The Mountain of Kept Memory

by Rachel Neumeier

  “Your Highness,” repeated the karanat, bowing a second time. Then, straightening, he went on. “Two days ago—three, now—our prince Gajdosik Garamanaj and Her Highness Oressa Madalin cross the wall of the Keppa and climb her mountain. They have not return, Your Highness, and we are very concern. You see the wall of the Keppa.” His Esse was quite understandable, though his verbs somewhat clumsy. As he finished, he turned to indicate the wall, where it ran north and west of the nearby fields.

  Frowning, Gulien nodded. “Indeed. The wall is much altered from what I had expected. Did that happen before or after your prince went up onto the mountain?”

  “The night after they go up. Went up,” the young man corrected himself. “It was short first; then it became tall, as you see. We do not dare cross that wall. We think, better to wait. But three days now and, as I say, we are very concern.” He paused, studying Gulien’s face. Then he went on. “You are know the Keppa. She gave you her autajma to use. If a man climb her wall and go up, maybe you—”

  “Wait!” interrupted Captain Aran. “Look there!” He pointed.

  At once, turning his head, Gulien saw what his officer had seen: two figures making their way down the near slopes of the mountain.

  CHAPTER 13

  Another day crept past and once more Oressa and the others laid out their cushions to make pallets. She always put hers on the far side of the pool, of course, while Laasat and Tamresk laid theirs out near their prince. Oressa slept badly, dreaming in shattered fragments of Gulien and her father, of Prince Gajdosik and Kelian.

  She heard the kephalos speaking her name. She was dreaming—she was riding a war golem through an empty city of broken stone. The stones were spattered with blood, and she knew it was Gajdosik’s blood: She had killed him. She looked for him to tell him she was sorry and found his statue in the Hall of Remembrance among the others, only he had great stone wings like the god who had fallen from the roof of the palace. Shadows lay across his white stone face, and she realized suddenly that it was not Gajdosik at all, but Ysiddro, and the statue was not made of stone, but of glass. The glass rippled like water, and in a moment spiders of steel and crystal would shatter her from the inside. The goddess turned her cold glass face toward Oressa and said, “Oressa Madalin!” Only it was the flat, neutral voice of the kephalos, and Oressa woke.

  She sat up, her heart pounding. On the other side of the pool, Tamresk was on his feet. Laasat was standing protectively over Prince Gajdosik, who was moving stiffly to get up.

  “Oressa Madalin,” the kephalos said again.

  Her mouth was dry. She swallowed and rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth. Then she said, “Yes.” She was relieved to find that her voice sounded almost normal.

  “The Kieba sends for you,” stated the kephalos. “Follow Ysiddre’s stairway.”

  Prince Gajdosik came forward to grip her shoulder with forceful confidence, a gesture he might have used when sending a young soldier on an important mission. He looked into her face. “You’ll do well,” he told her quietly, as though he had no doubt of it. “You’ve cleverness and nerve to spare. Remember you hold my ring. My people are in your hands. I trust them to you, Your Highness. Their fate is more important to me than my own.”

  Oressa nodded, because she knew that. She wished no one was depending on her. She wished this audience was over. She wished she was home with Gulien. But she did not know what she should wish for Gajdosik. She met his eyes and smiled with deliberate confidence, then turned and walked to the glass wall, and through it in a wash of heat.

  Ysiddre’s statue and her white door were easy to find, even in the disorienting Hall of Remembrance. The door glowed like pearl in the goddess’s moonlight, its amethyst veins glittering. Ysiddro’s statue and door was almost entirely hidden by shadows. Oressa tried not to look at that dark statue because she was afraid that if she did she might lose her nerve. She pushed open Ysiddre’s door and began her slow ascent of the white marble stairway. She seemed to climb the stairs for a long time, and then between one step and the next, dry heat folded around her, and she stepped forward into cool air, and there were no stairs, but only a small, round chamber carved out of solid gray crystal without doors or windows. A dais was raised up from the floor to one side; before the dais stood a plain chair. Both dais and chair were also made of crystal. She recognized all this, of course, from Gulien’s description.

  No one was in the room except her.

