Fire Dance

by Ilana C. Myer

  She thought of a creature of green fire. Its screams. “Yes?” she prodded him.

  It took him some time to speak, as if he considered. Then, “He holds himself at a distance,” said Eldakar. “I don’t know the reason. But if I had to guess, I think … it’s to protect me.”

  * * *

  THE day of Nitzan, Lin had donned a green brocade gown trimmed with gold that was bestowed on her, with ceremony, by Rihab Bet-Sorr. When the queen saw her in it she applauded. “It is your color,” she said silkily, and Lin had forced an answering smile. She did not think so.

  But it was her diplomatic obligation to wear the finery they gave her, to ride in a palanquin down the mountain and be waited on in a palace that overlooked the Plaza of Falcons. From here they would observe the festivities as they unfolded. Much of this, it seemed, involved waiting, feasting, making conversation—Lin would rather have been conferring about politics and war in the king’s council chamber. Daytime was her weakness, when her vulnerability to dark thoughts was at its peak. If those hours lay vacant, a black wave might override the barriers: each moment falling leaden and with more import than a moment should have, like grains of sand in an hourglass. The nights in the imperial garden were a tonic on which she’d come to depend.

  That day she was unaccompanied by her right-hand man. Ned had sent word, earlier that morning, that he was unwell. Something that had not agreed with him at dinner, he guessed, in his missive urging her not to worry. How well he knew her—that she would worry for him. But it was too busy a morning to pay a visit, and besides, the doctors in the Zahra were among the world’s best. He would keep until evening, at least, when she might steal away to check on him. She could not miss the day’s ceremonies.

  On the balcony, Zahir Alcavar had brought her refreshments; she had tried to enjoy them. Afterward they watched as Tarik Ibn-Mor’s miracle, his inadvertently gruesome gesture of celebration, bloomed in the plaza below.

  Soon she would know if the Second Magician was conspiring against the king. In this moment, Garon Senn was in the Magician’s rooms—if all went according to plan. He’d reported on overtures of friendship towards Tarik which the Magician had reciprocated, albeit with caution. It was doubtful that Tarik entirely trusted him, but like Lin, saw ways in which he might be useful.

  The king’s entourage and courtiers intermingled in polite conversation, refreshments in hand. There were equally polite murmurs of astonishment when the fountain burst forth wine. Among the courtiers, Lin noticed the grave countenance of Bakhor Bar Giora, ambassador for the king of Ramadus. For a moment she even thought he would speak to her, and welcomed the opportunity for what it might reveal about Ramadus’s intentions. But he moved away, and kept to himself for the remainder of the time—though being skilled in his vocation, he did not repel conversation so much as remain subtly adjacent to it. He was, perhaps, learning a great deal as wine vanished in goblets and was replenished by discreet servers. Lin made sure to limit herself to small sips, guarding her own cup from those soliciting, generous pours. Rarely did she trust what she might say—or worse, what Edrien Letrell might say through her—if her floodgates came undone.

  Below whirled the revelers. Women seemed to have been granted a reprieve from the restrictions of modesty, skirts swelling on the air like petals. Music, circular in structure and faintly plaintive, carried to the balcony in the clear heat of the morning.

  “I wait for the night, too.” Zahir Alcavar was at her side. When she didn’t answer, he went on, “I find days such as this—arduous, though many enjoy such things. There will be a parade all the day that will be—well, there’s a reason people journey here to see it. And then the ritual at sunset that marks the high point of the day. But tonight—that is when we have songs, poets reciting, before the king. You may recognize a few from Tamryllin. Some of the best come out—though alas, not Valanir Ocune this time. The first year he will not grace us for the Feast in quite some time.”

  “The Academy occupies him,” said Lin, and allowed herself a sip of wine.

  “So I gather. Last we spoke, he hinted it was a complex situation there, though I know nothing more. So we shall not have the greatest Seer of the age. Perhaps the Court Poet of Eivar shall grace us instead?”

  He did not sound as if he were teasing. “Perhaps, if I’ve drunk enough,” she said. “And what will you be doing?”

  “The First Magician must stand ready to assist in the rituals which Eldakar will perform,” he said. “But tonight, mostly, I will have a chance to join in the celebration myself. I wondered if—if you might, at some point tonight, join me.”

