The Keeper of the Mist (20 page)

“You can't do this!” her brother hissed at her. “Everything's
arranged,
everything's
set,
we have an
understanding.
”

“We do, do we? Who is
we
? You and Magister Eroniel, is it? About who ought to be Lord of Nimmira, and how convenient it would be for Nimmira to become part of Eschalion? That kind of understanding? What do you suppose Magister Eroniel—or is it the Wyvern King himself?—will say when you have to face him and admit you couldn't touch me after all?”

But at this, Brann seemed at last to realize what he had been saying. He let her go and took a step backward, staring at her as though seeing her for the first time.

“I think you had better tell me everything. Exactly what was this agreement you made, and with whom?”

But her oldest half brother only took another step backward, turned, and walked rapidly away.

Keri tried to root him to the stones, but she was not actually sure how to do this; she did not completely understand how she had done it to herself, and she could not at once make it work. But she might have figured it out, except that Domeric suddenly strode up, Linnet and Callia running after him, and she lost the thread of what she was trying to do.

It didn't matter anyway. She knew just about exactly where Brann was, though he had already turned a corner and was out of sight. She was almost sure she could reach out and root him to the ground no matter where he was, once she had just a minute to think about it. Then Domeric could go get him and bring him back, and he could tell them all about what kind of deal he had made, and with whom, and for what.

Keri turned to Domeric. He did look positively thunderous. She was glad to see him, but she found her hands were shaking, which was infuriating. She tucked them into her skirt to hide this and tried to look confident and like she knew what she was doing, instead of shaken and scared and like she had no idea in the world what any of them ought to do.

She took a deep breath, and let it out, and began to say something, she hardly knew what, because what did you say when your oldest brother tried to kidnap you and sell you to your enemy? Even a half brother whom you didn't like and didn't really know? But she was spared the need to say anything about it after all, because at just that moment something struck her a reverberating blow all over and she reeled and fell.

It was not a real blow. She was not actually hurt. But she was stunned, for a moment incapable of thought or speech. It was like being inside a great bronze bell when it was picked up and struck; it was like the earth beneath her disappeared and immediately came back at a slant from what it had been; it was like she was inside a glass suncatcher that had shattered around her, spilling broken shards of light sharp enough to cut. It was like all those things, and like none of them. She discovered she was on her hands and knees on the cobblestones, her hair falling into her eyes and the echoes of some soundless, roaring noise all around her.

It was Linnet who brushed her hair back from her face and took her hands and steadied her when she swayed. “Lady?” she said. “Keri? What is it? Was this something—did Brann do something?”

“Of course he did,” Domeric growled. He reached past Linnet, took Keri's arm, and lifted her effortlessly to her feet. “What did that bastard do?”

“It wasn't him,” Keri whispered. But he had done something, or he had— “He's gone,” she said, realizing it for the first time. “He's
gone.
He's no longer in Nimmira. He
did
have some other door waiting somewhere. Or, no, Magister Eroniel reached through a door and took him. It
was
Magister Eroniel, he did it, I know that. He tried to break Nimmira open like a—like a man smashing a nut with a hammer.” She caught Domeric's wrist, balancing with some difficulty, her eyes widening with dismay as she realized exactly what the Wyvern sorcerer had tried to do. She breathed, “He tried to use
Cort
to break us open. To fling wide every door in the whole of Nimmira.”

Domeric braced her, frowning. “That silver-tongued bastard! Him, was it, and not Aranaon Mirtaelior himself? Huh.”

Keri found herself nodding, though she didn't know how she could be sure it had been Magister Eroniel and not the Wyvern King. But she was certain.

“But he couldn't do it,” said Linnet, patting Keri's hands. “You stopped him. Or, the Doorkeeper stopped him?”

Keri nodded again and then made herself stop. She swallowed. That was exactly right. Magister Eroniel had tried to break open Nimmira, and Cort had stopped him. That was what she had felt. But she had no idea what that adamant resistance might have cost Cort. She was desperately afraid it might have cost him everything.

Except he was still alive. She knew that. Because that part of the magic of Nimmira was still rooted in Cort, and because Magister Eroniel was not here.

“We have to get him back,” she whispered. “We have to do that first. After that we can figure out what to do next.” She didn't want to think about what the Wyvern sorcerer might have done to Cort, or might do to him now. She wouldn't consider the possibility that maybe she and Tassel would have to figure out what to do without him.

No. They would get him back. After all, Cort was still alive, she was sure of that. Even if he was somewhere in Eschalion and they didn't know where.

