Changer of Days

by Alma Alexander

  Anghara looked about to leap to the defense of her folk and her realm, but after a moment had the grace to laugh. Sif’s funeral was ten days gone, and this evening with Favrin was her first chance to escape the endless rounds of coronation plans. It seemed to take up all her time; she was constantly enmeshed in endless meetings. Those in charge of organizing the ceremony couldn’t agree on the smallest of things. The representatives of Roisinan’s various Gods had each presented a different version of the most auspicious date, and everyone had their own ideas on the guest list. It all seemed to need Anghara’s input and approval; and she had already complained that she didn’t see why she had to be measured four times for the creation of a single set of coronation robes. Favrin had waited in seclusion, with commendable patience, but eventually had Kieran ask the young queen if she could spare another hour or two for him. Anghara came, expecting almost anything except this—a quiet evening by the fire, playing a southern board game called sheh. She lost every game, but the purpose of the meeting had been achieved—she had relaxed and unwound, and was able to talk about the goings-on at court with a modicum of good humor.

  Favrin now began putting the game pieces away into their box. “Are things anywhere near a conclusion?”

  “The Gods seem to have put their heads together and come up with a mutually acceptable date,” Anghara said.

  “Being?”

  She grimaced. “My birthday.”

  “That’s still a good few weeks from now,” Favrin said, glancing up. “I hadn’t anticipated being away from home quite that long.”

  “I’m a little relieved,” Anghara admitted after a short pause, reaching for a cup half-full of cooling mulled wine.

  “Leave that, here’s a fresh cup,” Favrin said, playing host to her here in his quarters. “Relieved? Why?”

  “It gives me a little extra time,” she said enigmatically, accepting the cup from his hand. He cocked an eloquent eyebrow at her, and she smiled over the rim as she took a sip. “They want a spectacle to outdo Sif’s. The delay gives them time to think about gracing the occasion with royalty…”

  Favrin bowed elaborately from the waist, and Anghara laughed.

  “No, they don’t even know about you yet. They wish to invite Aise Aymerin of Shaymir.”

  “And what do you think of that scheme?”

  “I should have proposed it myself,” Anghara said. “I’ve never met him, but he holds a realm only a mountain pass from Miranei. He knew better than to go to war about it, but he didn’t come to Sif’s coronation, and as far as I know he has shunned both travel and trade with Roisinan for most of Sif’s reign; inviting him now, and seeing what his response will be, might be instructive.”

  “But you’ve got your own guest list,” Favrin said, raising his glass in a toast, “one you haven’t told anyone about.”

  She shot him a startled look. “How did you know about that?”

  Favrin looked equally startled. “I meant myself,” he said. “Why, who else did you have in mind?”

  “Nobody knows of this yet…nobody but Kieran,” she said. “But guests whom no one will expect to see are already on their way.”

  Favrih knew nothing of the friends Anghara had left in Kheldrin; he frowned as he tried to recollect someone who might fit Anghara’s mysterious description—anyone. Finally he had to confess himself beaten. “All right, what have you done?” he asked.

  “They’re going to remember this coronation,” was all she would say.

  Favrin returned to an earlier topic. “If this new date is agreed, I might return to Algira. I can easily get back in time for the ceremony, and I think I ought to see to a few things in Tath.”

  “And check up on your lady?” Anghara asked slyly.

  “That too,” Favrin said with a grin. “She will be nowhere near her time, but I should like to know how the babe is doing. I would be more useful at home than staying in these rooms, opulent as they are, until your birthday.” He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “You’ll still only be eighteen,” he said. “I keep forgetting how young you really are.”

  Anghara reached out to tug at a lock of his hair. “I see no gray in this,” she said.

  “The difference is I have been leading armies since I was a boy.”

  “There are many ways of growing up,” Anghara said gravely.

  He bowed his head, hiding a smile. “I meant no slight,” he said. “Well, then, if that is agreed—Qi’Dah and I will leave in the morning. I will be back in plenty of time for the coronation…if you are still of a mind to make your pronouncement.”

