The Mountain of Kept Memory

by Rachel Neumeier

  “Oressa,” murmured the Kieba. “Oressa Madalin. She has no predisposition.”

  Gulien refused to be diverted. “Yes, but where is she? Is she well? What have you done with Prince Gajdosik? His people are very much concerned for his fate. So am I, as I would prefer not to have random Garamanaji princes wandering about Carastind.”

  “Your sister is perfectly well. So is Gajdosik Garamanaj,” the Kieba said. “In a moment I—”

  “You must return to Elaru,” stated the kephalos.

  The Kieba paused, her head tilting in a strange, quick movement, curiously nonhuman, as all her movements were just a little bit wrong. “Must I? Perhaps you are right,” she conceded. “I do not believe anything of Elaru will prove salvageable, but it is true the firebreak must be widened and maintained.”

  “Nevertheless, it is also important to enhance the young prince’s secondary identity and aspects and formally establish his claim.”

  The Kieba’s voice sharpened. “Oh, unquestionably. We could hardly disagree.”

  “Will you tell me what that means?” demanded Gulien, then made himself add in a more conciliatory tone, “Please.”

  “Explanations rapidly become superfluous,” snapped the Kieba, and walked away, back into the other room. She turned when she reached the chair and gazed expectantly at Gulien.

  “Tell me what you plan to do with my sister, and I will obey you.”

  The Kieba tilted her head, considering him. “Oressa Madalin,” she said after a pause, as though it had taken her a moment to remember whom he meant. “Well. I do not intend to do anything with Oressa. She is with Gajdosik Garamanaj, who requires her stability.”

  Her stability. Gulien wanted to ask whether they were talking about the same person, but the Kieba was going on: “He is no direct use to me, as he possesses no adequate predisposition. I will send him away.”

  “And Oressa doesn’t have a predisposition either.”

  “No. She never held a key, I surmise. The key was yours.”

  “Ah.” Gulien hesitated. “So you will release Oressa. And Prince Gajdosik. And me? Kieba, I have to—listen, you cannot simply turn Gajdosik and his men loose in Carastind. I’ve gained the advantage over them now. I’m grateful to you for that, but now you must permit me to protect Carastind against such foreign aggressors—”

  “We are not concerned for Gajdosik Garamanaj or his men.”

  “Kieba, you may have no need to be concerned, but I must admit I am not so sanguine!” Inspiration seized him and he added, trying to sound confident, “Besides, you gave me a year. That’s what you told me: one year.”

  “Did I?” said the Kieba vaguely. “I did. Yes. We remember that. I remember that. I thought it best to allow your secondary identity to manifest gently, over the course of many months. The kephalos, it appears, does not agree.” Her gaze sharpened. “To be sure, the entire question was predicated on the return to my hand of Parianasaku’s Capture. That artifact has not yet been returned, young prince.”

  “But—”

  “The artifact that was placed in my hand was another. You must acquire Parianasaku’s Capture and return it to me. I require it most urgently.”

  “That was the wrong artifact?” But Gulien knew this was true. Of course his father had given him the wrong artifact. Of course Osir Madalin would do just that. And Gulien had only known that the artifact he was given was awake and alive and never questioned but that it was the right one.

  “Indeed,” said the kephalos. “However—”

  The Kieba raised an impatient hand. “Yes, we understand: We cannot pursue Parianasaku’s Capture instantly. Very well. After Gulien Madalin’s claim has been reinforced and his principal aspect defined.” She studied Gulien, then gestured decisively to the crystalline chair. When he didn’t move in answer to this unvoiced command, she added more sharply, “I understand your reluctance. But while it is not strictly necessary that you do this of your own will, I believe it is in every way preferable.”

  Gulien could see that she wouldn’t permit him to refuse, so how could anything he did be of his own will? Yet in another way, he understood what she meant. It wasn’t exactly about having choices. It was more about how you met the only choice you had.

  She had promised to release Oressa. She had more or less promised that. Hadn’t she?

  “Gulien,” the Kieba said, patient but relentless.

