Tainted (Lisen of Solsta Book 2)

by D. Hart St. Martin

  “Yes, so Tak told me. Welcome.” Elsba Tuane took the steps slowly, his blue eyes studying the two of them at the foot of the stairs with a sadness Bala could barely endure.

  “My lord,” the man said with a nod.

  “So what is this message that you could not entrust to my daughter?” Elsba asked as he reached them.

  “Forgive me, but my instructions were explicit—deliver the message directly to you, my lord.” He handed Elsba the parchment. “However, I am allowed to add that although the note is unsigned, it has come from a highly placed officer in the Guard.”

  “But you can’t tell me who,” her father deduced.

  “I’m sorry, my lord, but as I said, my instructions were clear.”

  “Do you know what’s in this note?” Elsba asked.

  “No, my lord. It’s not my place to ask questions.”

  “You’re out of uniform, aren’t you?”

  The messenger cleared his throat, and Bala smiled. She, too, had guessed he was one of the Guard.

  “What is your rank?” Elsba continued.

  “Captain, my lord.”

  “Well, then, Captain, my servant will see to your needs, and my daughter and I will retire to study this message in private.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” The guard nodded and backed away, and Bala followed her father up the stairs to his room. Once inside, she closed the door behind her and waited there as her father sat down at his small desk, his breathing heavy and laced with wheezing. He broke the seal on the letter and read, and she watched his brow furrow and his mouth form a frown.

  “Damn him!” Elsba burst out as he finished and threw the message to the floor.

  “What?” Bala asked.

  “Your aunt is in prison,” Elsba replied. “I already knew that. I saw her arrested.”

  “You never told me,” Bala protested.

  “I could have intervened, but she wouldn’t let me. I thought it best to keep it to myself.”

  “But now something’s changed.”

  “Someone—the letter doesn’t say, but it has to be Ariel—has sent a ‘woman’ to question her. A woman nobody seems to know. A ‘woman of power,’ the letter claims. Damn it!” Elsba sat for a moment, Bala fearing to speak but imagining all sorts of horrors. “It’s the watcher,” Elsba finally said. “I’d wager my life on it.” He got up out of his chair, and with an agility and a strength Bala had not seen in years, he rushed to the door, pulled it open and shouted down the stairs, “Tak! Tak! I’m riding to Avaret! Today! Now!”

  Bala quick-stepped her way over to where the letter had landed, leaned over and picked it up to read for herself. She couldn’t wait the few moments it would take for her father to calm down and be able to articulate all that it said.

  My Lord,

  I cannot reveal myself nor my source, but after considering what action was left to me under the circumstances, I decided you must know that your sister, Hermit Eloise, is in the custody of the Empir. She is well for now, but I fear for her. A woman of power has already been here once to question her. Come. Soon. She needs you.

  A friend

  Bala looked up to see her father furiously pulling clothes from his wardrobe and throwing them on his bed.

  “You can’t go alone,” she said.

  “I don’t want you anywhere near that monster.”

  “Father, she’s my aunt. I’m going with you.” She turned to go to her own room to pack her things.

  “Bala!”

  She stopped in the door and turned back. “Yes, Father?” She was going, damn it, and he was not going to stop her. But instead of further forbiddance, he sighed.

  “All right, all right. I’ll be glad for the company.” He smiled, and she smiled in return. She then nodded and headed out. Why couldn’t Ariel leave her father in peace? Hadn’t he had enough pain for one lifetime?

  CHAPTER THREE

  DESCEND

  He’d acted like such a cold SOB, that Holder Corday. Days and weeks of hell for her and all he could say when they parted was “May One Be”? Lisen had been fuming over the holder and her so-called mother’s so-called “plan” for two days, leaving Korin up ahead to his own thoughts as they had made their way up the mountain yesterday and this morning. Now, as daylight ebbed, they rode through the tight gorge, euphemistically referred to as “the Pass” even though it was barely passable. Korin’s dark braid swung back and forth as his horse chose its footing with care. Having noticed that the captain had released his reins, she had followed his lead, allowing her horse, like his, to pick its own way along the rocky path.

