The Gardens of Almhain

by Laura Mallory

  Manual turned to Arturo. “This is what you had in mind?”

  “Not exactly,” he replied easily.

  What he did not say aloud, but what the Master of Knives read easily in his heart, was that tonight marked three days since Isidora’s message. Devlin watched Arturo speaking with Elazar, his expression animated as they discussed organization and tactics. All the while, beneath the façade of commander beat a strange symphony of heart language.

  The line of power on the peninsula had been broken, almost forever when Alesia burned. But a woman, last of her distinctive blood, had survived. Devlin picked up other messages as well, none of which he completely understood. They were enough, however, to lift his heart with unexpected hope.

  Images of the Lady Fiannan, the swirling blue of her eyes. Water in the desert from an empty flask, beams of fire balanced on her palms, the protection of the land raised against Church soldiers, the rod of Mufahti scattered to ash.

  And in Devlin’s mind whispered a voice, sibilant and course, and he knew it instantly.

  Child of Calabria, do you lissten?

  Yes, Devlin said humbly.

  I carry a treassure of the land, flessh born of my needss, to join it with another treassure of the land, born alsso of my needss. Do you understand?

  Skin pricking with comprehension, he replied, I understand.

  Guard them well, commanded Shenlith.

  With the beat of my heart and skill of my knives, Devlin answered.

  Your oath iss valued and accepted, whispered the dragon. For your sacrificess, I offer a gift and a boon. If you uphold your oath, I will grant the boon your heart sspeaks. The gift iss thiss, for you to do with as you ssee fit…

  The voice faded but the presence of the Derkesthai loomed, expanding until Devlin gained a distorted impression of sky, of dark wings. Then Shenlith’s message was communicated in an instantaneous assault on Devlin’s mind, hundreds of moments of time compacted into the space between beats of an eternal heart.

  When it passed, Devlin opened his eyes. Slowly, as identity returned, he realized that he lay flat on the ground. Mud oozed between his clenched fingers, clung in wet globs to his face. He blinked at the figure crouched above him, the sun shining brilliantly over his shoulder.

  “Devlin?” Arturo asked.

  He heard, but could not reply, for he knew now who Arturo Bellamont was, and could not yet reconcile that knowledge with the man he called friend. A youthful, singsong voice ricocheted within him, the words of the Child of Time to the Nameless, which Shenlith had offered him.

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

  All that remained of Anshar’s love was domhain lár, and thus, one last time, the God had answered the need of the land. A path had been laid down, the cruelest, most narrow of all Long Roads, before the feet of Arturo de Galván and Isidora Fiannan.

  And as the main root of a robust tree sent tendrils of support into the earth, so did all Long Roads branch from and sustain this first one.

  It occurred to Devlin, as he grabbed Arturo’s offered hand and gained his feet, that he was not responsible for awakening domhain lár. That the Taproot did not sleep and did not rest, any more than a tree could be ungrown or an adult returned to the womb. The Longest Road had its beginnings generations before Alesia’s fall, perhaps even before Istar’s flight from Calabria.

  “Are you well?” Arturo asked, with the grating tone of a question repeated several times.

  Devlin nodded, tested his tongue against his teeth. The silent queries of the veiled-ones pressed against his mind, edged with panic. He sent them a quelling assurance. Aloud, he said, “I do not know what came over me.”

  Arturo frowned, plainly skeptical. “Are you certain you’re all right?”

  Beyond, in a nervous spectator’s half-circle, stood Manual, Elazar, and Astin. Of the three, only Astin met Devlin’s stare. Having witnessed a similar episode at the cove in Avosilea, his gaze was curious rather than concerned.

  “I’m fine, really,” he told Arturo.

  The river rushed on, the sun glancing off its surface. Birds squawked overhead, dipped low to survey the water. Somewhere, high above and distant, dark wings rose and fell like waves, like a dream that was Calabria.

