The Keeper of the Mist (19 page)

“We opened a way between Nimmira and Tor Carron because we were worried about Eschalion,” suggested Keri, groping her way toward a story that might appeal to Lord Osman, deeply relieved to feel they might at last be moving forward. “Lord Osman is a welcome guest, but letting in a sorcerer from Eschalion, that was an accident. We were making the best of a bad situation, but now we're worse off than we expected because of Magister Eroniel's treachery.”

“What can any normal person look for from a Wyvern sorcerer, other than treachery and a smooth knife blow in the dark?” asked Tassel rhetorically. Despite Tassel's real fear for her cousin and for them all, Keri could tell her friend was starting to become interested in spinning an elegant story for Osman the Younger. Tassel clasped her hands theatrically to her bosom, assumed a sad expression, and said, addressing an invisible Lord Osman, “What we need now is a brave soldier from an honorable kingdom to advise us regarding all these dark dealings—”

“Exactly!” Keri declared.

“Maybe,” Domeric said reluctantly.

“It's too late for all this nonsense!” snapped Brann, rising to his feet for emphasis. He took a step and set his fists on one of the room's low tables, leaning forward, sweeping the room with a stern look that landed on Keri. “It's
too late
! It was too late the moment your Doorkeeper let himself be snatched out of Nimmira! Something that wouldn't have happened if Lyem were still Doorkeeper. We might have been more sensible than to give two of the three posts to inexperienced young people. Now look where we are!”

He glared at Keri, just as though the manner of the succession had been her idea from the first. It was clear that he meant to include her as one of those
inexperienced young people.
It was even fair, in a sense, but the way he said it wasn't fair at all. Tassel had drawn herself up in outrage. Keri got there first. “I don't know, Brann. Your
friend
Lyem might indeed have been able to lock fast the boundaries of Nimmira, since, as you will remember, he's the one who breached them in the first place. Apparently in order to profit from a secret trade in wheat and jewels that led to hardship for everyone else. And then fled, leaving us in this situation, instead of advising Cort about anything he might do to fix the magic he ruined.” She stared at him. “Did I miss anything?”

Brann was looking at her with profound dislike. But he said nothing.

“And where
is
Lyem Aronn now?” said Tassel hotly. “Not in Nimmira. In Eschalion, maybe? Explaining everything he knows about Nimmira to the Wyvern King? I wonder what that might mean for Cort, and for us all.”

“If you think—” began Brann, turning on her with a kind of savage satisfaction, clearly glad to have a chance to shout back at her if he couldn't shout at Keri.

“Experience,” said the Timekeeper, without emphasis, “is something one obtains through the passage of time. Unlike integrity.”

Brann, cut off in midsentence, looked at the Timekeeper and closed his mouth without a word. He had now gone rather white. He didn't argue, but he turned on his heel and walked out.

“Lyem Aronn really was his friend, you know,” Linnet said cautiously, in the tone of someone determined to be fair.

“Friend, ha!” growled Domeric. “Lyem Aronn knew how to flatter him, that's all. There's a useful kind of
friend
for a man to have.” He gave Linnet a significant look. “A lot of people learned how to flatter Dorric Ailenn. And once they had the habit, easy enough to flatter Brann.”

The girl's mouth twisted in wry acknowledgment. “Undeniably.”

Domeric, turning to Keri, said, “It's well thought, to ask Lord Osman for advice and counsel. His men might be useful, for all I doubt he's got any real sorcery about him. He'll like being asked, whatever we do. But I tell you, it'd be better still to forge a solid alliance, as quick as possible, in case—well, in case! We should do that now.” He gave Tassel a grim little nod. “Just as your Bookkeeper there said.” Then he looked, probably involuntarily, at the Timekeeper.

Everyone looked at the Timekeeper. Keri, too. But the Timekeeper seemed to have said everything he meant to say when he'd driven Brann from the room with that one cutting statement. He seemed now, upright and unbending in his stiff chair, almost like the statue of a man rather than any ordinary person. Keri suppressed an urge to ask him questions one after another until he was forced to answer them. She also suppressed an urge, possibly more reasonable, to ask him why, in all the world under the broad sky, he refused to
use
the long years of his experience to help them now, when it really mattered.

