Dragonfly

by Sylvia Kelso

  Tez gave one little splutter and suddenly drew his hand against her cheek. “You,” she said, with more than amusement, “you never change.”

  “I daresay not, my dear.” He glanced down at her, brows slightly raised. “It always seemed to amaze Dhanissa, too.”

  The look between them suddenly sparkled with memory, with amusement brilliant as a jeweled knife. Then Tanekhet swept a glance round the rest of us, all jittering in our seats.

  “Predictably,” he said, “the crown prince requests a consultation. With the council of Telluir House. And since they have already met without untoward consequence, with my lady Chaeris.”

  He let the scroll drop gently beside the butter pot. “Why this has to be conveyed before breakfast . . . You will excuse me, Ruand. I must attempt to dress.”

  Iatha got her wits together before he vanished. “Wait! What do we, what are we going to say?”

  Tanekhet looked back in delicately bored astonishment. “My dear Steward. What can we say, but, Yes?”

  * * * *

  “He’s so casual,” I marveled, when chance put me beside Tez in the exodus. “Like it’s nothing to bother about.”

  Tez gave me a not quite amused look. “He’s had a lot of experience.”

  “I don’t,” I confessed, “feel half as bad now.” And she did look wryly amused. “The worse it is,” she said, “the better he can make it feel.”

  Not a comforting thought to take into the council room before second watch. Full morning light blazed on the undecorated walls, the plain wooden table, the motley chairs and stools, making me both conscious and slightly ashamed. Therkon must have a dozen council chambers, Two’s memory held gorgeously appointed Riversend palace halls. How he would despise this!

  We lined one table side, leaving the other for the embassy. Tez took the centre, Tanekhet at her left elbow, Iatha at her right, with me sandwiched between Iatha and Duitho. And Azo, and Keshaq, standing close behind Tez, as if they were not merely troublecrew but bodyguards. A very unsubtle warning, I thought it. Till I heard Tanekhet murmur as he passed Keshaq, “Not even for me?” And Keshaq retort, tight-lipped. “For you. Never, at a table with him.”

  Two was still refusing to show me more than Therkon had hinted about that connection, when the embassy arrived.

  Therkon came in amid a thicket of burly six-foot troublecrew, all lowering and pressing close as round a captured criminal. I had thought to be embarrassed, seeing him again. Instead my heart turned over to the image of a trapped and fallen deer, entangled beyond rescue in the nets.

  Then the shoulders parted, and as Therkon emerged, his Trouble-head gave him a white-hot warning stare. And Therkon dropped his head a quarter-inch and gave it back.

  I did not have to reconstruct a night of fulmination and recrimination worse than ours, or a close pass to troublecrew mutiny. Nor, catching the side-wash of that look, did I doubt who had prevailed.

  We all rose. Someone drew out Therkon’s chair. The chamberlain, by the quill, rolls and slate, materialized at his left elbow, and the Trouble-head smouldered up to Therkon’s right. He ran one glance along our faces and his eyes met mine.

  One brief glance, and in such a situation, naturally masked. But the acknowledgement was more than politician’s relief.

  I sat down with my stomach settled, and about my heart an insidiously rising warmth.

  The chamberlain and Iatha exchanged openings. I absorbed Therkon meanwhile. That dark dramatic profile, the elegant sweep of hair, in a topaz and ruby clip this time; a ring on the other hand as well, even a bracelet, chased gold and topaz, on the wrist. A golden-red tunic whose full, open-ended sleeves stopped just short of impediment. I had not noticed the trousers, but it dawned on me, with a shock of near delight, that whether for pride or provocation, he had dressed to look the Dragonfly.

  “Ruand.” He had already inclined his head to Tez. “My ladies.” His eye met Tanekhet’s for one electric second and the hair crisped on my neck. Then Therkon went on, impassive now as Tanekhet himself.

  “I have come to make a proposal,” he said. “And to ask a favor—a very great favor—of Telluir House.”

  Two was in turmoil. I clenched my hands on the nether table-rim. No matter if he asks for a prophecy, if he demands, if he threatens, I ordered. You are not to spark.

