The halls of Donnyn Shalach, black and austere with their heavy stone walls, had been rendered twice as grim on this anticipated, dreaded night. The weather outside was truly foul, shrieking with imbricose winds that hurled sheets of rain at the fortified estate like the thrashing river churning at its rocky shores outside, and the thunder overhead was a protracted pounding that even trembled faintly through the floor.

It was just the kind of night - and just the kind of occasion - to stoke the timid superstitions of the Palantasi household. Or so reflected the Lord of Family Palantas, Darriach Rimairan, as he silently walked the high-vaulted hallway. He had been pacing - without agitation - and thinking to himself just so for hours now, calm in the chaos of the night. Not so the two attendants who chased his intricate cloak of rank back and forth, tensing faintly each time the delicate silver tracery imitated the flash of a drawn blade in the dim light.

Ever the way of the old families, Darriach reflected with a faint upcurve of his lips as he paced on. Sunk deep in the old ways, and incapable of looking in any direction but over their shoulder. He considered the Rimairani, his family by birth, with another faint smile. Far, far below the Palantasi on the turgid Dark Elven political scale, but sharp and dangerous with the hunger of the new. Family Rimairan had done well by his marriage into the Family Palantas - now a century ago.

And he had done better still. Darriach looked around, took in the strength of the walls and the iron discipline of the attendants, the richness of his own black-and-silver cloak. The intricacy of that pattern described his rank amongst the nobility of the Dark Elves, and its whorls and branched lines told a fine story indeed. Few on the isle of Alachast outranked him. His wife - Lady Turiale of the Palantasi, Mistress of the Family Ascendant - was one.

Deservedly, thought Darriach without shame. Why are you fools so afraid? The Lady is steel and fire. She would cast Immortal Death himself into the river gorge if he dared show his face.

You look upon lightning and you fear. What of the lightning in her gaze? Have you forgotten so quickly?

A scream rose loudly from the closed chambers at the end of the hall, as angry and frustrated as it was pained. The coincidence of the ragged sound with another roar of thunder made the two attendant soldiers behind Darriach stop and look warily to the window.

"Duty," Darriach reminded them without turning, a flicker of exasperation flashing over his narrow features. "We watch for assassins. We do not stare at the sky."

That measure, at least, was no paranoia. Dark Elven history clearly illustrated that the chance of a noble rising from their vulnerable bed was severely reduced the higher their rank set them above others, and Turiale was Mistress of all the isle.

The soldiers silently fell into step again, their black and silver Palantasa livery matched by the black-sky silver-lightning outside. Darriach continued to pace, untroubled, reassured by the slight weight of the slim sword strapped at his back, and was still smoothly striding in just such a way when one of the Dark Priests emerged from the Lady's chamber, shutting the door discreetly on another of her screams, and drifted away from the door in his formless black robes.

The priest began to glide portentously past Darriach, his straight, waist-long hair shrouding his face as effectively as any cowl, but stopped when it seemed he would pass by the Lord of the Family without being addressed. "You do not wish for news, my Lord?" he asked in his dried-out voice.

Darriach made a cursory attempt to remember the man's name, disdainful as he was towards the Dark Temples and their airs. "I am in no doubt as to the outcome, Edhun. You may go about your business."

"Your marriage has been barren for many, many years, Lord Darriach," Edhun pressed smoothly. "Some would say that - and the omens of this night - say much as to the Palantasi's destiny to successfully produce an heir."

"And some would say that a storm is a storm, Edhun, and that your fanciful musings merely reflect the earnest wishes of our enemies to see the Palantasi at an end." Where Turiale would have smiled coolly, Darriach leaned forward and hissed through his teeth. "Just remember that although it is against divine law to help save a noble life, there is no law that states you may hasten its end - and no law that states I may not strike off your head if you do."

Edhun drew himself up, coldly and haughtily, but gave a sharp laugh. "Hasten her end? But there will be no need for that, my Lord. I go to fetch the grey," he said with malicious pleasure.

Darriach felt rather than saw the soldiers behind him tense again. Edhun had just spoken of fetching a shroud - grey, the colour of death - to wrap the Lady in anticipation of her passing.

"More wishful thinking," observed Darriach. "Scurry on, then, priest, and fetch your grey. But I shall make you a small wager. If we do not carry the Lady out in it, or the child, we shall carry you out in it."

With another sharp laugh, Edhun drifted on his ghostly way down the corridor, melding with the shadows.

They slung his grey-wrapped body from the walls the next morning, sending it tumbling into the river Dhaila to the background clamour of the new infant's cries.

*      *      *      *      *

"You have vexed our priestly guests greatly," said Turiale, propped up on her flat, frameless bed by a tight-rolled bale of cloth. The formidable Lady's ethereal face was pale, drawn and hollow by the morning's light, a sickly counter for the sheer will and power that radiated from her near-incandescent green eyes.

