‘I’ll be glad to have you along,’ Daphne said, ‘though I won’t be leaving for a few thirds yet, when Karalyn’s old enough to travel.’
‘You’re all buggering off,’ Shella said. ‘What about me? I’ll be stuck here with only my idiot brother for company.’
‘You have your new job to look forward to,’ Daphne said, wheeling the pram about.
‘Work? Gah. I haven’t worked in ages, not since I was running Akhanawarah. I’m too lazy to lift a finger now.’
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Daphne smiled.
‘At least the old ambassador will be gone soon. Just a few more days.’
‘And then you’ll be an eminence as well as a highness, your Highness.’
‘I bet the King regrets making Obli queen,’ Shella laughed. ‘If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have to keep pretending I’m a princess.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t mind,’ Daphne said. ‘Does his image good to have a Rakanese princess attend his court. Contributes to his regal air.’
‘The ruler of the world,’ Shella snorted. ‘You Holdings just love your fucking royalty, fawning over the King like puppies wagging their little tails. The only man more popular than the King is Benel.’
‘Did you hear?’ Daphne said as they walked back down the street towards her home. ‘The hero mage is attending the New Year celebrations, gracing us with his presence. He’ll be at the head of the parade. Damn, I can already imagine the swooning and screaming.’
‘You’re just jealous,’ Shella said. ‘If you hadn’t got pregnant, it would’ve been you being all magely and heroic. That’ll teach you to keep your fucking legs shut.’
As Shella was about to laugh, another aristocratic couple passed them. She muttered a polite ‘good morning’, as they frowned and turned away.
Daphne smiled. ‘Quite the foul mouth for a princess. I hope you remember your manners when you become ambassador.’
‘I’ll just have to take it out on Sami,’ Shella said. ‘There’s only so much politeness I can handle.’
A priest coming towards them turned direction when he saw Daphne, and crossed the road, keeping his glance averted.
‘Take that asshole for instance,’ Shella said, ‘ten minutes of having to be polite to him and he’d be vomiting up his lungs.’
‘Don’t pay him any attention,’ Daphne sighed. ‘It’s bad form to acknowledge incivility. It’s beneath noble ladies like ourselves.’
Shella looked at her. ‘You want to kick his ass too?’
‘I’d love to,’ Daphne said, pushing the pram. Her right arm was tired, her left tucked into her warm clothes. ‘But I’m out of shape. Just going for a walk tires me out.’
‘You need more sleep.’
‘Karalyn keeps me up all night.’
‘Try having sixteen in your house all at once. I was demented for thirds.’
‘One’s enough,’ Daphne said. ‘And the feeding’s not going well.’
‘I don’t know why you keep trying. Use a damned bottle, woman.’
They stopped at the entrance to the Holdfast mansion. The troopers took up position on either side, scanning the street.
‘Thanks, girls,’ Shella said to them. ‘Made it back alive again.’
Bedig gripped hold of the pram and carried it up the stairs, Karalyn remaining asleep inside. Daphne nodded to the troopers, and followed him up with Shella.
The housekeeper was waiting for them at the door.
‘Mistress, your Highness,’ she bowed as they entered.
Daphne shrugged off her coat, and the housekeeper took it from her.
The pram was placed down in the hall, and Karalyn began to stir.
‘I’ll get some tea,’ Bedig said.
Daphne walked to the pram, her right hand reaching in.
‘Mistress,’ the housekeeper said, ‘you have a visitor.’
‘Yes?’ Daphne said, her attention focussed on the waking baby.
‘An older Kellach gentleman. A rude and coarse fellow. I would have shown him the door, but he said he had important news. He knew Karalyn’s name, mistress, and other things about you. I thought it best to let him stay.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Shella said. ‘A rude old man? I can’t wait.’
‘I doubt he’s a match for you,’ Daphne said, before turning to the housekeeper. ‘Did the gentleman give a name?’
‘Kalayne, mistress.’
Daphne blinked.
‘You know him?’ Shella said.
‘Heard of him.’
