The Keeper of the Mist (28 page)

But Brann said quickly, astonishing Keri, “He is alive. He—”

Magister Eroniel glanced at him, and Brann was silent. But Keri clung to her brother's words.
He is alive.
Cort must be a prisoner somewhere, but he was alive. She let her breath out, slowly, holding to that promise.

Evidently losing interest in her, Magister Eroniel turned to Lord Osman. He looked him up and down, disdainfully, as a man might look at an animal he thought perhaps not worth buying. He murmured, “Osman Tor the Younger. You are far from your own place, young Bear. And in such low company. What would your father say? I wonder. What would he give me for you?” He paused before asking, more softly still, “Does he even know you entered the veiled country? Did you send him word of what you meant to do, young Bear? So tedious, to send messages to your father and wait for his word, which you must then either obey or evade. Yes? So much easier to do as you wish and send your father no report of it, until you are able to bring him word of some bright success….Is that how it was?”

Osman said nothing. He stared back at the sorcerer, his black eyes brilliant with fury and calculation, but he made no answer at all. Keri would not have expected so much restraint from the young Bear Lord. She wondered how much of what the sorcerer had said was true.

“And this earring you wear,” Magister Eroniel went on when it was plain Osman would not answer him. Coming close to the younger man, Eroniel lifted one hand in a motion so smooth that Keri did not realize what he was doing until he had jerked the earring free. Then she saw the garnet roll in the palm of his white hand, trailing its silver chain. It gathered light to itself until it, too, glowed.

Osman might have guessed what the sorcerer would do, because he did not flinch, though, even filled with light, the garnet was not more red than the drop of blood that welled from his torn ear.

“This has the flavor of Eschalion about it, I perceive,” Eroniel murmured, his eyebrows rising in a remarkably contemptuous expression. “Blood sorcery is hardly the proper purview of Tor Carron, which is why your little sorcerers must use garnets and such vulgar stones to shape your intention.” Then he turned a thoughtful look on Osman and added softly, “Yet I would not say this trinket is badly made, for what it is. A little persuasion, a little resistance to the persuasion of others…Where did you get it? Someone made it for you from a drop of your own blood, is that not so?”

Lord Osman said nothing. But his mouth was tight and angry.

“Some by-blow of the Wyvern's house, I presume,” murmured Magister Eroniel. “Some child of Kaskarian or Mirtaelior or Taetamion who could not win a place here in her own right and so crept away to the country of the Bear, where even so small a trinket is valued.” He looked into Osman's set face and smiled in amused disdain. “Can it have been your
grandmother,
little Bear?”

This time, Osman flinched as though those words had been a blow. He snapped, “I am surprised you would deign to notice so small a bauble, or concern yourself with so insignificant a person as its maker.”

“So it
was
your grandmother?” said Magister Eroniel. “Truly?” And, as Lord Osman flinched again and set his jaw, the sorcerer laughed. It was a light, amused, cruel laugh. He was enjoying himself very much, Keri realized: he might not believe any of them were truly
people,
but nevertheless he liked having them at his mercy. He enjoyed playing the cat when he thought he had trapped a handful of mice. He was that kind of man.

She wanted to say something cutting, something that would make him treat Lord Osman and herself and all of them with more respect, but she was silent. Partly because she really did not know what she could say, and partly because she thought it might even prove useful for the sorcerer to take them all lightly. And partly because Tassel drew in a sharp breath and gripped Keri's hand hard, and so Keri had to remember that if she made the sorcerer angry, she was not the only one who might pay for it. And partly because she could not help noticing how still Brann stood, and that made her yet more afraid for them all. And she had been frightened enough already.

So she said nothing. Nor did Osman attempt another answer. Seeming satisfied with their cowed silence, Magister Eroniel swept up his hand, light trailing from his fingers, and the wind, following that gesture, rose up as well, glittering with ice or magic. At once the wind or some unseen magic lifted them dizzyingly up into the light, into the air, above or away from the familiar world. Keri clung to Tassel, terrified, unable to tell whether they were falling, and if so, whether they were falling up into the sky, or down into some unknown abyss, or sideways, out of the world entirely into some strange place without direction.

