by Pearl North
Haly and Gyneth looked at each other. “A pen?”
“A pen for rewriting reality.”
Haly’s brow creased. “Where is it?”
Up until now, everything she’d had to tell them had been easy. “My mother has it,” she blurted, afraid that if she hesitated, she’d never be able to get the words out.
“Queen Thela?”
“Does she know what it can do?” asked Gyneth.
“Yes. Mab took it from me—”
“Mab? My old cell-mate?” said Haly.
Selene nodded. “She is, and always has been, my mother’s spy. I heard her mentioned back when Clauda and I were at the palace in Ilysies. It stands to reason that Mother would have spies in the citadel. But I’d forgotten about it and I didn’t connect the name with the old woman who was one of the Lit King’s helpers. I didn’t know her name, until too late.
“Mab heard us talking about the pen and she saw me use it. I’m sure she told Thela everything as soon as she delivered it to her.”
“But are you certain Mab took the pen to Thela?” said Gyneth. “Perhaps she kept it for herself.”
“Not likely,” said Haly. “If she was loyal enough to endure all those years of imprisonment for her queen, it’s unlikely she’d turn against her now.”
“Besides, I believe Thela was at the citadel,” said Selene.
“What makes you say that?” said Haly.
“While we were prisoners of the Lit King, he tortured Siblea.…”
Haly leaned forward, her face tight. “Is Siblea dead?”
“No. He survived. He decided to remain at the citadel to help the residents rebuild. They’re going to make the temple a place of scholarship. They want to exchange books with us.”
Haly smiled. “Exchange?”
“The Lit King had some books. Not as many as we do, but…”
“What were you saying before, Selene?” asked Gyneth.
It had been a relief to speak of something positive to come out of all that had happened, but Gyneth was right. She needed to stick to the point. “There was no purpose to the torture; it was all for revenge, because—”
“Because when Siblea was a censor he had tortured him,” said Haly.
“Yes. The Lit King just seemed to want to hurt Siblea as much as possible. He hardly bothered with the rest of us, didn’t ask us why we were at the citadel or anything. But he used Po to…” She felt ill. “To revive Siblea. He made him heal him so that he could take more pain.”
“And Po feels what his patients feel,” said Haly. “Tales. He’s only fifteen.”
“But you said Po escaped,” said Gyneth, and Selene understood why. He was trying to deny what had happened. People did that.
“At first he did escape, yes. When the Lit King’s people apprehended us at the Old Theater he and Ayma got away, and while we were locked up, they discovered Endymion’s Tomb. Ayma told us what happened there, and I can tell you more later, but the main thing is that’s where they found the pen.”
“Did they use the pen?” asked Haly.
“Po did. Ayma told us about it later. He wrote, ‘The Plain of Ayor is a green and fertile land.’ All we knew was that suddenly roots burst through the walls of our cell.”
“The soil itself turned green, and silverleaf bushes, big ones, erupted from the ground everywhere, uprooting all the crops,” said Haly, “but then a minute later, everything went back to the way it had been before.”
“Ayma told us that when they saw what was happening, Po wrote, ‘What Po just wrote about the Plain of Ayor being a green and fertile land never happened.’”
“So changes made by the pen can be unmade,” said Gyneth. “That’s something.”
“Yes,” Haly agreed. “But I’m sorry, Selene, you were telling us … What were you telling us?”
In spite of everything, Selene smiled. “After Po and Ayma found the pen, the Lit King’s mob found them. Po gave Ayma the pen, told her to run, and let himself be captured so she could get away. Sound familiar?”
Haly opened her eyes wide in false innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gyneth laughed.
“Anyway, you asked why I think my mother was at the citadel.”
“Oh, right.”
“The Lit King was torturing Siblea with no purpose other than to do it. Po … Po tried to distract him. He told the Lit King he’d been in Endymion’s Tomb. Siblea told us the Lit King didn’t seem to care, but the next time the guards came to our cell, they came for Po and Hilloa.
