The Mountain of Kept Memory

by Rachel Neumeier

  Under their father’s patient regard, Oressa opened and closed her mouth, ducking her head in apparent confusion. Finally she whispered, “I hoped you would hear. Or someone. I didn’t know what Bherijda was going to do, but I thought . . . I thought he might do too much. I thought someone might hear, and they would tell you, and I thought . . . I hoped you would come.”

  The king’s eyebrows rose. “That was . . . clever.”

  Her father had never thought Oressa clever in her life, so far as Gulien knew. His sister dropped her gaze, flushing nervously.

  “In fact, though I am certain half the palace staff heard you quite clearly, it was Lord Paulin who came to inform me,” added their father, with no change in his tone. “You seem to have persuaded him, at least, that there was some urgency. I believe he actually ran all the way to this residence. Fortunately his heart did not burst from the exertion.”

  Gulien, too, was surprised that Paulin had had such an effort in him, but he was particularly gratified that the older man had had the sheer nerve to face the king for anything after supporting Gulien. He hoped that his father hadn’t been hard on Paulin but did not dare ask. Oressa glanced up, opened her mouth, shut it again, and looked down dumbly.

  The king, his expression thoughtful, turned his attention to Gulien, who immediately dropped his gaze, feeling his face heat. He knew he had lost his father’s good opinion, and now he had no idea what to say. What could he possibly say? That he’d thrown his support to the Kieba? His father already knew that. That he had now changed his mind and would loyally support the king in everything? His father would never believe that; nor did Gulien think he could bring himself to lie to him. That regardless of anything else, he would certainly support him against Bherijda? His father must know that, but it wasn’t yet clear whether he and Prince Bherijda were enemies or, to some degree, allies.

  In the end Gulien said nothing. After a moment he went to his knees, trying to make the gesture look respectful rather than desperate.

  “Yes,” said the king coldly. “You should indeed beg my pardon. I will permit you to do so shortly. I may grant it.”

  “Sire,” Gulien answered in a low tone, not daring to meet his father’s eyes.

  At last the king turned his head to regard Gajdosik. His expression was distant, cool, unreadable.

  Gajdosik stared back, not in the least cowed. He was still bound, still half naked, still a prisoner. Even so, he managed to look every bit a prince. Gulien might have been envious of the other man’s self-possession, except he knew at least half of it was an act and the other half arose mostly from the Tamaristan prince’s lack of acquaintance with Osir Madalin.

  The king said softly, “If not for your brother’s obvious enmity and the fact that his magisters have laid claim to the larger and more convenient cells for their . . . work, I would chain you in the dungeon below this palace. However, that appears impractical.”

  Gajdosik lowered his gaze briefly, then once more looked the king in the face. He stood quietly, but the earlier passivity Gulien had seen in him when he’d found him in the Kieba’s mountain, was completely lacking. So was the leashed, murderous rage he had shown when faced with his brother. This was a man, Gulien thought, who had met reverses but still hoped to overcome them. He stood with patient composure, waiting to see what he might yet do to wrestle difficult circumstances around to his own advantage. Gulien doubted he could have done as well in a similar position.

  “Kedmes!” called the king.

  The brawny man, bodyguard more than servant, appeared instantly at the inner door of the apartment. He took in the scene instantly, his expression unchanging. If there was a certain masked satisfaction in his hooded eyes when he glanced at Gulien, on his knees before his father, Gulien could not honestly blame him for it.

  To Gajdosik, the king said briefly, “Bathe. Dress. Kedmes will provide clothing for you, as what’s left of yours hardly seems salvageable. Your fingers appear to be broken. He will set them. Kedmes.”

  The servant straightened attentively. “Sire?”

  “Prince Gajdosik is my prisoner, not my guest. Have him carefully attended. If he gives you the least trouble, inform me. Send for a chain from the prison. Two chains. The short ones. And . . . hmmm. Perhaps you might obtain the long light one with which Prince Bherijda saw fit to adorn the pink atrium. Have the heavy chains installed”—the king moved a dismissive hand—“somewhere in this apartment. Somewhere not too inconvenient, if possible. The smaller sitting room, perhaps. The light chain can go in the adjoining chamber.”

