Darkborn Part 22

Vladimer shifted impatiently. Balthasar, reading his impatience, took up the thread of the story. "My wife told me about the conversations she had had with Baron Strumh.e.l.ler, and that he'd tried to persuade her to help you, so we decided that we must try to do what he would have done."

"He convinced me," Telmaine said, head on Balthasar's shoulder. "Convinced me that it was our duty."

"We drove to the station to catch the day train, and spent the entire journey in suspicion and apprehension of the other first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers," he said.

"I slept," Telmaine said, with a trace of bitterness. "And he wrote letters to our children, in case we did not come back."

Vladimer was unmoved by sentiment. Together, they finished the story, describing the incident at the tunnel. Ishmael's expression was horrified; he reached out a hand to Telmaine and she gripped it, and Balthasar could not find it in himself to begrudge her the comfort of someone else who understood. Vladimer and Ishmael both shook their heads dubiously when they heard how close Bal had been when he fired Sylvide's pistol at the Shadowborn, merely to graze its arm. Both were men who considered marksmanship as fundamental a skill as writing. Telmaine described confusion and a sense of great pressure and foulness in her magical duel; Ishmael supported the description from his own encounters with Shadowborn, and whether he found Telmaine's account incomplete, Bal could not say, but he wondered about her slight hesitations, when she had been so bleakly candid otherwise. Ishmael described his own pursuit of them through the concourse and corridors, leading to his timely intervention.

Vladimer rose and limped over to the corpse of the Shadowborn, stooping to lift the thick blanket that covered it. "If he fathered those twin infants, and it appears he-or one of his race-did, why why, when their birth would require concealment by ma.s.s murder?" At their uncomprehending expressions, he said impatiently, "The Rivermarch fire."

"Accident," Bal said. "Intimacy. Experiment. To name three. I wonder how much Tercelle Amberley did know, or whether she was as deceived as the rest of us. Did she know him in the guise of Lysander Hearne? I think she must have done. Else why come to me, of all people? But his chancing the day made her wonder, and fear."

"Indeed," said Vladimer. "The next question that comes to mind is, Are there more nearby, or is this the only one?"

"There are at least two," Telmaine said unexpectedly. "The night of the last party at the summer house there was a woman in the garden. When she came near me, I felt-though I did not know it then-Shadowborn magic. She was not alone; there was a man with her, a man who spoke in a voice that sounded much like my husband's."

This seemed to be news to Ishmael as well.

"And you did not report this?" Vladimer said tautly.

"What would I have said?" she demanded. "I'd no idea what it was I was sensing. And you wouldn't have believed me."

The shift in Vladimer's expression toward deep suspicion made Balthasar say quietly, "Lord Vladimer, your distrust of my wife is evident. Do you suspect that she might be the woman who committed sorcery on you?"

Telmaine's body stiffened beside him. He was aware of a similar tension in Ishmael's, at no more than arm's reach away. Vladimer's expression was hard, almost masklike, with the effort to contain his emotions, not to reveal weakness. The effort was, to Bal, conspicuous. He said, "I have no reason to believe that my wife is not, in fact, my wife. Everything she has said and done has been consistent with the speech and behavior of my wife of over ten years."

"You would vouch for her?"

"More than that: I traveled with her by the day train. Had she not been who she seems, I would not have reached my destination alive. I was there when Tercelle's children were born, and the little that I could have contributed to any Shadowborn's errand would have been offset by the threat that knowledge represented. No, sir, if you reason this out, this is my wife."

"Unless you are not who you seem," Vladimer pointed out.

Bal said, "Lord Vladimer, you chose to be alone with us, without protection aside from that revolver. Which, I can a.s.sure you from very recent experience, would offer little defense against a Shadowborn. Those were not human nails that laid my face open. Please, follow your demonstrated conviction the rest of the way. We may not have much time, and Baron Strumh.e.l.ler felt very strongly that you were essential to our cause-and that our enemies knew it."

Vladimer's brows rose; Bal had the sense that the man was re-evaluating him. "Have the three of you anything else to tell me?" he said.

"Telmaine," said Ishmael, "what did the Shadowborn say t'each other?"

She told him, finishing with, "I nearly asked you, there in the gardens, what that aura was. But I didn't know how to, and not make you suspect."

"My dear lady, I started to suspect the moment we met."

She sighed. "How much would have been different had I spoken up."

"That is often th'way," Ishmael said, and beneath the weary wisdom, Bal heard long experience, which had saddened and scarred, but not embittered the man. He eased his chin away from Telmaine's ear and indulged himself in a momentary wish that the other man who had entered his wife's heart was one of the many gadflies who frequented high society, rather than one of courage and moral substance. But that would have been unworthy of Telmaine, and of himself.

