'A Night of Souls' by Alyssa R George
 

Nir’amyl worked through the tall stack of official orders on his desk with his usual efficiency, marking down those already attended to with a deft sweep of his quill, piling up those of a higher priority with a nimble, two-fingered flick. For some House Stewards, being charged with the daily running of a noble household became an unbearable torture as the tumult of the dreaded High Hours approached; for Nir’amyl and his clockwork mind, it was the only time of year that his talents were given a suitable test. Everything had to be in readiness for Family Palantas’s departure from their estate, and everything had to be prepared for the great political council that awaited them in the capital, Hilui’ael.

Nir’amyl had no doubt that it would all come together. He had prepared the Palantasi for the High Hours’ yearly chaos many, many times before. All it required was diligent and uninterrupted work.

With that self-satisfied thought lingering in his mind, the long-fingered steward buried himself in his work again. His low desk was an orderly blur of whirling parchment, furling and unfurling scrolls, all creating a draught that made the black-and-silver hanging of the Palantasa colours flutter softly on the wall behind him.

As the steward leaned forward across the desk to slide the furthest pile of ordinances towards him, he found with a sudden flash of horror that he was staring into the bleak eyes of death: dark, desolate grey, deep and unblinking and cold with the promise of the shroud’s embrace …

Nir’amyl flinched sharply back, his breath hissing out between his teeth, and shakily cursed as his large ink-bottle tumbled onto its side and began to vomit ink across the desk. He snatched at it, his heart still beating harder than it ought, and glared at the half-head visible of the child standing at his desk, though he was careful not to look into those grey eyes again.

The child watched him incuriously for a moment more, eyes blinking slowly beneath a silky mop of hair, then reached up with both hands to press them into the broad pool of ink creeping towards him.

“Kassas!” shouted Nir’amyl, tossing the ink-bottle onto the floor and using his own fine black sleeve to stem the tides of ink. “In here, you incapable fool!”

The door of the office – which Nir’amyl belatedly saw had been ajar – banged open, admitting the white face and tight-pulled hair of the Palantasa heir’s primary bodyguard. Kassas was unquestionably one of the most capable of the household’s soldiery, but she was proving to be very ill-suited to the newer task of noble nursemaid. One glance at the dishevelled state of her silver-streaked black hair – half-escaped from its tie – and the state of the once-pristine uniform that sheathed her slender limbs quickly showed how eventful her morning had been already.

“Holy Night, Kassas, you are an utter waste of – ahh!” Nir’amyl broke off with a cry as one of the cleaner assignations on his desk was claimed by an inky hand.

Kassas snatched the boy up quickly, like an exasperated rider finally reclaiming the reins of a runaway horse, though she spared Nir’amyl a withering look as she did so. “If the two of us were to exchange tasks now, Steward,” she replied, pointedly taking the blackened scroll from her charge’s blacker hands and proffering it, “it would be grossly unjust. To you.”

Nir’amyl snatched the scroll which he and Kassas both knew he had not dared to take back for himself. “I daresay I could keep a child in my charge even without the benefit of a life in military service -”

“Nir’amyl!”

The steward and Kassas both whirled sharply at the sound of that voice, standing stiffly to attention as Lord Darriach strode through the open doorway. The lord of the household could scarcely have looked more intimidating, decked out in full regalia in preparation for departure. The intricate whorls on his cloak of rank whipped about dizzily as it fluttered, and the silver tracery in his long kirtle glinted almost as steely as the look in his green eyes.

“Half a day remains before our departure,” the lord hissed, the sharp flick of his hand encompassing his attire, “and you still think that you have time to stand and talk? –Kassas, why are you -?”

A closer glance at Nir’amyl’s office – the child in Kassas’s arms, the inky chaos of the steward’s desk – soon betrayed the truth, and Darriach’s slitted glare turned on Kassas instead. Nir’amyl did his best not to smirk as Darriach’s hand snaked out and seized the front of Kassas’s shirt.

“You have in your custody the sole heir of the Palantasi, Kassas,” he snarled. “Centuries on centuries of the true blood and this family’s name are effectively in your care. Explain to me how this legacy can escape you so easily and so often!”

Kassas had served Family Palantas for four of those centuries, as the silver streaks in her otherwise black hair showed, compared to Darriach’s single century of allegiance by marriage. But she had served long enough to know that saying as much would end her service, and her life besides. “I offer no excuse. Your son is swift, lord, but not more so than a soldier trained as I am.”

