you are not, tell me now so that I can go where I am needed.”

Cerys regarded him in silence for a moment or two. Rothe was glowering at her. The Elect’s hand had gone to the chain around her neck, her elegant fingers brushing the dark metal.

“Has Herraic given you chambers above?” she asked.

“He’s looking after the warriors who came with me. I would be grateful if we” — he glanced around, including Rothe, Ess’yr and the others — “could be found somewhere to rest here, with you.”

“Of course,” the Elect said, with a subtle nod. “We will find room for you. I don’t suppose Herraic particularly wants na’kyrim or Kyrinin taking up room in his keep. I’ll send him a message that we’ll take care of you. Bannain will show you where to go. You can rest a little; we’ll have some food brought to you. Then I will talk with you, Thane, and we will see what help we might be to one another.”

There were no windows in the chamber that Bannain found for them. The walls were damp, and every crevice seemed to have a spider’s web woven into it. It was as much cave as room. A dozen simple beds lined one wall. Rothe prodded one of the thin mattresses after Bannain had left them. It looked as smooth as a bag of hazelnuts.

“Straw,” the shieldman concluded. “Doesn’t smell too good.”

“It’ll do,” Orisian said. “We’ll not be more than one night here, with any luck.”

He sat on one of the beds, but promptly rose and moved further away from the oil lamp Bannain had left. The orange flame at its wick was giving off tendrils of noisome black smoke.

“I’m sure there’d be room for you with Torcaill and the rest,” Rothe muttered as Orisian tested another bed. “Herraic’d find better quarters for a Thane than this.”

Orisian glanced at Ess’yr and Varryn. The two Kyrinin were silently and methodically bedding down at the far end of the chamber. As always, they ignored the beds and made camp on the floor.

“No, Rothe. This’ll do. One night; that’s all.”

Rothe looked disappointed, but stretched himself out on his bed. He winced as he folded his injured arm across his lap.

“You might get some help for that here, you know,” Yvane observed. “Amonyn, one of the Council: he’s a gifted healer. It works better when the wound’s fresh, mind you, but he can fashion more mending out of the Shared than-”

“There’s no need for that,” Rothe said hurriedly. “It’s well on the way to healing itself. I don’t need that kind of help.”

Yvane shrugged and sat down opposite Orisian.

“I thought we might have a warmer welcome,” he said to her.

Yvane raised her fine eyebrows. “That was not so cold, by the standards of this place. Believe me, short of being na’kyrim yourself, you could not hope for much more. You’re a stranger, come to them in fraught times. It’s frightening for them. Don’t forget, there’s not many here have seen as much of the world as Inurian did, or as I have. They’re not used to outsiders. They hate any disturbance of the tight little circles they walk in here. Round and round and-”

“Frightening?” Orisian interrupted her.

“Of course they’re frightened,” Yvane said, and Orisian wondered if that was truly a hint of scorn he heard in her voice; and whether it was meant for him or for the na’kyrim of Highfast. “Do I need to list the reasons for you? There’s war, and not far away. Armies are marching hither and thither, none of them — whatever cause they fight for — filled with friends of na’kyrim. You turn up here with more warriors than have visited in however many years: a Thane, and one they’ve had no chance to take the measure of.

“Worse than all that, there’s Aeglyss. Everyone here is sick. You shouldn’t forget that, even if you can’t understand it, can’t feel it. I’m sick. His malice taints the Shared, and everyone here can feel it, every hour of every day. I’m tired before I get out of bed in the morning, because from the first instant of wakefulness I can hear his strength rumbling in the back of my mind. You folk with your pure blood, the gates of your minds are shut against the Shared; barred and bolted. Us poor na’kyrim, we’re open. There’s nothing between us and him. And he’s a horror, believe me.”

Orisian regarded her thoughtfully for a moment or two. She was afraid, he realised. What she described might or might not be true of Cerys and the others here in Highfast, but it was certainly true of Yvane herself. For days now, she had been on edge, and fear was part of what had put her there.

“I do believe you,” he said, hanging his head.

“Good.” She said it softly, almost gently.

Behind her, Hammarn was laying out half-finished woodtwines on the bed. He hummed to himself as he did so, nodding in agreement with some silent internal statement. Yvane glanced at him and smiled sadly.

“ Na’kyrim are no more perfect than anyone else. But we are different. There are kinds of understanding here that you’ll not find anywhere else. There is wisdom, if you can dig it out. You believed in Inurian, didn’t you? Trusted him?”

Orisian nodded.

“Remember that. What you believed in is here too, even if it’s not as obvious as it was in him. If you want to understand what Aeglyss means, this is the only place you might find an answer.”

“I know. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know that.”

Two young na’kyrim brought platters of simple food. They were nervous. They averted their eyes, and watched the floor.

“I was told to wait,” one of them said. “When you have eaten, I am to escort the Thane to the library. The Elect will see him there. Just the Thane. No one else.”

The smell was powerful, and instantly recognisable: the dry, dense admixture of parchment, bindings and dust. Orisian knew it from Inurian’s room in Castle Kolglas, this aroma of books and manuscripts. Here in Highfast’s Scribing Hall it was far stronger, far more pervasive, as if it had accumulated in layers in the air over all the years since the na’kyrim had first come here. The ceiling of the hall was high, yet the smell filled the cavernous space.

