He’d removed his own clothes quickly, nearly ripping them in the process, then tossing them aside without consideration, and she’d stifled a gasp at what she saw—a series of scars in the shape of three chevrons nestled one within one within the other etched down his chest. But then, he’d reached out and silenced her by fingering the opening of her pouch again, taking her hand and placing it on the opening of his. They both shivered simultaneously.
How did she recall it all so well? What curse of fate made each detail stand out in high relief in her mind’s eye? What blessing of the Creator had assured her surfacing from the ritual with all memory intact?
“Wow,” she mouthed silently as she remembered, and a gust of wind caught the kashir.
The spirit which had taken hold of Korin’s mind and body had wooed her slowly, whispered words of devotion, made promises of necessity of purpose, and she’d allowed him to pull her down to lie upon the ground with him. Her head spun at the recollection. They’d become one in a manner she’d never experienced before. Well, of course not, silly, she chided herself. And it had seemed so natural, so…right.
When they’d finally separated, they’d both sat up from the hard ground, and Mantar had used Korin’s voice to say, “You are chosen, Lisen of Solsta. Be ever mindful.” Then, without warning, Korin had lain down again, curled up and promptly fallen asleep, leaving her alone for the remainder of the night to contemplate what they’d done. She’d re-dressed herself, and, afterwards, she’d re-dressed him. She hadn’t wanted him to awaken to the evidence of what had occurred between them.
So now she stood, at the top edge of Mesa Terses, her eyes to the ever-lightening east, a still figure in a wind-whipped landscape. What would she tell Korin when he awoke? Would he remember anything at all? The cool serenity of the desert dawn provided little comfort and no counsel whatsoever. She’d broken her promise to him, and he would never forgive himself for having so definitively leapt the wall dividing guard and charge. No matter that he’d acted in the throes of the manta’s venom. No matter that his Liege had given in to her own desires at his love confession. He would take the full blame upon himself.
But wasn’t there a greater force at work here? she asked herself. Wasn’t that what they’d responded to—a spiritual priority? Mantar had chosen her. It had chosen her by choosing him. Because if It had chosen her outright, Korin, unlike herself, would have remained inflexibly true to his word. Yes, there was a reason why the serpent had bitten Korin instead of her. Mantar had guided it to Korin in recognition of Korin’s unyielding adherence to the rules, even when those rules ceased working, and in acknowledgment of Lisen’s ability to accept a change in fate.
The wind whirled up, loosened more small wisps of hair than had already been freed from their tight bonds and sent the gossamer kashir swirling up and around her. In the east, the light grew, and, in her heart, Lisen knew that she’d done good. Korin would never understand, so she would give him no chance to question her. If he did not remember—and she prayed he wouldn’t—he’d never need to know. She’d finished her period a few days ago. Seven days the bleeding had gone on, but now it was over and there was no need for anyone to know.
Enough.
She breathed deeply of the dry air, thanked the Creators for bringing her to this place where survival depended on the swiftness of one’s wits. Then, with her wits harnessed, she turned to rejoin Korin, and as she approached him, her stomach twisted in intensified anxiety. He was waking up. She sat down when she reached him, and he opened his eye and stared at her without recognition. Within seconds, though, she saw him focus, and at last he spoke.
“What happened?” His voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat.
“The manta chose you,” she replied.
He rolled away and mumbled something that sounded like “Mantar. Mantar’s Child.”
Had she heard right? What was that about? But all she said was “What?”
He rolled back and sat up, slowly, leaving one hand on the ground beside him for support. “I know I was chosen. What happened after that?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “Nothing happened after that. I walked to the other side and you couldn’t follow. You said a few things to me in Thristan and eventually passed out.”
“So you spent the whole night up here alone.”
“Yes. No. Well, not alone. You were here with me. Sort of.” She was jabbering and needed to focus on something else. “What did that mean?”
“What did what mean?” He sounded angry.
