The Mountain of Kept Memory

by Rachel Neumeier

  Everyone ducked away from the expanding star of light and fire except Osir, who drew his other hand sharply across the edge of the blade close to the hilt and then laid his bloody palm against the burning ruby. Red light blazed between his fingers and then went out, and the star vanished, leaving them all in a dim, silent room with the Kieba’s headless golem body limp and abandoned on the dais and her—its—head near the far wall.

  In the shocked instant that followed, Gulien jerked himself free from the magister’s grip. As though his movement released them all, Bherijda drew breath, took a step toward the Kieba’s headless body, whirled toward King Osir, and said furiously, “Fool! That is only a golem! Look at it! That cannot be the seat of her power.”

  Osir kept his attention on the body of the golem. He said softly, “Perhaps it is the seat of her power.”

  “Never tell me you expected this! She put a golem here to draw our attention—she never intended to face us herself. How am I to master the Kieba if she is not here?” In his rage, he actually stamped his foot.

  Osir shrugged. “I don’t imagine you can.” He held his cut hand loosely clenched. The ruby in the sword hilt now looked exactly like any big, impressive jewel. He was studying the body, his expression merely thoughtful.

  Prince Bherijda said, “You—”

  The kephalos interrupted suddenly and coldly. “The Kieba has died. The superior position has been vacated. Emergency conditions obtain. Ancillary positions are liable to promotion. Gulien Madalin—”

  “She died? Her real body died too?” But Gulien understood: that blazing ruby in the hilt of his father’s sword was Parianasaku’s Capture. His father had used Parianasaku’s artifact against the Kieba’s golem body. He had captured her awareness, exactly as she had feared, and her living body, wherever it was, weakened and near death as it was, had not been able to sustain the shock. He said grimly to the kephalos, “All right, listen to me—”

  But at the same time, Prince Bherijda exclaimed, “The superior position, vacated!” and turned quickly toward the chair. The runes on the face of Bherijda’s medallion, Tonkaïan’s Resolve, blazed to life, almost familiar, not to Gulien exactly, but to some half-held memory within him. They were old runes. That was an old artifact. Old and dangerous and now nearly awake.

  “Hostile assumption of superior position disallowed,” stated the kephalos. Around them, the black crystal walls and the dais, the ceiling, and the floor all filled with light and then cleared, becoming transparent as water. But Gulien stared in horror as the ruby in his father’s sword once again filled with light too. Its star started to lift itself free of the ruby once more, slowly revolving as it brightened and lengthened. Osir held the sword up in both hands, increasingly hidden by the burning light of the ruby. All the light in the room seemed to bend toward the Capture. All the light and sound and texture in the world—

  Suddenly everything seemed to be happening at once: The remaining Tamaristan magister caught up the crystalline rod, hesitated for the barest fraction of a second, and closed his hand down on the needles. Immediately the magister’s eyes glazed over, and he swayed, but he didn’t fall. At the same time, Bherijda, with a thin sound of terror, rushed forward, tore the medallion off its chain, slammed it flat against the back of the chair, and held it there while tracing its central rune with the tip of a finger. He had tilted his head back and squinted his eyes nearly shut, as though he was terrified to be so close either to the chair or to his own artifact.

  Then King Osir slowly lowered his sword, the light of its star ebbing. Beginning around the tip of the sword and then rippling outward, the crystal slowly became opaque.

  “Kephalos!” Gulien said urgently, and the kephalos began to answer, but fell silent before it uttered even a single word.

  “Gods!” Bherijda breathed, his tone almost reverent, like a prayer. He pulled his medallion away from the chair and leaned on the chair himself, his expression dazed.

  Then the magister groaned, and his face twisted. Gulien thought, vengefully satisfied, that at least the Kieba’s enemy wouldn’t long outlive her. There wouldn’t be anything left of him except a kind of diffused awareness in the kephalos—except, it occurred to him, there wasn’t anything left of the Kieba but that same kind of diffuse presence, and that was a disaster.