“Just so! You have raised two sons of your own, Kassas – how can the custody of your liege be a task that warrants less of your attention?” Darriach’s eyes snapped to Nir’amyl as the steward’s pleasure finally manifested in the tiniest upcurve of his lips. “And you! You need not look so relieved, you incompetent! As Kassas so astutely observed, it does not take military training to control a child! How could you let him do this?” His latter hand-wave swept angrily at the desk.

“I believe the steward has certain … reservations … about touching the Lord Schiri,” interjected Kassas smoothly.

The snarl on Darriach’s face deepened, now revealing his teeth. All in the household knew of Lord Darriach’s contempt for superstition – particularly as it pertained to his grey-eyed son. It was, Nir’amyl reflected bitterly, a masterful riposte for Kassas to have made.

He was unsurprised – if still in considerable pain – when Darriach stepped in and struck him full across the face, a blow that he accepted stoically rather than risk more. “Arrange this very clearly in your mind, Steward,” warned the lord in a lowered voice. “The Palantasa heir is an infant. He cannot harm you by natural or unnatural means, whatever the ‘portentous’ colour of his eyes may be. But I can.”

“My lord’s pardon,” Nir’amyl responded softly, feeling blood start to trickle from his nose.

“For this chaos, or your credulous idiocy?” Darriach spat on the floor in disgust. “Get back to your work. If you are not ready come the appointed time, I will deal with you more appropriately. As for you, Kassas – you come with me. The Lady will be most pleased to learn of your meticulous care for our future.”

Nir’amyl could take no satisfaction from the sudden pallor of Kassas’s face. He was looking at the child who watched him over Kassas’s shoulder, still slowly blinking his eyes of graveyard grey.

*           *           *           *           *

Darriach could feel his mood deteriorating further as the day progressed, and found himself wishing – not for the first time – that he had a greater measure of the composure that his wife possessed. Lady Turiale took the news of her sole heir’s neglected care without a single muscle flickering in her impassive face, listening to Kassas’s quiet explanation evenly before sending the woman out to be beaten.

“I am not happy, Darriach,” the Lady said once Kassas had silently gone to seek her punishment. No trace of the cited displeasure was visible on her face, of course – she looked like a sculpted statue, perfect and regal, clad in fine Palantasi livery with her impossibly intricate cloak over all, every inch a daughter of the blood. Even the arrangement of her black hair, threaded as it was with ornamental filigree silver, proudly proclaimed her rank and lineage. “I did not think that Kassas was so incompetent.”

“It would be as easy to call for her execution as for a beating,” replied Darriach, but in spite of his mood could not help adding, “though it would be difficult to replace her at such short notice. And I had not found her so incompetent during her service in the ranks.”

Turiale’s vivid green eyes turned towards her son, currently quite still in the determined grip of another bodyguard. Schiri had survived four perilous years of infancy so far – a feat achieved by the hawkish vigilance of his protectors, and a feat hindered rather than helped by the child’s own propensity to stray. The last two years had been particularly difficult: it took little more than a moment’s inattention to give him a chance to slip away, as three previous guardians had already discovered.

Proper discipline had already taught the child that weeping or screaming brought only one thing, and that was not sympathy. But no amount of punishment seemed capable of teaching him that he must stay with his custodians …

“Kassas’s sons are fine men and soldiers,” Turiale said, speaking thoughtfully. “She reared them well. Perhaps the child’s previous watchers are to blame for this.”

“I should hope so,” responded Darriach, a faint flicker of wry amusement distracting him from his sourness, “since all three are dead now.”

“Kassas will not join them yet.” The Lady rested back briefly in her high-backed chair, looking away from her son to the vaulted roof of her audience hall in contemplation. “Nir’amyl is late in presenting himself, Darriach, even considering the morning’s mishap. He had best not choose this year to fail me.”

Darriach inclined his head grimly. The days-long council held for the High Hours promised to be eventful this year – almost as eventful as the council which the Lady had missed four years ago to give birth to her son, or the council proceeding, where the right to life of her ill-omened, Dead-Eyed heir had been vociferously argued. This year, their scheming rivals among Family Nynara had finally seen fit to challenge for the place of Family Ascendant.

They would fail, of course. But the High Hours – and even the religious ceremonies that coincided with the mystic end of the year – were always to be taken seriously. So was the threat to an unattended estate while the bulk of its household stayed in Hilui’ael … and hence the need for Nir’amyl to oversee affairs in their absence.

“Go and see to it that the Wyverns are saddled and ready,” instructed Turiale, gracefully rising to her feet with her gaze still distractedly fixed on the ceiling. “I will go and talk to Nir’amyl.”

