by S. D. Tower
I hadn’t tried the ritual for years, not since those two failed attempts in Repose. I didn’t have the incense and the proper sacred objects, and I'd forgotten most of the incantation. All I could do was sit on the bench at the foot of the apple tree and ask her, from the depths of my heart, to come. So I did.
Nothing happened. I was comfortable enough; the day was windless, and the sun was warm in that sheltered place. I'd slept badly and misery had wom me down, but I was alert in a shalQ^, feverish way.
I leaned my back against the rough comfort of the tree and continued to wait. Still nothing happened, and I grew more and more downhearted. If Merihan didn’t appear to me, it would be a strong sign that we weren’t of the same blood after all, which would mean that Galara and Talas weren’t my parents. I didn’t know how I felt about that. It would mean that Mother hadn’t murdered my sister, and that she therefore hadn’t betrayed me after all. Yet I desperately wanted to believe that I’d discovered my family.
But at last I knew it was useless. There was nothing here for me, after all. Above my head, the apple tree’s branches mstled sadly as the wind bmshed them.
But there was no wind.
The hair on the back of my neck bristled. I hurriedly stood up and tumed around.
A young girl was sitting in the apple tree. She was perhaps eleven, with aubum hair and green eyes. She wore loose summer clothes and her bare feet were dusty.
“Hello,” she said. “I'm Merihan. You’re my sister, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “I am.” I knew she was dead, and that she was from the Quiet World, but I was unafraid. I knew, somehow, that nothing would harm me while she was here.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Lale.”
She inspected me up and down. “Am I going to look like you when I grow up?”
“Yes, very like me.” She didn’t know what was to happen to her. Or perhaps she did, and it no longer mattered.
“That’s good, because you’re very pretty. Sometimes I dream about living in a village far away. I never have to go to my tutors, and it’s always warm, and there’s a river and I can swim in it. Is that you I’m dreaming about?”
“I think so. I dream about you, too.”
She grimaced, then laughed. “Not about my tutors, I hope?”
“No, not about them.” I drank in her features, her expressions, her movements. They were mine, but not altogether. She was Merihan.
“Are you going to stay?” she asked. “I’d Hke it if you would. I miss you, you know. I’ve always missed you.” “I’ve always missed you, too. Are you happy here?”
“Oh, yes. Except sometimes I'm lonely because I know that you and I should be together, and we’re not. Do you know I'm to marry the Sun Lord when I grow up? His name’s Terem.”
I nodded. “Yes, I knew that. Do you like him?”
Her eyes got round. “Very much. He’s handsome, you know, and he’s very kind to me. I like him a lot, which is a good thing, since I'm to be his Surina and live in the palace with him. Have you ever met him?”
“Yes. I know Terem quite well. I'm very fond of him, as you are.”
My sister smiled. I knew that smile, for it was also mine. “You look so happy when you say that. Have you fallen in love with him? I bet you have.”
I considered the question, and how she might feel about my answer. Then I said, “Merihan, I love him with all my heart. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all. Would you die for him, the way people do for each other in the stories?”
Without hesitation I answered, “Yes.”
“So would I. But you didn’t tell me if you’d stay here. I hope you can. I'd like to talk to you whenever I wanted.” “I’d like it, too. But I can’t stay, Merihan. I wish I could, very much. But I can’t.”
She looked downcast. “I was afraid of that. You’re a grown-up, and grown-ups always have so much to do. Is that it?”
“Something like that.”
She brightened. “But perhaps you’ll come back sometimes, will you? Just once in a while, so we can see each other? We’re the closest of kin, after all.”
“Yes,” I said, “we are, and I’ll try. I’m so glad I found you.”
“So am I,” she answered. “I love you, dearest sister.”
“I love you, Merihan.”
I blinked because my eyes were full of tears. When I could see again, she was gone.
“Merihan,” I whispered, “don’t go. Please.”
In the garden, all was silent.
