The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

  Il-Adib smiled. Not a boy. No more. But no less Acuyib’s servant, now that he knew.

  The old man unrolled and spread the page, weighted it gently with carved gold figurines representative of his Order. So many colors: the rich green sheen of the silk, the sacred color of Al-Fansihirro; the ornate and brilliant haze of transcendent illumination set in a border around the text which, in and of itself, barely breathed the truth of Power, of Acuyib’s might. Magic lay in lingua oscurra, the patterns of the borders, not in the common text itself.

  So much to teach the boy who was not a boy, but who would become something infinitely greater than even Sario believed.

  So much he has learned, but so much yet to learn. Il-Adib took in the sacred scents, read familiar cipher in complex illumination, hidden in plain sight from those without the vision; gazed upon the assembled pattern of magic and knew he had succeeded.

  New pigments had been tempered out of new materials. Tza’ab blood crossed with that of Tira Virte, with that of the plague-racked Grijalvas, with the inner vision of the Al-Fansihirro, created a wholly new power.

  “For You,” he said quietly in his true-tongue, the language of Al-Fansihirro, lingua oscurra. “In Your Name, Great Acuyib, so You might live again in the heart of the Desert, in the souls of her people. I have shaped You another Diviner. May he heed Your Voice; may he heed the needs of his people; may he prove the most powerful of Al-Fansihirro.”

  Scent drifted. He closed tear-filled, aged eyes, then opened them as something, an insect, bit his chest. Frowning, he unfastened and pulled aside his robes, baring a chest thin but lapped with sagging flesh.

  There was no insect, yet a pinprick of blood had appeared beside his concave breastbone.

  The aged Tza’ab caught his breath. “Not yet—”

  Blood welled, spilled, splashed. The brittle rib cage caved in and shattered beneath the blow of the knife that did not in any wise exist in Il-Adib’s tent, but elsewhere entirely.

  The ancient Al-Fansihirro released his final breath. “—too soon …”

  And too late.

  Saavedra, when summoned to the entry courtyard, was astonished and appalled by her visitor. “What are you doing here?”

  Alejandro blinked at her in surprise. He had been given entry through the massive wrought-iron gate. One ornate filigreed gate-leaf yet stood ajar beneath the clay-daubed brick archway, as if he thought to flee. On either side of him torches blustered in early evening breeze; it cast light and shadow upon him, limned contours and angles, set gold laces and gemstones to sparking.

  Saavedra was disgusted by the blurted question with which she had greeted him. Holy Mother— “I mean, why have you come?” She modulated her tone as best she could, still flustered. “I mean …” And then, lamely, giving up on all but the truth, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting me.” He grinned shamefacedly, fingering the high embroidered lawn collar extending above the doublet. “I mean, I hadn’t planned to come. I just—came.”

  Saavedra was acutely aware of the silent Grijalva cousin who waited behind her, politely distancing himself without deserting her entirely. It was most unusual for anyone to come to Palasso Grijalva at night, and utterly impossible that it might be the Duke’s son.

  Except he was here.

  Courtesy reasserted itself; there were rituals upon which she might depend, if not her own initiative. “Would you have refreshment? Will you come into the solar?”

  He hitched a broad shoulder briefly, a curiously defensive motion. Belatedly he pulled off the feather-spiked, blue velvet hat that adorned thick dark hair. “I thought perhaps you would walk out with me.”

  “Walk out … with you? Now?” She was completely flustered. Matra Dolcha, what is the matter with you? Do you believe he wishes to propose? Furious with herself, Saavedra managed a tight smile. “I had planned to go to bed …” And then wished she’d said nothing of that, because bed was not a place she should—or wished—to speak of before this man. “Cabessa bisila,” she muttered.

  Alejandro, who heard it, grinned. “Me as well,” he said. “I am delighted to see you as uncertain of this as I.”

  She doubted he was uncertain. Alejandro was never uncertain. “Then why are you here?” And could not help herself: “Is it woman trouble again?”

  The deep flush was slow, but unmistakable.

  Holy Mother, would she never learn? “Eiha, forgive me, grazzo.”

