The hour was now late. Though it was unusual for children to be out after dark, the excitement in town had disrupted the quiet routine of the sleepy village. A few youths still lingered under the eaves of the now closed shops, seeking to take advantage of the distracted town to cause a little excitement and mischief of their own. Chief among them was none other than Garish and his gang of ruffians. They were determined to steal the spotlight off the royal visitors and turn it back upon themselves. Troublesome children usually acted out because of a need to be the center of attention, and Garish was no exception. In fact, he thrived on being just that, though he had another reason this night as well. Earlier in the evening, a cute girl had been seen exploring the streets. She was a stranger to town, which meant she had probably come with the royal entourage. Garish had a mind to impress her.
As the group looked for her now, the ruffians came upon Rand for the third time today, instantly recognizing him as he strode through the unpaved streets of the village. They picked up where they had left off earlier in the day, renewing again as they had for most of Rand’s life their insults, name calling, and verbal barrage of “seer”, and “crazy one”.
Rand’s encounter with the Stranger on the moor and then the nightshade had left him forever changed. He was no longer afraid of a simple band of troublesome kids. He ignored them and just walked on.
One of the ruffians threw a rotten tomato, and though Rigel warned Rand, he ignored the warning and took it in the head; he didn’t even flinch.
“Where’s your invisible pals to protect you now?” one of the boys laughed.
Rand kept walking. More children now gathered, taunting as they always did. Rand saw the Guardians of those who were taunting him standing well away from their charges. In their eyes was a look of sadness and of sympathy for Rand. They were obviously unhappy with the abusive behavior of those they had once guarded. Of course, they did not take part in the taunting of him. They never did. Not that they would, of course, for they weren’t of flesh and blood, weak to the sins of the flesh. They were spirits, invisible to all eyes save Rand’s alone. And that had always been his whole problem.
Being the only one who could see the Guardians, Rand had tried many times to ignore them in an attempt to act normal, but he found he couldn’t do it for long. In fact, he found himself communicating with his Guardians more often than the people of the real world, for at least they didn’t treat him with contempt. But when others viewed this behavior, it disturbed them. The children and adults of Cheyne had often observed Rand conversing with unseen things and had labeled him mad. That gave rise to the teasing, and was where the nickname “seer” had come from, the youths corrupting the name that was normally given to one who could see the future. The town mocked Rand and named him “seer” because he saw things that weren’t there.
The ruffians continued pestering Rand as he passed through the streets of Cheyne, but he walked on, ignoring them. He didn’t care about the verbal torture anymore. He felt like something deep within him had changed. Meeting the Stranger on the moor had taken him way beyond the troubled treatment he had received from the village crowd all his life. So now he ignored the villager’s taunts, but that only angered them all the more. Soon they crowded around him again and sought to finish the beating they had begun earlier in the day.
“Leave him alone.”
The voice came from up the street, and the gang encircling Rand looked up to see that it was the girl they had glimpsed earlier.
“Hello, pretty girl,” Garish crooned to her. “We’re just ridding the streets of this addled oaf so that he shan’t try to hurt you.” Garish puffed out his chest in an attempt to impress her. The look she shot back said she wasn’t buying it.
“Leave him alone,” she said again as she walked into the crowd of boys.
Rand noticed the girl for the first time. She was the same age as the ruffians, a couple of years older than he, but she was the antithesis of the dirty boys, for she was beautiful. Her brown hair was pulled back into a pony’s tail and her dark brown eyes sparkled in the firefly lamplight. Her eyes met his and held them for several seconds, causing Rand’s heart to skip a beat.
Rand, you must leave now.
Rand heard the voice in his mind, but he dismissed it.
Garish, angry with Rand for gazing at the girl that he had laid claim to, decided it was time to impress her, so he raised the wooden stave he carried with him and tried to strike at Rand, who was distracted with the girl standing before him. The stick reached the apex of its swing, but then stopped, stuck in mid-air. Garish looked to see what had stopped his swing, and was surprised to see that it was the girl, herself. She had grabbed the stave and stopped the swing from striking Rand. With a deft jerk, she took the stick away, disarming a wide-eyed Garish.
“Leave him alone,” she said for a third time.
Garish started to protest, but something caught his eye that made him forget all about the anger and embarrassment at being disarmed by a girl. He was distracted by the fear welling up inside him as he watched something stepping from the shadows. He whimpered and pointed, and now the others saw the reason for his fear. Something was coming toward them dragging the darkness with it as it stepped from the black alley; something with skin of violet.
