Dawnsinger (7 page)

Follow? She should have listened to Lyse’s warning, after all.

6

Torindan

“Torindan!”
Shae breathed.

The stronghold of Rivenn perched below them on an arm of rock that thrust into the swirling waters of Weild Aenar
.
Its bulk rose from the mist like some noble bird of prey. Sand-pink wings fanned backward to water’s edge, and white plumage fluttered from atop its many towers. Walled fields stretched from the gatehouse to the granite cliffs that towered overhead. Beyond the fields and near the river, a collection of roofs huddled behind a town wall.

A humbler Torindan lay in eternal summer surrounded by rolling hills and flowering meadows, at least in her imaginings. This monolith crowded every vista and tinged the very air with its pale colors. She blinked away tears and swallowed against the tightness in her throat. Torindan. High Hold of Faeraven. Seat of the fabled guardians of Rivenn. Center of music and learning. Archive of history. Allerstaed of Worship.

Flecht lurched in a sudden gust, and Shae tightened her arms around Kai, grateful for his warmth. He would be the only person she’d truly know at Torindan. She’d understood that from the start, but now the reality faced her. When a downdraft caught them, the thrill in her stomach wasn’t entirely due to the unexpected drop.

Kai’s back muscles flexed as he tightened the reins, and Flecht’s great wings batted to bring them up level.

Despite her misgivings, Shae welcomed their journey’s end. This rugged land of snow-bound crags, cirques, and valleys seemed to stretch on forever.

She could still see in her mind’s eye the jagged shafts of ice-encrusted stone pushing against the sky that were the Maegrad Ceid, the Ice Mountains.
Nature’s pulse beat with a wild rhythm there. Mysterious under-shrouding mists, the passes had revealed themselves in glimpses of a forbidding landscape where rocks thrust upward through the snow.

Flecht banked, and Shae swallowed against a new bout of nausea, grateful she would soon find rest.

Their approach from the river took them past the postern water gate. Its hewn steps, walled and flanked by defensible platforms, ran from an upper gate to water’s edge. They rounded the side of the castle to come upon the barbican, an impressive gatehouse with wide towers and twin turrets. Dampness and the smell of fetid water greeted them as, with a final batting of wings, they landed before the drawbridge that jumped the moat to the barbican.

A voice called from the turrets. “Kai returns!” Metal rasped, and the wood and iron doors swung inward. Kai guided Flecht across the drawbridge. They entered the barbican, and the wingabeast’s hooves clattered across a plank floor riddled with trap doors. As the massive doors thudded shut behind them, Shae glanced back. The two guardians dropping the iron bar into its rest wore the same surcoat of green and gold as Kai did—the uniform of the guardians of Rivenn.

They passed beneath the iron teeth of a raised portcullis to enter a corridor where light fell in strips through arrow slits and around closed “murder holes” in the ceiling. At the end of the corridor and beyond a second raised portcullis, a sunlit patch of cobbled road took them onto a drawbridge spanning a smaller channel of the moat.

They entered the inner gatehouse through an archway and beneath a third raised portcullis. A short corridor with a row of doors on either side led through the center of the gatehouse,
but before they reached the archway at its end
a flame-haired figure emerged from one the guardrooms.

“Kai! You return. The Lof Raelein already asks for you.” The youth gazed with undisguised curiosity at Shae.

“Aerlic!” Kai greeted him. “I present my sister, Shae.”

“Welcome, Fair One!”

She smiled at his intensity but dutifully inclined her head in response to his courtly bow.

“How fares the Lof Raelein?” Kai asked.

Aerlic’s roguish face sobered. “Her body weakens.”

Kai frowned. “And her spirit?”

“It remains strong.”

“That, at least, comforts.” Kai turned to Shae. “Aerlic is First Archer of the guardians of Rivenn but in my absence, set aside his bow to take my place at Lof Raelein Maeven’s side.” His words held an edge.

Aerlic frowned. “I kept my duty. I only came to the gatehouse for a quick word with Craelin while Freaer visits Lof Raelein Maeven. When she rambles, a strangeness overtakes her that only his music can soothe.”

Kai slid from Flecht’s back. “Craelin is First Guardian of Rivenn, and Freaer is First Musician of Torindan.” He raised his arms to Shae, and she let him take her weight and swing her to the ground.