‘Tlease,” I said. Vertigo swept through me and I leaned against the rough bark of the apple tree. How long had I been here? The sun had passed zenith, and my feet and hands were chilled.
I looked around. All seemed as it had been, but now I had reached another country, on the far side of grief, in a place where all was clear and cold, like this windless aftemoon in the depths of winter. I stood under the tree for a while, thinking. I knew everything now. I knew what I had to do.
I rose and left the garden, without once looking back. Poor shade, did she linger there still, waiting for me to rejoin her? She had only to be patient for a little while; I would not be long.
Twenty-eight
I left the garden by the archway. When I came into the outer courtyard, there was Nilang, wearing nondescript traveling clothes. The watchman lay at her feet, his sword still in its scabbard.
I remained in my distant refuge of wintry clarity, where nothing could surprise me. “Why are you here?” I asked.
“I have the same question for you.”
I was no longer afraid of her, but I knew I must be careful. “I'm here because I was curious about the Surina.” “Does your curiosity extend to calling her from her rest?” This penetrated even my cold tranquillity. She was a sorceress; had she sensed what had happened in the garden? I shifted my feet very slightly, into the stance of attack. But I didn’t want to fight her. I had important things to do, and ridding the world of Nilang, even assuming I could manage it, was not among them.
“How could I summon her?” I asked. “She’s not my blood, and she hes in Kuijain.”
“Indeed. Yet it has occurred to me that your resemblance might have raised questions in your mind. Of a possible relationship.”
I made myself laugh. “Her parentage is estabhshed and well known. Mine is not. She’s nothing to me.” “Nonetheless, you are here.”
I shrugged. “The usurper still dotes on her memory. The
more I know of her, the more I can emulate her and thus secure his attachment to me.”
Nilang bowed slightly. “Your foresight and resourcefulness commend you. Where are you going now?”
Here was a way to assert the loyalty I suspected she was probing. “Can you find Dilara?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell her the usurper will fight in the morning. She must deal with him tonight.”
“Very well. And you will complete the task if she fails?” “I will. How can I help her reach him?” If I knew what Dilara was going to do . ..
Nilang tilted her head to one side. “This isn’t a question you should ask.”
I looked contrite. “But I want her to succeed.”
“She wUl. Where do you go now?”
“Back to the compound. I’ll stay there till it’s over.” I wondered if she would let me pass.
“Do so. I’ll leave here after you’ve gone.”
She stepped aside to let me go. I was very alert, but she made no hostile move, and I found myself outside the gate in the cold sunhght.
It was later than I’d thought, mid-aftemoon. I retumed to the govemment compound, neither hurrying nor dawdhng, and asked if the Sun Lord had retumed. But he hadn’t; he was still outside the walls with the army. So I trudged over to the stables and ordered a mount to be saddled, and then I went to the villa and up to our bedchamber. The servants had lit a brazier, and with the sun pouring in as well, the room was pleasantl
y warm. I got my cosmetic box from my traveling chest, sat on the edge of the bed, and opened the hd. I’d hidden the double poison in plain sight, among my vials of scent.
I knew what I must do and also what must happen to me afterward, unless I took precautions. Nilang’s presence at the Aviya mansion had reminded me of that, if I needed a reminder. Her daughters would come for me and I was in no mind to suffer what Adrine had suffered. I would kill myself first.
I had no doubt I could do so, yet I felt that I ought to commit myself, as one commits one’s fate to the sea by saihng out of harbor. So I took up one of the vials, broke the seal, and drank the venom. It was oily but almost tasteless, with just a hint of citrine. Nevertheless I choked a Uttle getting it down. My eyes watered and I wiped them on my sleeve, but I was almost sure I wasn’t crying.
I reckoned that, to ensure my death, I had to swallow the other dose before the second hour of the dusk watch. That meant I had to keep the second vial with me, and it must therefore seem to be other than it was. Because it aheady appeared to be scent, I would perfect the Ulusion; I unsealed it and added a tiny drop of Blue-Tinted Cloud from one of my perfume vials. A sniff told me the method had worked.
