it was a highly discontented party that took shelter for the night in a barn on a small farm near the Southern Trade Road. That morning, they’d been unceremoniously escorted to the city gates, fined for disturbing the peace of the fair, and sent on their way with a warning not to return.
The unfortunate thief was still with them. He’d been unable to travel on foot, and Nyctasia had agreed to let him ride with her, but even on horseback he had found the journey a grueling one. By the time they dismounted he was more stiff and sore than ever.
Nyctasia was almost as weak as he. The healing-spell had already sapped much of her strength, and the long day’s ride left her exhausted. The barn was not noticeably cleaner than the jail had been, but she was so weary that even a pile of hay looked inviting.
Corson too felt that she’d been very hard used. What right had they to arrest her for capturing a thief, and how could Nyctasia take his part against her? Was that justice? She had ridden ahead of the others in sullen silence for most of the day.
But everyone was in better spirits after the hearty meal they bought at the farmhouse. They ate smoked ham, buttered oatcakes, and fresh curds. There was plenty of brown ale, and a crock of new buttermilk for Nyctasia, whose Discipline discouraged the drinking of spirits.
After her night in prison and a day on horseback, Nyctasia longed for a bath, but she made do with a wash at the well. Spreading out her long cloak, she made herself a comfortable nest in the hay, then hung her harp on a peg in the wall.
“As a child I was taught that a lady ought never to complain about her accommodations,” she remarked. “But I’m sure my nurse never imagined me in lodgings like this.”
“I admired the ladylike way you accepted your lot in prison last night,” Corson sniggered.
“It’s not surprising I forget myself in company with a lout like you. The wonder is that I have any manners left at all.”
“I stand rebuked, Your Ladyship.” Corson made a mocking bow, and threw herself down in the hay.
The thief looked from one to the other of them, trying to make them out, then gave it up and settled down near Nyctasia. He moved stiffly, grimacing as he lowered himself slowly onto the hay.
“You ought to stay here for a while and rest,” Nyctasia said. “You’re not really fit to travel.”
“I know,” he groaned. “Would you think it impertinent of me to ask why your friend tried to murder me?”
Corson was indignant. “You and your people robbed us in Rhostshyl Wood and took our horses! I told you I’d make you pay, you slinking weasel-maybe you remember that?”
“I remember those rutting horses! They broke loose and we nearly got trampled trying to catch them. They were such beauties, too,” he said regretfully.
“They’d have fetched a good price.”
“They were hers,” Corson said. “Thoroughbreds can be quite vicious.”
“You were that crazy soldier, then,” he mused, “but you were traveling with some prating little student…”
“He’s taken your measure, Nyc.”
Nyctasia had made her escape from Rhostshyl disguised as a poor student.
“Appearances may be misleading,” she said, sounding amused. “I’m Nyc brenn Rhostshyl, and this is Corson brenn Torisk. And you?”
“I’m called Newt.” He eyed Nyctasia suspiciously. “What are you really? A witch?
A pickpocket?”
“A liar,” Corson suggested.
“A healer,” said Nyctasia firmly. “And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll get some sleep. You’re not yet whole.”
“I feel like a bone that’s been gnawed by hounds.” Newt lay back and started to loosen his tunic, then sat up again suddenly, wincing in pain. He searched about frantically. “My pouch-where is it? I had it round my neck. Did you take it?”
“Not I,” said Corson lazily. “But if I thought you had anything of value, I’d surely take it, as my right. You robbed me of a fortune.”
“What, this?” asked Nyctasia. “Here, I’d forgotten it.” She tossed the small leather hag to Newt.
But Corson was at his side in a moment and snatched it from him. “Let’s have a look at this.”
“It’s just a scrap of paper!” he protested. “Give it back!”
“I will,” said Corson, “when you give me back my earrings.” She opened the pouch and pulled out a much-folded page, but to her disappointment there was nothing else.
Impatiently, she shook it out, but it concealed no treasure. “What’s all the row about this?” she muttered, examining it by the light of the flickering oil lamp.
“Here, Nyc, you’re partial to this sort of gibberish: Neither out of doors nor in,
Begin.
Within four walls and yet beneath the sky, I lie.
Riddle’s secret, and to mystery
The key.
All unhidden
Though I be.