She pursed her lips, trying to remember everything Killop and Kylon had said.
‘Very good,’ she said to the housekeeper. ‘Which room have you put him in?’
‘The green room, mistress. He demanded food and we left him eating.’
‘Thank you,’ Daphne said. ‘I shall go and see our visitor shortly.’
The housekeeper bowed, and walked down the hall.
‘So,’ Shella said, ‘who is this guy?’
‘He’s the Kellach prophet,’ Daphne said. ‘The one who saw me and Killop together.’
She took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it.
Shella raised her eyebrows.
‘If he’s rude to us, then I can be as rude as I like back to him, yeah?’
Karalyn started to cry.
‘Fuck,’ Shella said. ‘Where’s that oaf Bedig gone?’
Daphne stubbed her cigarette out and picked up the baby from the pram.
‘We’ll just have to take her with us.’
They walked down the hallway and headed for the green room, a small, out of the way chamber at the back of the mansion. Shella opened the door and they went in.
A man with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard who looked to be in his late fifties was sitting at a table. He was scowling at a plate of food, examining it close up with a knife in obvious disapproval.
‘What’s this crap you’ve served me?’ he said, then looked up. ‘Ah, it’s you.’
‘Is something wrong with the food?’ Daphne said as they approached.
‘It would be easier to say what was right with it,’ he replied. ‘Nothing.’
He turned his attention to a large jug, and sniffed it.
‘Water. How hospitable.’
‘Would you prefer tea?’
‘I would prefer enough whisky to blot out the taste of the foul leftovers you had your servants bring me.’
‘How about some old-fashioned introductions?’ Shella said.
‘Who asked you to speak?’ the man said. He turned to Shella, his gaze lingering on her body.
‘Hoi,’ Shella said. ‘Eyes up.’
He ignored her, continuing to stare.
Daphne and Shella shared a glance.
‘I am Daphne Holdfast…’
‘I know.’
‘And this is Princess Shella.’
‘I know that too, although I hadn’t realised how pleasing she was to the eye. If all the frog people are as well proportioned as her I might make a trip there. It would be worth the swamps and the flies for a piece of amphibian action.’
‘You’re a fucked up old bastard,’ Shella said.
He grinned. ‘And a well-spoken young lady too. If you’re lucky I might take you out on a date after this. You’d have to pay for the meal, but I promise the sex will be amazing.’
Shella laughed, and sat at the table. Daphne took a chair next to her, resting Karalyn on her knee. The infant’s cries became louder.
‘What a terrible noise,’ Kalayne said. ‘I hate babies.’
‘Thank you for sharing your opinion,’ Daphne said, hiding her irritation as well as she could, ‘but I presume you didn’t come here just to tell me this.’
‘You presume correctly,’ he said. ‘You know who I am, then?’
‘You’re a weird old man,’ Shella said, ‘who has my best friend convinced you can tell the future, even though this is the first time she’s met you.’
Kalayne frowned. ‘I sent Ky
lon to save your life, because I had a vision of him pulling you away from a great wave of mud. Did that not occur?’
‘It did,’ Shella said, ‘but you could have learned that from him. I know he’s been in Plateau City.’
‘What a tedious bore, having to prove oneself,’ Kalayne said, shaking his head, ‘but if you insist.’
His arm swept across the table, his hand reaching out and grabbing Shella’s chin. Before she could react, he leaned over and stared into her eyes.
She pushed his hand away. ‘Urgh.’
He sat back and laughed. ‘Where to begin? So many memories to choose from. Maybe I should start with the time you killed your sister Tehna’s pet fish and blamed it on Klebo when you were six. Or how about when you broke your father’s medal for civic duties, and dropped the evidence into the canal outside your house? Or when…’
‘Stop,’ Shella said. ‘Fucking stop now. I don’t know how the fuck you’re doing this, but I don’t like it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Daphne said, ‘that’s a vision skill. How can a Kellach do it?’
‘You mean you can do that too?’ Shella said, her voice heightening. ‘You can read memories?’
