The Irda: Children Of The Stars lh-2

by Linda P. Baker

  Eadamm paused beside Igraine, blinking in the sudden brightness. “I’ll get a pick, Lady.” He set his lantern on the ground and retreated. His voice echoed back into the small chamber as he called to one of the other workmen.

  His words sounded like gibberish to Igraine. Before his eyes, the fiery orb bobbled. The jumble of rocks that served as walls seemed to move with it in the flickering light. His daughter’s magic made his skin squirm.

  “Ever-” The breath was sucked out of his mouth by the grinding of stone against stone. The ceiling was moving!

  Everlyn screamed as the wall before her shifted, leaned inward as if pushed by an unseen hand.

  Igraine leapt toward her. Pain lanced through his arm and side as something struck his shoulder, knocking him backward. Dust flooded into his nostrils, his mouth. Jagged rocks, torn from the ceiling, rained down on him. Through the crashing of stones and the creaking of timbers, he could hear his daughter crying out.

  Eadamm grabbed him and pushed him out of the path of a huge crush of ceiling. His head struck hard against something as he fell out of the small room.

  Sparkling dust and pebbles rained everywhere. The floor tilted. Igraine clung to the wall, feeling the stones shift beneath his fingers. He could hear Eadamm calling for Everlyn, could hear her answering, her voice threadbare with fear.

  He pushed to his feet, heart pounding. As he stumbled toward the sound of Eadamm’s voice, Evedyn’s magical light went out. Her cries fell off abruptly, leaving him alone with fear.

  The cries of the slaves, screams of pain from farther in the direction of the main tunnel, joined with the groaning of the earth.

  A moment later, Eadamm was there, a hand under his arm, trying to help him move, his lantern casting wavering shadows through the haze of dust. Eadamm shouted for help. Slaves crowded into the passageway, pushing and shoving and crying out with fear.

  The sickening scent of humans, unwashed and afraid, of blood and grit, Igraine sucked into his nostrils. His head ached, a huge throbbing alarm like bells between his ears.

  “We must get out,” Igraine rasped, tasting blood and dirt. He passed his hand over his forehead and eyelids, hoping to clear his vision. His fingers came away wet and sticky.

  “Lord, no!” Eadamm thrust his lantern into Igraine’s hand and snatched up a timber almost twice his own height. “She might still be alive!”

  Igraine could barely hear the words the slave had spoken, but from Eadamm’s actions, he understood.

  Eadamm wrestled the thick log under one of the sagging beams overhead. When he bent to pick up another timber, another slave hurried to join him.

  The huge, rough-hewn log Eadamm had braced against the ceiling trembled. Pebbles and sand sifted down. The ceiling bowed with the weight of the earth above.

  Another rumbling from deep in the bowels of the mine was followed by the crashing of rock. Farther down the passageway, a slave screamed.

  The slaves crowded in beside Igraine were the best miners in the Khalkists. Irreplaceable. Worth too much to risk.

  “There’s no time!” Igraine grabbed Eadamm and pointed up. On cue, more rock vibrated and fell. The rumbling from deep in the mine sounded again.

  “Everyone out!” Igraine raised his voice to be heard above the sounds of the mine and shouted the order again. He wished for Ogre guards to help, to get the stupid humans moving in an orderly manner, but there were no guards in the mine, only a couple stationed at the exit for show. It was a matter of pride for the whole province that Khal-Theraxian’s slaves were so well-conditioned, so well-behaved.

  Bobbing specks of light began to recede from the cramped passageway, back the way they had come, as the slaves began to obey. But some of the slaves stayed where they were. Under Eadamm’s guidance, they were already methodically digging away the stones that entombed Everlyn.

  Igraine grabbed the nearest human and shoved him roughly toward the safe end of the tunnel. “There’s no time. Get out now! All of you.”

  He led the way out of the passage, back the way they had come, climbing over boulders and rocks that had not been there before.

  The long walk toward safety was a journey of darkness and fear punctuated by falling rock and death cries from behind, deeper in the mines. Igraine’s head throbbed, and his ankles protested. The tunnels through which they passed had been distorted by the movement of the earth, were twisted, jumbled, blocked. With every step he expected that the ceiling would crash down on him, blotting out the pinpricks of light from the lanterns ahead.

