“But you had another reason, too,” said Lin with sudden sharpness. She was worn, and in grief, but it hadn’t entirely dulled her wits. “You are involved in forbidden magic. You came to a place where fewer would notice. Isn’t that true as well?”
His expression was strange—as if he might at any moment start to laugh. “I don’t deny it.”
“And then you won the favor of Yusuf Evrayad, and he made you First Magician,” she went on. “Which angered Tarik Ibn-Mor.”
“It was a mistake,” he said. “Tarik’s road to treachery began there, I’d guess, when Yusuf passed him over. And I would have been content to be Second. But I confess, I knew how to charm Yusuf. I knew the right things to say. I was ambitious, Lin, though even now I can’t tell you why. It made no difference to my plans whether I was First or Second. But the decision was out of my hands. Probably what clinched it was my performance on the battlefield. You must understand this about Yusuf Evrayad—what angered him most about Eldakar is that he saw too much of himself in his son. As a boy Yusuf was known as the sensitive one of his family, given to poetry, not to war. Dismissed as useless. After the Evrayad family was murdered, he made it his life’s project to defeat these tendencies in himself. It’s how he raised an army to invade Kahishi, and conquered here. I believe that in his mind, conquest of himself mattered most. To find that his eldest son and heir was like himself as he’d been … it was a bitter blow.
“And then I came to his court. I did not remain in the Tower, not in those early years. There was constant unrest on the borders, north and south. There were rebellions to quell in the provinces. I went into battle with Yusuf’s men. Soon I was leading a battalion. Yusuf liked that. Tarik Ibn-Mor was a good fighter in his prime, but I was the better commander. On the battlefield our rivalry came to a head. It had nothing to do with magic. It had to do with who Yusuf was, what he dreamed of for himself, for his legacy. A kingdom united that would endure. I helped give that to him—he never forgot. Not even later, when he saw that Eldakar and I loved each other.”
“It didn’t bother you, that Eldakar took a queen?”
Zahir looked surprised. “Bother me! The contrary. I would have harmed his standing at court. The king must be married. And, too … Eldakar needs more than is in my power to give. And deserves it. In him I found a reason to be good, for the first time—but also found I wasn’t worthy. You know him, so perhaps you know I mean.” Anger darkened his face. “He did not deserve what happened today. I never believed the rumors about Rihab Bet-Sorr … Now I don’t know what to believe. If she was united in treachery with Tarik, or working her own game. I gave Eldakar a potion to help him sleep. But soon I’ll have to wake him. Inform him, in my official capacity, that we are about to be at war.” As he spoke of present-day concerns, the traces of boyhood that lingered around his eyes fell away. He looked drained, prematurely aged by events and—now she knew—by other things.
“I understand, I think, why you felt you had to detach from him,” she said. “To spare him.” She watched his face. “When you proposed a night with me. What exactly were you thinking?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I was selfish,” he said. “I shouldn’t have approached you, any more than I should have allowed myself to become close to Eldakar. Not with the dark that clings to me. But Lin.” He almost smiled. “I am still glad you know the truth. If someone had to know. I’m glad it’s you.”
* * *
TWO letters, given to Lin Amaristoth the next day. The first delivered by a boy, commissioned on the riverfront for a silver penny. The second she would find later, in Majdara, beside a corpse.
The first was written in a clear, painstaking hand she recognized.
Lin,
By now you know how she escaped. If I return to you I am dead. I may deserve it, but would sooner make amends. I will find her for you. Please tell Rianna that I am sorry.
She has the ibis. Had I known, I’d never have helped her. I swear to that, for what it’s worth. I can only guess what it means—what she is up to. I will do my best to find out more.
If there is any way to make it up to you—all of you—I mean to try.
—N.
The second letter was in the bookshop of Aleira Suzehn. News of the sack of Almyria by a magical force, and impending war, had caused a panic in the streets of the capital. What often happened at such times happened then: a massacre in the Galician quarter—and Galician-owned businesses as well.