Then they were somewhere else, somewhere dark and echoing and enclosed by high walls, but at least not so horrifyingly directionless. They fell into this place, except it was not like falling, exactly, although both Keri and Tassel staggered; it was almost like missing a step, but it was not like that, either. Keri lost her hold on her friend's hand and would have fallen had Lucas not been beside her. She grabbed his arm, and as her brother still had his staff, they managed to stay on their feet.

That was better than Tassel fared. Osman tried to catch her when she fell, but she was a tall girl and he was off balance himself. Even so he managed to break Tassel's fall, winding up with her in his lap and his arm around her. He leered, though a bit absently, as though mostly from habit. Tassel actually laughed a little, shakily, and patted his hand, making no immediate move to climb back to her feet.

No one caught or tried to catch Brann, who fell hard to his hands and knees. He would have bruises, Keri thought, and she didn't mind a bit.

It wasn't really dark in this place where Eroniel Kaskarian had brought them, though it seemed so at first to eyes dazzled only a moment earlier by the brilliant noon light down by the foot of the mountain. Here in this strange hall, light came in through high, slitted windows, enough to see that the room was large. The light slanted oddly, and it did not seem to be any noon sunlight: more the light of dusk. Could they really have lost half a day in that one dizzying moment? Or was the light here in this place truly different from the light out in the world?

As her vision adjusted, Keri saw that some of the deeper shadows were actually doorways, though all seemed to lead, most unpromisingly, into darker rooms than this.

It was gray stone: featureless gray stone for the walls and the floor underfoot and, as nearly as she could see, the ceiling high overhead. All the stone was smooth and cold. Nothing else: only gray stone and that dusky light through windows too high for even a tall man to see out.

This must be the citadel, of course. The Wyvern King's citadel. No one had to say so. It was perfectly obvious. Though whether this room was meant to be a prison or a storeroom or something else entirely was not clear. It was starkly clean and utterly empty. It smelled of ice and cold stone and, Keri guessed, the winter sea: something unfamiliar, briny, and wild. Now that she thought of it, she could hear, distantly, an odd rhythmic swooshing noise that might be waves washing against the cliffs.

Magister Eroniel was not here. Keri was both relieved and disturbed by his absence; she wished she knew where he had gone, and what he was doing, but she was glad he was not doing anything to any of them. Yet.

Everyone else was present: even Brann. Keri felt, perhaps uncharitably, that they could have done without Brann.

Lucas offered Tassel his hand and lifted her to her feet. Then, after a second, he offered his other hand to Lord Osman. “So that is your distant cousin,” he remarked, a bit too cheerfully. “Your grandmother was a woman of taste and discernment, to trade that family for another.”

“She still is a woman of taste and discernment,” Osman answered. Accepting Lucas's hand, he got to his feet, rather slowly.

“You feel heavy, too?” Keri asked him. “Or like the air is thick and you are a bit…thin?”

“Oh,” said Tassel, and looked down at her hands, opening and closing them.

Osman gave her a sharp look. “Is that how
you
feel?” He glanced at Keri. “Both of you?”

“Not…exactly,” Tassel said. “Not yet. But I think…” She turned her hands over, studying the palms, then laced her fingers decisively together and turned to Keri in a way that made it clear she didn't want to talk about how she felt. She said firmly, “You've lost all your magic already, Keri? I haven't, not yet. Magister Eroniel was so interested in you, and a little bit in Osman, that I don't think he even noticed me. So I'm still the Bookkeeper, I think. Hours or days, the Timekeeper said, before I lose my magic. I mean, he said that about Cort, but I suppose it will be that way for me, too. But you—”

“It happened right away. The magic flowed out of me,” Keri said, a little apologetically. “I think I might have lost it immediately anyway, but I also think he deliberately took it from me. I couldn't hold it. I should be rooted to Nimmira. Here, I'm uprooted and I can't hold anything. Even if Eroniel loses Nimmira's magic, I don't know if I can take it back.” She thought of the silvery light that had surrounded the sorcerer, and shivered. She looked at Osman. “Your grandmother's earring…Have you lost all your magic, too?”

