Light in the Darkness

by CJ Brightley

  “Does a horse have feathers?” I joked. My mood was good. It seemed, amazingly enough, that I was going to be invited inside this toff palace. “Always. I am always ready to eat.”

  “We’ll go straight along to the kitchen, then. I’ll leave you there, and send a messenger to retrieve you when you’re done. Thianra, I’ll take you up to the Residence wing after we’ve left Lhind with the food.”

  Thianra returned no answer. She studied Hlanan, cast a glance my way. Her lips parted, then she gave her head a little shake, and walked away.

  That was odd. “This way,” Hlanan said, before I could frame a question. I wasn’t even certain what to ask.

  Hlanan led the way down a corridor with whitewashed walls and clay-tile floors. Wonderful smells soon wafted their way toward us, getting stronger at every step, and I couldn’t think of anything but the yawning emptiness inside me, which seemed to reach right down inside my toes. Cinnamon—bread—baking fruit. My stomach rumbled.

  We rounded a corner and passed through a large archway, then entered a huge room with five large ovens and a whole wall of open fireplace. There must have been six or seven long preparation tables with people at every one cutting, forming, filling, kneading. At the far end stone steps led down into a cool-room, and people bearing trays were going up and coming down.

  As we entered a tall, thin man wearing a clean white apron came toward us. “Good day to you, Scribe,” he said.

  “Good day, Master Cook,” Hlanan returned. “This is Lhind, and his highness has asked that you give him whatever he wants to eat. I’ll send one of the pages along to fetch him. Lhind,” this to me, “stay here and enjoy your meal. I’ll see you again soon.”

  Once again I saw question in the faint quirk of his brows, his quick glance that lowered to his hands when I turned his way, but I knew by now that whatever was going on inside his head wouldn’t harm me. I smacked my hands together, rubbed them, and grinned. “Don’t hurry that messenger,” I said.

  He turned away, not before I caught his expression. A wince? Then I remembered that knot on his head. Maybe he was going to lie down. I wished him well of his rest, as I took in the delights the kitchen offered.

  The Master Cook picked up a plate. “Here you go.” His gaunt face was no less friendly now that Hlanan was gone. “Help yourself, just don’t break up the whole pies.”

  I offered fervent thanks and made a fast circuit of the room, grabbing one or two of every tart, pie, and dish that looked good. I got a slice of vegetable pie, several tiny apple pastries, and a jug of cream to pour over anything I wanted. When the plate was piled too high to add anything more, I sat down on a low bench along one wall, and settled in for a long and blissful meal. An assistant brewer brought me water, and two kinds of freshly squeezed fruit juice.

  I was just polishing off the vegetable pie when a cheerful brown-faced boy in a clean sky-blue-and-black livery tunic thudded onto the bench beside me. His eyes were the color of berries and he had teeth missing. His brown hair stuck up in shocks.

  “Good day,” he said. “I’m Mardi, third page. The Scribe told me to stay with you till you were done eating, then bring you to the Gold Suite.”

  “Good,” I said, pointing to the food. “Prepare for a wait.”

  His eyes rounded as he surveyed the empty tins and the pile waiting to be eaten. “Will you eat all that?”

  I shrugged. “If I don’t, I’ll stash it for later.”

  “Later?”

  “Sure. Never know when you’ll eat next.”

  His surprised face told me not only had he always known when he would eat next, he also thought it a very dull arrangement. He looked at me again more closely. “Whose ’prentie are you, and what d’ya do?”

  “Nobody’s,” I said, taking a huge bite of a chocolate tart. “I’m a thief.”

  His gaze ran over me again, this time with a kind of wary respect. “What have you—”

  “Ask me when we leave. Now I want to eat. Tell me about being a page.”

  He shrugged a shoulder impatiently, still eyeing my filthy Thesreve-style clothes. Then he straightened up, and I knew that, poor as the job seemed to him, he was going to do his best to impress me. “I’m third page this year. Residence and first floor runs. Next year, perhaps, council and then throne room runs. And then equerry, with my own horse. And already I have half the map memorized,” he added proudly. “And I speak a lot of Chelan, and some Elras.” He blinked. “The Scribe told me to speak Chelan, but you seem to know our language—Allendi.”

