by Amy Keeley
“May I bring a point to your attention, of which you may be unaware, sir?”
“Try me.” More chuckles from the men.
“With all due respect, I’m certain he’s aware of his lost map by now. The element of surprise is gone.”
“Yes. However, he doesn’t know for certain that we have the map. He doesn’t know for certain that we have realized the significance of the different points on it.” Razev didn’t add that Zhiv probably was unaware of how good his own brother had become at tracking spells. If Razev had accepted a post at the castle, chances were quite good the Dogs would know exactly where Zhiv had landed in the small time between when he’d gone through the portal and when he’d burned it.
Zhiv had never been interested, like the Ornic, in power. He couldn’t see his brother killing children. And yet, he remembered that cold stare his brother had given him. Care to stop me?
Razev continued. “Whether or not he’s realized the significance of what he’s lost, we will decrease his mobility until he has no place to run. The pack near him will have it that much easier. Or did you think to gain your own bit of glory? Burning the Ornic yourself?”
An angry blush raced through her cheeks.
“Permission to share the beliefs about the Ornic, sir,” one of the older men said.
“Permission granted,” though it was the last thing he wanted to hear at the moment.
Because as the man described the wild ways of the Ornic, of their love of music and hedonism and lies and knowledge based on merit, he saw his father, a brilliant minstrel in his own right, singing. He saw his mother clucking over his sister, telling her that she must learn to be more playful, less serious, or she would never get a man in her life. And he saw Zhiv, refusing to sing, running to hide among the pines and the roots and the caves so he could avoid his father’s lessons. And Razev was always the one they sent after him. Always.
There was a sound on the road behind them. The whole group turned and Razev watched as a messenger ran toward them from the village of Lord Pyorin.
“Must be urgent,” one of the pack said.
“News of the Ornic?” another mused.
Razev shook his head. “He doesn’t look panicked.” He walked toward the messenger, a young man who only slowed when he was a few feet from Razev.
Bowing low, he said, “I am on my way to Lord Pyorin to give news. I stop to give it to those who represent our late King. We have found a traitor.”
“You’ve found the Ornic?” Mili said, but a quick glare from Razev stopped her from any further idiocy.
“No. A woman who married into our village long ago. Rumor has it that she’s descended from the Ornic who tried to hide in the mountains. And some claim the Ornic has visited her, dressed in his fiddler clothes. She has escaped and the Dog who found her has given chase.”
Razev felt time slow. Protocol demanded he ask her name. He struggled, but finally managed to say, “Who?”
“Ziria Gorrosin.”
Ziri. “Show me.”
***
Krysilla blinked, then closed her eyes once more, settling back into the armchair. Unlike her time at the bakery, there would be no cutting words if she slept a little longer. This, she’d discovered, was one of the nice things about living with Zhiv. Time, though precious, was also flexible.
The sound of a fiddle drifted through the early-morning air. She lifted her head, entranced by a sound she’d begun to think she would never hear again from Zhiv’s hands.
Eyes closed, she let the melody fill her heart. She’d heard him play haunting melodies, and joyous ones, but never anything quite like this. It was calm, peaceful, and full of a longing that had no sorrowful edge to mar it. More than that, unlike the tunes she’d heard him play before, the tone was sweeter, smoother. The music roused her better than any complaints, and, still listening to the beauty of Zhiv’s song, she warmed the Platter for breakfast.
Before long, the scent of fried ham and potatoes had filled the house and two pairs of feet could be heard slowly descending the stairs, heavy with sleep. Rysil and Syril entered the room, looking ruffled and bewildered. “What’s that?” Syril asked, wandering into the sitting room to stare out the windows. The tune had changed, though it was still thoughtful, still compelling.
Rysil turned to Krysilla. “Is that Uncle Zhiv?”
She blinked. Turning a piece of ham, she said, “Have you never heard your uncle play before?”
“We heard he sang,” Rysil said, staring outside one of the windows. “But he’s never sung for us.”
The back of the house provided a narrow walkway to either the cave, by a set of stairs, or the forest, by a narrow strip of land. But the front of the house was built directly against the shoreline, with a long balcony that stretched out over the water, ending by a series of steps into something resembling a pier. Zhiv stood at the end of this, water surrounding him, the warm summer wind blowing through his hair as he played.
The song ended. He lowered his fiddle. Tapping the bow gently against his knee, he gazed out across the lake, lit up by the morning sun.
“Has he always played fiddle?” Rysil asked.
“For a while now,” she said, unsure what else to say. “He likes it. Better even than singing, I think.”
“Why didn’t he ever play for us?” Syril mused, with the unconcerned petulance of a boy left out of something important.
“He played for you just now,” Krysilla said. “Go to the table. Breakfast is done.”
Silently, they went to the kitchen table. Krysilla debated whether she should tell Zhiv the food was ready, or if she should let him continue thinking. Though she could never entirely tell what went through his head, she knew one thing both of them had been keenly aware of as they read or cleaned or worked on their own projects. Daegan hadn’t showed.