The Bear Lord grimaced and touched his ear, carefully. He grimaced again at the smear of blood on his fingertips. “It is not the same. Our magic is in the stones, not in us. I felt nothing but anger when the sorcerer took my grandmother's earring from me. Still, what I shall say to her, I do not know. I am ashamed to have lost it. It was a treasure of our house, however small a bauble it might appear to…my distant cousin.”

“So…blood sorcery?” asked Tassel, frowning at him, her tone curious but wary. “Your grandmother really practices blood magic? And you tried to use it on Keri?”

“It was my blood,” Osman assured her immediately. “My grandmother's and mine. They do it differently here. Here, sorcerers do not pay the cost of sorcery in their own blood. That is why they do not need gemstones to contain wisps of magic: they can always pour out the heart's blood of some peasant or other. Though,” he added reluctantly, “it is true that the best of the Wyvern sorcerers are far stronger than the best of ours.” He touched his earlobe again. “My grandmother is one of the best of our enchanters, yet her gift to me was a very small magic, I promise you. A mere nudge, easily resisted by one who does not wish to be moved. As, indeed, we all saw demonstrated by Lady Kerianna.”

Tassel gave a little acknowledging twitch of her head, though she was still frowning. “And your other earring? What is it for?”

Lord Osman raised one elegant eyebrow at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“The other one is narrower and longer,” Tassel said, a touch apologetically. “You probably didn't think anyone would notice you had two, since they're almost the same and you only wore one at a time. But I'm pretty sure you've been switching back and forth every day.”

There was a small silence. Then Osman coughed. He reached into a hidden pocket in his shirt and brought out a black cloth, which he unrolled to reveal a gleaming garnet cabochon earring, twin to the first. Or nearly a twin. Keri would never have noticed the difference. She wondered how closely and for how long Tassel must have been watching Lord Osman, to realize he had two earrings and not just one.

“Their sorcery is quiet until one brings them into the light and grants them a taste of blood,” Osman explained. “I believe that is why Eroniel Kaskarian did not take this one with the other: he did not know I had it. The other is for persuasion, and to withstand persuasion, just as he declared.
This
one is meant to confuse one's enemies and coax them to see what you would have them see, but it is also for clear sight in the midst of illusion. So we may hope it might indeed prove a useful trifle here.”

“Like player's magic,” Lucas observed, frowning.

“Perhaps. I do not know. It is a magic of illusion, yes. Though this gray place seems little like any illusion to me.”

Keri asked, “Why didn't you wear them both at the same time?”

“Ah, well. A woman may have two pierced ears, but never a man.” Osman spread his hands, as though to say,
What would you?
One must follow fashion.
“I give you my word that this one
is
for clear sight: that is what I was told by my grandmother, and I know of no ill that comes from it. I do not think I could have found my way into your Nimmira, faint as the mist had grown, save for this…bauble of my grandmother's.” He threaded the earring's wire through his torn ear, wincing slightly. Then, ignoring the fresh blood that welled up from the injury, he looked about, his expression intent. But he only shrugged and said, “I flatter myself that I often see through confusing shadows and other obfuscation. But I see nothing hidden in this place, even with my grandmother's bauble. Everything here is just the same to my eye.”

That was disappointing. Keri waited a moment to see if he might suddenly declare that, why, no, he saw a door leading out into the bright sunshine after all. But when he didn't, she asked, “Your grandmother was a woman of Eschalion? Of the Wyvern King's own line?”

Osman gave her a small nod. “That is not a connection we much acknowledge. If you ever meet my grandmother, you would be wise not to speak of it.”

“I most sincerely hope we will all someday have the opportunity,” Lucas assured him.

Lord Osman smiled, a smile that showed his teeth. “I should certainly enjoy it.”

Lucas sounded
almost
normal. But there was a flatness behind the light tone. Keri said to him, gently, “That was Yllien? I'm sorry.”

Her brother turned his face away. “It's…I suppose they're all dead. All those people.”