  I shrugged, fighting the alarm that was quick to bang at my heart whenever someone seemed to think I was outside whatever they regarded as normal.

  It’s all right. I’m safe now, it seems. “Picked it up once. So you’ll be a messenger, is that it?”

  He nodded, going on to disparage some of the other pages, illustrating with mistakes they’d made in delivery or protocol.

  As I listened, I considered the idea of becoming a messenger. After all, I was good with horses and I could speak any language I heard. That would be an honest living, and a fun one, if I decided to retire from thievery someday. And I wouldn’t have to stay around any one place or person long enough to be betrayed.

  I think I’ll ask Hlanan about it. I know he’ll be pleased.

  This idea delighted me so much I decided to put it into action at once. “Let’s go,” I said, sweeping the remains of my meal into my already-greasy tunic pocket for later.

  His eyes widened at this, his approval now vast. But he said nothing, striding out briskly so that I had to hop to keep pace. He was maybe half a head taller than I and his legs were much longer than mine.

  We left the servants’ area with the whitewashed walls and clay floors and entered the marble-floored, elegant palace. Air moved along through wide archways decorated with carved vines, above each one a cartouche with Rajanas’s stylized wheat sheaf in its center.

  We hustled past tapestries and mosaics, Mardi naming the official functions of impressive state chambers, then we galloped up a long, curving marble staircase and down another hall.

  Finally we entered a room with a huge carpet of ivory, brown and gold vines twined together. Overhead hung a crystal chandelier as big as a chair, and the furniture was all thin curving legs with inlaid gold. At one side six tall windows let in streams of slanting light, which reached the carved door opposite.

  Hlanan stepped through that door, his face calm but his eyes more serious than I’d ever seen. “Thank you, Mardi,” he said. “Lhind—” He indicated the door behind him.

  “I just got a great idea,” I said cheerily as I preceded him into a small room. “From Mardi. It’s about what I could do that’s perfectly honest—”

  On that word, something strong but invisible closed an icy vice around my heart.

  The door clicked shut behind me.

  I whirled around, but the invisible bands pulled tighter, leaving me gasping for air.

  I was trapped.

  9

  What had I just been thinking about trust? My inner voice wailed.

  I hadn’t so much as tried to escape, just walked right in, expecting anything but outright betrayal.

  Through the black dots swimming across my vision I cast a desperate look around me. About two hand-spans in from each corner of the small room, forming a kind of square, tall white candles sat in silver pots. I knew they were somehow involved with magic—more magic than I’d ever felt in one place, at one time. With each movement I made, some kind of strong binding spell dragged at me from inside.

  I turned again, slowly, and found Hlanan. He stood outside the square, between two windows, with his back to a wall. Except for that awful bruise visible between locks of hair straggling on his forehead, he was pale as death, still dressed in his dirty clothes from our run.

  Hlanan stood there watching me intently with a thin silver wand lying across both his palms. The wand had a jewel at either end, each gem a dizzying swirl of colors. He�
�d obviously come straight up here and spent all the time I was eating in setting up this trap.

  Just for me.

  With my last breath I struggled to save myself. Instinct prompted me, and anger gave me enough strength to shout with all the magic will in me, “Open that door!”

  The words came out like I’d yelled under water, but the effect on Hlanan as he stared into the flaring jewels made him go paler. “Voice cast, too,” he said softly. Then he raised unhappy eyes to me: “I’m desperately sorry, Lhind, more than you’ll ever know, perhaps, but I must know who taught you that magic.”

  “No one,” I wheezed, my breath even shorter.

  “You did not learn those spells on your own, Lhind. It takes a long time to master them, particularly without aids. Please don’t lie any more. You’re bound in what we call a shren-square, within which you can do no magic.”

  I raised my hands, trying to bring a wind to blow out those candles. My fingers tingled and glowed strangely, but no wind came. Hlanan’s brows went up as he watched, but he said nothing, only waited.

