Stalking Darkness

10

Sarisin wore into Dostin, tightening winter's embrace on the city. Snow gusted down out of the mountains, only to be followed by icy rain off the sea that reduced it all to thick, dirty slush and churned ice, treacherous underfoot. Smoke from thousands of chimneys mingled with the fog and hung in a grey haze over the rooftops for days at a stretch.

Preparations for war continued amid a constant stream of rumor and minor alarms. Skalan merchants were harassed in Mycenian towns, warehouses were rifled or burned. Plenimaran press gangs were reported on the prowl in ports as far west as Isil. Word circulated that more than a hundred keels had been laid down in Plenimaran shipyards.

No major host could be raised before spring, but the forces already billeted in Rhiminee were more visible than usual as they worked on the city's defenses and drilled outside the walls. Seregil and Alec often rode over to view the Queen's Horse at their maneuvers, but their friends there seldom had time for more than a brief hello.

At Macar, Rhal's ship was progressing rapidly under the captain's sharp eye. As Seregil had anticipated, once assured of the good faith between them, Rhal looked out for his silent backer's interests as if they were his own.

It would be another two months before the vessel could be launched, but he already had Skywake and Nettles combing seaports up and down the coast for sailors.

The one subject he kept silent on was the vessel's name. When Alec asked, Rhal only winked, telling him it was bad luck to say before she was launched.

Though by no means oblivious to the import of the events unfolding around him, Alec moved through the grey midwinter days in a state of increasing contentment. He'd gradually settled into the role of Sir Alec and had lost most of his awkwardness around the nobles. He was happiest, though, honing his more illicit skills as he worked side by side with Seregil as the Rhiminee Cat or on Watcher business for Nysander.

He also came to appreciate the amenities of life at Wheel Street. In his former life, wandering the northlands with his father, winter had always meant hardship—slogging up and down trap lines, sheltering in brushwood huts, and the snowy solitude of the forest.

Here, fires burned at all hours against the ever-present damp and cold. Thick carpets covered the floors, food and wine were there for the asking, and warm baths—for which he had finally acquired a taste—could be had at any hour in a special room just down the hall. Some of his fondest memories of those days would be sitting by a snug fire on a stormy day, enjoying the sound of the rain lashing against the shutters.

As always, life with Seregil had a charmed quality; his enthusiasm and irreverent good humor buoyed Alec along as a seemingly endless progression of lessons were placed before him. The more Alec learned, the more he found he felt like a man who'd thirsted for years unknowing, only discovering his need when it finally began to be slaked. In return, Alec tried to teach Seregil archery and, despite all evidence to the contrary, stubbornly refused to give him up as a hopeless cause.

One stormy afternoon Seregil discovered Alec in the library, frowning pensively as he scanned the shelves.

"Looking for something in particular?"

"Histories," Alec replied, fingering the spine of a thick volume. "Last night at Lord Kallien's salon, someone was saying how this war may be as bad as the Great War. I got to wondering what that one was like. You've told me a bit about it, but I thought it would be interesting to do some reading on it. Do you have anything?"

"Nothing much, but the Oreska library does," Seregil replied, inwardly delighted at this show of scholarly initiative. Alec generally preferred more active pursuits. "We could ride over if you'd like, and see Nysander, too. It's been days since we've heard from him."

Sleet pelted wetly down on them as they galloped through the streets of the Noble Quarter to the Oreska House. As soon as they entered the enchanted gardens surrounding it the sleet turned to warm, gentle rain.

Turning his face up to it, Seregil wondered if any of the wizards ever got bored with the perpetual summer that surrounded the place.

Crossing the second-floor mezzanine on their way to Nysander's tower, Alec nudged Seregil and pointed to the walkway across the atrium.

"Look there," he murmured with a slight grin.

Following his nod, Seregil saw Thero and Ylinestra walking along arm and arm. As they watched, Thero threw his head back and let out a genuine laugh.

"Thero laughing?" Seregil whispered in amazement.

Alec watched as the pair disappeared down a corridor. "Do you think he's in love with her?"

"He probably is, the poor idiot. Or maybe she's magicked him."

He'd meant it as a joke on Thero, but Alec's sudden blush made him wish he'd kept it to himself.

The boy never spoke of his own apparently cataclysmic tryst with the sorceress, or betrayed any sign of jealousy when speculating on her other attachments, but he was rather brittle about the circumstances.

Magyana answered their knock at the tower door.

