ZYGRADON

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "Flowers from the indoor gardens in winter don't smell as nice as flowers that grow outside," Mrillis murmured. He squeezed Ceera's hand. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to..." He shrugged, not quite sure what he wanted.

  "You were showing off, a little bit. But you wanted to entertain her and share your treasures, and that comes from a generous heart," Le'esha said. "Ceera, do you understand that you are touching on things far beyond your age?"

  "The other girls say I'm too smart already, and I always try to be your favorite," Ceera said with a little shrug. She hunched her shoulders and gazed at her hands, clasped around Mrillis'.

  "Little Star..." The Queen of Snows reached to cup the girl's face now, and tipped her head up so she could look into her eyes. "Just as Mrillis is the son I never bore, you are my daughter. You are more mature, more alert, more kind-hearted. Sometimes I wonder if a very old soul was put into your very young body, sent back by the Estall to do some great and glorious, perhaps dangerous, necessary work. It frightens me and...I must share a secret with you, children. I think you can protect it, young as you are.

  "Ceera, I put a heavy burden on your shoulders. Do not be proud, but be afraid. Be humble. On the day you were born, I saw that you would grow up to be my heir."

  Le'esha's lips twitched when the girl gasped. Mrillis felt Ceera's pulse leap under his fingers where he clasped her hand. He thought about all the other girls growing up in the Stronghold who dreamed of the honor of being the next Queen of Snows. He had watched Le'esha sitting in council, working over record books, judging the disputes brought to her, dispensing advice, sending medicine and food and workers to those who asked for help. He had seen her weep over warriors and couriers in her service, who died on missions she gave them.

  He saw only duty, weariness, pain and sorrow, not the glamour and power that others saw. He thought he understood why Le'esha looked so somber when she told Ceera she had been chosen--and why it was amusing that the child should be so shocked. Any other girl would be crowing with delight, dancing on the walls at the news. Did Ceera understand all the sad, painful parts of being Queen of Snows, or did she only sense it?

  It struck him that if Ceera would become the next Queen of Snows, then Le'esha wouldn't live forever, guiding and teaching them.

  "Mrillis," the woman continued, breaking him out of the painful blow of that realization. "I charge you to guide and guard Ceera. Protect her. Teach her. Rebuke her when she strays into arrogance and selfishness. Can you do that?"

  "I'll try, Lady," he whispered.

  "You understand there is more work than leisure, more sadness than feasting, more service than power, in being Queen of Snows. You have years of hard work ahead of you, Ceera, before you are ready to even begin to help me, much less sit in my chair. Are you willing to obey and serve me, and Lygroes, and the Estall?"

  "You'll be my teacher?" Ceera asked, after many long moments of deep thought, when she looked first at Le'esha, then at Mrillis, then back to the woman.

  "Yes." Le'esha laughed when Ceera leaped off the bed and scrambled up onto her lap. Woman and child hugged.

  Mrillis felt strangely left out. He slid off the bed and took one step closer to Le'esha's chair. The other boys on Wynystrys would tell him he was too old to want a hug, and certainly too old to feel a little jealous of a child. Especially a girl. But he did.

  He sensed he had done several foolish, arrogant things today. Mrillis breathed a silent prayer to the Estall, as Le'esha and Breylon told him to always do, and asked for help in making things right again.

  "Mrillis." Le'esha settled Ceera on her lap and reached out a hand to the boy. "You have changed Ceera's life today, just as I have by revealing her destiny ahead of its proper time. We have both caused a diversion in the stream of her life, so we are now both responsible for ensuring this change brings only good, both to her and to the land. Consider that the more power you carry, the larger effect you have on the world, and the greater the responsibility to make wise and good decisions. Sometimes painful ones. The higher you stand, the greater the fall and punishment when you choose badly and harm others."

  "I'll always try to only do good and help others," Mrillis vowed.

  "If only it were that simple." She tucked Ceera's head under her chin and stroked the child's long hair where it streamed down the back of her shift. "Sometimes, we must do what seems like harm to bring greater good. Sometimes, a life must be sacrificed in order to save many lives. You will need to remember that in the future. No matter how much it hurts, always do what will bring the greatest good."

