by J F Rivkin
Raphe returned, and they began their climb again, only halting now and then as he pointed out to the workers where the trellis-cords needed tightening or where bushy new shoots near the ground should be trimmed.
“Ansen says there have been more thefts,” he reported to ’Deisha. “A hen is missing now, and some coils of rope.” He sounded worried. “And of course they say it’s the ghosts’ doing.”
“Is she sure it was someone from outside the camp?”
“Well, so she says, and we’ve always found her honest.”
’Deisha sighed. “Very well, I’ll send them a hen-and a good watchdog to guard the encampment. That should put a stop to this business.”
“Thanks, that would be best, I think. We daren’t take chances, so close to crush.” He turned to Corson and Nyctasia, explaining.
“We must keep these people satisfied, you see. It’s hard to find harvesters enough to work this hill-most folk won’t venture so near to those cursed ruins.
I’m glad you suggested this expedition, Corson. It may give them confidence to see us going there.”
“But we needn’t worry about ghosts and demons while Nyc is with us,” Corson said wickedly. “She knows all about such things.”
Nyctasia winced. Not only was she secretive, from force of habit, but it was not always wise to let it be known that one was familiar with spellcraft. There were many lands where all magicians were regarded with distrust. “I have made a study of thaumaturgy,” she conceded stiffly, “but I’ve also made a study of philosophy, astronomy, history and botany, Corson makes a point of it because she has a superstitious dislike of magic.”
“Ha!” Corson snorted, “she got us both thrown out of an inn in Hlasven because she threatened to raise a demon. Take care she doesn’t change you both to-”
“Don’t let folk hear you talk like that, even in jest,” Raphe cautioned, looking about uneasily. “Not here.”
“Well, she did,” Corson said, in a lowered tone.
“Corson, I would gladly turn you into a wild ass, if some other wizard had not been beforehand at it.”
“Ah, mind what you say, Nyc. You’ve convinced your kin here that you’ve a sweet temper. It won’t do to let them see what an evil-tongued shrew you really are.”
“The gentlest nature would lose patience with your insupportable insolence!”
“Enlighten me, I beg you,” Raphe interrupted. “However did the pair of you travel all the way from the coast together without murdering one another?”
“Through the grace of the vahn,” said Nyctasia.
“By luck,” said Corson, at the same time.
They sat on the remaining stones of a fallen wall and ate the grapes they’d brought with them, enjoying the cool breezes on the heights. From the summit of the hill they could see most of the valley, the vine-covered slopes, the neat golden squares that were fields of grain, the pale, light green stretches of cornfields and the dark black-green masses of woodland. Through this varied landscape wound the Southern Trade Road, and glimpses of the lakes shone a clear blue between the hills, reflecting the sky.
Nyctasia leaned back to look up at the great bell-tower looming over them. Most of the doors and lower windows had been boarded over. “Is the bell ever rung?”
Raphe shook his head. “Never since the fire. I expect the rope’s rotted through by now. The whole structure’s none too steady-a high wind rocks it.”
Nyctasia was surprised. “But the walls are so thick. Look.” She pointed to one of the high windows. “It ought to be sturdy enough. We couldn’t climb it, I suppose?”
“No,” said the twins together, and ’Deisha continued, “Mother ’Charis says she climbed it as a child, and saw all the way from the mountains to the river. But it’s said to be far too dangerous now.”
Corson, who hated heights, quickly changed the subject. “How much of this land belonged to the Circle?”
Raphe pointed down the hillside and across the intervening fields. “Those were their living quarters and kitchens, down there, across the way. There’s not much left to see of them, just some tumbledown halls and an old well. There were cornfields and wheatfields in between-they were torched-and greengardens. And this was the temple, of course. There’s an open courtyard inside that must have been beautiful once.”
“Where was the library?” Nyctasia asked. “Here, or near the living-quarters?”
“Library? I don’t know-do you, ’Deisha?”
“I’ve never heard tell of one.”