She had a few willow leaves caught in her silvery braid and a smudge of damp earth on her chin.

"Hello, you two!" She exclaimed, letting them in. "I just dug some lovely orris root in the garden and brought some up to Nysander, but he's not here. Wethis says he's off visiting Leiteus i Marineus again."

Seregil raised a questioning eyebrow. "The astrologer?"

"Yes, he's been spending quite a lot of time with him these last few weeks. Evidently there's some sort of conjunction they're both interested in. I've got a potion on the boil back at my workshop so I can't linger, but you can come in and wait for him."

"No, we've got other business while we're here. Maybe we'll catch up with him later."

"I see." She paused, studying his face for a moment in the most unsettling way. "You haven't seen him lately, have you?"

"Not for a week or more," Alec told her.

"We've been pretty busy."

There was something hovering behind the old wizard's eyes that looked very much like concern, though she seemed to be masking it. "Is something wrong?" asked Seregil.

Magyana sighed. "I don't know. He just looks so worn-out all of a sudden. I haven't seen him look this tired in decades. He won't talk of it, of course. I wondered if he'd said anything to you?"

"No. As Alec said, we've hardly seen him since the Festival except over a few quick jobs. Maybe it's this business with Leiteus. You know how he drives himself when he's working on something."

"No doubt," she said, though without much conviction.

"Do look in on him when you can, though." She hesitated again. "You two aren't angry with one another, are you?"

A sudden image leapt in Seregil's mind; the night they'd unraveled the palimpsest together, and Nysander suddenly looking at him with a stranger's eyes as he warned—if you let slip the slightest detail of what I am about to tell you, I shall have to kill all of you.

He pushed the memory away before it could show in his face. "No, of course not. What would I be angry about?"

Leaving Nysander's chambers, Alec followed Seregil back down through the warren of stairways and corridors to the ground floor.

"The Oreska library is actually scattered all over the building," Seregil explained as they went. "Chambers, vaults, closets, for gotten cupboards, too, probably. Thalonia has been the librarian for a century and I doubt even she knows where everything is. Some books are available to anyone, others are locked away."

"Why, are they valuable?" asked Alec, thinking of the beautifully decorated scrolls Nysander had lent him.

"All books are valuable. Some are dangerous."

"Books of spells, you mean?"

Seregil grinned. "Those, too, but I was thinking more of ideas. Those can be far more dangerous than any magic."

Crossing the atrium court, Seregil swung open the heavy door to the museum. They hadn't been in here since Alec's first visit during Seregil's illness. As they passed the case containing the hands of the dyrmagnos, Tikarie Megraesh, Alec paused, unable to resist peering in at them in spite of his revulsion. Recalling the trick Seregil had played on him last time, he kept his friend carefully in sight.

The wizened fingers were motionless, but he could see freshly scored marks in the oak boards lining the bottom of the case beneath the cruel nails.

"They look quiet enough—" he began, but just then one of the hands clenched spasmodically.

"Bilairy's Balls, I hate those things!" He shuddered, backing hurriedly away. "Why do they move like that? Aren't they and all the other pieces of him supposed to be dying?"

"Yes." Seregil looked down at the hands with a puzzled frown. "Yes, they are."

Alec followed Seregil through a stout door at the back of the museum and down two sets of stairs to a series of corridors below the building.

"It's this one here," said Seregil, stopping before an unremarkable door halfway down the passage. "Stay here, I'll go find a custodian to let us in."

Alec leaned against the door and looked about. The walls and floors were made of stone slabs, laid smooth and tight together. Ornate lamps were fastened in brackets at intervals, giving enough light to see clearly from one end of the corridor to the other. He was just wondering whose job it was to keep all those lamps full when Seregil came back with a stooped old man in tow.

The custodian rattled the door open with a huge iron key and then handed Alec a leather sack. Inside were half a dozen large lightstones.

"No flames," the old man warned before creaking off again about his business. "Just leave them outside the door when you've finished."

The chamber was a large one, and filled with closely spaced shelves of books and scrolls.

Holding one of the stones aloft, Alec looked around and groaned. "It'll take us hours to find anything here!"

"It's all very logically arranged and docketed," Seregil assured him, pointing out little cards tacked to the shelves here and there. On each, a few words in faded script indicated general subject areas. "Histories of the Great War" took up several bookcases at the back of the room. Judging by the undisturbed layers of dust on most of them, there had been little interest of late in the subject.

