The Gathering of the Lost by Helen Lowe Read Free Book Online Page A

would come next.
    “Her,” the minstrel confirmed and set his glass down. “I want you to find Malian, the Heir of Night, and bring her home to the Keep of Winds.”

Chapter 3
Revelry and Masks
    T he silence in the room was so intense that sounds from the yard below were no longer a background murmur, but immediate and distinct. Jehane Mor put her own glass aside. “I am sorry,” she said, “but I don’t think we can help you.”
    “Do you not?” Haimyr picked up his lute and began to strum it, a little dissonance of notes. “I was so sure that you could.”
    “You have told us,” she replied, “that Malian perished in Jaransor, five years ago. Even if we found her restless ghost, we could not restore her to this plane of existence.”
    The long, slender hand swept a flurry of notes from the lute. “But you asked me how I could be certain she was dead. And in fact I did not say that she was—‘lost’ was the word I used. I take no responsibility for what the Derai may or may not believe.” The lute strummed again. “At first, given the winter, I was inclined to believe the worst. But I was puzzled by Lannorth’s report on Kyr and Lira. They had died fighting, yet their bodies were found laid out as though by a comrade.”
    “By the comrades who were with them, surely?” Jehane Mor shook her head. “All that proves is that Kyr and Lira were not the last to die.”
    The lute twanged, a mournful eerie sound. “Then, of course, there is Nhairin.”
    “Who was also lost?” Jehane Mor was careful to keep the question in her tone.
    “At first, yes.” Haimyr looked up from the lute. “A routine patrol from Westwind found her the following summer, wandering the border between Jaransor and the Gray Lands. Her body was emaciated and covered in terrible sores, all her clothes were rags, and her mind was filled with the madness of Jaransor. Her body has healed since then, but her mind—” He shrugged. “Some thought she should have been executed as a traitor, but the Earl would not have it. He could not, he said, put to death someone who was incapable of speaking in her own defense. Besides, there was the hope that she might recover and we would learn more of what happened in Jaransor.” The minstrel played a short sequence of regretful notes on the lute. “But she is too far gone.”
    “Jaransor,” Tarathan observed somberly, “is a dangerous place.”
    “Especially for the Derai.” Haimyr shrugged again. “All we have pieced together from Nhairin’s ravings is that Kyr and Lira turned back to fight in hopes that the Heir would escape. So Malian and the others would have been far away by the time the guards fell and could not have laid them out. And their enemies, surely, would have let them lie. So who else, I have asked myself, would—or could—have done it?”
    “Even if your belief that the Lady Malian still lives is justified,” Jehane Mor replied, “five years ago you wanted her to flee the Wall of Night. Why this sudden urgency to have her back?”
    “On the Wall, every boundary patrol of Night sees action now.” Haimyr spoke almost to himself. “Asantir says it is the same for all the forward keeps and holds. A great storm is brewing, we all feel it, and this time the ramparts of Night may not hold.”
    “Not without the Child of Night, is that what you mean?” Jehane Mor asked.
    Haimyr smiled. “Ah, the acuity of heralds. That is exactly it. Malian has not been supplanted or disinherited so she is still Heir of Night. This spring she will turn eighteen and be of age, able to claim her place at the Earl’s council table and amongst the Houses of the Derai as of right—if she can be found.”
    “If she is alive,” Tarathan said. “You seem to have as little evidence of her life as you do of her death, and no leads for any seeker to follow.”
    “Even,” said Jehane Mor, “if we were free to help you, which we are not. Our services are contracted well into next