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Well, Little Star, are you all well now?" Graddon's hearty greeting startled both children.

  Mrillis recovered first, leaping to his feet and grinning widely as the seer stepped into Le'esha's office. The two children spent their afternoons in Le'esha's office, reading scrolls and playing quiet games to conserve Ceera's strength as she regained her health. Mrillis avoided Nainan, because he still grew angry every time he thought about what Endor's sister had done.

  "Do you have more lessons for us?" Ceera asked. She put aside the silver wires she had been stringing with beads of semi-precious stones, to braid into rings and bracelets.

  "Lessons, yes, but I think you'll like them. We will learn to make more pretty things together, yes?" The big bald man got down on his knees and studied the project in her hand. "You know the feel of metal in your skin, the smell of it when it is hot and pliant. And... you are learning the feeling of power in the air and ground, now. Very good." He nodded.

  "Did you see this, sir?" Mrillis asked. He glanced over his shoulder toward the door. As he expected, Le'esha had arrived a few steps behind Graddon.

  She hadn't warned the children of their approaching visitor, and Mrillis wondered if she hadn't known, or if Graddon had been able to hide himself from her foresight. But if he could, why would he do it?

  That evening, after Ceera had gone to bed, Mrillis had his chance to ask. He and Le'esha and Graddon were alone in the common room. The questions kept turning around in his head until they became an itch he had to satisfy. He wasn't sure what bothered him more: that someone had the power to hide from the Queen of Snows, or that they wanted or needed to do it at all.

  "Master Graddon, can you hide so my Lady can't see you?"

  "What?" Le'esha tipped her head to one side and frowned, as if she couldn't believe what the boy had said.

  "But I don't understand why you would do it. If you could. Can you?"

  Graddon's mouth dropped open at the boy's questions. He shook his head and walked away, across the nearly empty common room to the brazier full of cherry-red coals, turned and stared at Mrillis and scratched his head. Then he came back and stood, big fists jammed into his hips, frowning down at the boy.

  Le'esha had been as still as stone all this time. Finally, a grin brightened her face and she tugged on Graddon's sleeve to get him to sit again.

  "I warned you, did I not?" she said.

  "You did," the big man rumbled. "Have you trained him to look inside a man's thoughts and disinter his fears?"

  "We are training him to think deeply and see clearly. A far rarer talent, I think." She slid her arm around Mrillis' shoulders. "Yes, my lad, Graddon hid his movements. But not from me, specifically. The Nameless One is his enemy."

  "Why?"

  "My visions." Graddon dropped down on the bench they shared. He sighed and closed his eyes and his broad shoulders slumped. "I am nearly two centuries old, boy. I have been helping the battle against the Nameless One since he turned to blood magic. I know more about him than he knows about himself--much good it has done us until recently. My scrolls hold hundreds of visions, many of which have yet to be fulfilled. The Nameless One fears they deal with him, his downfall, or a clue to his final, permanent defeat."

  "He wants to know what they say, so he can prevent them?" Mrillis guessed.

  "He wants to pervert them to serve his return to power," the seer growled,
but with only half the energy the boy had heard on other occasions. "What frightens me more is that he could try to imprison me, bend me to serve his will, in an attempt to not only stop the future I have seen but reshape it to serve him. That is worse than killing me, because yes, we can change small things, reshape small events in our future by what we do now. I would much rather he tried to kill me."

  "He can't kill you. We won't let him!" Mrillis leaped to his feet and grasped Le'esha's hand. "Will we, Lady?"

  "Do not fear, lad," Graddon said, taking hold of Mrillis' other hand before Le'esha could respond. "When you have lived so long in the Estall's service, death loses its cold bitterness. There are regrets, yes, for those I will leave behind, but I am weary. I want to rest. Soon, I will rest. I know that, but I do not know whether it will be in death, or a long sleep, to wait until I am needed once more. Only the Estall knows."

