by Sharon Lee
“I’m considering being jealous,” I told him.
“No need for that.” He cupped my cheek, and I shivered with mingled pleasure and longing.
“Give you a present?” he asked.
I blinked up at him, and it probably says a lot of unfortunate things about my relationship with Borgan that the first thing I thought wasn’t that it’s a really bad idea to accept a gift from a trenvay.
“I don’t have a present for you,” I said.
“That’s okay; you give me one later.” He ran his thumb gently over my skin, which was just dirty pool. I took a breath, and went one step back, out from under his hands.
He tipped his head, and waited.
“You’re getting a little warm for a man who’s leaving right now,” I said.
“Guess I wish I wasn’t. Leaving, that is.” He paused, then said again, “Give you a present?”
Twice now, with the present, I thought. It was important, then.
“All right,” I said.
Relief passed over his face, perfectly plain in the moonlight.
“I guess I should’ve asked what it is,” I said ruefully.
Borgan smiled. “Well, see, you get to pick. Put your hand ’round my braid, high as you can reach.”
I stepped up close and did as I was told. He put his hand over mine.
“Now, just run your hand down.”
I did that, too, loving the feel of his hair against my skin, the various beads and shells lightly grazing my palm. Then I’d reached the end of the braid, and he turned my hand up, so I could see the blue-and-green-swirled bead resting in the palm of my hand.
“There we are then,” Borgan said. “Turn around.”
I felt his fingers, undoing my own shorter and much less interesting braid, felt him finger-comb the loose strands and rebraid a much thinner bit of hair. He may have been humming, deep in his chest; I thought I heard it, but…
“That’ll do it.”
I turned, and he held the thin braid up, with the single bead gleaming among black strands.
“I’ll be afraid of losing it.”
“You won’t lose it; that bead’ll take care of itself.”
I took the braid out of his hand, and fingered the bead. It was warm from having been in Borgan’s hair, and, as far as I could tell, inert, no tingle of glamor or power about it. An ornament, then.
Something to remember him by.
“Thank you.”
“No thank yous,” he said, and pulled me into an embrace. His kiss was fierce and sweet and sad, and I returned it as best I could.
He gripped my shoulders when we parted, and looked down into my face, his almost stern.
“You stay safe, Kate.” The glimmer of a smile broke the sternness. “I know that’s a tall order.”
I think I managed to smile back. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Can’t ask for more than that.”
He moved his hands and stepped away.
“Time I was leaving.”
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “See you in…a couple days.”
I tucked my hands in my pockets, then, and watched him walk away, into the sea.
A wave broke over his head and he was gone.
* * *
Cael had been busy while I’d been gone. The dishes had been washed and put away; my research books were neatly stacked on the coffee table. The rug looked like it had been thoroughly vacuumed—did Cael even know what a vacuum cleaner was?—and the windows sparkled.
The man himself was seated cross-legged on the floor, reading a book, Oscar’s head on his thigh. Breccia was curled on the inebriated elephant blanket at the end of the couch.
“My lady.”
Cael rose in one smooth uncurling, finger marking his place in the book. Oscar got up, too, and stood at his knee.
“At ease,” I said, and bowed slightly. “Thank you for cleaning up.”
“I was pleased to have occupation, and to be of use to my—to you. Oscar and Breccia advised me.” He glanced to the sleeping cat. “She is not at ease with the dirt-eating machine.”
“Cats aren’t usually in favor of vacuum cleaners,” I agreed. “How’d Oscar take it?”
“He showed fitting courage, as did the Lady Breccia. She merely retired abovestairs while I worked down here. When I ascended, she removed herself to this level.”
“Sounds like a sensible arrangement.”
I sighed and looked around me. Seemed like I didn’t exactly know what to do with a free night.
What had I done when all I had were free nights? I thought.
Worked, mostly, I answered myself. Read; watched television. Cleaned the house; did laundry.
Slept.
Well. Maybe Cael would like to play Scrabble? Or…
He cleared his throat, and ducked his head when I focused on him.
“Kate, may your loyal liegeman ask your intentions toward Aleun and Tioli?”
I blinked. Tioli and— Right…Aleun was the gardener, and Tioli was on the wall. The last two survivors of House Aeronymous.
“I don’t have any intentions toward them,” I said. “They can go home, or stay where they are, whatever they like.” I gave him a sharp look. “I’m not going to bring them across to the Changing Land; I don’t need…any more servants.”
“Your establishment here is modest,” Cael agreed, and glanced at Oscar, as if taking counsel.
“It is possible, in the rush of events that night, that I failed to convey that both Aleun and Tioli…are bound.”
I felt cold in the pit of my stomach.
“Bound bound?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
Cael met my eyes firmly.
“Aleun is bound to the garden, and Tioli—to the walls.”
Goddammit, Grandfather.
Cael cleared his throat.
“While it is…almost certain that, released, Aleun will choose to remain with the plants, the return to her of a choice will be a worthy liege-gift. Tioli…”
He hesitated and reached down to tug lightly on Oscar’s ear.
“Tioli had been from the village, my lady. The walls are cold and lonely.”