  “No,” he said with some difficulty. “I mean, yes, it’s woman trouble, but not that kind. And perhaps I should not be here at all … perhaps I am merely a fool; I hired you to paint me after all, not listen to my troubles, or—or …” He flushed again, deeply, crushed the velvet hat in powerful hands. “I should have stayed at the tavern.” He scrubbed a forearm against unruly hair. “Sweet Mother, this is not coming out right.” He offered a sickly grin. “Will your watchdog permit me to explain myself in privacy, or am I to be embarrassed before two Grijalvas?”

  “My watchdog—” And then she swung sharply. “Benedizo, surely you don’t believe harm will come to me from Don Alejandro!”

  Benedizo smiled faintly. “Perhaps not,” he murmured, and went inside.

  Saavedra turned back. “There. Banished. No need for embarrassment.”

  Alejandro sighed. “That depends on your perspective.”

  “What perspective do you mean?”

  “Yours,” he said, “or mine, depending on yours. But I can’t wait any longer. I’ve waited too long.”

  “Too long for what?” Her spirit quailed. “To tell me you don’t like my work after all?” Oh Mother, of course he doesn’t. She gulped and ventured it. “That you don’t wish the painting?” And it so nearly completed.

  He was astounded. “Eiha! No! Your work is superb. The painting is superb; you have made me far too handsome for a crooked-toothed cabessa bisila!” The infamous grin flashed, displayed notorious tooth, then hid itself behind self-mocking bemusement. “This has to do with your work only in that the subject of it wishes you to grant him a favor.”

  Relieved, disarmed, Saavedra smiled. “You know I would do anything for you.”

  Hazel eyes took fire. “Nommo do’Matra ei Filho,” he blurted, “I hoped you would say that.” And bent to embrace, to fit body to body, to kiss the breath from her lungs.

  Saavedra discovered embarrassment had nothing whatsoever to do with the moment. Only shock for an instant. And then merely honesty.

  Deep in Palasso Grijalva, tucked away in the closet above the Crechetta where the business of the family was conducted, Sario conducted his own. One lamp, one lamp only, placed upon the step as once Seminno Raimon had placed a lamp, so that it set the world afire. Sario then took from beneath his arm a small framed portrait swathed in burlap, swathed again in fine silk—rich, brilliant green silk—and dropped both lengths of fabric to the floor. He smelled poppy, grass, cypress issuing from the cloth.

  He knelt, set the portrait against the wall, studied the work.

  Infinitely lifelike. An exquisite rendering. No one looking on it who had seen the subject would not know his name.

  Sario spoke that name, then smiled faintly. “I was given leave to do as I must,” he explained, “by a man I trust. You, I dare not trust; we share a different vision.”

  Quietly he lifted into the light the thin-bladed knife. It sparked briefly. Coldly.

  “I am not what you would have me be. But there is much use in what you have told me, great power in what you have taught me, and in me they will live on. Your ending is my beginning.”

  Blood had been the most difficult to obtain. But he had contrived to fall into the old man, scratching him with a fingernail left uncut—the residue caught beneath the nail had been enough.

  Sario set one hand onto the frame to steady the portrait; the other carried the knife to the canvas. It had taken time and ingenuity to gather all the necessary fluids, but it had been done. He was prepared.

  It be
gan now, the second portion of his life. The first, a mere eighteen years, had been as nothing to someone as old as Il-Adib of the Al-Fansihirro, the sole surviving member of the most holy caste of warrior magicians. All of them killed in the wars with Tira Virte, stolen from Acuyib’s Great Tent, until Il-Adib, the youngest of the god’s servants, exiled from those so badly defeated, set out to discover what remained of the Kita’ab, to found the rebirth of his Order. Both he sought in the heart of the enemy, for it was there, the old man said, Acuyib sent him. To find another with the inner vision.

  Sario smiled. Inner vision. Luza do’Orro. He was doubly blessed.

  And Raimon had given him leave to do what he must.

  Sario hesitated. His mouth was unaccountably dry. With this all is changed. All he had ever known.

  But vision existed to be served, and light made it possible for a man to see his way.

  Sario wet his lips, chanted several fluent phrases in the tongue of Al-Fansihirro, in the lingua oscurra, then pierced the painted heart that lay beneath painted robes.