  Looking into Arturo’s eyes, Devlin remembered what he’d glimpsed of his heart. The fragile certainty of a man who stood on unfamiliar ground, resting his hopes on faith.

  Low, so that only his ears might hear it, he said, “You are right, Arturo. We need no bridge or dam to traverse this river, for it runs against Nature. Nature comes, even now, to reset its course.” At the look on his face, Devlin’s lips twitched, finally released in a grin. “Astounding, even ludicrous—”

  “But not impossible,” Arturo breathed, then, head thrown back, he hollered, “But not impossible!” Laughing, he slung his arm over Devlin’s muddy shoulders, and the river rushed behind him, and the sun found home in his eyes, burning them bright gold.

  *

  The steps of the last Lady of Alesia were lighter even than those of the veiled-ones. She walked by aid of starlight through the encampment, and where she passed no sentries looked, no horses whinnied, no sleeping bodies stirred. The only man to notice her progress was lying awake in his tent; Devlin did not hear or see her, but felt the resonance of her heart, strong and pulsing in time with the land.

  Arturo Bellamont was awake as well. Wrapped in a heavy cloak, he sat on the ground outside his own tent and watched the night sky. The stars glittered in their abstract constellations, and he was trying to remember the name and story of the one shaped like a horseshoe. In his youth, his mother had been fond of telling the sky-stories and Arturo had been fond of hearing them. He was sure this particular one had something to do with a brave warrior and his horse, and a great battle in the sky.

  Thus, Isidora’s voice came to him like memory of a much beloved and missed story. “Did you expect me to catapult down from the sky, husband?”

  Arturo lowered his gaze as she drew back the hood of her cloak. Distant torchlight and the stars above gave aspect to her face. It was as he remembered it, only more beautiful, perhaps, for the time that had passed since seeing it.

  Nevertheless, he was immediately aware of a new quality to her beauty. Like the story of the horseshoe constellation, it was hard to pin down. Perhaps it was not that her face was changed, but something more innate, translating into the way she stood, so straight and tall, or the grace of her nervously clasped hands.

  “Will you not accept me?” she asked, and there was a hint in the words of the Isidora he’d first met, brave and battered and heartbroken.

  Arturo stood, moved forward from the shadow of the tent so that she might see the wetness on his face. They stood facing each other for a moment more, mirrors of longing. Then he opened his arms, and she darted forward, and they whispered words between kisses, incoherent but no less meaningful for it. She pushed, and he dragged, and they tumbled through the flap of his tent, onto a narrow pallet of blankets. Their bare skins, charged with heat both natural and not, did not feel the night’s chill.

  Overhead, the constellations passed slowly, the horseshoe dipping toward the horizon, its former place in the sky filled by other designs. Not far from Arturo’s tent, Eduardo Vasquez sat in the company of his father, Duke Damáskenos, Prince Ezekiel, and Queen Serephina, retelling in stammering words of the arrival of the ancient serpent, its subsequent flight and Isidora’s awakening.

  The recounting of their journey south was eerily articulate compared to the previous babbling. Eduardo told them concisely and articulately what it was like to ride a flying dragon. No detail was spared, and thus those present came to know that between Shenlith’s first and second spinal ridges there was a large depression of tensile, s
oft skin, where he and Isidora had sat in total comfort.

  It was near dawn when Arturo asked for Isidora’s own story. Her head on his shoulder, lips near to the pulse in his neck, she told him all she could remember of her time in the eternal meadow, of Shenlith’s words, of the awesome flight south.

  “He’s gone, then?” Arturo asked.

  She was silent for moments, then, “Not gone. At least not far.”

  He turned his head, kissed her brow. “And the new amulet? ‘Tool of Calabria’s need’? Did he tell you what we’re to do with it?”

  Drowsy and content, she murmured, “I assume we’ll know, when the time comes.”

  “And how much time, my love, until the Gates open?”

  Her head lifted, blue eyes dark with memory. “Where the moon still shines, it is half-full. When it is shadowed and new, the Gates will open.”

