by Carol Berg
“Until Janus corrupted her,” I said, near spitting gall. Anger burrowed under my skin and throbbed like a septic wound, poisoning the hard peace I had made with the old man on that last night in Palinur.
Osriel shrugged and strolled through a chamber littered with old paint splashes and stacks of canvas into a room hung with every size and shape of willow bird cages—all of them vacant. Someone of wide-ranging interests had lived in this house. But no longer.
“My father’s failure to return to the Danae caused much anger and grief, and as years passed, visits with Clyste and Kol and my father’s other friends among the Danae grew rare. But on one night not long after I was born, Kol barged into my father’s bedchamber. Bitter and furious, Kol told him that Clyste had been bound to her sianou with myrtle and hyssop, forbidden to take bodily form again. He left with no further explanation, and my father neither saw nor spoke to another Dané before he died.”
I held back a curtain, and we passed into what must once have been a gracious library, its dusty shelves now holding only a few scattered volumes. I guessed that the rest now sat in the magical lighthouse.
“Clearly there is even more to the story than we know,” the prince continued, “for one must ask: If the Danae knew Janus de Cartamandua had stolen you and punished him for it, why did they never claim you? It would have been no great leap of intelligence to see that the infant who appeared in the Cartamandua house at the very time of the theft must be the half-Danae child.”
I caught his meaning. “Yet if they had known I was half Danae, they would never have tried to drown me in the bog along with everyone else.”
“Exactly so. I believe that, of all the Danae, only Kol knows who and what you are. Clyste never told them that Janus had fathered her child.”
Which meant that Kol alone had driven my grandfather mad and that it was unlikely that Kol had launched the owl to drown us in the bog. If he had wanted me dead, he’d already had ample opportunities.
“Had I known all this before Mellune Forest, I might have run into the wild and begged the Danae to make me one of them,” I said, “assuming such a thing is even possible. But whatever their reasons might have been, to trick fifty people into drowning—without judgment, without mercy, guilty and innocent alike—is as despicable as the Harrowers clogging wells with tar in Palinur. To protect my friends, I had to become complicit in their evil. I won’t do that again.”
Perhaps it was my imagination that Osriel’s complexion darkened. A perceptive man as he was would surely understand it was not only of Danae evils that I spoke.
I moved swiftly to make my intent clear. “I will uphold my oath of submission to you, lord—I’ll not run—but I intend to stay out of their way until my birthday.” I had no desire to live as a stone or a tree.
Our meandering path had led us back to the passage of shields and curtained doors. “Your position makes sense,” he said as we neared its end. “But you have also sworn to serve the lighthouse cabal. As there seems to be no immediate danger to you from Kol, I must call upon your oath and bid you guide me to a place where I can try once more to speak to him. We must discover if the Danae know the cause of the world’s sickness, and we must warn them of Sila Diaglou.”
Bonds of oath and obligation, now made all the more repugnant by this deeper loathing, settled about my limbs. “But, my lord—”
“You’ll not have to face him yourself. In the hour I stand in Danae lands—beside the Sentinel Oak at Caedmon’s Bridge—I shall deem your present obligation to me and to the cabal complete, and you may choose your own course to face your past and future. Saverian will maintain her remedy for your sickness as long as you require it. You will be welcome to reside here or come and go as your health allows.” His face—Gram’s face—expressed his particular earnest sincerity that could persuade a hen to lay its neck beneath the ax blade. “After the solstice, the world and our place in it will be changed for good or ill. At that time we will renegotiate the terms of your service. So, are you willing?”
Free to choose my own course…how sweet those words, offering the one thing I’d ever begged of the gods. He was right. If Kol meant to hand me over to the Danae or drive me mad, he could have taken me at Clyste’s Well or fifty different times back in Palinur. And the deed should be possible; I had seen the great oak where only a crude illusion should have existed, where nothing grew in the human plane. I could take Osriel there, then be on my way…search for Jullian. Once the boy walked free and Gildas had paid a price for Gerard’s murder, all my oaths would be fulfilled. Free to choose…“My lord, yes. Of course I’ll take you.”