He returned his attention to the present and the place. "Lord Vladimer, could you tell us about your experience with the Shadowborn?"

"There is not much to tell," Vladimer said, but his terse, sickened manner said otherwise. Bal remembered the reports of the effect of glazen on their victims, and what Telmaine had sensed from Tercelle Amberley. Even a libertine would be shocked to be so used, and Lord Vladimer had the reputation of being deeply private, and a celibate.

He considered probing deeper and decided against it; now was not the time. "If you are able to give your agents a description, it would help trace the woman's movements backward from your meeting at least, if not forward, since we are dealing with a shape-shifter." He hesitated slightly, but this he could not defer, whatever its effect on Vladimer's hidden wounds. "The woman who was with you four nights ago, the man I met as Lysander Hearne, and the man on the floor behind us are almost certainly one and the same."

Ishmael cleared his throat. "My lord, he's right. I've told you that magic is sustained by the vitality of th'mage. You woke once it was dead, which suggests that it did this t'you. And we know already they've a great liking for magical firetraps, but nothing has happened, which may mean any trap died with th'mage."

"We may be wrong in a.s.suming this particular Shadowborn to have fathered Tercelle's twins, since Telmaine described hearing the woman talking to a man who sounded like me," Bal said. "It may have been another one with the same gifts, using the same semblance of my brother. Who I presume, at some point during his exile, strayed into their territory." He felt a surprisingly sharp pang at the thought that he must count Lysander dead-and at the same time, it lifted a burden on his own heart. The little boy in him who yearned for a brother to adore could still keep faith that his brother had gone out into the world and become a good man.

They waited, while Vladimer considered. Abruptly, he swept sonn over Ishmael. "Do you remember the discussion we had, last time we met?"

Ishmael cleared his throat. "Aye, my lord."

"I want you to leave for the Borders by the express train this evening. Dr. Hearne will accompany you. I will commission an express for Minhorne for myself immediately. I will get Seja.n.u.s to issue a ducal order that you muster forces in the Borders to resist a possible Shadowborn incursion. Once you are satisfied you have done that, and if no such incursion has materialized-if they have not come to us-you will scout the Shadowlands, as we discussed. Dr. Hearne, your part in this is to prepare Baron Strumh.e.l.ler to enter the Shadowlands. I know of no better agent for this task than he, but he has previously been wounded by Shadowborn, been . . . ensorcelled by them . . ." An expression of profound unease came to his face, and he stopped.

Ishmael rasped, "Vladimer, if they'd laid the Call on you, you'd know it already. Hearne, if you're willing, I'm willing. Telmaine told how you were able to steady her; y'might be able to do it with me. If I've got to go into the Shadowlands, your help would make it more likely I'd come back."

"I will do whatever I can," Bal said, though he would not have needed to be a mage to hear Telmaine's horrified, silent, No, no, no No, no, no, voiced in only a tiny throat-sound of protest.

"So be it," said Vladimer. "I will also take that scheming apothecary of yours into my service. I have worked with enough men of negotiable loyalty to trust that I can use him well."

Ishmael murmured his thanks. Balthasar said, "What about the charges against Baron Strumh.e.l.ler, and the fact that, at present, he is believed to be dead?"

Vladimer waved a hand. "Leave those to me."

Ishmael said, "There may be some difficulty over the inheritance. M'younger brother's been waiting a long time for this."

"Settle it," Vladimer said tersely. "Anyone who hampers your work, I'll have up for treason."

Ish dipped his head. "Aye, m'lord."

"Lord Vladimer," Balthasar said, "what about my wife?"

Vladimer waved a dismissive hand. "I have no doubt that my dear cousin is sitting there furious at me for sending her husband away; it cannot be helped. She is free to return to her children."

Ishmael chewed a moment on his temper. "Don't be a fool, m'lord," was what escaped. "Y'need to be guarded, and she's the best possible guard y'can have: a mage who can sense our enemies, who can move through society at your side, and who is, above all, loyal."

"You advise this, Strumh.e.l.ler?" Vladimer said dangerously softly.

"I most strongly advise it, m'lord. We know there's at least one more out there, and whatever else y'can do, you've no defense against their magic."

That was, Bal thought, more bluntly put than he would have dared phrase it himself. Vladimer drew a thin breath, his face chill with anger and, Bal feared, revulsion. But when he spoke, it was to accede. "So be it. She may accompany me." He rose. "Say your farewells; we will be leaving immediately the train is readied."