  He stumbled and would have fallen but for one of the slaves. The man, bent and gnarled from years of toil in the mines, smelled horribly of human sweat and sweetly of human blood.

  Igraine shoved away the helping hands, stood on his own. “How much farther?” he asked. Dust sifted down from above, sparkling in the lantern light.

  “Just ahead, Sire.” The slave pointed.

  Igraine saw that the light that was illuminating the motes of dust wasn’t from his lantern, but came from the warm yellow glow of Krynn’s sun. “Make sure everyone gets out,” he mumbled, hurrying toward the exit.

  Sunlight bright as molten gold stung his eyes as he stepped into the fresh afternoon air. It seemed hours ago that he had entered the dark, gaping hole in the mountainside.

  The slaves were coming out behind him, looking as stunned as he felt. A handful of the group that had accompanied him, cousins and staff and guards, saw them coming out of the mine and hastened to meet them.

  It was a lovely fall day, air clear and crisp, sky blue and unmarred by clouds. His entourage wore bright splashes of color, red and blue and green silk. He could sense their agitation, hear their voices lift in excitement as they saw him.

  He must be a sight: clothes torn, face bloodied, eyes hollow and distant. In a moment, they would descend upon him. He couldn’t bear the thought of facing their distress, their questions, the crying of the old aunts who had raised Everlyn after her mother had died.

  He turned back to his slaves, to count how many had not escaped the mountain, to see that the injured were looked after. He realized immediately that some were missing.

  “Where’s Eadamm?”

  The humans nearest him shook their heads. Of those who were just emerging from the mine, who had been in the rear, three refused to meet his gaze. They stood with eyes cast down, shoulders hunched as if waiting for a blow. Finally one mumbled, “He stayed behind, Lord, to save the Ogre.”

  The one in the middle elbowed the speaker hard. “He means ‘the lady” sir. ‘The lady!”

  “Yes, Sire, the lady. I meant no disrespect.”

  Igraine backhanded the man, knocking him against the walls of the mine. So Eadamm had gone back, disobeying his orders.

  Igraine, governor of the district of Khal-Theraxian, had built his reputation on his handling of slaves. On his ruthless handling of slaves. The king had given him position, land, a title because of it. Igraine never allowed a slave to break a rule, to show disrespect, to shirk his duties, to disobey an order. Examples had to be set.

  His personal honor guards came rushing up the path from the meadow, exclaiming, bowing. One grabbed up the slave Igraine had struck and dangled him by his arm.

  “Lord, what has happened?”

  “Where is Lady Everlyn?”

  “Are you harmed?”

  The questions came at Igraine too fast and thick to answer, and he turned and waited until the rest of the group was within hearing distance. He didn’t want to tell what happened more than once. “There’s been a cave-in. Everlyn is… lost.” He steeled himself for the cries of anguish.

  Naej, who had been mistress of his estate until Everlyn was old enough, who had been mother and mentor and friend, covered her face with her hands.

  “Sort out the slaves,” he told the captain of the guard. “Make sure they see to their injured. Find the foreman and see how many are lost.” Igraine’s face hardened. “And find out how many stayed in the mine agains
t my orders. These three knew of it. Keep them separated from the others.” If the ones inside the mine died, these three would be used to set an example.

  Behind him, a feminine voice started a song of sorrow for Everlyn, a melodic sound without words that was eerily like the grating of stone against stone in the tunnel. Naej whimpered, and another voice, this one masculine, joined the song.

  Igraine whipped around, intending to tell them to shut up, to leave. He knew he would have to sing, to mourn, but not yet. Not just yet.

  Naej had uncovered her face, was opening her mouth to sing. Instead she cried out, the O shape of her mouth going from anguished to astonished and delighted. “Everlyn!”

  He wheeled to see six figures emerging from the entrance to the mine, one tall, five short: Everlyn and the five slaves who had remained behind to save her.

