by Carol Berg
“For the love of the Mother, hold still,” I shouted, planting my heel in a crack well suited to a cliff swallow’s roost. “I’ve no place to set you down. And you don’t want to see where we’ll land if you throw me off balance.”
If she spoke I didn’t hear her, but she did settle. The roar of the sea grew louder, the scent of salt wrack affirming the evidence of my ears. At a slight leveling of the track, I risked another glance. A star-filled sky illumined the white curls of breaking waves.
Ardra touched the western sea just north of the tin mines and cliffside sea fortresses of Cymra. But to reach the shore one must cross the wilds of the Aponavi, painted clansmen who herded goats and crafted rugs and collected heads for sport. To consider how far we might have traveled stretched my tired mind beyond reason.
Below me, Kol’s fiery sigils vanished, and I hurried onto the next downward pitch. My left boot slid sidewise toward the void…Concentrate, fool! But my right boot had no purchase on the skittering rocks, and I dared not trust it with our combined weight. Three quick steps at once brought me to another course reversal and an even steeper pitch. I dared not pause the entire last quarter of the descent, so that when I hurtled onto a shore of rippled sand I had difficulty persuading my feet to stop before they quickstepped right into the sea.
“Great Deunor’s grandmother!” I said, dropping to my aching knees…my blessed, aching, unsplintered knees. A rush of gratitude led me to deposit Saverian onto the sand with far more care than my screaming shoulders would prefer. Then I sat back on my heels, gulping air. She sat up, pulled her half-unraveled braid out of her face, and gaped.
“You’ve infected me with your madness.” Narrowing her eyes to slits, she rubbed her temples vigorously. “Else I’ve bumped my head, and all this”—she waved at the sea and sky and sand without looking at them—“is but my own mind’s imagining. If you tell me it’s neither, and that I’ve not just dreamed performing the single most appallingly stupid act of my life, I beg you snap my neck quickly.”
“You saved my life, lady—you and he.” I nodded a hundred quercae down the shore where Kol sat on a cluster of boulders, long arms wrapped around his bent knees, allowing the sea spray to shower him. “I could not leave you to reap Osriel’s whirlwind for your kindness. But truth be told, I don’t know as I’ve done you any favor. I’ve no idea where he’s brought us…”…assuming Kol had brought us here at all. Just because I had managed to follow him didn’t mean he wished us to be here.
She bent her head to her knees and beat her fists on her skull. Mumbled invective flowed from her like lava from a volcano. Her inventive mixture of human anatomy and unlikely violence altogether lifted my spirits.
The chill, damp wind flapped my cloak. Driftwood lay about the shore, tempting me to direct the prickly mage’s attention to fire. But the luminous breakers, the wind-borne scent of unknown shores, and a heaven filled with brilliant stars of such profusion and arrangement as I had never witnessed reminded me that we were not in our own land, but lost in Aeginea.
I pushed up to my feet. “I must speak to him before anything. Find out where he’s brought us and what he wants of me. You’ll be all right for a bit?”
“On the day I require the protection of a lunatic, I’ll snap my own neck. Yes, please go find out where we are, so I’ll know whether I’ve a better choice to travel east to Estigure or west to Cymra to find a new employer.” Her gaze, sparked with starlight, traveled up and down my height. “You’re going to tell me we’re in the realm of angels, aren’t you? And that the naked man with the exceedingly odd skin that I’ve imagined seeing is some kin of yours?”
I grinned down at her. “My uncle. Though he’s as loath as my every other kinsman to claim me. I’ll be back as soon as I may, and I’d advise not burning anything right away.”
I tramped the short distance down the broad tidal flats, finding it easier going than slogging through the dunes. Kol took no notice of my coming. Mustering every shred of graceful manners my tutors had beaten into me, I bowed and spoke the greeting Osriel had used. The Dané might not delight my eye, but my gratitude could not be measured. “Envisia seru, Kol. How may I serve thee in recompense for sound legs?”