  She had begun to really hate this place, this lovely, seemingly mystical place known as Garla, and she wondered if anyone back on Earth who read or actually wrote fantasy novels had any idea how miserable life could be without hot running water and good shampoo. Her scalp itched, and she was afraid she’d picked up lice in that hell hole they called an infirmary. Or maybe she’d picked them up in Halorin and hadn’t noticed anything during the possession. Could one feel lice on the scalp? She didn’t even know. The fact that she hadn’t washed her hair, hadn’t been able to wash her hair for over two weeks, certainly didn’t help. Do they even have lice here? she wondered.

  “Korin?” she called up to him, the first time she’d spoken since they’d entered the Pass.

  “Yes?” He didn’t turn, and she was glad. She wanted him keeping his eye on where they were going.

  “Have you ever heard of lice?” she asked.

  “Lice?” he echoed back. “Of course. Why are you asking?”

  “My scalp itches.”

  He laughed, a great hearty laugh which surprised her. She couldn’t remember hearing him laugh like that before. And what was so funny about lice? “When we get to the mesa,” he replied, “they have an oil that clears the scalp of anything that makes it itch.”

  “And what does it do to your hair?” she asked. She couldn’t help but envision this “oil” relieving her not only of the itch, but of her red locks as well.

  “For a hermit, you’re a bit fussy, aren’t you?” He was still laughing at her, but quietly.

  “What if I told you I wasn’t a hermit?” Oh, she was so close to blowing everything, and all because her damn period had started right after they’d set out from Rossla. Never before had she experienced such a freakin’ case of moodiness during her “time of the month.” What was going on with her body anyway?

  “Well, then, if you’re going to be literal,” Korin said, interrupting her self-pitiful thinking. “For a novice, you’re a bit fussy.”

  She paused, realizing that she’d nearly started into her tale about Earth. Not yet, she thought. “I guess I am,” she said instead.

  They rode on, slipping back into silence, and Lisen thought about Thristas. Would it be anything like Death Valley or Joshua Tree? She’d gone camping at both national parks on vacations with her folks. Or maybe it was more like the Sahara or the Gobi. And what was the driest desert on Earth? Wasn’t it somewhere in South America? Or what about Arrakis, the desert planet of Dune?

  It will be what it will be, she thought forcing herself back to this world. It will be Thristas and nothing else. From her childhood at Solsta, she could remember “Thristas” always being said in a hush, as though the mystery were too much even for hermits to contemplate. She’d forgotten about that until now. Yes, Thristas. Ever mysterious, ever other, ever feared even. And yet she couldn’t wait to see for herself, end the mystery, become one with it, conquer the fear.

  But her mind kept asking questions. How large was it? How wide was this “Rim” through which they were riding now? Could one see the end of it from the other side? Leaving from Rossla Haven, they’d started from a third of the way up the mountain to begin with, and hence there’d been no perspective from which to judge on the Garlan side. She might have had a better chance to observe the mountains if she’d been aware during their rush to Rossla, but she’d been pretty out of it then.

 
Suddenly Korin grabbed his reins with his left hand and pulled up short, and Lisen nearly rode her horse right into the hind end of his before she realized.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Shh.” Korin held up his right hand.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s around that bend,” he whispered back.

  “What?” she asked, maintaining the hush.

  “Thristas.”

  She realized that she had actually sensed the change in the air—one moment heavy and wet, the next, arid and feverish. It was as though they had ridden through a veil on the other side of which the moisture evaporated into nothingness, leaving behind a smell of hot sand so strong she could taste the grit on her tongue.

  “Then why are we standing here?” she whispered.

  Korin turned in the saddle and studied her with his remaining eye, that dark pool where light entered but from which no light escaped, and she wondered if she’d ever be able to look at him in the one eye he had left without guilt.