  She was alive! Walking, albeit unsteadily. One sleeve was missing from her tunic. The hem hung in shreds around her slender hips. Both knees, scraped and bleeding, showed through rents in her pants. Her long hair was sticking out in tangled lumps. Her dark skin, bloodied at temple and shoulder, was coated with gray dust.

  Igraine had never seen a more beautiful sight.

  For the second time that day, pandemonium erupted around him as his guards, his entourage, his slaves, rushed to aid those who had just emerged from the mine.

  Igraine plowed through them, stepping on Ogre and human alike to get to his daughter.

  She threw herself into his arms, tears streaking the dirt on her face. “I thought I would never see you again!”

  He squeezed her tightly. “I thought I would never see you,” he said gruffly.

  Naej, brushing at the dirt and small rocks tangled in Everlyn’s long hair, said as she had when her charge was a child, “Let’s get her home, Igraine.”

  Before Naej could lead her away, Eadamm stepped forward and bowed. “Lady… This is for you.” From the front of his shirt he produced the rock Everlyn had been trying to free from the wall of the tiny room.

  It was a bloodstone, smoky and black-so dark it seemed to suck in the light and hold it-and shot through with globs of carmine. It looked like huge drops of blood had been trapped inside. Too ugly for jewelry, too soft to be useful in making tools, bloodstone was mostly used by minor magicians for show. With the casting of a spell, they made the red glow and throb like fire. This piece was the size of a potato with three thumb-sized pieces like growths protruding from one end.

  Everlyn laughed, taking it as gently as if it were an egg, with much delight. “It will always remind me of how I felt when I saw the light of your lantern burst through the wall of rocks.”

  Eadamm bowed to her again and started away, but Igraine stopped him. He motioned for his guards to come forward.

  “Put these slaves under arrest along with the other three.”

  Everlyn looked up from the gray-black rock. “Why, Father?”

  “They disobeyed my order to evacuate the mine.”

  Eadamm met her solemn gaze without lowering his.

  “I understand,” she said, softly, regretfully.

  Igraine, governor of Khal-Theraxian, sat alone in his office, the only light coming from the glowing coals in the fireplace. He had moved his favorite chair, the one covered in elf-made cloth, next to the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked his estate.

  Solinari, the silver moon, overwhelmed her sister moon, Lunitari, bathing the garden and fields and distant mountains in pale light. Igraine’s eyes saw none of the cold beauty spread before him, not the nodding heads of fall flowers, not the mountain peaks already beginning to display their snowcaps.

  A tap on the door interrupted the silence. A shaft of light cut through the room as a guard opened the hall door and peeked through. “I’ve brought the slave, Lord.”

  Igraine murmured an incantation, and several candles leapt into flame. A small fire hissed and crackled into life in the fireplace. “Bring him in.”

  The guard gestured to the human who was waiting in the hall, then withdrew when Igraine motioned him away.

  Eadamm came into the room. He was clean, wearing clean though threadbare shirt and pants. Only his hands, bruised, scraped raw, and bound with chains, showed the signs of the afternoon’s events.

  Igraine regarded him in silence for several minutes, during which the human stood without moving, his gaze fastened on the windows and the view outside.

  “There is something I would like to understand,” Igraine said finally, noting that the human didn’t flinch when he spoke, didn’t fidget in the silence that followed.

  “I have always prided myself on being a fair master.” He saw, finally, some emotion on the face of the slave, a flitting feeling that he didn’t know human faces well enough to recognize, but perhaps he could guess.

  “A fair master,” he repeated more firmly. “Harsh, but fair. My laws are harsh, but none of my slaves can say they don’t know them. Therefore, if they break them and are punished, it is their own fault.”

  Again the twinge of expression, quickly suppressed.

  Igraine continued. “But I understand their infractions. I understand the taking of things, for I, too, wish to have more. I understand the shirking of hard work. I understand running away. All of these are things which a slave thinks and hopes will not be discovered. I understand breaking rules when one does not expect to be caught. But what you did…”

  If Eadamm understood that he was being offered a chance to respond, perhaps to beg apology, he didn’t show it.