“There must have been a library of some sort, if they were scholars and teachers,” Nyctasia said, disappointed. The neglected and fragmentary library of the Edonaris household was yet another thing that made her feel out of place there. Her newfound family had little leisure or inclination for study.
“Wherever it was, it’s sure to have been burned.”
“Of course,” sighed Nyctasia.
“Those orchards were theirs as well,” Raphe continued, “I mean to have those trees looked after, next year, if I can find the time. I want to try to press some of the fruit for wine, or blend the juices with grape. The family think the idea’s an outrage, of course, but I can’t see why other fruits besides grapes shouldn’t make a good wine-apples, say, or pears.”
“Peaches,” said Nyctasia. “They grew peach trees here somewhere.”
“Yes, but how did you know that?”
“We spent a night in those ruins on the way here,” Corson explained, “and helped ourselves to some of your fruit for our breakfast.”
“Why, of course-that’s where we must have been,” said Nyctasia. “But I was thinking of this.” She took out the worn paper and read aloud:
“Wholesome is my fruit and sweet,
Fit for nourishment at need,
But within the savory meat
Ever hides the deadly seed.
“What could that be but a peach? You can brew a mortal poison from the pith of a peach-stone.”
“You would know a thing like that,” said Corson.
’Deisha was studying the paper now, with Raphe looking over her shoulder. “Do you think this might really have to do with the Cymvelans, then?” she asked in surprise.
“There’s a riddle about the bell-tower too,” Corson pointed out.
Raphe remained doubtful. “What of this one? It’s senseless, listen-
“Builder, brewer, confectioner, chanter, chandler, Ever-armed guardian of garden’s golden guerdon, Envy of alchemy, apothecary, artisan and architect.
“Now what does that mean, I ask you?”
Corson glanced at the riddle. “The answer’s in plain sight, for anyone who can read,” she gloated, in a creditable imitation of Nyctasia. “It’s about bees.”
Nyctasia gave her a withering look, and explained the key to the riddle to Raphe and ’Deisha.
“‘Ever-armed’ I see,” mused Raphe, “but why ‘chandler’?”
“Beeswax candles,” suggested ’Deisha.
“And ‘apothecary’?”
“Honey’s used in the preparation of certain medicaments,” Nyctasia offered.
“‘Brewer’?”
“Mead,” said Corson promptly.
“And I suppose ‘envy of alchemy’ means that bees create gold from baser elements, if we allow honey to be gold? Rather farfetched, if you ask me.”
“It’s not particularly profound, I agree,” said Nyctasia. “In fact, it’s a poor effort altogether-I suspect that it’s more an exercise in composition than a true attempt at verse.”
“Because it doesn’t rhyme properly?” ’Deisha hazarded.
“No, actually it follows a highly complex pattern of consonance. You see, the vowels have alliterative value as well as-”
Corson recognized the absorbed, pensive tone of voice that always foretold one of Nyctasia’s learned discourses. Privately, she thought of these as ‘fits.’
“It’s one of her fits coming on,” she said gloomily. “Don’t pay her a
ny mind or she’ll go nattering on like that for hours. What I want to know is, did they keep bees here or didn’t they?”
“I’ve no idea,” said ’Deisha, but Raphe nodded. “There are hives at the far edge of the orchard. I saw them once when I was looking over the fruit trees.”
“And were there, by any chance, wind-harps in any of the trees?”
Raphe stared at her, then looked back at the page. “Harp…!” he breathed, “and the well’s here, too. ’Deisha, look at this-‘Within four walls and yet beneath the sky’!”
“Why of course!” cried ’Deisha.
“What is it?” asked Corson and Nyctasia together.
’Deisha was already on her feet. “The inner courtyard, this way!”
Raphe grabbed her. “Not so hasty-the floor’s liable to give way in there, you know. Mind where you walk.”