*           *           *           *           *

Nir’amyl’s efficiency – concentrated wonderfully by terror of the Lady – did see to it that all was eventually in readiness, if only barely. The gleaming flock of Wyverns bearing the Palantasa household rose into the sky under a clear midday sun, launching from the high roof of the estate in an upward shower of gold. Circling over the estate of Donnyn Shalach to gain altitude – over the heavy-walled, eight-storeyed wedge of the house complex, over the black and silver pennons snapping on the battlements, over the sheared cliffs and churning River Dhaila in its gorge – the Wyverns began the flight south to Hilui’ael.

Darriach let his thoughts stray, revelling in the exhilaration of flight, as he kept his Wyvern skimming behind the Lady’s serpentine mount. The criss-crossed straps of his leather riding harness bit tightly into his shoulders, chest and waist, and for a moment he considered slipping some of the buckles to revert to the partial harness reserved for aerial fighting. It was a needless risk for the lord of the household – and House Marshal of the Palantasi military – to undertake, but a tempting one …

*Disapproval.* Darriach literally felt his wife’s displeasure as she cast her thoughts back to him, using her talent for Sending to project her emotions, since it did not allow for words. *Warning.*

Darriach did not share the gift – only those born to older families like the Palantasi tended to – but knew Turiale could hear him clearly while she projected herself into his mind. “I did not consider it deeply,” he said aloud, uncaring that she would pick the lie from his unguarded thoughts. “We will arrive in Hilui’ael very near to the convention of the first council, Lady. Do you still mean for us to stop first at our quarters in the city?”

*Agreement,* she Sent back. An image floated into Darriach’s mind, which he received with astonishment: a scene only an hour old, showing Kassas stiffly climbing into the saddle of a Wyvern and strapping the young Palantasa heir into harness with her.

“You brought Schiri with us?”

*Agreement. Displeasure.* Another pointed image flashed into Darriach’s mind: the bodies of the dead bodyguards and dead assassins that had been left in the aftermath of last year’s High Hours. Turiale and Darriach had returned to find that their household had spent most of the sixteen days of their absence in a virtual siege, fending off enemies from the heir’s quarters: Nynara assassins, for the most part.

Nynara, Darriach thought darkly, his hackles threatening to rise at the mere memory of those lifeless assassins in red and black. The Lady’s thoughts in his mind were still dark with displeasure at his questioning of her actions. Since he knew that he could not dispel his doubts to her satisfaction – Nynara assassins or no – and since he did not wish for her to learn how severe they remained, he countered by quickly turning his thoughts elsewhere: to a recent memory of Turiale’s dark livery sliding away and down from her smooth, naked shoulders …

*Irritation,* came the Sending from Turiale, though her presence withdrew from Darriach’s head too slowly to hide the added flare of *Amusement …* that followed it.

The northern landscape of the isle of Alachast slipped swiftly by under the Wyverns’ stroking wings – the even plains below Donnyn Shalach gave way to the low, forested hills further north, with the great Dhaila twisting its way throughout. Over the estates of Family Alimuira, easily identified by the great house overlooking its three broad lakes, they turned east towards the rockier coast as the sky darkened, seeking the celestial scatter of Hilui’ael’s lights by the sea to mirror the emerging stars overhead.

Full night fell as the household of Family Palantas reached their journey’s end, skimming low over the lights of the city to the sound of the Family Herald drumming out the family tattoo. Darriach lifted his eyes to the beacon-fire atop Masuraith’s Tower as the drum pounded, feeling an upsurge of cold pride like the tide coming in from the bay. “Hia, Palantasi! Hia!” he called out with the honour guard – always a display for the benefit of those watching below – as the Wyverns began to descend, gliding down to alight in the vast landing-square of the city centre.

“Bya! Bya!” a reedy voice exclaimed behind Darriach as his Wyvern descended with a last, powerful backsweep of its golden wings and he began to unbuckle his harness. Turning to look in full harness was impossible, but after freeing a few buckles Darriach could twist far enough to see that Kassas had landed her Wyvern behind him, and was trying to unbuckle her harness while the Palantasa heir in her charge smote the Wyvern’s neck to imitate the drums. “Bya!”

“Be still!” Kassas snapped in exasperation, visibly favouring her back while she continued to unbuckle herself, and hastily snatched at the boy’s waist as a give in the harness allowed him to start sliding off. “Still! You are going nowhere!”

“I should certainly hope not,” Darriach called back pleasantly. Kassas paled again as she looked up to see her lord’s attention, but sat in quiet dignity nevertheless, looking on without expression as Darriach finally slipped his harness and strode over to ‘assist’. “Give me the boy while you see to that, or we shall have this morning’s nonsense recurring.”

Schiri went perfectly still again as Kassas handed him over, though he continued to silently peer in every direction. Darriach nodded in short satisfaction, setting the boy down beside him to free his hands for Kassas’s harness. The bodyguard had obviously been flogged a little too enthusiastically; bending and twisting looked to be a serious difficulty for her.

