The Gardens of Almhain

by Laura Mallory

  Reminded of the future, which rested in the hands of those who in their grief wished to bring endings and no beginnings, tears spilled from Pandion’s shining eyes. A child’s reaction to the betrayal of truths he’d believed would remain true forever.

  He fixed his watery gaze upon the ivory necklace that rested on the Nameless’ lap. A silly trinket, he thought, ugly and strange. Somewhere in his memory was lodged the meaning of it, if not the use; it reeked of power over mortal follies like dreams and destinies.

  The Child of Time had never had interest in such things. Never, that is, until the Isle of Dusk was destroyed. Then, for the first time, Pandion had grieved for the ending of something that he loved, and in his grief he had changed.

  Still a child, a child no more, caught in dawning awareness of life and meaning beyond the present moments, he had watched his mother the Goddess retreat from the world in sorrow, and the God begin summoning the armies from Beyond.

  Now that he knew what love was, he did not want to lose it again.

  “There is a chance,” he told the Nameless. “It is a small path, a narrow, high path, laid by the High One with all that remains of his love for this world.”

  The Nameless sighed, bones aching from lifetimes beyond the lifetime she might have lived, had she been born as her parents had wanted. “Then we will do all we can to guide those who must walk it,” she said quietly. “The queen that will never be queen, and those who would protect her.”

  “You will aid me?” asked the Child of Time.

  If she were not so old or so tired, she might have reminded him that his soul had been formed by the will of a Goddess, and despite her powers and longevity, she was a mere mortal still. She might have turned him away, even then, to be alone once more and retreat into darkness, silently waiting for the end of all beginnings.

  Perhaps it was the small part of her that remained purely human that caused her to bend her head in acquiescence. Or maybe it was because, after so many unnatural years of life, the Nameless didn’t wish to be so anymore.

  “I have not left this cave in centuries,” she said.

  Pandion smiled, the smile of an ageless boy. “Then I will show you the sky.”

  Chapter Eleven

  In the dream there was no pain, for pain held no memory, only emotion. Her vision was danced upon by colors, sparkling reds and blues at the edges of fantasy. The sands were soft beneath her bare feet, tiny white grains rounded by time and friction. Warm aqua water, silky with salt, lapped and splashed around her ankles.

  There was no passing of Time here, for if It were present the dream would not be possible. Instead there was just Alesia, the sense of it as fundamental and real as mortality, as a beating heart. Behind her rose a majestic cliff, painted rose and magenta in the dusk. Atop that peak, where the land was molded up into a wide, flat hill, stood Sanctuary. Surrounding the holy place, jutting against the drop of the cliffs and blending into the forests to the north and west, were the Gardens of Almhain.

  She wished to look upon them, and in so wishing, turned her head.

  The dream was bled dry of color and Alesia was no more. No cliffs, no soft white sands and shallow warm waters. Heat washed over her face and chest; the acrid tang of smoke touched her nostrils. She looked but could not see beyond the shadows.

  Pain holds no memory, but the opposite does not prove true.

  Out of the shadows came a woman, old and limping, and where she walked the darkness fled. She chanted as she came, strange words that held no meaning except to the forces of memory she battled.

  All at once the shifting, colorless world dropped away, and Isidora stood again on Alesia’s shore. The ocean stretched dark and golden, the setting sunlight moving like music across the beach, around her body. And before her, still real, was an old woman.

  “It was more difficult to find you than I had imagined.”

  The woman’s thin lips had not moved, and yet Isidora heard the words as clearly as if they’d been spoken at her ear. “Who are you?” she asked, and the sound of her voice was hollow and unreal.

  Black eyes sparkled with laughter. “A simple question you ask, but one that has no answer.”

  Isidora shook her head once, then again, feeling each strand of her hair as it moved against her neck. “I don’t understand.”

  The old woman lifted her face, scenting the air. When her gaze lowered, her eyes were no longer black alone, but shone gold around the irises.