  The stillness said the others shared my dread. Only Tez, with matching calm, nodded Therkon on.

  He lifted his head a little, the tilt of a listening deer. Then he said, “What news has Telluir House of the Archipelago?”

  Tanekhet’s expression measured the audacity: to request a meeting we could not refuse, to announce himself as seeking a favour, and then presume to exploit our intelligence. Not simply of the River: of the remote, unknown, countless islands that stretched away into the ocean south and west of Riversend.

  Tez did not answer that we had very little word and less concern. Or add that these were lands once half-ruled by Dhasdein, still barriered beyond their own borders, complicit with us in an event Dhasdein at least might not wish to recall. Surely, their news should come from him?

  She did raise her brows and return mildly, “Is there something Iskarda should know?”

  Therkon turned a hand out. Light flashed on the new ring. A big hazian, glowing red as a coal in its nest of thillians.

  “Ruand, you know we still trade overseas. The islands need our fine goods. Cloth. Weapons. Sometimes, grain. And,” he shifted a shoulder, “we will pay a good deal for their wine.”

  Tez did not have to nod. We all knew wine had been a prime import when Dhasdein ruled the Archipelago, if at an exorbitant excise rate.

  “With peace, the trade has grown.”

  None of us let an eyebrow climb. Let Dhasdein save face with the euphemism of “peace” for what had been successful rebellion and independence for the Archipelago.

  Tez answered blandly, “They still see Wave Island red, sometimes, in Amberlight.”

  Therkon nodded. Then he rubbed a finger up from the inner point of his eyebrows and said, “Something is wrong.”

  “With the trade?”

  “The trade, and more.” He set both palms on the table and the chamberlain’s expression told me this admission had been a major battle-point. “There are pirates in the islands, yes. There were always pirates. We take measures, frequently. Escort the traders. Raid a nest, sometimes.” The shrug filled in: a chronic problem to which we apply ongoing remedies, because the trade makes it worthwhile.

  Tez was extrapolating too. “They’ve suddenly increased? The whole trade’s at threat?”

  “They have increased, yes. The trade is . . . I would not yet say, entirely at threat.”

  Tez waited. The Dhasdeini Trouble-head’s scowl was close to pain.

  “But we are losing ships,” Therkon said softly, “in the open sea, before they ever reach the islands. Far more than we ever lost before.”

  “Storms?”

  “There are always storms. These are huge, unexpected storms. And one season, yes, would not be unusual. This has been year after year.”

  This time Tez’s eyebrows did rise. “How many years?”

  Therkon looked her straight in the eye. “Five.”

  I twitched, unable to help it. Five years was anomalous out of measure. No wonder they had come, no wonder they had accepted any condition for the embassy, no wonder they had kept trying and trying . . .

  My palms began to sweat. But nobody, yet, had looked at me. Tez and Therkon were still eye to eye, and his face warned, There is more.

  In a moment Tez said, “Go on.”

  Therkon’s fingers shut. The Dhasdein signet glittered, one broad flash of light like a moving spear.

  “Now, Dhasdein is getting refugees. Ship-loads, boat-loads of refugees. Not from pirates. From the islands. The Archipelago itself.”


  Iatha moved, decisively. Tez glanced aside, smoothly passing the initiative.

  “Factions?” Iatha said. “Some kind of civil war?”

  The Archipelago galleys and their marines had been a power for Dhasdein. Small doubt the struggle would be ferocious if they fought internally.

  Iatha’s glower added, If you want help from us, we expect truth from you. Therkon only nodded, a frank acknowledgement. And said, “We do not know.”

  “But surely these people talk—!”

  “Not to us.”

  “They ask for shelter,” he went on, when Iatha stared. “Asylum. They offer whatever they have. Gold, family gods, sometimes a child. They are islanders, not ship-folk. They will tell us the place they left. Why they left? No.”

  “There is a pattern,” Two had it out before I could stop her, “in the places? The names?”