"Do you mean this seriously?" Telmaine demanded of Ish, as the three of them were shown into a side room for a final moment of privacy.

"Very seriously," Bal answered for him. "For the moment, you are the one remaining here who knows the stakes and the score of this game, and it is progressing both swiftly and lethally. We can only hope the danger lessens once Vladimer has had a chance to broaden our defense."

"You're a mage, and Vladimer trusts you," she said to Ishmael.

He shook his head and said heavily, "Even if he'd not ordered me south, I'd be scant use t'him now."

Telmaine raised a hand, hesitated, and then tentatively laid it on Ishmael's chest. "How much has it hurt you, to push back the flames?" she said in a low voice. "Tell me truly."

There was a long silence; then he said, reluctantly, "Th'magic may come back, it may come back partly, or it may not come back at all, Magistra Broome says. Time alone's going to show."

"Oh, sweet Imogene, Ishmael, I am so very sorry. I know how important your magic is to you." She reached up to brush his face gently with her gloved hand, as she had Bal's on the concourse. Bal wrestled once more with an intense-but for the moment private-ache of jealousy.

"Aye, well. I'd been warned often enough. I don't regret it going this way, if gone it is."

"I do," she breathed. "I'm so afraid, Ishmael."

"I wish I could tell you the fear goes. Y'learn to use it, though. Everything you survive teaches you more. And you'll not be alone. You can still speak t'me-t'us." He drew a deep breath, its self-consciousness at odds with his jesting of days-only days-ago, and stepped back. "Lord Vladimer'll not be long. I'll be leaving you. Hearne, I'll meet you on th'platform for th'express."

His footsteps, leaving, were inaudible beneath the industrious clatter of the reawakened household. Neither of them heard him close the door.

"I don't believe this," Telmaine said in a low voice. "I don't believe Vladimer has ordered you to do this, and that you're doing it." Bal did not answer; he hardly believed it himself. "Promise me you'll come back safe to me and our daughters. Please," she added with what tried to be a smile, "if there's any shooting, let Ishmael do it."

Bal put his arms around her, for the moment little caring that she knew everything he felt: his barely contained fear for her; his uncertainty whether he could do what Vladimer asked him to, and whether Ishmael could trust him enough; his disorientation at so hurried a parting; his dread of losing her. All personal, even selfish concerns, but all he could grasp of the unfathomable future.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," he said, settling his unwounded cheek against her hair. "Promise me that you'll take care of yourself and our daughters. Guard yourself around Lord Vladimer, too. The effect of this experience on him concerns me. He may react unpredictably."

"This . . . creature seduced him, didn't she-it?" she whispered, remembering the deeply embarra.s.sing-and arousing-memories she had drawn from Tercelle.

"I fear so. I would have liked the chance to speak to him, but it's not to be, at least now. Be careful."

Telmaine said faintly, "Not a week ago I was here, at the summer house, with no thought on my mind but the night's party."

"I know," he murmured. He, he thought, had been feeding sweetened and watered goat's milk to Tercelle's abandoned twins. "It's . . . one of the consequences of power, my love. Responsibility."

"Bal," she whispered, her forehead resting against his chest as the seconds counted away. "The only power I'd wish for is the power to turn back time."

About the Author ALISON SINCLAIR is the author of the science fiction novels is the author of the science fiction novels Legacies Legacies , , Blueheart Blueheart, and Cavalcade Cavalcade (which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award). (which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award). Darkborn Darkborn is her first fantasy novel, which began with a meditation on the light-dark motif as it is used in fantasy, met up with years of eclectic reading and cities remembered and imagined, and took flight in directions almost as unexpected to the writer as to the characters. Alison Sinclair presently lives in Montreal, where she is working on the sequels to is her first fantasy novel, which began with a meditation on the light-dark motif as it is used in fantasy, met up with years of eclectic reading and cities remembered and imagined, and took flight in directions almost as unexpected to the writer as to the characters. Alison Sinclair presently lives in Montreal, where she is working on the sequels to Darkborn Darkborn.