“A nightshade!” Garish stammered, and the ruffians started to back away. One boy wet his pants. They all thought futilely of running, but their fear slowed their legs and one look from the thing that approached riveted them to their spot.
Rand and the girl who had come to his defense turned and saw it as it approached. It appeared human-like, tall, thin, dressed in some kind of black skinned garb with a great black cloak, but its uncovered head and hands were of the darkest violet hue, covered with scars carved of strange runes. Its black hair was slicked back on its head, and most riveting of all were the lavender eyes that glowed with evil ferocity. Rand now realized why Rigel had given him the warning to leave a moment before. As he looked away from the creature to Rigel, his inquiring look was answered.
A nilganash approaches.
Rand noted too late that his Guardians had drawn their gleaming blades.
The nightshade had watched the group surrounding its intended victim and had noted that they were made up of only youths. Thinking to take advantage of the group’s fear of it, it had chosen now to approach the one it had been following. Its black cloak wafted behind, moving and undulating, though there was little breeze. The demon warrior’s lavender eyes stayed riveted on Rand.
Though few in the group had ever seen a nightshade before, all children knew the tales of the undead creatures who stole men’s souls and feasted on their hapless victims. They were thought to have been eradicated in ages past, but one fitting the very description of those ancient creatures in whispered tales now approached. It was the same creature Rand had encountered an hour ago, and again his hair stood on end.
Strangely enough, only the girl seemed unafraid. Holding Garish’s wooden pike, she stood riveted to her spot, not out of fear, but from recognizing that the nightshade was too close for her to spring out of the way.
“Cah ni or efen zan udo na!”
“Perhaps I will feast on all of you,” it repeated in the avanyar tongue, looking only briefly at the girl and the others, “but for now, I have business with … you.” It raised its hand and pointed a slender finger ending in a black talon directly at Rand.
The girl gripped Garish’s wooden stave tightly and prepared to strike in defense as the nightshade approached, and but it ignored her completely as it walked past her to stand before Rand. Its violet skin appeared almost black in the torchlight, but for the eerie glow of its eyes. Rand knew he was in trouble when the nightshade threw back his cloak and spread great leathery bat wings out all around, as if to engulf him.
Demons rushed out of the darkness all around just then, having been held back momentarily by the approach of the nightshade. Rand scarcely saw them, their forms limned in a reddish fire. They moved forward, but they did not attack Rand, nor the others. They just waited their turn, anticipating a spectacle.
“Nan coresh za gron ida neg.”
“Your soul is sought this night,” the nightshade spoke with a menacing snarl to Rand. Rand didn’t move.
Realizing at that moment that the nightshade was after the seer and not interested in them, the ruffians suddenly found the strength to move, and they bolted from the scene, Garish leading the retreat.
Rand felt more than saw those around him leave with a few demons in hot pursuit, and he guessed that he was now alone before the nightshade. He wished for another one of the mysterious Limnos spheres, but he had already used the one he had been given. Rand only half-noticed the “crack” of splintering wood as the winged one before him raised clawed hands and took a step closer, fangs bared in a malevolent grin. His Guardians had already begun a ferocious attack with their swords, but were powerless against the creature that walked in the material world. The wincing Rand had seen in the nightshade from the Guardians earlier attack was hardly noticeable and apparently ineffective. The nightshade continued to advance. The Guardian’s blades were deadly only against those in the spirit realm.
Rand raised his fists and mouthed a silent prayer to Aradun. The little boy showed the courage of his forebears at that moment. Though his mouth was as dry as sand and he shivered almost uncontrollably from fear, he was determined not to die without a fight. The nightshade bent over Rand and grabbed him with claws that sent icicles of cold stabbing through Rand. Rand struggled as it opened its gaping jaws and went for Rand’s neck. Rand saw saliva dripping from its fangs and felt its fetid breath washing over him. This was the end.
“Baargh!” Suddenly, the creature lurched upright, its malevolent look turning to one of surprise. It let out a blood-curdling howl and let go of Rand to grasp instead at its own chest. Falling backward away from the demon warrior, Rand saw the reason for its lurch. A bloody stake now protruded from the nightshade’s clenched claws, with something red glimmering on the wooden tip. The nightshade fell off to one side, and Rand saw who held the other end of the stake that had been thrust through the demon warrior. It was the girl. Rand had heard the crack of splintering wood a moment ago. It had been her, breaking Garish’s stave in half. She had stabbed the nightshade from behind with the jagged end of one piece.
Rand was speechless. His eyes returned to the nightshade, which had fallen to the earth in the throes of the end of its undead existence. The girl stood holding the other end of the stake with eyes wide, a look in them of ferocity mingled with fear.