“I could have sworn you said something about ‘Mantar’s child’?”
“Oh. That.” His voice softened. “I said that in Garlan? You understood it? That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?”
“That I’d use Garlan for that. It’s just a myth related to the Farii. Nothing really.”
“Tell me.”
He shook his head. “No. We should get back.” He tried to rise. She jumped to her feet and offered him her hands to help him up as he seemed a bit wobbly yet. He accepted her assistance and stood up beside her, still looking a bit drained but able. She started to head for the trapdoor, but he grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Nothing happened?”
She sighed with heaviness. “Nothing happened. Now, let’s go and tell them we fulfilled the ritual.”
“But it’s a lie,” he said as she pulled him towards the entrance to the mesa. “Isn’t it?”
She stopped and turned back to him. “We fulfilled the spirit, and that’s what matters.”
When they climbed back down into the mesa, a large crowd greeted them in solemn silence. Elder Hozia stood at the head of the group and smiled at Lisen in what Lisen interpreted as a somewhat parental manner. Lisen looked at Korin, his face a stoic mask. She suspected that the rest saw a man unwilling to open up a private moment to their scrutiny, but she knew that this was the only way he could cover the lie he believed he was telling his people.
“You are now one with The People, Lisen of Garla,” Hozia said softly, then she turned to the others and said with a bit more force, first in Thristan and then in Garlan. “The Farii is accomplished. Fertility and long life to all.”
Lisen found herself whisked away by the same eight women who had prepared her for last night. Time blurred, and she remembered little after that until they brought her, re-dressed in her own clothes, back to Korin’s tiny cave and urged her in. He was already there, sleeping on the pallet, and she lay down, her back to him, and quickly fell asleep. She dreamed of Nalin and a young man with dark red hair talking together in a large room with overwhelming furnishings.
Nalin paced the four steps from one side of his office to the other trying to work out the raging energy that had consumed him from the moment he’d woken up early this morning. Flandari was dead. Jozan was dead. And now, Ariel, the person ultimately responsible for their murders, had arrested Elsba’s sister. The hermit who had guided Flandari and then her Heir down this damnable path was in Ariel’s custody, and there had to be something Nalin could do about it. But what?
He stopped in front of his desk. He’d managed to evade the inevitable for nearly an hour now, but it was inevitable. The answer to his question was simple. Confront Ariel. Oh, how he’d hoped to avoid this for a little while longer, but he had to do something. Otherwise, he’d drive himself to madness thinking about the girl and the captain alone in the desert together. Action would replace those images, so action he would take.
He went to the mirror in his bedchamber, studied his reflection, and once satisfied that his presentation would meet the standards of one deserving access to an Empir, he headed out and to the Keep. He strode across the broad, circular plaza, past the chiming splatter of its central fountain and up the steps to the great doors of the Keep. Only two guards greeted him today. Apparently Ariel’s paranoia had relaxed enough for a return to the usual contingent.
“I need to see the Empir,” Nalin said with a hint of urgency.
“Your busines
s, my lord?” one of the guards asked.
“I wish to inform him of my return to Avaret.”
“Holder Corday?” This time the other guard spoke.
“Yes?” Nalin replied with a nod.
“The Empir left orders for you to be admitted, my lord.”
Nalin’s mind had already formulated a reply to a sentence he had presumed would end with “you are not to be admitted,” but he withheld protest as he digested what had actually been said. “Oh,” he began, buying a moment to reconfigure his thoughts. “That’s good.”
“Follow me,” the second guard said, and Nalin stepped in behind him. In the few brief seconds it took to get from the Keep’s entry to the Empir’s office door, Nalin considered possible motives for Ariel’s graciousness, but he could come up with only one. Having undoubtedly learned from Lorain of his return, Ariel was about to arrest him. He swallowed hard as the guard who’d brought him in passed him on to the guard at the office door who opened that door and let him step inside.