Read on for an excerpt from the next fascinating novel in Alison Sinclair's stunning fantasy trilogy

Lightborn

Coming in trade paperback from Roc in May 2010

T he first tapping of raindrops on the taut fabric just above his face awakened Ishmael. He lay listening, frowning a little. He had known rain was coming, had felt it on the wind, but he had hoped it would hold off until after sunset. He'd reached Renmoor, as he had intended, but had decided against the public shelter and spent the time before the sunrise bell finding the ideal spot to stake out his hide. He'd placed it so that it would catch the late-afternoon sun, having learned to use that warming touch that once so unnerved him. But with the rain, his sunset signals-the birdsong and animal activities, and most of all the cooling of his blind and the rocks around him-were all muted. He must wait on the sunset bell itself, though he had hoped to be on his way before the workers went into the fields, harvest not being over. The fewer people he met, the less likely one would report when the word came through that a wanted man with a scarred face was traveling through the area. He doubted the notice would publicize his name. he first tapping of raindrops on the taut fabric just above his face awakened Ishmael. He lay listening, frowning a little. He had known rain was coming, had felt it on the wind, but he had hoped it would hold off until after sunset. He'd reached Renmoor, as he had intended, but had decided against the public shelter and spent the time before the sunrise bell finding the ideal spot to stake out his hide. He'd placed it so that it would catch the late-afternoon sun, having learned to use that warming touch that once so unnerved him. But with the rain, his sunset signals-the birdsong and animal activities, and most of all the cooling of his blind and the rocks around him-were all muted. He must wait on the sunset bell itself, though he had hoped to be on his way before the workers went into the fields, harvest not being over. The fewer people he met, the less likely one would report when the word came through that a wanted man with a scarred face was traveling through the area. He doubted the notice would publicize his name.

He wondered how Balthasar Hearne was faring, in Strumh.e.l.ler amongst his kin.

And Telmaine . . . He'd not heard a whisper from her since their brief conversation on the train, and he feared he knew why. She would have felt the onset of that attack that had so perturbed her astute husband, and she had been in mental contact with him when he came close to killing himself with magic. She would be too afraid for him to try again.

Phoebe Broome had explained that he had not ceased to be a mage. He could still draw on his own vitality to extend his senses and agency beyond the strictly physical. But the penalty would be so much greater that even a small effort risked killing him outright. She had grimaced at his translation of that into engines, fuel tanks and valves, but she had agreed-the valves in the fuel lines were broken. The attack he'd suffered from speaking to Telmaine had proven it.

When he reached Stranhorne, he must risk sending a message north. Explaining, for one, that he now knew better than to exert his damaged powers. And counseling her as to what she must and must not do with her own emergent ones. He could almost wish that Balthasar's uxorious impulses would overcome his sense of duty and turn him north tomorrow. Hearne was no mage, but he surely understood something of magic, with his keen interest in all things. Likely he understood more than Telmaine did.

Ishmael shook his head wryly. A man with his reputation, hankering after a married woman, ought not to let himself like her husband.

From the nearby village, the sunset bell began to toll. Ishmael rolled himself up on his elbow, listening hard. He'd known of villages changing the timing of their main sunset bells to trap fugitives or raiders, and it would be ironic if he were immolated in a trap meant for a local troublemaker. But between the heavy strokes of the main bell, he could hear the dull clanging of the bell from the fieldworker's barracks, and a third, sweeter chime he could not identify. He relaxed. If it were a trap, it would be just the one bell. A rustle of claws and sudden exhortation of birdsong from directly overhead made him start, and he smiled toward the night diva as he reached for the light-tight flap. That That was a sign he trusted. was a sign he trusted.

Camp was swiftly broken, hide and sleeping roll slung on his back, and his waterproof cape draped over it and himself; good, then he'd not be too obviously sleeping rough, which was uncommon enough to raise questions. He'd break his fast on the track as he worked the stiffness out of his joints. Too much civilized living, of late-if he discounted prison beds; he was getting soft. He bypa.s.sed Renmoor by the farm tracks, bidding an amiable good evening from behind his scarf to the first harvesters emerging, grumbling, into the rain. He accepted a mug of hot cider and a roll from a woman who took him for one of their own, and drained the mug as he followed the harvesters up the westward road. He left the mug with others discarded by the field gate and continued to the first crossroads and then south, once the rain had veiled him from sonn.

He had thought, if the rain held off, that he could make sufficient time on the tracks, but with the rain he would need to use the roads if he were to reach Stranhorne manor by sunrise, and even then he'd have to eat and drink on the move. Horses behind him he would would hear, but an ambush, men waiting still and silent in his path, he would not. The greatest danger was from the warning that went before him. hear, but an ambush, men waiting still and silent in his path, he would not. The greatest danger was from the warning that went before him.

He paused to shake out his dripping cape, and listened. This road was the best compromise: quiet since the post road had been built from the railway station to Stranhorne, but faster walking than the tracks. He could do nothing about what went before or came behind him, and he must pay attention to what lay around him. Just because he was in the Borders did not mean he had left the Shadowborn behind.