  “Sire,” acknowledged Kedmes, and looked expectantly at Gajdosik, who bowed to the king with precise formality and followed his servant without a word.

  “Now,” said the king. He leaned back in his chair and stared at Gulien. “My son.”

  Gulien lifted his head, though he did not otherwise move.

  “Start at the beginning,” said the king, “And go on to the end. I would particularly like to hear about the Kieba.”

  Gulien took a breath. He described, in a few brief words, his first encounter with the woman who had been a goddess and was still something more than, or other than, mortal. He hesitated before recounting, in the most toneless voice he could manage, the Kieba’s response to his plea for her intervention—her condemnation of his father, her desire for the return of the god-artifact she had called Parianasaku’s Capture.

  The king’s mouth tightened slightly. “The Capture. Yes.” He drew circles on the arm of his chair gently with the tip of one finger. It was impossible for Gulien to guess what he might be thinking. He murmured, “It is seldom advisable to seek the Kieba’s intervention. An artifact constantly in the keeping of the Madalin kings is ever so much more reliable. Perhaps you have learned this.”

  Gulien did not dare answer.

  His father sighed, then asked, “And the second time you went to her mountain?”

  Gulien had had this in the back of his mind the whole while, and now carefully outlined a second visit to the mountain that left out the kephalos, the falcon, his own collapse, or most particularly, any mention of memory or secondary identities or crystal that got into one’s blood or anything of that kind. He described only finding Oressa and Gajdosik and then went on cautiously, “But before she permitted us to depart, the Kieba warned us that Prince Bherijda may have an artifact called Tonkaïan’s Resolve and that the older Garamanaji prince, Maranajdis, may be misusing a still more powerful artifact called Shakanatu’s Throne. I do not know what these artifacts may be, nor whether Parianasaku’s Capture—which I know you still hold, sire—may protect Carastind against them. But the Kieba—”

  This king lifted a finger, bringing this cautious, half-begun plea to a halt before Gulien could quite give it voice. “My son, enough. This continual refrain does you no credit.”

  Gulien met his eyes. “Am I your heir?” he asked. “If I am your heir, then surely all these things are very much my concern. One recalls many vivid tales concerning the artifacts left scattered across the world by the forgotten gods. Whatever you think of the Kieba, Bherijda Garamanaj hardly seems the sort of man one would wish to hold a powerful artifact—”

  His father moved his hand again, sharply enough that Gulien closed his mouth almost involuntarily. Osir Madalin made no comment about Gulien’s position as his heir, but asked instead, “And Prince Gajdosik? What sort of man is he? You seem to have made the man an ally of sorts. That, I did not anticipate. How did it come about?”

  Gulien hesitated. Then he said, trying to keep any note of defiance out of his tone, “You may—you may scorn me for stepping into her shadow. But the Kieba set Prince Gajdosik into my hands. He yielded himself and his people to me.” He didn’t glance at Oressa—he could hardly imagine what their father would say if he admitted the Kieba had actually set Gajdosik and his men into her hands, but he could quite well imagine the incredulous lift of his father’s eyebrows. He wouldn’t do that to Oressa, so he said instead, “Then word c
ame from Caras, and we thought—we all thought Bherijda ruled here. We believed you a prisoner, sire, and word of an alliance a mere ruse on Bherijda’s part. I believed that. Prince Gajdosik thought we could take the palace and capture his brother, and—and—”

  “And myself,” said the king flatly. “And thus claim Parianasaku’s artifact for your own after all. Yes. I see.”

  Gulien shook his head, adamant on this one point. “Not for my own. Never for my own, sire. I thought . . . Forgive me for saying yet once more that I thought it best to return this artifact to the Kieba. I still think it important to do that, sire, and wish you would do so—”

  “My son, you know less than you believe of this matter. I shall shortly demonstrate, I hope, that we may claim the Kieba’s power and assume her role and that the world will not end when we do so.”