  Her stomach cartwheeled a little. “I’ve joined you every night, to my recollection.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m asking more of you. If you decline, we will go on as before—with nothing changed, I promise you. As friends.”

  She did feel giddy, and did not think it was the height of the balcony. Her eyes stayed on the glass chalice she held: eggshell blue, with a slender stem and bell-like cup.

  “I mean what I said.” He sounded calm. “I think you know—you must know what I think of you. I will take whatever you offer, Lin Amaristoth. Even if that is simply nights of music beside the water.”

  “You are not taking the obvious approach,” she said, with a hard smile. “You’re not telling me I should make good on the time I have. With a man sufficiently skilled as to make it worthwhile.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “In truth, none of us know how much time we have. But if I were to presume yours is best spent with me—that would be truly abhorrent.” He stepped nearer. When he spoke again, it was low, yet she heard him as if there were nothing else around, no noise; as if they were alone. “The Tower caused you pain—what you saw there,” he said. “The last thing I wanted was to give you more pain, and I did. When all I want, really, is to be alone with you for a night and give you all that I can, all that is in me to give, until you forget everything. I admit, I am selfish—I want to forget with you. To be entangled with you until I forget my own name.”

  She reached for words. Said, finally, “But afterward we must return, and remember.”

  His fingertips grazed the inside of her palm, stroked the lines of it as if he knew them. And she felt, with a catch of breath, that he did.

  He said, “If you decide in my favor, Lady Amaristoth, meet me in the courtyard of the miryan flowers, two gong soundings from midnight. I will be there. If not, we will go on as before. Now I must go in and attend my liege. You will be in my thoughts, as you must know by now you often are.”

  I didn’t know, she thought, then wondered if it was true. The sensation of being outside herself, watching events from a distance, still was strong. When he was gone she felt it as an absence. She was alone on the balcony with a crowd of strangers—courtiers and functionaries whose colorful attire blended in the corner of her eye like tinctures on a canvas—when the festivities began.

  A platform draped in gold and crimson had arrived in the plaza, drawing up under the balcony. It was huge, for standing upon it were two dozen trumpeters, their instruments flashing back the sun. Behind these were lutenists, and at last whirling in green and gold, singing girls. Gold scarves flashed in the air. But what caught Lin’s attention in particular was that the wheels of the platform seemed to turn of their own accord. No machinery she knew of could do this.

  None in Majdara were surprised, however. Whether magic or machinery, it must have been tradition. She saw the figure of Zahir below, clad in porphyry and the sash of gold. He sketched a bow towards someone she couldn’t see. Then she saw them: Eldakar, robed in gold trimmed with crimson, stepped forward, Rihab Bet-Sorr on his arm.

  The noise of the crowd stopped suddenly, as if cut off by a slammed door. When Rihab came into sight, Lin saw why. The queen’s dress was of a grandeur unparalleled. Its circumference compelled Eldakar to keep his distance, as if he was the sphere to her star. Even so, their hands were joined, their faces turned towar
ds each other. Together they mounted the platform to stand at the front, as the music swelled a triumphal note. Throughout the plaza, the people of Majdara had prostrated themselves on the ground. With clasped hands the king and queen surveyed their subjects, and the sun that made them shine seemed also to emanate from them.

  And then, with the sluggishness of a mammoth bestirring itself, the platform began to move again. It carried them—king, queen, musicians, and dancers—down the length of the plaza. Marching alongside in gleaming formations, the palace guard, bearing shields with the falcon sigil. Lin guessed these were for more than ceremonial purposes, for it would have taken just a single arrow to change the course of fate. The great platform, borne aloft on a sea of metal, headed for the arch that opened to a main thoroughfare. It was to make the rounds of the city.

  She expected once the platform had vanished down the street, there would be a lull. No one had told her that following after the royal platform would be others, each bearing a new, dazzling display. Never in one place had she seen so many dancers and singers at once. From the world over they had come, but in particular from lands nearby—Eivar, the Islands of Pyllankaria, and the lands to the south. Lin was charmed to see one platform bearing a collection of Academy poets, cradling their harps. From the Islands were tumblers who, even as the platform shifted beneath them, intertwined and spun and tossed each other in elegant harmony. They seemed to fly. So laden with gold chains that each movement—each wrist turn and leap—flashed like a treasure gone lost.