At least she didn't doubt his integrity.

What she said aloud was, “Very well, Domeric, you had better tell Lord Osman I request another chance to speak with him. Perhaps in an hour? Or, no, two hours would be better. And, Tassel, maybe you could lay your hands on some sort of account of other countries' dealings with Eschalion? See what you can find, all right?”

“Probably what I'll find are accounts that end suddenly, as soon as they've been conquered,” Tassel pointed out, but more calmly now that Keri was asking her for something she thought she could do, something that might actually help.

“If there are any that
don't
end that way, find those first,” Keri told her. “
Before
I speak with Lord Osman.”

“Yes,” Tassel agreed, her expression growing abstracted. “Yes, I think I can do that. And I think I'd better start an account of our own about all this, too. In case someday…” She didn't complete that thought, but plucked the pen from behind her ear, and, from nowhere, a little book with, Keri saw as her friend flipped it open, all its pages blank except for a scattering of little birds drawn down the margin. “A true, complete account,” Tassel repeated absently. “I'll start it with your ascension, Keri—or no, before that. You know, I'm not sure where the story
does
start.” She frowned down at the little book.

“
I
just wish this were all over and you could write the ending,” Keri muttered. “
And then they all lived happily ever after
would be good.”

“You don't get endings like that except in plays,” Domeric snapped.

“She knows that,” Linnet murmured soothingly, patting his arm.

Keri barely heard either of them. She said, “All right. I'm going to go back to my apartment and think.”

But Keri found no inspiration in her apartment. She paced from room to room, but this didn't help. She told all the girls to go away, and Nevia, too, when the wardrobe mistress tried cautiously to find out what had been happening. Nevia did probably need to know, but Keri didn't feel equal to explaining and told her to ask Linnet.

When everyone else was gone at last, Keri stood at the widest window in the apartment, which was in the second and smaller sitting room, and stared out over the rooftops of the lower part of the House and, beyond that, the town. The little narrow-winged swifts sketched unreadable shapes through the air above the House. Keri watched the birds and tried to think. Eschalion, gaps in the boundary, Cort, the keys to all the locks in Nimmira, Lyem Aronn, her father, Wyvern sorcerers with long silvery hair and flat silvery eyes…Nothing fell into any useful pattern. She couldn't think what she should do. She needed time to think.

Time.

Keri blinked, an idea half stirring in her mind. The boundary—redrawing it whole was impossible, except—

Then someone hit the door and flung it open and came in without waiting, and Keri turned, startled, losing the thought. She felt slow and heavy, as though she had been rushing along and now had suddenly been jerked to a halt. Her first thought was
Tassel.
But she knew at once, before she had quite turned, that Tassel was nowhere near. So then she thought it might be the Timekeeper; she even thought for just an instant that it might be Cort, escaped from Eschalion and back where he should be.

But it wasn't, of course. It wasn't any of the people she most wanted to see. It was Brann. The disappointment was so sharp that for a moment Keri was completely unable even to yell at him to get out.

She was sure no one, not even one of her half brothers, was supposed to be able to just walk in on her like that. But Callia, hovering behind him, had plainly been simply overawed enough to let him in. Dori was right there, too, but she only dithered, wringing her hands. She hadn't tried to do anything to stop him, either.

Brann looked strange: no longer elegant and assured, but angry and distracted. He had changed his embroidered coat for a heavier one with lots of fancy buttons, but half the buttons were not done up and the stiff collar was not quite straight. His boots were meant for outdoor streets, not indoor hallways. They were plain, without a stitch of embroidery or a single bead or button, and their toes were scuffed. Keri would hardly have imagined Brann wearing boots like that, but after all, she didn't really know her brother.

Though she knew he was terribly rude.

“What?” she demanded. “Well? You found another hole in the boundary? Or an entire company of Wyvern sorcerers has appeared? Or people are storming the House to find out what's going on?”