When Lin arrived, Aleira’s bookshop was in disarray. Books and papers made cascades on the floor where they’d been thrown. In the back room where the women had met in secret was a corpse flung over a chair: a man with a dagger pressed so deep in his chest it might have been an ornamental pin. The blood around it was dried black.
In a compartment of the merchant’s desk Lin found a sealed letter with Seer scrawled on it. It had stains on it, dark brown. She tore it open.
I had to kill a man of precious Alfinian blood, so must go to ground. Once more the city bestirs itself against Galicians.
I’ve examined the prophecy. What I’ve found is too grave to tell by letter, but I’m left no alternative.
The shadow comes from the north … yes. But look to your own, Seer. It comes from the north and west. Your land. You’d best warn Valanir Ocune. Whoever these people are, they are not his friends.
I wish you luck and health, Court Poet.
Aleira.
CHAPTER
20
“HE’S dead?”
A voice out of darkness. Winds were keening outside the tower; within, the air was damp and smelled of rain.
A smile in torchlight. A man, pacing out of the shadows, his broad shoulders appearing first. Hair like a torch as well, an unstable brightness as he slid in and out of shadow. “My contact handled it. It is unfortunate, of course. But Valanir would never have ceased to be a threat.”
“Who is this contact?” The figure doing the asking came into focus, though was somehow indistinct. Compared to the other man, he gave the impression of being weedy, of little consequence. This was true despite that he wore the robes of High Master.
Elissan Diar shook his head. “What matters is this: with Almyria in ruins, Eldakar’s forces diverted north, and his court weak from within, our goal is near.”
“Elissan,” said the High Master. Sounding desperate to uphold authority. “I understand why you assert our power. That the sacrifice of Manaia—regrettable as it was—perhaps gives us strength. But this talk of Kahishi, of all places … no one has ever tried to extend our influence so far. The court of Majdara is an ally.” He licked his lips. “What do you play at here?”
The light that fell on Archmaster Diar’s face sharpened his cheekbones to knifepoints. He flashed a grin. Over his shoulder called, “Etherell Lyr. Will you come out, please?”
A new voice now. This one light, hinting at music. “At your service, my lord Diar.”
Though not so broad as Elissan Diar, Etherell similarly gleamed in the half-light as he came forward. A bit of a swagger in his step. Elissan clapped his shoulder. “Boy,” he said. “I have a mind to appoint you my second-in-command. Maric Antrell was, alas, not quite so dependable as I’d hoped. Whereas you…” He tilted his head. A piercing look into Etherell’s eyes, which were serenely unwavering. “My sense is you possess talents for discretion. And perhaps … others, as well.”
Etherell returned the Archmaster’s grin. As if they two shared a secret. He bowed. “It would be an honor, my lord Archmaster,” he said. “What is our mission?”
Elissan Diar turned back again to the High Master. Still with that smile. “Marten Lian, my old friend,” he said. “How would you like to rule in Tamryllin?”
* * *
IN a shaft of sunlight they leaned together: bright hair and eyes a match. Their eyes only for one another. A scroll spread on the desk before them. Her hair fell across the page. She said, wonderingly, “The reign of Seers. Can it be?”
He
laced his fingers through those of his daughter. Together they did a dance, elegant and brief, before he let go her hand. “You know you were born to rule. It won’t be long now, love.”
Words that sounded again, an echo, after the chamber had faded and left blackness behind.
It won’t be long.
* * *
BLACKNESS became his eyes, windows on the world’s end. Just to look into them, the nothingness they contained, made her terrified. His hands gripping hers. “Do you accept it?”
Fear stoppered her throat; this time, she knew what would come. This time, when she fell, she knew there would be an end, eventually, to the terror; but no end, at least not as yet, to the falling.
* * *
JULIEN gasped. Air was scarce. She flailed as if drowning. But when she opened her eyes she saw a night sky and superimposed over that, a face; dark eyes that looked searchingly into hers.
She lay gasping, filling her lungs. Doing so again. And again. After a time, the act became less desperate; gradually, with more time, it steadied her. So did looking into eyes she knew, which above all showed concern.
“Give me a sign, if you’re awake and can see me,” said Dorn. “Gods know, I’m tired of being alone here.”