  “Sire, I . . . I think perhaps you may have been hasty in assuming—”

  “My son, enough.”

  Unable to defy that flat tone, Gulien lowered his head.

  To his complete surprise Oressa took a small step forward and protested, “Father—”

  Their father looked at her, and she stuttered to a halt, mute and helpless.

  The king turned back to Gulien, by all appearances dismissing his daughter completely. “My son, you have been persuaded by a woman who in no way holds our best interests or the best interests of mortal men as her highest priority. Overawed by the Kieba’s name and reputation, you have accepted her word and discarded mine. This is in some part understandable, but neither wise nor acceptable.” The king paused. Then he said, his tone flat, “Now you may beg my pardon.”

  Gulien said immediately, sincerely, “I beg your pardon, sire.”

  The king set an elbow on the arm of his chair, rested his chin on the back of his hand, and was silent, considering. Gulien didn’t move. He tried not even to breath. He half believed his father would refuse to grant his pardon; he would not have been surprised if the king had declared, You are no longer my heir. But Osir Madalin merely asked, “Tell me, my son: What shall I do with Prince Gajdosik Garamanaj?”

  Gulien hadn’t expected this. He did not know how to answer. He said at last, “He—I—he surrendered himself and all his men to me. He was due protection from me in return, and I failed him. You know Bherijda ordered all his men killed, even after he promised to spare them. Prince Gajdosik—sire, he has suffered enough.”

  “He has more men,” murmured King Osir. “Thousands, I believe, provocatively landed in the north, near Addas.”

  “He put them in my hand,” Gulien repeated, not even glancing at Oressa.

  “Did he?” said the king, but not in a way that encouraged any answer.

  The inner door of the apartment opened. Gajdosik came in, with Kedmes at his back. The clothing the Tamaristan prince had been given fit him. Two of his fingers had been splinted. His hand was still swollen; bruises still showed dusky on his face, but he looked much better. His wrists were bound again, however, this time with wide cuffs of leather linked by a short chain. He is my prisoner, King Osir had said, and Gajdosik was plainly meant to feel so.

  Gajdosik’s glance went to Gulien, still kneeling, and then to Oressa, and finally to their father. He walked slowly forward and bowed to King Osir, the precise degree proper for a foreign prince facing a king not his own. Then, straightening, he waited.

  Osir paid no attention to Gajdosik, plainly meaning to let the Tamaristan prince wait, as Gajdosik had no choice but to do. Instead he said, “My son, come,” and rose, gesturing for Gulien to accompany him, and led the way farther into the apartment.

  Without a word, with only a quick glance for his sister—Gulien hoped he didn’t look too desperate—he got to his feet and followed their father.

  The bathing room was small but well appointed, with the servants already pouring clean water into the basin. Towels and fresh clothing had already been laid out, Gulien’s own, brought from his own apartment.

  The king tilted his head toward the basin and leaned his hip against the edge of the table that held the soaps and towels, regarding Gulien dispassionately. “Bathe,” he ordered briefly. “And tell me now what you declined to tell me in your sister’s presence. Did that Tamaristan prince dishonor Oressa?”

  Gulien, his shirt half off, briefly froze, his memory stuttering over the fact that he had found his sister and Prince Gajdosik waiting for him together within the Kieba’s mountain . . . that they had been unchaperoned there for days, with none of Oressa’s women about her, no Carastindin folk at all, only the Tamaristan prince and his people.

  But almost at once he remembered Prince Gajdosik’s dismay at the accusation Gulien had leveled at him at their very first meeting, the painful dignity with which the Tamaristan prince had presented himself to Gulien on their second meeting within the Kieba’s mountain, and the quiet self-possession with which Gajdosik had begged generosity for his people. The man Gulien had faced on those occasions had been defeated, but he had not been guilty.

  The man he had ridden beside from the mountain to Caras, the man who had faced without flinching the Kieba’s cool displeasure and Prince Bherijda’s spite and King Osir’s cold authority—Gulien found he could not believe any such offense of that man.