“My Lord -!” she exclaimed in alarm as he set to freeing the harness, her eyes on Schiri.

“Calm yourself, Kassas. Unlike you, I enjoy the remarkable facility to do two things at once.” Darriach demonstrated by snatching at Schiri’s disappearing shoulder as he spoke, giving the boy a short shake as he caught him, but no more attention than that. “I need to talk to you. Once I would not have considered it necessary, but recent days have changed my mind. –You know the gravity of the High Hours, Kassas.”

“Yes, lord,” murmured Kassas.

“The glory of Family Palantas is on display for the next sixteen days. Our dignity, our pride and our power are all to be shown constantly – for the sake of our allies and our enemies alike.”

“Yes, lord.”

“While I sit at council with the Thirty, or hold private audience with a lesser family, or consider the weighting of our allegiances, or even stand at one of the Dark Priesthood’s inane ceremonies, I do not want to be wondering where my son is. You will keep him safe in our quarters, Kassas, or you will be put to death. Do I speak clearly enough?”

Kassas’s expression remained neutral. “Yes, lord.”

Removing his hand from Schiri’s shoulder for a moment, Darriach lifted and clenched his left fist in the Dark Elven gesture of pacification. “Kaydhil. You are an able servant, Kassas. That will continue as long as you wish it. This matter is in your power.”

When he reached back down to grip Schiri’s shoulder again, it was not there.

Darriach whirled around with his lips parted in furious disbelief, his deep green eyes scything through the confusion of landed and landing Wyverns. It took several moments – since a child of four years could slip under and between muscled Wyvern-legs more easily than an adult – before the lord and the bodyguard finally found Schiri again, just a few feet away, standing and watching the edgy House Herald drumming with his alien grey eyes.

“Your son is swift, lord,” Kassas said, echoing her words from the earlier morning, and did well for herself in keeping her tone utterly level.

*           *           *           *           *

The flurry of the High Hours began that night with a fiery initial council and showed no signs of slackening as the days progressed. Turiale danced her usual dance for the fellow nobles of the Thirty Greater Families, keeping them guessing as always as to where the Palantasi would lay their allegiances this year. Loyalty, naturally, did not enter into anything so intricate as politics. None of the greater families would make any firm choices while important positions and questions of influence remained – from which families would the prestigious Year Scribes be selected? Which families would successfully replace one of the Master Priests of the Dark Temples with a candidate of their own?

There was no question as to who the influential Dark General of the Armies would be, of course, as there had not been for a century. Ciradh Nynara, son of the hated Lady Alene Nynara – the greatest rival of the Palantasi – was as secure as he had ever been, too brilliant a fighter to defeat by proper challenge and too cunning a manipulator to allow other generals to be sponsored for such an attempt in any case. Not for the first time, Darriach wished his own sword were a little more sure: to defeat Ciradh and gain the power of the Dark General’s title would be the last, best move towards making Family Palantas unassailable.

“When do you think Alene will make her challenge, Lady?” Darriach asked Turiale one evening in their city quarters, the smothering weight of his cloak of rank currently gathered up in his lap as he sat by a window. The beacon-fire of Masuraith’s Tower still shone over the wan, scattered city torches in the darkness outside. “Ten days have passed already. She has not long left to try.”

Turiale – who still stood in her full regalia, absently looking around the sparsely furnished room – gave a brief, pleased smile. “She is hesitating, Darriach. I do not think she expected the Alimuirai and Chamryni to cast their lot with us, and certainly not so early. By now I imagine Alene is weighing up the loss of face in trying and failing with the loss of face in not trying.”

“She is a fool for ever noising it about before attempting it,” Darriach responded with malicious relish. “Let her reap the worst of it. It will teach the rest not to try the same. – Then again,” he added with savage sarcasm, “we have not yet received the Priesthood’s yearly submission to the council as to why our heir must be destroyed. Perhaps the dazzling persuasion of their argument will finally win through this year.”

“Do not scorn them,” Turiale warned, turning her full attention to her husband for the first time and frowning slightly. “I did not lightly make enemies of the Priesthood and I do not lightly keep them. If I conceive another child, I will do as they request with the first.”

Darriach tried to keep his own displeasure from his face. The idea of acceding to priestly superstition rankled with him, and in no small measure. “I think it would do no lasting good. If nothing else, it would encourage the childish fears in this very household. Do you realise that your own House Steward is too afraid to lay a hand on that infant?”