“Good. I’ll have done with my thirsty warlords tonight. If you feel in anywise fit enough, we’ll leave for Aeginea tomorrow. Time presses us sorely.”
“I’ll be ready.”
I pulled aside the blue and yellow curtain and waited for the prince to enter my bedchamber, but he motioned me to go ahead alone, bidding me to rest well.
A wolf of hammered gold adorned the wall above the archway. Its garnet eyes gleamed fierce in the lamplight. Kindness, understanding, generosity…how easily Osriel induced me to forget my doubts. No matter my chosen course, this time I must not avert my eyes.
I took a knee and touched my forehead in proper obeisance, and rose at his nod. “Tell me, my lord,” I said, as he turned to go, “if Brother Victor dies, will you take his eyes?”
The gaze he cast over his shoulder could have frosted a volcano’s heart. “Yes.”
I wanted Osriel to be worthy of his inheritance and worthy of my trust, but as the Duc of Evanore vanished down the passage, it felt as if he dragged my entrails with him. I needed to learn what Elene would tell me.
Chapter 10
Restlessness drew me out of my bedchamber before Osriel’s footsteps had faded, and I paced the sprawling house as if paid to measure its myriad dimensions. In hopes of finding Brother Victor, I bypassed the domed garden, the painter’s room, the scavenged library, and the other places I’d walked with the prince. Wisdom advised me to seek a confidant who did not transform my loins to fire and my mind to jam as Elene did. Loyalty bade me warn the monk of his peril. I could not believe he knew of Osriel’s unsavory practices. I was already chastising myself for agreeing to my master’s plan. Why did I trust him? He didn’t even bother to mask his infamy.
Though dusty and deserted, the house was finely proportioned and lavishly ornamented with windows and murals, painted ceilings and rich hangings. Yet the farther I walked, the worse the stench: latrines, rotting meat, male sweat, candles, incense, and wood ash, mouse piss, boiling herbs. I’d always thought Moriangi houses the nastiest in the kingdom.
By the time I rounded a new corner only to find a corridor I had traversed three times already, I suspected some magical boundary kept me separate from the ailing monk. I touched the smooth tiles of the passage floor, seeking some trace of him, but as before my bent failed to answer my summons. Confessing defeat, I chose to retreat.
I could not find my bedchamber. My footsteps thudded on the tiles. The mice scuttling in the walls were surely the size of houses. Anxiety grew like dark mold in my lungs and heart.
Increasingly confused, I burst through a door I’d not yet broached. Tables jammed with neglected plants crowded the long room, and the glare of the westering sun through its three walls and roof of glass near blinded me. Eyes blurred, nauseated by the stink, I stumbled sideways.
An explosion of pain in my skull sent me crashing to the floor. I crawled into a corner and huddled quivering, arms wrapped about my head.
Running footsteps hammered the passage floor like the thousand drums of Iero’s Judgment Night. With a hiss of disapproval, the newcomer wrenched my arms aside, pried my chin upward, and slapped something cold and round onto the center of my forehead. As worms burrowing into my flesh, magic flowed outward from the disk, gnawing skin, muscle, and bone, quieting whatever it touched before squiggling onward…deeper…farther…
When t
he disgusting sensation faded, the world felt dull and distant, as if my entire body had been sheathed in silken hand bindings. “Could you not make this enchantment feel more like your fingers and less like maggots?” I said.
“My apologies, O Magical Being!” Saverian grabbed my hands and hauled me to a sitting position. The world spun only slightly. “What a fool I was to design this spell for your relief and not your pleasure.”
“Mistress, I didn’t mean—”
“Of course, had you remained where you were told, I could have renewed your shield at the proper time, and you would not have experienced the spell’s less pleasant aspects so acutely. But then, the parts between your legs do resemble those of mortal males, so I shouldn’t expect too much in the way of common wisdom.” Her complaints were issued with the same ironical humor she had used to address the uncooperative logs in my bedchamber hearth. “And I dislike being labeled as anyone’s mistress. My name is Saverian.”