The two led the way through a gap in the wall, where there had once been a doorway. The room beyond might have served well enough as answer to the riddle, for the wooden roof had completely burned and fallen in. They picked their way cautiously over beams and around the building-stones that littered the tessellated floor. Where the pattern of tiles was intact, it showed parts of the sign of the Cymvela, the interlaced circular design here set into a great four-pointed star that reached to the four corners of the room. “Only step where the tiles are whole,” Raphe cautioned.
Nyctasia stopped and looked closely at the tiles. “The pattern is scuffed. I think they must have danced here.” Mesmerized, she began to walk around the design, trying to find the path through the maze. “A right, then another, then
… no, wait…” she murmured. “Did I turn this way yet? Left
…”
Corson watched her uneasily, trying to imagine the room filled with people, dancing and singing. What had they been like? Probably no better, or no worse, than the rest of us, she decided, for whatever that’s worth. And no more deserving of such a cruel end than anyone else. Hlann preserve us from the fate we deserve. Surprised at her own thoughts, she shrugged them off and bent to peer through a hole in the floor. “Have the cellars been searched?” she asked.
“Time and again,” said ’Deisha, passing through an archway to an inner chamber, and beckoning for the others to follow.
The next room was smaller and narrower, also roofless, but with more of its walls standing, still displaying bright mural-work on their cracked and blistered plastering. Some of the paintings had been scarred by fire, but their colors were still rich and unfaded, and the figures seemed to leap out at the viewer, alive and vivid. Astonished, Corson and Nyctasia walked all around the room, stopping first at one scene, then at another.
One that held them both depicted a dance of sorts. Men and women had joined hands in a ring, and they circled around a great tree burdened with golden fruit. Their wide, uplifted eyes gazed at the branches, which were intertwined to form the mark of the Cymvelan Circle. The roots were also drawn clearly, gnarled and twisted, but they did not seem to form any pattern. The dancers who faced outward were all drawn alike, and their expression was solemn and severe.
Many of the drawings were renderings of the maze, drawn in all sorts of fanciful ways. One that Corson especially liked showed a flock of long-tailed birds wheeling in the sky. Standing back from it a bit, she saw plainly that their flight traced out the labyrinth.
“Mazes are a common sign of the devious paths we follow in our search for experience,” Nyctasia pondered. “Many peoples have used them to represent the difficulties and confusions that beset wayfarers on the perilous journey we all make-”
Raphe winked at Corson, who snickered lustily.
“The spiritual journey,” Nyctasia amended, “that some of us make, from ignorance to knowledge.” She crossed the room to examine the painting on the opposite wall.
Nyctasia stood long before this last picture. The others had awed her with their beauty, but this one was different, and disturbing. It seemed to be an older drawing than the others, more crudely drawn, its colors duller-but it was not the less arresting for that. It too depicted a dance, but instead of the stately figures portrayed in the first painting, this one showed creatures half-human, half-bestial, shambling around the body of a slain animal.
The naked dancers were men and women below the waist, but their hands were taloned like hawks’ feet, and their mouths were long, cruel snouts. Nyctasia paced back and forth between the two paintings, silently comparing them. What has gone before will return again… she thought, frowning to herself. It is so. We do not live only in the present.
There were doorways on all four sides of the room, and ’Deisha pointed out the one across from the entrance. “The courtyard is through there,” she said impatiently. “You can look at these moldering paintings another time.” She had pulled Nyctasia away from the grim scene and toward the door, when Corson stopped her and motioned the others to wait.
“Listen-” she whispered, “music. There’s someone in there.”
17
the fountain, being of brass, had been blackened by the fire but not destroyed, and its beauty was still quite evident. Around the rim of the broad, shallow basin was a ring of slender stems of brass, curving gracefully inward then arching back toward the edge, each crowned with a pendant brazen lily. Two inner circles of stalks rose above the first, the innermost arching high over the heads of the four viewers. A tracery of delicately crafted reeds and leaves wove between the tall flowers, complementing the stark grace of the design.
