by Melanie Rawn
During Maiden Moon this year, on a night when thousands took to the streets of Ambrai in a blaze of torches and a tumult of songs to celebrate Granna’s Birthingday, Sarra and her mother were hurried by First Sword Gorynel Desse from the Octagon Court to the Academy. That night Sarra traveled by Ladder for the first time. One moment she was in Ambrai; the next, somewhere in The Waste. She didn’t know where, only that there had been long, hot days of riding and short, sleepless nights in the open before they were welcomed to Ostinhold by Lady Lilen, she of the warm voice and sorrowing eyes.
Everyone Sarra knew and loved—except her mother—was gone. Grandparents, cousins, friends, schoolmates, everyone. Sarra was forbidden to speak about the Octagon Court, but she couldn’t help thinking. Or feeling. Or missing the soft, clean, cool rain—nearly as much as she missed her father and her sister.
She wanted to hear her father’s laughter. She wanted to reach up and feel him gently enfold her fingers in his large, warm hands. She wanted to sense him come into her room late at night when she was wide-eyed and scared in the dark, and hear him chant the words of a spell, and watch him make the stars come down from the sky to guard her sleep.
She missed Glenin, too—playing with the Ostin girls wasn’t as much fun, and neither was squabbling with them. Sarra wanted to ride her pony around and around the gardens of the Octagon Court with Glenin correcting her and praising her when she got it right. She wanted Glenin to read her bedtime stories at night, and share complaints about their tutors, and have pillow fights, and—
“. . . barren of life,” Lady Lilen was saying now, “but you’ve seen for yourself that’s not true. Plants and animals here are very good at gathering and storing whatever water they can find.” She smiled. “Some even know how to purify water. And with the help of these clever plants, we fill our cisterns.”
“But it was beautiful here once, wasn’t it?” asked Taig in a voice that held a strange note of yearning. “Before—”
“Yes, a long time ago it was very beautiful here. Almost as lush and green as Sheve. But Wasters—I trust you hear the irony in the name!—must deal with the present reality.”
Though Lady Lilen’s interruption was smooth as cream, Sarra promised herself to ask Taig what had been unsaid. Of all the Ostin brood—and there were plenty of them—Taig was the only one she felt comfortable with. At twelve, he was seven years her senior but never treated her like a baby. His sister Miram and brother Alin were near to Sarra in age; though she was content with them as playmates, only Taig seemed to understand her. He was like her. He questioned until he got answers that made sense to him. Restless and moody beneath his smile, he was frustrated by the plodding life of The Waste. Sarra, who had spent every day of her life at the center of Lenfell’s liveliest and most sophisticated court, understood perfectly. But in escaping Ambrai, she and her mother had escaped death. Even at five years old, Sarra understood that most of all.
Talk at the Ostin table shifted to the coming journey to Renig, where the family usually spent several weeks in winter. First they would all go to Combel, where Lady Lilen had appointments with the stewards of Scraller Pelleris—an odious man whose herds of galazhi were run with the Ostins’ own. The family’s Web was an extensive one, and kept Lady Lilen moving like a migratory bird among her four major residences, trailed by some or all of her nine children, five siblings, and innumerable nieces, nephews, and cousins. The vast Ostin Blood was particularly ubiquitous in the Waste, sliding into gaps created by Scraller’s wholesale obliteration of his Name. Herds were tended by Ostins; farms were run by Ostins; shops and inns were owned and staffed by Ostins; trade partnerships were overseen by Ostins; ships were captained by Ostins. The only thing they strictly avoided was government. Because politics was the Ambrai passion, inherited with the Name and the fortune and the Octagon Court, Sarra concluded that the Ostin Blood was lacking in real power.
Ostinhold, largest and most crowded of Lady Lilen’s homes, was a sprawling, disorderly maze with additions tacked on as needed to accommodate an ever-growing population, currently numbering nearly a thousand. A wing protruded here, a second or third story rose there, a stairwell was crammed in any whichway, and old guard walls were constantly torn down and moved outward to expand the hired hands’ living space. It was, quite simply, the ugliest dwelling Sarra could imagine. Accustomed to the cool white marble of the Octagon Court, the tall pillars and elegant domes and bright roof tiles of Ambrai, Ostinhold’s chaotic exterior—walls of saffron, orange, or even pink as fancy had taken the builders—hurt her eyes. Sarra was generally bored by plants, and never appreciated Ambrai’s lush parks until she walked through what Geria grandly called a garden—kitchen herbs and vegetables, a flower or two, but not a single tree. Still, as hideous as Sarra thought the place, all the Ostins—even Taig—loved it.