  The attempt closed the vice even tighter. My hands dropped to my sides, impossibly heavy. I lifted my gaze past Hlanan to the window, for I wanted to see the light before I died.

  “Lhind,” Hlanan spoke again, moving the wand slightly. “Is this another pretense?”

  The vice eased a tiny bit. I sucked in a heavy breath, though I feared it would crush my chest from the inside. Desperate, I forced my anger and misery to harden and narrow into a thin, red-glowing arrow...

  I knew his range—and I saw, then banished, the old memory of the last time I did this, that figure writhing in those terrible flames in Thesreve.

  And I thrust—

  And instead of striking out at Hlanan, a pain like a knife with a fire-blade lanced behind my eyes. I yelped and dropped to my knees, pressing against the increasing wintry heaviness with shaking fingers.

  “Lhind,” Hlanan’s voice came, husky with emotion. “Mind cast too? Lhind—child—I’m desolately shamed, but I cannot loosen this square until you name your tutor!”

  “I. Don’t. Have. One.” I ground the words out past the ice slowly freezing jaw, brain, lips.

  “I’ll try another spell,” he said slowly. “To sense how you—Lhind?”

  No longer able to bear my own weight, I fell forward, sprawling on the cream-colored carpet. Another few heartbeats and I’d be unable to move at all. I managed to look up at him, and I said, “I saved. You once. Beg. You don’t. Kill. Me. By . . . fire.” Like they do in Thesreve, I thought, unable to get another word past my lips.

  My words seemed to hit him like my thrust had back-lashed at me. His cheeks actually blanched to a faint greenish shade. “I’d never—” He choked, clearly horrified, then he shook his head in perplexity, looking as miserable as I felt. “This is just a shren-square,” he said. “Are you really so distressed, or is this another act?” He flung the wand away and knelt at the edge of the square, looking down at me with distress that echoed my own. “I knew this would be bad, but I did not think—” He’d begun in another tongue, switched to Chelan, then he stopped and stared at me. His expression changed again and he said in the earlier language, “You understand me, don’t you?”

  But I was beyond speech. The ice was slowly leeching away the pain, leaving me numb. Behind Hlanan the windows grayed, and began to darken.

  “Lhind?” he said again, reaching toward me. My blurring gaze was caught by his silver ring. In the light, the irregular bumps on its face formed a pattern, suggesting almond-blossom petals. “Lhind,” Hlanan whispered.

  My eyelids, now heavy beyond control, closed. Just before consciousness slipped away entirely I heard an choked exclamation, and suddenly the terrible weight lifted.

  Rolling over, I lay flat, enjoying the sweetness of being able to breathe freely.

  I heard the rustle of cloth, and Hlanan knelt beside me. “Lhind? I lifted the square.”

  I got my eyes open. My lips were still numb. I worked them, but got no words out.

  Puzzled brown eyes studied me from under a brow shiny with sweat. “Why did the shren have this effect on you? It merely binds—magic.” He whispered the last word, then cleared his throat, but his voice shook as he asked, “Lhind, who are you?”

  “Lhind.” I got it out all right—strength returned with each breath, each wonderful, expansive, sweet breath.

  He wiped his hand across his brow, then sighed, short and sharp. “I shall have to send you directly to the Magic Council unless we can come to some kind of understanding. I promise on my life I would never murder you, but you must understand that someone with all these skills . . .” He lifted his hands. “You look so confused, but you must know what I am saying.”

  I shook my head, just a little, for the headache was not quite gone. “I’m alone,” I whispered, too wretched even to lie. “Nobody taught me. That I can remember. Don’t remember everything.”

  His eyes widened and he sat back on his heels. His distracted gaze went from me to the window and back to me again. “That magic is in you, is that it?” he began cautiously.

  I nodded. “But I don’t know why, or wherefrom. It’s just always been there. That bird said . . .” Danger seemed to curl around me, making it difficult to think.

  “Tir?” he prompted gently. “Said what?”

  “Called me something. Mind to mind,” I managed, though my voice was nearly gone. “If whatever put it in me is bad . . . I promise . . . not part of it . . . been alone since I was small . . .” I gave up.

