His name was Aiden, a graduate from the Estramnadon Academy of the Art less than a decade ago. Arion had taught him advanced chords. A bright kid. Looking at their faces, she remembered having taught all of them. Some of the younger ones were still in school.
Aiden held up his hands in defense. “Hey, we all agreed there was absolutely no better use for water on a night like this than a living sculpture of Fane Lothian. Am I right?” He grinned at his fellow conspirators. A few smiled and sniggered. “Certainly no sense drinking it. Am I right? Am I right?”
Aiden staggered, and the rest of them laughed.
“You’re drunk,” Arion said.
“But that’s not why it failed.” Aiden pointed at Makareta. She’d been one of Arion’s students as well. A mousy introvert with a wonderful talent for sculpting stone. “She took too long getting the features just right. Perfectionist, you know.”
Makareta scowled and blushed at the same time. They were all drunk.
“You tapped the Shinara River for a sculpture?” Arion asked. “Here. In the square?”
“Genius, am I right? We were gonna have it smile and wink as people walked by.”
Behind them, an elderly Fhrey coughed as she got to her feet. She struggled to drag hair from her face as she stared across the plaza. “My stand. It’s gone.”
“Do you see what you’ve done?” Arion asked the students. “If I hadn’t been here, if I hadn’t intervened, she might have drowned!”
Aiden looked at the old Fhrey and shrugged. “Who cares? She’s not Miralyith. Lothian proved how insignificant, how useless the other tribes are now. If they can’t take care of themselves, they don’t deserve to live.”
Makareta must have had less to drink than the others, or perhaps she’d paid more attention in Arion’s classes, because she took a quick step back.
With a hiss and a squeezed fist, Arion summoned light and turned Aiden into a living torch. He shrieked, and the square glowed with brilliant fire as tongues of flame slithered up and down the ringleader’s body. The others fell over themselves trying to get away. Looking back, they cringed at the sight of their accomplice burning to death. Even the elderly Nilyndd crafter looked aghast, one arm raised to protect her face, eyes wide in horror.
With a quick puff of air, as if she were blowing out a candle, Arion extinguished Aiden. The ex-student shook but appeared unharmed.
“Illusion,” Makareta whispered.
Arion took a step closer to Aiden. “Not so drunk now, am I right?” She glared at him, and when she spoke again, her tone was cold. “Here’s the problem with the young: You think you’re invincible. Just because Ferrol’s Law prevents me from killing you doesn’t mean you’re impervious to harm.” She crept closer. “How painful do you think it would be to live three thousand years without skin? That I can do. And I will if I hear you speaking in such a way again. Any of you! We are all Fhrey. Do you understand?”
All heads nodded but none as vigorously as Aiden’s.
“Now clean up this mess and make restitution for anything you can’t restore, or Ferrol help me I’ll—”
They were moving before she finished. Arion caught Makareta before she could set off to join the others.
“I expect better from you. You’re smarter than that. You should stick to your sculptures and paintings. They’re lovely, and the world can always use more beauty. There’s plenty of ugly to go around.”
Makareta couldn’t quite look her in the eye but managed to say, “I’d like to think the Art is for greater things than pretty pictures and carvings.”
Arion nodded. “Perhaps, but certainly nothing so wonderfully pure of purpose.” Then she allowed herself to look back at the tomb of Fenelyus. “And a thing wrought in stone is a beauty and a truth that lasts forever.”
—
The next morning things had calmed down. The celebrants were sleeping, and Arion was looking forward to her first day as the prince’s tutor. Passing through the Garden of Estramnadon, she spotted her mother sitting on a bench directly across from the Door. Arion hadn’t seen Nyree in at least five hundred years, but little about her had changed. She still wore her cloud-white hair long and loose, still sat straight and proper, and dressed in what could have been the same white asica Arion had last seen her wearing. The garment’s folds enveloped Nyree in a monochromatic pile of silk. The elderly Fhrey presented an image so ancient that it appeared she’d outlived color.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Oh, it’s you,” Nyree said with an indifferent tone that nevertheless translated as disappointment.