“Be unborn.” He continued to stare into the churning sea.
The rebellious ember that yet denied the story of my birth winked out of existence. Seeking shelter from the wind and spray, I squeezed between his waist-high perch and another slab, pressed my weary back to the damp stone, and sat.
“If wishing could accomplish such a thing, gods know it would have happened long before now,” I said, twisting my aching shoulders. “My father’s family wished it. Many’s the time I’ve wished it—but that was before I learned that I had a kinswoman who could be spoken of as ‘beloved of every Dané for her joyful spirit.’”
“Do not think to ingratiate thyself by speaking of her.”
“I’ve no wish to ingratiate myself with any of your kind,” I snapped, his arrogance a cold wash on my conciliatory sensibilities. “You have extended me favors I never asked of you and that are clearly at odds with your own inclinations. Thus I must assume it is your sister’s desires you serve and that she wished us to treat each other with honor, if naught else. I offer no less than she would ask—and no more.”
After a long moment, he jerked his head in agreement. “I retract my unworthy accusation.”
Resisting the temptation to gasp in mock astonishment, I gestured at the desolate shore. “So, why would my mother want me here?”
“She chose me as thy vayar—thy teacher. The shores of Evaldamon provide a suitable place for teaching and are little traveled. Days pass slowly here. Yet were the days each the lingering of a season, the task is already impossible. I smell the remasti close upon thee. Once a body has passed the last remasti unchanged, naught can be done to alter it.”
“The last remasti…my birthday.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and ground his jaw. “Clyste trusted the Cartamandua to bring thee to me in the proper season—long ago. Despite what human lies tell, the long-lived do not steal human children away to Aeginea. Clyste’s innocence burned as the stars; the Cartamandua’s false promises stank as human dwellings do.”
“So it was for one broken promise that you stole Janus’s mind—stole his life.” Kol’s arrogance revolted me. “You mourn for my mother who broke your laws and sent me off with him. Yet for a failed human man, you alone issue a judgment that breaks all bounds of compassion. I’ve no desire for your lessons.”
“Which is precisely why the teaching would be useless.”
The Dané unfolded his legs, pressed the bottoms of his feet together, and drew his heels close to his groin. I squirmed as I watched, imagining the uncomfortable stretch. Clasping his hands together, he straightened his arms over his head, then slowly bent his body forward until his chest came near touching the surface of the flat rock. I hugged my knees tightly, as if someone might prod me to replicate his move.
The silence lagged. Already I rued my hasty retort. My life demanded answers. I needed to understand what I was and what I would be, come the winter solstice.
“You brought me here despite your belief that I could not learn what you would teach,” I said. “She had some plan, didn’t she…my mother? She mated with Janus because she—”
“I will not speak of that joining.” He sprang to his feet, his sigils pulsing, posture and voice articulating bald humiliation. “It is enough that my sister’s blood flows in thy veins. She believed the Everlasting had accounted a place for thee in the Canon. This I cannot and will not accept. And if ever such a disordered event were possible, the season of its accomplishment has long passed. Yet even so late in this waning season I know what she would ask of me.”
“The Canon. A vayar is—” I pounced upon the absurdity, astonishment ruining my intent to curb my tongue. “You don’t think to teach me to dance?”
His face, long, narrow, and perfectly formed, might have bee
n cold marble beneath his sigils. “No. But if I gift thee the separation gard, as if thou wert a nestling new released from thy parents’ side, the Law forbids Tuari to damage thee without informing thy argai—thy eldest kin, who is Stian, my sire. The custom provides only a delay, shouldst thou be taken captive again, for the archon’s judgment of a halfbreed will never be other than breaking. But it might give trustworthy companions a chance to protect thee.” He jumped down from the rock, landing on his bare feet with the weight of thistledown. “If I can convince Stian to agree and gift thee the walking gard as well, thou canst move through the world with certain skills of the long-lived, which will aid thee in eluding capture. Clyste would wish these protections for thee, though all other wishes fail.”