* * *
THEY were in a place where winds swept over bent grasses. Lumpen rocks tumbled across a landscape similarly tumbled, the earth fixed in waves like a storm-tossed sea. From their perch on an outcropping they could see patches of fir trees, or a stunted birch in the shape of a crone, wrought by wind. There were few trees. A glister, here and there, of quick streams threading the stones. Coming from below, a distant thundering. Julien guessed that farther down the slope ran a waterfall.
They went without a fire. Dorn, having grown up in a town, was unacquainted with such skills. Julien showed him how to create a spark from sticks, and to gather what mushrooms and berries they could scrounge. She knew which were safe, and which poison. It was a branch of knowledge that had interested her even when there had been no need. She’d had illuminated books of botany, taken long walks in the fields and along the downs about her home. That experience came now to their aid. They would be hungry, she thought; but though she’d glimpsed, farther afield, the occasional scurrying animal, neither of them was a hunter, nor even equipped. At least they would have cold, clean water.
She avoided thinking of what would happen if they were here for long. Forever? Dorn seemed to avoid this thought as well. She supposed they would strike out and see if they could find habitation. If there were people at all in this place.
The first night, chilled under the stars, they sat back-to-back for warmth. He said, “I think you saved me. My memory is … I was headed for blackness. A pit that had opened for me. I don’t know if it was death. My sense was … it might have been like death, but worse. You pulled me from the brink. I felt as if I were suspended, then brought somewhere else. Brought here.”
She tried to laugh. “I hope it was a kindness.”
He shrugged, or at least it felt to her as if he did. That, or a shiver. “Well,” he said. “I’m not dead.”
Soon Julien would tell what she had seen and heard before she’d joined him here. Not immediately. She was finding it difficult to speak. Pieces of her life lay around her as if in tatters; to speak would be to assemble them into something, or to try. Julien Imara didn’t yet know what these tatters would make. She did not even know—especially when the scorching around her eye reasserted itself—who or what she was.
Morning found them dew-soaked and tired. Julien had slept only a little. The prospect of not changing clothes did not sit well with her, either. She thought longingly of the dry, soft contents of the chest by her bed at the Academy. Dresses and underthings sewn by her sister.
Dorn gave voice to her thoughts. “Magic is all I feared it was,” he said as he wolfed his share of gooseberries. “A gods-damned inconvenience.”
Whether or not she’d ever see her sister again was a question she hardly allowed herself to acknowledge; it lay deeper than thought. But at the moment she could divert herself with other concerns. Or at least, with a purpose.
“I think … we head for the waterfall,” she said. “If I’m quiet … I mean, quiet inside … almost I can hear the mark. Telling me to do things.”
“Excellent,” he said. “So it’s good for something.”
They were clambering down the slope, boots sliding in the dew-wet grass. Grey brambles crept where trees failed to grow, interspersed with piles of heather. Julien tried to keep to the flatter rocks, which were not as slippery as the grass. “Don’t you want to be a Seer?” she asked. “I thought that’s what everyone wants, in the Academy.”
“Yes, well,” he said. “I always had trouble wanting what I am meant to. No … my plan was to go away. Become a wanderer, like Lacarne. Not bother with the Seer business, or any enchantments.”
“I also like Lacarne,” she said. Haltingly, as if in confession. “I … I hadn’t thought much about becoming a Seer. I didn’t really think it was possible. For me. Though there is the Court Poet…”
“Yes,” he said. He’d stopped, and was looking out into the distance. Julien followed his eyes. Beyond the sea of grasses and rocks was nothing but sky. The sun blazed pale behind dusky clouds of windswept shape. A wind tumbled to them, damp and smelling of grasses. Dorn said, “I saw her once. Before she was Court Poet, when she came to the Academy with Darien Aldemoor. Only a glimpse, but I never forgot. There was something about her that drew the eye. Or mine.”
Julien came up beside him. He appeared lost in thought—but perhaps, she thought, he was still in shock from all that had happened. She imagined she probably was, too. “Dorn,” she said. “Before I came here, I went through … I saw some things. Things you should know.”