Arion expected something else, something cutting, but her mother merely continued to sit with hands clasped in her lap, looking past her daughter at the sacred Door.
“That’s it?” Arion asked. “You haven’t seen me in half a millennium and oh, it’s you is all you can say?”
Nyree turned and faced Arion. She tilted her head up, squinting as she studied her daughter. “You look ridiculous, shaving your head like that. Also, you’re too thin and pale, but I suppose they don’t let you out much now that you’re a famous magician.”
“An Artist, Mother. Miralyith are Artists, not magicians. Magicians perform tricks using sleight of hand. Artists raise mountains, control the weather, and reroute rivers.”
“You use magic. That makes you a magician.”
Nyree’s gaze left Arion again and returned to the Door.
It isn’t only the asica that hasn’t changed, Arion thought.
She sat down beside her mother, who frowned and shifted over despite having plenty of room. For no reason Arion was willing to admit, she, too, sat unusually straight and adjusted the folds of her asica, regretting that morning’s choice of bright yellow with ornate blue piping.
The two sat for several minutes in silence, listening to songbirds in the trees and the trickle of streams and the miniature waterfalls that skilled artisans had crafted to perfection over the centuries. After a minute or two, Arion also looked at the Door on the other side of the path. Painted and repainted bright white, the Door was an otherwise nondescript gate in a solid, circular wall supporting an enclosed dome. Ivy and flowering vines had covered the dome and sides ages ago, but nothing encroached on the Door’s surface. Before it, several stone benches had been placed for visitors to sit and contemplate the simple white threshold.
“You’re looking well,” Arion offered. “I like your asica. Is it new?”
“No.”
Arion waited. Nyree remained silent.
“How is Era?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to your father in centuries.”
“Oh, I hadn’t heard.” Arion tucked a tiny edge of piping out of sight. “I recently separated from Celeste. So it’s just me in my little house again.”
“I’m sure it was the filth that drove him out.”
“Her, Mother, not him. Celeste is a—never mind.”
Arion found herself slouching and straightened up again.
Why do I let her do this to me? I’m not a child in my first century. Nor am I insignificant. I am—
“I’ve been appointed to tutor the prince,” Arion said.
“But not in the faith of our lord Ferrol, I take it,” her mother responded without looking away from the Door.
“Of course not, Mother. I’m Miralyith now. I have been for nearly a thousand years.”
“Oh, you’re right,” she said without a bit of surprise in her voice. Instead, a colorless, odorless poison coated her words.
“You know, most mothers would be proud to have a daughter rise to such an important position in the fane’s court.”
Nyree made a sound with her nose, less than a snort and more than a sniff but most certainly unfavorable. “If the fane were a devout member of the Umalyn tribe rather than a godless Miralyith, I’d agree.”
“We aren’t godless, Mother. At least no less so than the other tribes.”
“Oh, no? I’ve heard the rumors. Miralyith
claim the Art has elevated them above everyone else. Some even declare themselves gods. I’ve never heard a member of any other tribe making such blasphemous claims.”
“The Rhunes believe the Instarya are gods. Why aren’t you complaining about them?”
“That’s different. The Rhunes aren’t Fhrey. They’re barely one step above rabbits. They see gods everywhere. The only Fhrey they’ve ever met are the Instarya, and I’ve never heard of anyone from that tribe claiming to be gods. I can’t say the same about the Miralyith. Besides, what a Rhune believes is of no consequence. I’m sure ants consider mice to be gods, too. Such notions don’t diminish Ferrol.”
“If you took the time to talk to a few Miralyith rather than basing assumptions on hearsay, you might discover any ideas of divinity are in the minority.”
“And are you in this minority?” Nyree asked.
“No.”
Nyree smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from her asica. “Well, I’m sure it won’t be long before you join their ranks, what with you becoming so important and all.”
“I don’t want to fight,” Arion said.
“Fight? Who’s fighting?” Nyree leaned back, folded her arms, and lifted her chin so that she was looking down her nose at the Door.