I resealed the waxed stopper over the brazier, sUpped the vial into my belt pouch, and left the villa. My horse was ready; I mounted, clattered out into the street, and headed for the Gate of Double Happiness. I had never seen a city as deserted as Gultekin, every boulevard and avenue lying empty. Had I been in a normal state of mind it would have been eerie and sinister, but in my present state I thought Uttle of it.
The city gate still stood open. The sentry captain recognized me and asked if I wanted an escort; I told him I didn’t and rode through. And there, spread out before me on the gently sloping plain, lay the war camp of the Army of Durdane, aU ditches and palisades and spindly wooden watch-towers and tents. The men had been building the camp for days, and now they’d moved in. From this base, tomorrow at dawn, they would move out to fight the Exiles.
I looked into the distance. Some three miles to the east, its crest visible above the paUsades, was a low ridge. Lying across this crest was a dark shadow, like the shadows of clouds. But there were no clouds, and I reaUzed it was a vast mass of horsemen. Ardavan had come.
I asked a passing cavalry captain if he’d seen the Sun Lord, and he told me that Terem had gone north toward the river. I followed, riding across the dry brown winter turf and the half-melted mud churned up by tens of thousands of men. Terem wouldn’t like this warm weather, and neither would Ardavan. They both needed hard, frozen ground for their horsemen.
I found him by the Jacinth. There was a castella there, and the engineers had roughly repaired its gates and ramparts. Terem was using the topmost floor of the keep as an observation post and headquarters. He wasn’t especially surprised to see me, and neither were the other half dozen officers present, even though I’d walked in on a staff conference. During the invasion of Lindu I’d acquired a reputation for audacity and impudence; despite the grinmess of the situation, a couple of the younger officers smiled surreptitiously.
“I wondered how long it would be before you tumed up,” Terem said. Before I could speak, he took my arm and dragged me to the narrow window. “Look there, on the ridge. He’s already set up his headquarters. It’s right under those banners. The white splash, that’ll be his tent.”
“I see it,” I agreed. “My lord, there’s something I have to tell you.”
My tone must have stmck him, because he released my arm and looked into my eyes. “What’s the matter, Lale?” “May I tell you alone, my lord?”
It was a difficult moment. The enemy was almost at our throats, and here was the Sun Lord’s Inamorata asking him for his precious time. The smiles vanished and I saw Terem waver, almost annoyed enough to dismiss me.
I could blurt out everything, but I didn’t want to reveal, in front of his men, how utterly he had been duped. “My lord,” I whispered, “I beg you.”
“Continue without me,” he said to the others, and we went through a low doorway onto the castella rampart. I made sure the door was closed behind us. There was nobody on the wall walk, but on the distant ridge the shadows were spreading like spilled oil. There were so many of them. “Are you ill?” he asked. “You don’t look at all well.” ‘Terem,” I said, “a woman my age, named Dilara, is going to try to kill you before moming. Don’t sleep at the villa. Keep a ring of guards around you at all times. She won’t have to get close to you to do it. She never misses with a throwing knife. All she’ll have to do is see you. And the knife will be envenomed.”
He stared at me for a long time. Then he said, “Lale, I know you’re an actress, but this is too much. What in the name of Father Heaven do you think you’re playing at?” “You know me better than that, Terem.”
Alarm awakened in his face, and a terrible apprehension. “How do you know this?” he asked.
“I’m a spy,” I said. I felt as if I were speaking lines. “Makina Seval sent me to Kuijain to become your lover. I’ve been telling her everything you intend to do. I told her you were going to invade Lindu, and I think she told Ardavan, and that’s how he stopped you at Bara. And now she’s ordered your assassination, so that Ardavan will win tomorrow.”
He still couldn’t quite believe me. But then his expression changed, and I knew he’d seen that I was neither mad nor deluded and that this horror I spoke was the truth.