  Then the magister’s expression smoothed out. He smiled. His face was calm, and he was smiling. Gulien knew that he had, whatever the kephalos had said, managed to master the kephalos—or at least he must be close to doing so. Prince Bherijda thought so too. He stared at his magister, his face twisted with satisfied ambition as well as with fear, but he drew a knife from his boot and started forward, plainly meaning to cut his own magister’s throat, stop him from taking the superior position. Then he would himself follow the pathway the man had mapped out.

  Gulien understood all this as though Bherijda had painstakingly explained it to him, but he also thought it was too late. He thought the magister would take the mastery and claim the superior position, and that no one, not Bherijda nor Gulien nor the kephalos, would be able to stop him. Perhaps the Kieba might have, but her awareness must now exist only as scattered, diffused memories in the kephalos.

  And then he realized, with a terror that mixed oddly with triumph, that this might not be true. Of course the Kieba’s identity had not diffused into the kephalos. That was the whole point of Parianasaku’s Capture.

  And that being so, he saw there might yet be a way to defeat all the Kieba’s enemies and save the Kieba herself. One way to save everything. Or everything that mattered. Fear ran through him, but distantly, as though the insight left little room for terror.

  He said quickly, urgently, “Kephalos! Do you now contain the Kieba’s memories?”

  “No, Gulien,” answered the kephalos, its tone as indifferent as ever, and stopped, answering only the question he’d actually asked.

  If the Kieba’s mind and awareness and memory hadn’t yet dissolved into the kephalos, Gulien knew exactly where they must be. He knew Parianasaku’s Capture—he remembered it, with a memory that couldn’t be his but felt real and solid. Without pausing, without letting himself think, Gulien took three quick steps toward his father and snatched the sword out of his hands, heedless of the sharp blade and of his father’s startled attempt to step back. Gulien brought one hand down hard upon the needles rising from the chair’s arm and closed his other hand firmly over Parianasaku’s Capture.

  The room around him vanished. If his father tried to take back his sword, Gulien wasn’t aware of it. If Bherijda did anything using Tonkaïan’s Resolve, he didn’t know it. He was aware only of the rushing clamor of memory and vision within the kephalos, among which his own identity was lost as one pebble among a multitude in a spring-flooded creek. In all the rushing flood of memory, there was only one point of stability.

  Gulien’s mind divided endlessly, pouring out like the thousand flooding streams brought by the spring rains. There was far too much; he couldn’t begin to make sense of anything. It did not precisely hurt. But the multiplicity of vision was harder to endure than pain. He struggled to limit his vision. He knew—he remembered—that mastering the kephalos meant inhabiting its passionless, powerful mind so that he could encompass and understand everything at once. But he discovered immediately that he could not do anything of the kind. He had not been ready, and he was losing himself within the diffuse mind of the kephalos’s. He could feel himself losing his sense of himself already.

  So he let himself go. He gave himself up.

  Parianasaku’s Capture had not been made as a trap. It had been made as a haven. Even while Gulien’s own awareness shredded in the storm of memory and vision, Parianasaku’s Capture unfolded, like a coal blooming into flame or a bud bursting into flower, and the Kieba’s awareness and identity, emerging whole and unharmed, caught his and enclosed his awareness within her own.

  Gulien gave her his urgent knowledge of Bherijda, of the magister, of the beheaded body of her
golem, of King Osir. He also gave her his own mind and identity, solidly anchored in his living body; all his frustrated anger from the past days; his terror; and his faith that she would use what he gave her to do what he couldn’t.

  Gulien’s awareness somehow blurred and simultaneously clarified as the Kieba took what he offered her. The Kieba’s awareness, in contrast, towered within and around his. The kephalos was like a thousand sparkling drops of water, but the Kieba was the flood tide that cast them into the air. Only she was really like an ocean that condensed itself into a cup, rushing inward from all directions. Gulien was the cup, and the Kieba poured herself into him and anchored herself in his mind and his awareness and his mortal body.

  Bherijda’s magister trembled on the edge of mastery; in another instant he would achieve it. But the kephalos denied him and denied him, and he sought a way around its denial, and so the instant of mastery stretched out and out. It seemed to Gulien that the Kieba had all the time in the world to close her awareness first around his own, sorting his memory and identity and self out from the flood. Then she encompassed the magister’s awareness. And then—Gulien was almost aware of it as it happened—she anchored her awareness and identity in the magister’s living body, cast his identity and consciousness and self out into the rushing flood of the kephalos, and simultaneously loosed her possession of Gulien’s body and restored his own mind to its proper place.

