The Caller Read online

  About The Caller

  Neryn has made a long journey to perfect her skills as a Caller.

  She has learned the wisdom of water and of earth; she has travelled to the remote isles of the west and the forbidding mountains of the north. Now, she must endure Alban’s freezing winter to seek the mysterious White Lady, Guardian of Air.

  For only when Neryn has been trained by all four Guardians will she be ready to play her role in toppling the tyrannical King Keldec.

  The thrilling conclusion to the Shadowfell trilogy from one of Australia’s most-loved storytellers.

  Contents

  Cover

  About The Caller

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  About Juliet Marillier

  Also by Juliet Marillier

  Copyright page

  To my family with love

  Prologue

  Done. He was done. No more lies; no more acts of blind savagery; no longer any need to pretend that he was Keldec’s loyal retainer. His precarious double life as Enforcer and rebel spy was over. He had turned his back on it, and he was going home.

  Crossing country under moonlight, he pondered what his sudden decision would mean. He would be at Shadowfell, the rebel headquarters, over the winter. He would see Neryn again: a precious gift, though there would be little time alone together in that place of cramped communal living. His arrival there would bring a double blow for the rebels, for he carried not only the news of their leader’s death, but also an alarming rumour, passed on to him by the king himself. Another Caller had been found; Neryn was not the only one. If true, these ill tidings set the rebels’ plan to challenge Keldec at next midsummer Gathering on its head. An expert Caller should be able to unite the fighting forces of humankind and Good Folk into one mighty army. He shuddered to think what might happen if two Callers opposed each other. He must take the news to Shadowfell as fast as he could. That, and his other burden.

  He could not ride all night. He’d travelled far enough to be well away from Wedderburn land, and the horse was tiring. He stopped on the edge of a little wood, unsaddled her, set the bag she carried carefully down among the stones and shook out the feed he had brought for her. Tomorrow he’d need to do better. He did not make fire, simply rolled up in his blanket under the moon. He allowed himself to think of Neryn; imagined her lying in his arms with her hair like honey-coloured silk, whisper-soft against his skin. Felt something unaccustomed stealing over his heart, letting him dare to dream of new beginnings. Less than a day had passed since he’d chosen to walk away from his double life. Less than a day since he had found Regan’s head nailed up over the gates of Wedderburn fortress, and had known he could be a spy no more. And yet, even with the pitiful remnant of his friend in that bag over there, and the knowledge that the rebellion had lost the finest leader it could ever have had, he felt a kind of peace.

  He slept; and woke to something prodding urgently at his arm. Long practice had him on his feet, weapon at the ready, in the space of two breaths.

  ‘Shield your iron, warrior!’ snapped the little woman in the green cloak. ‘Dinna raise your knife to me.’

  It was Sage, Neryn’s one-time companion and helper on the road: a fey being not much higher than his knee, with pointed ears, a wild fuzz of grey-green curls and beady, penetrating eyes. Poking at him with her staff. Sage was one of the Good Folk, Alban’s uncanny inhabitants, whose help would be so vital to the rebellion. His heartbeat slowed. He slipped his knife back into its sheath, then squatted down to be closer to her level.

  ‘You could have got yourself killed,’ he said.

  ‘So could you. Listen now.’ Sage’s voice was hushed, as if they might be surrounded by listening ears out here in the midnight woods. ‘I heard you left Wedderburn in a hurry, on your own, without any of your Enforcer trappings. And before you ask, the news came to me from one of ours. A bird-friend spotted you. I cannot imagine that king of yours would be sending you out on a mission, on your own, at this time of the year. So you’re turning your back on the part you play at court. That’s not what Regan would be wanting, or indeed Neryn.’

  He bit back a none of your business. Now that the Good Folk were part of the rebellion, it was Sage’s business. She was a friend; Neryn trusted her. ‘Regan’s dead,’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Sage. ‘That sad news is known to me already. No need for you to bear it to Shadowfell; there’s quicker ways to pass on bad tidings than a man on a horse. They’ll know this by now, Neryn and the others.’

  Neryn had spoken of messengers with wings; beings that were bird-like, but not birds. Bird-friends, she’d called them. ‘I’m carrying him home for burial,’ he told the wee woman, glancing over at the bag he’d stowed among the rocks. ‘I could not leave him there for the flies and the crows. I regret nothing; only that I did not know where the rest of him had been laid.’

  ‘He would not want this,’ Sage said. ‘He would not want you to quit your post. How are the rebels to learn the king’s mind, with you gone from court? How can the challenge to Keldec succeed without the inside knowledge you provide? Unless I’m mistaken, and you are indeed on some kind of mission for the king here.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he found himself saying. There was something about Sage that made it impossible to lie. ‘I can’t do it anymore, I can’t be that man. Besides, there’s other news, something Neryn needs to know urgently. I must –’

  A twig snapped somewhere in the woods behind him, and in an instant Sage was gone – not vanished, exactly, but somehow blended back into the light and shade of the forest fringe. With one hand on his knife hilt, he turned.

  ‘Owen! By all that’s holy, you led us a long chase.’