But it was not only the beauty of the fountain that made it unique. More remarkable still was the haunting melody that filled the air when the wind blew through the open courtyard. Each bronze flower was a bell that chimed gently, stirred by the breeze, and flutelike tones of varying pitches rose and fell as air was forced through holes bored in the hollow stems.
“I believe there’d be some sound even when water flowed through it,” said Raphe.
“But in winter they’d have stopped the water, and then they must have heard it like this-a wind fountain.”
“And during the drought,” said ’Deisha solemnly.
“Yes, and ever since the fire-giving rise to tales of ghosts here in the temple.
A storm or high wind would probably produce quite shrill, piercing notes, and that, I suspect, is what accounts for the shrieks heard here, though I wouldn’t dare tell Aunt Mesthelde so.”
Nyctasia slipped between two of the stalks in the outer ring to admire the workmanship of one of the swaying lilies in the middle row, which reached almost to the height of her heart. The floral bell hung down at a natural angle, opening slightly outward, and the veins of each petal had been carefully molded by the sculptor. Nyctasia fit one small hand within the bell and found that even the inside of the flower had been reproduced in some detail. Beneath the back of the stamen-shaped clapper, she felt the opening to the hollow stem. “So the water came right from the throats of the flowers,” she guessed, imagining the interlocking arcs of bright water leaping and crossing in the sunlight to fall and fill the dry, dirty pool at her feet. “We have some fine fountains at home, but nothing like so complex as this. It must have been magnificent.”
“I’d like to have it repaired,” said Raphe, “but we’d have to send to the Imperial City of Celys for artisans with such skills. There’ll never be money enough for a thing like that.”
“There would be, if we found the treasure,” Corson reminded the others impatiently. She had tested the fountain in several places, with the edge of her knife, and found the metal all too hard to be gold. “Here we are, neither out of doors nor in, and what are we supposed to find? There’s nothing here but that rut-wretched, tricksy fountain, and it’s only brass. Is that the whole of the mystery?”
“It wouldn’t seem so,” said Nyctasia. “We can all see the fountain. What is it that’s in plain sight that we can’t see?”
They all looked about them in bewilderment. The courtyard was empty save for the fountai
n and a scorched dead tree. The ground was unpaved, overgrown with weeds and tall, rippling grasses.
An idea occurred to Corson, a solution so hideously fitting that she groaned aloud. “Not ‘in plain sight’, but ‘unhidden’,” she said in deep disgust. “It’s nothing but the wind! It’s found in here because the fountain makes it known, but no one can see it. I might have guessed the treasure would be something worthless. Curse the Cymvelans and their rutting riddles! Stop laughing, Nyc, you bitch!”
Nyctasia tried to oblige, but without much success, for Raphe and ’Deisha had joined in the merriment. “Sorry, Corson,” she gasped, “but I’m afraid you’re right. Rowan told us these were rhymes for children-but it should console you to know that you’re the cleverest child of us all.”
A gust of wind set all the chimes jangling melodiously, and even Corson smiled, if rather sourly. “I’d be more consoled by the ‘wealth beyond a lifetime’s spending.’ Let’s see the rest of this fool place, since we’ve come all this way.” She ducked through one of the other doors and disappeared into an adjoining chamber.
“Wait for us,” called Raphe.
The rest followed, still chuckling. “‘A web to catch the wind,’” said Nyctasia.
“I begin to like these Cymvelans.”
’Deisha read:
“Neither in the open air
Neither in a dwelling
Seek, if so be that you dare,
Riches perilous and rare
Danger beyond telling,
Where the earth doth secrets keep
For the wellspring’s weal lies deep.
Wealth beyond a lifetime’s spending
Power beyond measure
Everlasting, never-ending
Treachery or treasure.”
“That’s all there is,” said ’Deisha. “It sounds like the courtyard again.”
“It’s bound to be something else that’s not worth a straw,” Corson predicted.
“Fire, I daresay-or more likely water. There was plenty of water in that courtyard once. Those two riddles are a pair, mark my words, wind and water.