by Pearl North
“Hey, both of you, stop it!” yelled Rossiter. “This isn’t how we’re supposed to act.”
Baris swung Po by the hair and released him and Po staggered back a few steps before regaining his balance. When he did, he wasted no time. He rushed Baris, tackling him around the waist, hurling them both down onto the straw-covered ground.
Baris wheezed at the impact, and before he could move Po straddled his chest, pinning Baris’s arms beneath his knees.
“Stop it,” said Rossiter. “It’s yourself you’re hitting. Remember? We’re all one!”
Yeah. Po did remember that. But only with his mind. It was not in his heart at the moment. One of the things he’d learned since coming here was how easy it was to lose big truths amid little ones. There was a difference between understanding something with your mind, and feeling it inside. At the moment, his anger crowded out the profound interconnectedness he’d felt at the Redemption. Peace and compassion were concepts. If they had a home in his heart, it was hidden by Baris’s provocation. Po punched him in the nose.
Blood poured from Baris’s nose, bright red and gratifying. “Augh! Get off me!” he yelled. The coward.
Po stood. “Limp dick,” he said, loading the words with all the disdain they could hold. He started to walk away. Rossiter watched him warily, a crease between his brows. Only then did Po realize that there would be repercussions from this. Rossiter was going to tell. Unless he could stop him.
He stopped in front of Rossiter, looming close. They were of a height, but Po was stronger. “Don’t tell anybody about this,” he said. It wasn’t a request.
Rossiter gave him a strange look. Pity? Why would Rossiter pity him? He glanced to where Baris was getting up, holding a hand to his bleeding nose. A clear-cut victory—why—
“And what if I do, Po, will you beat me up, too?”
Well, yeah, that was the idea. But still Rossiter gave him that sad look and Po had the feeling he was missing something, again. The Redemption. Oh yeah…Sudden shame came upon him and that just made him more angry.
“What are you going to do when you run out of people to hit?” Rossiter asked him.
Po tried to formulate an answer but he couldn’t. He really did want to hit Rossiter now, and that was completely wrong. And it had been wrong to hit Baris, even though it felt so utterly right. But why? How could it be okay not to punish Baris for his insufferable attitude? This was impossible. He couldn’t do this. He was just about to give up and shove Rossiter and see where that went when a terrific wind blew through the stables, stirring up hay and dust and making them all blink.
Through the wide archway that led into the stableyard came the Wing of Tarsus. Twelve feet from wing tip to wing tip, its graceful form gleaming gold, the Ancient flying machine eased through the doorway and settled in the triple-wide stall nearest the door. They’d had to knock down two walls to make room for it, but everyone agreed that the stable was the proper place for the wing, which like most Ancient technology was not quite just a machine.
All the same, the wing looked incongruous in the rustic setting. Its surface was engraved with waving, spiraling lines—songlines, the Singers called them, but Po knew them as the Name of the Ocean, so called because they were a reminder of the source of all life. On the underside of the flying machine was a face—a large, golden face in the center—where the vessel widened out between the two backward-curving wings.
And of course they all knew who flew it. Clauda of Ayor, the second Redeemer, the hero of the Libyrinth.
Po looked at Baris wiping the blood from his nose and trying to brush the straw off his robes. It was hard for Po to think of himself as one and the same with someone like Baris, but they did have one thing in common: neither of them wanted Clauda to know they’d been fighting. Even though Baris could say with all truthfulness that Po had started it, and Rossiter would back him up, Baris still wouldn’t want the kind of attention the incident would bring him. He’d be counseled about the “assault.” And he wouldn’t want that because the more people like Clauda or Haly talked to him, the more likely they’d discover just how little of the Singer attitude of male-superiority he had set aside. Not to mention, it would be a lot of fuss over a fistfight. “I won’t tell if you don’t,” Po told Baris.
Baris started. “Okay.”
“But what about him?” asked Po, nodding toward Rossiter.