Two weeks now, and he hadn’t showed. If Ziria’s contacts were right, they hadn’t been captured. At least, not in Pyorin lands. But neither of them had expected to stay here so long. The idea of what to do next had been wearing down both of them in different ways.
As if coming to a decision, Zhiv suddenly turned and briskly walked back to the house, brows furrowed. Krysilla grinned as he opened the door. “It sounds much better than I expected.”
“You didn’t think me capable of making my own?” he smiled, as if he hadn’t been thinking on anything at all.
“I must admit, I was worried when I found out what fiddler’s use for strings.”
He nodded, and she could tell he was barely listening to her. The boys were the only ones full of conversation that morning. Zhiv said nothing as he ate, beyond an occasional answer to a question or a request for more food or a bit of salt. When the boys were done, Zhiv stopped them from running outside. “I need you to stay in the house today.”
Syril began to pout, but Rysil, eyes wide, asked, “Why?”
Krysilla wondered how much their mother had told them.
Zhiv shrugged. “Because we’ve been here too long, and there’s something odd in the air. Whatever you do, don’t explore this house. I have secrets hidden here that could put me on the dais of the Dogs faster than you could blink.”
The boys nodded solemnly, then went upstairs with a speed that could only mean secret plans for doing exactly what they shouldn’t.
“How are you coming in your reading, goodwife?” he asked. In the two weeks since they’d arrived, her Ornic had improved enough she could manage simple sentences. Very simple sentences. She’d been slowly working her way through the primer Zhiv had given her and had decided to translate one of his spellbooks. Busywork, but she’d learned more than she’d expected.
“Good. I was wondering when we’d actually practice casting.” She glanced upstairs, afraid of saying anything more because she wasn’t sure how much they knew. “It might be wise to know how to protect myself, at least. One less thing for you to worry about.”
“Given your reaction the last time, I think I’d be even mo
re worried if you tried.” His brow furrowed once more and his fingers briefly drummed a rhythm on the table. “I’ve been thinking about your reaction to the door.”
She nodded slowly, fully expecting this moment. “And?”
“I think it would be better if we ignored it.”
She’d been thinking quite a bit about why Zhiv would be interested in it so soon after they arrived. “Why? Given the terrain, it might be our only means of escape if we’re attacked. The Dogs will come by the forest and the lake, but you wouldn’t use the cave for practice if you didn’t think the Dogs would never show up there.”
“Yes, but in order to run, you need strength. And even if you had been practicing every day for the past two weeks, there’s no guarantee you’d be strong enough to handle whatever mechanism is attached to those doors and still be able to run afterward.” He rubbed his face, then ran his fingers through his hair. “If Daegan hasn’t shown by now, something has gone wrong. Either he’s held up, and unable to move, or he and your sister and niece are dead and it’s harsh to say it but in either case, putting you through something that will exhaust you like that will severely limit our options. Not to mention, we don’t even know where the door goes.”
Krysilla watched him closely. “You had a plan for that, though, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” He got up, pausing before leaving the table. “How are you doing?”
“Fine enough.”
He didn’t believe her. She saw it in his eyes, in the way he lingered as he studied her face, and in the barely audible chuckle he gave.
And then, he was out the door. “I’ll be back soon. Just going to check on something.”
She waited until he had left before going upstairs to tell the boys she would be outside, and warned them to run to the cavern if anything were to happen.
“Uncle Zhiv told us to swim if there was trouble,” Syril said from within the room. “Can you swim?”
“Um, no,” Krysilla answered. “Girls don’t swim.”
“They don’t?” This was a surprise to Rysil.
“Do the girls you know swim?”
But they’d shrugged, with the implication that the talents of girls were something they didn’t care to know.
Then, watching all around her as she did so, she left the house and walked the long wooden stairs up to the platform above the roof. If Zhiv said there was something “odd in the air,” she wasn’t about to drift into her thoughts while outside, even for this short a distance. This was important. The Dogs wouldn’t expect the door. Chances were good they didn’t even know.
Krysilla’s sense of direction didn’t fail her now as she made her way to the room with the wheels and the unseen door. Zhiv hadn’t been the only one thinking.
The problem, she had decided, was in losing touch with the world around her.
As soon as she arrived at the room with the wheels, she put her hand on her chest, memorizing the rhythm there, the cadence. Once she had the rhythm firmly in her head, she reached out, touching the rim this time of the great wheel on the top.
The emotions were the same as before. She tried to ignore the rhythm as she moved her hand along the wheel, searching every part of it for a clue as to who it might be, or what they were trying to do. Two women, and one man, had built this. They all knew each other. They all cared deeply about each other.
None of this told her what was on the other side.
Frustrated, she took her hand away and breathed deep to calm herself. Then smiled. It didn’t have to hold her. She could walk away from this if she needed to do so. Hadn’t she just held the rhythm at bay?
And once she succeeded, she could tell Zhiv and he would be willing to discuss this, to want to use this door. And once they got somewhere safe, then perhaps he would be more willing to listen to reason. There was no need to put anyone in more danger than they were already in. Lord Felldesh had been good. Weak, but good. There had to be a noble somewhere in the kingdom they could trust.
