by Jim Grimsley
“Here’s a pitcher of water already,” she said, touching the metal rim. On a table by the window, a fine glass sat neatly on it.
“Then I’ll leave you be for a while.” He turned, but paused. “We’ll speak this evening, once you’ve rested.”
“I would appreciate that very much.”
He looked at her. He might have been some other kind of creature altogether, his face was so strange at that moment, so devoid of feeling. He nodded, and vanished.
When she was alone she collapsed in a seat by the window, trembling, nursing a glass of water and watching the movement of clouds. For a while she was alone. She wondered whether she even dared think, whether he was listening to her thoughts. The clouds changed from mauve to bronze and scarlet as the day ebbed. She had never seen sunlight quite this color before and the artifact disquieted her. Those mountains had a wild look, as if they were hungry, as if they would love to tear away the thin veil of color that was the sky.
Arvith arrived with their luggage, a couple of Prin with him. Neither wore the outer, more colorful robe to which Jedda had become accustomed but only the inner shift, even though the air in the house was brisk and the extra warmth might have been handy. Arvith met her eye briefly, assessed her, and went back to his tasks. He opened the first of the trunks and began to unpack. Once the luggage was unloaded, his helpers withdrew.
“So,” Jedda used a hand to indicate the work he was doing, “it appears that you at least believe we’ll be here for long enough to make this worthwhile.”
He stopped, face more or less impassive. “Maybe I’m hoping, more than anything else.”
She paced to the window, drew more water into the glass. “You trust him?”
“Yes. With anything.” He managed to speak fervently without meeting her eye or hesitating in his work. “Which is not to say you will. He has his ways, like anybody.”
“You’ve known him for a long time?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
He looked at her, waited. “Very long.”
“Don’t be coy.”
“I’m not. The kind of work I’ve done makes it rather impossible to say exactly how long it’s been, but let’s just say two or three of your lifetimes and let it go at that.”
“Malin knows this?”
“Yes. Knows I work for her uncle, you mean. Yes. Knows you’re here, now? No. She knows absolutely nothing about this. You will tell her all about it when you go back, if you feel the need.”
His manner of speaking let her know that Malin had something to do with all this, however. She wondered whether he was aware he had communicated that much, whether he had intended to do so. If she let herself, she could fall to pieces, see conspiracies everywhere. The prospect struck her as somewhat tedious, including her reaction of a few moments before. Why not take Arvith at his word, after all? “Did you bring me here to do me some kind of harm?” she asked.
“Himself brought you here to talk. Because what’s about to happen to you there, in that car outside Arroth, will be very confusing and possibly harmful to a large number of people, including you.” He was standing motionless, thick fingers on the lid of the trunk. “That’s what I can tell you that I know. The rest is faith.”
“Faith?”
“In himself, I mean. You’ll understand, I hope. Once you’ve talked to him.”
“He says I can stay as long as I like.” She leaned onto the wide stone ledge at the windows. “Suppose I decide to stay here for a while.” She turned to him, smiling in a way that was openly teasing.
“What if you do? You’ll be welcome, I’m sure.”
13
Arvith left her alone to rest and she did lie down for a while, closing her eyes, a sharp breeze biting through the window she opened. She curled in the wrap of a comforter that weighed no more than feathers but kept her warm, as if her body were the soft part of an egg. She lay on her side watching the wind string clouds along the sharp, purpled peaks to the west.
Later she rose, washed her face in the basin of cold water, explored her apartment a bit. The plumbing was a bit primitive, a stone seat and dark hole that dropped down too far to think about. No smell of any sort, perfectly clean, but odd, to think of relieving herself on cold stone. A balcony on the side of the tower that faced the garden, where she stood looking over the tops of trees, the distinctly landscaped look of the grounds, twilight spreading slowly over the immense stone mansion around her. She could see pots of fire spring to life along the walls, could see the mist rising over the valley between the three hills. Rising high and shining, the smooth-sided tower with its supple lines of colored stone drew her eye, over and over. Was she wrong in thinking this tower was taller than any of the others she had seen, including the one she glimpsed before the storm in Arroth?
Along its sheer sides she saw the same points of light as glinted from Jessex’s skin. She could not see the top, except the light of it, through a layer of low cloud. But from it poured an energy that she could feel, a thrum of expectation, and that reminded her of the moments when Jessex—Irion—had appeared distracted during the ride and the conversation.
She was about to learn something big; the certainty brought a taste of panic to her mouth, a metallic taste, and she wanted something to drink, or one of Karsa’s companion’s leaves to chew. Knowledge could be a very bad thing, at times. But here she was.
Arvith brought her a glass, handed it to her. “Brandy from Drii,” he said. “Sometimes they mix in a touch of sedative.”
“This time?”
“Unless the vendor lied.”
“I could use it, unless it’s going to knock me out.”
He shook his head. “Nothing of the kind. Your great grandfather could drink it.” A phrase that had a peculiar rhythm, in Erejhen, maybe a country expression.
“I don’t know who my great grandfather was, it’s entirely possible I never had one,” she said.