  Gulien took a step forward. Then he paused. “What will this do? Will you tell me that? What will this do to me? Is it like what the kephalos has done to me—twice—when it drew my blood? What does it mean, to define an aspect and establish a claim? How long will this take? Will this be—will this be like the other time?”

  “I would hardly be able to define your experience.” The Kieba tapped the back of the chair again. “Enough questions. You will find many of the answers here, Gulien Madalin. Come.”

  Seeing no way to protest further, and since it was plainly no use to demand answers, Gulien walked forward, hesitated for the length of one breath, and sat down in the chair.

  The needles pierced his wrists and hands. It hurt for only a moment. Then he shut his eyes and fell into a thin, cold darkness. Strange, broken fragments of images and thoughts and emotions sleeted through his mind, sharp and glittering as shards of crystal.

  CHAPTER 15

  Oressa sat beside a narrow couch in a narrow room, watching Prince Gajdosik sleep. The walls were red stone, but draped with fine cloth in shades of blue and rose and cream; the couch and her chair were of dark, polished wood and lined with cushions in the same shades. The chamber was cluttered with small tables and chests, also of polished wood. A pitcher of water and several cups rested on one table, of normal earthenware, glazed a rich brown. All the ordinary furnishings and gentle colors were a welcome change from gray crystal. Oressa thought she would be just as happy if she never in her whole life saw another piece of smoky crystal or jade or soapstone or anything remotely like them.

  Gajdosik lay on the couch, fully clothed. Oressa had tossed a blue-and-rose coverlet over him for good measure and now just sat, more or less patiently, waiting for him to wake up. He didn’t seem as though he ever would. He lay very still; more still, she thought, than a man lost in any natural sleep. Though she was not very accustomed to watching men sleep.

  In a way it was like something out of a story: a prince trapped in a timeless sleep, waiting for a princess to awaken him. Gajdosik could quite well have belonged in that kind of story, with his foreign good looks. In a story, they would fall in love and somehow resolve all their differences and live happily ever after.

  Oressa could almost imagine exactly how that story would go.

  It would have been funny, except that it wasn’t. She could imagine what her father would say if he could see her here, watching over a foreign prince while he slept.

  Well, no, she really couldn’t imagine what her father would say. She didn’t want to imagine it, in fact. Gulien . . . Gulien would probably be as horrified as their father, but he would also laugh, seeing how ridiculous a situation she’d gotten herself into. She was fairly sure he would see the funny side of it. She hoped he would. If he were here.

  She hoped her brother was all right. She ought to have asked the Kieba. Surely the Kieba would know what was happening in Caras.

  Gajdosik’s eyes slitted open. Sometimes that happened. Then he would close his eyes again and lapse back into sleep, or unconsciousness, or whatever. Oressa tried not to be impatient.

  Then he blinked and turned his head, and Oressa caught her breath, leaning forward. He was awake.

  All his memories would be uncertain, the Kieba had said. He would need her to tell him what was true. He’d have to trust her to tell him. She knew now that he had courage in sufficient measure to face even that, but she flinched from even trying to imagine such vulnerability.

  Gajdosik drew a breath. His eyes were wide with confusion, which was, Oressa thought, possibly turning into fear. Risi
ng, she touched his shoulder. “You’re—” She stopped, because she couldn’t say, You’re all right, or even, You’ll be all right. She didn’t dare make any such promise. She said instead, “What do you remember? Do you remember the Kieba?”

  Gajdosik’s eyebrows drew together. He tried to sit up, a painful effort. Oressa stuffed a silk cushion behind him and patted his arm, trying to look reassuring rather than worried. She asked again, “What do you remember?”

  “I . . . ,” Gajdosik whispered. “I don’t know. . . .” His breathing quickened, and he put a hand up to cover his eyes, a helpless, defensive gesture.

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” Oressa promised him, though she knew it was reckless and perhaps irresponsible to make any such commitment. She patted his arm again. “You can trust me to tell you the truth—I won’t ever lie to you. Or,” she added, “if I do, I’ll tell you I’m lying, all right?”

  Gajdosik husked a laugh. “Oressa Madalin. I remember you.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” she promised again. “Can you trust me for that?”