No man or woman
Doth see me.
And here’s another-
Here is a web to catch the wind
And a loom to weave a lay.
Riddles play on words, my friend-
Play on these and play you may.”
“What in the Hlann’s name…?” Nyctasia reached for the paper. “I don’t make much of the first one,” she said after a moment, “but the other’s simple enough.
The answer’s in plain sight.” She pointed to her ebonwood harp.
“A harp?” said Newt, sounding disappointed. “Just a harp? Are you sure?”
“As I said, the answer’s in plain sight-for those who can read it. H-A-R-P,” she said, touching the first letter of each line.
Newt looked puzzled, “But… what does that part about the wind mean?”
“There’s a sort of lyre called a wind-harp,” Nyctasia explained. “You hang them in the trees and they’re sounded by the wind. I had one in my garden at home.”
“I like the clue about playing on them,” said Corson. “Read us another.”
Nyctasia peered at the page in the dim tight. “Let’s see… there’s all sorts of riddles…
Where is the hunter found
Who hunts by night and morn
But never wearied yet?
Who keeps not hawk or hound,
Who has not horse or horn,
But slays without a sound,
With but a silken net?
Well, that’s easy, and here’s a pair that spell out rhyming answers: Bird am I none.
What thing am I,
Ever soaring as I sing,
Lifting up my voice on high,
Lightly I fly, without a wing.
And:
Where is there a tower found,
Empty, planted underground,
Like a tunnel turned on end?
Look down to see the sky, my friend.
What else have we here? Rhymes… drawings of some kind, names
… Ylna, Rowan, Leaf and Bough, Amron Therain, Jocelys. Vale-” She stopped abruptly and turned to Newt, fixing him with a cold and baneful stare. “No wonder you tried to keep this from us,” she said grimly.
“Nyc, what is it?”
“My name is on this list. The fellow’s an assassin. Am I to be hunted like a fugitive all my life? Who was it sent you? Lady Mhairestri? Ettasuan ar’n Teiryn?”
“You’re both mad!” cried Newt. “I’m a thief, not a murderer-I’ve no dealings with lords and ladies!”
Nyctasia stood and drew her dagger. “We’ll soon see. Corson, hold him fast.”
Experience had made Nyctasia a keen judge of character. She was certain that Newt could be frightened into speaking the truth.
“But-please-I tell you, I don’t know who you are. I can’t even read-I don’t know what’s on that paper! It’s nothing to do with me!”
“Then how did you come by it?” Nyctasia demanded.
“I stole it, of course! Me and three others-we robbed a traveler near Ylna…”
“Why would you steal a piece of paper that you can’t read?”
“We didn’t know what was in the pouch when we took it. We might have given the thing back, but he fought like a madman to keep it, so it must be valuable. And the mark of the Cymvelan Circle is at the bottom-look for yourself. Folk still talk of the Cymvelan treasure in these parts. That paper might be a clue!”
At the mention of treasure, Corson retrieved the paper from Nyctasia and scanned it eagerly, still keeping a firm grip on the distraught thief.
“And it was just chance that brought you to Osela, I suppose?” Nyctasia pursued.
“I hoped to sell that paper at the fair-I come to Osela every year. Most of us do.”
“That’s so,” said Corson. “The fair draws thieves like flies to a honeypot.”
“No doubt,” said Nyctasia, “but I trust they’re not all carrying my name about with them.”
Newt was sweating, “But I didn’t know-”
“It’s not your proper name. Nyc,” Corson broke in. “It says ‘Edonaris,’ not
‘Nyctasia ar’n Edonaris.’ I’ll wager it means those other Edonaris-the vintners.” She dropped Newt indifferently and showed the page to Nyctasia again.
“Look here. That is the sign of the Cymvelan Circle,” she said, pointing to an intricate, knotted design. “Their temple was in the Valleylands to the south, near Vale-it can’t have been far from the Edonaris vineyards. And some of these riddles do talk about treasure-‘Wealth beyond a lifetime’s spending’!” The two of them bent over the paper, forgetting Newt, who sank to his knees in the hay and stared at them.
“Nyctasia ar’n Edonaris!” he gasped. “The witch? In Rhostshyl they say you’re dead.”
“It’s unwise to believe everything you hear.”