“The gards…these markings…the sigils of Danae magic…” My hands crept inside my sleeves and rubbed my arms. Denial rose like bile in my throat. But a glance at the sea, churning a few paces from my boots where it had no business being, slowed my retort. The Danae could travel impossible distances…vanish as if they had wings…hide.
Twelve years I had hidden from the detestable life my pureblood birth prescribed for me. Lacking purpose beyond staying free, lacking skills beyond health and wits, I’d survived by embracing the chances Serena Fortuna had placed in my way. I had never turned my back on the divine damsel. And now matters were far more complicated.
I might be able to find a route out of Aeginea, but I could not imagine where I might be safe from Osriel’s wrath and from these Danae who would maim me and from the Pureblood Registry, who yet believed me pureblood and would run me to ground without mercy did Osriel but hint that I had violated my contract. More important, a stolen child awaited rescue—so I prayed—and a murdered child awaited justice. I no longer had confidence that Prince Osriel would weigh their needs important beside this mysterious course he had chosen.
“So you could just…mark…me and I could travel as you do?”
“Not so simply as that. I would provide thee the necessary teaching.”
“And the price? I understand that your…gifting…is to Clyste, not to me. But to gain these skills, surely I must be required to yield something. Janus warned me to stay away until I was eight-and-twenty…past this last change…”
“The Cartamandua never understood the remasti or the gards.” Kol’s tone made it clear that folk held higher opinion of crawling snakes than he did of the man who’d fathered me. “Janus believed a vayar imposed some alteration upon the body at the remasti, thus making it something other than ordained by birth. Even while promising to do as Clyste asked, he confessed his fear that I would make thee more our kind than his. To him birth was blood, and blood was all. But the change is already trapped within thee. Necessary, even for one with a human parent. Thy own skills and talents and practices determine the partitioning of thy nature—entirely of humankind, entirely of the long-lived, or somewhere part of each.”
“So my father was wrong, and you, who despise me and my kind, will generously share your Danae magic with me.” Kol’s assurances sounded promising, but I could not bar Janus’s wild eyes and drooling mouth from my memory.
Exasperation broke through his chilly reserve. “I shall not harm thee. Many easier ways could I damage thee, if vengeance were my intent. I could have left thee for Tuari to be broken. Do thou pass the time of the last remasti entirely unchanged, thy skin will harden into a prison and thy spirit shall die captive within it. To change, thou must yield only the desire to remain ignorant and incapable and incomplete.”
Ignorant and incapable and incomplete…my skin a prison. A pureblood diviner reading my cards could not have so captured the entirety of my existence. My gaze traveled the length of Kol’s marked limbs. What did it feel like? Would my own human magic behave differently…be lost? Great gods, did Danae eat? Make love? Well, of course…I was evidence of that. But all I knew was fireside tales of beings forced to live as stone or trees, who died when trapped within walls. Different. Not human. I rubbed cheek and jaw, as if I might discover lines and sworls waiting beneath my skin.
Events were moving so rapidly. Gildas had taken Jullian to Sila Diaglou as a tool to manipulate me. Weeks it had been already. If she came to believe the boy of no use to her…I could not allow that, which meant my time was short. Yet Danae magic might make all the difference, enable me to get him away, to learn and do the things I needed to do. The lighthouse must endure, no matter what wickedness Osriel the Bastard thought to work with solstice magic.
I blinked and gazed up at Kol. “How long would this take?”
He threw up his hands. “How long, how many, how far, how much. Hast thou no questions of substance?” He pointed to the rock where he’d sat. “If thou art here when the sun wakes from the cliff, I will begin thy teaching, as my sister would desire.”
He turned his back and waded into the sea. Once the slack water lapped his thighs he dived into the rolling waves. Lightning the color of lapis and indigo infused the churning surf and then faded.