Then she realized, of course, that Brann had gone, too, almost certainly to Eschalion, but maybe even to the exact same place Cort was trapped. That might offer a direction. It was the first real hope she had thought of in all this terrible day.

Although he might tell Magister Eroniel that in as little as a day, Cort would lose the magic that made him Doorkeeper. She didn't know whether that might be something to hope for or not. Would the sorcerer act at once before the magic could free itself from Cort? Or would he delay, expecting the magic to be easier for him to grasp once Cort no longer held it?

She didn't know. Couldn't know. But maybe she should hope for the latter. Maybe she should be
glad
Brann had fled to Eschalion. Maybe they would have a little more time to get Cort back now.

Or maybe not. She rubbed her eyes and tried to think. Tried to find within herself a knowledge of where and how Brann had stepped through some other unknown gap into Eschalion. A gap that had not only let him pass through the thinned boundary, but also somehow folded distance across all the miles between Glassforge and Eschalion. She couldn't find it, though she knew it had to be somewhere nearby.

But she would find it. She
would
find it. And then she would use that gap or door or bridge to go after Brann and find Cort and get him back.

She took a deep breath, and stood up straight, and rubbed her face. “I think…I think we need to speak with Lord Osman. As soon as possible. Right now.”

“Yes,” growled Domeric, nodding heavily.

Keri could see he was glad she wanted to do what he thought she ought to do. That was fine, it would make things easier, but then a different thought struck her, and she said quickly, “Except, wait—no— Listen, Domeric, I
do
want to talk to Lord Osman, but give me an hour first, all right? Then I'll see Osman in, uh—”

“The Little Salon?” Linnet suggested diffidently. “That would be an appropriate place, Lady—too formal for any hint of impropriety.”

“The Little Salon,” Keri agreed. “In an hour. Go find Tassel, please, Linnet. Tell her to talk to Lord Osman. Tell her I need her to soften his heart and get him on our side. Tell Tassel I know if anybody can do it, she can! She should try to get him to tell her whether he has magic or not, and what kind, and whether it might be something we could use to protect our people who go to Eschalion to find Cort. But she has to be careful what
she
tells
him,
and she's not to
promise
anything!” She gave Linnet a look, too, meaning,
Do you have all that? Do you understand?

The other girl nodded and said with reassuring earnestness, “
Yes,
Lady, I understand!”

“Good,” Keri said, and then looked at Domeric, wondering if she could trust
him.
He was scowling, but she was fairly certain it was because he thought she should talk to Lord Osman right away, or maybe because she hadn't explained what she wanted to do first. She doubted his glower meant he would follow Brann's example and actually try to betray her and Nimmira. Domeric just seemed too straightforward and direct to be planning treachery, and she was positive he disliked Magister Eroniel.

She rubbed her face again, hoping she was right. But she didn't explain to Domeric or Linnet or anybody what she had in mind, in case she was wrong.

Then she went to find her third brother. She was almost sure Lucas was the one she needed now.

Keri found Lucas in a narrow room that angled back under a slanted ceiling. It was clearly a player's library, its walls lined with scripts bound into their oversized books, puppets hanging by their strings, dragons with jointed necks and silken wings, theatrical costumes in bright colors, all the accoutrements a troupe of players could want. That seemed immediately like a good sign, a sign that she must have been right when she guessed he might know some of the special secrets players shared with one another and not with anybody else. He was a player himself after all. She thought so anyway. He
played
the wild young man, the mischief-maker, the wastrel. She wasn't sure any of those roles were real. At least, not as real as he made them seem.

Lucas was alone. He was perched on the edge of a tall, narrow chair, with a wide leather-bound book open on the low table before him and a sheaf of loose papers stacked up to one side, together with a bottle of ink and two long quill pens. Before him lay a single sheet of paper half covered with thin, elegant script. He looked up with a quick, faintly defensive smile as Keri rapped on the door and came in, and his hand jerked, leaving a long streak of ink across half the page.

“Sorry,” Keri apologized. It was silly to even think about anything so trivial, but she knew just how she would feel if someone startled her and she accidentally piped frosting all across a cake she was trying to decorate with little flowers and beads.

But her brother's smile warmed and became more real when he saw who it was. “Sister!” he exclaimed. “Don't concern yourself, I beg you. I shall just write it over when it's finished, so it doesn't matter a bit. What brings you here? Looking for a play, perhaps? Surely you weren't looking for me?”