“To think we let you slip through our hands,” said Newt dejectedly. “If we’d known who you were we could have made our fortunes-there was a reward of five hundred crescents for your capture. Five hundred crescents!”
“Don’t plan on earning it now, my lad,” said Nyctasia. “My kinsman Lord Thierran offered it, and he’s dead.”
“I saw to that,” Corson added, slashing her finger across her throat. She smiled at Newt.
“I don’t want any part of it,” Newt said hastily. “I wouldn’t go back to Rhostshyl now for any money-it’s too dangerous. The city’s divided. It’s nothing but brawls and bloodshed between the Edonaris and the Teiryn. There’ll be open war before long.”
“Sure sign of war, when the rats and thieves leave a city,” sneered Corson.
“We had to go our ways. The gentry there go about with armed escorts, and folk are too war-wary to be careless. What were we to do, steal from paupers? We’d have soon starved,” he said indignantly. “But there were good gleanings to be had at the fair-and now I’m banned from Osela, thanks to you!”
“A most sad tale,” said Corson. “Nyc, this wretch knows nothing about you. It’s no use to question him. Let’s go to sleep.” She turned back to Newt. “Don’t think to mend your fortunes by picking our pockets-I sleep lightly.”
“I can barely move,” Newt protested. “How could I make an escape? I’ll not stir from this place till I’m healed, if I can beg my bread from these folk.”
Nyctasia roused herself from thoughts of her city torn by civil war. Taking up the curious piece of paper, she folded it neatly and slipped it into her shirt,
“I’ll buy this from you-then you’ll have more than enough to pay your keep. The Edonaris of Vale might be interested in this paper.”
Newt sat up a bit straighten “It might be worth a fortune,” he said eagerly.
“The treasure of the Cymvelan Circle-”
“Is a lot of moonshine,” Corson scoffed. “There’s nothing but rhymes and scribbles on that page. You’ll take what you get and be glad of it.” She stretched out on the hay and yawned. “We ought to just take the thing, Nyc,” she grumbled, without much conviction. “You’re too softhearted by half.”
Nyctasia blew out the lamp. “Mercy is the mark of true nobility,” she said dryly. “Go to sleep.”
Corson had the soldier’s knack for falling asleep in an instant, but Nyctasia, despite her weariness, lay awake brooding over her own behavior. “A fine Vahnite!” she accused herself. “The moment you think yourself threatened, your scruples take wing like startled quail!”
It was no use to tell herself that no harm had been done. What steps would she have taken if Newt’s answers hadn’t satisfied her? This was the question that kept her awake and restless. She did not want to know what answer might lie within her.
Newt was not asleep either. He shifted from side to side in the hay, trying to find a less painful position, but however he lay, his chest and sides ached unbearably. He groaned aloud.
When Nyctasia approached him, he struggled to sit up, alarmed, for he now regarded her as the more dangerous of the two. She stood over him for a moment, indistinct in the darkness, then knelt beside him.
“Forgive me, Newt,” she whispered. “I see my enemies everywhere. I am certain I left them in Rhostshyl, and yet I cannot escape them.” It was perhaps the strangest adventure of her exile that she should bring herself to ask pardon of a common thief.
But Newt understood nothing of her confession. “I’m no spy, my lady,” he said helplessly. “What do you want with me?”
“You forget that I’m a healer. And sometimes I forget as well. But I can give you sleep if you wish.”
“Please,” said Newt, then hesitated. “How… by a spell?”
“A simple charm. It’s quite harmless.” She relit the lamp, but hooded it so that only a single ray escaped.
Corson was now awake and watching. “Nyc, what…?”
“Healing, what else? When you attack someone, you don’t do it by halves.”
“He deserved it,” said Corson crossly, turning her back to the light and burrowing deeper into the hay.
“Be still, if you please, I need silence for this spell.” Nyctasia drew from her pouch a faceted crystal on a silver chain. “Look well at this,” she said to Newt. “You’ve never seen its like before.”
Newt watched the stone swing gently to and fro before him, catching the lamplight on its polished planes. “Is it a real diamond?” he asked covetously.
“It’s far more valuable than a diamond. This jewel holds the power of peace.”
Back and forth it swayed, and Nyctasia’s voice with it in a low, melodious tone.