  “The Thristans have a saying,” he said, shifting from a whisper to soft speech. “‘Descend into the pit knowing you know nothing. The first knowledge is ignorance.’”

  So, as far as he was concerned, she was ignorant. Great, she thought. I’m descending into something I know nothing about, and this is his way of building my confidence? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Stay open,” he replied. “There’s more to the world than Garla.”

  Yeah, and there’s more to the universe than this world. If you only knew. “All right, so why are we waiting?” Let’s get on with this.

  “You remember our story?”

  “We’ve been over it several times,” she replied. It was like being given the same test every day in class even after you’d passed with an A.

  “Again. It has to be part of your being, your very reality.”

  Jeez, you have no idea. “All right,” she began, and she reeled it out as fast as she could. “We met in the Guard. You were my trainer. We fell in love but had to wait until I was done with my training in order to join. But then Empir Flandari died. We both hated the Heir, knew he was no good. Since you’d served on the Rim your first couple of years in the Guard, we decided to come here, to Thristas, where we figured we could make a new life.”

  “And?”

  Lisen sighed. This was the stupidest part, because really, who cared? But she continued anyway. “I want to learn the ways of the desert, which not coincidentally include knowing how to defend myself like a Thristan since you’ve told me it’s different than the Garlan way. Thus explaining my resuming my training with you. I will joyfully participate in all aspects of mesa life and share in their rituals and traditions.” She paused. “Why is that part so important?”

  “It will show them respect which they will return in kind.”

  “Oh.” She thought for a moment, then asked, “How do you know so much about them anyway?”

  “My years spent on the Rim, remember?”

  It was more than that, but she didn’t know what. He spoke of Thristas with such reverence. Why? And then…she knew. He was going home. He wasn’t just heading towards a familiar place; he was going home. Home. A different word in every language and yet the identical concept—a place of connection and memories. That sounded exactly like what Korin was feeling. It might not have been the source of his life—nor was Earth the source of hers—but she recognized home in his voice because her yearning was no different from his. She studied him, sitting there, waiting for something. Waiting for her?

  “Well,” she complied, “let’s see this desert then.”

  “Follow me.”

  She turned to look back at where they’d been, and, as expected, she could see nothing of Garla, the Pass and its multiple turns having blocked off the verdant vistas with the hint of sea on the horizon. With a quick sigh, she returned to what lay before her and pulled out behind him. They rounded one last bend, and she gasped in awe at the sight which greeted her there.

  The mountains dropped away, farther down than on the other side she believed, and as far as she could see, the flat expanse of browns—all shades of brown from the lightest tan to a brown so dark it was nearly black—filled her gaze. Plant life hinted at the palette, but one would never call it green. Several large rocky outcroppings with flat tops dotted the otherwise uninterrupted floor of the land, the mesas’ shadows stretching out beyond them in the late afternoon light. Stark and unforgiving this Thristas was, and a chill lapped at her soul.

  “Wait,” she said, reining her horse in to a halt. In front of her, Korin stopped and turned in the saddle to face her.

  “What?”

  It was silly, this cold sense of premonition. She was not a sooth, and even if she were, her own future would never appear so clear to her. “Nothing,” she replied, shaking her head. “Let’s just go.”

  He studied her a moment longer, then headed out again, and she pulled in behind him. It would work. She’d make it work. It had to work. Otherwise, there would be no purpose to all that had come before.

  Eloise sat on her bench, eyes closed, allowing her mind to meander wherever it wanted to go, refusing to guide it in any particular direction. Confined to this tiny cell, sleep but a dream with only the wooden bench and the stone floor to stretch out on, she’d lost all sense of time. It could be night, it could be day, but she didn’t know, what with the only window being the hole in the door through which they passed food. How long had it been since that woman—Ariel’s watcher—had beaten her senseless with the words “Jozan is dead”? She didn’t know. A couple of weeks, she was sure, but beyond that, all life, time and sunshine had ceased to exist.