“Whether we will it or no, Darriach,” returned the Lady sharply, “superstition is a powerful force in Alachast. We would have readier allies amongst the religious families – the Shaikari, even – if our son were not one of the Dead-Eyed. It does not matter if he is or is not cursed – others believe that he is. We cannot change that. We must bend with it.”

The lord of the household spat over the side of his chair, but raised no further argument. Turiale gave a faint, amused smile. “You look absurd when you pout so, son of the practical Rimairani. What have you to be sullen about? Tomorrow is the likeliest time for Alene to try – and fail – to claim ascendancy for her family before alliances have solidified. I think that she will try rather than not.”

“That amusing prospect may wait for tomorrow, but tonight is the Night of Souls,” Darriach reminded her with distaste. “Another despicable conceit of the Dark Priesthood! What purpose does it serve to permit demons to freely roam the streets and sate themselves upon the blood and spirits of the People? Are we masters or servants?”

“The demons’ freedom does not extend to the nobility, as you well know,” responded Turiale, her tone becoming sharp and her presence becoming darker for a moment, “so stop whining and act as one of the Palantasi should act.”

Darriach bowed, rose and left the room rather than give a foolish response out of pique, his teeth set, and strode back into the foyer, preparing to turn aside to the sleeping quarters. His temper frayed still further as he found someone awaiting audience there: a long-haired Dark Priest, no less, seated in glacial calm with his legs folded beneath him and his robes gathered about him.

No, not just a Dark Priest, Darriach realised as he saw the spiderweb of crimson lines branching across the otherwise unrelieved black of the robe. It was one of the Master Priests of the Eight Dark Temples, the holiest of the holy, who rarely left their sanctified grounds.

The Master Priest rose as he saw Darriach, his robe softly whispering. His was a sharp, ascetic face, narrow in a way that itself seemed to bespeak fervour, with green eyes almost as intimidatingly bright as Turiale’s. “Lord Darriach,” he greeted evenly. “I would have a word.”

“I am sure that you would – a word and more,” returned Darriach in a curt tone. “The Lady will oblige you. I have no time, whichever of the eight Masters you may be.”

“Shanahri Shaikari,” provided the priest, his vivid eyes gleaming as they fixed on Darriach’s face. “No time, lord? That is regrettable. I had hoped to speak with you as well as the Family Mistress. It would –”

A strangled, angry shout rang out from the next room, and suddenly the sound of soft shoes interrupted the Master Priest’s gentle voice. Schiri came flying out into the foyer through the western doorway – his steps still lacking the fluidity of full coordination, but hardly less swift for that – hotly pursued by Kassas, whose reach was visibly compromised by the stripes on her back.

Kassas stopped dead in the doorway as she saw who stood within, a fatal kind of resignation seeping into her face. Schiri stopped as well, his grey eyes flicking from Darriach to the Master Priest and back again.

“Aah!” breathed Shanahri Shaikari, staring at the child in a bright, hungry kind of wonder. “This is the dayathaloracha! I have never seen one so old …”

“You will see him grow older still, priest,” Darriach returned curtly, pulling his murderous gaze away from Kassas momentarily.

“I think I may,” agreed Shanahri, still staring. “If I guess the Lady’s mind, yes, I think that I may. But you shall not, Lord Darriach.”

Darriach snarled back at him in scorn. “Threaten me as you wish! If priestly threats could do me harm, they would have done so long since!”

“I am not threatening you, Darriach si Rimairani.” Shanahri laughed almost lightly at the idea, pulling his fascinated eyes away from Schiri. “I am forewarning you. You have little time left. That child will be your death.”

Darriach snarled again as the Master Priest drifted on towards the audience room where Turiale remained. “Superstitious fool!” he cast after the man’s back, then turned to angrily snatch Schiri off the floor and shake him.

“You may be a child, but you fully understand what is meant by stand still!” the lord hissed into the boy’s face, striding across the floor to Kassas. “And you! Are you any less a child? I cannot make myself more clear when I say you will die if you fail again!”

“My lord sees fit not to kill me now?” Kassas asked, a brief astonishment flickering in her voice as she held out her hands for the boy.

“Just so.” Darriach did not pass Schiri to her. “I shall play the nursemaid until the priest departs. You will go and tell Lieutenant Elsaira to use Dark salve on your wounds. If you fail after that, not all the spawn of the Void will seem a crueller fate.”

Kassas’s departure was barely a whisper short of flight.

*           *           *           *           *

The silence of Hilui’ael’s streets that night was total. Darriach sat again by an open window in his chamber, watching the light of the rising moon pooling in his lap and listening to the deathly silence of the household with bleak displeasure. Even here – safe under the protection of the Lady – none dared to speak but Turiale herself. The Master Priest still spoke, also; Darriach could hear the man’s soft voice murmuring in the room of audience beyond the hall, but did not trouble himself to listen to the conversation. He already guessed its thread.