Seregil clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "People ought to make more use of these. The past always sets the stage for the future; any Aurenfaie knows that."

Alec looked at the closely packed tiers in dismay. "Maker's Mercy, Seregil. I can't read all these!"

"Of course not," said Seregil, climbing a small ladder to inspect the contents of an upper shelf. "Half of them aren't even in your language and most of the others are ponderously boring. But there are one or two that are fairly readable, if I can just remember where to look. You browse around down there; stick to things less than two inches thick to begin with—and see if you can read them."

If there was a system to the arrangement of the books, it eluded Alec. Books in Skalan stood check by jowl with those in Aurenfaie and half a dozen other languages he couldn't begin to guess at.

Seregil appeared to be right at home, though.

Alec watched as his companion went busily to and fro with his ladder, muttering under his breath as he went, or exclaiming happily over old favorites.

Alec had already extracted half a dozen suitably slim volumes when the ornate binding of a thicker one caught his eye. Wondering if it had illustrations, he pulled it out. Unfortunately, this one served as a sort of keystone, for the ones on either side of it let go and most of the shelf cascaded to the floor at Alec's feet.

"Oh, well done!" Seregil snickered from somewhere beyond the next shelves.

Alec set his books aside with an exasperated sigh and began replacing the others. He hadn't been all that interested in the war in the first place; his simple query was turning out to be considerably more trouble than it was worth. As he slid a handful of books back into place, however, he noticed something sticking out from behind some others.

Curious, he carefully pulled it free and found that it was a slim, plainly bound book held shut with a latched strap. Encouraged by its size more than anything else, he tried to open it, but the catch wouldn't give.

"How are you making out?" asked Seregil, wandering back with a book under his arm.

"I found this in back of some others. It must have fallen in behind." On closer inspection, he saw that it was actually a case of some sort. There was no writing anywhere on it to suggest what its contents might be. "I can't get it open."

Alec jiggled the catch a last time, then handed it to him.

Seregil glanced it over and passed it back. "There's no lock; the catch is just corroded good and tight. It can't have been opened for years. Oh, well, it probably wasn't anything very interesting anyway."

He gave Alec a challenging grin, one Alec had seen often enough before.

"What, here?" he whispered in surprise.

Seregil leaned against a bookcase and gave a careless shrug. "It's not much good to anyone that way, is it?"

After a quick, rather guilty look around to make sure the custodian hadn't returned, Alec drew the black-handled poniard from his boot and worked it under the strap. The deadly sharp blade cut easily through the leather. Sheathing it again, he gently opened the cover and found a loose sheaf of parchment leaves inside. They were badly stained and scorched along the bottom edge, some burned half away.

Small, close-packed script covered each on both sides.

"Aura Elustri!"

Grinning excitedly, Seregil lifted out the first sheet. "It's in Aurenfaie. It looks to be a journal of some sort—" He read a few lines. "And it's definitely about the war."

"It's so weathered I can hardly make it out," said Alec, taking up another page. "Not that my Aurenfaie's all that good to begin with."

"Anyone would have a hard time making this out." Seregil squinted down at the cramped text a moment longer, then closed it and tucked it under his arm with the other book he'd chosen. Sorting through the ones Alec had selected, he discarded all but two and hurried Alec upstairs again, obviously eager to tackle the journal.

Back at Wheel Street again, they retreated to Seregil's chamber with a supply of wine and fruit. When the fire had been replenished and the lamps lit against the early evening gloom, they began sorting through the sheets on the hearth rug.

Taking up a page, Seregil studied it closely. "Do you know what this is?" he exclaimed with a smile of pure delight. "These are fragments of a field journal kept by an Aurenfaie soldier during the war. Alec, it's an eyewitness account of events six centuries old! Just wait until we show Nysander. I'll bet no one even knew this was there, or it would have been in a different vault."

The pages were badly shuffled in places and it took some doing to sort them out. The translation from Aurenfaie to Skalan was easy enough; deciphering the crabbed and often smeared writing while searching through mismatched pages was another matter. Seregil finally found what appeared to be the earliest entry and settled back in a nest of cushions on the floor to read it aloud.

They soon pieced together that the author had been a young archer, part of a regiment of well-to-do volunteers raised by a local noble. He'd been a faithful diarist, but the entries dealt mostly with skirmishes and fallen comrades. It was clear that the Aurenfaie had hated their Plenimaran adversaries, who were consistently depicted as harsh and brutal. There were several mercifully terse descriptions of their barbaric treatment of captured soldiers and camp followers.