Baris turned to Rossiter. “Look—keep this to yourself and I’ll tell Jaen you saved Monat’s life in the infirmary. She’ll be impressed.”
Rossiter frowned, weighing it. “I shouldn’t…” He turned to Po. “You fight too much.”
“You let him get away with talking about women as if they were…” Men. Po didn’t finish.
Rossiter swallowed. He looked uncomfortable now. “Okay, I won’t say anything. This time. But don’t compound things by lying about me, Baris. Just—”
A portal in the gleaming hide of the wing opened and Clauda stepped out onto the wing of the wing. The simplicity of her robe suited her broad, tan face and copper brown hair. Her blue eyes stood out like beacons.
Clauda was brave and kind and crafty, and Po had been fascinated with her since she’d first come to the Ilysian Palace. He had taken every chance he could to be around Adept Ykobos’s workshop when it was time to visit the Ayorite. He thought it was exotic how she had no last name. People in the palace called her Clauda of Ayor. But it wasn’t just that she was an Ayorite. It was her matter-of-fact regard for him, as if she had no doubt that he could contribute something of use. He’d never really gotten over it.
All quarrels forgotten, the three boys ran to the stall, but he was there before either of the other two, and he knelt in the straw and offered his back to her as a step. He heard Baris snicker, and then there was a whoosh of air beside him and he saw Clauda’s sandal-shod feet hit the ground. His face burning, Po stood. Clauda was already walking away, fast. Of course, how stupid of him. She was embarrassed by his gesture. She didn’t want to be his superior. She was an Ayorite. She wanted him to be an equal.
Baris stared at him with barely suppressed glee and Rossiter looked quietly horrified. But neither of them pursued Clauda. Po hurried after her. “How was your flight, Clauda?” he asked her, being sure to use her name in the familiar way everyone did around here.
She paused in the doorway to the Libyrinth and turned. Not for the first time, Po wished that instead of returning to the Libyrinth, Clauda had flown the wing to some deserted island somewhere far away where no one would ever find them. Of course that was wrong and of course Adept Ykobos was always conveniently written out of these fantasies of his, but when her gaze fell upon him he could not help but long for it just the same. “Hey guys,” she said, by way of greeting, and Po became aware of Baris and Rossiter behind him. “Po, look, I can’t chat right now. I’m sorry. I have to give my report to Haly.”
For the first time he noticed the scroll in her hands. It had a red seal on it. Was that the bull of Ilysies?
As Clauda trotted away down the hallway, Po heard Baris snicker behind him and then Rossiter’s urgent “Shhh!”
He thought about starting another fight with Baris, or Rossiter, or both, but it was nearly suppertime. He took a deep breath and left the stables.
2
After the Miracle
When Haly had been imprisoned by the Singers, she’d persuaded her principle jailer, Censor Siblea, to accept her version of the Redemption. Teaching everyone to read, she’d argued, was as much a miracle as the Singer’s original goal of destroying the Libyrinth. What she hadn’t known then, however, was that one miracle demands another.
Now, they could make good on the blessing of the Redemption, but only if the farming worked out, if they could all get along, if they could avoid becoming a protectorate of Ilysies…If. If. If.
Haly sat behind her large desk in her small office and regarded the chaos of papers and books scattered across it. How could she bring order and prosperity to her c
ommunity when she couldn’t even keep her desk clean? There was so much to do, and she had no idea how to accomplish most of it.
The food situation, for instance. They’d been researching agriculture since the day after the Redemption and fertilizer and irrigation had at least made growing crops possible, but there was no way around the simple fact that this was a desert land. The rocky soil and the low water table made it difficult to keep crops nourished. In short, no amount of goat manure was going to turn it into the Ilysian Valley, where food grew in abundance all year round. The Libyrinth’s mammoth store of grain had held out admirably so far, but was finally starting to run low. They would have just enough to make it to their first harvest, but if that failed, everything failed, and they must hope to get help from the villages of the plain, who had precious little food to spare. Or they could accept the queen of Ilysies’s generous offer of aid, and her leadership. It would be the end of their dream, but it might be their only alternative to starvation.