  All the Dhasdeinis understood where that went. For the chamberlain and Trouble-head shock battled consternation and the bone-deep impulse to secrecy. Therkon looked at me with frank relief.

  “There is a pattern—my lady Chaeris. Yes.”

  He knew who had spoken, but he would not betray Two. He gave his Trouble-head one last quelling stare and turned back to me.

  “A good many names we do not know. They are South Reach islands, a long way from where Dhasdein ever went. The Archipelago is huge?” Two and I nodded understanding. That dark double-wave of eyebrow contracted in a frown.

  “The pattern of names we do know says: whatever expelled these people is moving.” His mouth set. “And it is coming this way.”

  * * * *

  With the moments of impact past, the other Dhasdeinis seemed almost relieved. For them, the worst was over. All the secrets had been bared; now, perhaps, there might be some recompense. They looked openly and hopefully at me.

  The consternation our side had been kept to a minimum. I did feel Iatha move beside me, the spring-taut tension in Duitho, but they both knew better than to touch me outright. And Tez was still holding Therkon’s eyes.

  “So,” she said, “Dhasdein has come to Iskarda.”

  “For an oracle, yes.” Therkon hit it straight into the open. “But not to ask what we should do.”

  Tez actually stared. Reckless beyond even these new limits, Therkon looked at me and said, “Lady Chaeris, if you will hear us. If you will look on our behalf. We would ask only, Do you know—have you any idea? What this thing is?”

  He had not unmasked Two, but his direction was clear. Not the future, the past. Not the cloudy terror of forecasting without information, but a straightforward search of the already known. Two’s memories.

  With every other caution lost, I had just wits to choose words myself. I said, “Let me think.”

  The withdrawal, the blur, the white hiatus was easier this time. I slid back into the council room with Iatha wringing tense beside me. I could see, in the Trouble-head’s face across from me, the mingling of revulsion and rapacity, and fear.

  And frank and clear and nothing further from repulsed, the anxiety in Therkon’s eyes.

  As our looks met he did relax a fraction, signaled by his rings’ little ripple of light. Then he dipped his head, very nearly a reverence. And waited, with real courtesy, for me to speak.

  I said, “We have no records of such a thing.”

  Two had let me reply. Given the Trouble-head’s expression, a relief. And no sort of assistance with the actual question. I did not have to read that from Therkon’s face.

  “We need more information,” Two said.

  Tez’s head snapped round and she said crisply, “Chaeris, if you don’t know enough already—”

  I forestalled Two with an effort. We did not need to shake the Dhasdeini underlings any further with mentions of “we.”

  “I have information about the River, up to and beyond Cataract. I have information about the past. Back to the founding of Amberlight.” I could feel Iatha flinch as if I had ripped a bandage off. But if Therkon had not told them, they would find out soon enough. “I have information about Dhasdein—mostly second-hand—” I did not dare look at Therkon in case his lips should twitch. “But almost nothing about the Archipelago.”

  Several people started to yell at once and Tez bawled, “S’hurre!” in a battle voice. In the instant’s hush Therkon spoke.

  “This comes appositely to my favour, Ruand.”

  Tez wheeled on him, past masking her own wits. “Chaeris is going nowhere. Least of all Dhasdein!”

  Everyone else, excepting Tanekhet, was shocked mute. The hiatus went on and on while both of them glared till I wondered the very air did not spark. Then Tez let out a long silent breath. And Therkon brought his chin down half a notch and said quite quietly, “My lady Tez. Do you have a choice?”

  The others yelled then, all at once. Tez let them shout as my mother might have, heedless of the Dhasdeinis, heedless of all but the need to ride out their own shock. I had no time for them either. My stomach was turning over, little white flashes had begun to cross my eyes, I could feel myself start to pant. No, I shouted desperately, no, not now: let them talk, let them talk, it’s not going to do any good—it won’t help anyone if you blow up!

  Two was not listening. The paroxysm built and built and in final desperation I slammed one hand on the table myself.

  The spark cracked like a thunderbolt. The stench rose like flame. Ten, fifteen people shocked voiceless, the room areek with charring wood. Me with one hand in the air, and under it, a black, smoking patch wider than my palm across the tabletop.

