The Mountain of Kept Memory

by Rachel Neumeier

  The karanat glared at him, perhaps taking his frown for anger, perhaps even for a threat. “It is the truth! You should be glad! Prince Bherijda has the spirit of malice in him—and Prince Maranajdis is worse. My prince is an honorable man!”

  “Oh, an honorable man!” Gulien eyed the Tamaristan. “The truth, is it?” he asked, deliberately testing the man’s resolve. “Would it still be the truth if I ordered one of these men killed? Or if I ordered all of you questioned with fire and iron?”

  These threats tempered the anger with fear, but the karanat still said stubbornly, “Whatever you do, you will see it is the truth, Madalin prince, but then it will be too late for you. But it is too late anyway.”

  “Yet this hardly seems likely,” Paulin muttered.

  But looking at the karanat, Gulien was almost certain the man was telling the truth. The part about timing, about days having passed, about it being too late for Gulien to interfere with whatever Gajdosik Garamanaj had intended . . . that had the feel of truth. The refusal to back down under imminent threat . . . that too had the feel of truth.

  Beckoning to Paulin, ignoring Magistra Ilia’s offended glare, Gulien walked out of the storeroom.

  The Kieba’s falcon had come to him—but that was yesterday. Gods remembered and forgotten, what he wouldn’t have given to have it return now! Now he saw no way to give warning or ask for reassurance. He said grimly, “I’ll go myself. Don’t argue with me; what choice is there? Oressa is at the Kieba’s mountain!”

  “Am I arguing?” said Paulin, his round face carefully set in a neutral expression. “But I will ask: Do you believe the young man? He might well have lied. Though you were—your harshness took him by surprise, I think, Your Highness.” He didn’t say, It took me by surprise. He didn’t have to say it. That was evident in the uncharacteristic caution in his tone.

  Gulien didn’t say, Yes, it took me by surprise too. He didn’t want to think about what he might have done, might have had to do, if the Tamaristan officer had refused to answer him. He could see no way he could have just given up, but he wasn’t Oressa, to think of some clever subterfuge. He would have had to carry through with some brutality. And he would have done it. He thought he would have. He folded his hands together to conceal a shameful tendency toward shakiness.

  He said, “If he were lying, he chose a uniquely plausible tale, didn’t he? What if Prince Gajdosik has some artifact that allows him to challenge the Kieba? If my father could defy her over Parianasaku’s Capture, how can we know what artifacts Gajdosik might hold, or what they might allow him to do?”

  “That’s a concern, I suppose,” Paulin admitted reluctantly. “But though it’s also true we’re discouragingly short of trustworthy officers, Your Highness, perhaps you might better send Beriad than leave Caras yourself.”

  “I might ask Beriad to deal with a Tamaristan incursion. Shall I also ask him to deal with the Kieba in my stead?” Paulin had no quick answer for this, and Gulien went on. “She has little partiality for my family just now, I fear, or for Carastind, though I hope that Oressa returning Parianasaku’s artifact will cause her to look with more favor upon us. But I see no way to set this on another. I think the Kieba will at least speak with me, and I hope she will listen to me.” Or if not the Kieba herself, then perhaps the kephalos, whose intentions or desires plainly crossed the Kieba’s, at least to some extent. He didn’t explain that, either; he had no way to explain it, since he didn’t understand it himself.

  “Well . . . well, one can hardly argue. Yes, very well. Though one may hope that if a Tamaristan company has gone inland, if it can be waylaid and destroyed, that’s worthwhile on its own and might prevent any need to approach the Kieba. No, I’m not arguing, Your Highness. Likely enough the young man was right and it’s too late to catch the Tamaristans short. But this Garamanaji prince can’t actually break the Kieba’s power. You don’t believe that. You believe he will anger her, perhaps to all our peril.”

  Gulien opened a hand. He did think so. But it was worse than that. He said, “I don’t believe he can steal anything of hers, not so long as she expects him. No. It’s not possible. Not so long as the Kieba is in any way prepared for the arrival of enemies. But when I saw her, the Kieba was distracted. There is terrible plague elsewhere in the world.”