  "But there's so much you still have to teach me. Teach us. You have to teach Ceera to make the bowl." Mrillis caught his breath at the glance that passed between Graddon and Le'esha. The Queen of Snows shrugged and a crooked smile flicked across her face.

  "This is how the Estall has made him," was all she said.

  "A bowl, eh?" the seer said with a harrumph like a grumpy old man. "What kind of bowl? Made of what? How big? What designs on it?"

  "A bowl made of stars," Mrillis half-whispered. He shivered, chilled as if ice filled his stomach, though he stood close to the brazier that spilled heat across the room. "I had a dream. There was a sword in a bowl made of stars. Ceera held the bowl. She offered me the sword and I gave it to a man."

  "What did he look like?"

  "He stood in the shadows. I didn't really see much...." The boy shook his head. "That's why you're here, isn't it? Why you want us to learn about metal and why you're... you're surprised, but you're happy, that we've found our imbrose earlier than everyone else."

  "Indeed. The enemy will not expect you to begin your training so early, even if he suspects your identity and your place in prophecy." Graddon nodded. "A bowl made of stars, eh? That is something even I have not tried to do."

  "A bowl to hold and control the power of the stars," Le'esha whispered. "My predecessor spoke of such a thing, in her most private journals. This is not something Ceera will make solely with her hands, but with her heart and soul."

  "Then let us teach her the principles, so she understands with her flesh and bone, and can then do it with her spirit." The big man nodded, staring into an unseen distance for so long, Mrillis wondered if he was about to have another vision. Finally, a huge grin split his face. "To bed with you, boy. You have new lessons in the morning. If your greatest accomplishment is to be known as the one who guarded and guided Ceera of the Bowl of Stars, it will be a worthy thing. You will learn, so you can teach her the things she cannot learn now. Are you ready?"

  "I'll do whatever you want me to," Mrillis said, and pressed his clenched fist over his heart as a vow.

  * * * *

  Graddon taught Ceera and Mrillis with stories, how to bring images from their minds into the metal and clay and wood they worked with. He taught them mold-making and took them to the Stronghold's craftsmen, to learn about melting copper and tin, gold and silver to pour into molds for pins and the bases for bowls and cups. Before he left, he gave specific instructions for Ceera's training to the Mistress of Artisans. He also gifted Ceera with her own tool kit, with many sizes of hammers and awls and stone bowls for melting metals, to fit her hands as she grew up. To Mrillis, he gave his own inkpot and the writing kit he carried in a wide pouch at his belt, and commanded him to record every vision, every dream, even the nonsensical ones.

  "Because who knows when something that makes no sense today will be the key to a mystery many decades in the future?" he said, and rested his hand on the boy's head in blessing.

  Not until Graddon was half a day away from the Stronghold did Mrillis realize why the man gave him his own writing kit. He spoke to no one of his fear, not even Le'esha, because if Graddon did not want to be found, how could she send anyone to guard him?

  That fall, seekers went to Whispering Vale to inquire of the seer. When word reached the Stronghold that Graddon could not be found, Mrillis knew he had been right. Whether Graddon had been caught by the Nameless One and taken prisoner, or killed, or had gone to his long rest under the Estall's protection, no one knew.

  The boy went to the highest point of the Stronghold, the place where Le'esha had waited and seen images of his future on the night he was born. He brought the writing kit with him and opened it for the first time, to compose a letter to Graddon. Instead, he found a letter from Graddon for him.

  Short, written in big letters so it was easy to read, even in the dim light of an unnaturally calm evening.

  If you would find me and find my fate, you must first find the Vale of Lanteer. You will neither see it nor touch it nor know it is there until there is need. Do not wake the Sleeper, but bring others to join in well-deserved rest. Do not enter until you have sore need of it, in a time of blood and fire. When images of sorrow turn to hope. When hope turns to sorrow. When one who cannot live unless he rests requires all the world be changed.