She supposed Ostinhold was all right if one’s tastes ran to isolation. Descriptions of the town properties held more appeal. There was a seaside home in Renig, a small mansion in the outlying districts of Combel, and a house in Longriding that would be Geria’s when she married. Sarra thought it a pity this hadn’t yet happened. Geria mocked Sarra’s long Ambraian vowels, her short Ambraian hairstyle, and her formal Ambraian manners—though not in Lady Lilen’s hearing. One reason Sarra liked Taig so much was that he never hesitated to tell his sister, First Daughter or no, to shut up.
By all the Saints of Lenfell, Sarra wanted to go home. She’d asked her mother about it. Once. On St. Geridon’s Day, the full moon of the Stallion who protected domestic animals in general and horses in particular, everyone helped light a bonfire with a burning twig (it was supposed to be gathered from the forest, but the Ostins had to import wood for the ceremony; The Waste had no forest, and precious few trees). Sarra made the traditional wish as she tossed her tiny flame onto the pile, then watched as Taig, eldest son, threw in braids made from the tail-hairs of the six Ostin studs. Later, as she was getting ready for bed, she told her mother what she wished. To go home.
“Can we?”
“No, Sarra. We can’t go home for a long time.” Maichen’s eyes sparkled with sudden tears. Those magnificent black eyes had inspired the great Falundir to an admiring lyric when Maichen was but fifteen. Sarra had inherited her mother’s eyes; Glenin had not. Sarra wondered suddenly if the new baby would.
“But why not? Guardian Desse could take us back on the Ladder—”
Fingers dug into Sarra’s shoulder, silencing her more with shock than pain. “I told you once and I won’t repeat myself again. Never speak of Ambrai, or Ladders, or Gorynel Desse, or our family, or who your father is.”
Sarra struggled not to cry. Her mother had never spoken to her this way in her life. “You wished for the same thing, I know you did!” she accused.
“If I did, I’ll keep it to myself—the way you must. What would Lady Lilen think of us if we were so ungrateful for all her kindness?”
“I don’t care! I hate it here! I want to go home!”
It was the only time her mother struck her—a swift, sharp slap that stung her pride more than her bottom. The next instant she was seized in a fierce embrace, apologies tumbling into her hair. She accepted the slap, and the sorrys, and the holding, because she knew she deserved all three. But the hug was awkward, the growing bulge of the new baby ruining the comfortable cradle Sarra had always known.
Now, the day before St. Caitiri’s, Sarra’s mother was so big and ungainly that it took two people to help her out of a chair. Hugs happened sideways, if at all. She was constantly exhausted, her cheeks hollowing even as her body rounded. But nobody talked about the baby. It was as if it didn’t exist, even with the evidence bulking large and larger each day.
“Lady . . . ?”
Everyone stopped talking and glanced around. Servants were not supposed to appear until Lady Lilen rang the little acorn-shaped brass bell beside her plate. The maid looked worried and nervous, but determined.
&
nbsp; “Yes? What is it, Jonna?” asked Lady Lilen.
“A messenger, Lady. From Longriding, for Lady Maichen. He’s ridden three horses nearly dead getting here.”
Sarra watched in puzzlement as her mother and Lady Lilen exchanged quick worried glances. What could have happened at unimportant Longriding that would affect Maichen Ambrai?
“We’ll hear him in my office,” said Lady Lilen, rising. “Has he been fed?”
“Yes, Lady. Though he’s almost too tired to swallow.”
Taig and Geria helped Sarra’s mother to her feet. Lady Lilen took her arm and they left the room. Geria, now the ranking Ostin present, tapped a long fingernail against her plate.
“Three horses,” she mused. “It’s a good four days from Longriding at normal speed. The messenger must’ve done it in two, maybe even less.”