“This is a stone that can ease all ills, heal all hurts, soothe all suffering.
Watch it well, and you will feel its peace possess you. It will give rest to your spirit, it will shelter you beneath the wings of sleep.” Her words grew ever slower and slower. “You feel its power even now, don’t you, Newt?”
“I… feel it,” said Newt with some difficulty.
“Already your eyes are heavy with sleep.”
“Yes.”
“You cannot hold them open any longer.”
Newt’s eyes were closed, his face finally relaxed in repose. Without his habitually wary expression, he seemed another person entirely.
“Now there is nothing but sweet sleep,” murmured Nyctasia.
“No, nothing,” he sighed.
“And there will be nothing but sleep, till the sun is high on the morrow.”
Newt made no reply, and Nyctasia blew out the lamp once more and returned to her place, wrapping herself in her cloak.
“Nyc…?”
“You needn’t whisper. He’ll not wake.”
“If you have a stone that heals all ills, why didn’t you use it when I was sick, in Lhestreq?”
Nyctasia laughed softly. “This stone couldn’t cure hiccups, Corson. It’s only a common crystal. Anything bright would have done as well. The spell’s in the shining and the speaking, and the healing’s all humbug. It gives sleep, no more.”
“Is that why it didn’t weaken you to do it?”
That all power has its price was the guiding Principle of Nyctasia’s philosophy.
More than once Corson had seen her drained of strength by a healing spell.
“No, this is a spell that draws its power from the one who is spellcast, not from the one who acts. That’s why it can only be laid upon one who is willing.
It’s a very rare and significant Balance.”
A snore interrupted her explanation. Corson questioned everything, but she listened to the answers only when she chose.
Now that Newt slept, Nyctasia could sleep as well-though even in slumber she could not rest. In her dreams she was again in Rhostshyl, her ancestral home, but the proud city was in ruins, ravaged by flames, its walls broken, its towers fallen. Fires still smoldered among the piles of debris.
Nyctasia wandered through the empty streets, so well known to her that she could have walked them blindfolded, until she stood before the remains of a house where she had hidden before fleeing the city. The iron gate still stood, protecting ashes and dust and broken stone. She slipped into the yard and found the fragments of her great mirror shining among the blackened timber. Her favorite harp, the Sparrow, was charred and useless. It crumbled in her hand when she lifted it from the rubble.
“Why, ’Tasia, I thought you didn’t know how to weep.”
At first Nyctasia thought it was her cousin Thierran who stood outside the gate, but she saw in a moment that it was his twin, Mescrisdan, When they’d last met he had urged his brother to kill her, but now Nyctasia went out willingly to meet him. He could do her no harm-he was dead, struck down by Corson on that very spot, where he and Thierran had lain in wait for her.
“I can weep for Rhostshyl,” she told him, “if it is now the city of the dead.”
He shrugged. “When the city was dying you ran away. Why should you mourn it now?
Come along, everyone’s waiting for you.”
She accompanied him in silence, knowing without question that the palace of the Edonaris was their destination. Where else was there to go?
The battered gates and smashed windows of her home were like wounds in her own flesh. She had passed most of her life within these halls, the most splendid in the city. Now they lay open to the night, the great columns and arches supporting nothing, the magnificent windows gaping, fanged with shards of colored glass.
Nyctasia followed Mescrisdan through the stone-strewn corridors till he stood aside to allow her to precede him into the dining-hall. She was, after all, a Rhaicime, his superior in rank.
Lady Mhairestri, matriarch of the Edonaris, sat at the head of the table, a privilege due her great age rather than her rank. Nyctasia was surprised to see her there, for the matriarch was not dead, for all that she could remember.
There were others of the living present, her elder brother Emeryc among them, though it seemed that his wife, a commoner, had not been invited.
Nyctasia’s parents observed her entrance with the same indifference they’d shown her in life. She had been a sickly child-a disappointment to her mother, an iron-willed woman so impatient of weakness that, after safely giving birth to twins, she’d scorned her physicians’ advice to rest, and had died as a result.
The elderly, reserved nobleman she’d married out of duty had survived her by only a few years. Nyctasia had not often seen her father in life, and she hardly recognized him now, but she bowed dutifully to both her parents. Her father did not seem to know her, but her mother nodded coldly in reply.