  Two screamed, “We must go! We have to go! No givens, no working points, no projections—no patterns—Iskarda, Dhasdein, the River, islands, islands-islands-islands . . . .! No facts, no facts, no FACTS!”

  * * * *

  Someone had me, lightly but firmly, by the wrist. Instinct and experience made me flinch, but that grip out-dated conscious memory: Caitha, senior House physician. A touch known from the day that she delivered me.

  “Pulse within limits,” her brisk physician’s voice said. “No other damage. A short rest, perhaps a cup of verrian tea. Hanni, would you see to that?” Her fingers brushed the back of my neck. “Chaeris, do you feel ready to sit up?”

  Not in the least, I wanted to squawk. Not to meet all those faces, the familiar ones saying how I had disappointed them, the unfamiliar ones full of revulsion, contempt, fear. And he . . .

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Two was repentantly invisible. But I remained a woman, my mother’s daughter. A scion of Telluir House. The blood of Amberlight.

  I opened my eyes, composed my face like plaster setting, and levered my cheek off the tabletop.

  And they were all gone, except Tez, now slipping into the chair Caitha had used, beside me.

  And beyond her, Therkon.

  I should think all of the air went out of me on one winded squeak. He did stretch his hand out instinctively, but Tez made one quick motion and he drew back.

  Tez did not touch me, either. I feared a blistering rebuke. But her question was not for me.

  “Are you so sure,” she said, “of your favor now?”

  I looked sidelong in time to catch Therkon’s face. Not the philosopher, but the prince, the sovereign who had subdued minions with a glower.

  Before he turned his attention, a yet more quelling retort, to me.

  “Lady Chaeris, I should perhaps have asked you to begin with. But I have no desire to estrange you from your folk. They have rightful claims on you. They have raised and protected you, and it is small wonder they would meet my request with—distress.”

  In his own way, as masterly a handler of devastating euphemisms as Tanekhet. I felt Tez bristle, but she did not speak.

  Unlike her, I was past diplomatic finesse. “What request?” I said.

  He looked straight up at me, those bronze-blac
k eyes closer than they had been the moment before we kissed, irises darker than their deep fringe of lash. The beauty was devastating as the force of the intent.

  “That you come to Dhasdein,” he said.

  Tez had extrapolated it. I was past reasoning. Two was mute. I said blankly, “What?”

  “Lady Chaeris.” He did pause, for whosever sake. “This will be to Dhasdein’s vantage, I openly confess. We need you. I begin to see we need you desperately. This with the Archipelago is, is beyond our experience. You may not have information yet. But to have you at hand, as newer word does come in . . . to have your advice, if patterns begin to shape . . . We would not ask you to consider the future—”

  Tez cut in brutally, “Not yet.”

  Therkon offered her one slicing glance. “But perhaps, if you are ever to look ahead, it is this information that will complete the pattern. Where better to gather it, than in Dhasdein?”

  And he knew the one and only lure to bring Two out of that skulk. New facts. On an area so scantily covered, on the further question whose pressure I could already feel like a yoke over my neck. Dhasdein, perhaps the Archipelago itself, was in some serious danger. Could I deny them the possibility that one day, we might try a projection of the future with facts enough to make it work?

  “Your pretext is also your rebuttal,” Tez said, flat and harsh. “If Chaeris goes to help protect Dhasdein, she is in the same peril as Dhasdein.”

  “My lady Tez, Dhasdein is not in peril yet! That is precisely what I am trying to prevent—”

  He stopped, with a flare of nostrils that left their rims dead white. Tez’s silence, ironic, walled, said he had not helped his case.

  “Let us consider then,” Therkon resumed, this time with a definite sting of silk, “the case of Iskarda. Ours are not the only intelligencers here. What will you say, when word that our embassy was received, that we asked questions and had answers, reaches Verrain? And Amberlight? And Cataract?”

  Tez might have turned the blow. I could not help but flinch. He glanced at me, and the concern was almost clear of political taint.