“You,” he said slowly, “you’ve been betraying me all this time?”
“Yes. Utterly.”
After a long silence, during which I watched Ardavan’s host flood slowly across the distant ridge, he said, “So good an actress. I never doubted you for a moment. Not even Halis doubted you.”
“I was well trained,” I told him. “It took years. The Despotana has been at this for a long time.”
“Why? How does an Exile victory benefit her?”
“She hates you,” I said, “and the Chancellor, and many others in Bethiya. I don’t know why she wants Ardavan to win, unless it’s for that. Or maybe it’s something else. It could be anything. I think she’s mad.”
Terem shook himself, as if a nightmare gripped him and he struggled to awaken from it. ‘Tell me,” he rasped, “why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand.”
“Kill me after I’ve told you everything I can. It’s not just me and Dilara who work for the Despotana, Terem. She has people everywhere.”
“And now you’ve betrayed her, as well as me. Why should I trust you?”
“I’ve been on the wrong side,” I said wearily. I didn’t want to explain myself. I couldn’t, not in the time we had. “I realized it too late. Please, Terem. Do what you like with me. But protect yourself.”
“This Dilara. Why should I fear a woman so much?” “You don’t know what she’s capable of. She was trained as an assassin by Taweret fighting adepts. If she stood here instead of me, you’d be dead by now.”
His expression, which had already passed from disbelief to shock, was now stark with fury. “You’ll tell me everything. And you’ll tell Halis, too.”
“Halis will have to hear it from you, Terem. There’s a curse on me for betraying the Despotana. I won’t live long past sunset.”
There was another long silence. During it, he somehow mastered his rage, a thing few men could have done after such an injury. At length he said, “Why have you betrayed me, Lale? I thought you were on my side. How did she make you do such things?”
“It was because I loved her. She was my mother. I thought she loved me back. But she doesn’t, and she never did. I betrayed you, yes, but she betrayed me. She murdered Merihan. She used Dilara to poison her. Dilara herself told me that.”
He passed a hand over his eyes. “Merihan, too?”
“Yes. It was to clear my path to you.”
“Did you know my wife was to be killed?”
“I swear I did not. I didn’t find out about her murder until yesterday. But you didn’t kno
w everything about your Surina.” I took a deep breath. I had told Ilishan I wouldn’t reveal the truth, but what was one more treachery among so many? “Merihan wasn’t of Aviya blood, she was a secret adoption. And she was my sister. The Despotana always knew she was my kin, but she kept it from me. So you see, Makina Seval had Dilara murder my only sibling.”
He glowered at me. “You’re mistaken. Or you’re lying. Merihan was an Aviya.”
“Ask Ilishan. He told me she was adopted, and he intends to tell you the same. But think, Terem. Why am I so like Merihan? It’s because I’m her twin. The Despotana knew about me a long time ago, and plotted to put me in Merihan’s place. She hoped you’d see in me the one you lost. And you did.”
He hit me backhanded across my cheek. It was a hard blow, hard enough to make my ears ring, and it hurt. But it was far less than I deserved and far less than I must still suffer.
“And I thought,” he said, “that you loved me.”
I laughed. It made my face hurt even more. “That’s the terrible part, Terem. I do. Why else do you think I’ve told you all ¿lis now? I could have betrayed you and lived. Now I’ve betrayed her, so I’m going to die.”
“Ah.” His mouth was a cold, disbelieving line. “From this supposed curse the Despotana laid on you?”
I put my hand to my throbbing cheek and rubbed it. “Not her curse. The Taweret spirit summoner I go to in Kuijain, remember her? She was the Despotana’s house sorceress, and she’s no charlatan, she’s real. She laid it on me years ago. I once saw a girl die from it. And the Taweret fighting teachers were hers—she helped the Despotana from the beginning. She came to Kuijain when I did, to relay orders to me. We called her Nilang. She’s here in Gultekin somewhere, to watch me.”