  “Aye, Heir of Roisinan,” Anghara said.

  Favrin looked away with a snort of laughter, and Anghara rose gracefully to her feet. “Tomorrow will be another heavy day. Thank you for tonight; I will look forward to your safe return.”

  “Your other guests should be arriving shortly to fill the gap I shall be leaving,” said Favrin, almost too carelessly, a glint in his eye.

  But Anghara wasn’t taking the bait. “They should,” she agreed blithely.

  And they did. They were simply there one day, Anghara’s folk out of Kheldrin, as though they had materialized in the keep out of the thin mountain air. They came prepared for the cold winter winds of Miranei in unaccustomed robes of shevah fur and cloaks of tanned haval’la hides. They remained almost invisible, for all that—Anghara all but ran one old friend down in the corridor without even glancing at him. He stood unobtrusively to one side, removing himself from her path, and addressed her retreating back. One name, enough to stop her in her tracks, for it was spoken in a language—and a voice—which brought a hot breath of the desert into the cold stone walls of the keep.

  “Greetings, ai’Bre’hinnah,” al’Tamar said quietly.

  Anghara turned, very slowly, her eyes stinging with unexpected tears. “Welcome,” she said, holding out her hands to him. “Oh, be welcome here!”

  “I thought that you would be different here in Sheriha’drin,” al’Tamar said after a pause. “But I should have known—it is the nature of the Changer to remain constant.”

  “Oh, but I have changed,” Anghara said, smiling gently.

  While at first al’Tamar looked as though he might disagree, he veiled his eyes beneath golden lashes and offered a deep desert bow in acknowledgment.

  “Where are the others?” Anghara said eagerly.

  “They are waiting. Come, I will take you to them.”

  Fewer had come than Anghara had anticipated. A bare handful. First to greet her was al’Jezraal, himself changeless, his hair perhaps a shade more gold but otherwise looking exactly the same as he had when she had gone to him one morning, a lifetime ago, with a dream of vision. He greeted her with the same grave courtesy.

  “Much has happened since you walked in Harim Khajir’i’id,” he said. “It gladdens my heart to see you well, and coming into your own. Gul Khaima has told us this would be so. But I bear sad tidings as well. One whom you would have wished to see is feeling her age at last, and is no longer fit to travel. I fear she will not leave her hai’r again.” ai’Jihaar…

  From somewhere far away an echo of an answer came to the name Anghara’s mind had flung into the distance.

  There are some things even a Changer cannot do twice. I received my life at your hands when you faced al’Khur in the Khar’i’id, but al’Khur is gone. You are all that is left, and you cannot fight yourself. I have had a good life—and it is my hour at last. Be well, be happy, child of my heart…

  “I would have wished her to see…” Anghara murmured.

  “She does not have to be present to see,” said another familiar voice, and there was a flash of gold as ai’Farra ma’Sayyed stepped forward to greet Anghara. The priestess’s eyes were softer than her usual wont, mirroring an odd compassion. She wore the full regalia of her rank, eschewing the comfort of a warm cloak; she was resplendent in gold robes and a mass of say’yin’en, with the black dagger of her office still hanging in its sheath
at her waist. She gave a crooked smile as she saw Anghara glance at it.

  “They are really gone, the Old Gods,” she said, “but there are still times when I try and speak to them in the old ways. They never answer…but perhaps, one day, they will return. But we are no longer in Kheldrin, and there are other Gods here. I will not invoke any unwelcome presence in this land.”

  “They are not gone, an’sen’thar,” al’Tamar said unexpectedly. “They are within us, as all things are that pass away. Nothing is ever gone completely. The Old Gods sleep, until their time comes round again.”

  He had gained the gold, by Anghara’s own hand; now he was equal to the priestess from whose notice his family had once schemed and plotted to hide him. He met her eyes squarely, and it was ai’Farra who looked away—al’Tamar was no longer a boy.