  * * * *

  The winter Mrillis turned twelve was bitter and cruel, so there were no more games in the snow during lulls. The darkness that came with storms lasted for days at a time, long stretches of howling winds and sitting in dimly lit rooms reading by the light of lamps, trying to stay warm and cheerful. Those sleepy, surreal times were broken by intervals where the entire Stronghold rushed about in frantic haste to help rescue survivors of ships foolish enough to travel up the coast to visit the Queen of Snows. The coast was not kind to unwary or unwelcome travelers even during fair weather, trapping them and devouring their ships with unexpected shallows and hidden reefs. Storms blew up without warning to drive ships into the cliffs and against the unforgiving, pebbly shore. That winter, sailors swore the rocks and reefs leaped up from the icy water to eat their ships and drag them down to the seabed.

  Mrillis and Ceera learned to speak into each other's minds that winter. It happened quite innocently and quietly.

  One morning, he came as usual into the long healing room that smelled of steam and fever sweat overlaid with herbs and wet linen. His arms were loaded with the morning porridge pot and a stack of bowls and spoons. Ceera sat by the bedside of Canrif, a messenger who had come from the Warhawk. He was here in the healing room instead of the guest quarters because he tried to climb the cliffs to find the Queen of Snows, instead of waiting for the weather to clear so he could approach through the Mist Gates. Canrif had fallen and broke his skull and half his ribs. When he didn't suffer delirium from blood loss and lying in a snowbank for hours, he was in agony from his battered flesh and bones.

  Ceera saw Mrillis enter the room and thought about asking him to bring her the flask of nightflower oil, to soothe the sufferer. Mrillis heard her thought and didn't realize she hadn't spoken. He put down his burden and brought her the flask before she even opened her mouth.

  Le'esha was pleased when the children reported this development to her. She taught them to share their inner strength and combine their imbrose, which could only occur between minds and souls that touched without effort. Like any other Rey'kil child, they had already learned the discipline needed to heal themselves from minor cuts and burns. Now, they could share energy for larger challenges. When they grew older, they would be able to take power from the Threads to communicate through the Threads and to heal others.

  Le'esha saw nothing wrong in teaching them disciplines and theories they would need far in the future. As she told her ladies when they protested, and as she told the children, it was a crime not to prepare them if they were able to understand and their gifts were ready to be trained--even at the cost of depriving them of the carefree years of their childhood.

  By the time spring crept across the icy landscape, Mrillis and Ceera could speak into each other's mind in words.
Small words. Images were far easier to send. They treated their discovery as a game. Le'esha and her ladies let the children perceive it as a game, even when they tested their distance and accuracy.

  On the day before Mrillis had to return to Wynystrys, Ceera sent him a detailed image and a message of five sentences, from the innermost rooms of the Stronghold to a ridge where he stood, half a league beyond the canyons that surrounded the Stronghold.

  * * * *

  That night, the tunnel leading to Wynystrys crumbled. The magic that bored through the bedrock of the continent, supported the stone ceiling and twisted time, drained away like the juice from a smashed grape. Mrillis, Ceera and all the older children woke from dreams filled with flames that reeked of blood and froze them with utter darkness.

  Le'esha gathered her warriors and sent the boys away in all directions, each one guarded by three and four warriors, male and female. Mrillis was the first to go, riding due south instead of west to Wynystrys. Disguised as a servant boy in the livery of the Warhawk, he rode with four messengers from Afrin who had come to Le'esha for advice and healing potions against the expected spring fevers.

  Though he understood that the attack had to have come from the Nameless One and was an attempt to find the boy of prophecy--him--Mrillis rode out too excited to be afraid. The boys would all eventually arrive on Wynystrys, and he devoutly hoped none of them would be attacked in an effort to find him. After a winter holed up in the Stronghold, cramming his head with knowledge and learning discipline, it was time for an adventure. After all, he was only twelve years old, and the future was a long way away.

  Mrillis spent the first few days of the journey maintaining contact with Ceera, showing her the trails the small company rode down, and the villages they passed. Ceera had never gone beyond the canyons that surrounded the Stronghold. Mrillis felt a flicker of concern that perhaps he was doing something wrong by showing the outside world to the ten-year-old. Then he reasoned that Le'esha had to know they would communicate, and she would have told him if it was forbidden.