The first series of entries ended with a detailed description of his first sight of Queen Gerilain of Skala. Referring to her as "a plain girl in armor," he nonetheless praised her leadership. He spoke only Aurenfaie, it seemed, but quoted several lines of a powerful rallying speech she'd given before the Third Battle of Wyvern Dug, which someone had translated for him. He described the Skalan soldiers admiringly as "fierce and full of fire."

Stretched out on the carpet, watching the shadows playing across the ceiling, Alec let the words paint scenes in his imagination. As Seregil read about Gerilain, the first warrior queen, he found himself picturing Klia, although she was anything but plain.

The second fragment had been written in Mycena during the battles of high summer, when the regiment had been joined by a contingent of Aurenfaie wizards. This was followed by an intriguing line about "the necromancers of the enemy," but the rest of the page had been destroyed.

Muttering again, Seregil sorted through the few remaining pages. "Ah, here we are. Part of it's missing, but it begins, "and our wizards have moved to the front, ahead of the cavalry. The Skalan captain met these forces only two days ago and cannot speak of them without paleness and trembling. Britiel i Kor translated for us, saying he tells of dead men rising from the field to fight the living."

"Just like in the legends," Alec murmured, forgetting for a moment that this was a factual account and not some bardic tale.

"We've heard this account too often now to call him mad," Seregil read on. "The Skalan captain claims Plenimar has a terrible war god. We have heard wounded enemies calling upon Vatharna. Now learn this is their word for god even they will not name. Nor will Skalans speak it, saying instead with great hatred, Eater of—"

He faltered to a halt.

"Eater of Death!" Alec finished for him, scrambling up to his knees. "That's it, isn't it? Just like in the prophecy at the Sakor Temple. We've got to find Nysander. The Eater of Death must be that death god you told me about, the bad luck one, Seri—"

Seregil lunged forward, pages scattering as he clamped a hand over Alec's mouth.

"Don't!" he hissed, face white as chalk.

Alec froze, staring up at him in alarm.

Seregil let out a shaky breath and dropped his hand to Alec's shoulder, gripping it lightly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"What's the matter?"

"Be still a minute; I have to think." Seregil felt as if a black chasm had suddenly opened beneath them.

Seregil if you let slip the slightest detail of what I am about to tell you, I shall have to kill all of you

— join our song, the only song. For the Beautiful One, the Eater of Death—

For an instant the only thing that made any sense was the solid feel of Alec's shoulder, the warm brush of the boy's hair as it fell across the back of his hand.

Memories crowded in on each other, treading dangerously on each other's heels as they threatened to coalesce into a pattern he didn't wish to see.

The palimpsest, telling of a "Beautiful One" and leading to a crown surrounded by the dead. Micum's grim discovery in the Fens. The ragged leather pouch that Nysander had burned. And the coin, that deceptively prosaic wooden disk that had nearly killed him with madness and dreams-dreams of a barren plain and a golden-skinned creature that embraced him, demanding a single blue eye that winked from a wound over his heart. Voices singing-over a barren plain, and deep in the depths of a mountain cavern as blood dripped down to pool on the ice. Nysander's threat-a warning?

"Seregil, that hurts."

Alec's soft, tense voice brought him back and he found himself clutching the boy's shoulder. He hurriedly released him and sat back.

Alec closed cold fingers over his own. "What is it? You look like you've just seen your own ghost."

A desperate ache lanced through Seregil as he looked down into those dark blue eyes.

if you let slip the slightest detail Damn you, Nysander!

"I can't tell you, tali, because I'd only have to lie," he said, suddenly dejected. "I'm going to do something now, and you're going to watch and say nothing."

Taking the final page of the manuscript, he twisted it into a tight squib and tossed it into the fire.

Alec rocked back on his heels, watching in silent consternation as the parchment blossomed into flame.

When it was consumed, Seregil knocked the ash to bits with the poker.

"But what about Nysander?" Alec asked. "What will you tell him?"

"Nothing, and neither will you."

"But—"

"We're not betraying him." Seregil took Alec by the shoulders, more gently this time, drawing their faces close together. "You have my oath on that. I believe he already knows what we just learned, but he can't know that you know. Not until I tell you it's safe. Understand?"

"More secrets," Alec said, looking solemn and unhappy.