…and wet, and treacherous, and all her comrades were dead, and I was going to have to go to Sempeki to undo this. Or I was going to leave two people nailed to a dead House, their futures forfeit because my grandfather had been a control freak to end all control freaks.
I didn’t want to go to Sempeki. Never, ever, ever again did I want to set foot inside Aeronymous House. I was ice cold, just thinking about it.
This has nothing to do with me, I thought, but I knew better than that.
“My lady?”
“Opening the World Gate at this time isn’t a good idea.”
It was a blatant stall, and it didn’t stop Cael for more than thirty seconds. Give the man credit, though; he didn’t argue with me. He bowed slightly, and murmured.
“You may travel safely with me, your faithful wolf. I will take you as I myself went, and bring you to the House’s very gate.”
It wasn’t exactly a surprise that Cael had sung himself across the World Wall, though I remained skeptical of his ability to bring us both across in good order. But that didn’t really matter, because…
“The time,” I began—and that was a real concern; I couldn’t vanish for six months. However, Cael was ahead of me there, too.
“My lady’s tie to this land will provide a check. We need be at Aeronymous House only a very short time, as it is counted in this World or that.” He looked at me, golden-brown eyes sad. “I serve you, my lady. Will you sully our honor?”
Dammit, Kate. This is what you get from accepting the fealty of strange men.
…and I was still, as I’d told Gran, the closest thing to Aeronymous left. If I didn’t right this, it would stay wrong.
And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
I sighed.
“I’m going to regret this.”
&
nbsp; “Kate, you will not,” Cael told me earnestly, his eyes bright now. Oscar was wagging his tail enthusiastically. Breccia raised her head from her paws and gave me a level look.
“Spot us,” I told her, and felt a slight tingle up my spine, almost like jikinap rising. The cat squinted a smile at me. I took that as a promise.
I sighed again, and bowed to Cael the Wolf.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.
He extended a hand and took mine.
“Oscar,” he said, “stay.”
The room went dark, as if someone had thrown a switch; the temperature plummeted, and I lost the feel and taste of the air.
A wolf howled, leaving utter silence in its wake.
Chapter Thirty
Aeronymous House
in Sempeki, the Land of the Flowers
Silence shattered around me.
The first thing I heard was the nerve-wracking jangle of merrybells.
The first thing I tasted was honeyed air.
I opened my eyes…
…and beheld the mighty silver gate that had guarded the estate of Aeronymous, blasted and burned, hanging crazily by one hinge. The blackened metal was sagging and torn, twisted in a half-melted knot around the Great Wave, the sign of our House.
Beyond the ruined gate, and down a wide courtyard, Aeronymous House stood, to all senses, unharmed. To the right of the house, the gardens bloomed plentifully. To the left was a table of rock, falling sharply away. The back wall overlooked sheer cliff, and the sea.
House Aeronymous is—was—aligned with the sea. Back home in the Changing Land, that would’ve meant that the House owned trade ships, and fisher fleets.
Here in the Land of the Flowers, it meant that those of the House have a certain inborn affinity for water. All Sempeki Houses are aligned with a Sempeki element. One of my grandfather’s great cronies, Ozali Eredith, had been aligned with stone. Mr. Ignat’, so he’d let slip, came from a House aligned with fire.
Ramendysis…had been aligned with the storm winds.
Which probably explained…everything.
Tears started to my eyes. I swallowed, and realized that I was still gripping Cael’s hand.
I turned to look at him, and saw that his face was wet.
“You’d been here before,” I said, my voice raspy with the tears I refused to shed.
“Yes,” he agreed, and took a hard breath. “And I was here when the Gate was fashioned. Souls were bound into it, and the life-forces of our most ferocious hounds. Jikinap from every one of the House, and every one of the village, too. No power should have been able to destroy that Gate, my lady. And yet…”
And yet, it had been destroyed; the first defense of the House, charred and bent and broken; the power bound into it consumed by the enemy of the House; increasing the strength that he brought against the House.
“It did well,” I said, maybe trying to comfort him. “No one and nothing could have withstood Ozali Ramendysis by the time he came to us.”
“I ask that you tell me the tale,” he said, his fingers warm around mine. “When you may.”
Because Cael had been in prison when Aeronymous House had fallen. It occurred to me to be grateful for that.
“I’ll gladly tell you the history, to the extent that I know it myself,” I told him. “But first, let’s do what we came to do.”
“Yes,” he said, and stepped past the blasted gate, whereupon he turned right, toward the gardens.
He was still holding my hand, and I made no attempt to pull away. It was comforting in this place, to have that living contact.
Just about then, it occurred to me that Borgan probably wouldn’t rate this excursion as safe.
* * *
“My liege.”
Aleun was precisely as I remembered her: wiry and brown, leaf-green hair tousled into elf-locks around her ears. Her face was sharp and her eyes were a shade lighter than her hair.
She bowed with great deliberation.
“Gardener,” I said, with what poor dignity I could muster. “I am come at the word of Cael the Wolf, to release you, if that is your desire, from the duty to which you have been bound.”
“No one wishes to be compelled, my lady; especially when one would gladly serve, for love.”
“Will you stay with the garden then, bound or free?”
