by P. D. Kalnay
“You’re such a pervert.” She didn’t pull away. “I came to answer your questions, with no one else around, before your grandmother makes me promise not to.”
“You think she will? You were supposed to tell me all kinds of stuff weren’t you?”
“Yes, and I’ll tell it to you over the next couple of days. I was referring to the new stuff. Unless… you’d rather have the kiss?”
I said nothing as I weighed the answers to my questions against Ivy’s soft lips.
“Are you thinking about it?” she asked.
“Give me a minute.”
“I was joking.” Ivy giggled. “You must do without the kiss.”
I won’t lie—I felt disappointed.
“Tell me about the new stuff.”
“OK, the sword first, and what happened at the end of your duel.” Ivy took a deep breath before going on. “The greatest makers of our people put part of themselves into what they create. It’s complicated, and I know nothing of the process, but what’s important to understand is that no weapon created by such a master can be turned against its maker. The weapon will destroy itself first.”
In my mind’s eye I saw Duzalain’s sword disintegrating.
“I’m pretty sure I never forged any swords,” I said.
“Legend has it, that the greatest blades remember their maker, no matter how many years have passed. Even, if he or she has died and been reborn many times since the forging. Obviously, it’s not something you can easily put to the test.”
“So you’re saying that in another life, I was this… what was the name?”
“Marielain Blackhammer. Widely considered to be the greatest smith who ever lived. Yes, that’s what I am saying. No sword of his making has ever broken. The very least Marielain blade is priceless.”
“So how long ago was this guy kicking around?”
“He died over a thousand years ago.”
“I don’t remember anything about a past life,” I said. Surreptitiously, I smelled her hair.
“Nobody does, and for most people it matters not. The rules are different for those who shape history again and again. Stop sniffing my hair, and pay attention.”
“I wasn’t. Anyway, why is this guy so famous however good a blacksmith he was?”
“I was getting to that. He’s famous because of one sword in particular that he forged for his best friend. It’s said he took a claw from Morantal, first of all dragons, and laboured ten years to craft a blade of unmatched power. It was called the White Sword. There are countless heroic tales of the exploits of the White Sword and the Black Hammer. His friendship with Janik is legendary. I think a fair comparison might be your King Arthur and Sir Lancelot.”
Part of me liked the idea that Mr. Ryan and I were old friends who’d found each other across time and space. Another part of me had trouble believing it. I figured deep down, you’d remember something, or have an inexplicable sensation of déjà vu. Mr. Ryan was a great guy, and my friend (I hoped), but there’d been none of that.
“It’s hard to believe,” I said.
“It is. If I’ve led you to believe that this sort of thing happens frequently on the First World. It doesn’t. People don’t remember their past lives because otherwise, they’d never truly have a new beginning. Which I believe is the point of being reborn. No one knows for certain.”
“Why was Gran so upset about our tattoos?”
“I lied to you,” Ivy said. “I’m sorry, but I was so afraid you’d get yourself killed that…”
“I did come close.” I squeezed Ivy tighter. It was hard to get mad at her in that moment.
“The bonding ceremony is merely the words we spoke. It’s one of the three rituals making up a wedding between our people. The words are the formal acknowledgement by bride and groom, accepting the betrothal their families have arranged.”
“So we aren’t married yet?” It had seemed a lot like the ‘I do’ portion of a regular wedding to me.
“No, and normally the bond could still be broken, theoretically, right up to the final ceremony. That never happens.”
“Don’t people change their minds?”
“They don’t get to choose in the first place. Parents, or grandparents, or contracts from long in the past choose the pairings.”
“Nobody’s ever refused?” I asked. That seemed unlikely.
“It has happened, but rarely, and the price paid—terrible. Often the pairings are accepted and respect is found. Far less often, love results. You have to understand that love is never the goal of these unions. Our respective parents were required to provide acceptable offspring, nothing more.”
That certainly described my parent’s marriage.
“So the vine isn’t part of the ceremony?”
“No. The vines are used to tie slaves to the land. So they can’t run. That may be my fault. I tried to escape our union shortly before I was sent here the first time. Duzalain tracked me down and dragged me back in chains. I was to be locked away until it was time to meet you. If your grandmother hadn’t insisted on these summers together, I’d still be in a cell in the palace dungeon. The vine will make escape impossible. I am sorry Jack. Without the vine you might have refused the pairing—and stayed in the Seventh World permanently—as your parents do.”
“So they’re like magic handcuffs, because we’re flight risks?”
“More than that. In the days when slavery was common among our people, the vines were used to limit the travel a slave was capable of. A clipping from the vine was tied around our wrists. That vine will be in a special pot for now. When the time comes, they’ll plant the vine on Knight’s Haven. After that, neither of us will ever be able to leave the island again. Usually, one vine is used for each slave. I don’t know how sharing a vine will affect us.”
“That sucks. Gran seemed awfully mad considering she’s going along with the rest of this pact crap.”
“Normally, I would say your grandmother’s reaction was anger at the insult to her family, by treating one of her progeny as a slave…”
“But?”