  Besides . . . no. No. There had been nothing of that kind of offense in Oressa’s manner. Instead she’d spoken up for Gajdosik, argued with him, even teased him as though he were a friend.

  Gulien dropped his shirt in a heap beside the basin, faced his father, and said in his most decisive tone, “I think that is impossible, sir.”

  The king studied him. “You cannot think it necessary to protect your sister by concealing any such matter from me . . . no? Very well.” He gave a slight nod, provisionally accepting this judgment. “Then, taking the matter from the other side, has that weak-witted girl conceived some romantic notion about the Tamaristan?”

  Gulien snorted. “Oressa? Hardly. Besides, I can’t see that she’d have had time, even had the circumstances been conducive to romance, which I very much doubt.”

  His father lifted an eyebrow. “In my experience, foolish infatuation seldom requires long acquaintance. Rather the reverse. Shared danger is certainly conducive to romance. I gather you think Oressa unlikely to be subject to such foolishness.”

  He added this last with faint incredulity, so that Gulien, goaded, answered a little more forcefully than he would have intended. “Most unlikely, yes. You have always held Oressa too lightly.”

  “Clean yourself up,” Osir ordered, dispassionate as always. He didn’t argue. He seldom argued. That was one reason it was so difficult to change his mind about anything. But Gulien thought his father now seemed . . . a little thoughtful, perhaps.

  Stripping off his remaining clothing, Gulien lowered himself into the warm water, hissing slightly. He had no memory of taking any particular blow during that last hopeless struggle when both he and Prince Gajdosik had tried so hard to stop Bherijda from murdering Gajdosik’s men, but plainly he had taken more than one. Only the odd contusion, for Bherijda’s people had obviously been ordered to be careful of his life and health, but he felt every bruise now.

  “Your pendant,” his father said, shifting suddenly a step closer to the basin. “The Kieba gave you that?”

  Startled, Gulien moved a hand involuntarily to protect the crystalline falcon on its chain, realized it, and made himself drop his hand. “No, sir. I’ve had it for many years. I found it when I was a boy.” He didn’t explain where he’d found the bit of crystal, or that it had seemed to give him dreams even as a child, or that the kephalos had called it a key, or that it had somehow gotten into his blood and predisposed him to the kephalos’s purpose. He couldn’t guess what of that his father might already know, but he hardly saw how any of it would be safe to put into words now.

  Osir studied the falcon for a long moment. He asked at last, “Would it harm you to put it aside?”

  Gulien shook his head, not in denial, but faint
ly incredulous of the question, of his father’s obvious awareness that the crystal was no natural stone. And if Osir had seen this pendant years ago, would he have known even then that his son had somehow come upon a broken shard from an artifact, or a fragment of the kephalos, or anyway a bit of crystal that was in some manner uncanny? Gulien guessed now that this must be so. If his father had seen it, recognized it, taken it away immediately . . . Gulien could hardly imagine. Except that everything would be very different.

  He said, almost gently, “I don’t think it matters anymore. I think it’s too late. I don’t think it would make any difference at all whether I put it aside or swallowed it whole.” In fact, he knew —some part of him knew, some echo of memory that wasn’t his—that this was true.

  Perhaps hearing this certainty, perhaps knowing from his own studies that this was true, Osir nodded, frowning. “Does your sister wear a similar pendant?”

  “No, sir.” Again Gulien was quite certain. If his sister had ever come upon a shard of the Kieba’s crystal, then she, too, would have possessed a predisposition.

  This, too, Osir seemed to accept. But, startling Gulien, his father asked abruptly, “I gather that you believe your sister cried out on purpose, in order to balk Bherijda’s intentions? She was not merely overcome with hysterical terror?”

  Gulien could not quite prevent himself from rolling his eyes. “Oh, indeed, hysterical terror. No, of course she did it on purpose.” Accepting a servant’s arm, he stood, carefully, and took the offered towel. No doubt it was ridiculously shallow to feel so much better merely for the chance to bathe and dress in fresh clothing, but he could not deny that he did feel less desperate. Though he was sufficiently stiff to be grateful for the servant’s assistance with the shirt.