Darriach glanced at the 'vexed guests', who were all present and listening in a black group by the door, but took the fine mockery in her voice as a better insult than any he could give them. "Shall you rise today, Lady, or would you have me attend to your affairs?"

"I predict terrible misfortune for the child," spoke up one of the priests curtly, not immune to their slights. "The Night has spoken. The omens are terrible."

"So long as I do not discover that you are the cause of any misfortune to the child," replied Turiale with a slow smile, "you may predict whatever you wish. You do look a sullen gaggle today, do you not?"

"What news of the child?" Darriach asked mildly as the priests relapsed into seething silence.

"A son," said Turiale. "Slight, but healthy enough to make our honoured guests shed bitter tears. He is in the wet-nurse's quarters and shall be named when his eyes first open, as tradition dictates. ... You may attend to our duties now, Darriach."

"Lady." Darriach bowed and left the deceptively fragile-looking Mistress of the Family Ascendant to recover her strength, inwardly delighted both by the fury of the Dark Priests and the abrupt shift of the political balance. Alas for the Thirty Families! Hope has been cruelly snatched from our rivals now. Our future is certain once again and our place is stronger than ever before. Even the Dark Temples will be hard set to it to contend with our will in Alachast now ...

Alliances would be all the surer now that lesser families could look to the centuries ahead and see the Palantasi still powerful. To think that all the uncertainty and precariousness of a hundred childless years was at an end ...

Turiale ever bears out her own fortunes, thought Darriach, and smiled at his own wording.

*      *      *      *      *

The days passed. Donnyn Shalach was a strange place without the leadership of its mistress, but her all-pervasive influence was not entirely absent, and her all-conquering will saw her rise and return with contempt for her enforced idleness after a scanty three days abed.

Darriach went to see the child in the wet-nurse's quarters late on the same evening that Turiale arose. The infant lay in the shallow crib set within, surrounded by a dozen of the finest warriors of Family Palantas ... and hence the finest warriors in all Alachast. The three remaining Dark Priests were also in attendance, unshakeable as one's own shadow, all waiting impatiently for the sickeningly healthy child to finally open his eyes so that they could bear witness to his naming and move on.

Looking into the crib, where the infant lay curled up amongst a snarl of disturbed blankets, Darriach could see that he was indeed slight, but not entirely without the promise of more strength to come. A liberal thatching of fine black hair already crowned his head, mussed on one side by pressure in sleep.

"At least keep the child in a state befitting his rank," Darriach snapped across at the wet-nurse standing at the head of the crib. "You have not kept it quiet these last few nights, either."

"My Lord's pardon," responded the wet-nurse.

At the sound of Darriach's raised voice, the child stirred restlessly and gave half of a thin wail, lifting one curled arm into the air and kicking out his bare feet. Darriach moved aside and curtly motioned for the wet-nurse to quieten the infant, looking on with displeasure.

"It had best not be so ready to squall in later life," he murmured under his breath.

As Darriach looked on captiously, cloth whispered behind him. He turned his head to see Turiale glide into the chamber, resplendent in her dizzying cloak of rank, all her pride and formidable weight of presence restored to her. Her long, black hair was pulled back tightly in a tail at the back of her neck - the proud style of a Dark Elven woman hale enough to have borne children.

Turiale glanced once at the woman quieting the infant in the crib, then turned to Darriach. "All seems as I left it. You have made a passing fair task of this."

Darriach calmly inclined his head. Turiale turned again, this time to look at the vulture-like line of Dark Priests, and regarded them with haughty ice. "The child has not yet opened its eyes," she surmised.

"No," they responded in dark chorus.

"It is beyond time that it did. I have no wish to see you here longer than I must." The Lady moved back to the crib, curtly gestured for the wet-nurse to stand away, and reached down to turn the infant's face up towards her, thumb and index finger pressed against his cheekbones. With her other hand she flicked at the infant's eyelids, using just one finger, while the priests and Darriach leaned in incuriously to watch.

Suddenly Turiale hissed, drawing back her hands for a moment. Darriach glanced at her, swiftly, and bent further over the crib to see what she had seen. The child's eyes had opened, though they were now almost squinted shut for a peal of vexed cries. Between the gales of protest, they could be seen more or less clearly.

But they were not the vivid, shining green of Turiale's eyes, nor the shadowed forest-canopy green of Darriach's. They were no normal Dark Elven shade of green at all.

They were grey.

"Aelleidar ka'un mai!" choked out one of the watching priests, his tone hovering between amazement and exultation. "Death! The colour of the dead and the doomed! Immortal Death speaks for this one!"