“More’s the pity.” He had a glass, too, and sat in the nearest chair, watching the window with her. “May I? Would you prefer to be left to your thoughts?”
“My thoughts aren’t doing me much good at the moment, they don’t have much to go on.”
“That will change.”
“Yes, unfortunately, I suppose it will.”
He gave a short laugh, sipped from his glass. His face took on the red tones of the clouds outside, sunset beyond the mountains. “You’re a very curious person.”
“I’m not terribly given to abductions, especially when there are creatures called magicians as part of the equation.”
This time his laughter was more hearty and went on longer. “Spoken like a true Erejhen. You’re learning their cynicism quite naturally.”
“Really, Arvith, I have the feeling he’s brought me here to tell me something I don’t want to know.”
“He’s certainly brought you here to tell you something. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid of any message that would come from him that’s just for me.”
“Why?”
“I have a nice, settled life. I travel here, I study your language, I trade in your textiles, I explore your world, I go home, I fight with my daughters. He’s about to upset all that. He’s about to single me out for something.”
“Congratulations.”
“You don’t understand. Nothing could possibly be worse than that.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “For you and for your people, you mean.”
“We’re terrified of being singled out for anything at all.”
He sighed. “Then this will be difficult for you.”
“Do you know what he’s going to say?”
“Pieces of it, yes.” He shook his head. “But I can’t—”
“I would never allow you to tell me anyway. Where I come from, a person puts off curiosity, puts it out of the way.”
“It appears to me you have done the opposite.”
“What?”
�
��You and your friend Opit. The two of you. He was part of a conspiracy, of course, and you never knew that; but you, look at you. You’ve embraced your curiosity about us. You’ve explored our country and people. You’ve learned more about us than many of the people who were assigned by your ministries to study us.”
“I’ve learned too much, apparently.”
“Does it really feel like that to you?”
She felt helplessness, a touch of fear again. “It’s part of my makeup. I’d never have gone so far in exploring if I’d known I was the only one, or even one of a handful, who were doing the same thing. That’s the kind of behavior that leads to being singled out, to being marked. I don’t have ambitions that way. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a Hormling trying to be unusual. But singular?” She shivered. “I’d have stopped well short of this point in my study of your language, for instance, if I’d known the knowledge would land me here.”
“You really think you would have?” He was watching her with the most annoying, smug expression.
“Yes. Stop looking at me like that.”
He laughed again. “I’ll leave you to your gloomy thoughts, if you don’t mind, in that case. I’ll check with himself about his plans for the evening.”
When he was gone she lay down on the bed, closed her eyes for a while. The wine had made her pleasantly drowsy, the feeling with its comfortable edge that came from some other additive, reminding her of the stat in the way it changed her mood. It had been pleasant to make Arvith laugh, to see the change in his fleshy features. Outside the day grew darker, light seeping out of the world. She could no longer see the setting sun from where she lay, but its slanted light swept across the room in bars of warm red and amber. She should be on her feet getting ready for dinner, changing into clothing better suited to a meal with a demigod. The thought made her laugh. She drifted to sleep for a few moments, woke with a start to see Arvith at the fireplace across the room, laying logs carefully into a stack. He caught Jedda’s eye and said, “The wood’s for later, if you need it. All you have to do is touch fire to it and it will take. Have you ever tended a fire?”
“A couple of times, during trade trips. I’m not much of a camper or an outdoors person.”
He raised a brow. “We’re not outdoors. Oh, well. You’ll learn, I suppose. Just remember that a fire needs room to breathe or it won’t burn.”
“It’s spring, Arvith, do you really think I’ll need it?”
“We’re pretty far north.”
“Maybe I’ll ask our host to show me a map. I’ve never seen one that showed this part of the country.”
Arvith was shoving kindling carefully into strategic parts of the wooden structure. “Our host might actually agree to show you one. Of the whole country, I mean, not just the part you already know about. He’s invited you to his apartments, you may as well start to get ready.”
“Is it far?”
“It’s a bit of a walk. Here’s another word for you, his bit of the house is called Prashank.” He wrote it down and repeated it for her.
“I don’t hear the name roots.”
He said it another way, and she heard it then. “The Needle. He lives in the high tower?”
“No. A smaller tower. The Tervan built it for him. They’d as like to tear it down now, I expect.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re angry with him. With all of us. Maybe that’s part of what you’ll hear about tonight. Better get moving, like I said. No need for any fancy clothes, but something fresh would be nice.”
She’d taken off her shoes, the stone floor cold to her feet. Arvith had unpacked her clothes into a large wardrobe that smelled of the oil used to polish its dark wood. She picked out a tunic she’d bought in Evess on her last trip, a pair of leggings, the soft leather belt with the oval buckle of heavy bronze. She looked like a country woman in the Evess market. She stared at herself for a moment, assessing her body, her face, which she still found to be pretty at times when she needed confidence, like now. Dark eyes, dark brows, clear skin with hardly a wrinkle, hair kept short and in need of brushing. She put a bit of color on her lips, a fashionable pale blue that gave her mouth a silvery tint. She touched a bit of kohl to her eyes.
