The Keeper of the Mist (38 page)

“Exactly right,” agreed Keri. “That's exactly what happened.”

And it was.

Or so they all fervently hoped. It was a little hard to be quite certain what Aranaon Mirtaelior might know or remember or guess: sorcery wasn't something anybody in Nimmira truly understood. Though Osman the Younger's grandmother thought otherwise: she declared that the boundary mist was itself a kind of sorcery.

“Blood sorcery,” she said with evident satisfaction. “That's the strongest magic there is, child. Particularly when the sorcerer uses the last drop of his own heart's blood. Which he came close enough to doing, didn't he, your young Doorkeeper?”

Osman's grandmother's name was Ystarrian Mirtaelior, the Wyvern King's own granddaughter, who had fled Eschalion when she was only a girl. She didn't talk about that, and no one, not even Lucas, said a single word about her relationship to Aranaon Mirtaelior. Osman's grandmother didn't allow anyone to call her by her real name, either. She said her name was Estarre Tor, and her people wore a badge showing a star and a red bear and a mountain.

Estarre Tor called Keri
child,
but then she called everyone
child,
including her grandson. She was so old it was hard to take offense: perhaps not as ancient as the late Timekeeper, but old enough. She was as small and wrinkled as a winter apple and, like the best winter apples, perfectly sound and more than a bit tart. She had walked right through the boundary between Nimmira and Tor Carron just a single day after the mist had been raised back up. Cort had been so furious he had pried himself out of his bed and made it nearly to the border before Keri had caught up to him. Osman Tor the Younger had already been there, barely on Nimmira's side of the boundary, white wisps curling about his boots, his hands clasped with the thin, bony hands of his grandmother.

Estarre Tor had been amused by Cort's fury. “Blood magic,” she had declared, nodding in satisfaction. “But blood calls to blood, you know, right through even your rather potent sorcery, child.”

Osman's grandmother had been wearing a silver ring set with a garnet cabochon, which she had plainly used to guide herself through the mist; Osman, too, had been wearing a matching ring, which Keri had not realized he possessed. Keri had resolved to find out just what other rings or earrings or pendant jewels the old woman and her grandson might have, but at that moment, she had been so relieved it was only Estarre Tor and not the Wyvern King himself that she hadn't done anything but make the lady and her entourage welcome.

“It's a good, strong ensorcellment, this boundary of yours,” Osman's grandmother told Cort. “Don't fret! The Wyvern King will have a good deal of trouble finding his way through
this.
I only even realized that your hidden country must be here because I knew my grandson was nowhere in Tor Carron, but neither was he in Eschalion, so I knew there must be some other land between. Then he called me right to him, you see, bloodstone to matching bloodstone, or I would not have found any path through your ensorcellment myself, and if there's one thing I know how to do, it's find the edges of things. But if my grandson insists on making these contrary alliances, you must expect an old woman to put her nose across your border.”

She was used to getting her way, was Estarre Tor. But then, what she said did make sense, because Osman Tor the Younger plainly was not alone in having a contrary alliance in mind. Tassel blushed whenever she looked at Osman, but she went rather pale whenever she looked at Keri.

At last, Keri took her friend aside. “You know, if you leave Nimmira, you'll lose your magic. You won't be my Bookkeeper any longer. The magic will go somewhere else, settle in someone else.”

“I know,” said Tassel. “And I don't want that. I don't. But—” She stopped in distress, looking into Keri's face.

Keri said, unwilling to let Tassel go, “I don't want any Bookkeeper but you. I was so lucky to have you and Cort. If you leave, I'll get someone else, but who knows what she'll be like? Listen, I don't suppose Osman the Younger would stay with you here?” But then she shook her head, reluctantly. “No, I guess he'll need to take his father's place, eventually.”

“He more or less already has,” Tassel admitted. “He told me. His father hardly leaves Tor Rampion anymore. Osman's the one who oversees everything. If anyone is going to set a boundary between Tor Carron and Eschalion, it will have to be Osman. Keri, I wish I could stay, I'll be sorry to leave Nimmira, this is my home, and you're my friend! But it would be a great thing to set a boundary between Tor Carron and Eschalion! Just think of it!” Taking Keri's hands, she looked into her face. “He's more of a sorcerer himself than he lets on, at least the kind of sorcerer they have in Tor Carron. You probably guessed! All those earrings and things! He thinks maybe Aranaon Mirtaelior can be made to believe he's already conquered the whole world.”

“Ambitious,” observed Keri, keeping her tone neutral. She didn't think Osman would be able to manage that, no matter how ambitious he might be.

Tassel nodded earnestly. “Yes, but…Keri, I think I'd like to see him try it. Him and his grandmother. Even if she was never trained as they train sorcerers in Eschalion, even if she needs gemstones to work her sorcery, she's powerful. And she hates Aranaon Mirtaelior. I think we can trust that, if nothing else.”

Keri, too, thought they could trust that much. “If Osman tries to draw that kind of border…If you aren't my Bookkeeper, are you thinking you might be his Doorkeeper?”

Tassel didn't answer.

“I thought so,” said Keri. “Maybe it would work. Maybe it would. I think you're probably attuned to any role you might try to take, after all this. Summer Timonan
died,
though, Tas.”

“But now we know how to make sure that doesn't happen.”