This time, she leaned forward and touched the top wheel. And let the rhythm start to overtake her, the memory of her own heartbeat firmly in place.
This time, she felt panic filling her, but not her own. Someone was coming, and the door wasn’t ready yet. She could feel the spell being put in place, could trace out the magic, but not the application.
Desperate to learn what she could, she tried to discover the domain. Yet, that too eluded her. None of what this spell contained made any sense.
And then she gasped. It was more than one. A spell for the pipes with fire, a spell for the water, a spell for pipes that she now saw racing from the underground pool of water but that had nothing in them except clockwork gears, a spell for the door, a spell that connected all the others...and the one that started it all was the spell wrapped around the wheels. That was the one that caused the rhythm she felt. That was the one now reaching out over her hand, wrapping it, climbing it.
It wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen. She didn’t even know such a thing was possible with spells, tying them together, each one dependent on the other. Curious about the rhythm’s role, she focused on it, remembering her own heartbeat.
The thumping grew louder.
“What do you do?” she whispered. The words sounded thin and reedy in the empty cavern.
As if in answer, she saw the thin ties between the rhythm and the rest. Searching for a parallel, she remembered the escape wheel in the clock tower. “Ah, so you regulate the timing.”
The rhythm strengthened, the spell advanced up her arm, and she found it difficult to remember what her own heartbeat sounded like. She tried to follow the order of the spells, tried to figure out why a timing mechanism would be important, but the insistent rhythm had begun to wrap around her chest. And her heart.
The effort had begun to tire her. As her resistance faded and her memories dimmed within the amazing system in her mind’s eye, it became more difficult to resist the pull that demanded she become one with it.
Her breathing became labored. Something touched her shoulder and she jerked away, her hands still pressed against the wheels. A hand. It was a hand that had touched her and now it rested on her shoulder. Warm breath on her ear. “Goodwife.”
Zhiv. Gathering up what little thought she could muster, she said, “Heartbeat...can’t...it’s not...”
He pressed his wrist against her ear. She could hear the thump of his pulse, could feel it against her skin. It was slower than her own, stronger, if that could be believed after all Zhiv had said about being weak. Using that, she was able to strengthen her memories, and slowly, the spell receded.
The moment she felt she could, she let go and fell to her knees.
“You’re proving my point,” Zhiv said.
“It’s a system,” Krysilla said, breathless. “It’s a whole system of spells. Did Daegan find that out? They’re all linked together. Timing. There’s a timing mechanism which regulates the other spells, starting each one up in turn. I don’t know how. It’s a marvelous—”
Zhiv dropped to the floor next to her. In the pale King’s Light, she realized all the color had drained from his face. “You know what we’re running from.”
“And that’s exactly why we need to know more about this door.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t worth risking your health like this.”
“My health, or those boys’ lives. That’s the decision we’re facing here. Personally, I’d much rather have a possible exit, no matter where it may lead.” When we’re weak, she thought, isn’t the time to fight. Besides, since when did he start caring?
“Even if it leads to the middle of the sea? It’s a long way to shore.”
And I can’t swim. “Well...I’m sure you would think of something.”
“I’d rather not.” He stared at her for a moment. Then nodded. “How are you feeling?”
“A little weak,” she admitted. “Why? Did I ruin one of your plans for me again?”
She had meant it to sound playful. But he stared at her, eyes wide, and glowing green in the King’s Light. Then, slowly, as if he were putting something away inside, his face closed, twisted, and once more sported a carefree smile. “Almost. Well enough to try a spell or two?”
Depends on the spell, she almost said. But an offer like that from Zhiv meant learning something more than the smaller magics she knew. “Yes.”
His eyes narrowed and she knew he saw through her. “Then, when you’re feeling up to it, instead of trying the wheels, take a left at the first opportunity and you’ll soon come to the room where I practice. And you can practice the spell you used to light the fires for the ovens, with one exception. At the end, hit your palm with your other hand in a fist.”
She shook her head, and stopped when the room began to spin. “And what will that do, exactly?”
“It’s the execution spell the Dogs use.”
Shocked, she couldn’t believe it.
“It’s true,” Zhiv said. “They tie it into their staves so that the spell is triggered when they tap the end on the ground, but it’s the same basic spell.”
“And they tie it to the staves so no one will see what it actually is.” It made sense.
“You’ve been using Ornic battle spells all this time and didn’t even know it. Just a stripped-down version of it.”
She shook her head, glad the room didn’t spin nearly as badly this time. “I didn’t...it’s just—”
“Fire? The same thing that would have burned the whole world? If it makes you feel any better, as near as I can tell, the execution spell now used was one of the weaker ones in the Ornic arsenal.”
Of course. “They made the ground shake and built mountains for protection.”
“An exaggeration, but when I read the stories of the lords, I’m not so sure just how much of an exaggeration it is. There are too many—” he stopped with a quick shake of his head. “You need rest, and I’m jabbering.”