She wished immediately she hadn't thought of that last. It seemed all too possible. The worst part was, everyone from the town and the surrounding countryside had a perfect right to be upset and demand answers, only she just didn't have anything to
tell
anybody yet.

“If you weren't so
stupid
!” Brann snapped at her. “If you would just
understand
what you have to do! A little girl like you, and
you're
the Lady of Nimmira? It should have come to me. It should have come to
me
! Lyem held the boundary; it never failed while he was Doorkeeper; he should have kept his post, never let some farmer's son pick up those keys. If you'd had the sense of a turnip, you'd have gotten Lyem to keep his post! None of this needed to happen!”

Keri stared at him, too taken aback to even try to answer.

“This is
your
fault,” declared Brann. “It's
all your fault,
and why should the rest of us pay for it?” He strode forward, grabbed Keri's arm, and hauled her toward the door.

Keri tried to jerk herself free, but her brother's grip was too tight. She tried to plant her feet to stop him pulling her along, but he was much stronger than she was and she couldn't begin to resist. She was too astonished to shout for help, but even so, she noticed how the girls scattered out of Brann's way, helpless and ineffectual. Dori was making little squeaking sounds like a mouse. Callia backed away, then turned and fled. Keri wondered if the girl had enough sense to go find—who? The Timekeeper, maybe. She would have been relieved to see that tall, ascetic figure stalking toward them. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Brann dragged her down the hallway, and no one did the least thing to stop him.

Keri tried again to pull away, but her brother was so much stronger that she didn't think he even noticed. “Where—” she tried to ask, breathless. “What—”

Her brother hardly looked at her, but only said again, “It should have come to me!”

And if he got rid of her, he thought he would succeed her. Keri understood that suddenly and all at once. He thought he
could
get rid of her. He knew another way into and out of Nimmira. His good friend Lyem had probably shown him another hidden doorway inside a closet or broom cupboard or something.

He was going to take her out of Nimmira. He was, she thought coldly, going to hand her right over to Aranaon Mirtaelior. Because, possibly, he had reason to believe the Wyvern King would ensure the succession did indeed come to him and did not go to anyone else.

It was intolerable. Keri was not going to tolerate it.

Brann had dragged her right past a dozen people, staff who hurried out of his way and turned to stare, but didn't move to interfere. Probably they weren't actually on his side. Probably they had no idea what he was trying to do, or that he was forcing Keri to come with him. She wasn't exactly screaming for help. She hadn't even
tried
to scream for help. First she had been too shocked, and now she was too angry.

But as Brann dragged her out of the House and into the town square, Keri planted her feet and rooted herself into the cobbles, and the stones and earth beneath.

Brann jerked to a stop as suddenly as though he had found himself trying to drag along a great oak, or the solid foundation stone of the House, or a wrought-iron gatepost. Keri felt like any of those things, like all of those things. She was not even surprised at what she had done; it felt too normal for surprise. It felt to her very much as though she had always known how to turn herself into a tree and a foundation stone and an iron gatepost.

Brann dragged at her again, sharp and impatient, evidently unable to believe that he couldn't move her, that he no longer had the strength to force her to take even one step. He shook at her, hissing between his teeth in furious disbelief. His grip didn't hurt her; his shaking didn't move her. It was as though he had tried to grab and shake the House itself.

“Let go,” Keri said. Not loudly. She didn't have to shout. She was unmoved by anything he tried to do. It was surprisingly easy to sound calm. It was as though her brother's incredulous fury naturally drew an answering steadiness from Keri herself, even though she was still angry. She understood suddenly a little of how her mother had managed to meet her neighbors' scorn with such composure, and the understanding was like a knife, but one that was in her hand rather than one that cut. Keri was solid and rooted as a tree, and nothing her brother did could shift her one inch. She lifted her chin, met his eyes, and said again, making her voice deliberately calm, “Let go, Brann. Or I will root
you
to these stones and leave you standing right here in this courtyard.” Maybe she should. She wasn't quite sure how to do it, but she was tempted to try.