  “Isidora Sitha Fiannan,” she said, and the naming held power and command. “You must seek the cleric who is not a cleric and a scholar with eyes that do not see and a tongue that does not speak. Your journey does not end with script on a page, but flows north to the river that runs against nature.”

  Suddenly Isidora realized that she was dreaming, and the dream was not a common one. “What are you talking about?” she asked urgently. “Who are you?”

  The woman sighed, and the atmosphere of the dream shifted again, shadows rising like fingers of smoke around the beach of memory. “I am no one, nothing, nameless,” she said. “That is all I may tell you, for I know nothing more.”

  “Wait!” cried Isidora as the woman turned away.

  The bent shoulders paused, turned back, and dark eyes regarded her curiously. “Yes, child?”

  Isidora took an anxious step forward. “Are you a messenger from Beyond, from my parents?”

  White sparkled in the depths of black eyes and the shadows grew higher, closer. “I am not,” she replied. “Though I knew your mother once, when she was young and foolish. For the sake of all things, I hope you are not.”

  Waking came suddenly, consciousness returning at such speed that Isidora was only partially aware of jerking upright and stumbling from the bed. She nearly tripped over the bent figures of Arturo and Diego as she lurched toward the empty washbasin resting on the cabinet by the door. Hands planted on either side of the valuable porcelain bowl, she retched until her knees collapsed beneath her.

  When she could breathe without pain, she opened her eyes and stared dazedly at the men standing before her, their faces creased with anxiety.

  “Are you all right, my lady?” Diego asked much too loudly.

  She brought the back of her hand to her mouth, all at once realizing what she’d done and what had been witnessed. Looking down to conceal a pounding flush of embarrassment, she mumbled, “Fine. Please fetch Finnéces.”

  Diego’s footsteps raced from the room, leaving one pair of booted feet in her direct line of vision. “There’s no need to be ashamed,” Arturo said softly.

  “I’m not ashamed,” she snapped, and to unsettle him, she added, “It is a perfectly common occurrence when a mystic enters unguarded dreams.”

  Though it was unlikely to be real, it felt as though the temperature of the room dropped several degrees. “Whose dreams did you invade?” he asked, still with a mild tone.

  She shook her head, then wished she hadn’t as her stomach rolled. “No one’s,” she muttered. “Never mind.”

  He might have replied, but just then Finnéces rushed into the room, Diego and Edan on his heels. Isidora suffered the elder man’s fussing, allowing him to relocate her to an armchair by the window and wash her face with a cool cloth. Soon enough, the Calabrians realized she was not seriously ill and departed.

  The moment the door closed behind them, Isidora reached up and stalled Finnéces’ ministrations. “Do you remember when I was a novice priestess, and had just been taught how to enter another’s dreams?” she asked.

  Finnéces nodded, eyes crinkling briefly in mirth. “After a week there were so many protests against you that your mother forbade you to use that particular gift.”

  Isidora smiled wearily. “My dreams were just visited by a stranger, a crone with great power. She had a message for me, though I do not understand her words.” She frowned, recallin
g, “I must seek a cleric who is not a cleric and a scholar who does not see or speak.”

  There was a rustle of cloth, the noise deliberate, and she and Finnéces jerked in surprise, heads whipping toward the door. Only Edan was unperturbed, and continued to sit with his head bent, drumming his fingers together.

  Arturo stood against the doorframe, face dark, eyes gleaming. “Hadrian Visconte is a cleric, but no longer embraced by the Church.” His expression grew darker, haunted. “As for the scholar who does not see or speak, he is Hadrian’s father. His name is Lucero Tuturro, and he resides in the Vault de Viana beneath the Academe.”

  Isidora could not help a small sound of exclamation and delight. She stood and took several quick steps toward Arturo, the eavesdropping offense forgotten. “This is wonderful news,” she proclaimed. “This scholar must be the one my mother told me of, the messenger who will record my story.”