‘Yes,’ Daphne said. ‘You know I can go into people’s minds, and see their thoughts, but I never look through anyone’s memories. It seems… wrong.’
‘Damn fucking right it is,’ Shella said.
‘Mage-priests do it all the time though,’ Daphne said, ‘if they need to find out if someone is lying.’
‘But I can do something they can’t,’ Kalayne said. ‘When I look out through someone else’s eyes, I not only see their past. Sometimes I see their future too.’
‘But how?’ Daphne said, over the sound of Karalyn’s cries.
‘She has to leave first,’ he said.
‘Who, Shella?’
‘Aye. What I have to say is for you alone.’
Daphne turned and glanced at Shella, who was glowering at Kalayne.
‘Okay, I’ll go,’ Shella said. ‘Sick of your company anyway, you sleazy old bastard.’
‘My offer of a date still stands,’ he chuckled as she left the room. ‘Remember, I saved your life, you owe me one.’
Shella slammed the door behind her.
Daphne waited for Kalayne to stop giggling.
‘Well?’ she said.
He looked at the baby. ‘First,’ he said, and Karalyn calmed and went to sleep in Daphne’s arm.
‘How did you do that?’ she cried.
‘Easy,’ he said. ‘She is the same as me.’
‘What?’
‘She’s a dream mage. Well, that’s what I call them.’
He picked up the water jug and sighed. ‘Got any booze?’
Daphne stood, and placed Karalyn down in a small cot by the fireplace, covering her with a blanket. She went over to a cupboard and opened the hidden shelf. She withdrew a bottle and two glasses.
‘Ahh, Daphne my girl,’ Kalayne beamed.
She poured and handed him a glass.
He sniffed. ‘Rum, rum, rum.’
She lit a cigarette while he drank.
‘What I know,’ he said, ‘I have pieced together over a long time. I share another trait with your vision mages; I possess the ability to hear the voice of the Creator. However, unlike your prophets, I cannot initiate a conversation. Instead, I enter the mind of the Creator in my dreams, and hear his thoughts. Every time, he is unaware that I am listening. I can scream and shout, but he never hears me. I don’t believe he has ever once been aware that I’ve been in his head.’
‘You can hear his private thoughts?’
‘Aye, and trust me, they’re not as benevolent as the Holdings church would have you believe.’
Daphne sipped her drink.
‘I share other traits, such as what you call range-vision,’ he went on, ‘but no battle-vision, praise the Creator. I would hate to have to do all that leaping about. And, as I said, I can see the future through other people’s eyes. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a relic, a descendant of the Creator’s first attempt to imbue the people of this world with mage powers.’
‘The Creator gave the Kellach Brigdomin vision powers?’
‘No,’ he frowned, as if explaining something simple to a child. ‘Before the Holdings split from my folk, I believe they were one people, and that the Creator experimented on them, giving them a primitive form of the vision powers he bestowed on your ancestors. This is the only explanation of how Killop and you could have produced such a child. Killop’s family has no trace of my mage powers, so it must have been something in him combining with your own vision abilities, which triggered Karalyn.’
‘Sorry, but that sounds like nonsense,’ Daphne said. ‘How do you even know she has these older powers?’
‘I sensed her in my dreams even before she was born.’
‘Then won’t the Creator sense her too?’
‘Have you been listening?’ he frowned. ‘I’ve already told you that the Creator has no inkling that I have seen his mind. He believes, I am sure, that his earlier experiment was a failure, and has forgotten all about the attempt.’ He smiled. ‘I spent time inside your warm womb while Karalyn sheltered there. I look at you Daphne, and part of me thinks of you as my mother…’ He laughed.
Daphne grimaced.
‘Your womb is a wonderful place,’ Kalayne said. ‘I had the most restful dreams there.’
‘Please don’t talk about my womb.’
‘Fine. Anyway, you must have suspected something was different about the child.’
Daphne paused, reluctant to open up to the old man.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to help you. Well, I’m trying to help your daughter. I don’t actually care about you.’