  He nodded faintly. “What did I tell the Kieba? She asked me . . . I don’t remember. Did I tell her . . . ? What did I tell her?”

  Oressa said gently, “You told her everything, I think. All your plans.”

  He turned his face away.

  “But you gave me your ring.” She held out her hand to show him. “Do you remember? The Kieba told me that as long as I wear it, she’ll recognize my claim to all your men. Do you remember that? I promised you I would protect your people, and I will.”

  She would, too; she knew that suddenly. Even if it made Gulien angry. Even if she had to face the whole court in Caras and make them all accept what she’d done, and that was a frightening idea because she’d never in her life stepped out in the open to argue with people. Getting her way had always meant a nudge here and there, a threat delivered obliquely, a promise made in silence, with just a significant look at exactly the right moment.

  But she had known when she’d accepted Gajdosik’s ring that in order to protect his people, she would have to come out of the shadows. She tried now to pretend the idea of it didn’t frighten her at all. All the time she knew it was just a pretense, but . . . she could do it. She was deeply grateful that though she might have to argue with Gulien and everyone else at court, she would not have to face her father with any of this. If there had been any living gods to pray to, she would have prayed she would never need to face her father again for anything. If she had to stand against him on behalf of Gajdosik’s men . . . she wasn’t certain she could do it.

  “I remember,” Gajdosik said quietly, not noticing her sudden silence. He leaned his head back against the arm of the couch and shut his eyes.

  Oressa blinked, took a breath, and asked at last, “Are you . . . ? Are you well? There’s water. Are you thirsty?” Her voice sounded stiff and strange to her ears. She took another breath and moved to pour him a cup without waiting for an answer. Then, even when he opened his eyes and sat forward, she had to help him steady it.

  If he wondered what the Kieba meant to do with him, he did not say so; nor did he ask Oressa what she meant to do with his men. That wasn’t chance, she knew. His mute passivity worried her. She guessed it came from the knowledge of failure, from loss and grief and shame, and she didn’t know what to do about any of that. Before she had thought him insufferably arrogant. But now that his pride had been broken, she found she liked that even less. But she did not know what she could do or say to mend what had been broken.

  There was a sound at the door. Oressa whirled around, but Gajdosik had to brace himself up with a hand that still trembled. She moved to steady him, trying to be unobtrusive about it.

  But to her astonishment, it was her brother, Gulien, who rapped briskly on the doorframe and then opened the door. First Oressa was overjoyed to see him, but then she was horrified, for so many different reasons she could hardly number them. There were bruised circles under her brother’s eyes, and he looked older, somehow. Well, she felt about a hundred years older herself. Gods dead and forgotten, it seemed years ago that she’d hidden under her father’s chair and heard Gajdosik’s name linked to hers for the very first time, and it had been hardly more than a week. Though a very long week.

  Now, unwillingly distracted from her ordinary and reasonable worries by a completely different and unexpected set of fears, she demanded, “Gulien! What are you doing here? I’m so glad to see you, but you didn’t have to come after me yourself. Gulien, honestly, you’re so—so—”

  “Dependable? Reliable?” Gulien was smiling, but to Oressa his expression looked a little forced. “I was worried about you. Among so many other reasons. You little fool. The things you get yourself into!”

  Oressa wanted to shake him. “Yes, but how could you leave Caras? What did you do about Father?”

  “Caras is fine! Father wasn’t giving me problems. You were the one I was worried about!” He gave Gajdosik a hard look. “When I got word that His Highness had led a thrust inland toward the Kieba’s mountain, well, what did you expect me to do, Oressa? Whom else should I have sent, knowing the Kieba might get involved—that we might have to depend on her to save us all? Especially knowing you were here, you little sneak! I left Beriad in charge of the guard and Paulin and Toen in charge of everything else.”

  Magister Toen was all right. Over-dignified, but also meticulous and diligent. Oressa liked him, but she had to admit he wasn’t very quick-witted. No wonder Gulien had also appointed Paulin. . . .