I rubbed at the crusted mess on my eyelids, hoping to regain my faculties now she had withdrawn her hand. Water sloshed and dribbled. She whispered, “Igneo,” and not long afterward, a hot damp cloth scalded my eyelids.
“Ouch!”
“Must you forever complain?”
Her blotting was indeed more satisfactory than rubbing away the grit of sweat and tears…and blood, I noticed when she paused to rinse the cloth. My collision with the brick wall had split my head in more than my perception. But the sharp sting served as pleasing evidence that my senses now functioned in a somewhat normal fashion.
The physician had changed from her riding leathers into a skirt and shapeless tunic of dull green. A slim leather belt settled about her hips, more for the purpose of attaching a knife sheath and two leather pockets than any decorative enhancement of her spare figure.
“I was hoping to visit Brother Victor,” I said. “He is a friend…mentor…”
“…and the prince told you, ‘Not yet.’ It might soothe your conscience to see the monk, but it would do him no good at all. His health improves. His injuries have challenged me, but will yield in the end.”
She dropped a jingling something into one of her pockets and tightened the drawstring with a snap. Her insistent grip on my hand hauled me to my feet with astonishing ease. As I concentrated on remaining upright, she surveyed me head to toe and sighed heavily.
“Come along. Our doughty prince insists that you remain out of sight while he plays Evanori chieftain in his hall. He fears your presence would be a distraction. Nothing sets Evanori warlords slavering more than a tall, scrawny pureblood.”
Untwisting my trews, I padded after her through another garden room and into the chilly corridor. My head throbbed, but only with bruising, not madness. “I’m no more pureblood than he is—or you are.”
Saverian raised one instructive finger. “Ah, but Caedmon’s holy blood flows in Osriel’s veins, which means they will forgive him anything, and despite being a woman who prefers books to battleaxes, I can at least claim half an Evanori birthright. Were I in your place, I would certainly not attempt to explain to a hundred warlords come to the last night of a warmoot that, despite my Registry listing, I was not an Aurellian pureblood because my mother was an angel…or a water sprite…or whatever it is you claim. Of course, I say you can be damned and do as you wish, save that our lord has commanded me to see you obey him. And I will see to it. You must have peeved him something dreadful to put him in such a vile temper.”
Her heavy black braid had been knotted at the back of her long neck and fixed in place with an ivory skewer. Easy to imagine that skewer stretching all the way down her spine. Half Evanori, half Aurellian—that likely explained her odd nature. Evanori hated Aurellians—and thus purebloods—with a passion wrought of gold, starvation, and survival.
After Ardra and Morian had fallen to the Aurellian Empire, and Caedmon had sent his infant son to the Danae for protection, the king and the remnants of his legions had retreated into the wilds of Evanore. Raiding, running, hiding in caves and corries, freezing and starving alongside his men, Caedmon taught the warlords to fight as one and helped them build impregnable strongholds to hold off the invaders and their cruel emperor, who lusted for Evanore’s gold. When Caedmon fell at last, having earned their eternal loyalty, the Evanori held out a century more. Had they yielded their region’s treasure, Aurellia would likely yet stand, and Navronne would yet be subject to an empire that built its strength on magic, slavery, and brutality.
Though feeling mostly myself again in body, my spirit remained tight wound. If Osriel meant what he said about my choosing my own course, I’d no mind to put off our coming journey into the Danae realm, no matter the state of my recovery. Thus, to learn what secrets Elene could teach, I had to see her that night. Which meant I had to find a way into the fortress. As a prison guard Saverian did not elicit the same unnerving fears as Voushanti, but she had shown power enough to make me wary, nonetheless.
“You seem excessively compliant for one who speaks of our master so slightingly,” I said as she marched into the familiar passage. The hammered gold wolf with garnet eyes glared from the far end, guarding my bedchamber door. “Is it to benefit the lighthouse you do all this?”
She snorted. “I am Renna’s physician and house mage, not a member of Osriel’s band of merry monks.”