“I came here for a few moments of tranquil contemplation. Nothing more,” Nyree added.
Superior even to it, Arion thought.
They sat again in silence, and Arion wondered if she should leave. She hadn’t expected to meet her mother that morning, although she should have. All the Umalyn high priests and priestesses were in the city of Estramnadon to witness the coronation of the new fane, and her mother always took every opportunity to visit the Door. Given that Nyree was a morning person prone to early-dawn meditations, Arion could have calculated her mother’s Garden visit down to the minute, but she hadn’t. Nyree spent countless hours contemplating the disappointment otherwise known as her daughter, but Arion gave no thought to her mother. This stab of guilt prompted her to make one last attempt before departing.
“Is there nothing positive you wish to say to me?” Arion asked.
Nyree appeared surprised by the question. She didn’t look at Arion, but she no longer stared faithfully at the Door. Her sight fluttered across the ground while she thought. After a long moment, during which Arion’s heart sank with each passing second, Nyree nodded, straightened, and smiled. Arion suspected the grin wasn’t born from pride in her daughter but from the pleasure of beating a dare.
“I’m pleased to see you in the Garden. I wouldn’t have thought you came here. It’s good to find that despite turning away from your tribe to join the ranks of the new ruling class, you still revere the faith enough to contemplate the mysteries of the Door.”
As backhanded a compliment as it was, Arion simply nodded. She didn’t have the heart to tell her mother she had been cutting through the Garden because it was the shortest route to the palace.
Perhaps Nyree wished to leave her daughter on a positive note or wanted to quit while ahead, but whatever the reason, she stood up. “And I’ll leave you to do just that, as I wouldn’t wish to deprive you of what is certainly the high point of your day.”
“Will you be here again tomorrow?”
Nyree shook her head. “I’m only here to grant blessings on the new fane, which we did yesterday. We witnessed that ridiculous ceremony and watched as the new fane planted his exalted backside on the Forest Throne. Then we saw the whole city go insane in celebration. A bunch of your deranged Miralyith flooded Florella Plaza; did you know that?”
“Those were students, and they were trying to make a sculpture of Fane Lothian out of the waters of the Shinara River. They weren’t successful.”
“No, they weren’t, because success is only achieved through physical labor, faith in Ferrol, and determination of the spirit. I still pray that one day you’ll come to understand those truths.”
She walked away before Arion could say anything more, even goodbye. Arion lingered on the bench, watching her mother go.
I’ll never see her again. I wonder if she cares.
Neither Nyree nor Arion was young. Nyree was pushing twenty-five hundred, and Arion had recently turned two thousand. Fhrey rarely lived more than three thousand years. Since the previous fane had ruled for nearly twenty-six hundred years, and it had taken a coronation to bring Nyree into the city, both of them would likely be dead before another opportunity arose. Of course, Arion could visit her mother, but she saw no point in traveling for days to repeat this encounter.
Arion sighed, flopped against the back of the bench, and looked at the Door. She couldn’t help it; the thing was right across from her. She walked by the relic every day, but she hadn’t really looked at it in more than a century. Like her mother, it hadn’t changed.
Most people wondered what was on the other side, and Arion was no different. This unknowable truth was the reason for the benches. Fhrey would come to the Garden to sit and contemplate the transcendent world beyond.
Maybe it was guilt brought on by her mother or perhaps because she hadn’t done so in such a long time, but Arion closed her eyes, cleared her mind, and prayed.
—
“She’s wrong.”
Arion was pulled from her meditation when she heard the voice and opened her eyes. Sitting on the next bench over, a fellow in a dingy, brown robe leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the Door as people usually did, just as she had done.
“Success,” he continued, “is achieved most consistently through cruelty and deception. Determination of the spirit certainly helps, but faith in Ferrol is a currency as valuable as a pair of shoes two sizes too small.”
“It’s not polite to eavesdrop,” Arion replied. “That was a private conversation.”
