by the results,” Orisian murmured.
Cerys sniffed in sad amusement. “So young, and already so harsh in his judgement of his peers.”
Orisian shrugged, unsure whether she was mocking him. With Cerys, he sensed none of the undercurrent of concern, even affection, that sometimes leavened Yvane’s brusqueness. The Elect seemed far more distant, far more removed from passion or emotion. If his suspicion that Herraic Crenn did not relish his regular meetings with this woman was correct, Orisian had some sympathy with the man.
“Where I come from, people rely on the Thane, the Blood,” he said, “but they rely on themselves too. And you won’t find much affection there for the Thanes of Haig, or Ayth or Taral. Certainly no faith in their wisdom.”
Cerys grunted and carefully replaced the book she had been holding in its place on the shelf.
“I imagine you’re right. I don’t know the Glas valley myself, though I’ve read Hallantyr’s writings. He travelled quite widely, you know, eighty years ago or thereabouts. Through Kilkry lands, up the Glas, into the Car Criagar. He wrote of it well, and perceptively I thought.” She glanced at Orisian. “There is some creation here, you see, not just copying. Hallantyr is not the only one of Highfast’s people to have told new tales, recorded new insights. Yvane has probably told you otherwise. Her… frustrations coloured her view of us.”
“I don’t remember her saying much about it. She told me I should come here, so perhaps her opinion of you isn’t as harsh as you think.”
“Oh, I doubt she has changed so very much. Opinions seldom change a great deal once deep foundations have been laid.”
Orisian went on between the ranks of tables. He found himself walking softly, unwilling to disturb the place’s restful peace. Over the shoulder of one of the scribes, he glimpsed elegant script trailing from a quill, colonising blank parchment. The na’kyrim appeared unaware of Orisian’s presence, her labour absorbing all of her attention. The writing was in a language that Orisian did not recognise. He drifted back towards the Elect.
“Did Inurian work here?” he asked her quietly.
She nodded. “Often. Somewhere here you could find his words, preserved.”
“Why did he leave Highfast? I would have thought… it seems the kind of place he would have liked.”
Orisian caught a brief flicker of emotion in the Elect’s face: a stifled wince of sadness. She was not entirely empty of feeling, then.
“He did like it,” Cerys said. “But he had his curiosities. He was less… wary of the world than most of us here are.” She lapsed into silence, gazing up at the distant little windows. They were darkening now, as night drew near.
“And Yvane? Why did she leave?” Orisian asked.
Cerys blinked, turned her grey eyes to him for only a moment before looking away.
“Have you asked her that?”
“No. Not really.”
“Best to do so, rather than seeking the answer from others.”
Orisian folded his arms across his chest.
“What wisdom is there here that I can draw on, then?” he asked. “What can I learn from all of this that will help me?”
“If you’re to learn anything it’ll be from those of us who have done the reading already. And, perhaps, from the mind of one who sleeps in the Great Keep.”
“Why show me this, then?”
Cerys smiled, and her calculating eyes narrowed. “Because you are a Thane. A Thane who knew and, I think, loved Inurian. You are to be one of the rulers of the world — whatever’s left for you to rule over once all this is done — and this place needs the affection of rulers. Your father… he was a good man, you know. He sent us a gift each year, to help clothe and feed us. To keep our work here alive.”
Orisian looked out over the ranks of tables. He had not known that about his father. Just one more of the many things he seemed to be learning, too late, about people he had thought he knew. One of the na’kyrim scribes had set aside his book and fallen asleep, his head resting on the back of his crossed hands.
“That’s for later,” he murmured. “Another time. Now there is a war to be fought. And I was told that I might learn things here — things about the na’kyrim who aids my enemies — that would help me in that.”
Cerys regarded her feet, poking out from beneath the hem of her long robe, for a pensive moment and then turned on her heel.
“Very well. It’s late, Thane. You must be tired. I know I am. Rest now, and in the morning you will meet the Dreamer. That’s where the answer to some of your questions lies.”
IX
Ammen Sharp hated the mountains. He hated the unruly horse he rode, and the bitter rain that fell upon him. He hated his rumbling hunger. It had been so long since he had slept that his head felt as though it was stuffed with feathers. The place where the dog had bitten his leg throbbed. But still he rode on, wrestling with his recalcitrant mount, hoping that soon, somehow, this would all be over.
Word that the Shadowhand had left Kolkyre spread so quickly around the city, riding a wave of relief, that Ammen Sharp had known of it within hours. He soon learned that Mordyn Jerain had gone east, accompanied by only a few warriors. Ammen did not care where the Chancellor was going, or why. He knew precious little of what roads led where, or which towns lay in which direction. The sum of his understanding resided in the names that Kolkyre’s three gates bore: the road from the Skeil Gate went to Skeil Anchor, that from the Donnish Gate to Donnish and that from the Kyre Gate, by which the Shadowhand had departed… well, that went up the Kyre River. Where it ended did not matter to Ammen. His sole concern was whether he could follow the Chancellor.
At first, when he heard that the Shadowhand was gone, he had been seized by panic. It seemed that he had lost whatever slender chance there had been of avenging his father’s death. To his shame, he had cried briefly, huddled inside the crumbling kiln he had taken as his hiding place, clutching his knees to his chest. He cursed himself for a fool, a child, and a weakling. Anger dried up his tears.
Once he thought about it with a cooler head, he knew what he needed: a horse. He was a bad rider but he could probably stay in a saddle for a trot, perhaps even a canter. Ochan had thought a son of his should know at least that much. He had said more than once that a man never knew when a horse might be just the thing he needed to put his troubles behind him. Ammen saw the sense in that, as he did in everything his father had said, though he had never seen Ochan in a saddle himself.
He considered stealing a mount inside the city but quickly discounted the idea. From the moment the recent flood of strangers — warriors from every Blood, pedlars, thieves, dispossessed farmers and woodsmen from the Glas valley — had started lapping around Kolkyre’s walls anyone with anything worth protecting had been buying themselves guards. Every stable he could think of was almost certain to be protected. The city’s gates were, in any case, choked with attentive sentries these days, and Ammen knew he did not have the look of the rightful owner of a riding horse. He must, he reasoned, leave on foot, and find the mount he needed beyond the walls.
Hours later, trudging down a muddy track in the near-dark of a cold evening, he had doubted his choice. He was already tired, even then, and those open spaces had made him feel vulnerable and exposed. He missed the sheltering presence of buildings, alleys and crowds. There were too many noises that he did not recognise, out here amongst the fields and ditches and copses: animal sounds, the creaking of branches or rustling of leaves. And smells: the stink of manure, the wet, green scent of weed-choked field drains.
But fortune had smiled upon Ammen in the night, and he found a solitary horse shut up in a big shed. A dog had come at him, and torn his leggings and gashed his leg. He had killed it with his knife. There had been shouts behind him as he rode away into the darkness, but no pursuit. He almost killed himself without the aid of any irate farmer, since the saddle he had hurriedly flung across the horse’s back was not properly fastened and the stirrups were far too long for him. When he finally found the courage to stop and dismount so that he could try to rearrange everything, he almost lost the horse. It took all his strength to hold it. Since that terrifying moment he had stayed astride the animal, ignoring the agonised protest of his muscles.
So now he rode on, beyond exhaustion, up and up into higher, bleaker territories. The rain had soaked him so