  Oressa drew a breath and said cautiously, “Kephalos?”

  “Oressa Madalin,” said the flat, familiar voice. “Your primary identity is recognized. You hold no key, no predisposition, no affiliation, no aspect, no position.” It fell silent.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Oressa ventured.

  “It is unfortunate,” stated the kephalos, but exactly what it meant by its agreement, Oressa could not tell. She said nothing, and shortly it went on. “The Kieba’s identity has stabilized. She will speak to you. You will speak for Gajdosik Garamanaj. His primary identity is recognized. He has possessed a key, but his predisposition is uncertain and must be tried. You will establish this necessity.”

  “I will willingly speak to the Kieba on behalf of Prince Gajdosik,” Oressa said carefully. “Though I’m not sure why she should listen to me. But, if I may ask, what does, ah, trying someone’s predisposition entail? And who decides whether someone . . . passes this trial? The Kieba? Or you?” She hesitated, then asked, “What are you?”

  “I am crystallized memory,” answered the kephalos. “No decision is required: Gajdosik Garamanaj will prove predisposed to the living crystal or he will not. He will prove compatible with an acceptable secondary identity or he will not. You are Oressa Madalin, descendant of Oren Madalin, whose inclination toward a predisposition was given unto his descendants. However, you have not been sufficiently exposed to living crystal, and thus your incipient predisposition remains inchoate. However, as you acted to protect the greatest danger that abides in the mountain, it is possible the Kieba may favor you and choose to renew her regard for the Madalin line. In this case, you will speak for Gajdosik Garamanaj.”

  Most of this seemed fairly promising, if opaque. Oressa began to frame another question, about what would happen if somebody had a useful predisposition and what would happen if not, and what was it a predisposition toward, anyway? But before she could ask, heat rose up around her and then folded away again, and not at all to Oressa’s surprise, the Kieba was suddenly present, seated in the chair. She did not look quite the same; she seemed neither as thin nor as old nor as angry. Oressa was relieved. She tried to hide everything she was thinking behind the bland, docile expression she had learned for court functions, bowed her head, and waited for the Kieba to speak first.

  “Oressa Madalin,” said the Kieba. Her expression was unreadable but at least not angry. She held her hand out, palm up, moving with that strange, birdlike quickness, and commanded, “Let me see your hands.”

  Stepping forward, Oressa wordlessly held out her hands, palms up.

  The Kieba took her right hand, tracing the whip mark with her thumb. It was pale and thin, well healed.

  “I am sorry for this,” the Kieba stated, releasing Oressa’s hand and meeting her eyes. “It was a mistake to go there while I was still having difficulty maintaining my identity and my aspect. I was angry, and I misjudged. I am sorry for it.”

  For a moment Oressa only stared at her. She found, to her surprise, that she was no longer afraid of the Kieba. She almost felt sorry for her, and wasn’t certain why she should feel that way. It was disorienting. She found herself off-balance, rather as though she had jumped down from a height and discovered only when she hit the ground that it had really been too far to jump. She said at last, “All right. I do think you were unjust to Prince Gajdosik. He might have a predisposition, you know. It would be hard to find out about that if you had killed him. But the caduceus helped. Thank you for sending it.”

  The Kieba did not deny sendi
ng the caduceus, but she didn’t acknowledge Oressa’s thanks either. She tapped the arm of her chair with her long fingers, one of the most ordinary, human gestures Oressa had yet seen her make. But she said, “I was not unjust. Gajdosik’s interruption came at an awkward moment, and I could not respond to his threat and yet maintain control of myself and the kephalos and the situation in Elaru. Once I regained control, it was too late to save the city, too late for any measures but a firebreak. I was justly angry.”

  Oressa stared at her. “A firebreak? You don’t mean—I mean, the plague you were working on, in that other land, Gontai, you did fix it. Didn’t you?”

  “No,” the Kieba said flatly. “I lost control of my work and was unable to regain it adequately. Then I was temporarily . . . I was discommoded and unable to return to my work immediately. I commanded the kephalos to burn a wide firebreak around the affected region in order to control the contagion. Everyone in Elaru will most likely die, though some small handful may be saved, and I hope that I may at least prevent the loss of any other city in Gontai.”