“You look quite lovely,” Arvith said, “but he’s not your type, I don’t think.”
“That’s enough of your sense of humor, if you don’t mind.”
“He was the King’s lover. For years.”
“Yes. I know. And most of the time I don’t like boys. Besides, he’s much too old for me. There.” She presented herself. “Will I do, for a dinner guest?”
“You look quite handsome.”
“That’s insulting, Arvith.”
He shrugged. She pulled on her boots.
The climb down that first narrow, twisting flight of stairs was a bit harrowing, since there was no safety rail. Arvith kept a hand on the deep grooves between the stones, steadying himself that way. The steps were polished smooth at the center, worn away at the middle. How much traffic would it take to wear away stone like that? How long had this house stood here? In real years?
Outdoors in the garden she was hit with waves of scent, the caress of a breeze, a drift of music from deeper into the garden. Arvith led her through the plantings and flowering trees past the group of people who were sharing music, food, and drink on a group of stone tables. Men and women of all types, and creatures she had only seen once or twice before, squat and lumpish, with heads that hardly rose above their shoulders. She studied them, a pair, standing under the trees with the rest, gray-skinned, with long heavy arms that reached nearly to the ground. Tervan folk. More of them on the path ahead, dressed in loose-fitting blouses and shorts, their skin the color of stone.
“You’ve seen the Smith folk before?” Arvith asked.
“Only a couple of times. In Charnos, in the market.”
“These are a particular type of Tervan; there are others. According to himself, they can change their shape. They like to visit Charnos.” Arvith was pulling at the long lobe of one of his ears, where he wore a simple gold earring. “They built it. The old city, anyway, inside the walls.”
“Where are they from?”
“Farther north. We call them the Smiths, because they taught us metalwork.” He smiled. “Taught the Erejhen metalwork, I mean. Sometimes I get my ‘we’ mixed up.”
“How many other peoples are there? That we don’t see often in the south?”
He said a few names and she made him spell them. Svyssn and Untherverthen. “There are perhaps others deeper into the mountains.”
“What’s on the other side of the mountains?”
“The land of the dead,” he said, with a straight face.
“Come on, Arvith. I’m being nice about my abduction. You could at least answer my questions.”
“There’s nothing beyond the mountains. You already know that, you and your people. Our world is not round, like yours, and when the mountains stop, there is nothing else.”
This was more than she had ever heard before. “But what you said was that there’s the land of the dead beyond the mountains.”
“That’s our tradition. Across the mountains is Zan, the land of the dead.”
The garden was ending, and Arvith was leading her across a terrace, guarded by men and women in a kind of uniform, trousers of a metallic thread, and neatly cut tunics with buttons up the front. She was studying them closely as Arvith led her past them, receiving a kind of salute as he did. A few steps past and Arvith said, “We have an army, too, you know.”
“Actually quite a nice one. Your army may have saved my life.” She told him the story of the last hours at the Hormling embassy, after the defeat of the ships.
He reacted in the driest way, as they climbed along one of the curtain walls, the last embers of day lingering in the gaps between the peaks in the distance. “I suppose such things actually happen among your people,” he said.
“Your histor
y is fairly bloody, too, from what I’ve heard.”
“My Anin history is bloody, yes, but not from wars we started.”
“Your people came here from across the sea, is that right? You’re descended from us, in some way. From the Hormling.”
He looked at her. A flickering of something, when he did. A thought he wanted to suppress. “That’s the story.”
“And the Erejhen fought you.”
“Their version of events is different from ours, which will hardly surprise you. Our story is that we were slaughtered, enslaved, bred for a while. Some of us escaped to our own city, Charnos. Others were captive for generations.” His expression had gone grim. “We look different, I suppose, and it’s a difference that won’t go away, since we can’t breed with them.”
They gave up talking when the walk began to require all their breath. The climb carried them steeply up as the wall followed the rise of the hill, and Jedda and Arvith stopped when they were winded, at about the same moment, looking one another in the eye. “That’s Needle,” he said, and she saw it silhouetted against the larger mass of the tower behind it. Perhaps the choice of view was not accidental; he appeared pleased with her reaction. “He doesn’t mind the walk himself of course but all his people complain about it.”
“Exertion is good for the soul,” Jedda said.
“Is that a saying where you come from?”
She shook her head. “Likely it is. Where I come from, there are more religions than there are trees in your forest out there. So it’s likely a precept for one of them.”
“You’re an odd flavor,” he said.
She cocked her head at him, surprised.
“Time to climb again,” he said.
She gathered her legs beneath her and started upward. She was looking eastward, over the walls of the house beyond the three hills to the undulating of a forest toward the horizon, clouds shimmering, and a sight followed that froze her in place. Two moons were rising, a red and a white, ghosts hanging beyond reach of the clouds. The white moon was in crescent phase, and appeared to the be the moon it ought to be, the one that circled Senal though it was in the sky at the wrong time of evening. Was that the right phase? She was a seasoned traveler but had never paid much attention to the moon on either side of the Twil Gate.