  Arturo sighed. “On the morning when you did not awaken, the Nameless came. She told Serephina that the Stone of Beginning must pass into Luther Viccole’s hands before the Gates open. At your approximation, we have just under two weeks.”

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  He turned on the pallet so that their bodies pressed close, pushed his fingers into her hair. She squirmed closer still, breath sighing over his mouth. Distractedly, he told her, “I’ve found the river that runs against nature.”

  Isidora slid her leg over his, hooked it over his hip. “I know.”

  Startled, he leaned back to stare at her. “You do?”

  She smiled coyly. “A strange anomaly has occurred this night,” she stated in a playfully grave tone. “The mighty Viana has dwindled to a trickle.”

  He jerked. “What? Where has the water gone?” And in darker voice, “When did you accomplish this?”

  Isidora laughed delightedly, moved her free hand over his chest, tracing her fingers lower. “Not in moments of engagement, I assure you.” Words were banished from his head as her fingers found him. “There is a marsh northeast of here, well clear of any settlements,” she continued idly. “For a few days, it will be a true lake.”

  Arturo grabbed her hand, bringing it safely to his chest before he lost all ability to think. “You said once that it would be folly to presume yourself capable of changing the nature of the land,” he reminded her. “What has changed?”

  “I don’t know,” she said frankly. “The power is the same and different, just as I am. Something happened to me—inside me—when Shenlith reawakened the elemental bond.” In a soft tone, she added, “I am no longer a priestess of Istar. The power, it comes not from the Goddess but from the land. It is more natural, more…”

  “Undiluted,” Arturo offered.

  She nodded. “It was so easy, Arturo, and that frightens me.”

  “Power of any kind should always be a little frightening.”

  “And you, commander? Are you frightened?”

  The truth came surprisingly easy to his lips. “Terrified,” he said.

  Her lips quirked, but it was fleeting. “With Alesia and Istar gone from me, I do not know what I am, anymore.”

  “You are a priestess of Calabria,” he said forcefully. “And you are my wife.”

  Some of the darkness left her eyes, which scanned his face as if memorizing it. “I am that,” she whispered. She touched her lips lightly to his. “I missed you.”

  “And I you, my heart.”

  Dawn broke against low clouds, holding their line against rising sun. Heavy dew lay upon the encampment as the bulk of the army, sleeping out of doors, woke to running noses and stiff limbs. The grumbling of complaint was communal, uniting men of Tanalon, Argenta, and Dunak alike around sputtering cooking fires. None relished in the idea of the heavy labor ordered upon them; they were here to fight the Church, not build a dam.

  When the first scouting party returned to the camp, the story they told of a river turned to a stream was met with a variety of curses and once, a sodden loaf of bread thrown by an anonymous hand.

  It was only when the third group of scouts returned and reported the same tidings that the men began to speak of miracles. Eduardo Vasquez, Edan of Alesia, and several pages from Damáskenos darted from fire to fire, spreading word of great mystic, the Lady Fiannan, until Isidora herself was roused from sleep.

  “They’re shouting your name,” Arturo murmured.

  She listened for several moments, caught between embarrassment and pride, then grinned against her husband’s shoulder. “And yours, Bellamont,” she whispered.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The God’s Holiest Church was at full capacity, as it had been every last-day of the week since the raiding of Thieves Alley. High Cleric Luther Viccole knelt with customary piety before the altar, listening with half an ear to the swelling hymns of his flock. Though his knees hurt from prolonged contact with the marble floor and a fiery pain radiated from a cramp in his neck, the discomfort was dim, his mind traveling twisted roads.

  In the front pews, packed like bright, jeweled flowers in a bouquet, were the heads of the thirteen Noble Houses and their extensive families. They listened with apparent devotion to the sermons and prayed as earnestly as any novice cleric, all the while struggling to hide their growing anger for a war which would bring increased taxes and decreased labor forces. Yet they still came, week after week, a sparkling and solemn parade.