  His belly tightened as two riders emerged from the shadows. A fair-haired man with broad, amiable features: his second-in-command, Rohan Death-Blade. A taller, darker man: another from Stag Troop, Tallis Pathfinder. His mind shrank from what this might mean. These were the two he had increasingly suspected might know something of what he truly was, though neither of them had ever spoken openly on that most perilous of topics. And now here they were, and his choice stood stark before him: fight them to the death, both together, or step back into the prison of his old life.

  ‘Rohan; Tallis. I did not expect to see you.’ Stall for time. Don’t draw attention to the bag, for if they find that, it’s all up.

  ‘I won’t ask what you’re doing,’ Rohan said, getting down from his horse. He was in his black Enforcer garb, as was Tallis, but neither wore the half-mask the king’s warriors used to conceal their identity. Two men, three horses; the one on the leading rein was Lightning. Was this official business, a party sent to convey him unceremoniously back to court to face the penalty for insubordination? Or was it something else? ‘I’ll only point out that our orders would have us halfway back to Summerfort by now. You seem to be headed in the wrong direction.’

  Not official, then.

  ‘If we make an early start tomorrow we can still achieve it in time,’ put in Tallis, his tone neutral.

  ‘What about the others who came to Wedderburn with us?’ There was no sign of anyone else.

  ‘
I sent them ahead by a different track,’ Rohan said. ‘Told them there was a covert mission involving just the three of us. Any reason we shouldn’t make a fire? We haven’t eaten since we left Wedderburn and it’s cold enough out here to turn a man’s bollocks to stone.’

  ‘No reason.’ He forced his breath to slow; made his tight body relax. Saw how it would be, the return to court, the sideways glances from his fellow Enforcers, the hard questions, the demonstrations of loyalty Keldec would require of him, as the king did every time a subject strayed from his orders in the smallest particular. He felt like a bird that had escaped its cage and had just begun the first cautious spreading of its wings, only to find itself thrust unceremoniously back in and the door slammed shut. ‘You took a risk, coming after me,’ he said.

  Tallis was gathering wood. The moonlight gleamed on the silver stag brooch that fastened his cloak, emblem of a king’s man. Rohan began unsaddling his horse; Flint moved to tend to Lightning, whom he had left behind with some reluctance. When a man was travelling across country and wanting to stay unobtrusive, a jet-black, purebred horse was hardly an asset.

  ‘If we head straight back to Summerfort in the morning, not so much of a risk,’ Rohan said, glancing sideways as if to assess his commander’s state of mind. ‘That’s my considered opinion, anyway. You’re troop leader; the decision is yours.’

  For one crazy moment he thought his second-in-command was suggesting all three of them defect to the rebels. Then common sense prevailed. There was no decision to be made. There was no real choice. He glanced over toward Tallis, who was not quite within earshot. ‘Sure?’ he murmured.

  ‘Nothing’s ever sure,’ said Rohan.

  Such a statement, made at court or before the rest of Stag Troop, would be sufficient to earn a man accusations of treachery. An Enforcer’s code of existence required him to believe in the king with body, mind and spirit; to remain unswervingly loyal no matter what he was required to do. So one thing was forever sure: the king’s authority, which came above all. To question that was to invite a swift demise.

  ‘We head off in the morning, then,’ he said. Last night he had felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He had believed himself free at last; free from the vile duplicity of his existence as Regan’s spy at court. Some freedom that had been, short-lived as a march fly. Of course, an Enforcer should think nothing of inviting his two companions to sleep by the campfire, then knifing them in the dark and heading off on his own business. He had done worse in his time. But not now. Not after he had drawn those first tentative breaths as a different kind of man. ‘Did you bring any supplies?’

  Rohan and Tallis shared their food with him. He kept watch while they slept; he wondered if he was being given a chance to get away, or whether it was a remarkable demonstration of trust. At one point in the night, he got up to check the bag he had brought from Wedderburn with its stinking, precious cargo, and found that it had vanished. For a heart-stopping moment he wondered if he had missed Rohan or Tallis opening it, finding him out, stowing it away to show the king. Then it came to him that Sage had taken it. That’s not what Regan would be wanting.

  In that the fey woman was correct. For Regan, the cause had always come first; he had expected the same commitment from all the rebels. If Regan were still alive to be asked, of course he would want Flint to go back to court, to be an Enforcer, to do what had to be done in order to retain the king’s trust. It had taken years for him to work his way into his position as Stag Troop leader and Keldec’s close confidant. Despite his breaches of discipline in recent times, it seemed Keldec still viewed him as a trusted friend, or the king would never have told him about the second Caller.

  He could almost hear Regan’s voice. For whatever reason, your comrades are getting you out of trouble here. You can still be at court within the six days Keldec gave you. You can accompany him to Winterfort and see this Caller for yourself. Assess the threat and get a message to Shadowfell. The cause comes before your personal inclinations, Flint. I shouldn’t need to tell you that.

  Later, Rohan woke and took the watch while Flint snatched fitful sleep, his dreams fragmented and full of violence. At dawn the three men packed up and rode away, heading back to Summerfort and the king. They spoke barely a word.