  In his memory—in something that was not quite his memory—a voice said again, Elaru is burning. He did not look at Paulin. “When I borrowed her golem—” But he didn’t want to admit even to Lord Paulin he’d actually stolen the golem. With the kephalos’s assistance, but now it only seemed to him that the kephalos was more mysterious, less knowable, less predictable than even the Kieba herself. If it was working in some way against the Kieba, if it had assisted Gulien against her, could he be sure it wouldn’t also render such assistance to a Tamaristan prince? Especially if the Kieba’s attention was turned elsewhere? Especially if Gulien was not there to protest?

  “Or what if she decides she simply prefers Gajdosik Garamanaj to any Madalin?” he said out loud. “She as much as said she preferred him to my father.”

  “You do worry me, Your Highness,” Paulin said grimly. “Go, by all means. How many men can we muster? We daren’t strip Caras, no matter the threat this Tamaristan prince offers; who knows what may yet happen here? Well, we’ll have to do what we can, and we may draw on private house guards as well as the general militia, I suppose. Mine, certainly.” He hesitated, then added more quietly, “You had better not set authority solely into my hands—but I will ask you to give me some authority. Magister Toen . . . I can work with him, if you’ll allow me to advise you, and some of the court would trust him more than me. Security on the tower . . . I’ll see to that myself, if you’ll allow it.”

  Gulien nodded. He knew he would have to. “Probably I’ll find the Kieba in a good humor, Parianasaku’s artifact in her hand, having tea with Oressa. She’ll have fed Prince Gajdosik and all his men to her falcons or turned them into pillars of salt, and my greatest problem will be gaining her forgiveness for yet another intrusion against her privacy.” Which might indeed be a problem, but he made his tone light.

  “Let it be so,” agreed Lord Paulin, with a grim little nod that suggested he wasn’t fooled by any pretense of good humor.

  CHAPTER 11

  Obey all instructions instantly, the kephalos had told them. After what had happened, not even Gajdosik had been arrogant enough to test its warning.

  The kephalos didn’t answer Oressa when she spoke to it; it didn’t answer any of them. Even when it finally occurred to her to take out Parianasaku’s Capture and hold it up and ask to be allowed to return the Kieba’s gift to the Kieba’s hand, there was no response at all.

  On the other hand, they were alive. She wondered if her name had mattered at all, or her brother’s name, or the artifact she held. If Djerkest or Gajdosik had called out in surrender to the kephalos, would they be in this same situation? Or maybe imprisoned in lightless coffins deep in the earth, their deathless cries serving as an eternal warning for others, or however that story went. There was no way to tell now. Not even Prince Gajdosik seemed inclined to test the kephalos, even when its golems took them to a prison that seemed as secure as any lightless coffin.

  It was a single room, though a big one, carved out of the ordinary red stone of the mountain. There was very little else to it. But water poured in a flat stream down the wall at the back, splashing into a wide, shallow pool, which was a welcome sight, and cushions lay piled to one side of the pool, which was far better than bare rock. The front wall was made of something that looked like glass, but one could apparently step right through it, as through the door into the mountain. Oressa was fairly certain that it would be more difficult to pass through in the other direction.

  Gajdosik stepped through the glass wall and into the cell first. Laasat and the one remaining Tamaristan soldier followed their prince, but Oressa couldn’t help but hesitate, despite the little golems surrounding her. “Please,” said Ga
jdosik, seeing her reluctance. He half lifted a hand toward her, an urgent gesture. “Don’t risk yourself, Your Highness. You need not fear me or mine. I promise you.”

  Oressa found she was far more afraid of the kephalos than of Prince Gajdosik. She stepped forward. She felt much safer once they were in the cell, which was ironic, but now at least she assumed the kephalos was no longer likely to kill them by mistake. She thought it would be humiliating to die by accident while waiting for the Kieba to realize they were here and make her own judgment. Her, Oressa hoped she might sway. She didn’t dare try to argue with the kephalos, even if it would speak to her, which so far it still refused to do.