  “I am not your Diviner.” He drove the blade through canvas to the hilt. “I am only and always Grijalva. And I shall be Lord Limner.”

  Scents lingered: poppy, for Sleep; grass, for Submission; cypress for Death.

  EIGHTEEN

  The chamber was in disarray. It was not the Duke’s task to be there for the arrangements—he had a multiplicity of servants to select his clothing, to pack them, to be certain of his dignity in every stage of his apparel while out of the duchy—but Baltran do’Verrada was never predictable. In the midst of the maelstrom he shed garments soiled from hunting even as clean ones were packed, snapped out orders to his personal secretary.

  The journey was vital to the prosperity and peace of Tira Virte, to the future of the duchy as embodied by its Heir, Alejandro, and the heirs to come of his body, and embajadorros, ambassadors, could not be relied upon to always address the vital issues in precisely the way Baltran himself might. They tried, blessed be the Mother’s Name, but they could be put definitively out of time by the semanticists the Pracanzan king employed. So Tira Virte paid high honor to Pracanza to prove the suit was desired by Baltran’s decision to go himself—but he also was hungry for what was reputed to be prime hunting along the border of Tza’ab Rih, and he always satisfied his hunger. It was one of the advantages of his rank. Besides, the days of the Desert warriors were ended; he would be in no danger. Therefore he would pleasure himself before riding on to the business of Pracanza.

  Meanwhile, there was a certain issue to be settled before he departed. The Duke discussed the work of his Lord Limner with his Lord Limner.

  “Let me not put too fine a point on it, Zaragosa—your skills are diminishing.” Baltran do’Verrada eyed Serrano with fleeting compassion a moment later overruled by impatience; there was much for him to do. “It grieves me to be so blunt, but I have no time for anything save truth. I commanded a portrait of my son so that I might take it with me to Pracanza … yet what you have offered up is the merest daub, not a true rendering. You know how vital this portrait is, Zaragosa. It opens negotiations for a betrothal!”

  The miserable wretch of a limner nodded. Thin shoulders collapsed beneath gaudy clothing grown too large, hands clasped themselves like claws, dismay tempered by pain etched dry arroyos into the flesh of his face. “Your Grace—”

  “I simply cannot permit it, Zaragosa.” He snapped fingers at a servant, “Here, no, not that shirt; I have wearied of it.” The Duke turned again to his limner. “You know full well how important such paintings are to the art of diplomacy and negotiation. The entire history of our duchy is documented through these works—Births, Deaths, Marriages, Deeds, Treaties, and much more—and they must be superb. They must be perfect. I cannot have any of them be less than as they should be.”

  “No,” Serrano murmured, “no, Your Grace, of course not—”

  “It is not a good likeness of my son, Zaragosa.”

  He flinched. “No, Your Grace, as you say—”

  “And if I am to present it to the King of Pracanza to open betrothal discussions, it must be a good likeness.” He permitted his hands to be stripped of blood- and sweat-soiled rings so the flesh might be properly washed. “My son is a man much praised for his face, his form, his personal charm. Would you have Pracanza and his daughter take him for less than he is?”

  “No, Your Grace, no, of course not—”

  “Then what are we to do, Zaragosa?”

  The man seemed to wither further: an aged raisin born of once-plump grape. “Your Grace, if I might be permitted to speak—”

  “Speak, then! Would I prevent you?”

  Serrano offered a sickly smile. “I have been ill, Your Grace. I improve, of course,” he added hastily, “but—I have been ill.”

  “The matters of state do not wait on illness, Zaragosa.”

  “No, Your Grace, of course not—but I could begin anew—”

  “There is no time, Zaragosa; I depart tomorrow for Pracanza. And so I have decided that another painting shall go in place of yours.”

  Breath rattled in Serrano’s throat. “Another painting? But— Your Grace … Nommo do’Matra, I am Lord Limner! I!”

  “I cannot present your painting to Pracanza. Therefore I shall present another.” The Duke turned aside, studied a letter drawn up and presented by his secretary, nodded and dismissed him. “We are fortunate that my son commissioned another artist to paint him, thank the Mother, and it shall have to do.”