Darriach could taste the ashes of victory in his mouth, or so he fancied. So much time, so much effort, so much expectation ... and the child had been born as one of the rare dayathalorachi, the Dead-Eyed. It was a tradition as old as the Alachastans themselves. Grey-eyed children were born for Immortal Death to claim.

The child was to be killed, and in all likelihood, there would be no others.

The Lord of the Palantasi stared down at the infant, at its grim grey eyes, with his fists surreptitiously but tightly bunched at his sides. The Dark Priests were too wise to gloat, but there was no mistaking the rejoicing ring to the voice of the one who said, "Shall we perform the ceremony now, Lady, or would you rather we see to it tomorrow?"

"Do it now, by all means," said Lady Turiale, utterly calm and composed once more. "The child's name is Schiri."

A sudden smile sprang across Darriach's thin face - at the audacity of his wife's intent, at the priests' incomprehension, even at the child's name: Schiri, the word for a sudden and violent storm. This would create nothing less amongst the Thirty!

"I did not mean the naming ceremony," corrected the first priest, allowing the faintest smugness to colour his voice. "I meant the sacrifice. Your child is dayathaloracha."

"I can see that," replied the Lady evenly. "But priestly superstition moves me none. Now perform the ceremony with your companions here if you wish to leave Donnyn Shalach as one of the living."

The three Dark Priests all stared at her in open disbelief, a rare look for any smooth Dark Elven face to preserve, three mute, black pillars wrapped in silken cloth and silence. The wet-nurse went white, her stunned stare straying between the cursed infant and her liege's impassive face, and although the bodyguards stood as silent and unmoving as before - so straight that not a single crease marred the Palantasa insignia on their tunics, the silver snake and sword - Darriach read equal shock in their eyes.

"This tradition was set down for the People millennia ago," another priest said at last, uncertainly, as if suspecting that Turiale was not in earnest and his reminder was not truly needed. "It matters not whether a child is basely or nobly born. The great Nightlord himself declared that the dayathalorachi are ill-omened and harbingers of misfortune."

"He said it," responded the Lady, unmoved. "He did not say what was to be done with them."

"But it is beyond obvious, Lady!" still another priest said forcefully. "There is death in the child's eyes, grey death! This has ever been our way. The Black Immortal himself speaks for that -"

"No, priestling, I speak for the child!"

The full power of the Lady's presence flared around her, rendering her not just a creature of pride and strength, but of black and terrible majesty. Rare fury burned in her flaming green eyes, a light that not even Darriach could look upon, but rather bowed his head in a manner that approached worship.

"Turiale Llumara Alaenar si Palantasi speaks for the child! Death and misfortune shall attend him, yes - and he shall bring them to bear on all the enemies of this family, as have I! The death that you see in his eyes will be your own!"

They had worn down her forbearance at last. Darriach shook his head for the prevailing stupidity of the Dark Priesthood as Turiale sharply reached back and drew her sword, sweeping it out from its sheath at her shoulder and across in the one lethal movement. The first priest crumpled instantly, wilting in his robes like a black flower to the floor, and small wonder - his head had already flown in the other direction, striking the wall and rolling back towards the two living priests.

Knowing better than to make any mention of the naming ceremony now, Darriach watched with calm patience as Turiale dispatched the remaining servants of the Dark Temples, cutting them down with savage efficiency. Only when she finally stood over the last, staring down at the tangle of his robes with her presence still radiating like fire and her sword bloody to the hilt, did her husband speak. "I shall send word to the Temple in Hilui'ael that we require more naming witnesses."

"Good," hissed the Lady through her teeth.

Darriach knew what had fuelled this rarest of breaks in her composure. For those first few moments by the crib, she had been looking at the end of Family Palantas.

"That was a fair chance at prophecy," the youngest son of the Rimairani said with a sudden laugh, looking at the bloody corpses and thinking of Edhun. "The child has already brought death to four Dark Priests within the first days of his life!"

"So he has." Turiale did not share Darriach's humour, but her dark anger ebbed away, leaving only the famous, icy, dangerous tranquillity of the noblewoman who epitomised Alachast - the Lady. Nevertheless, the light in her eyes was sharp with displeasure as she sheathed her sword and moved back to the crib.

"Grey," she repeated flatly, looking down at the restless infant with distaste. "This is the future of the Palantasi."

"A chaotic future," predicted Darriach, still wry. "But that is little different to the past."

"I will brook no failings in this one. He has already cost me much."

The Lord of the Family watched Turiale thoughtfully as she fluidly turned and strode away, gesturing for the bodyguards to dispense with the Dark Priests' bodies. Finally he pulled his gaze from her intricate cloak - and the sleek back beneath that only his mind's eye saw - and returned his attention to the child in the crib.

"Mark her well, Schiri Palantas," Darriach warned the kicking, squalling infant, then stood back and sharply waved the subdued wet-nurse over again.