And that was just one aspect of this tricky situation. Every day Haly had her hands full, maintaining the rickety coalition they dared to call a community. Everyone at the Libyrinth was supposed to love one another like themselves, but the day-to-day reality was that the Singer men and the Ilysian women were at odds and the Ayorites still resented the Libyrarians who still looked down on them as peasants. And everyone looked to her to sort everything out. Not for the first time did she curse Head Libyrarian Griome for dying so soon after the Redemption, and leaving her, by popular demand, in charge of this mess.
And she was only sixteen. Panic threatened to overwhelm her. She forced herself to focus on her breath and tap into the Song inside her.
From birth Haly had been gifted with the capacity to hear text as if the words read themselves aloud to her. But at the Redemption, when the Libyrinth had powered up after centuries of slumber, it had a profound impact on Haly’s ability to hear the books. At first she’d been overwhelmed by a multitude of voices as every book in the Libyrinth spoke to her at once, but then the voices had combined into one voice, lifted in song. But not just any song—the Song, as the Singers called it, a harmony that united all things. The Ilysians called it the Name of the Ocean and the Ayorites called it the Last Wind of the World, but the basic idea was the same in all cultures. It was the force of life, and she and everyone else present at the Redemption had become, for a brief span of time, one with it.
Only for Haly that span was not so brief. The Song still hummed inside her. This she had in advantage of all others here: she could experience the Song at will now. It made a big difference. Even now, her panic receded as the sacred melody flowed through her and she became calm in the realization that all was one and that the answers, whatever they were, would be there for her when she really needed them.
She sighed and directed her attention to the first thing on the stack: a report on the sewer project from Peliac, who had taught Haly and every other Libyrinth-born child the alphabet. Now her relentless, detail-oriented mind was focused on this most imperative of tasks. Everyone’s roles were changing. Peliac’s report stated that they were finished with the trenches and ready to start the composting pits. Good.
Next was an update on the windmills from Vinnais, who as a traveling Singer soldier-priest had worked with many villagers on similar projects. He and his team could begin construction of the scaffolds as soon as they could find the lumber to build them with. As with all of their building projects, the scarcity of wood was a problem.
A knock on the door interrupted her. “Come in,” she said, setting aside the report.
It was Selene and by the looks of things, she was upset. Jaw set and shoulders rigid, she shut the door behind her and strode to Haly’s desk, bracing her arms against it.
Haly had served as Selene’s clerk prior to the Redemption. The daughter of the queen of Ilysies, Selene had rejected her mother’s life of court politics and come to the Libyrinth to study. It was she who had discovered the location of The Book of the Night and instigated their quest to rescue it. And that had led to Haly’s capture by the Singers, and ultimately the Redemption. So in a way, everything that had or would happen was Selene’s fault.
Haly suppressed a smile. Selene would not find the idea amusing. In fact, she would take it seriously. Selene had been a kind master and she was a good friend now, but she always took things seriously. “What’s wrong?” Haly asked her. “What’s happened?”
“Po came into my chamber uninvited while I was taking a bath.”
“What?” Haly couldn’t believe it. Not Po, of all people.
Selene paced. “Just because I mention that my neck hurts and I’m going to take a bath does not mean I’m inviting male companionship.”
Haly shook her head. She was missing something. “Of course not. Why would it?”
“Exactly!” Selene stabbed a finger at her. “We’re at the Libyrinth. This isn’t Ilysies. And he keeps acting like…like such a male.”
There was no missing the derision in that word. Despite a window and several glow warmers, the light in here wasn’t the best; still, Haly could make out the blush on Selene’s cheeks. She was embarrassed. Interesting. “Selene, sit down. I’ll make some tea.”
Tea and listening were turning out to be her two most helpful administrative tools next to the Song. Making the tea gave her time to think over Selene’s words and gave Selene time to settle down.