  Gajdosik knelt down on the bare floor, gesturing his people down as well. He didn’t quite look harmless even so, but he was clearly trying. “Please,” he said to Oressa. “Come. Sit. Tell me—will you tell me what happened? I think you set a trap for me. Is that so?”

  Oressa walked forward slowly and sat down with her back straight, facing Gajdosik. She said, “It’s really the vault of plagues.”

  “Plagues,” Gajdosik repeated. “Plagues. Forgotten gods.”

  “Her library and her tools, Gulien said. She uses the ones in the vault to find ways to cure new ones, or something. I don’t know how that works. I was certain not even your magister could get in. Gulien said the kephalos said it was well defended. I thought . . . I thought the kephalos would have to guard it more carefully than anything, all the time, even when the Kieba isn’t watching. Especially when she isn’t watching. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I was afraid Magister Djerkest—” She stopped. After a moment she said, “He knew more than I thought. But I’m sorry for his death.”

  Gajdosik opened a hand, a gesture of concession. “You are not at fault for anything. I gave you no choice. All the choices were mine. So everything I have tried to do has come to this.” There was a little pause. Then the prince said, “It stopped for you. For your name, or your brother’s name. Or for the artifact you hold.”

  Oressa put a protective hand over her skirts where Parianasaku’s Capture was tucked away, but Gajdosik made no move to take the medallion from her by force. Perhaps he feared that the Kieba might be offended if he did so, since Oressa had referred to it as the Kieba’s gift when trying to get the kephalos to respond to her and Gajdosik had no way to guess that the gift had been given long ago and since regretted. She said cautiously, “Maybe. It might have been any of those things that stopped it, or something else. I don’t know.”

  Gajdosik nodded. But he said, “Even so, Your Highness . . .” He nodded to Laasat, then to the one remaining soldier. “This is Laasat Jerant. That is Tamresk Kerenn. They are good men. Decent men. Perhaps you may find the Keppa regards your opinion. If this should be so, I hope you will speak for them.”

  Oressa stared at him. After a moment, she said, “Yes. But—”

  “For them. If you will.”

  She hesitated a moment longer, then nodded slowly.

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “Yes,” she said awkwardly. “It probably won’t help, you know. I’m trespassing here, too, almost as much as you are.” She glanced uncomfortably around the cell, wanting to break the rather fraught pause that followed. “Do you suppose there’s soap?”

  There was no soap, and the kephalos did not answer her when she asked for it, but Oressa supposed they should be grateful for the pool. Clean water was much better than nothing. Though she would have liked privacy to wash, with or without soap. It was still only one room, after all, and there were no screens to block the pool from view.

  “No one will intrude on your privacy,” Gajdosik told Oressa.

  He looked grim. He was ashamed, she understood, because he had brought her into this situation. He had been willing to threaten her himself, but this was apparently different. She found, to her surprise, that she believed he had never meant to carry out his threats and that she trusted his promise. “All right.” She looked around the cell. No soap, no towels, no fresh clothing. She made a face. “If she’ll see me at all, I’ll have to face the Kieba in a wrinkled blouse and with my hair down. Well, I can always explain that this is all your fault.”

  The prince’s mouth crooked with ironic humor. “That will even be true.”

  “It’s always best to tell the truth,” Oressa said virtuously.

  So she washed quickly, and if anybody peeked, he was too subtle about it for her to catch him. Then she dressed again in the same clothes, which was not wonderful—she longed for Nasia to bustle in and start fussing about which dress she would like to wear for dinner. She hoped there would be some sort of dinner. The kephalos couldn’t just starve prisoners, could it? Or they wouldn’t ever last long enough for the Kieba to decide what to do with them.

  After her bath, Oressa sat with her back to the pool while the men took their turn. She didn’t peek, either, though she was very curious—Prince Gajdosik really was quite good-looking, though of course he couldn’t match Kelian, but still. But she was pretty sure that if she tried to look, someone would catch her at it and then she would simply die of embarrassment, which would be a pity after surviving the kephalos. She combed her fingers through her hair and thought about what she might say to the Kieba when she finally got a chance. If she ever did.