  “I know you don’t like Lord Paulin,” Gulien added. “But I trust him. And Magister Toen is steadfast; everyone knows that. He gave me his word, and he’ll reassure anyone who wavers. They were the best choice, Oressa. I’m not worried about Caras, not unless some other disaster strikes.” His tone was not quite assured on that last, as he plainly didn’t entirely rule this out. But he added, far more firmly, “I was worried about you. And about His Highness.”

  Gajdosik lowered his gaze, making no attempt to answer this.

  “Paulin and Toen together aren’t half a match for our father,” Oressa muttered. But she couldn’t say her brother shouldn’t have worried. That was too obviously untrue. She was sorry now that she’d shouted. Gulien looked terrible. “Are you all right?” she asked him, trying not to sound too anxious about it. “Have you seen the Kieba, or spoken to the kephalos, or . . . ?” She stopped, not knowing quite what she saw in her brother’s face.

  “Yes,” Gulien said. There was something in his tone that said, I don’t want to talk about it. He frowned at Gajdosik. “And you, Your Highness? Can you get up? Can you walk, do you think? The Kieba is willing to open her hand, but can you walk down from this mountain on your own legs?”

  “She’s letting us go!” exclaimed Oressa. “All of us? She did say she would. She almost said so. Anyway, that’s wonderful! Now?” She barely restrained herself from pushing past her brother and out the door right then, but was held by her brother’s upraised hand and, somehow, by Gajdosik’s silent stillness. He had made it to his feet, though he was gripping the back of the couch for support. He was not looking at Oressa. She thought his attention was mainly on Gulien and on keeping himself upright.

  “It seems so, yes,” said Gulien. Though he was speaking to Oressa, his steady gaze was still fixed on Gajdosik. “I believe there are several matters that she depends on us to resolve. For example, we must find some useful way to deal with any adventuring Tamaristans who persistently disregard Carastind’s sovereign borders and the Kieba’s privacy.”

  Prince Gajdosik sank to one knee, carefully, steadying himself against the couch. Bowing his head, he said quietly, “Your Highness. I’m grateful you have won our freedom from this mountain. I acknowledge that I and my men are in your hands. You will do with me as you will, but I ask you to be generous with my people.”

  It was a powerful, arresting moment.

  Oressa cleared her throat before either of the men
could take it too seriously. “Well,” she said in her blandest tone, “actually, Gulien, Prince Gajdosik and all his men are in my hands.” She held up her left hand, showing her brother the ring Gajdosik had given her. “The Kieba gave them all to me herself and told me to find some practical use for them.” She smiled brightly at Gulien. She wasn’t certain the Kieba had meant to include Prince Gajdosik himself in that responsibility, but she didn’t say so. It was always better not to raise subtle questions. It worked better to simply assume that everyone naturally intended to cooperate and see what happened. She had learned that from watching her father. Though of course he had no need to smile when he did it.

  Gulien rubbed his forehead, as though he might be developing a headache. “Oressa—”

  “Well, we can certainly find a practical use for them, can’t we?” Oressa asked, sweetly reasonable. “Especially if any other Tamaristan princes have similar ideas, which I gather they might. Gajdosik’s brother Maranajdis sounds especially unpleasant.” She didn’t glance at Gajdosik, from whom she had gathered that information. She was uncomfortable thinking about those grim moments with the Kieba and that horrible chair. Imagining how Gajdosik felt about it was excruciating enough without looking at him.

  Her brother rubbed his forehead again without answering. Then he said impatiently to Gajdosik, “Get up, Your Highness. You do put us to more trouble. Not to mention—” But he hesitated then and visibly changed what he’d been about to say, snapping instead, “Why couldn’t you just have taken your ships back across the Narrow Sea and left us alone? You know, parts of the palace are still collapsing whenever there’s a hard breeze.”

  Gajdosik got slowly to his feet. Even Oressa couldn’t tell how much of that deliberation was due to lingering weakness and how much to pride. He met Gulien’s hard stare—that was certainly pride, and could not have been easy. “Your Highness, I thought I had no need to ask for charity. I thought I could take everything. I was wrong. If you are now good enough to offer my people sanctuary, I would be most grateful.”