  Arturo shook his head sharply. “Perhaps once he might have, but no longer.”

  Some of her elation slipped away. “What do you mean?”

  “Your dream mystic forgot to mention several details. Lucero Tuturro cannot see, it is true, for he has no eyes. He can speak, but he has held his tongue for six years. He will not record anything, for he has no hand with which to write.”

  “Sweet Gods,” Isidora murmured. “What happened to him?”

  Strangely, Arturo did not reply, but swept a bow of courtly perfection, pivoted sharply, and walked away. Nonplussed, Isidora turned to Finnéces, whose eyes were glassy with knowledge and sadness.

  “Come, my lady, and sit,” he said, ushering her back to the chair. “This is not a story to be told while standing.”

  Later, when her tears had dried and she was no longer certain for whom she had wept, Isidora rose and chose a modest gown of a soft, dewy gray from her newly full closet. She left her hair unbound, an immodest style in Vianalon but one that Diego had assured her was allowed during mourning. It seemed there would be no end to the heaviness in her heart, so as she combed through the thick curls she imagined herself in the distant future, hands thin and trembling with age, drawing a comb through unbound white hair.

  The ivory comb clicked softly as she placed it on the dressing table. She scrutinized her reflection for another moment, then rose and left the bedroom, slipping quietly into the corridor. In the sitting room, Diego and Edan occupied armchairs near a window. The soldier looked up from a book at the sound of her footsteps.

  He studied her face, nodded. “So, now you know.”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  He seemed on the verge of saying something more, but with a slight shake of his head he returned his attention to his reading.

  “Edan,” she said softly. “Will you accompany me to visit the princess?”

  The boy nodded vigorously and stood. As she turned toward the door, she answered Diego’s unspoken question. “I do not wish to be alone.”

  The calm, unquestioning silence of Edan’s presence was a comfort as they walked through the palace in a supposed search for the gardens. It soon became apparent that they were lost, but Isidora was unbothered. She cared little whether she kept her appointment with the princess, was almost certain Serephina didn’t expect her company. When asked by a servant if she needed directions, she replied that she knew exactly where they were.

  In truth, she had no recollection of the wide, exotically furnished hallway, or the precise turns that had led them there. Massive double doors, plated in gold, stood at the end of the corridor. She began to turn around, to retrace their steps toward the center of the palace, when one of the doors opened.

  Hadrian Visconte stepped into view. From his expression, he was as surprised to see Isidora as she was to see him. Edan made a breathy noise; she knew exactly what he would have said could he speak, for the same thought was in her head.

  The cleric who is not a cleric.

  “My lady,” Hadrian said, bowing slightly. The door behind him was still open, but the room beyond was shadowed. “What brings you to doors of Tanalon’s king?”

  Isidora started, looking uncertainly at Edan. He merely stared back at her, unblinking.

  “We were on our way to visit the princess and became lost,” she said to Hadrian. “Could you direct us toward the gardens?”

  There was a sudden flurry of activity in the room behind Hadrian, and shortly a man in blue robes appeared. He whispered fervently in Hadrian’s ear; the cleric listened, occasionally glancing Isidora’s way. When the message had been delivered, the physician withdrew from sight and Hadrian took a small step back, spreading the door wide. His expression was indecipherable.

  “My lady, the king requests an audience.”

  Isidora looked down at her plain gown. “I cannot—”

  “I’m sorry,” he interjected, affecting a small shrug. “A request from the king is not a request, really, but a command.”

  She swallowed and nodded. “Wait here,” she told Edan. “I will return shortly.”

  The first step she took toward the golden doors was the hardest, full of trepidation and rage for the man who on Alesia had been called a demon. She had learned all about the Year of Death during her schooling, but had never imagined she would come face to face with its instigator. For several moments she entertained the thought of herself as an assassin, taking holy vengeance upon the man who had slaughtered so many of her brethren. It wasn’t until she reached the door—and saw the compassion on Hadrian Visconte’s face—that she remembered herself.