  Time stretched out and out, measureless without the sun to track across the sky or a dayglass to turn, but hours, surely. Food appeared, eventually: a whole low table set with bowls of mutton stew and plain round loaves of dark bread, heavy with amaranth. There was neither butter for the bread nor pepper sauce for the stew, but no one complained.

  And still the Kieba did not come. The Tamaristans talked among themselves in Tamaj as they ate, and Oressa, mostly out of habit, pretended not to understand them. She learned no great secrets. Only that Prince Gajdosik worried about the rest of his men, which she would have known anyway. He was worried, for obvious reasons, about the company stationed below the Kieba’s mountain, but also concerned about the rest, gathered, she learned, to the north of Caras, waiting for his return. Whether Gajdosik returned to them or not, it would be impossible for his people to go back across the Narrow Sea to Tamarist, apparently, though Oressa could not quite understand why his brother in Tamarist was so frightening and couldn’t ask without giving herself away. But it gave her something else to worry about. Because if Prince Gajdosik’s people could not return to Tamarist, then they must stay in Carastind, and wherever they went and whatever they did, they would be trouble. She saw that clearly. And she couldn’t help but sympathize with Prince Gajdosik. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it. In his place, she would be worried too, and for the same reasons. It was all very complicated.

  She sighed.

  Prince Gajdosik glanced at her, then jerked his head at Laasat, who lifted an eyebrow but clambered to his feet, beckoned to the soldier, gathered up the soiled bowls and spoons, and headed for the pool.

  “I regret your presence here,” Gajdosik told her, once his men were away. “But as you are not to blame for your trespass, surely the Keppa will not hold you at fault. I promise you, I will accept the responsibility for bringing you to this place. You will undoubtedly be allowed to return to your father’s house.”

  Oressa thought this was in fact fairly likely, since after all she still had Parianasaku’s Capture. She would return it to the Kieba, and the Kieba would surely accept her apology for leading the Tamaristans into her mountain and let her explain that Gulien should be allowed to rule Carastind, and then let her go home. Everything would be fine.

  She sighed again, wishing she knew what was happening at home. Wishing she believed that Gulien had sent their father off to a desert retreat as she had suggested. She doubted her brother had done anything of the kind. It wasn’t that Gulien was stupid, but when it came to their father, it sometimes seemed to her that he lacked resolution. Oressa longed to be at home, in her own rooms, with her own things around her—but not if her father was still looming ove
r her whole world. Not if she still had to be afraid that he would shove Gulien aside and reclaim his throne and his crown and his right to command everyone’s life as he saw fit, with nowhere any recourse—

  “You fear to return to your home,” Gajdosik said suddenly. Oressa jerked her head up, startled, and he gave her a crooked smile, more a twist of the mouth. “Or so I surmise,” he said, a trifle apologetically. “Forgive me. I think I recognize this fear. I, too, fear to return to my home. My brother Maranajdis . . .” He shrugged, turning one hand palm upward in a gesture of resignation. “I think you are more fortunate in your brother. And yet you fear to return to your home?”

  The Tamaristan prince was uncomfortably acute. Oressa didn’t say anything for a long time. If he had pressed her, she would have refused to answer. But he only looked away, watching the water slide down the wall and run into the pool, flowing so smoothly it was almost soundless. Except for the faint splashing of the water where the other men lingered over cleaning the bowls, it was very quiet.

  She said at last, “I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know that my brother was supposed to depose my father. As the price of the Kieba’s help. Because my father had offended her.”

  Gajdosik gave her a neutral little nod and waited for her to go on. Somehow his very neutrality made her want to explain. She said finally, “You don’t understand about my father. You couldn’t. Not even Gulien really understands.”

  Gajdosik nodded a second time, still wordlessly.

  “My mother—” Oressa stopped. Then she began again, “She went to the dead gods’ convent, you know. Where women go to suffer and atone for what happened to the gods, even though it wasn’t their fault, so I don’t know why they should; it’s not like it does any good.” Her voice had risen. She stopped again and took a hard breath.