  Serrano was deathly white. “Who?” he rasped. “Who is the artist?”

  Baltran waved a hand. “I don’t know his name, Zaragosa. This was a private agreement made between my son and the artist, but I have seen it—it was delivered two days ago—and it is superb. A perfect likeness, full of spirit and honesty. Precisely what I need.” He paused. “Alejandro does not yet know I need it, but he will not protest. It feeds a man’s vanity to know his potential bride shall see him at his best.” The Duke flashed a brief grin. “In my progeny the best is attained; his sister, once grown, shall marry into Diettro Mareia, and the Pracanzan girl for Alejandro will settle this dispute over borders at last.”

  Gray as a plague-riddled corpse, Serrano barely nodded. “But surely Your Grace knows the artist’s family.”

  Baltran do’Verrada laughed. “What, Zaragosa—do you fear I will replace you with a lowly Grijalva?” He shook his head, grinning. “Your place is secured as long as I live, Zaragosa. But this does not mean I must accept inferior work.”

  “No, Your Grace—”

  “Therefore I suggest you regain your health, so you may also regain your skill.” He gestured crisp dismissal. “You may go, Zaragosa. Dolcha mattena.”

  But for Zaragosa Serrano, creeping out of the chamber, the morning was far from sweet.

  Sario hesitated only a moment before the tent, then caught a handful of fabric and pulled the door flap aside. He knew what he would find—knew what he should find—and was therefore not shocked but relieved, even secretly pleased, by what he saw in the dusky interior: one old Tza’ab man slumped in death beside the rug of now-familiar, now-decipherable patterns.

  He knelt beside the corpse, pulled aside the disarrayed robe. Looked upon his handiwork, for which he had not been present.

  “Sweet Mother …” Exultation abruptly filled his heart.

  It was not pleasure in the man’s death, but triumph, immense satisfaction that he himself had wrought it. And not that he had intentionally killed, but that he had succeeded. It was necessary to succeed. It was necessary to know that he could do what he intended, what he needed to do, to become what he must.

  “I know,” he said. “I know it, now.” So much power, so much magic, so many ancient skills possessed by no one else in Tira Virte, not even the Viehos Fratos, who did not know they themselves and their vaunted Gifts were no more than leavings on the platter presented by Al-Fansihirro.

  Sario, privy to private humor, smiled in
perverse appreciation. In the Blessed Name of the Mother and Her Most Holy Son, we serve Acuyib of Tza’ab Rih.

  Irony of the purest sort. Certainly heresy.

  He was meant to go to Tza’ab Rih. Meant to seek out and rouse in the name of Acuyib the Riders on the Golden Wind, to give life and breath and heart to a people left too long without it. But he would not. Such was not his goal.

  “I want to paint,” he told the old man. “I want to paint what has never been painted. I want to be what we have not been for three generations, broken by Nerro Lingua. I want to be best of them all, my argumentative Viehos Fratos, best of every Grijalva, every Limner, best of every Lord Limner since the very first was appointed.” He paused. Waited. Was not answered. “You see, there is much for me to do. There is no time for me to be and do what you desire, and Tza’ab Rih is not my home. Its people are not my people. You are not my father.”

  Silence. Quietly he let slip the drapery behind him and knelt on the rug beside the dead Al-Fansihirro, the last of his Order save the man who had murdered him.

  I am no longer the same. I am more than I was, more even than I believed I could be, than I told Saavedra. This old man has given me a key even as the Viehos Fratos have. He shut his hand over the device dangling against his breast. I can’t be afraid. I can’t permit it. I am what I am, what I’ve always wanted to be … but there is more yet. And Raimon has given me leave.

  He would have done it anyway. But Raimon had given him leave.

  Sario studied the silk, the pattern, the ingredients used, there on the rug beneath his knees. He read its meaning at once; Il-Adib had extended a sacred blessing, offered enduring strength.

  Irony again. Sario shut his eyes, wet his lips, then murmured words of lingua oscurra, broke the pattern, scattered branches and blossoms. Quickly he took from beneath its carved weights the fragile sheet of parchment, rolled it carefully, slipped it back into its protective rune-warded tube, then laid it carefully atop other tubes within the brass-bound thornwood casket.