“For you, naturally,” she told him, though of course, his wide-eyed act notwithstanding, he already knew that. She looked around, curious despite her urgency. The room was high up under the eaves of the House, with windows on three sides. At the moment, all the shutters were open wide. The clean air of the morning wandered in through the windows, ruffling the clothing of the puppets and the silk wings of the dragons and the loose pages on the table. Charcoal-colored swifts flicked past, their flight sharply unpredictable as they pursued invisible insects. It was a peaceful space, separate from the rest of the House and open to the free air. Keri could feel the muscles unknotting in her neck and back, and the headache that had been pounding in her temples began to lift. She sighed and rubbed her face, thinking about how to approach Lucas. She already knew her youngest half brother was cleverer and more subtle than their older brothers. She hoped he had more of a sense of responsibility than he pretended. She thought he did, but it was hard to be sure.

The open volume of plays on the table before Lucas was as long on every side as Keri's forearm, which was normal for bound plays—ordinary books were smaller. It was bound with plain, thin boards and common twine, also customary for plays, because players were always taking the volumes apart and tying them up again. The plays that were supposed to be in any particular volume would be written on the front, with names crossed out and added in, but Keri knew those scrawled lists were usually not accurate. The only thing one could count on was that puppet plays were almost never in the same books as plays for living players. She knew this because Tassel had decided when she was eight or nine that she and Keri and Cort should all be puppeteers when they grew up. Cort had cooperated only reluctantly, but Tassel had poured all her quick enthusiasm into plays and puppet shows for a year or so, until she'd gone on to other interests, to the relief of all their mothers.

Keri wondered whether Lucas had been pressed by his mother to become a puppeteer or a player. People had said a lot of things about Eline when she became Lord Dorric's mistress, but no one had ever said that being the Lord's mistress had made her snobbish about her background. Maybe she had wanted her son to know his way around other lands Outside, even though Eschalion was dangerous. But maybe not so dangerous for players, who were good at coming and going unseen. And people did say no land was wealthier than Eschalion. Maybe Eline had hoped her son might someday follow her to her homeland. Everyone knew she had gone back there in the end. Even Keri knew that, though she had all her life done her best not to care about gossip involving the Lord's women.

The open book was probably one of puppet plays, because in his left hand, Lucas held the strings of a puppet. The puppet, Keri noted uneasily, was a stylized representation of a Wyvern sorcerer, and not only that, but one very like Eroniel Kaskarian: gray cloak and silver hair, its painted face carved with high cheekbones and angular eyes, somehow expressing a keen, villainous character.

Or maybe that was just her.

There was another puppet lying on the table, clad in black and with a red bear stitched across the front of its shirt. Keri supposed that somewhere in this room, there was probably a puppet meant to represent the Lady of Nimmira. There were undoubtedly puppets representing all kinds of people in here, including passed-over heirs. Rejected heirs were the villains in a lot of plays. Lucas didn't seem to have gotten out any of those puppets, though. She wished she knew that meant something. She wished she knew for sure that she could trust him. She did know she liked Lucas better than Brann, or even Domeric, but…she wasn't sure.

She said, “I don't think it'll be a popular play, if those are the only two characters in it.”

Her half brother smiled and held out one limp hand. “See the strings? I'm the good guy, of course.”

Keri studied him. “You're writing a play with yourself as the hero?”

“Well, no one else seems likely to.”

Despite his flippant tone, Lucas did not look cheerful. Whatever plot he'd been working out in his head, Keri thought, he didn't seem very happy with it. “You never know,” she said. “Sometimes things surprise you. Sometimes people do. At least, they astonish me all the time. Especially today.” She glanced around. None of the chairs looked comfortable, not even the one Lucas had chosen. They were all stiff and upright, and none of them had cushions. She pulled one around anyway and sat down.

Lucas's eyes had narrowed. “Dear sister, have I been missing tremendous excitement this morning?”

“Oh, you have
no
idea,” Keri said fervently. “The first thing was, we found a gap leading straight from the previous Doorkeeper's apartment to Eschalion. Cort found it. Magister Eroniel knew about it, or else we led him to it, I don't know, but he grabbed Cort and took him through the gap.” She added, in a quieter voice, the worst part: “He was trying to take me, but Cort got in the way, so he took him instead.”

Lucas leaned back in his chair, frowning. “Well, well. Cort stepped up, did he? Good for him, but I don't imagine that's very good for us. In fact, very bad. You've got an idea about what to do, sister dear? An idea that involves me?”

“Maybe. I think so.” Keri wished she could tell whether her youngest half brother was surprised or shocked, or whether he might almost have expected something like this to happen.