“What could be that urgent?” Taig asked.
“How should I know?” his sister shrugged.
“You’re the Almighty First Ostin Daughter. I thought you knew everything.”
Sarra paid no heed to the bickering. Her mind took several instinctive leaps—which as she grew older she would learn to trust more and more, though it would be many years before she knew it for her magic. Maichen Ambrai could have no interest in anything that happened in Longriding. Four days was just the length of their overland trip to Ostinhold from the Ladder.
With barely a logical thought to confirm it, Sarra knew that the Ladder was in Longriding, the messenger was a Mage Guardian, and the news was from Ambrai.
2
They didn’t know she was listening, or they never would have said so much.
Sarra had plumped pillows under the sheets to mimic her sleeping form—Glenin had shown her how—and sneaked out of her room, seeking the source of certain sounds. A tiptoe journey along the upper balcony outside the schoolroom brought her to the corner of the wing. An easy slither by storm gutter (for sand, not water, except for the acid rains), a scramble across reddish roof tiles, a short climb to another balcony, and she reached a sill. The window was half-open, thin dark drapes drawn imperfectly shut. Wedging herself against the brick frame, she peered within. And shivered. She huddled outside the Ostinhold birthing chamber, source of the sounds she’d been following: the gasping cries of a difficult labor.
Someone was crooning soft words of encouragement. When low voices spoke from the other side of the draperies, mere inches from where she perched, Sarra nearly fell off the sill.
“From what you’ve told me of her first two birthings, this one won’t be easy, either,” said a voice Sarra didn’t recognize, male and deep and concerned. “You’d best send for a Healer Mage, Lady.”
“You’ve seen me through seven of my nine, Irien.”
“You’re built for it,” the man said bluntly. “She’s not. And this is a big baby even though she’s not yet at term. Can’t the Guardian send for someone?”
“Even if he could, we can’t risk it.” Lady Lilen’s voice shook, as if her heart beat too fast. “No one must know about this birth, Irien. No one outside Ostinhold. Not even a Healer Mage.”
“What they don’t know can’t be tortured out of them? I see.” He paused. “Ambrai in ruins, her parents and most of the family dead—I can’t believe it.”
“She does. The shock brought on her labor. I hope never to see such horror again in anyone’s eyes.”
“And Auvry Feiran responsible for it all—” Irien paused. “Lady, I need to know something. Does she want this child? His child?”
Lilen Ostin said nothing for a long minute. Then: “Irien, I do not know.”
Sarra hugged her knees to her chest, cold now to her marrow. Ambrai in ruins. Grandmother and Grandfather dead. Father responsible. Mother might believe it; Sarra did not. “No,” she whimpered soundlessly. “No—”
When gasps became screams, the voices at the window went away. The sun rose a long, long time later, but could not warm Sarra’s chilled, cramped body. A servant, opening windows in the next wing, saw her and called out in alarm. She was coaxed down, tucked into bed, given something hot to drink. It was poppy syrup to make her sleep, sticky-sweet, familiar from a brief illness last year. But in her sleep she heard her mother’s screams.
When she woke it was late afternoon. Taig sat at the foot of her bed, reading a book. She watched him through slitted lashes for a time as the fog gradually cleared from her brain.
“Where’s my mother?”
Taig looked up, not at all startled. “Resting, I hope.”
“Did the baby come?”
“Not yet. Don’t worry, Sarra. It’ll be all right.”
Sarra gazed at him a while longer. Deep golden sunlight, hot and thick with dust through the open windows of her room, painted him in shadows. Dark-haired like almost all the Ostins; gray-eyed like his dead father, or so she’d been told. Would the new baby look like Auvry Feiran?
“I want to see my mother.”
“Not just now. Maybe later.”
“I have to tell her something.”
“I’ll take a message, if you like.”
Sarra considered. Her muscles ached from a night huddled on the ledge, and the drug made her feel weak. “No, thank you. I have to tell her myself.”
Taig nodded. “Maybe you ought to have something to eat.”
“No. I’m—” Abruptly she changed her mind. “You know, I think I am hungry. Some bread and cheese?”