“I believe your grandmother cares for you, and your wellbeing.”
“Are you kidding? She’s as cold as ice.” It was true. “She’s never even given me a hug.”
“I told you, family life for us isn’t like your television. I could be wrong, not knowing many things, but I believe she does care.”
“It doesn’t seem as if it’ll make a difference.”
“Don’t underestimate the mistress of this house,” Ivy whispered.
“What do you know about Gran?”
“I can’t say. She swore me to secrecy on my first day back here.”
Ivy sounded genuinely sorry.
“That figures. How is it you speak English? And the people we met, how did they know English too?” Ivy spoke formally, but not with an accent, or as if English was her second language.
“That’s a function of travelling the World Tree, or maybe, of using one of the newer gates. The circle in the basement is a relatively new gate. The standing stones in the forest form a far older type of gate. Nothing can travel down the tree, only up.”
“Why?”
“Jack, I’m an expert on these matters in the same why you’re a computer expert.”
“Just tell me what you know.”
“The First World contains the most magic. I don’t believe that word properly describes what I’m talking about, but it will have to do for now. The people of my world are, by their nature, the most magical. As one travels up the Tree, more and more of the magic is stripped from them. This is how a mighty dragon appeared to us as a mere woman.”
“She seemed impressive to me.”
“Yes, even a fraction of her strength is substantial. The wolves that attacked us were of the Maigur, and on the First World, we wouldn’t have long survived their fangs. Back to your question. When one travels up the World Tree, they’re shaped to the world they travel to. Here, I look like an ord
inary human girl. I’m no dragon, and very little innate magic remains inside me. Enough to sense things, and to encourage plants to grow—nothing more. My magic isn’t lost. It waits on the Tree until my return to the First World.”
“Why do you look totally human, but the dragon lady didn’t?”
“The newer gates provide a cleaner transition. They’re also not dependent on the season, the phase of the moon, or the position of the stars in the way that the old gates were. The way it was explained to me is that the Tree constrains who and what may move between worlds. Moving even tiny amounts of non-living material is incredibly difficult and almost never done.”
“The library sword is obviously from the First World,” I argued. “And the White Sword too.”
“Yes, the latter was brought here by a dragon through a primal gate, and the other was, no doubt, brought by your grandmother! Very few could accomplish similar feats.”
The way Ivy spoke of my grandmother in the same breath as the silver dragon lady gave me a shiver.
“Our clothes went with us,” I pointed out. “Sort of.”
“As I understand it,” Ivy said slowly, “the clothing we bring is more a creation of our minds than the original garments. The gates produce appropriate garb in the same way they change one physically. They also allow a traveller to understand the local world’s language. I don’t know English, and we were speaking my native tongue in the Talantial Palace. Another primary difference between the old gates and the new is that unless an old gate is used under very specific conditions, the length of time one my stay in another world is brief.”
“So that’s why the dragon lady had to leave right after her fight with Mr. Ryan?”
“Unquestionably. She’s sought him for over a thousand years. I should go now, but I’ll answer all the questions I can tomorrow.”
“OK, just a second.”
I squeezed Ivy tighter and took a last good smell of her hair before I let her go.
Chapter 18 – Answers and Questions
Mr. Ryan said nothing more concerning my duel, or about anything not related to training the next morning. I found it hard to concentrate, knowing I’d be getting more of my questions answered come afternoon. Ivy and I spent a half hour in the garden picking vegetables, but most were already harvested, and we worked quickly. Then we went down to the basement for a swim. In reality, we sat at the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the warm water, and talked. Now that the flood gates were open, Ivy had plenty to say, and I had a year’s backlog of questions to ask. It must have shown on my face.
“What do you want to know first?” Ivy asked.
“I want to know everything,” I said. “Everything about the First World, you, and Mr. Ryan.”
Ivy considered that.
“If someone asked you to tell them everything regarding this world, where would you begin?”
I thought about it. Would I describe the geography, the history, the various cultures, the different types of flora and fauna… Describing everything about the world was an enormous task. Maybe I’d better start smaller, I thought. Start with what matters most.
“Tell me you,” I said.
“Me?”
“Yes, we’ll work our way down to less important topics as we go.”
Ivy blushed and looked into her lap before speaking.
“I told you my name. I’m the daughter of Prince Accatlain and Princess Elimilain of house Venantial.”
“How can your mom be a princess of the same house your dad is a prince of?”
“The titles don’t mean exactly the same thing as they do here,” Ivy said. We’d watched a fair number of movies with royalty in them, and she had a solid grasp of the topic. “My parents are not siblings. They are… third cousins. Each of the Houses has dozens of princes and princesses. The First Prince, or First Princess, is the heir to their respective throne. Usually, they’re the sons or daughters of the current king and queen, but not always. They must pass many tests to prove their worth.”
“You said we were the lowest of our houses right? And that’s how we got chosen for the island?” As I recalled, she’d added a disclaimer to that.