The far wall of the great chamber was natural stone, smoothed and polished by human hands but still part of the fabric of the peak on which Highfast stood. Small windows had been cut high up and they shed a muted light on the racks and shelves of books, scrolls and manuscripts. There were balconies on the wall opposite them, with dark tunnels burrowing back into the heart of the mountain. A few na’kyrim sat at tables, most of them writing, one or two simply reading from massive tomes. None of them looked up at Cerys and Orisian’s entry.

“This is the main reason for our presence here,” said the Elect. “The reason why Grey Kulkain granted our kind leave to make this our refuge.”

Orisian looked around. He could hear the scratch of quills on parchment, the creak of some heavy leather-bound book being opened.

“We gather what writings we can,” Cerys continued. “Copy those that are fading or damaged. We seek to learn from the collected wisdom of those who created the books, of course, but our most important duty is preservation.” She picked up a slim, worn volume from a shelf and turned it in her hands, showing Orisian the wear and splits in its binding. “Knowledge is a fragile thing. Almost nothing remains of the Second Age of the world. Even the early parts of the Third are misty. The War of the Tainted and the Storm Years were enough to cost us a great deal: our histories, our memories of the Kingships and of what came before them are poor.”

“I’ve never seen so many books,” Orisian said.

“Nowhere else in the world are so many gathered together, I think.” Cerys regarded him sternly. “Can you read?”

“Yes. Well enough.”

“That’s good. I imagine Inurian saw to that. A Thane should be able to read. There’ve been some who couldn’t. Tavan, your uncle’s father, was one, I believe. And if Thanes can’t read, what’s the point of all this?” The Elect gestured at the studious na’kyrim at their tables.

“If you rely only on Thanes to read your books and learn the lessons of the past, you might be disappointed by the results,” Orisian murmured.

Cerys sniffed in sad amusement. “So young, and already so harsh in his judgement of his peers.”

Orisian shrugged, unsure whether she was mocking him. With Cerys, he sensed none of the undercurrent of concern, even affection, that sometimes leavened Yvane’s brusqueness. The Elect seemed far more distant, far more removed from passion or emotion. If his suspicion that Herraic Crenn did not relish his regular meetings with this woman was correct, Orisian had some sympathy with the man.

“Where I come from, people rely on the Thane, the Blood,” he said, “but they rely on themselves too. And you won’t find much affection there for the Thanes of Haig, or Ayth or Taral. Certainly no faith in their wisdom.”

Cerys grunted and carefully replaced the book she had been holding in its place on the shelf.

“I imagine you’re right. I don’t know the Glas valley myself, though I’ve read Hallantyr’s writings. He travelled quite widely, you know, eighty years ago or thereabouts. Through Kilkry lands, up the Glas, into the Car Criagar. He wrote of it well, and perceptively I thought.” She glanced at Orisian. “There is some creation here, you see, not just copying. Hallantyr is not the only one of Highfast’s people to have told new tales, recorded new insights. Yvane has probably told you otherwise. Her… frustrations coloured her view of us.”

“I don’t remember her saying much about it. She told me I should come here, so perhaps her opinion of you isn’t as harsh as you think.”

“Oh, I doubt she has changed so very much. Opinions seldom change a great deal once deep foundations have been laid.”

Orisian went on between the ranks of tables. He found himself walking softly, unwilling to disturb the place’s restful peace. Over the shoulder of one of the scribes, he glimpsed elegant script trailing from a quill, colonising blank parchment. The na’kyrim appeared unaware of Orisian’s presence, her labour absorbing all of her attention. The writing was in a language that Orisian did not recognise. He drifted back towards the Elect.

“Did Inurian work here?” he asked her quietly.

She nodded. “Often. Somewhere here you could find his words, preserved.”

“Why did he leave Highfast? I would have thought… it seems the kind of place he would have liked.”

Orisian caught a brief flicker of emotion in the Elect’s face: a stifled wince of sadness. She was not entirely empty of feeling, then.

“He did like it,” Cerys said. “But he had his curiosities. He was less… wary of the world than most of us here are.” She lapsed into silence, gazing up at the distant little windows. They were darkening now, as night drew near.

“And Yvane? Why did she leave?” Orisian asked.

Cerys blinked, turned her grey eyes to him for only a moment before looking away.

“Have you asked her that?”

“No. Not really.”

“Best to do so, rather than seeking the answer from others.”

Orisian folded his arms across his chest.

“What wisdom is there here that I can draw on, then?” he asked. “What can I learn from all of this that will help me?”

“If you’re to learn anything it’ll be from those of us who have done the reading already. And, perhaps, from the mind of one who sleeps in the Great Keep.”

“Why show me this, then?”

Cerys smiled, and her calculating eyes narrowed. “Because you are a Thane. A Thane who knew and, I think, loved Inurian. You are to be one of the rulers of the world — whatever’s left for you to rule over once all this is done — and this place needs the affection of rulers. Your father… he was a good man, you know. He sent us a gift each year, to help clothe and feed us. To keep our work here alive.”

Orisian looked out over the ranks of tables. He had not known that about his father. Just one more of the many things he seemed to be learning, too late, about people he had thought he knew. One of the na’kyrim scribes had set aside his book and fallen asleep, his head resting on the back of his crossed hands.

“That’s for later,” he murmured. “Another time. Now there is a war to be fought. And I was told that I might learn things here — things about the na’kyrim who aids my enemies — that would help me in that.”

Cerys regarded her feet, poking out from beneath the hem of her long robe, for a pensive moment and then turned on her heel.

“Very well. It’s late, Thane. You must be tired. I know I am. Rest now, and in the morning you will meet the Dreamer. That’s where the answer to some of your questions lies.”