“What do you think of Torindan?” Kai asked near her ear.

“It’s all I’d thought and more. And yet it seems—
different
.”

He pulled away to look at her. “Different?”

“Not as—kind.”

“Ah!” His face lit. “Children often picture what should be.”

Shae pushed back her hood and shook out the burnished tangles that had long ago escaped their plait. “But I am no longer a child.”

“True enough.”

She lowered her hands from her hair, caught by something in his voice. But he already turned away.

“Let me tend to your wingabeast,” Aerlic offered. ”The Lof Raelein looks for you.”

Kai surrendered Flecht’s reins to Aerlic with a weary smile. “Thank you.”

Kai escorted Shae through the archway into the outer ward. Aerlic followed behind them, leading Flecht, but turned onto the side path that cut to the stables while Kai and Shae continued along the main path toward the gateway to the inner ward.

Shae gasped at the tiered fountain beyond the gateway’s arch, which rose from a square pool of dressed stone amidst budding roses.

Kai smiled. “A wellspring supplies the fountain and feeds water through pipes to the kitchens. The stables have a separate well. The source for both lies deep underground, and so may never be poisoned in a siege.”

As she neared the pool, Shae saw the bronze figures topping the fountain—a rearing wingabeast with a youthful rider.

Kai paused beside her. “Talan’s wild ride.”

She had known that particular tale since her early days. With the sun behind him, she squinted at Kai. “The statue puts your description to shame.”

“I did my best to show it to you with words.”

Shae gazed with longing at paths wandering among early flowers, strongwoods and roses, but Kai pressed her onward. She yielded, but she would return to explore this exquisite garden.

A square structure with four corner towers dominated the inner ward. This keep dwarfed the one at Whellein Hold thrice over. The gated archways behind it must be the postern and upper water gates. Every hold had a postern gate—a way of escape from the rear. Kai told her that Torindan’s watergate could receive delivery of goods by boat from Weild Aenor, which would make a siege more difficult.

A smaller building of the same pinkish sandstone connected by means of a vaulted corridor to the side of the keep—the Allerstaed
.
Stained glass windows looked out from arches over the doorway and ranked down the building’s sides. Beside, and bending away behind it, lay a garden of vegetables and herbs in square plots.

They ascended a circular stairway within a corner tower of the keep, and then followed a paneled corridor. Their footsteps echoed above a faint thread of music—an intricate weaving of voice and instrument, which grew in volume.

Kai knocked on a carved and gilded door at the end of a short corridor. A round-faced maid bowed her head and admitted them. Shae followed Kai into what must be the Lof Raelein’s
chambers. Exhaustion lent her a curious detachment, as if she walked in her sleep. The elaborate chambers themselves added to the illusion, for their exquisite beauty did not seem quite real.

In the Lof Raelein’s outer chamber, a seating area waited before an enormous marble fireplace where a fire glowed. Upon the mantle twined carven images of unibeasts and gryphons. Above it perched a variety of stuffed fowl—pheasants, wingens, and graylets among them. The birds appeared so life-like, Shae imagined they might spread their wings and take flight at any moment. On the wall over the mantel hung a tapestry that showed the first of the Kindren entering Elderland from Anden Raven at Gilead Riann
—
the Gate of Life.

The maid opened another carved and gilded door and led them into the inner chamber. Details imprinted themselves in brief flashes on Shae’s tired mind…white furnishings….mats in deep colors…vibrant tapestries…a prism turning in a stray draft at the window embrasure and refracting rainbows through the chamber.

The music ceased as they entered, but flaemlings flitted from perch to perch in a hanging golden cage and trilled their own melodies. A fire of fragrant draetenn boughs in the marble hearth snapped and crackled its percussion.

A movement drew Shae’s eye to one of the window embrasures, where the changing light of late afternoon obscured the figure of a musician bent over his lute.

“Kai.” A voice rasped from the carved bed that dominated the room. “You have brought her?”

Shae started. In a combination of weariness and awe of Torindan, she had all but forgotten the purpose of her visit.

The musician came away from the window, and light slanted across him to reveal a lithe figure and features of surpassing beauty. Vibrant hair of gold sprang above a well-formed brow. Fathomless eyes held her. Shae caught her breath, and her hand went out in a blind motion.