“I’ll inform the Empir that you are here,” the guard said and left him alone in the otherwise unoccupied room.
Nalin wondered what he should do. If this had been Flandari’s office, he would have sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and risen upon her arrival. But this was Ariel’s office now, and protocol dictated that he remain standing until the Empir gave him leave to sit. Nalin’s mind could not stop worrying at the question of why Ariel had chosen to let him in. Since when did I become a welcome visitor? His stomach seized up because the only answer obvious to him remained his imminent detention.
The door from the clerk’s office burst open, and Ariel strode in like some sort of conqueror. What he might have conquered, or was about to conquer, Nalin couldn’t guess, but he feared the conquered might turn out to be himself.
“Nalin, sit, sit,” Ariel directed, gesturing to the chair Nalin would have chosen had Flandari been his host. Ariel, his brown eyes hard, plopped down behind his desk, and Nalin sat down as well. “So you’re back.”
“Yes, my Liege,” Nalin replied cautiously. “I arrived just yesterday.”
“So Holder Zanlot told me,” Ariel commented as Nalin’s apprehension rose.
“Ah, of course,” Nalin answered.
“Tell me something, Nalin.”
“If I can, my Liege.” The boy’s mind seemed caught within a whirlwind.
“You have a way. With people, I mean. You’ve lived out with them, while I…while I’ve been locked up here. Alone.”
“My Liege?”
“I need to know,” the Empir said, leaning towards Nalin across the desk, whether to intimidate or invite intimacy, Nalin couldn’t tell. “Have you ever presented a gift to someone and watched them hide their disappointment?”
“How could anyone be disappointed in a gift from you, my Liege?” The workings of Ariel’s mind totally eluded Nalin. Was there a point to this? A reason for this? A reason why he was asking Nalin this?
Ariel leaned back in his chair, fluttered his fingers in a dismissive gesture, and said, “Of course you’re right. I merely misinterpreted the reaction.”
Nalin could tell it was a cover. Ariel had revealed more than he’d intended and now retraced his steps to the usual state of the relationship between the two of them—abject distrust.
“So, Nalin, what can I do for you?”
Not that you would do anything for me, Nalin thought, but then offered up a small smile and said, “Holder Tuane tells me that his sister is in your custody.”
“Not that again. Yes, it’s true.”
“I’d like to see her.”
Ariel fiddled with a drawer handle on his desk. “I wish I could let you, but we, that is, Lorain and I, believe she possesses information she seems unwilling to share with us. A visit from someone she knows might undermine what little we’ve accomplished thus far in unburdening her of that knowledge.”
“I just want to see for myself that she’s all right. So I can reassure Elsba. He’s quite concerned.”
“Don’t you trust me, Nalin?” Ariel put on his best face of shocked innocence.
Nalin shrugged. Ariel knew and Nalin knew. There seemed no point in giving words to the truth of what stood between them.
“She’s fine, Nalin,” Ariel continued when Nalin didn’t answer. “Tell Elsba his sister is just fine.”
“Yes, my Liege.”
Abruptly, Ariel jumped up from his chair and headed back to the door from the clerk’s office. “You’re dismissed,” he said as he paused, turned back and gestured with both hands as though he were sweeping Nalin out. Nalin nodded numbly, left the office and headed out of the Keep. He trotted down the outside stairs, disappointed but not at all surprised by his utter failure.
Upon arriving in the old palace, he went directly to the Tuane quarters. He might as well fulfill this unhappy duty and be done with it. He knocked on their door and waited as he heard the sound of soft foot falls approaching. The door opened, and Bala greeted him.
“Nalin,” she said and, with a broad gesture, invited him in. “Where have you been? I went up to see you, and you weren’t there.”
As he entered, he saw that Elsba was sitting behind his desk. He himself chose to remain standing. He didn’t want to sit to deliver unhappy news.
“Nalin?” Elsba asked with concern when Nalin failed to immediately respond to his daughter’s question.