  In the same stretched instant, the kephalos, freed from all constraint, caught up Bherijda, along with Tonkaïan’s Resolve; Osir Madalin with Parianasaku’s Capture; all three soldiers; and even Gulien—everyone but the Kieba herself and the body of the magister, which she now possessed. It flung them all, in one wild surge of power, out of the mountain into the world under the open sky. And then it instantly slammed shut every connection between the world and the heart of its mountain and locked itself away within crystallized memory. Gulien, abandoned, utterly incapable of balance, took one blind step and fell, and would have sprawled helplessly on the sand except someone caught him. And even in that moment of abandoned confusion, part of him knew it was his father, and was comforted.

  CHAPTER 25

  Oressa thought at first that they had managed to catch Prince Bherijda unawares and pin him between the Kieba’s mountain and her own—well, Gajdosik’s—men. Her people outnumbered Bherijda’s by so much that she even asked Laasat to have a man ride back to Caras to let Gulien know they’d arrived at the Kieba’s mountain and what was happening, and Laasat agreed without hesitation, so she knew she was right and that they had already nearly won. Later she would surely be able to send another messenger to tell her brother that they’d won and everything was fine.

  They had surprise on their side, and a lot more men than Bherijda had brought, and everything went perfectly. Laasat said that never happened, but it did this time, though Oressa was sorry to see Carastindin soldiers supporting Bherijda’s and wished she could get them out of the way, and then realized that actually the Carastindin contingent did not appear to be very enthusiastic about fighting.

  She looked for but did not find her father, but then her father was too practical to put himself in danger at the forefront of battle. He would be standing somewhere he could see the field of battle, murmuring quiet, effective orders to messengers who would in turn relay them to his officers . . . apparently orders to hold back. She wondered if her father had realized she was with Gajdosik’s army, but didn’t see how he could have. She, too, was at the rear, up on a horse where men could see her because Laasat said that put heart into the men, though she didn’t know why it should, as she certainly wasn’t in command. That was Laasat. Though probably even if her father knew she was here, it would make no difference to him.

  Bherijda’s soldiers had burned a lot of the farm and its lands. Dead mules lay in the farmyard and dead cows in the pastures, and the fields still smoldered. She hoped it hadn’t been the Carastindin soldiers who had done that, though they must at least have stood aside and watched it done. At least no one had burned the main house, within which she hoped Tania and her whole big family sheltered—there were no people lying dead among the mules.

  “Prince Bherijda will have hoped to draw out the Keppa,” Laasat began.

  “Yes, I know,” Oressa said impatiently. She understood, because everyone had explained it, that Bherijda had meant not to kill the Kieba, but to defeat her and take her power for his own. Bherijda had trained as a magister, which Gajdosik never had. Gajdosik had meant just to make a place for himself in Carastind and had only been driven to the Kieba’s mountain by desperation. But Bherijda had always intended to defeat and master the Kieba if he could. They had all those peculiar ideas about the Kieba in Tamarist, and Bherijda was obviously a pretty knowledgeable magister with at least one powerful artifact. Oressa was glad she had decided to come after him and had caught him before he could do anything. It served him right.

  Then Laasat told her, which she should have realized before but hadn’t, that Prince Bherijda wasn’t with his men at all.

  “He’s already gone across the wall,” Laasat said.

  Oressa looked again for her father. She couldn’t see him anywhere. She was aware of a sinking feeling right through her whole body. She said, “My father—” and stopped. She said finally, “I’m going up the mountain too, then. I’ll find them. I’ll—”

  “No,” said Laasat.

  “Laasat—”

  “No,” said Laasat again, even more firmly. “Your Highness, no. In a very little while we will call for the surrender of Bherijda’s men, and for that of your father’s men also. We will offer terms. You will offer terms—Your Highness.”