“I’ll go see what they’ve got in the kitchen.”
When he was gone, she pushed herself out of bed and pulled on her clothes. Her arms and legs moved so slowly; she fretted against the passage of time, knowing that if she was caught, Taig would not be fooled again into leaving her alone. At last, trousers fastened and shirt buttoned right, she peered either way down the hall outside her door. Empty. She couldn’t risk last night’s route, not with her muscles so stiff, but she had to do something. So she made her way as stealthily as she could to the wing that housed the birthing room.
There were no screams now. Sarra flattened herself against a corridor wall, edging around the corner. She heard a whimper, then another, and thought it must be the baby, born at last. She crept down the hall.
“Maichen, you must push, dearling, you must help us bring your baby.”
Not born. More soft cries, and a thin wail: “I can’t!”
“You must. Only a little while longer,” Lady Lilen soothed. “Next time you must bear down, please, Maichen, you must try—”
“No—I can’t! Leave me alone, I can’t try anymore, I don’t want to—”
Sarra ran to the door. A lean-shouldered man crouched beside the birthing chair. In the chair was a woman, white sheet draped over her swollen body. Her face was gray and exhausted, mottled with red marks like burns. Dull black eyes set in puffy bruises, mouth thin and colorless, she was completely unrecognizable as Sarra’s beautiful, elegant mother.
“Sarra!”
Lady Lilen had seen her. Sarra fled.
A Healer Mage—the man said she needs a Healer Mage—I have to find one—please, blessed St. Fielto the Finder, you have to help me—and Feleris the Healer, and Gelenis First Daughter Who Helps in Childbirth and Imili and Caitiri Whose Day this is and—and—
She ran out of Saints halfway down the stairs. Out at the stables, three horses were tethered to a hitching post and waiting to be saddled. Three incredibly tall horses that scared her witless. She was infuriated by her fear. Just imagine it’s a pony. It’s all the same, just bigger.
She scrambled up onto a horse’s back before she knew it. Yanking the reins free, she kicked with all her might and the horse obliged with a gallop through stableyard and gates, out onto the dry road.
As an adult, Sarra would believe with all her considerable intellect in the Mage Guardians’ creed. That evening, however, formed in her a faith that went beyond logic and reason. She had ridden no m
ore than a mile before another rider appeared, and became recognizable as Gorynel Desse.
Not a Healer Mage, true—but a Mage nonetheless. And she had found him. That he had already been on his way to Ostinhold had nothing to do with it in the mind of a five-year-old girl. She, Sarra, had decided what was needed and done it. Without thought to herself or the consequences, or indeed much thought at all, she had done what was necessary.
It would become the pattern of her whole life.
3
The baby was a girl. Born in the last hour of the night, she was given a version of St. Caitiri’s name. Sarra, looking at her new sister for the first time the next afternoon, murmured, “Cailet, Cailet,” and swore to Taig that the baby turned her head when she heard her name.
This time she didn’t have to eavesdrop. Gorynel Desse sat with her after dinner that night and told her precisely what he proposed to do.
“Pardon an old man’s lack of courtesy,” he began, with a rueful gesture to his bare feet, soaking in a basin of cold water. “My bones have been rattling all over Lenfell these past weeks.”
Sarra shook her head to indicate she didn’t mind. Seating herself on a low stool, she folded her hands in her lap and waited.
“You know what happened in Ambrai,” he said. “I grieve for your losses.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Desse paused for a sip of wine. “It’s no longer safe for you here, Sarra.”
She watched his green eyes, so startlingly bright in his dark face below uncovered, flowing white hair. “Everybody has to think we’re dead,” she told him. “Like Grandmother and Grandfather, and the Captal.”
“Yes. Anniyas can’t know—”
“You mean my father can’t know. Or about Cailet, either.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a knobby finger. “Did you say you were five, or twenty-five?” he muttered. “Sarra, I know this has all been terrible for you. But you must trust me to know what’s best. When your mother’s well enough, I’ll take you to live with some friends of mine in Sheve. You’ll like it there. But you won’t be able to talk of your old home in Ambrai, or that the Ostins are your kin, or that you visited here.” He cleared his throat. “And . . . you’ll be given a new name.”