  News of the Kheldrini party’s arrival spread quickly—Anghara’s guests were shown to their chambers by wide-eyed servants who wasted no time in passing on the gossip. The Kheldrini had been given the freedom of the keep, but the naked curiosity of the court played its part in limiting that freedom. For too long Miranei’s experience of Kheldrini had run to no more than the occasional trader bearing silk and dun’en and the grooms who remained behind to care for the desert horses. While it was immediately obvious that Anghara’s guests belonged to neither class, there were those in the court who thought of all “Khelsies” as nothing more than servants. However, it was impossible to reduce al’Jezraal’s calm dignity and ai’Farra’s high pride to that estate. It was hard to say which did the more damage—those who came to fawn and to stare, or those who preferred to keep their distance, knowing that their high-handed approach would antagonize both the Kheldrini and the queen. A few tried genuine overtures, but by and large the visitors found it was better to keep to themselves, giving the court at Miranei time to adjust to their presence.

  Anghara was aware of the situation, and knew the Kheldrini preferred to avoid close encounters with the locals. She fully realized some of this had perhaps been unavoidable, given the ancient gulf that had existed between the two lands. But bridging that gap was part of the reason why the Kheldrini had been invited. She had been given the chance to become part of their world; she wanted them to be part of her own. She made a deliberate effort to extricate herself from some of her more onerous duties and spend more time with them. When al’Jezraal declined an offer to tour the battlements of the keep on the grounds that the cold air irritated his lungs, ai’Farra elected to stay with the Sa’id. But al’Tamar said he would go, and found himself alone with Anghara on the ramparts, leaning on the embrasures and looking up into tier upon tier of snow-clad mountains.

  “On the night we first met, you spoke of a lake somewhere in the mountains, close to your castle, a lake fed by a hot spring.”

  “I remember,” said Anghara slowly. She recalled the incredulous joy she felt when the palm trees of Fihra Hai’r, the First Oasis of Kadun Khajir’i’id, swam into sight against the desert sunset after the living, brooding heat of the Black Desert; the sensuous feeling of precious water running down her parched skin. And the memory, in that arid place, of Miranei’s mountain lake—the place where she had bathed in summers past in pools warmed by hot springs. And then there had been three riders in the night…

  “I should like to see it,” al’Tamar said, breaking into her reverie.

  “Now?” Anghara said, taken aback. “It’s winter; even if the passage was not already made difficult by the first snows, there would be little to see in this season.”

  “Water is holy in any season.”

  “But in winter,” Anghara repeated, perplexed.

  “I should like to see it,” he repeated. “I still cannot believe I am in Sheriha’drin—but you have brought me here, as you promised. And now, in this strange country…it is the Way, it is that which you term Sight, that spurs me to see this lake. There is something there that is important, but which I still cannot wholly see…”

  Anghara stared at him for a moment, and then nodded. “All right, I’ll see what can be done. If I arrange a party…”

  “As few as possible,” al’Tamar said, quietly but with a steady purpose. “I would prefer us to go alone, but if that is not practical…”

  “It is not,” said Anghara with an affectionate smile. “The court would be scandalized at the very thought. And then, in an emergency, you wouldn’t have the first idea what to do in the snow.” She paused, giving al’Tamar a long, measuring glance. “Very well,” she acquiesced. “I’m curious. Besides, if my life has taught me anything at all it is never to stand in the way of Sight. We will take one with us, and he is a friend.”

  “Your Kieran?”

  She had been about to deny possession, her mood flippant, but something in al’Tamar’s voice made her swallow the impulse. Instead, she simply nodded.

  “That will do,” al’Tamar said, very seriously. “You have seen very little of him recently.”

  “Not much,” she said grudgingly. “I never seem to have a moment to myself—I’m cornered by someone as soon as I set foot outside my chambers, and it all seems important…”

  “He is not with you at these times?”

  She shook her head miserably. She had come to depend heavily on Kieran and the Taurin twins; Kieran had responsibilities of his own, largely as a result of her own expectations. Their paths didn’t cross nearly as often as Anghara would have liked; it wasn’t as though he had been avoiding her, but he seemed to be on duty more often than not, and even when he wasn’t, there was always something else needing his attention.