  No one death, however great, would bring Alesia or its people back to life.

  The room within was lit by several torches mounted in ornate brackets along the wall, their glow reflecting dimly from the marble floor. They crossed the large antechamber and a physician beckoned her forward, fingers twitching as he waved her into another room. Despite the weak light, gold shown from the furniture and walls, and the carpet beneath their feet was thick and soft.

  There was a muted thump, and Isidora spun to find the physician and Hadrian gone, the door soundly closed.

  “Come here, child,” spoke a reedy voice. “I would look upon you.”

  She looked toward the grand bed but it stood empty. A motion caught her eye and she turned toward the empty hearth. The top of King Armando’s head was barely visible over the back of the chair in which he sat. A skeletal hand lifted from the armrest, motioning her near.

  Her footsteps were silent on the carpet as she walked around the chair and looked down on the dying king. His dark eyes regarded her with startling alertness in a face that was pallid with disease.

  “Sit, my lady.”

  Seeing no alternative but swift execution, she sat in the chair opposite him and folded her hands in her lap. The silence was as stifling as the stale air she breathed.

  “You resemble your mother,” he said at length.

  Her fingers twitched convulsively, her voice emerging airy, “You knew her, your highness?”

  Armando nodded. “I loved her.”

  Isidora struggled over her next breath, choked as she whispered, “What?”

  The king closed his eyes. He shrunk into his chair, weighed down by ghosts she could not see. “I am dying, my lady,” he continued. “I do not think I will last another day.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said weakly.

  His lips quirked briefly. “I do not think you are, and in truth, I am not.” His eyes opened to slits; in the dimness, it was impossible to tell where his gaze was focused. “I have a favor to beg of you, Isidora Fiannan, Lady of Alesia.”

  Sparks of anxiety shot down her arms and legs. She managed to ask, “Yes, your highness?”

  “Touch me.”

  There was no room for misinterpretation in his simple words, no key that might unlock her escape. He must have heard of the Borgetzan’s affliction, known it for what it was. White haze
crowded her vision and she sucked air into her lungs. She saw her mother’s face as she had waited to die, the sorrow in her blue eyes that had no name. The crone had called Gwendolyn a fool, and yet the Lady of Alesia had never been anything but kind and loyal in all she did.

  The face of her father rose in memory, first deathly still and masked in blood, then free of stain, young and laughing as he spun his daughter in the air. Then his features in a somber mask as they sat together before a fire one evening of her youth, alone before her mother joined them.

  “What makes a man a fool, papa?”

  Her father smiled softly, the lines of his face deep in the firelight. “Passion, Isidora.”

  She did not understand what he meant, but nodded sagely as though she did. “And what makes a woman a fool?”

  His smile faltered and he looked away. “Love.”

  A decade later and a woman grown, Isidora stood before the king of Tanalon and lowered her hands toward his face. He sighed in the moment before contact, and whispered softly, “I loved her.”

  Isidora paused, a frown marring the smooth skin of her brow. Her index fingers were poised over Armando’s temples. She stood completely still, waiting for breath to lift the king’s unmoving chest. It did not; never would again. Her hands fell limply to her sides.

  An hour later, Hadrian Visconte found her, sobbing into the hem of the king’s robe.

  Chapter Twelve

  On the night of King Armando’s passing, many leagues west of Vianalon, the self-styled Constable of Vallejo was enjoying an evening meal with his wife and children. His youngest daughter, Maria, who would be eight years old this autumn, was in the act of repeating a joke she’d heard from the lips of one of her father’s soldiers. As the details of the markedly lude jest became clearer, his wife screeched in mock horror and covered her face with a linen napkin. Maria’s older sisters, twins of nearly marriageable age, responded by lowering their forks to their plates and shaking their heads discouragingly.