“Wait, you found this gap right in Lyem's apartment, you say?”

“Yes. Did you know about our father trading wheat and things to Tor Carron for garnets and things, and then trading the garnets to Eschalion for gold?”

Lucas shook his head, staring at her. “Wait, was he? And Lyem was part of this? It seems I've missed a great deal, and not only this morning!”

“So you didn't know.” Keri found she believed him, about this at least. She was relieved. “Lyem's no longer anywhere in Nimmira. He had to have been helping our father with all that, so I guess he's probably—”

“—fled to Eschalion? That does seem likely.”

“Exactly.”

“Yes.” Lucas's frown deepened. “Verens Corr must have known, I expect, and Bern Erram. It's hard to believe that our father would have arranged something like this without their advice. Aronn Duval, if there was all this trade in wheat, he must have known. Tirres Corran, too. And possibly Gannon Morras. But you're sure Cort wasn't part of it, I suppose.”

“Not
possibly.
We don't think Gannon was in it at all.”

“Because he's Cort's brother? Trust me on this, sister: it doesn't follow.”

“No, because Aronn and Tirres are in the records Tassel found, but Gannon isn't.”

“A substantially better reason,” Lucas acknowledged. “And now poor Cort has been snatched away by terrible sorcerers.” He absently made the puppet he held pace back and forth across the table, wooden hands behind its back, its head bowed in thought. He was good at it. The puppet really looked like it was lost in contemplation. Lucas said, in a quick, high, light voice nothing like his own, “What do I intend to do with the Doorkeeper of Nimmira? What did I mean to do with the Lady of Nimmira?” He made the puppet stop and turn and face Keri, its stiff little hands braced on its hips. “I will steal your magic and drink it down until your little Nimmira is empty, and then I will fill it up again with my magic, and then it will be mine forever. Ha, ha, ha, ha,” he added, in a deliberate parody of a puppeteer's villainous laugh.

“Yes,” said Keri, staring at the puppet. It was thoroughly creepy, she decided. And impossible to ignore. She resisted an urge to tell Lucas to put it away. Or throw it away. Or burn it. She said instead, “I think that's right. But he only got Cort, not me, and Cort will lock his magic away so even the Wyvern King can't touch it. I think. For a while. Of us all, Cort ought to be the hardest for Wyvern sorcerers to get at. But who knows what they might do to him when he won't cooperate? Besides, soon he'll lose the magic that makes him Doorkeeper, and then—well, that could be very bad for us, because once that happens, the sorcerers might get it right. I think they really might. So I'm going to ask Osman the Younger to help, because he's an enemy of the Wyvern anyway and he has those soldiers, you know….”

“Ah! Yes?”

“Well, yes. Because he's already said he wants an alliance. But he wants to make it by handfasting with me. Then Nimmira would be part of Tor Carron, so his father would be all in favor of protecting it from Aranaon Mirtaelior. He wants us to be wed immediately.”

“Naturally he does,” Lucas said, his eyebrows rising. “Of
course
he does. He took your hints and ran with them, I gather. A forward sort, isn't he?” He appeared, if anything, rather impressed.

“Domeric seems to think that's a fine idea—”

“Ah, does he? I suppose he would. Full of plans for direct action and frontal assault, is our brother Domeric. I imagine he finds thoughts of those Bear soldiers highly seductive. I expect he thinks he would command them.” Lucas put down the sorcerer puppet and picked up the Bear puppet. He made it march across the table and said in a deep, grim voice, “For this insult, the sword is the only answer! Let a red sun rise upon a field of iron and blood!”

It was a line from a play, of course—from distant history, from when the Lords of Nimmira had been war leaders, before Eschalion and Tor Carron had swallowed up all the little countries and Nimmira had in desperation found a different way to protect itself. Keri didn't want to think there was any chance she might be watching Nimmira lose that other kind of protection right this minute, that she might be unable to do anything to get it back. She said quickly, “So it would be good if Osman the Younger would help, but I can't agree to his terms and I'm not sure he'll offer any others, so I still want to try to get him to help, but I thought it might be better to find another way to get our Doorkeeper back, one that doesn't depend so much on the Bear. And then when Brann tried to kidnap me, he said—”

Lucas dropped the puppet, which collapsed in a tangle of carved wooden limbs and fine strings. It was the first thing Keri had ever seen him do that she was sure was completely unconsidered. She nodded, relieved beyond measure at her brother's spontaneous shock. She said, “Yes.”