  Oressa stared at him. She’d thought her important role was to bring Gajdosik’s men here and then let them loose to defeat Bherijda’s scorpion soldiers. She hadn’t realized she had a role beyond that. Yet it was immediately obvious that Laasat was right and that if her father had crossed the Kieba’s wall and not returned, then his men, especially, would probably yield to her. They probably wouldn’t surrender to any Tamaristan officer. Especially if they were used to Tamaristans like Bherijda’s barbaric scorpion soldiers, who burned farms and slaughtered mules. She began to say that she understood, only before she could, there was a strange hard explosive sound, as though someone had fired a cannon or set off a powder bomb. There was no actual explosion. Only grit and dust swirled in an abrupt eddy of hot air, and suddenly her father and Prince Bherijda and Gulien and a scant handful of Carastindin soldiers all staggered into shape on the slope of the mountain above the wall.

  Oressa recognized her father first. Oddly, she recognized him before she even recognized Gulien. She didn’t recognize her brother until he collapsed and their father caught him. Her father caught Gulien, broke his fall, and knelt down, easing Gulien to the gritty soil of the mountain. Oressa tried helplessly to decide whether her brother was alive or dead. Would her father have been so gentle with his—his body, if Gulien were dead? But she couldn’t decide.

  Then her father stood up again, looking, even from this distance, coldly furious. All three soldiers with him carried naked swords, but her father was the one who looked dangerous. Prince Bherijda stood all by himself, drawn up to his full height, his hands on his hips, like he was acting the role of a conqueror. But Osir Madalin, surveying the scene below with impatient disdain, was the one who looked like a king.

  Below, the struggle had paused at the crashing explosion, and then the pause had lengthened as the Carastindin men recognized their king and Bherijda’s men their prince. Gajdosik’s men fell back, allowing the pause to linger, waiting to see what would happen. Oressa’s father strode straight down the mountain. Bherijda hurried in the king’s wake, plainly furious to be forced to trail behind like a servant. Gulien didn’t move; he lay where their father had left him, limp in the fierce sun. Oressa wanted to run up the mountain and see for herself whether he was living or dead, but she was frozen in place, staring at her father. He had seen
her too now, and he altered his direction so that he would come to the Kieba’s wall just opposite her position.

  Oressa didn’t know what to do. She thought maybe she should call for the surrender of Bherijda’s men, since hers—Gajdosik’s—still had the advantage. She half wanted to call for the surrender of the Carastindin soldiers, too, only she tried to imagine her father allowing his soldiers to surrender to her, and she just couldn’t. She tried to imagine herself defying him, ordering her men to take him prisoner, but her imagination stuttered to a halt. She wished fervently that Gajdosik himself were here. He would know what to do—and he wasn’t afraid of her father.

  But she knew she wasn’t going to try to command Gajdosik’s men to yield to her father either, especially with her father allied to Prince Bherijda. She really couldn’t imagine them obeying any such command and suddenly realized Laasat was thinking the same thing, and that was why he had sounded so stifled. He was trying to think how to tell her that, whoever wore Gajdosik’s ring and was nominally in command, he was now going to refuse any order she gave him unless that order was to capture her father and Bherijda and take them prisoner. Or would he demand their deaths? They were both enemies of his real prince.

  He said again, “Your Highness—”

  Oressa held up a hand. “Wait,” she said sharply, and to her surprise Laasat fell silent.

  Her father had come to the wall. Two of his soldiers made a step for him with their hands and lifted him to the top. He did not hurry to step down again, though more of his men ran to help him. Instead, he stood for a long moment, surveying the confusion and disorder of the recent battle.

  His gaze came to rest at last on Oressa, and he stepped smoothly off the wall—his men were there to help him, and he stepped from the shoulder of one to the bent back of another and then to the ground. Prince Bherijda’s men rushed to help their prince too, but Oressa’s attention was locked on her father. He strode through the recently embattled men. Whichever banner they followed, they fell back and let him pass. He stopped a few steps away from her horse and stood for a long moment, his eyes on her face. Oressa could see nothing in his expression but his usual cool indifference. She waited, in an agony of impatience. He had to say something, to give her something she could respond to, so she would know what to do. But when he did not, at last she demanded, “Gulien isn’t dead, is he? Tell me!”