“Disgusting creature,” she said, trying to sound unafraid. But then she dropped the stake, her hands shaking. Fear had overcome her at last.
Rand started to speak, but before he could, a strong voice rang out in the street behind him.
“Erinwe!” it called out, and an instant later the street was filled with border guard, led by a tall soldier in silver and violet armor, a Knight of The Realm. “Erinwe!” the knight called out again. “At last we find you. The King grows angry at your absence from the—” and he saw the violet nightshade crumpled before the girl. He immediately drew his sword and barked orders, sending the border guard into a defensive perimeter around Rand and the girl.
“The nightshade is dead,” a guard announced to his leader as he rose from examining the creature. As if acknowledging his statement, the body of the nightshade began withering away until only bones remained, which then crumbled to dust and blew away in the wind leaving only clothing behind.
“Burn them,” the lead knight directed toward the garments, and he turned his attention to the girl. “Erinwe, first you disappear from the banquet, and now this! What in Aradun’s name happened here?” he asked, much distressed that the girl under his protection had escaped his sight.
“It’s alright, Kuril. I am uninjured.”
“He did it!” A voice shouted from the growing crowd. “He brought the nightshade!” It was Garish, who had led the crowd and the soldiers here. “It was he who brought the nightshade. He tried to get it to harm the princess! The Seer did it.” Garish pointed at Rand, who still stood before the girl and the growing crowd.
The knight turned and seemed to notice Rand for the first time. He started to address the boy, but Garish interrupted.
“The seer did it!” he said again. “The seer called forth the nightshade.”
“No,” Erinwe answered, but her voice was drowned out as the crowd turned toward Rand with a shout. Her eyes met Eldar’s again as he turned to flee. “Wait—”
“Thank you,” he mouthed to her before she could finish, and he took off running from the crowd.
“No, Kuril,” the girl said, turning to the knight as he started to order others after the boy. “The boy did not call the nightshade.”
“Then who did? And who killed it?” Kuril asked. “Who killed the demon warrior?”
“I did.” Erinwe answered.
“You?” Kuril questioned with a startled look. “That’s impossible.”
“Maybe. But it’s true, nonetheless,” she answered defiantly.
“A twelve-year-old girl single-handedly dispatching a nightshade?” He looked on her with wonder.
She said nothing more, and didn’t need to. Kuril knew the girl well. She never spoke falsely.
Kuril eyed the broken stave with the jagged tip that lay at her feet. “It is true that the nightshade is dead; still, ‘twould take more than a stake of wood to kill a Nil’Ganash,” he spoke with a hint of doubt. He picked up the weapon to examine it. The answer came to him a moment later when he saw the silver hair comb wedged in the tip of the stake, now caked with dried black blood. She had tipped the stake with silver. That’s how she had killed it. He cocked his head, marveling at her resourcefulness.
“Your hair comb, Princess,” he offered, and she took it and wiped it clean on the leg of her breeches, then placed it back in her hair as if nothing had been done with it. Kuril shook his head. She behaves more like a warrior than a lady of the court, he noted to himself, seeing that she paid no heed to the blood that now stained her garment. Such behavior is … worth noting, he finished, tucking his observation away for future use. Worth noting, indeed.
Garish now stood off to the side of the gathered throng, his minions in tow. He was angry at having failed to implicate Rand in the spectacle with the nightshade. Unable to win points in the eyes of the girl he lusted after, he slunk off into the shadows with his cronies, intent on revenge upon Rand for having spoiled his attempt to woo Princess Erinwe. He was not yet finished with the seer.
The royal guard prepared to return to the Inn. “Kuril, do you know who—”
Kuril cut her off before Erinwe could ask who Rand was. “I see you have much to explain,” the knight pondered. “Come; tell me this tale while I return you to your father. King Vassar desires his daughter at his side!” He put his arm around her and started her off toward the village center, surrounded by border guard.
The girl started off with him toward the Ram’s Head, but at the last minute stole a glance back toward the direction Rand had departed. Her thoughts were of the events of that night, and she would ponder them for a long time after; but more than the nightshade, her thoughts were of the strange boy she had saved. Who he was, she wondered? She would not soon forget his face.
“We need to get you out of these plain garments,” she heard Kuril saying as her thoughts returned to the present. She caught the tail end of his lecture, hearing the exasperation in his voice. “Child,” he said with a look that was half smirk, half frown, knowing Erinwe well, “where are your royal robes?”
Click here to listen to the original Song written for Rand and Erinwe’s first meeting:
