by S. D. Tower
Nilang stared at me and then reached across the table to touch my forehead with a warm fingertip. I flinched slightly and she withdrew her hand.
“Do you think I’ll hurt you?”
“No, lady mistress.” I lowered my gaze to the table, on which stood a blue porcelain jug and two matching cups, and beside these a bronze incense burner. A silver pipe sat on a wooden rest beside the burner; it had a long stem and a small bowl, and from the bowl wafted a tiny thread of smoke that carried the scent of sweetcup.
Nilang picked up the pipe and drew on it thoughtfully. Then she exhaled and replaced the pipe in its rest. The tendril of smoke wavered and vanished as the drug burned out. “Are you afraid of me because I’m a sorceress?”
Unlike the villagers I’d seen smoking sweetcup, she didn’t look as if her mind had gone somewhere else. She was very much here, and her blue gaze bored into me. Under that scrutiny, any thought of lying fled.
“Yes, lady mistress,” I told her, from a dry mouth.
“You don’t need to be afraid. You’re under her protection. Therefore you’re under mine. Do you understand?”
“Yes, lady mistress.” I hated sounding like an imbecile who had only three words in her head, but what else was I to say?
“It’s a hot day,” she observed. “I want to talk to you, but first we must drink to keep off the heat. Here.”
She poured for me from the blue jug. It contained fruit juice—citrine by the color and fragrance. I took the cup and waited politely while she poured her own. Then we both drank. The juice was cool and I was thirsty, and I finished it more quickly than the Tradition Tutoress would have liked. It was delicious, not just citrine but something else, a hint of peach perhaps. Nilang gave me more, and this time I sipped.
She began asking me questions. Not difficult ones, just about Riversong and my life there. When I told her how I’d left, she seemed amused and said, “I see that the Despotana hasn’t misjudged you.”
This was gratifying, although I was becoming terribly sleepy and was finding it hard to follow the conversation. My voice didn’t seem as if it really belonged to me. Oddly, I wasn’t troubled by this; in fact it seemed rather amusing, and I giggled, which I realized vaguely was very rude. But I was so sleepy.... I wondered if Nilang would mind me curling up and dozing for a while.
The wish somehow transformed itself into the deed, with me lying on my side on the mat, a cushion under my cheek. Nilang was still murmuring to me, but I didn’t pay much attention to her, because I was so interested in what I was seeing. The room was still there, but the painted landscapes on its walls had become perfectly real, and I knew beyond a doubt that if I stood up and approached them, I would find myself among those mountains, clouds, and marvelous animals.
After a while, they became translucent and then diminished into swirls of blurry colors. Then, for some reason, it seemed a very good idea to think about the other me, the girl I’d always imagined as living in a rich household with a handsome, powerful father and a beautiful, wise mother. So I did, and the house and my parents were very clear and vivid, just as if I were really there. And as I wandered through the halls and cool shaded rooms, I was faintly aware that I was talking about what I was seeing, that Nilang was whispering questions and I was answering them. I wondered why she was doing this, but it didn’t upset or annoy me, because I liked talking about this wonderful place I was in.
But little by little it faded as my drowsiness grew deeper, and little by little I drifted away ft-om the vision, and as I did so I heard Mother’s voice. But I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I tried to speak to her and ask her what she wanted—and why she was with me and Nilang—but my tongue would not obey me. And then my eyes closed, or perhaps they were closed already, and I fell asleep.
When I woke, the light showed it was late aftemoon. I was still in Nilang’s room, but now I lay on a soft sleeping pallet with a gauzy coverlet over me. I was thirsty and I had a slight headache, but otherwise felt rested and refreshed.
I tumed my head and there was Nilang, still cross-legged at the table, writing on a sheet of paper. She looked up as I moved and gazed at me attentively.
I suddenly realized that I had committed a dire breach of etiquette. “Mistress,” I said around a sticky tongue, “forgive me. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I—”
Nilang held up a small hand. “Too much sun,” she said. “It can take one without warning. The best thing is to drink water and rest. Here.”
She took the goblet that stood by her elbow and gave it to me. I drank the contents quickly, being much too parched to sip in a ladylike manner. As I handed it back, memory flickered.
“Yes?” Nilang asked. “What is it you’re thinking?”
“I was dreaming,” I said slowly. “About a house and ...” I stopped. I had never shared my imaginary life with anyone, not even Dilara.
“They were very clear dreams?”
“I think so.” Now I remembered that Nilang had been whispering to me. Or had I dreamed that as well? And had Mother been with her? “Were you and the Despotana ...” I ventured.
“Yes?”
I suddenly lost interest in the subject. It wasn’t that I was reluctant to think about what had happened, I just couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t important enough to think about. What was important was to go back to Dilara and get on with the kite, so we could finish it before dark.
“Nothing,” I said. “Please excuse my discourtesy, mistress.”
“Too much sun often causes vivid and unsettling dreams,” she told me. “If you experience them again, ask to see me. Are you feeling well enough to go back to the school?”
“Yes, lady mistress.”
“Come with me,” she said, getting to her feet, “and I’ll take you down.”
She left me at the palace’s main door, and I made my way back to the courtyard. It was empty now, except for Dilara and Sulen. To my annoyance and disappointment, Dilara had almost finished the kite, and Sulen was helping her attach the harness.
“Where have you been?" Dilara demanded as I came up. “We were afraid you were in some awful trouble with Mother.”
She sounded so worried that I instantly forgave her for going ahead without me. I said, “Nilang wanted to talk to me.”
Their eyes got big. “What about?” Sulen asked.
“She wanted to know about Riversong,” I said. ‘Then I got sleepy and she let me have a nap. Then she sent me back here.”
“That's all?" Dilara said. Clearly, she’d hoped for something more alarming and interesting—Nilang changing me into a bird, for example, and letting me fly around the palace until she changed me back.
But was there more? Yes, the dreams. But thinking about them seemed more trouble than it was worth. The memories of them kept flickering out of my reach, as if they were small silver fish that eluded my fingers even as I touched them.
“That’s all,” I said. “She looks like an Erallu, except she’s got blue eyes.”
“Why did she want to know about Riversong? She never asked me or Sulen where we came from.”
“I don’t know. Maybe she was just curious about the south.”
“Maybe.” Dilara hefted the kite, resplendent in its scarlet paper. “Do you think the glue’s dry? Maybe we can get this thing into the air before supper.”
Seven
Mother herself gave us our history lessons. During the next couple of years I discovered that I liked learning about history, even when we studied from such dull classical works as the Historical Mirror of the Empire or Annals of the Commonwealth.
Through this I began to understand why my world was as it was. Like every other child. I’d picked up the stories and legends of my race: how we Durdana came in ships from a snowy land far across the sea and sailed far up the Pearl River until we found the place appointed for us by the Bee Goddess and Father Heaven. There we built our first villages in what was to become the ancestral heartland of our realm, Durdane.
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br /> How long ago we began to plough those fertile river lands, no one really knows. However, the Annals suggest that we had lived there for a thousand years before the Founder established our chief city and named it Seyhan the Luminous. Ever since, our years have been dated from Seyhan’s foundation, more than thirteen centuries ago.
But in those days, Mother taught us, we were not ruled by Emperors or Kings, for the Founder created not only Seyhan but also the Commonwealth. Thus we had no monarchs, but governed ourselves through the Clan Assembly, which was made up of the adult men of all the recognized Durdana bloodlines. The Assembly elected the year’s magistrates, appointed our generals when we needed to defend our lands (which was often, for a long time), and attended to the Commonwealth’s business, such as taxes.
We were a very prolific people. As the centuries passed, we became a multitude, planting our fortresses and cities south of the Pearl, as well as eastward toward the Juren Gap and westward to the sea. The Erallu and the other tribes we encountered often fought us, and there were bitter wars. But in the end we always overcame our enemies, and most of them eventually adopted the ways of our Commonwealth, which gave them laws and civilization. Even the Erallu, who resisted us most fiercely, finally became much like us.
“And then what happened?” Mother asked, looking around the schoolroom.
It was a breezy spring moming, and in the school courtyard the bark of the red willows was turning to crimson. I’m not sure if it was my second or third spring at Repose, but I know it was the month of Early Blossom, for there were garlands around the windows for the Lantem Festival.
Mother’s gaze glided to me. “And then, Lale?” she repeated.
I pushed my stool back, stood up, and folded my hands. “Ma’am, the leaders of the Clan Assembly became disloyal to the Commonwealth and to the Durdana. A few men gathered all the power into their hands and abused the proper traditions, but soon their greed and treacherousness made them quarrel with one another. These warlords dissolved the Assembly and began to fight among themselves, each with his own army. This was the beginning of the Civil Wars that destroyed the Commonwealth. They lasted fifty years.”
Mother nodded. “And how,” she asked, “was this disloyalty and treachery resolved? Sulen?”
I sat down and Sulen stood up. Beside me, Dilara yawned surreptitiously. She was not fond of history.
“In the year 337 after the founding of Seyhan,” Sulen began in her singsong voice, “General Kirsal Brenec called a new Assembly and fought the traitor warlords in its name. He cmshed them, whereupon the Assembly, seeing the ruin inflicted by the Civil Wars and wishing for a strong leader who would bring order to Durdane, asked him to take up the rule. He refused three times, but when they asked him the fourth time, he accepted. So the Clan Assembly proclaimed the Empire of Durdane, with Kirsal its first Emperor, to govern in the name of the Assembly and the people. And the Commonwealth was no more.”
“Exactly,” Mother said. “And from this we learn a principle. What is the worst iniquity in the governance of a state?”
“Disloyalty,” we chorused, “to those to whom we owe our good faith.”
“You are correct. Adrine, explain how such disloyalty applies to the destruction of our empire.”
Adrine was my age but had been at the school six months less. Some would have called her ill-favored, what with her blemished skin, lank hair, and thin lips, though I thought she was merely homely. She was one of those colorless people who escape everyone’s notice until something very bad or very good happens to them. But in class she always knew the correct answers.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “In the year 1152 of the imperial reckoning, the Emperor Bartuin ascended to the dais. But disloyalty was rife among the magistrates and the generals, and before long the prefects of Anshi and Kayan rebelled. Then the prefect of Indar declared himself Emperor, saying that Bartuin’s claim to the dais was false. This led to the Era of the Warring Emperors, which ended a century ago with the Invasion of the Exiles and the Partition.”
As Adrine continued, my imagination took over. I saw the empire blackened with the smoke of burning fortresses and cities; I gazed on the march and countermarch of armies, shuddered at massacres and betrayals. Across all Durdane, the generals and imperial pretenders fought and murdered one another, each craving to ascend to the emperor’s dais in Seyhan.
And then, in the Year of the Five Emperors, came the great catastrophe. The Githans to our northeast were driven from their vast grassy plains by barbarians even more barbarous than they. Calling themselves the Exiles, because of their expulsion from their homelands, myriads rode through the Juren Gap, looking for pasture and plunder in the tottering empire. The Emperor who ruled then at Seyhan, called Daquin the Iniquitous, paid them to fight for him against the other four pretenders, and multitudes of Durdana died under their spears. But worse was to come, for when Daquin and his barbarous allies finally destroyed his rivals, the Exiles under their king, Pakur One-Eyed, turned on him. At the Battle of Mualla they butchered the last imperial army and Daquin with it.
“Yes,” Mother said, as Adrine paused. “You may sit down. Lale—Lale, are you asleep, young lady?”
She must have spotted my faraway look and assumed I wasn’t paying attention. “No, ma’am,” I said.
“Suppose you tell us the rest, then.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and began to recite from the Historical Mirror. “After Daquin’s death, the Exiles under Pakur tried to overrun the Durdana lands that were still free. These were the nine imperial prefectures south of the Pearl River and the two prefectures north of it, Tamurin and Bethiya. But the wars had weakened the barbarians, and the prefect of Bethiya held them off for a time, until Pakur suddenly died. After that, his sons fought over his conquests until their stolen realm broke up into the Six Kingdoms of Jouhar, Lindu, Seyhan, Suarai, Mirsing, and Ishban. But those Six Kingdoms still enslave half of our old realm in the east, as they have for a hundred years, and we can have no Empire of Durdane again until they are destroyed.” “Excellent. You’ve done your work well.”
I resumed my seat, pleased by her praise. Our lesson then went on to examine the century that followed the Exile invasion: how Durdane remained broken in half, in what we called the Partition, and how the old imperial prefectures came to be govemed by local rulers, who styled themselves Despots.
But there was one exception to this: the rulers of Bethiya, who called themselves Sun Lords and not Despots. They did this because “Sun Lord” had once been the title of the Emperor’s heir apparent, and they considered themselves the true successors to the imperial line. As for the Despots, they did allow some precedence to the Sun Lords, though not because they formally recognized the claim. It was because Bethiya remained the most powerful state among the free Durdana realms, although it was still not powerful enough to defeat the Six Kingdoms.
Mother, who had listened carefully as we recited, now paused. Through the open window came the twitter of the wine finches sunning themselves in the courtyard.
“And who,” she asked at last, “is the Sun Lord now?” “Terem Rathai, the usurper,” we answered.
“Yes. The one who took my son’s place. My son, who might have been your brother, who was to be the Sun Lord. His father’s bloodline was the highest in Bethiya, and it was his right. But they murdered him, the Tanyelis did. Murdered my son.”
We all knew this. It had happened in the year I was bom, and it wasn’t only Mother who had told us about it. Our Tradition Tutoress had drummed into us what had happened that autumn day, when the two great bloodlines of Kuijain fought to the death and the omamental cascades in the palace gardens ran red. But what Mother told us next we had never heard.
“I was not there, or they would have slaughtered me, too,” she said, “but I know what happened. I still dream of it... I am on the Water Terrace and I see it all. The Tanyeli retainers are through the gates and the arrows have stopped flying, but they have spears and swords
. My brother fights them, back to back with my husband’s cousin, until blades pierce their hearts. I hear my sister-in-law scream and beg for her life as she flees, and there is my son’s small face in the bundle she carries, my son crying out for me. And then a swordsman cuts her ankles through, and when she falls he stabs them both, and my little boy is silent forever.”
She was trembling, though her face remained calm. But she had gone very white.
“Mother?” someone whispered into the silence.
“It was Halis Geray,” she said. Her voice lost its beauty and became harsh and cracked. "He did this. He killed my son. He contrived the destruction of my husband’s family, and of my own, and of the Tanyelis. He did it so he could replace my son with a boy of inferior bloodline. And why? So he could seize the Chancellor’s robes for himself, and rule as regent.”
She closed her eyes, then opened them. A little of her color had returned. “So now the usurper Terem Rathai calls himself Sun Lord. But does his ambition, or the ambition of his Chancellor, end there?”
We were back on familiar ground. “No, ma’am,” we answered.
“What is the intent of these tyrants? Adrine?”
“To rule all the Durdana outside the Six Kingdoms. To take everything for themselves, just as the Exiles did.”
“Yes. And if the day comes when Tamurin is conquered and Chiran falls, the tyrants will execute me amid the ruins. And because you’re my daughters, they will kill you as well.” Her face, which had gone hard, softened suddenly. “But, my daughters, remember that Father Heaven and the Bee Goddess hate traitors. If we’re vigilant, they’ll help preserve us, although we must never underestimate our enemies. Halis Geray the Chancellor is very cunning, and the Sun Lord has paid close attention to his lessons. Why do I say they’re cunning, Lale?”
“Because the Chancellor has deceived the people of Bethiya into thinking that Terem Rathai is the legitimate Sun Lord, although he’s not.”