“Your privileged position must shield you from his wrath. You don’t seem to fear him as the rest of us do.”
She waved me through the blue and yellow door hanging. “If you assume my familiarity with the prince buys me leniency from his strictures, I’d recommend you actually use these senses I’m protecting for you. Bear in mind, I’ve known him from infancy and have learned in what matters I dare cross him and in what matters I dare not.”
I made as if to enter the bedchamber, but instead blocked the doorway. “Prince Osriel wishes me out of sight—fair enough. But might there be some hidden vantage from which I could observe tonight’s events? I’ve no experience of Evanori customs, so I’m greatly curious. And, by every god in heaven, if I am left alone to parse my birth, my body, or my future for one more moment, not even your magics will keep me sane.” This last came out sounding a bit more desperate than I liked.
She tipped her head to one side and pursed her thin lips into an unflattering knot. Her brow ridges were angled slightly downward from midfore-head, giving her a forever-quizzical expression. After a breathless moment, she shrugged. “Why not? Let it never be said I granted Osriel of Evanore exactly what he desired on any occasion whatsoever.”
I didn’t think I’d ever met a person so unattached to human feelings. All the world seemed subject to her disdain. Recalcitrant logs or foolish sorcerers could cause her transitory annoyance, but I couldn’t imagine what it might take to truly frighten her, or to please her, for that matter. At least she had no red sparks centering her pupils.
Saverian sat in my room for several hours that afternoon, writing in her journal, reading from several books, annoyed when I tried to talk or ask questions.
“Sleep, if you can’t think of anything better to do,” she said, after one ill-timed query. “I’m not here to entertain you. You’ve taken enough of my time over the past few weeks.”
But my skin itched and my insides felt like a nest of ants. I could no more sleep than I could read her books. “What do you do with your time when not nursing twist-minds or demon princes? I’ve never seen anyone save monks or schoolmasters sit so long with a book.”
“Books don’t prattle. Books don’t make demands. Yet they give you everything they possess. It’s a very satisfying partnership.”
I considered that for a while, as I watched her read. Annoyance vanished as the words absorbed her attention, replaced by a fluid mix of interest, curiosity, and serious consideration. Her brow would furrow; then she would write something in her journal. Once the thought was recorded, the furrow smoothed, and she went back to reading. Books supplied companionship, perhaps, but I doubted any words
on a page could do what her hands had done for me as I lay in the doulon madness. “Satisfying doesn’t sound like much to aim for.”
“Enough!” With a spit of exasperation, she scooped all her belongings into an untidy armload and headed for the door. “I’ll fetch you in time for the warmoot.”
I spent the next few hours berating myself as an idiot. I hadn’t meant to voice my musings aloud. At least she had given me something to look at beyond four walls and a bed.
One of her books had fallen to the floor beneath the table. I thumbed through it, picking out one or two letters that I knew, then watching them melt and flow into the ones next to them. Gods, useless. I threw the book across the room and went to sleep.
True to her word, Saverian returned just after a bristle-bearded serving man had lit the lamps. As I snatched a long black cloak from the clothes chest, I felt warmly satisfied that, for the first time in forever, I was both reasonably clearheaded and taking some action on my own behalf.
“You need to eat more than one bite of meat and a dried plum,” said the physician after inspecting the food tray that had arrived an hour earlier. She stuffed a slice of oily cheese into my hand. “Eat this as we walk, and I won’t find a reason to abort this venture.”
I could make no plans until we reached the fortress, but if I were to shake free of Saverian and find Elene, I would likely need magic more than nourishment. I obediently took a bite of cheese, then held out my fingers. “Can you unlock these, good physician? I feel a cripple without my bent even to know north from south.”
Her dark heavy cloak made her look taller and more than ever like a stick. She shrugged. “You assign me more skill than my due. It’s not your fingers, but only this house I’ve sealed against your magic—and that only possible because it is a peculiar house with a number of in-built protections already. I assumed you would be more in control of yourself by the time we took you out walking. Please tell me that’s true.”