Arion stood to go. She’d already lingered too long and might be late for her first instruction with the prince. The lad was only twenty-five years old and in desperate need of training in the ways of the Art. His previous instructors had been too lenient, leaving the prince with a woeful lack of skill. Before Fenelyus’s death she had asked Arion to take over her grandson’s education. He’ll rule one day, and I fear he will be a curse if something isn’t done, Arion’s mentor had said.
It had come as a surprise when the new fane agreed to honor his mother’s wishes. Arion had been convinced that Lothian disliked her and was jealous of his mother’s attention toward someone who wasn’t related. You should be more like Arion, Fenelyus used to say, oblivious to the insult to her son and unconcerned about the possible trouble it might cause Arion once Lothian assumed the throne. So far, the new fane had surprised her.
Arion took a step toward the palace, but the fellow spoke again. Pointing across from them, he said, “That Door can’t be opened. Ever try? You could cleave it with an ax, ram it with a tree, or set fire to its wood, and nothing would happen. Even a master of the Art can’t breach it. Such a small simple door, but all the power of nature is useless against it. So the question is, how did she do it?”
“How did who do what?” Arion asked.
“Fenelyus. How did she get inside? How did she get past the Door?”
“I don’t know that she did.” Arion didn’t care for this stranger. A full head of hair indicated he probably wasn’t a Miralyith, which made her wonder about his comment, Even a master of the Art can’t breach it.
How does he know what the Art is and isn’t capable of? Arion wondered.
“Oh, she did. Trust me.”
Arion didn’t trust him, not in the least. Her discomfort wasn’t merely because he was a stranger; his appearance was disturbing. She prided herself on proper grooming, and he was the most unkempt person she had ever seen. His brown robe was frayed, torn, and stained in more than a few places.
He has actual dirt under his fingernails. She shuddered at the sight and turned away.
“No one saw her go in or come out,” he went on despite Arion’s obvious avoidance. “The visit was all very hush-hush
, and she denied it—or rather avoided the subject—for the remainder of her life.”
“Then she didn’t go inside,” Arion declared. “Fenelyus was an extremely honest person. I knew her well.”
“I know.”
Arion looked back at him then. “You know what?”
“She was the mother you always wished you’d had, instead of the pompous, pious, prejudiced prude who just left. Nyree still considers your decision to leave your birth tribe and join the Miralyith an act of heresy. She can’t understand why you turned your back on the priesthood to become one of them.”
Arion felt uneasy. She was certain she’d only referred to Nyree as Mother, yet this man had used her name. Since her mother lived in seclusion, it was unlikely the two were acquaintances. Even more disturbing, Arion didn’t remember seeing this man while talking to her mother. For that matter, she hadn’t seen anyone around them during their chat.
Has he been spying on me? And if so, why?
“Who are you?” she demanded.
He smiled. “You don’t have time for me to answer that; you have a prince to teach. The only reason you stopped was because you accidentally stumbled on your mother while cutting through the Garden on your way to the palace.”
The uneasy sensation turned to a chill.
If he’d somehow overheard their conversation, he would know about tutoring the prince. It’s even possible he could have known about her history with Nyree—a lot of people did. Even if he didn’t, he could have guessed as much after listening to them. But thinking more carefully, she was now certain no one had been around them during their conversation.
And how could he know why I’m here?
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“For the sake of expediency, let’s limit the answer to a name. You can call me Trilos.”
His cavalier attitude made him even more of an enigma. Although her mother wasn’t impressed with Arion’s accomplishments, almost everyone else was. Being a ranked member of the ruling tribe demanded respect in and of itself. But the Art made Miralyith practically invincible—as demonstrated during the recent challenge—and most Fhrey avoided any contact with practitioners of the Art if at all possible. Those who did summon the courage to speak would do so reverently, carefully avoiding anything that might provoke ire. And Trilos had said more than enough to get on her nerves. Ferrol’s Law prevented Fhrey from killing Fhrey, but as she had reminded Aiden, it didn’t prevent inflicting pain. Miralyith were called Artists because of the creativity needed to manifest magic, and when that creativity was applied to acts of retribution, the results could be terrifying.
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