‘You want to help Karalyn?’
‘Right now,’ he said, ‘she and I are the only ones in this world with dream powers. Up until I first sensed her, I’d presumed I’d be the last of that line. Our powers come on at birth, not at adolescence, another fact which supports my theory that we were the Creator’s first attempt. I had a very difficult childhood. Imagine a two year old being able to use inner-vision at will. Imagine a four year old. At that age there are no morals, or fear of consequences to stop you. Soon, everyone around is scared of you, avoids you. Tries to exile or kill you.’
He cast his glance downwards, shaking his head.
‘Of course I want to help her,’ he said, ‘and part of helping her is preparing you for what her life will be like. It will not be easy.’
Daphne frowned. ‘She can sense my feelings. Half of me wants to believe that I’m only imagining it, but I know it’s true. If an angry thought crosses my mind she cries. If I’m happy she laughs. I feel her discomfort if her nappy needs changed, and her hunger too.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘What you have described sounds awful. I don’t know if I’ll be able to cope.’
‘I can teach you how,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you how to protect your mind, make it more resilient to her thoughts invading you. And I’ll show you how to guide her. Even so, it will not be easy. But you must do it, Daphne. The world depends on it.’
‘The world?’
‘I’ll need to stay here with you for a bit,’ he said, pouring himself another drink. ‘I’ll teach you what you need, and protect her at the same time.’
‘Protect her? From what?’
He squinted at her as if she were stupid.
‘The damn priests, Daphne,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t trust them. Their minds have been turned by the Creator, and they work to his purpose. They’ve been waiting for your child to be born, waiting to see if she’s a freak of nature before deciding what to do with her.’
Her eyes darted over to the cot, and Karalyn let out a whimper.
‘Calm yourself,’ he said. ‘So far the baby appears normal to them. One other trick I can show you is how to shield your mind, and hers, from their prying.’
‘Show me that first,’ s
he said. ‘The idea of them being in my head, let alone Karalyn’s, sickens me.’
‘Very well,’ he said, ‘that will be our first lesson tomorrow. Even so, as time goes on it will become harder to hide her powers.’
‘I intend to go back to Rahain as soon as she can travel.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safer there, for a while.’ He sighed. ‘Off into the arms of that man-bear Killop? How he gets the good ones I’ll never know. Wait a minute. Ha! I do believe that red-haired beauty Kallie must be single again. Mmm, I wonder where she is.’
‘I’ll have to break it gently to the household that you’ll be staying,’ she said. ‘Can I ask you to temper your scorn, and forgo the lewd comments?’
‘Aye, you can ask,’ he said, ‘but I warn you, any such request would be met with studied indifference on my part. For instance, I intend to make a pass at Shella on a daily basis. I’ll wear her down eventually.’
‘I doubt that.’
She glanced over at the cot, where the baby was sleeping soundly, and wondered how much of her relief at Kalayne’s arrival was due to his ability to soothe her.
‘You can really see into the Creator’s head?’ she said.
‘I can. It is a dark, angry place. Much pettier than any supreme being has a right to be if you ask me.’
‘A priest said something to me a while back,’ she said, ‘about how I was no longer part of the Creator’s plans.’
‘The priest was right,’ he said. ‘The Creator thinks you’re damaged, contaminated by your coupling with a man from another mage-line, and has no need for you any more. Count yourself lucky.’
‘Why?’
‘He has plans, Daphne. I only know fragments, but he wants mages brought here from every corner of the world. He needs them for something.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kalayne. ‘Every vision I have of his plan ends in my death.’
Chapter 32
Return to Slateford
Slateford, Rahain Republic – 30th Day, Last Third Winter 505
‘You didn’t tell me how beautiful this place was,’ Bridget said, as they strolled down the farm track, between vineyards and olive groves. Trees were budding in the mountain air, and they could feel the chill of winter fading, and the warmth of spring ready to burst forth. Early flowers dotted the grassy hillside, knee-high beacons of red, yellow and purple swaying in the breeze.
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