“Now, Hilloa told us she heard one of the guards say something about a ‘foreign whore.’ And that the Lit King, when he came in, said that ‘she’ wanted him to ask about Endymion’s Rose.”
“So you think Thela put him up to that line of questioning?” said Haly.
“I think she put him up to all of it. The revolt, the raiding of the villages. It was all to discredit us with the people of the plain.”
Haly and Gyneth looked at each other. Gyneth raised one eyebrow. Haly nodded. They believed her. Selene was surprised to discover how much that comforted her.
“So how did Mab wind up with the pen?”
Selene’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment over her carelessness. “Ayma led the citadel in a revolt against the Lit King. She released us from our cell. She still had the pen with her but she couldn’t write. She gave it to Po and Po gave it to me. While we were discussing what to do, Mab found us and offered to help us. I didn’t trust her.” Selene had to stop looking at them in order to get through the rest. She stared at Haly’s feet again and her voice became mechanical. “But we kept her with us so we could keep an eye on her. I used the pen to reveal where the stolen food was stored. When we got to the storehouse, the citizens were about to torch the building. They didn’t know the food was in there. In the confusion, Mab broke away from Hilloa and Jan and she snatched the pen out of my hands and pushed me down. Po ran after her. They went back inside the temple. By the time I got inside, I couldn’t find any sign of them. We searched everywhere. They’d just vanished.”
“You think the pen was used to spirit them all away? To Ilysies?”
Selene felt empty now. Further self-recrimination at this point was a wasteful indulgence. “That would be my guess.”
“We don’t know that’s what happened at all,” said Gyneth. “Maybe Po caught up with Mab, got the pen from her, and used it himself.”
“Then why haven’t we heard from him?” said Haly. “He wouldn’t just take off.”
“No,” agreed Selene. “I don’t think so.”
“Then, if Thela has the pen, why hasn’t she made us all loyal subjects of Ilysies by now?” said Gyneth.
They all looked about them, as if expecting just such a shift in reality.
“It’s true,” said Selene. “With the pen, she can do anything she wants to us at any time.”
“But the pen is tricky, right? Presumably she knows that, too,” said Haly.
Selene nodded. “She’ll want to try it out on small things first.”
They all looked at one another. No one wanted to say what they were all thinking: Po.
“We’ve got to get it away from her while we still can,” said Selene.
“Yes,” said Haly, “but we need a plan. First of all, Selene, you have to get some rest.”
Selene nodded in reluctant agreement. “I will, as soon as I see Clauda. Where is she? I haven’t seen her since I’ve been back.”
The way Haly and Gyneth looked at each other made Selene’s breath catch. Something was wrong. Haly reached out and took Selene’s hand. “We don’t know where Clauda is. She hasn’t returned.”
Numbness crept up her arms and legs, stealing in toward her heart. “Hasn’t returned from…?”
“From the mission she went on the day you left.”
Selene understood now why people sometimes described grief as a hollow feeling. She felt like she had a hole inside her now. For Clauda to be gone so long …
it likely meant …
It didn’t seem possible. Even when she was so ill in Ilysies and Selene had to leave her there, Clauda had exuded life. Her grin hung in Selene’s mind now, indelible, side by side with that awful look just after she’d kissed Selene. Why hadn’t Selene just held her tight? Why had she pushed her back, sought answers, explanations? What explanation was needed?
“I’m so sorry,” said Haly.
“You’re sorry?” said Selene, gently wresting her hand from Haly’s and hugging her ribs. “She was your best friend.”
“Is,” said Haly. “We don’t know what’s happened, Selene. She could be anywhere. Let’s remember this is Clauda we’re talking about, okay?”
That was true. A flicker of hope sparked to life in the void within Selene. Before the Redemption, Selene had been forced to leave Clauda behind in Ilysies. Clauda had been bedridden with the shaking sickness. Queen Thela suspected Clauda of being a spy and had her watched. The odds had been hopeless, but not only had Clauda survived, she’d won. It was worse than foolish for Selene to think her dead. It was disrespectful. She stood. “Has anyone gone out to search for her?”