"Yes, more secrets. I need your trust in this, Alec. Can you give it?"

Alec looked sidelong at the fire for a long moment, then locked eyes with him again and replied in halting Aurenfaie, "Rei phoril tos tokun meh brithir, vri sh 'ruit 'ya.»

Though you thrust your dagger at my eyes, I will not flinch. A solemn oath, and one Seregil had pledged him not so long ago. Seregil let out a small, relieved laugh. "Thank you. If you don't mind, I think I'll take a rest. Why don't you go have a look through those books we found?"

Alec got up to go without a word. But he paused in the doorway, looking back at Seregil still sitting by the fire.

"What does tali mean? Is it Aurenfaie?"

"Tali?"

A ghost of the old grin tugged at one corner of Seregil's mouth. "Yes, it's an Aurenfaie term of endearment, rather old-fashioned, like beloved. Where'd you pick that up?"

"I thought—"

Alec regarded him quizzically, then shook his head. "I don't know, at one of the salons, probably. Sleep well, Seregil."

"You, too."

When Alec was gone, Seregil walked to the window and rested his forehead against one cold pane, staring out over the dark garden.

Stone within ice. Secrets within secrets.

Silences inside of greater silences.

In all the time he'd known Nysander, he had never felt such distance between them. Or so alone.

Several days passed before Alec realized that they were not going to talk of the matter again. Despite his oath, it troubled him greatly. This silence toward the wizard seemed to create a small cold gap in a relationship that had been so seamlessly warm and safe.

For the first time in months he found himself wondering about Seregil's loyalties.

Try as he might to banish such thoughts, they nagged at him until at last he came out with it as they were out walking in the Noble Quarter one evening.

He'd feared that Seregil would evade the question or be annoyed. Instead, he looked as if he'd been expecting this discussion.

"Loyalty, eh? That's a large question for a thinking person. If you're asking if I'm still loyal to Nysander, then the answer is yes, for as long as I have faith in his honor. The same goes for any of my friends."

"But do you still have faith in him?" Alec pressed.

"I do, though he hasn't made it easy lately. You're too smart not to have noticed that there are unspoken things between him and me. I'm trying hard to be patient about all that, and so must you.

"But maybe that's not the real issue here. Are you losing faith in me?"

"No!" Alec exclaimed hastily, knowing the words were true as he spoke them. "I'm just trying to understand."

"Well, like I said, loyalty is no simple thing. For instance, would you say that you, Nysander, and I are loyal to Queen Idrilain and want to act in the best interests of Skala?"

"I've always thought so."

"But what if the Queen ordered us, for the good of Skala, to do harm to Micum? Should I keep faith with her or with him?"

"With Micum," Alec replied without hesitation.

"But what if Micum, without our knowledge, had committed treason against Skala? What then?"

"That's ridiculous!" Alec snorted. "He'd never do anything like that."

"People can surprise you, Alec. And perhaps he did it out of loyalty to something else, say his family. He's kept faith with his family but broken faith with the Queen. Which outweighs the other?"

"His family," Alec maintained, although he was beginning to feel a bit confused.

"Certainly. Any man ought to hold his family above all else. But what if his justified act of treason cost hundreds of other families their lives? And what if some of those killed were also friends of ours—Myrhini, Cilia, There. Well, maybe not Thero—"

"I don't know!" Alec shrugged uncomfortably.

"I can't say one way or the other without knowing the details. I guess I'd just have to have faith in him until I knew more. Maybe he didn't have any choice."

Seregil leveled a stern finger at him. "You always have a choice. Don't ever imagine you don't. Whatever you do, it's a decision and you have to accept responsibility for it. That's when honor becomes more than empty words."

"Well, I still say I'd have to know why he did it," Alec retorted stubbornly.

"That's good. But suppose, despite all his kindness to you, you discovered he really had betrayed your trust. Would you hunt him down and kill him as the law required?"

"How could I?"

"It would be difficult. Past kindness counts for something. But say you knew for certain that someone else would catch him—the Queen's officers, for instance—and that they'd kill him slowly and horribly. Then wouldn't it be your duty, as a friend and a man of honor, to see to it that he was granted a quick, merciful death? Looked at from that angle, I suppose killing Micum Cavish might be the greatest expression of friendship."

Alec stared at Seregil, mouth slightly ajar. "How the hell did we come to me killing Micum?"

Seregil shrugged. "You asked about loyalty. I told you it wasn't easy."