  “Then it is good that he is to come,” said al’Tamar. “How far to this lake?”

  “In summer, perhaps just over an hour—an easy ride. Now…I don’t know. And we must keep an eye on the weather. I don’t want to be caught on the mountain with a storm front moving in.”

  “I leave it with you, who knows this land,” he said. “When you give the word, I will be ready.”

  Kieran, who had long since learned never to be surprised by anything to do with Anghara, took the news of the trip with commendable equanimity. Anghara would be the guide of this little expedition, but Kieran would be the leader, and he made preparations.

  The mountains above Miranei were in Anghara’s blood, and she knew their moods; but it was Kieran who finally called a time for their departure, taking advantage of a break in the weather. For winter, it was warm; but nights were icy in the mountains, and there was a bite of that in the air as they left the keep in torchlight, in the pearly half-light of dawn. Somewhat ludicrously, al’Tamar wore a desert veil drawn across the lower half of his face. The cold air which hurt his throat when he breathed was likely to be even harsher the higher they climbed. Kieran and Anghara’s unfettered breath curled in visible plumes before their faces.

  “This is crazy,” Kieran kept muttering, well into the first hour of their ride. The sun had risen and was glinting on the broad white expanses glimpsed through the trees above them. “The snow must be waist deep in places—al’Tamar, are you sure you wouldn’t rather come back after snowmelt? This place is not a transient hai’r that might vanish; this water would be here for you to see in the spring.”

  “Spring would be too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Kieran asked.

  “For you,” al’Tamar replied, turning an inscrutable face on him, golden eyes glinting beneath a hood of white fox fur.

  Kieran gave him a long, troubled look. This sounded like Sight, and Kieran knew well his measure against things that were of Sight; besides, the comment cut rather close to the bone. The choices before him had come to the point of painful decisions, and al’Tamar sounded as though he knew all about the thoughts that kept Kieran awake during the long winter nights.

  The path was difficult but not impassable for the horses, and once he had satisfied himself that the venture lay within the realms of safe possibility Kieran relaxed and started enjoying the crisp winter day. The sky was an intens
e blue, and stretches of virgin snow marked only by deer tracks glittered in the bright sunshine. The air was still chilled, but the day had warmed a little, and al’Tamar had dropped his veil. They rode single file and Anghara, riding in the van, smiled occasionally as she sometimes turned around to glance at the deeply fascinated expression on al’Tamar’s face. It reminded her vividly of what her own must have looked like when al’Jezraal’s little caravan had started out for the place which was to become Gul Khaima. For Anghara the desert had been unimaginable; for al’Tamar, it was these endless expanses of shimmering white mountainside, threaded with the deep green of the pines beneath their loads of snow. Once they surprised a snow-hare fastidiously cleaning its long ears by their path; it gave a frightened snort and darted behind a tree.

  “A snow shevah,” al’Tamar chuckled. “Our worlds are not so different.”

  They made good time, given the season, reaching their goal by mid-morning. Most of the lake was frozen, except for one small area free of ice, where still water mirrored the winter-blue sky.

  “There,” Anghara said, pointing at the pool when they had approached to within a few paces of it. “That’s the hot pool. We used to…”

  “Wait,” al’Tamar lifted a hand for silence. “Listen. It is coming.”

  The other two glanced at one another, then up at the wooded slope above the lake. The woods seemed silent, and quite deserted. “I can’t hear…” Anghara began, in a whisper, but Kieran suddenly reached over to touch her wrist and then pointed into the trees.

  “It’s a white hind,” he murmured.

  It was hard to believe al’Tamar could have heard this beast. She moved with a delicate grace, silently, placing her feet with careful precision in the hock-deep snow. Ignoring the three riders only a few feet away, the hind made her way to the edge of the open water and bent her head to drink. Then she looked up, tilted her head slightly in their direction as if in greeting, gave them a slow and measuring regal glance, then turned to go.