  “No dancers from the north. Not this year.” Bakhor Bar Giora had materialized beside her.

  “Indeed,” said Lin, without betraying her startlement. “This year, it seems, the Jitana do another dance. But what is your opinion?”

  “I think,” the ambassador said, his eyes fixed on the crowds below, “this is a great city. I grieve, truly, for what now seems inevitable.”

  Below was a platform of dancers, their music an unfamiliar lilt, their appearance striking: they were all in white that fluttered like bits of cloud, their skin like black velvet. As they danced, castanets on their wrists and ankles made a rhythmic tap tap tap.

  Lin edged nearer the ambassador, her heart beating fast. “Is your king so vengeful then?” she murmured. “Does he begrudge Eldakar the one error—to such a degree?” One error. Incongruous phrase for the radiant woman who had mounted the platform at Eldakar’s side, hands joined to his.

  A pause. She looked at the ambassador, a man of olive complexion and pale eyes. Melancholy eyes, it seemed to her. “Not at all,” he said. “My king has his conditions—such as would be expected of one who rules an empire. He cannot send troops to this corner of the world—however lovely it is—without the expectation of certain … adjustments to the relationship. And in this, Eldakar has been reluctant.”

  “You’d make Kahishi a tributary. Majdara, a satellite city.”

  He remained patient. “Sometimes, to survive, we must entertain the unthinkable. Sometimes it turns out to not be as terrible a fate as we imagined. Not if it means we preserve what we love.”

  “You’d know something of survival, perhaps,” she said, thinking of Aleira’s anger.

  “Such is my birthright,” he said. He appeared calm. “And yet, I still know pride.”

  The tap tap tap was fading. A new spectacle greeted them: twelve women, each in a different color dress, brandishing fans of dyed feathers that they waved in time to their dance. The fans were encrusted with gems, and matched the headdresses. The dancers had the appearance of preening, fantastical birds.

  “I expect we will meet again, Lady Amaristoth,” said the ambassador. “My hope, in times of peace. If you’ll excuse me.” He bowed and slid into the crowd of courtiers.

  The subsequent hours passed quickly. The day was a series of visions of places she’d never seen, would almost certainly never visit. A glimpse of other possibilities, other worlds, if this one had not granted her a destiny so definitive. So Lin thought as she watched performers from around the world, with music strange and lovely, pass beneath the balcony.

  Yet she was seeing Majdara at the Feast of Nitzan. Had seen the Tower of Glass in its immensity and strangeness, and of course, there were the gardens of the Zahra. These were gifts, albeit small ones against the scope of what unfurled here. Most, even the long-lived, couldn’t hope for more.

  After a time the courtiers retreated to a hall within, where an elaborate meal had been prepared. The king and queen had returned from their rounds of the city, visibly tired but with the exuberant glow of the morning. They sat together at the table’s head and it was as if they’d just been married; they fed each other morsels from one another’s plates, laughed into each other’s eyes. After their fast all that morning, it was a meal of ritual importance, but that didn’t seem on their minds as much as the simple fact of one another. Some might look on in distaste, Lin knew—given the queen’s reputation, and the regrettable error of diplomacy she signified. But Rihab Bet-Sorr in jewels was like a sun to eclipse such mutterings. Which made no sense, was not rational, no doubt in the same way the king’s decision to marry her had not been rational.

  And yet, Lin thought, she of all people could understand the irrational. She had spent hours in a drafty tower, searched the bleakness within herself. Even when it hurt. There was little that made sense about art. So it was, she supposed, with love.

  When the meal had ended, the queen and king retired, each to separate chambers as was mandated by law. The ritual to follow was, Lin was given to understand, the climax of the day. What had once been an explicit rite of fertility was now tamed, sanctified before the God of a Thousand Names. In conducting it for the first time in decades—since his mother’s death—Eldakar Evrayad solidified a pact. That he and his queen were wedded not only to one another but to Kahishi and its mountains, fields, and rivers.