  He touched my cowl. “Thianra says that your clothing is a kind of disguise. Is she right?”

  I didn’t see how denying it would help me any. He could put me back in that square any time he liked. So I nodded.

  He sighed again, this time with decision. “Tell you what. You can go and change, get cleaned up, rest, whatever you want, and when you come out, I invite you . . . I entreat you, but in no way wish to constrain you to tell me everything you remember. Or you can go, and nobody will stop you,” he said quickly. “I owe you that. I owe you more than that.” He ran tense hands through his hair, making it wilder than before. He grimaced when his fingers encountered that knot, then he dropped his hands and stepped away, gazing at me with mute appeal.

  I was trying to find my voice. No, I was trying to find the thoughts to send to my voice.

  To fill the silence, he said quickly, “Or I could send you to the Council. They are not just a punitive group, not when there’s a mystery.” He smiled slightly, a funny, lopsided sort of smile. “Or not! Lhind, no one will guard you, or watch you. I expect you’ll never trust me again—and I don’t blame you for that. I don’t know when I’ve ever made such a terrible error.” Another deep breath. “So run off if you must, and we will not stop you. But remember, you cannot run forever, and next time your magic might be noticed by someone a lot more harmful than I must seem.”

  He extended a hand, and after a hesitation I took it, and he pulled me to my feet. Once again he gave me a funny look, but without further speech he opened the door to the big room with the six windows and the chandelier.

  Rajanas was seated in one of the carved chairs, drinking from a golden goblet. The room smelled pleasantly of cider and with a hint of cinnamon. “So what did you find?” he addressed Hlanan.

  Hlanan drew in a third unsteady breath. “Lhind seems to know as much magic as I do. More. In certain skills, anyway. And speaks Allendi. Beyond that, we know nothing.”

  Rajanas gestured toward me with his goblet. “I’d suggest you search him, but judging from that fight at the inn, it would take six of you to tie him down. Perhaps you’d do better to obtain his cooperation first. Well, thief?”

  I looked from one to the other. What did I have to lose? I could run, but Hlanan had said no more than the truth when he’d threatened that someone worse could always catch up with me.

  At any rate, he seemed to be done with threats. So if I stayed, at least for a
little while, I might find answers to some of the questions that had shadowed me all my life. “All right,” I said.

  Rajanas set down his goblet. “Then I suggest—for the good of my household, if nothing else—that you begin with a bath. And after that, join us for a meal.”

  “I’ll take you to the bath chamber,” Hlanan said, looking more relieved even than I felt. He led the way out, then murmured with some embarrassment, “I take it that Thianra was correct about your masquerade. But that doesn’t solve the magic questions.” He actually blushed.

  I grinned, a little energy returning. “You mean you’ve guessed that I’m not a boy?”

  His gaze turned to the opposite wall, as if he’d just discovered a treasure there and if he looked away it would vanish.

  I chortled. “If you have to guess anything, you’re supposed to guess that I’m just a female in disguise. You’re supposed to think that’s my only secret.” And when he looked at me in puzzlement, I said, “I switched when I reached Thesreve. Because, well, I was tired of being a girl. There were reasons. I’ve switched back and forth several times.”

  He looked if possible more embarrassed.

  I shrugged, trying not to laugh. “So you’re asking me about clothes. I’d like one of those tunics, the ones slit on the sides, with the billowy trousers. I don’t wear shoes.”

  He wiped his brow again, now plainly relieved. Then he stopped and opened a door. “Here. Through that door is the water. I’ll have someone bring things to this room.” He hesitated, then went out abruptly.

  I sighed, rubbing my tired eyes. As I’d said, I was just as comfortable as a boy as a girl. The one thing I had always been careful to hide was what kind of girl. Which they would see when I came out of that bath.

  But I could always run.

  I took in the rooms. The outer chamber was tiled, with two arched windows. A fireplace set in the wall opposite. Beyond it was another room, also with a window. These rooms formed a corner of the palace. Into the middle of the second chamber’s floor, which was also tiled in a pleasing pattern of blue and gold and brown, was built a long pool.