“So what did he do, exactly?” asked Haly once they both had a steaming cup of silverleaf twig tea. She leaned on the edge of her desk, letting the cup warm her hands as she watched her friend and former master closely. It still felt a little odd to be the one offering counsel, after so many years of working under Selene’s direction.
Selene pursed her lips and stared into her teacup. “In the traditional Ilysian manner, he displayed his desire for me.”
Song or no, Haly was far from perfect. She couldn’t repress an amused grin. “His desire? You mean he hiked up his robe and—”
Selene stood abruptly and pretended to find great interest in a book on the shelves to the side of Haly’s desk. “He clearly misinterpreted my words.”
“The remark about the bath?” asked Haly.
Selene nodded reluctantly. “In Ilysies, that would have been an invitation,” she admitted.
“Then perhaps it wasn’t really his fault.” Haly tried to make the suggestion gentle.
Selene swung around and glared at her. “I did not invite him! You think I wanted him to debase himself before me in that way? It’s disgusting. I never liked that. I was so relieved when I came here and discovered that things aren’t done that way at the Libyrinth.”
Ah. Now Haly understood. “Po’s behavior is an unwelcome reminder of an aspect of your heritage that’s always been odious to you. No wonder you’re so upset. You don’t want anyone expecting you to act on Ilysian female privilege.”
Selene turned away again, but Haly caught the flash in her eyes and knew she’d struck a chord. “Or to think I did. But it’s not just that. I think he should go back to Ilysies.”
“Because he embarrasses you?”
Selene turned to face her. She’d had time to put up her icy defenses, and her tone now was detached, calm. “For his own sake, and for the good of the community. He’s clearly unhappy here, and disruptive. Always getting into fights, having temper tantrums over the littlest thing.”
“He’s still adjusting.”
“I don’t think he can. He’s a liability.”
Anger colored Haly’s own cheeks, and she breathed with it. She listened to the Song inside her. “If we send Po away because he is too difficult to deal with, we start down a road where sooner or later, we solve another problem by getting rid of somebody else, and before you know it, it’s you, me, Clauda, a million books, and a vegetable patch. That’s not going to do anyone any good. We must begin the way we plan to go on.”
Selene sighed. Haly could see her trying to come up with an argument in
favor of banishing Po. But before she could muster one, someone else knocked on the door. It was Clauda, with a scroll in her hand. “Po and Baris have had another fight,” she said as she entered.
“See?” said Selene.
Haly smiled and put a hand to her forehead. “We were just discussing Po. Want some tea?”
The way Clauda brightened at the sight of Selene made Haly wonder for the umpteenth time why she didn’t make her feelings known. For that matter, Selene’s expression as she greeted Clauda was far from the dour chagrin she’d displayed a moment ago.
The two had barely known each other before they set off to find The Book of the Night. Clauda had been a servant at that time and Selene a Libyrarian. But something had happened between them in Ilysies. Haly still didn’t know what, really. Selene seldom shared personal information and was not the sort of person one asked about such things. Haly and Clauda, however, had been friends all their lives and had always told each other everything. Except in this case.
All Clauda told her was that she and Selene had argued at first, and then they learned to respect each other. Haly knew there was more to it than that. She’d known Clauda all her life. She could tell by the way her friend looked at Selene that she liked her. The fact that she didn’t discuss it with Haly only meant it must be pretty serious.
But it was none of her business. They all had responsibilities now and little time to spend together as friends. “How was your patrol?”
Clauda lifted the scroll in her hand. “I spotted an Ilysian envoy.”
Haly focused on the scroll. “Dear Exalted One,” it began in a rather snotty tone of voice.
“I landed to find out what she was up to,” continued Clauda, breaking Haly’s concentration. She had to focus, these days, to hear the voices of text. It took some getting used to but it was nice not being interrupted all the time.
Clauda said, “She was on her way here with this message from Queen Thela. She seemed pleased enough to hand it over to me and return home. I hovered in the area for a long time, to make sure she was really leaving. I’ll scout again for her first thing in the morning, to be sure she’s not hanging around.” She handed the scroll to Haly.