“Made free to choose, and free to act, I would remain with the garden, my lady. My love and my sustenance lies with these plants, which your grandsire knew. His binding profaned my service.” Her mouth tightened. “Your pardon, Lady. The old lord was a hard man; it wasn’t in him, to believe in any ties save those he built and set into place.”
That was all true, and if our places had been reversed and I had the saying of it, I wouldn’t have been nearly so kind. However, it was Aleun’s right to set the bar of courtesy wherever it seemed right to her, she being the wronged party.
“My grandfather was not a gentle man,” I agreed—which might win understatement of the year, if I remembered to enter the contest. “As little as it may be, I propose to return choice to you. Also, I offer my apology, that this should have been forced upon you, and your service tainted by it.”
“You had no hand in this, Lady. Return me fully to myself, and you will have done all you might, and shown yourself a fair leige, and true.”
She extended a brown hand, her eyes piercing mine. I met and held that gaze, at last releasing Cael, so that I might take Aleun’s wiry member between my two palms, as if I were about to perform a healing.
I took one breath, and another, and opened my eyes into Side-Sight.
The binding was immediately obvious—a simple thing, though brutal in its simplicity. Grandfather Aeronymous had merely driven thick ropes of jikinap through the woman’s heart, burying them in the living soil of the garden. If she had tried to leave, she would have very quickly been in pain. If she had persevered, the ropes would have torn her living heart asunder.
There was no healing needed here, only release.
No sooner had I made my judgment than power flowed, cool and potent in my veins. I thought about shears—and the binding parted, jikinap melting into the soil, to the benefit, I hoped, of the garden.
“Ah!” cried Aleun.
Her eyes lost focus; her hand softened. I held her as green healing flowed through me, to her.
Only a moment passed before she smiled, strength returning to her hand. She closed her eyes and opened them, her lashes wet, and her cheeks, too.
I released her.
Aleun sighed, and stepped away from me. She bent over to pluck one of the blue-and-gold flowers from the bed she had been tending—and bowed, offering it to me across the palms of her two hands, as if it were a blade.
“Thank you, my lady.”
* * *
Tioli stood like a wraith in the mist that rose from the waves crashing below.
It was cold here on the wall, in the mist, the footing uncertain and the wind ungiving. I shivered, but if the lone sentinel experienced any discomfort at her post, she didn’t show it. Merely, she faced out to the sea, her posture alert; scanning, I supposed, for enemies.
Having led me this far, Cael now put his back against the wall, and called ahead.
“Tioli, it is Cael. I have brought our Lady Aeronymous.”
“The Lady Aeronymous may approach,” came the answer, as thin and chill as the voice of the wind itself.
Cael looked to me and nodded. Apparently, I was to go on alone.
Great.
I thrust the flower Aleun had given me into his hand.
“Keep that safe,” I snapped. His eyes widened, but I didn’t have time to wonder what it was I’d done now. I inched carefully past him, the wind making sport of my braid, and swirling in cunning little by-drafts that might send an unwary walker down to the far-below sea.
Finally, breathing hard, I came to the sentinel’s watch.
“My liege,” Tioli said.
I was close enough to
touch her, yet I could scarcely hear her; her voice was as insubstantial as the mist. She did not turn her head nor offer me any courtesy such as Aleun had done.
“You come to me late,” she said, which might have been criticism, but there was no heat in her voice.
“The fault is mine,” I said. “I had thought all our House consumed by Ozali Ramendysis, and have only lately learned that you and Aleun survived.”
Her lips parted, and I heard a faint huff-huff that might have been laughter.
Well, at least she’d kept her sense of humor.
“I would release you,” I continued, doggedly, “if you wish it so.”
“Above all things, my lady, I wish release.”
“Then you shall have it.”
She did not raise her hand from the hilt of her weapon, nor yet did she look at me.
All right, then.
I extended my hand, meaning to lay it on her shoulder.
But my fingers passed right through her, ice immediately forming on each digit.
I withdrew. If she noticed my intrusion, she gave no sign.
“Tioli, are you—” My throat closed, and I thought, suddenly, that I knew what she’d found so amusing.
“Am I dead, my lady? Yes. Did Cael not tell you?”
“Cael said you were bound to the wall.”
“Why, and so I am, as you can see.”
I could indeed see, in Side-Sight—a heavy staple of jikinap driven as deeply into her heart and thin Sempeki soul, as into the thick wall at her back. Tioli herself was a shredding shadow, a patchwork thing animated only by the spill from the working that bound her.
“I beg you,” Tioli whispered, “finish what is begun. I will love you for it, as I never loved your grandsire.” Her lips drew back in a mirthless smile. “Though you will perhaps not find the love of the dead comforting.”
“Few enough love me. I’ll not refuse the gift, freely given,” I said, the glitter of jikinap all but blinding me, in Side-Sight.
With an effort, I focused, and once again deployed my will to bite into the binding.
There was a moment of resistance before the staple broke, and the heavy power rained down, and over, the wall.
Tioli—
Tioli shredded in the mocking wind, patchwork bits flowing over me and up, riding the restless air into the flawless Sempeki sky.