  She’d always known how this would be. Despite the shock of her niece’s death, the remainder of her circumstances resembled rather closely what she had seen all along. A piece of her heart had shriveled up, never to recover, when she’d recognized her own part in the loss of her brother’s daughter, but at least Lisen was safe now. Well over the Rim and into the desert.

  Eloise smiled at that. Captain Rosarel had proven himself. She hadn’t seen how he’d accomplished it as he’d been too close to Jozan when he’d done so, but he had. Now she saw him more clearly, saw that he and Lisen were more intertwined than she had foreseen, and soon they would find themselves even further entangled. This was all a product of Eloise’s intervention, of her attempt to keep Garla at peace, and everything that occurred in the desert would justify her manipulation of the future.

  “Open the door,” Eloise heard someone order from outside. She knew who it was. The watcher had returned, finally. She rose from the bench but made no move towards the door. The guard or guards would only push her back anyway. She waited as she heard the key turn in the lock and then watched as the door creaked open. Now it begins, Eloise thought. Now I do what I came here to do, distract this woman from her assaults on Lisen. She breathed deep of the less-rank air rushing in through the door and stood still, patient, aware that in a few of the potential scenarios she did not survive the watcher’s infringement upon her soul. She was also aware that one possible future promised her vengeance.

  The woman entered the cell, and Eloise blinked against the sudden intrusion of light into the tiny room, light provided by the torch the watcher brought with her.

  “You may leave us,” the watcher ordered.

  Once the door closed with a clang and a turn of the key, sealing them in together, Eloise nodded to the woman, acknowledging her power. She did not expect the rogue watcher to reciprocate this show of respect, so she wasn’t disappointed when the woman ignored the gesture and instead turned to place the torch in a sconce.

  “I must admit,” Eloise said, “that you’re not what I expected.”

  “Oh?” the woman replied. “And why is that? We’ve met before.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t see you very well the last time through that poor excuse for a window.” In truth, Eloise had seen this woman, in her v
isions, long before they’d met. She knew the short stature, the slightly bulky build and the way the woman carried herself—regally, as though she possessed the rights of a noble without a noble’s breeding. The brown hair cut straight across just below the earlobes, the yellow-green of the eyes that provided only one of her many sights. And at last Eloise could be sure of the woman’s name. “You are a rogue who never returned to Solsta from Rossla, and you’re called Opseth.”

  “You did your research,” Opseth Geranda replied.

  “I did,” Eloise confirmed with a smile.

  “Spoke to Hermit Teran, I’d wager.”

  “He was one of many.”

  “Likely the most enlightening though.”

  This woman who had devised the assassination of an Empir suffered from an excess of pride. Eloise figured she could use that in her defense against the pain to come, play up the effect on herself of the woman’s tactics, allowing the woman to grow lax in her method of attack.

  “Sit,” Opseth ordered, and under the force of the woman’s will, Eloise dropped to the bench behind her. She could have fought the push, but saw no point in expending energy on the essentially inconsequential. “Good,” the woman continued in that seductive way of those who could move people to do things they didn’t want to. “You understand how it will be. I know you are a sooth. What other powers do you possess?”

  “I will leave it to you to discover what you will.”

  Opseth folded her arms across her chest. “Ah, a little fight. You know that only challenges me to dig more deeply.”

  “I know,” Eloise replied and smiled, inviting the intrusion.

  “Who’s the necropath?”

  “What?” Eloise responded too quickly and knew it. In one word she had given away information, confirmation of the truth of what must be suspected by those upstairs, by Ariel and Lorain—that the necropath was the key to the future. Damn.

  “Now that one, she has power.”

  Eloise said nothing. She had long ago walled up the place where Lisen resided in her brain, imprisoned the memories and thoughts of the girl who would be Empir. She slammed the door shut now on that secret space and, locking it tight, vowed to forget it all.