  Luther could feel their hatred for him simmering beneath each pious exterior—indeed, he relished it—for without him they were sitting ducks before the arrow of Borgetza. As long as the only standing army within Tanalon was his, they had no choice but to bend to his will. Not even the formidable Duke Alonso of Tuscena, who stood with his pale, forgettable wife at his side, could rise against him. Luther reminded himself of that fact even as he sent a private litany of curses down on the man’s head.

  Since the duke’s arrival five days prior—and that of his eight-hundred loyal liegemen—unrest in the capital had grown threefold. Their appearance had stirred dangerous chaos in the city streets and caused upheaval in the palace’s overcrowded stables. To make matters worse, the dour, blunt-mannered duke hadn’t even paused for refreshment or rest, but strode through the palace like a man bent by obsession.

  There had been no time for Luther to intercept him; instead, he’d arrived flushed and harried at the council chamber just as the duke had begun his address.

  Within the vaulted, circular room that had been the meeting place of the Houses for a hundred years, Tuscena had stood like an unmovable pillar in a tide of his restless peers. His voice, rough and uncultured but compelling nonetheless, had rung piercingly through the tumult.

  The report he gave was crisp and factual. Pandemonium had ensued. Terrin was three days away; already, scouts estimated his numbers at forty-thousand.

  If it wouldn’t have been so problematic, Luther would have ordered the duke executed immediately. Unfortunately, his eight-hundred soldiers would likely complain. The duchy of Tuscena was a favorite among the people; they had guarded Tanalon’s most dangerous border for generations without error or complaint. Civil wars had begun over much less; it was a risk Luther could not take, not with his dreams so close to reality.

  And although Tuscena was the only duchy allowed royal funds to maintain a garrison, Luther had learned that the other Houses could exacerbate unrest in more discreet, infinitely more bothersome ways.

  Like reddened, itchy skin with the promise of a boil beneath, Luther could no longer avoid the truth of the last weeks: the noble Houses were turning from him. Unless drastic measures were taken, it was only a matter of time before one among them seized the kingship with popular support, effectively robbing the cleric of power.

  As it was, the council no longer waited for his arrival to begin their discourses and debates. They no longer deferred to him on matters of warfare and policy; rather, they sought the commanders themselves and
men such as Alonso of Tuscena. They spread nasty rumors to bloat their own egos and pride: that the army of the Church was a tool to wield, the Church Itself a wealthy relative to exploit. Though the gallows were still operational—Luther took care to have at least one round of hangings a week—intentions of control were backfiring, igniting instead centuries-dead nationalism.

  Just this morning, an informant had alluded to rumors of secret meetings among the heads of the Houses. Too afraid for his life to speak clearly, it had finally taken Ummon’s gentle skills to coax from the dying man’s throat the content of the clandestine council.

  The topic on the table was an election, hitherto unheard of in Tanalon succession, of a new king. With his last breath, the informant had spoken the name of the most popular contender. Luther’s hatred of Alonso of Tuscena had eclipsed, if briefly, his feeling for Arturo Bellamont.

  The familiar series of hymns gave way to silence before the service’s end, drawing Luther from his reveries. His knees began to ache, his neck to throb. The congregation was growing restless, waiting for him to rise and dismiss them.

  Luther could not move.

  The weight of the mantel of office on his shoulders was like a yoke, binding him to illusions of goodness and charity. He lifted his gaze above the altar to where Anshar’s effigy hung, a bright and gaudy sunburst etched in its center with the cold, haughty profile of the God. Sunlight refracted from the hundreds of precious stones and gleaming gold of the disc, dazzling his vision.

  As Luther stared at the God’s image—strangely blurred by the convergence of light—a sudden, electrifying infusion of warmth radiated down his body, easing his aches and lifting the pressures of the vestments.

  His thoughts were abruptly cohesive and clear, filled with shining purpose. There was one, irrefutable way to gain back the power leeched by the Houses. They would not, could not, defy him, for they would be defying the God Himself.