“In most cases that’s been true,” Ivy said, looking up from her lap. “Our situations are more complicated. I might have been tested as First Princess of house Venantial, given my parent’s standing, were I not…”
Tears glistened in Ivy’s eyes, and I took her hand.
“If you weren’t what?” I asked.
“…deformed. An aberration, a—you’ve seen my true form Jack, so you already know that part.”
Not really, I thought. Ivy had looked good to me. At least as far as green fairies went.
“You looked fine to me,” I said.
“You saw the others of my people, didn’t you? I’m short, ugly, and green! I always will be. My people are green as children. When we reach maturity we blossom into more beautiful colours. Even blue would have been fine. I will always be the stunted green creature you saw. My parent’s shame was so great that they volunteered me to serve on Knight’s Haven—to be free of me. Now you are shackled to me. I am sorry Jack.”
I wanted to tell her that I thought she was beautiful, but the words stuck in my throat.
“That’s the only part of this I’m not upset about,” I said, squeezing her hand. “We’re friends, so I’m sure things will work out.” I wasn’t sure of anything, but it seemed to cheer her up. It was obvious that she didn’t entirely believe my words.
“I’m more grateful for your friendship than I can tell you,” Ivy said.
It felt like a good time to change the topic.
“What about me?” I asked. “Do you know how I got picked?”
“I do, but the telling may hurt you Jack. Are you certain you wish to know?”
Not knowing things on purpose is like closing your eyes to make the world disappear. That kind of protection is thin and temporary at best.
“I want to know,” I said.
“You’d be nowhere near the lowest of house Talantial, or house Aerantial, under normal circumstances. Your father and mother would both have been of sufficient rank to protect you, had they stayed in the First World. Leaving a world, and staying permanently in another, is not common, or generally permitted. A price must be paid to do so. For whatever reasons, your parents wish to live out their lives here…”
“And I’m the payment?”
“Yes. No one wants to serve on Knight’s Haven. It’s become terrible, and you must replace the representative of not one, but two Houses. Should we live long enough, and have a child of our own, he or she will represent all three Houses. This would satisfy the original agreement, and if our child were born with the necessary gifts they’d succeed us in holding the island… for as long as they lived. You’ll have to do the work of two on Knight’s Haven. That’s never happened before, and it will be very hard on you Jack.”
I was less hurt by what Ivy told me than you might imagine. My parents had never shown me any affection that I could remember. A lot of things made more sense. They’d known I was going to be sent away and didn’t want (or couldn’t be bothered) to form any real attachment to me. Maybe there was guilt over selling their only child, and maybe there wasn’t. Either way, they were terrible parents. I could have believed I was adopted except that I looked like a cross between the two of them, and people adopt children because they want them. It’d been years since I’d wondered if my mother or my father wanted me. Those thoughts made me think of something else entirely.
“Why didn’t I change?” I asked Ivy. “When we went to the First World, you changed, and you said people who come here change. So why didn’t I change?”
“I don’t know,” Ivy said. “Did you feel nothing in the crossing?”
“I felt different inside, and my clothes were different, but I never saw my reflection. Did I change?”
“Not that I could see,” Ivy said. “Your presence was stronger. I’m very good at sen
sing things.”
“What kinds of things?”
“All kinds of things. Few others could have sensed the changes in you, but we’ve spent a great deal of time together. You had an inner glow in the First World.”
“A glow?”
“Yes, like the light from the World Tree, you shone. I’ve never sensed such a thing before, but if forced to guess…”
“What?”
“I would guess you held back the change yourself, keeping this form by the force of your own will.”
“I didn’t do anything on purpose. Is that possible?”
“Not as far as I know,” Ivy said thoughtfully, “but there’re many things I don’t know, and you are no ordinary boy.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked. It was true in a few obvious ways, but I didn’t think she meant it like that.
“How did you vanquish the Clansman, Jellan?” Ivy asked. “I know I hit him with my arrow, and I saw you stab him. Where did he go? Your grandmother and Mr. Ryan believe he ran off—I haven’t told them otherwise.”
“I don’t know. I stabbed him and he vanished. I figured it was another crazy magical thing. The sort of stuff that happens with people from your world.”
“People don’t typically vanish in the First World where magic abounds,” Ivy said. “Here, any significant magic away from a portal should be near impossible. The other Clansmen left corpses when Mr. Ryan finished with them.”
In my mind’s eye I saw Ms. Mopat dragging the bodies into the forest. I didn’t know what had happened, but I had a suspicion.
“It might have been my knife,” I said.
“The knife you crafted in the smithy? I saw it briefly that night.”
“Yeah, I finished it a while ago.”
“Why didn’t show it to me?”
Ivy sounded hurt.
“I didn’t show it to anybody,” I said. “I’m not sure why. I’ll show you tonight. It’s up in my room. Who were those Clansmen people?”
“They’re assassins. The deadliest assassins of my world and not dissimilar in ways to the ninja from the movies we’ve watched. Clansmen live in hidden villages and allow no outsiders. They only leave their villages to fulfil a contract. I wouldn’t have believed they’d travel the World Tree to do so, or risk the wrath of your grandmother.”