Outside, shades of moon-silver and night-black which did not belong to the Palantasi continued to gather. Often, in both the far and recent past, the stillness of the Night of Souls had been broken by a bored lordling sending a terrified servant out to run the haunted streets – a game Darriach had always scorned to play, as he did all games – but this year was utterly dead, cold and dark. Now and again the warped silhouettes of Voidspawn would silently drift down the street beyond the window, or Darriach would feel the swirl of Darkness as a demon still greater stalked the night at a distance …

Masters or servants? he fumed to himself, though the thought was directed at Turiale. That the Lady herself acquiesced to such degrading tradition – and willingly bent her own will for the Dark Temples, to however tiny a degree – was like a swallowed coal burning in his throat. We owe no tribute to the Voidspawn. We walk apart from our kin, we are greater, we hold the power … and yet none will cry nay as they yearly trespass in our own domain, or even partake of Dark Elven souls …

Servile dogs of priests! You have brought us to this!

A loud clatter from within the room did little to improve Darriach’s boiling wrath – Schiri had overturned his high-walled bed for what seemed the half-dozenth time within an hour, and was now crawling purposefully from the tangled debris of blankets. Darriach darted from his stool and swooped on the child, again, delivering a sharp blow to the side of the face which he knew would do no more good than the other six. “By all the furies of the Naradhan, boy, you will learn,” he hissed. “Before the night is through, if there is any trace of the true blood in my veins, you will learn!”

Darriach’s throat scraped hoarse at the last threat – testament to the number that had already passed his lips – as he finally inverted the boy’s bed over the boy himself, turning it into a cage with its slatted sides. The lord of the Palantasi strode to the water-pitcher, only to find that it was empty, and knew that all his servants would miraculously fail to hear him calling for them if he raised his voice. On such a misfortunate night, none were willing to enter the same room as the ill-omened family heir.

“You are a curse, true enough, but not of that sort,” Darriach darkly told the small face behind the bed-slats. He said it aloud in an angry defiance of the wider household’s hush, but paid for his pique with another scraping of his throat. “Blessed Night, to think that a son of the Rimairani and lord of the Palantasi must act the nursemaid and cupbearer for the same wretched evening!”

With a parting glare for Schiri – who returned the attention from within his wooden ‘cage’ with his ever-level, ever-incurious stare – Darriach banged the door open, threw it shut behind him, and strode back out into the hall with the water-pitcher. The voices of Turiale and Shanahri Shaikari did little for his temper as he stooped to fill his pitcher from the atrium pool, the coal of anger smouldering even hotter in his gorge …

“… An illustrious name, as it is, so tainted by association …”

“Have a care, Holy One, and speak only well of that name while you sit in its Mistress’ presence; aught else will surely end you.”

“We speak of your own ending now, great Lady, though not in the manner of threats. You know in your heart the magnitude of the peril you have courted.”

“You are as trite as your brethren, I see. I am Turiale Llumara Alaenar si Palantasi, and there is no peril in Khactй great enough to move me.”

“Nothing Mortal walks this plane and matches your power, but ours is not the only realm. Be on your guard against false pride, Mistress of the Family Ascendant. I have not come before you to denounce you, only warn you.”

“So others have said. But Darriach speaks for me also when he voices his contempt for your deeper superstitions.”

“Lord Darriach, great Lady, is already dead …”

The latter repetition – the sum of all the superstitions and whimpers and credulous cringing Darriach had borne thus far – whipped Darriach’s temper beyond its limited scope for suppression, and with a thin snarl of frustration that echoed through the hushed house, he raised the water-pitcher above his head and dashed it down against the cold floor, splintering shards and silence in one explosive moment. The sound crackled through the dim rooms – he had no doubt that some of the timid fools in the household had just leaped up in fear – and even seemed to seize the Lady herself with uncharacteristic alarm, for in moments she appeared at the doorway in all her regalia.

“What was that sound?” she demanded of Darriach, her vivid eyes flaring. The Master Priest appeared at her shoulder in the doorway, looking through rather than at the lord of the family.

Darriach gestured curtly to the wreckage on the floor at his feet, his throat constricting with disappointed disgust at her reaction, but Turiale sharply shook her head and pushed past him, striding towards the chamber he had left only moments before. “Not that, you fool – the other sound!”

Within the bedchamber, Schiri’s cot still stood as it had before … save that it was empty, and Darriach’s stool now lay on its side where it had clattered to the floor, dislodged by the same foot that had lost a slipper upon the windowsill.