  Oressa didn’t know what to say. So many people. Thousands of people, no doubt. A whole city, everyone dead. That was too big and awful an idea to think about, yet she couldn’t help thinking about it. She didn’t know Elaru, but she found herself visualizing Caras dead, everyone dead, even the carrion birds crumpled and limp in the streets. That was worse than anything Prince Gajdosik or any of his people had ever thought of doing. She shivered.

  No wonder the Kieba had been so angry.

  “It’s my fault,” she admitted. “I set Djerkest up so he would try to get into the vault of plagues. I knew you would stop him—I mean, I was sure you would stop him—and you did, but I didn’t realize—” Her voice rose, and she cut off the last word before she embarrassed herself by crying like a child.

  “Oressa Madalin. You did not come to this mountain of kept memory in order to cast me down and steal my power. I have been aware that the magisters of Tamarist have recently striven to block my awareness of their activities, but I was otherwise engaged and never sufficiently concerned. Clearly they have had very specific reason to wish me to look elsewhere.”

  Oressa shook her head. “No, but I did help them find the way into the mountain. They might never have found it if I hadn’t told them what to look for. At least they might not have found it so fast. So that is my fault. I’m sorry. I knew it might be a mistake, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t realize that Djerkest would be able to get the kephalos to recognize him, not until I saw he had the same kind of crystal Gulien’s falcon is made of and realized that your whole mountain is made of that kind of crystal on the inside. Then I knew I’d probably made a terrible mistake, only I couldn’t think of anything to do except try to get them to open your—” She found herself lowering her voice involuntarily to a near whisper. “Your vault of plagues. But that interrupted you, didn’t you? So I ruined what you were doing in that city. Elaru. I’m sorry, Kieba. I didn’t mean to do anything like that.”

  “Well,” said the Kieba, and was quiet for a moment, absolutely still in her chair, more still than any mortal woman. Then she blinked and frowned at Oressa, seeming almost normal again. “You did well, in fact, Oressa Madalin. If the Tamaristan magister had found me just then, with all my attention elsewhere, he would have found me vulnerable. He would have tried to destroy me, I believe, in order to steal whatever part of my power he could recognize. He would have failed, I think. But if he had destroyed me . . . If he had, Oressa Madalin, I have no suitable heir at the moment. Certainly no Tamaristan magister would be suitable, even if he had realized what he had done. That would have precipitated true disaster. Not merely for Elaru.”

  Oressa stared back at her. She wanted to believe she’d done the right thing, or a right thing, or at least not a terrible thing. But she wasn’t sure. She said numbly, “I didn’t know. Only I was afraid of what he might do and what might happen.”

  “Rightly so,” said the Kieba. “I had time to burn the firebreak, at least.” She paused. After a moment she added, with a lack of emotion or emphasis that under the circumstances Oressa found disturbing, “The fault is not yours. The fault lies with your father, who sent the plague to Elaru, and with your brother, who disturbed my peace while I first worked to contain it, and with my kephalos, who allowed him to take a weapon away from this place, and of course with Gajdosik Garamanaj, who saw this weapon and desired others of his own.”

  “Oh no!” Oressa said immediately. “Gulien was right to borrow your golem, and the kephalos was right to help him. You should have helped Gulien when he asked you, and then Gajdosik and all his people would have been cast back into the sea and forced to go back to Tamarist!” And died there, maybe—him and all his people, given what he’d said of Maranajdis. The idea was more disturbing than she had expected, and she faltered and fell silent.

  The Kieba’s eyebrows rose. “You disapprove so strongly of Gajdosik? You think he would make so poor a king for Carastind?”

  Oressa blinked, trying to think of some reasonable, intelligent response to this question.

  “Gajdosik would have done well enough by Carastind, I believe,” the Kieba added.

  “Well, but Gulien—” But Oressa cut that off and turned instead to the Kieba. “Listen, Kieba, you won’t really punish my brother for taking your golem, will you? I mean, the kephalos offered it to him! He’d be a good king, Kieba. Really, he would. What you said about a year, you can change your mind about that, can’t you? And Gajdosik—you’ve punished Gajdosik enough, but it’s not right to give him Carastind—”

  “Is any of this yours to decide?”