Snugged between the two chunks of granite, wavelets creeping ever closer to my toes, I tried desperately to think of some reason not to be here in the morning. But I could command neither mind nor body to any useful purpose…what with the exertions of the day…with this unknowable path beneath my feet…
“You didn’t ask him about a fire.” Saverian’s head popped up from the far side of Kol’s rock, causing me to slam an elbow into the rock. My heart crashed into my ribs with the impact of the surf.
“Mother Samele’s tits, do you forever sneak around and show up where you’re not invited?”
“I’ve noted several nice-sized chunks of wood lying around. I can either set them afire so that you’re not quaking like an Aurellian torturer on Judgment Night, or I can use them to turn your knees to powder as your other relatives proposed. And then I’ll politely ask the naked gentleman to tell me where in the Sky Lord’s creation you’ve brought me. You forgot to discover that, as well.”
I was trembling. Fear had its part, no question. But the damp had penetrated my sweat-soaked garments, as well, and though in no wise as frigid as in Evanore, the wind cut through the layered wool like Ardran lances. “I’d say burn what you like. He’s not going to be happy no matter what I do. Can you see where he’s gone?”
Her gaze roved the enclosing night. “We should leave this place. Use your skills and get us away. Trusting a creature like that…” She shuddered. “His spirit is surely a glacier. He may have had feelings for his sister, but he has no feelings for you. He doesn’t even hate. He exists.”
“So speaks the woman who serves the Duc of Evanore.”
She came round the rock and offered me her hand. “Osriel of Evanore is a human man of extraordinary discipline. His passions run very deep and sometimes lead him to ill choices. But I understand him.”
“Explain the ill choice of crippling his friends.” Weary to the bone, I accepted her hand—unusually cold on this night—and hauled myself up. We strolled down the shore, collecting the odd bits of wood thrown up on the sand. “Will he forgive what you did tonight?”
“Forgiveness is not Osriel’s strength. He tolerates no weakness in himself, and while he does not expect the same of those who serve him, he does expect their trust. No matter how I argue with him, I’ve always given him that in the end.”
“Even with whatever mystery lies beyond the rock gate at Dashon Ra?”
She halted in midstep. “If you ever whisper of that again, even in private, I’ll unravel my spell and leave you gibbering until your mind is muck. Elene is a fool to have shown you.” She snatched an arm-length branch from the sand. “Never misapprehend. I am Osriel of Evanore’s loyal servant whether or not I dare stand in his presence again. As for tonight…in no way was I prepared to tend horses while you and Osriel strolled into heaven or hell or wherever we are. And when their intentions became clear…No worthy physician could stand by and see a healthy body damaged. But be assured I will always wonder what m
ight have happened if I had let events play out as he planned. You would have survived without my intrusion.”
So she knew at least somewhat of Osriel’s plan for Dashon Ra. Unfortunately, as we wandered about the shore filling our arms, naught in her demeanor invited further discourse. At last we threw our bits and pieces into a pile, and I spread my arms so my cloak might block the wind as she arranged them and worked her magic. With her third snapped “flagro,” the center of the little pile began to smolder. She broke off splinters of the half-rotted wood to coax and nourish the little flame.
“I should have you teach me how to do that,” I said, stretching my hands toward the growing flames. “Probably more use than what Kol will teach me.”
“You’re going to allow him to work his wiles on you? Have you heard no tale of the Danae? Great Mother, preserve my reason, you are a fool.”
“So, my wise physician, come up with a better suggestion before tomorrow—something that does not include mutilation, chains, or removal of my eyes. An innocent child languishes in captivity, his days short unless I show up to claim him, and another lies dead, and I’m the only one who seems to care anymore. Indeed I’ve done nothing of worth in my life, and see little prospect of it. But everything in this world has a purpose: clouds, thorns, fleas. Perhaps I’ll do better as a…whatever I am…than I’ve done thus far, pretending to be human.”
We sat in uncomfortable silence. Saverian’s stomach growled. My own had near gnawed itself through, and we’d not a scrap of food or drink between us. Though her flames grew and bathed my front side in warmth, I could not stop shaking.