“No,” said Gyneth. “By the time we realized she should have been back, we were too weak to do anything about it.”
Selene nodded. “Then … I’d like to go looking for her. You’re going to need people to deal with the pen and you’d probably rather it not be someone who’s already screwed it up once. I know it’s a long shot. She could be anywhere, as you say, but let me go look for her, please.”
* * *
Selene was as pale as an overcast sky. She swayed on her feet. As heavy as Haly’s sorrow over Clauda’s disappearance was, she’d had a little time to become acclimated to it. Poor Selene. “Yes, go look for her, but on one condition: first, you rest.”
Selene nodded, her mouth a grim slash.
After Selene left, Gyneth asked, “How are you doing?”
“Physically, or…”
“Both.”
“Wobbly,” she admitted, “on all counts. You know I just decided when Clauda didn’t return that she’d made some great discovery and one day she’d walk back into town and tell us all about the adventures she’d had. But Selene reacted as if … as if … I don’t want to say it.”
“Then don’t. We don’t know anything.”
“And Po, what happened to him? What’s happening to him right now? Now I know how Selene and Clauda felt when I was taken prisoner by Ithaster.”
Gyneth expelled a long breath. “Yes, but you survived that, and Po is … he’s strong.”
Haly sighed. “I sent him away to protect him.”
“I know.”
There was nothing more to say about that at the moment. Haly scooted forward and lay down, and Gyneth stretched out beside her. From this angle, she could see the sky beyond the edge of their awning. “This pen business—I know Selene would never make up such a thing, but … I can’t quite get my head around it. I know I should be terrified that Queen Thela has something that’s so powerful. We all saw what the pen can do. It’s just, I haven’t got the first idea what to do about it. I think my brain is rebelling against problems with no solutions, you know? I keep coming back to how I thought we’d all be dead by now.”
Gyneth lay on his side, his head propped on one hand. “But we’re alive.” The gleam in his eye was warm.
Haly rolled onto her side. Her head pillowed on one arm she met his gaze. She could not hold all of what Selene had told her in her mind. It kept slipping away, pushed out by her grief at Clauda and Po’s disappearances and, perversely, her own overwhelming joy at still being alive.
Gyneth leaned forward, and she met him. Their lips, rough and dry from malnutrition, opened. Haly’s heart quickened at the wet, warm glide of his tongue on hers. She reached up and ran her fingers through Gyneth’s silken hair. He made that wonderful little whimper deep down in his throat, and pulled her closer.
Later, she rested her head on his shoulder and stared up at the sky. “The worst part about this pen business is that there’s so little we can do about it. It doesn’t feel real,” she admitted. “I haven’t seen the pen. I know it’s all true. Selene would never make anything like this up, but—”
“It’s hard to grasp.”
“Yeah. And maybe … maybe I don’t want to.” She rolled onto her back, looking up at the blue, cloudless sky. “I think I’m doing a terrible job leading this community,” she said.
“You always think that,” he said.
“No, really. I don’t take in the big picture. I miss things and they come back on us. Like the prison uprising. If we’d reached out to those people right after the Redemption, Thela never would have had a chance to exploit that situation.”
“You don’t know what else might have happened. Maybe something even worse.…”
She looked at him. “What could be worse than our worst enemy possessing an object of ultimate power? Argh. I shouldn’t be thinking of Thela as an enemy. Already I’ve gone wrong there.”
Gyneth propped his head on one hand. His eyebrows drew together. “Do you think she will ever understand how working together benefits everyone?”
Haly thought about how Thela had sent Selene, her own daughter, to die in a trap. “No. I really don’t.”
“Then it doesn’t matter what you call her,” he said.
“You’re right, and there’s no good in playing ‘what if,’ either. I just…” She sat up. “I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”
Gyneth propped himself up on his elbows. “I know that look. What are you thinking?”
“Thesia,” she said.