  “Everybody has to decide about things like that!”

  The Kieba looked faintly taken aback, the most human expression Oressa thought she had yet shown. She said at last, “Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps every person must judge for herself what is just. But I have my own necessities. Your preferences do not figure highly in my decisions, Oressa Madalin.”

  Oressa took a quick breath and nodded. “I’m sure. What will you do, then?” She took Parianasaku’s Capture out of her pocket and held it out. “Look. My brother did send you—”

  “Eirankan’s Key,” said the Kieba, frowning. She took the medallion from Oressa and turned it over. All its colors brightened under her touch, the crystalline lines on its face broadening and shifting.

  Oressa stared at her in dismay. Now she remembered that the kephalos had said something about somebody’s key. That she had somebody’s key and not a key of her own. She said, already knowing the answer, “This isn’t Parianasaku’s Capture?”

  “It is not,” murmured the Kieba. “Similar, in certain respects. Allied, in a fundamental sense. Osir Madalin’s possession of this item may well explain how he came to apply Parianasaku’s artifact to a broader use than intended, despite what should have been adequate safeguards.” She frowned. “I wonder how long Osir Madalin has had Eirankan’s Key in his possession.”

  “Gulien meant to give you the right artifact,” Oressa protested. “I’m sure he meant to.”

  The Kieba set the medallion down on the arm of her chair with a sharp little click. It seemed to melt into the chair, becoming to all appearances a colorful flaw in the crystal. “Of course he did. I don’t doubt it. Thus we find that error is almost as greatly to be feared as deliberate malice.”

  “You won’t blame my brother!”

  “In a year—well, a little less, now—I will decide what to do with Gulien Madalin. I will need the true Capture immediately, however.” The Kieba tapped her fingers gently on the arm of her chair. “As for Gajdosik . . . I will question him shortly and then decide what to do with him. You maintain he may have a predisposition.”

  “Well, I—”

  The kephalos, speaking for the first time in all this, said out of the air. “Kieba.”

  The Kieba held perfectly still for an instant. Then she said, “Kephalos. I surmise that you believe Gaj
dosik Garamanaj may have a useful predisposition.”

  “His associate possessed a key,” the kephalos stated.

  “Indeed. Indeed. I had forgotten,” said the Kieba, and turned her head with what seemed an oddly studied precision to gaze over Oressa’s shoulder. “Gajdosik Garamanaj.”

  Oressa turned quickly and found Prince Gajdosik, Laasat, and Tamresk standing in the doorway. She had not heard them approach and found that she wasn’t even certain the doorway had been there a moment earlier. She frowned in quick concern, seeing how Laasat and Tamresk each had a hand unobtrusively under one of Gajdosik’s elbows.

  But at once Prince Gajdosik drew himself up and stepped forward ahead of his men. His quick glance took in Oressa and the Kieba and the room but revealed nothing of his thoughts. He moved stiffly, but he didn’t stumble or fall. He laid a hand briefly on Oressa’s arm as he passed her, in what seemed a casual gesture, but for that one moment he actually put quite a lot of his weight on her. Oressa had not realized how weak he still was, but then there were all those stairs—evidently almost too many for him. She stiffened her back unobtrusively to support him and tried not to let any of her nervousness show on her face.

  Taking his hand from her arm, Gajdosik made it one more step toward the Kieba’s chair before sinking down to one knee. He didn’t actually collapse as he knelt, but his mouth tightened with the effort. Oressa thought he barely made it down and guessed he might not be able to get to his feet again without help. He looked the Kieba in the face for an instant, then bowed his head and said, his voice just a little taut, “Keppa. I beg you will hold all the fault to be mine alone and refrain from punishing men whose only fault lay in their loyalty to me.”

  The Kieba tilted her head, one of those odd, sharp, birdlike movements. “Choosing to serve the wrong lord often carries serious consequences. Your men followed you into my mountain of memory. No doubt they believed you to be in the right. No doubt you believed so yourself, Gajdosik Garamanaj. Yet the desire to do what is right unfortunately affords no guarantee against doing what is wrong.”