“Late as usual, Nyctasia Selesq,” said Lady Mhairestri. “Take your seat. You have kept us waiting long enough.”
“Your place is here, cousin, at my side,” said Thierran. “Now that you are here at last, our wedding feast can begin. Only you would arrive late upon such an occasion, ’Tasia, but I forgive you, as always.”
Thierran had been Nyctasia’s bitterest enemy ever since she’d refused the marriage their family had planned for them. But now she faced him with composure. Him too she had seen lying dead at her feet, his throat slashed. She felt only regret as she stood beside him, looking into his pale, handsome face.
There was no malice in his eyes as he said, “You’ve taken a long way, only to return to me, ’Tasia. Would it not have been simpler to remain where you belonged?”
“Perhaps,” she sighed. “But what choice had I, Thorn?” It was a childhood name she’d not used for him for many years. “I suppose we none of us had a choice.”
How could she have helped falling in love with Erystalben ar’n Shiastred, who had seemed to her a twin spirit? And how could Thierran have helped his jealousy and, above all, his wounded pride? All the Edonaris were proud and willful.
Nyctasia might have honored the marriage alliance, to serve the family’s interests, and kept Erystalben as her lover-an arrangement which was common enough among the high aristocracy. But Erystalben too had his pride, and the more he had tried to persuade Nyctasia to repudiate the betrothal, the more dangerous he had become to Edonaris ambition. The full power of the house of Edonaris was brought to bear upon his kinfolk till he was forced to flee the city to protect his people. In time, Nyctasia had renounced her family and followed him into exile, but by then it had been too late…
Now she seemed to see this course of events clearly for the first time. What could she have done to alter it? Who was to blame? If she had been wiser, kinder, like the Vahnite she claimed to be, would anything have been different?
And the maddening thing was that she did love Thierran, could not but love him, in spite of everything. They had been children together. Why had she not been able to explain-? Before the assembled company of ghosts and memories, she bent down and kissed him. “I’m with you now,” she said.
He took both her hands in his and drew her down beside him. “A toast to our union!” he called.
A full wine glass stood at every place except Nyctasia’s, as was usual. But now the matriarch filled the gold chalice called the Bride’s Cup and handed it to her brother, Brethald, who bore it formally to Nyctasia.
“Your affectation of Vahnite Principles must give way to tradition for once,” he said, presenting the goblet.
All glasses were raised, and everyone looked toward Nyctasia.
“To the bride and groom.”
“To the House of Edonaris.”
“To your homecoming, sister,” said Emeryc.
It was for Nyctasia, as the guest of honor, to drink first, and the others waited, watching her. At that moment she desired above all to obey, to be accepted, finally, by her kin. She had only to lift the wine to her lips and her exile would be at an end.
“Allow me, my lady.”
She turned and saw her trusted henchman Sandor standing guard behind her chair.
Sandor, who had been killed while trying to bring her warning of a plot against her. Now, like a monarch’s table-servant, he took up the goblet and tasted its contents before Nyctasia could drink.
Without a word he put it down and turned it on its side, to signify that the drink was dangerous. A crimson stain spread over the damask tablecloth, seeming as though it would soak the whole table. Nyctasia was seized with a sudden horror that it would reach her, drench her, drown her. She clutched at the cup, trying to right it and stop the endless tide of poison that threatened to flood the city. “Help me!” she cried.
“You are weak, weak!” said the matriarch sternly. “Only thus will the fires in the city be quenched.” She stood and raised her glass. “To the everlasting destruction of our enemies! An end to the Teiryn line!” She smashed her glass on the hearth, and another spring of crimson welled from the spot, flowing across the floor. The others echoed her toast.
“No, don’t! Stop! You’re making it worse,” Nyctasia pleaded. “We’ll all be drowned!”
The company broke into laughter. “How could that be, when we are already dead?”
“But surely not the whole city,” Nyctasia sobbed. “Not all! We must warn them!”
She ran from the hall, down corridors haunted by her earliest memories, through courtyards where she had often gathered the hounds for the hunt, past gardens she had planted herself, now sere and withered.
The gates had always been guarded, but now they stood open, and Nyctasia raced out into the streets, seeking the living. Not till she reached the Market Square did she see another person, a man who sat at his ease on a fallen beam, as if waiting for her. She hurried to him eagerly, but when he turned to her she found herself facing another of her remembered dead.