“
If
you have a Bookkeeper of your own! Who would that even
be
? Are you deliberately not thinking this through? Tassel, if there isn't a Bookkeeper to write the ending…”

“I know, but somebody would turn up. If we did it right. And Osman's grandmother swears she can help set up a similar magic for Tor Carron. Maybe she can, Keri. There's more sorcery in that woman than she lets on. And she lets on plenty. I think she might become Osman's Timekeeper. Think of that! That would set the Wyvern King back a bit, if he ever does come against Tor Carron.”

Keri shook her head, though she couldn't exactly disagree with that last part, at least. “I don't want you to leave. Whether you take on some of Tor Carron's magic or not. Even if you're Osman's wife and not part of his magic at all. I don't
want
a different Bookkeeper, Tassel! Everything's changed so much already! I don't want you to leave me.”

“I know,” Tassel said gently. “But you have Cort now.”

Keri couldn't keep from smiling at that, because she knew it was true. But she also said, “Tassel, you'd lose Nimmira!”

“I know,” said Tassel, discouragingly resolute. “I'm sorry for that.”

“You're sure?” Keri asked her once more. “You're sure you trust his heart?”

“He's a terrible tease, but you know he's never been able to lie to me.”

“And you're sure of your own heart?”

This time, Tassel only nodded, very soberly.

Keri sighed, resigned. “I'll make you a cake. You'll have to be handfasted here, you know, before you go to Tor Carron, or you don't get a cake. The best wheat flour and almond flour, seven layers with apricot cream filling and a filigree of caramelized sugar on the top. And a pink hibiscus flower. No roses.”

“Definitely no roses!” Tassel agreed fervently. “I'll hold you to the hibiscus, though.” She was happy. She was sad, too, but she was mostly happy, so that Keri knew she really had no choice: she had to let her go.

“Just think,” Tassel teased Keri. “If he'd managed to talk
you
into handfasting with him, he'd miss that cake. The Lady of Nimmira can do as she likes, but no Tor lady ever sets foot in the kitchen, or so Osman tells me.”

“So you see, it would never have worked,” Keri said mock-gravely. “That's not all he would have missed. He's definitely got the right girl this time.” Making herself smile, she hugged Tassel, then went off to check on the quality of the almond flour in the House's kitchen. It felt like her own these days, and the cooks did not seem a bit shocked to find her there.

Osman the Younger took a conciliatory, apologetic tone when he approached her, which made Keri feel a little better. He himself did not seem to think that he could necessarily persuade Tassel away from her home if Keri really wanted her to stay. Keri thought Tassel had made up her own mind and wasn't likely to be argued out of it by anyone, but she was glad Osman knew what he was asking of her. And of Keri.

“I seem to recall your making a very different proposal not so long ago,” she said to him, not quite serious but not exactly teasing, either. “I'd wager the whole of Glassforge against a single apricot that there isn't a magistrate in either of our lands who would call your proposal to Tassel anything but a breach of promise to me.”

Osman had the grace to look embarrassed. And he did not point out that she hadn't in the least wanted that proposal, though of course they both knew that was true. Instead, he said, “I wouldn't dare take that wager, Lady Kerianna. Since apricots don't grow in Tor Carron, I'd have to buy one from you, and I'd be afraid of what price you might demand for it.”

“In plays, an impossible task is usually the price, if you want to marry someone who ought to be unobtainable.” Keri looked him up and down and sighed. “I suppose you've already accomplished an impossible task, though. Along with the rest of us, but still. Tassel says you want to try to create a boundary between Tor Carron and Eschalion.”

“I do hope for that. Such an achievement would be beyond price.”

“It sounds like another impossible task, to me.”

“With Tassel's help, I hope not impossible, Lady Kerianna.”

“Oh, so
that's
why you want her, is it?”

The young Bear Lord paused, no doubt aware that his proposal to Tassel must look exactly like that. “Lady Kerianna, I assure you—”

“—that your heart is also engaged?
This
time?”

Recovering his balance, Osman smiled. “This time, it is. You know it is. I promise you, Lady Kerianna, I will not risk my wife even to achieve such a boundary as Nimmira possesses.”

“She seems to trust you,” Keri admitted. “So do I, I suppose.” She lifted her hands, conceding the match. Though she supposed there hadn't actually been a contest, exactly. “Make her happy,” she told him. “Make her happy, Lord Osman. That's what I ask, as the price of friendship between Tor Carron and Nimmira and between you and me.”

“I will,” he promised her soberly.

Keri looked at him for another moment. Then she stood up and took his hands in hers, pulling him into a light, quick embrace. Then she stepped back, but kept hold of his hands. “Call me Keri,” she said. “Since you're going to be almost my brother.” Then she smiled at the look of honest surprise and pleasure in Osman's dark eyes.

Tassel might not actually lose Nimmira altogether and forever, as Cort pointed out when Keri asked him whether he was
absolutely sure
that his cousin really did know her own heart.

“She always knows her own heart,” he told her, sounding a bit rueful.

Keri understood: he wouldn't claim such a talent for himself. Well, neither would she.

“Besides,” Cort said, “if both our lands have a boundary between us and Eschalion, maybe someday we won't need a border between our Nimmira and Tor Carron. Maybe it can all be one country, someday.”

Keri frowned at him. “I won't let Osman the Younger rule Nimmira.”

“Or not
quite
one country, then,” Cort conceded. “But good neighbors, neighbors who sometimes visit one another. Or, Keri, even if Tassel is part of Tor Carron's boundary magic and can't leave Tor Carron—even if their magic works differently and she's something we haven't a name for—she'll still be my cousin and your friend.” He put an arm around Keri and pulled her gently against his side.