  “You knew that by disobeying my orders, you were condemning yourself.” Igraine said. There was just enough question in his tone to allow Eadamm to dispute him if he wished.

  He didn’t. “Yes, Lord, I knew.”

  “Then this I do not understand. A runner thinks only of the freedom of the plains, not of the capture. You knew you would be caught.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  So vexed he could no longer sit, Igraine stood and paced the length of the windowed wall, then turned swiftly to face Eadamm. “Then explain this to me!”

  In the face of Igraine’s agitation, Eadamm lost his calm. “If I had not disobeyed your orders, Lord, the lady would have died!” he almost shouted. Then he controlled himself. “The lady has been kind to the slaves. She has…”

  “Continue.”

  “She has a good heart. It would have been wrong to let her die.”

  “Wrong?” Igraine tasted the word as if it was unknown to him. He had used it many times, in many ways, with his slaves. “Wrong to obey me?”

  For the first time since he’d entered the room, Eadamm looked down, casting his gaze to the floor as a slave should.

  Rather than being pleased that his slave was finally cowed, Igraine wished Eadamm would once again look up, that he might see the expression on the ugly human face. “You knew you could not escape. You knew the punishment would be death.”

  “Yes. I chose life for her.”

  Igraine sighed. He sat back down in his chair. He waved his hand in dismissal and turned back to the view of his estate. He heard the door open, then close.

  As soon as it closed, Everlyn stepped into the room from the porch. She stood, flowing nightdress silhouetted in reverse against the night.

  “You should be in bed,” he said gruffly.

  “I couldn’t sleep. Father,” she whispered, her soft voice tearful, “could you not choose to let him live?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Destiny’s Song

  The Audience hall glittered as if it were filled with burning stars, ashimmer from gilt embroidery on fine robes, gems dripping from throats and fingers and wrists. The flames of hundreds of candles danced in glass lamps etched with the symbols of the evil gods, reflected off the gold and silver of ceremonial daggers, and still the huge room was not illuminated. Shadows clung to the corners, filled the three-story-high ceiling.

  The scent of heavy perfumes from a dozen provinces plaited and twined, choking the air, ba
ttling the aromas of melted candles, spiced wine, warm sugar cakes and succulent human flesh wrapped in seaweed and baked to savory tenderness.

  The clamor of a thousand voices, the ring of goblet against goblet, had quieted as the Keeper of History stepped forward to the front of the throne platform and sent the Song spiraling forth to mingle with the glitter and the scents.

  Khallayne Talanador paused on the first landing of the huge southern staircase and allowed her eyes to half close so that only pinpricks of light sparkled through, a thousand-thousand, four-pointed, multicolored pricks of light dancing against her lashes.

  The sweet, siren voice of the Keeper, singing the History of the Ogre race, lulled Khallayne into almost believing she stood alone instead of in the midst of the best-attended, most brilliant party of the season.

  As the Keeper sang, her elaborate, flowing gown shifted and shimmered around her feet. The many scenes embroidered on it, exploits of past kings and queens, glorious battles, triumphal feasts, exquisite treachery, seemed to come to life.

  Khallayne’s gown was a copy of the Keeper’s, with shorter sleeves to allow her hands freedom and fewer jewels worked into the embroidered vestrobe. But where the Keeper’s gown had a multitude of scenes, hers bore only one. The depiction of Khallayne’s favorite story danced about the hem, the tale of a dark and terrible Queen. First she was alive and vigorous, then dying, then rising up from the shards of her burial bones, her subjects quaking before her.

  She had come to be known as the Dead Queen, sometimes as the Dark Queen. She had ruled in the early times, when the mountains were still new. It was told that she was more beautiful, more cunning and clever, than any Ogre ever born. Suspecting that the nobles about her were scheming, she had her own death announced, then waited in the shadows to see who would grieve. And who would celebrate. The purge was quick and glorious; the Dead Queen left few alive to mourn their executed brethren. Three of the present Ruling Council families, all unswervingly loyal to the Dead Queen, had come to power during that time, replacing those who had not sung the funeral songs quite loudly enough. Khal-layne had loved the story since childhood, admiring and aspiring to such perfect cunning.