“I went to see Ariel in the hope of gaining access to your sister,” Nalin replied. “Got right in to see him, too.”
“He refused,” Elsba surmised.
“Oh, yes, he refused.” Nalin sighed. “But before that, he said something odd.”
“What?” Bala asked.
“It was a question. He actually seemed to be seeking my advice though he never got quite that far.”
“What was the question?” Elsba asked.
“He wanted to know if I’d ever given someone a gift and known they were disappointed.”
“That is odd,” Elsba commented.
“I know. When he realized how far he’d opened up to me, he changed the subject, moved on to asking me my business.”
“But no Eloise.” Elsba sighed.
“No Eloise. I’m sorry. He made it clear he doesn’t want her accorded any privileges until he can get what he wants from her.”
“Which is?” Bala asked.
Nalin turned to her. “Any information on Lisen—where she is, who she is, what her significance is, her name for that matter—that sort of thing. He’s obsessed with hermits, and he knows this hermit is valuable to me, to us.”
“Eloise will never break,” Elsba said proudly. “She’s a Tuane.”
Nalin smiled at that. The Tuanes were, indeed, a stubborn lot, and that was a very good thing.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BEYOND FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Opseth had returned home after her session with the sooth to several issues in need of resolution. A delay in getting seed into the ground for squash, an argument with a neighbor over property and boundaries, and the appeasement of her family who had not taken well to her sudden departure in the middle of their celebrations—these impediments had all postponed her reaching out to the little necropath again. She loved her spouse, her daughter and her son, but she had chosen to keep the true nature of her calling hidden from everyone save her clients. Thus, she had explained away this particular sudden need to leave on Evennight as an irresistible desire to feel the sea breeze on her cheeks. They knew she communed with nature in a way they didn’t understand, and just as they mostly accepted this, she mostly allowed them to believe that that was all it was.
At last, two days later, as day faded into night, she had happened upon a few moments of time alone and had retreated to her study. After locking the door behind her, lighting a small candle and shutting out the very last of the setting sun’s pink glow by pulling the drapes closed on the windows, she sat down in her chair and settled in to work.
She reached out, her mind heading east, an illusion merely, for direction had no meaning and distance could be overcome. She drew in the dryness, the dearth of moisture, any moisture. She imagined people, different people, far different from herself and from the girl. She must experience it as the girl experienced it. The girl certainly must feel like an outcast, uneasily accepted—if accepted at all—by the Thristans. Opseth sought that out, that sense of separation, and after several more long moments, she happened upon her prey.
The girl was awake and wary, though not of mental intrusions. Something else demanded the attention of all her senses, leaving her unguarded mentally. Good. Opseth centered in more tightly and began to meander through this stranger’s thoughts. Movement. Concentration. Criticism. Disapproval. When movement is wrong? Opseth wondered why, then turned inward again.
Failure. And again. Failure. Again! Progress, but a little. Failure.
Opseth’s eyes flew open, and her body jerked. She’d been expelled. The little crook of a necropath had sensed her somehow and shut her off from further reading. She shivered where she sat. That single act had required consciousness and strength. Whatever the girl had failed at in her world, she hadn’t failed at exiling Opseth from it.
Opseth rose from her chair and stepped over to her desk, lighting two additional candles as she did so. The girl was a formidable foe; Opseth admired her for that. With a little planning, perhaps the girl could be hers, a student in the arts that hermits refused to acknowledge. She would consider this and, in the meantime, keep the Empir satisfied with as little information as possible. She would have to work harder on the sooth, take some risks in reaching into the woman’s soul. If she could harvest information from the woman, that might satisfy the boy for now while giving Opseth the opportunity to salvage the girl for her own uses. Fingers of both hands intertwined, she allowed her thumbs to circle one another. Points for thought. Points for thought.
Tainted (Lisen of Solsta Book 2) Page 15