Only Shanahri Shaikari was immune to the uproar that ensued in the Palantasa townhouse. He stood in his spiderweb robes while servants and bodyguards sprinted to the sound of the Lady’s raised voice, all superstitions forgotten, all other cares dispelled by the swelling of the Darkness around her. “Not one pathway, not one alley of all Hilui’ael will you neglect to search! You will bring me the Palantasa heir or you will all be dead with the sunrise!”

“The Voidspawn, at least, will not trouble a son of the blood,” Darriach said tensely, glancing out through the window. “He will come to no swift harm.”

“And why is that?” asked Shanahri in his honey-mellow voice. “What favour marks the child? He is dayathaloracha, quite free to claim.”

Darriach rounded on him and snarled, “You would do well for yourself to hold your tongue, priestling! If you remain within these walls when I return, the only claim to be made shall be upon your head!”

“Farewell, Darriach Rimairan,” the Master Priest said.

*           *           *           *           *

The streets basked in brilliant moonlight, as cold as the icy breeze from the harbour upon Darriach’s cheek, as he strode out to begin the search. All the household had been emptied – and Turiale herself walked among their number – but Darriach had already resolved that he would be the one to remedy this family misfortune. And personally bring misfortune to its wretched, ill-disciplined cause!

Swiftly each one of the Palantasi scattered in their own direction, though none could walk with the confidence that the nobly born Lady and Lord possessed; their common blood and souls were free for the taking. Soon the Voidspawn would converge on this area, quick to take such a rare and bountiful opportunity to sate their hunger, so speed was the paramount concern for all.

Just so for Darriach, also. The suggestion that demons might look upon Schiri in the same way as the Temples did still played in his mind, and he stalked the streets in a feverish mixture of haste and care, passing by monstrous, malformed Harpies without a sideways glance, shoving his way through chittering clusters of insectoid heartbeasts. Soulless eyes turned to fix on him from every direction as he moved deeper into the night-bound city, sometimes glancing up from the mangled remains of what had once been a slender Dark Elven body.

As he swept down the Rey Si Lorach – the great road that cut clean and straight through Hilui’ael – and marched over the cobbles in the shadow of the windowless buildings on either side, a voice hailed him: not a spoken voice, but one that hissed its message from a further plane. Hail, Lord of the Palantasi! Hail, son of the Rimairani!

One of the humanoid caelcanthi moved out into the centre of the road, its skeletally thin arms outstretched as if to greet him warmly, its fistfuls of talons curled. The caelcanth was monstrous – one of the greater denizens of the Void – with grey-black scales, vast, lizard-like wings furled at its back, and huge almond-shaped eyes that blinked rapidly over a tiny, fanged mouth incapable of shaping words.

Darriach regarded the rare demon warily, but without fear. The same priestly summons that held it manifest in the Mortal Plane also forbade it to harm one of noble blood, as with all the Voidspawn present on the Night of Souls. “Do not hinder my business now, child of Aralanael.”

Your business, yes! The caelcanth laughed its thin, screeching laugh somewhere in the Void, a sound that still pained Darriach’s ears across that impossible distance. Forsake that business, servant of the Nightlord. Forsake it and live.

“I have heard only threats the night long,” replied Darriach with savage scorn, the tendons in his sword-hand tightening. “If you would break the Nightlord’s covenant with your Princess of the Night, do so now!”

But I shall not be the one to break it. Again the caelcanth screeched and shrilled mirthfully. Well now, audacious one! If you will hear no warnings, you must accept aid in their place. That way lies your goal.

Darriach’s lip curled back into a snarl as the demon’s skeletal arm swung towards the south. “The caelcanthi are not known for their benevolence. I would not trust to your aid.”

And yet that way lies your goal, which no worldly truth shall change. The caelcanth gnashed its fangs silently in time with the third laugh that pealed from afar, but the sound was partially mixed with another: a thin, shrill scream from the south. Hurry hence, hurry hence … you shall return to me another way yet …

Darriach was already running, flying down the Rey Si Lorach as one of the Night-Princess’s winged children, his sword freeing from its scabbard as a whisper of molten moonlight in his hand. The strengthening wind from the sea tore Darriach’s intricate cloak of rank from his shoulders, but he did not stay for it; he sprinted on, and the vanishing glitter of its silver tracery fluttered away into the darkness behind him.

Twenty yards – no more – and the screaming reached a painful crescendo as Darriach leaped around a narrow corner, the moonlight flare of his longsword fading as he darted into the shadow of Hilui’ael’s towering Hall of Ennobled Audience. From a hunched-over crouch, a familiar demon’s yellow-streaked crimson eyes glared up at him, vivid in a withered, ashen-grey face, while its fangs remained buried to the black gums in the Palantasa heir’s throat.