  At day’s end the plaza lay under a yellow haze. The vista of roofs, domes, and towers visible from the balcony was black, foregrounded against a sky like fire. No longer did sunlight glance like a bloodied spear-point from Tarik’s fountain. The mild light at day’s end was absorbed into that great redness, turned it dark and rich. And as the day subsided, so had the mood of the crowd. They were quieter, their energies spent. That, or they sensed the gravity of the final ritual to take place, and what it meant to the king before Alfin.

  The queen emerged first. She lay upon a litter, hands folded at her chest. The litter borne by six armored men. No women in attendance. She looked fragile lying there, gown dripping copious folds to skim the carpeted ground. Covering her face from forehead to chin, a pearl-encrusted mask. To Lin it was an unsettling image—the mask eradicated what made Rihab herself. She was a symbol, lying passive. It reminded Lin of a wedding she’d attended years ago, where it was known the bride was terrified and unwilling. She had been small, that bride, her jaw clenched against tears. Her bridegroom had seemed to loom over her, menacing, the lords and male attendants crowding around for the ceremony like a net to bind her fast. Lin had left that wedding intensely shaken; it was in her mind years later when she made the decision to flee Vassilian. Better to die a free, starved deer than live a trapped one.

  Lin reminded herself: it was wrong to impose her experience of the world on another person. One’s shadow is private. Rihab was no sacrifice on the altar of a forced marriage. Quite the opposite. And although she fulfilled a duty, the ritual would not compromise her dignity. In years past the king would have taken her before all the people, but not anymore. That was now considered barbaric. He would set aside the mask, raise his wife to her feet. The couple would share a cup of wine as a prayer was recited. A metaphor for intimacy, genteel ritual, had replaced its raw actuality.

  A velvet couch strewn with flowers was waiting to receive the queen: the guards laid her upon it. The hush of the plaza deepened, as if the populace, as one, held its breath. Sunset bathed the scene, the gold of the queen’s finery, in red.

  When Eldakar Evray
ad came forward, it was with slow steps. A carpet charted the path for him. He proceeded to the rhythm of a single, steady drumbeat. No music. Though he was some distance away, Lin thought he looked solemn. At least from the stiff way he held himself, the deliberate pace. Time seemed to have slowed. It took an unnervingly long time for him to reach the couch where the queen lay draped in jewels and gold, and masked. Behind him, following at a respectful distance was a priest in black robes, the wide sleeves embroidered with gold stars and silver crescent moons. He held the wine, a chalice of glass.

  When Eldakar reached the couch, he knelt. The drum went on; Lin was breathing in time to that sound, caught in it.

  From a kneeling position, Eldakar bent over his queen. He grasped the edges of the mask in both hands, lifted it. It came away easily. There was a pause. Frozen in position, Eldakar let the mask fall. Its clatter as it hit the cobblestones was startling in the silence. And still he didn’t move.

  Zahir ran to Eldakar’s side. They both began to shake the shoulders of the woman on the couch. She remained prostrate. Finally Eldakar fell back, still on his knees. From the crowd a noise had begun to arise, similar to the roar of the morning. But this time was different. This was not revelry. Its dissonance bespoke confusion, worry. Anger.

  Stricken, Lin grasped the balcony rail and leaned forward in an attempt to see. Her heart thudding. Is she dead?

  Until word reached the balcony, passed from below, from courtier to courtier in shocked murmurs with, perhaps, an undercurrent of pleasure. Rarely had any bit of gossip, any event at court, been this delicious.

  Lin heard, “It’s not the queen.” Then with an uptick of shock, “She’s gone.”

  * * *

  HE’D begun to have conversations in his head: with his father. With Rianna. In the days before the Feast of Nitzan, Ned was freed from most duties. He was still accompanying Lin Amaristoth at meals, delegating tasks to those in his employ, but otherwise allowed to drift. Lin had noticed his haggard appearance, he could only assume, and imagined he would—what? He knew there were attendants waiting, if he but requested it, with massage oils, hot baths, tweezers to manicure his hands. There were perfumes to put him in a stupor of sensual contentment—he supposed; Ned was vaguely suspicious of scents.