Kai’s arm braced her. “I have brought Shae—by too long a journey.”

“She will rest then, after greeting me.”

Shae tore her gaze from the musician as the Lof Raelein made her pronouncement. Shae approached the bed to give her bow and hid her shock at sight of the shrunken figure lying there.

“Lof Raelein.” She took the dry hand proffered and, on an impulse of pity, touched her lips to the pale skin. “I greet you.”

Maeven’s face softened. “Such a gentle child. Perhaps my mind will settle now you are here. It’s taken with wandering of late…” Her face wrinkled in lines of perplexity.

“Kai said you wished for me. I have no idea why I should deserve such an honor, but if my presence brings you comfort, I am glad.”

“I have not forgotten our other meeting.”

Shae smiled. “Nor have I.”

“I only wish there had been
more—
more time…” Her features twisted as tears washed the seawater eyes, but then the Lof Raelein’s face smoothed. “You will sing my death song.”

“Oh no!”

“Promise me!”

Shae hesitated, but then inclined her head in defeat. Who was she to deny the Lof Raelein’s request? “As you wish.”

“Thank you.” Maeven’s voice weakened. “Go now. I tire, and you must rest as well. We can speak again, should Lof Yuel allow it. Freaer, stay and comfort me with music.”

Shae looked toward the golden musician who waited in the embrasure, his head bowed as his fingers ran silently over his lute’s strings.

Maeven beckoned the servant. “I give Chaeldra over to you.”

Shae murmured her thanks, eager to end the meeting. Shame filled her at the self-serving desire, but in truth, the trying journey had left her no reserves with which to face the reality of life’s passing. She longed only for food and rest and must, of necessity, turn from death to tend the needs of life.

She stood, but hesitated as her gaze collided with Freaer’s.

Kai bowed to Maeven and inclined his head to the musician. “Freaer.”

The musician returned Kai’s gesture with a touch of melancholy. Soft strains followed them from the chamber.

****

At the first sight of her outer chamber, Shae exclaimed with delight. Kai watched her move about the room, admiring its tapestries of unibeasts and maidens, running a hand over carved strongwood benches, and sighing over window hangings adorned with the gilded rose of Rivenn. But as her gaze met his, the joy in her face extinguished.

She did not touch any of the food Chaeldra brought them. When she spoke, he leaned forward to catch her whisper. “Have I somehow erred?”

The quaver in her voice stilled the harsh remark poised on his lips. He set down his goblet, for his appetite fled at the trembling of her chin. Chaeldra stepped forward to refill his goblet.

“Leave us.” He winced at the harshness in his own voice.

Chaeldra obeyed but cast a sullen look his way before going through a side door that led to her own quarters.

Kai chided himself. Would he now rail at servants? He took a long breath. Exhaustion, tension and the weight of secrets had combined to unnerve him. He brought his thoughts back to Shae’s question. “She should not have asked you….”

“…to sing her death song?”

He spread his hands. “Such an honor by custom belongs to Torindan’s First Musician.”

“
Freaer?
She asked me in front of him! No wonder he looked—well, he seemed…”

“Unhappy?” Kai passed a hand across his eyes. “Death often forgets courtesy.”

“Which carries more weight—custom or Maeven’s wishes?”

“A Lof Raelein has the power to change custom. Her wisdom in doing so might draw scrutiny.”

Shae gave him a fretful look. “What should I do?”

He lifted a joint of pheasant and taking a bite, chewed and swallowed before answering. “I don’t know.”

“How can that be? You always know what to do!”

“I’m sorry, Shae, that you find me so—diminished.” She did not look at him, and he thought she fought to quell tears. He berated himself yet again. The day’s journey had provided Shae trial enough without the added shock of seeing Maeven so ill. Just as well, then, that Maeven had kept other revelations to herself, although he could hope she would not wait too long to give them.

She made a small sound in her throat. “I’m sorry, too.” She looked at him, her eyes shadowed. “I’ve created difficulties, haven’t I?”

He shook his head. “Forgive me. I’m out of sorts, it seems. I don’t blame you for Maeven’s error. I should have kept the matter to myself. Now, forget such concerns and take food, Shae. You must hunger. We’ve had little to eat the entire day.”