He nodded. “No one has heard anything from them since they were conquered, before the Redemption.”
“I think we’d better see how they’re doing.”
3
Kinesiology
Po sat up in his gauze-draped bower and regarded Ymin, who stood just inside the doorway, her arms folded, her posture stiff and formal. This was the first time Po had seen her since she had left the Libyrinth a year ago. She looked a lot older. Po noted the tension at the corners of her mouth and the worry line between her brows. Did she regret her decision?
Of all the people in the palace, Adept Ymin Ykobos was at once his most dangerous enemy and his greatest potential ally. What would she do if she knew what he was up to?
Ymin had been his teacher for a very long time, and there was something inherently comforting in her presence. Despite himself, he relaxed. “Thank you for coming to see me, Adept,” he said. “Though I fear Queen Thela is wasting your time. I feel much better now.”
Ymin shrugged and came forward, taking a chair and moving it beside his bower. “In any case, it is good to see you.” She smiled, though the tension never really left her eyes. “And under such auspicious circumstances. Congratulations on becoming the queen’s consort. You are moving up in the world, my student.”
Po returned her smile. “Am I? Is it better to be the consort of a queen than an adept?”
She widened her eyes and her smile became playful. “For a male? Most assuredly. Even with my training behind you, not many would choose a male adept over a female one. But if you sire daughters, your future will be secure.”
And that would be where the entire matter of Po ended, as far as Ymin or any other traditional Ilysian was concerned. Was he, perhaps, overreaching when he abandoned what once had been his most cherished dream?
Because of the pen, the answer didn’t really matter. As long as Thela had it, he needed to do everything within his power to prevent her from using it. And right now that meant convincing Ymin that he was fit for duty as Thela’s consort.
He lay back and tried to relax as Ymin rubbed her hands together to warm them, and then placed one palm on either of his inner elbows. Would she be able to detect what he’d been doing with Thela? Probably not. Not by treating him. Kinesiology was not mind reading. Still, he watched her face as her eyes closed and sh
e matched her breathing to his.
This was, ironically, one of the very few times he had experienced kinesiology from the patient’s perspective. He was relieved to find that he felt very little: a vague tingling along his meridian pathways and, when she turned him and massaged the muscles of his back and shoulders, warmth and relief as the tension there eased. But certainly nothing to indicate any specific activity in his energy centers. It was unlikely that Thela could detect anything to give away what he did when he treated her.
When Ymin had finished, he rolled over again and looked up at her, wondering what she had sensed.
“You have become a powerful adept in a short period of time,” she said, as if in answer to his unspoken question.
“I noticed that,” he said. “I had only just obtained my abilities before the chorus left the Libyrinth, and now…”
“Now you are as good or better than I am, with all my years of experience.”
Would she hate him for that? Was she glad he was Thela’s consort, and not in direct competition with her? How humiliating it would be for her to be found inferior to a male. Did she know he had treated an Ancient? Probably not. If she did, it would likely have been the first thing she mentioned. “It seemed to me that my abilities got stronger every time I experienced a mind-lancet attack,” he said, hoping to divert her attention.
Ymin pursed her lips and nodded. “There could be a correlation there. I often wondered if Clauda of Ayor’s facility with the…” She glanced at the door and lowered her voice. “With the wing was a result of the severity of the mind-lancet attack she endured. A mind lancet disrupts the body’s energy flow. As such, it may facilitate the formation of new pathways and thus new abilities. Though it’s not a method I’d recommend.” She was silent a moment. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.”
Po’s heart pounded. “Thank you, but … I made my own choices.” He was inordinately proud of that fact, though he tried to conceal it.
“There was a gap in your heart center,” said Ymin.
Po swallowed.
“You have a secret that weights heavily on you.”
Po took interest in a lizard that was sunning itself on the window ledge of his room. Ymin had gone against Queen Thela before, in smuggling Clauda into the wing in order to let the wing’s interface heal her. But that defiance had come with a high price. Clauda had stolen the wing and altered all of Thela’s plans.