Slowly, the vampire stood, its four-fingered hands still clutching Schiri to its lipless mouth while the child screamed out and arched his back in agony, kicking and jerking. Darriach looked from the wash of blood drowning the boy’s neck and shoulder to the streams of it that leaked through the demon’s teeth, then coldly raised his blade to level it at the baneful yellow-red eyes.

Two tiny pupils constricted to pinholes of surprise, enough so to make the vampire lift its face from Schiri’s throat. More blood began to spill from the long gashes left behind, and the demon’s mouth was a glistening, gory mess. “Issniyessh?” it burbled, incomprehensible save for the mental voice that accompanied it: Your business?

“You hold a child of noble blood,” replied Darriach calmly – more so than he felt. Only the covenant of the Nightlord and the Princess of the Night kept him alive; before so powerful a demon he was all but helpless, and even the Lady’s own power would be stretched to its utmost to contend with the creature. “Against the covenant.”

“Gnaaghya,” the vampire gurgled through the blood. Not so. I hold a nothing – something promised for us from the moment of its conception. The demon pressed a twisted finger under one of Schiri’s flared eyes, needlessly pointing out the grey.

“The property of the Palantasi!”

Darriach struck out with a fury that belied the precision of his strike: his sword tore a deep but bloodless cut across the hand that gestured to Schiri’s face, then lashed at the other hand on the backswing. The vampire’s withered hands jerked away – in more astonishment than pain – and Schiri slipped free to land on the cobbles, curling up and screaming harder until a thin trace of blood also seeped from the corner of his mouth.

Slowly the vampire lifted its hands, turning them this way and that to examine its own sliced flesh. Darriach could feel his heartbeat pulsing all the way from his feet to his forehead, much in anger and much in reflexive apprehension. Blessed be the Nightlord for that ancient bargain with his rival …

“Ahhghuur,” bubbled the vampire softly, a bloody, frothy spittle on its lips. Why did you do that?

“Because you broke the covenant.” Darriach’s expression remained cool. “Give me the child.”

“Ghnuuhr…” No. Recite for me the covenant.

The lord of the Palantasi snorted in faint scorn. “The covenant of the Night of Souls, upon which Aralanael’s children may feast on all but the Nightlord’s own, and upon which even the Nightlord’s own may not interfere with the feast with impunity …”

The icy realisation of his transgression, swift though it crystallised in his chest, did not even have time to sink as far as his stomach before the vampire had lunged for him.

Their struggle was vicious, but brief. A vampire’s strength was enough to splinter stone, and even the enhanced steel of Darriach’s longsword fared little better, snapped at the middle by a misshapen fist. The hands he locked on the demon’s reaching wrists were slowly twisted until bones cracked, but his sharp cry was quickly drowned by the louder scream that followed as bloody teeth snapped closed in his throat’s flesh.

Pain was the province of the children of the blood. Darriach had let his precious noble blood for demonic sacrifices dozens on dozens of times previous. But this was not pain: it was the slow, torturous sensation of a soul being torn away from his shuddering body, warmth and the capacity for warmth ripped back piece by piece like fire being sucked into a dark whirlwind, flame by flickering flame …

He did not die swiftly, though his last sane thought before his screaming mind unmade itself was a prayer that he might.

*           *           *           *           *

At the barest glance Turiale could see that Darriach was dead, or as near to it as one breathing came.

The vampire gripped the former lord of the Palantasi under the jaw and at the shoulder, gnashing and snarling into the base of his neck while his body twitched uncontrollably and his dark green eyes rolled up and back with nothing more than basest, mindless reflex to steer them. There was naught left of the youngest son of Family Rimairan.

Of the sole son of Family Palantas, there was more. Turiale saw wan grey eyes fluttering open and shut, open and shut, by the side of the street, and knew that Schiri would live yet.

The vampire lifted its twice-bloodied mouth from Darriach’s throat and gave her a skull’s own grin, its gaze fiery with the pleasure of its meal – sweet, potent, noble blood. “Huurghaa …” Have you also come to discuss the covenant with me, Mistress of the Family Ascendant?

But Turiale’s own gaze was filled with such bitter, powerful fire that the monster quickly averted its hideous face, burying it again against Darriach’s bloody throat as the Lady stooped before her still son. “You are tuchatar – a poor trade,” she hissed down at him, her fingers briefly curling and uncurling before they reached to claim him from the ground.

*           *           *           *           *

But life in Hilui’ael never stopped for anything so trivial as death. The Night of Souls ended. Darriach’s life ended. The challenge to Family Palantas during the High Hours ended.