The rain did not let up, and he hoped, deeply hoped, that the harvest was well on its way to gathering in, because this could be the crop-spoiling storm they dreaded every harvest season. Mile upon mile he tramped into the wind, his hat little sparing him the rain that streamed down his face and seeped into his collar. The best that might be said for the storm was that he had traveled through worse, and only the reckless or very experienced would ride in it. The murk of tiny echoes limited sonn, and while Darkborn horses were bred for night riding, even they had difficulty on a night as thick as this.

His Borders-bred stubbornness would not let him carry a watch. He'd feared he would come to rely on it, and broken watches killed a handful of trusting travelers every year. But without a watch, knowing the mud and rain were slowing him and he'd not have precise signals of sunrise, he would have to stop early, set up camp, spend another night in the rain. And the temperature was definitely falling.

He stretched his stride, teeth gritted against the wind, sonn blurred by the rain, listening past the patter on his hat. He should be within a few miles of the junction with the post road, the best maintained road in the entire barony-the postal service would have it no other way-and the busiest. There was a post station near the junction, a place to change horses and overnight for the post riders and couriers, with an attached coach stop and day shelter. Should he chance still being ahead of the alarm, and catch a public coach into Stranhorne village? If the coaches were still running, in this deluge. He stumbled and lurched against the gra.s.sy verge. A few more steps took him to a cairn, and he leaned upon it, catching his breath, and fighting off vertigo. Fatigue, he told himself, but he realized he was shivering, and not only because of the rain.

He had sensed such a cold though Telmaine, as she approached the warehouse set with Shadowborn firetraps. He had sensed it again in Vladimer's bedroom, where Vladimer's Shadowborn a.s.sa.s.sin waited. He had sensed it during his encounters with magically gifted Shadowborn, mostly, as he had told Vladimer, too late for it to be other than a distraction.

And the vertigo-he knew the vertigo of old, too, from the time he had tried to live in the Broomes' communal mansion. It was the way powerful magic affected him. He had felt the same vertigo while he sheltered in the underground streets of the old Riverwalk, while overhead Lightborn mages twisted atmospheric energies into a storm to douse the burning city.

This was no natural storm.

And he doubted whether, amongst the few dozen low-rank, untrained mages in the area who worked as healers or fortune-tellers, or had nothing to do with magic, there were any any could recognize or articulate what he or she would be feeling now. Baron Stranhorne's objections to magic kept its roots shallow in his barony. could recognize or articulate what he or she would be feeling now. Baron Stranhorne's objections to magic kept its roots shallow in his barony.

That settled it: the post road, the post house. He had to raise the alarm, no matter the risk to his liberty. He did not know the purpose of this storm, whether to ruin crops, to conceal hostile movement, to prevent an alarm from spreading, to kill travelers. Sufficient magic could raise floods, turn rain to snow, snow in late summer, paralyze the area . . . Chaos had seemed their enemy's ruling plan to date, chaos, death and suffering.

Ishmael braced himself against the cairn, acknowledging the cold, acknowledging the vertigo, and setting both aside. He pushed off his hat, letting it flap on the end of its tether, baring his head to the elements. Not wise, for the long-term, but the shock of cold seemed to abate the vertigo, and he would need to hear if anything were coming at him through the storm. He'd set one foot before the other until he reached the post road, and if nothing ate him, or he wasn't run down by a post coach, he'd manage the few hundred yards to the post station.

Shivering, his steps weaving, he resumed walking. The vertigo came and went, came and went, and at its worst he lurched against the verge every dozen steps. In the driving rain, with the land heaving beneath him, he might as well have been in a storm at sea.

Except of this ship, he was captain, and navigator, as well as sorry pa.s.senger. When he tripped and fell, and struggled from the mud with the rain driving against his back, he realized that he had turned completely around without knowing it. His sense of direction was gone. Except . . .

Except for that constant, aching pull southward, in the direction he needed to go.

For eleven years he had resisted it, with all a Bordersman's stubbornness, refusing to take a single unnecessary step in its direction. Of the three other men he knew who had been similarly afflicted, one had put a bullet through his brain to end the torment, the one had moved to the north most tip of the country, and the third was in an asylum. Intransigence and constant vigilance had kept Ishmael sane and on this side of the Border.

If he let it guide him, even to the post road, could he force it to release him at the end?

But if he did not, would he reach the road before he lost his bearings entirely and turned back without knowing it? In this state, he'd not sense the sunrise.

And if he tried to reach anyone with magic-Telmaine or Magistra Broome-he would die in the failing.