  Chapter One

  With winter closing its fists tight on the mountains, the ground was too hard for even the strongest man to get a spade in. So we laid Regan’s head to rest in stone, and sealed it there by magic.

  The whole community of rebels was present, along with the clan of Good Folk who lived below us at Shadowfell in their own network of chambers and tunnels. The area called the Folds was deeply uncanny, a place that changed its form as it chose. So it was on the day we bid our beloved leader farewell.

  Woodrush, the wise woman of the Northies, spoke a prayer and a charm, and a hollow opened up in the mountainside, just the right size for the head in its sealed oak-wood box to fit snugly within. Tali and her brother Fingal placed the box; Milla held the lantern. Dusk seemed the right time to lay our leader down to his well-earned rest.

  Tali spoke words of farewell and blessing. Her speech was brief; she was struggling to hold herself together. The flickering lamplight gave the ravens tattooed around her neck a curious life, as if they were really flying their straight, true course. Then Woodrush moved her hands over the stone again, and the hollow closed over as if it had never been.

  We shivered in our thick cloaks. Snow lay on the mountaintops and the wind whistled a song of winter. When we had made our goodbyes, we retreated indoors to the warmth of Shadowfell’s dining chamber. The whole place was below ground, apart from the practice area. That was where Andra drilled Shadowfell’s warriors while Tali, now leader of the rebel movement, prepared her strategy for the final challenge to King Keldec’s rule.

  We had less than a year to achieve it. The support of the powerful northern chieftain, Lannan Long-Arm, was dependent on our mounting the challenge at the next midsummer Gathering. Before that time came, we had to create a fighting force made up of humankind and Good Folk, a force sufficiently strong and united to stand up against the power of the king and his Enforcers. It was a near-impossible task. The Good Folk did not trust humans. They did not even trust each other. Why would they set themselves at such risk when they could simply go to ground and wait for the bad times to pass?

  The answer, remarkably enough, was me. It had taken me a long time to accept that I was indeed a Caller, a person with the unusual gift of being able to see, hear and summon the Good Folk no matter where they were; a person who could call forth uncanny beings and persuade them to work with humankind for the greater good. Call them to fight. I’d struggled with this. I still did. Summoning folk into possible harm, even death, felt deeply wrong to me. In Regan’s eyes, all that had mattered was the cause. If the rebellion were to succeed, he’d said, we must set aside such concerns. We must be prepared to do whatever was needed to ensure the tyrant’s downfall. It was a lesson every rebel at Shadowfell had taken to heart.

  When I’d first made my way here, a scant year ago, my talent had been raw. I had been completely untrained, and the power of what I could do had frightened me, for I had seen what damage it could cause if not used wisely. So I had embarked upon a journey to find the four Guardians of Alban, the ancient, wise presences of the land, and to seek their aid in learning the proper use of my canny gift. Between spring and autumn I had made my way first to the Hag of the Isles, who had taught me how the call might be strengthened by the magic of water, and then to the Lord of the North, whom I had helped wake from a long enchanted sleep. In return, he had trained me in the magic of earth. Now I was back at Shadowfell, with the sorrow of Regan’s loss still fresh, and the news about Flint filling my dreams with troubling visions of the man I loved. When Daw, the bird-man of the Westies, had brought Regan’s head back home, he had told us a troubling tale.

  Sage’s clan of Goo
d Folk had seen a party of Enforcers ride into the stronghold of Wedderburn’s chieftain, Keenan, the man who had ordered Regan’s death. Later, they had seen Flint come out alone by night; they had watched him climb up above the fortress gates to cut down Regan’s head, which had been nailed there in a ghastly display of authority. They had watched as Flint, dressed not in his Enforcer uniform but in ordinary clothes and riding an ordinary horse, had slipped into the woods and travelled swiftly away. Not heading back to Summerfort and his duties at court, but up the Rush Valley toward Shadowfell. He’d had Regan’s head in a bag tied behind his saddle.

  Sage had confronted him when he stopped to rest, and found her fears realised: he was giving up his hard-won position of trust at court, turning his back on the king and bringing Regan home. He’d barely begun to explain why when two Enforcers had appeared and Sage had been forced to go to ground. That was what Daw had told us; and that the next morning, Flint had headed off toward Summerfort with his comrades.

  It was unsettling news. Flint had long been the rebels’ powerful secret weapon, Regan’s eyes at court, a source of vital inside information about Keldec’s strategic plans. He’d been there for several years, since he’d completed his training in the ancient craft of mind-mending and gone to offer his expert services to Keldec. He had risen high; to do so, he had been required to demonstrate flawless loyalty to the king. I knew how much it had cost him, for under Keldec’s rule a mind-mender must act as an Enthraller, using his craft to turn rebellious folk to the king’s will. When I’d seen Flint last spring in the isles, he’d been strung tight; he loathed what he was required to do. But I had not for a moment expected him to walk away before our battle was won.

  After the burial, we sat awhile before our hearth fire, drinking mulled ale and enjoying the warmth. We tried to remember Regan the way we should, with tales of our lost leader’s courage and vision, and shared memories of the good times. But the shadow of Flint’s action hung over us all.