“Fie, Nyctasia, and you a Vahnite!” said Rhavor ar’n Teiryn. “If you mean to break your Discipline, drink honest wine, not that foul brew.”
Nyctasia realized that she was still clutching the golden goblet, and she threw it from her with disgust. “Ah, but it’s your fault, Rhavor. If you’d married me, they’d not be able to wed me to Thierran.”
They had once considered a political marriage between them, in hopes of uniting their warring families, Rhavor’s death had put an end to the plan, but now he smiled and said, “It is not too late for that.”
“It is too late to save a dead city.”
“Rhostshyl dead? Nonsense, my dear girl!”
“Show me the living then! Where are they?”
“They are coming this way. Don’t you hear them? Listen-”
At first there was only the heavy silence, but then a sound of horns and drums reached her, distant but drawing nearer.
“Hurry,” Rhavor urged her, and she set out again, her heart leaping wildly to the drumbeat. The streets grew lighter as the music grew louder, until she turned a corner and met with a grand wedding procession in full regalia, bright with banners, colorful caparisons and gold trumpets splendid in the sudden sunshine.
Nyctasia was astonished to see the coats-of-arms of both the Houses of Edonaris and Teiryn among the heralds and standard-bearers. Together! Was it possible?
But more bewildering still was the sight of the noble couple who led this festive throng. The bride was herself, but younger, hardly more than a girl, and the groom was not much older. But he was Rhavor ar’n Teiryn, Nyctasia saw, not her cousin Thierran. They rode side by side, solemn and unsmiling, she looking straight ahead, he down at the cobbled street.
Overcome with wonder and confusion, Nyctasia watched the procession pass. She had never known Rhavor as a youth-when she’d come of age he’d already been a grown man, a widower with a young son.
Perhaps he could explain this mystery. She turned back toward the Market Square, following the parade, and now she saw that the streets through which they had passed were whole again, the shops and houses restored. Behind them, folk flocked, cheering and shouting, but ahead of them the silent streets were still in twilight and in ruins.
Nyctasia fell behind, gazing all about her at the return of life and prosperity to the city she loved. Then suddenly she stopped in her tracks, forgetting all else as she caught sight of one man among the onlookers. He looked more haggard and careworn than she had ever seen him. His long black hair was unkempt, his clothing dirty and ragged. Even his fierce blue eyes seemed dulled and defeated.
But Nyctasia knew at once, without doubt, that here was the lover ravished from her by a dark and desperate spell, lost beyond an unknown threshold of perilous magic.
“’Ben,” she cried, “this way! I’m here!” But she could not make him hear. She struggled toward him through the crowd, calling his name again and again, but when at last she reached his side he looked past her without a sign of recognition or welcome, and kept on his way, unseeing. “No!” Nyctasia screamed.
“’Ben, no-come back!”
I can’t bear any more of this, she thought wildly, and woke.
It was day. Corson was already up and feeding the horses, but Newt still slept, while the farm folk gathered eggs and milked the cows, not far from where he lay.
“If Her Ladyship would deign to rise we might reach Ylna by nightfall.” Corson remarked. “The people here say it’s a day’s ride. I’ve been trying to rouse you since sunup-it’s time enough you woke up!”
“It is indeed,” said Nyctasia.
“Well, it was only a dream,” Corson said sensibly.
It was easy to dismiss Nyctasia’s fancies in the clear light of morning. As they rode south along the Southern Trade Road, they were greeted gaily by families traveling north to the fair. Corson joked with the passersby and accepted an apple, which she ate in three bites. “A fair day and good traveling,” she observed with satisfaction. She had no misgivings or forebodings about the future.
But Nyctasia could not shake off the memory of her visions. “The vahn speaks to us through dreams, Corson.”
“Not to me it doesn’t.”
“Very likely not. But I’ve had dreams before that later came to pass.”
Corson was not impressed. “And for every one that did, a hundred that didn’t-isn’t that so?”
“Yes, but-”
“Dreaming of cabbage doesn’t fill your belly,” Corson said firmly.
“You don’t understand,” said Nyctasia, but she smiled, and for once she did not offer to explain. This time she preferred to think that Corson might be right.