His smile was wry. Arms waved wide, as if in surrender. “Go on.”
First she gave him a summary—what Elissan Diar had done and would do. But when she saw his face, realized she must explain. She described the scene in the tower, which she recalled in detail as if it were painted before her eyes. When she reached the part about Etherell Lyr becoming Elissan’s second-in-command, she looked away from Dorn as if to give him space. But he said, “He told me he was a spy … this could be part of it. Couldn’t it?”
“I … don’t know.” In her mind’s eye she saw Etherell’s careless grin. More: she remembered him with blood on his face and hands. “He was spying for Valanir Ocune. Who is…”
“Dead, yes. And you’re saying this, too, was the work of Elissan.”
“Someone working with him in Kahishi. Elissan seeks to undermine their court, as if that way the Academy masters might rule in Tamryllin. I don’t understand it…”
Dorn shook his head; the hair blew back from his face. “I think I might. Kahishi is our closest ally. If they crumble, Tamryllin is left open. Defenseless, practically.” He sighed. “Do you see? This is what it comes to, when poets have power. It ought never to have happened.”
She hung her head. The tale of Darien and Lin Amaristoth and the Otherworld … it shone for her, much as the Silver Branch shone in the Hall of Harps. Something to which Valanir Ocune had dedicated his life, and now she bore his mark.
Dorn was looking at her. She was reminded, in that moment, of the first time she’d noticed him: tall, projecting dignity, as he rose to sing a lament for Archmaster Myre. His song following her into dreams. “I forgot I was speaking to someone with ideals,” he said. “I wouldn’t have you lose that, Julien. Not on my account.”
Julien didn’t know what to say to that. She had never thought of herself that way. She wasn’t even sure what it meant. I’m only fifteen, she wanted to say. This is all new, for me. I shouldn’t be a Seer.
That last she knew was true. If Sendara Diar could see her now, she would be contemptuous. She would point out, rightly, that Julien had done nothing to earn the mark above her eye. And knew nothing of what it meant or could do.
Ther
e was so much she needed to know. She knew now that she’d hoped, above all, that Valanir would guide her. Instead he’d given her something that she carried like a weight of stone around her neck. Though it was the only thing, now, to give her purpose.
For the rest of the day she guided Dorn, and he followed, as they headed down to the waterfall. Its thunder a backdrop to their climb. Once a flock of terns arced overhead, shadows fleeting on the grass. It made her wonder what manner of river or sea might be nearby. “Where do you think we are?”
He smiled with half his mouth. “Where do you think those boys went … the ones who vanished by the oak tree?”
She asked no more questions.
They felt the waterfall before they saw it: mist bathed their faces and tongues and made their clothes damp. The smell carried to them by the wind was fresh and green, like moss. When they came to it, finally, they saw the falls were like a wall of glass plunging into foam and green. The rocks here were slick, treacherous; Julien fitted her feet with care amid their ridges and small plateaus. There was a sound she thought she could hear through the roar of the falls, an undercurrent. She stopped in place, and listened. Watched as afternoon sunlight braided gold in the streams of the waterfall.
“What is it?” Dorn said.
She turned, felt herself smile. Reached out her hand. “Come.”
* * *
DRAMATIC irony was something you thought about at times, if you were a poet. It was one of the instruments in storytelling that poets of the current age enjoyed, now that an age of heroes was long past. Some blamed Darien Aldemoor and Marlen Humbreleigh for this; influential even in the short time they’d had, and so young. They’d made people want to see stories twisted in sardonic ways.
It was not a tool that Dorn was accustomed to employ. He thought its popularity came of a simple truth: it was easier to mock a hero than to act as one. Yet he struggled with writing about straightforward heroes, for despite himself he had an unmerciful eye for the flaws and foibles even in those he admired; but neither could he so gleefully undercut their virtue as had become the fashion. In the Academy he’d felt sheltered from fashions and trends, in truth; the remoteness of the Isle, and within it, of the Tower, had that effect. It was one of the things he’d valued most about his time there, even as it also chafed, hemmed him in.
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