by Pearl North
They arrived at a small door, which slid open when Gyneth touched a panel beside it. Inside was a small room, and all three of them went in, Haly more hesitantly than the other two. She didn’t see another door. Siblea’s grip tightened on her elbow and he said, “Come, my dear, it is only an elevator.”
She got in, very unhappy about being in such a confined space with the two of them. Gyneth pressed another button, the door closed, and then she felt the room moving upward. Siblea smiled indulgently at her involuntary gasp, and she flushed. These people were illiterate and they were supposed to be uncivilized, ignorant, and backward, but time and again, she was the one who felt as if she sported a bone through her nose like a savage in a Victorian adventure novel.
The room came to a halt and the door opened out into a long, curving hallway lined with archways. Siblea and Gyneth escorted her through one of these and she caught her breath. They were on a small balcony, one of many lining a cavernous amphitheater, its floor two hundred feet below. Directly ahead loomed the massive figure of a man wrought in steel, his chin roughly level with their balcony. His mouth was open, lined with white teeth that were . . . moving. With a start of relief Haly realized the mouth was a platform, and the teeth were people in white robes.
Haly swallowed. “Is that—”
“Yammon, yes,” said Siblea. “Please have a seat. In a moment you will hear the Song.”
Haly saw the other balconies filling up rapidly. She leaned over the balcony to spy people gathering in rows on the floor below, and regretted it. They were so small down there. It was such a long drop. A little voice in her head said, “Jump.”
She backed away and sat down in the chair beside Siblea’s. Gyneth stood behind them. Haly smelled incense and saw faint wisps of smoke rising from Yammon’s upraised palms.
Soon the murmuring of voices in the amphitheater became silent and a voice, which was many voices together, boomed from the statue of Yammon. “Welcome, My children. Take your places and be glad, for each of you is a beloved member of My Righteous Chorus, and as the Song revealed Itself to Me and delivered us all from slavery, so it will aid you in your own time of need.”
Then Haly heard a sound unlike any she had ever heard before—a low hum, so deep it reverberated in her bones. Siblea and Gyneth opened their mouths and joined in, and she could hear that throughout the amphitheater, others were doing the same. It went on and on, thrumming through her body, growing louder and louder, until she feared its bass reverberations would shake apart the very stones upon which she sat. And then a single voice soared up above the hum, a voice of such singular, crystalline clarity that it brought tears to her eyes. Soon this voice was joined by others and they interwove with one another like birds in flight.
Despite everything, Haly felt her heart lifted by these voices, felt her body merge with the thrum that her own throat echoed. Her hands and feet tingled and her heart raced as if she herself were a winged creature, climbing ramparts of air and scudding across vistas of sea and mountain. The Song intensified in volume and tempo and pitch, carrying her higher and higher until she felt as if the whole world lay before her. She could feel all of it, every stone and every heartbeat, and it was all part of the Song. This was like what she had felt at the vault, when she and Clauda and Selene sang together and the light came out and opened the door for them. Only this was so much more—not a pretty light show, but more something she felt inside, like a realization. They were all together: she, Siblea, this multitude of Eradicants, the stone beneath her feet, and the creatures in the ocean far away. All things were united in the Song, and since she was part of it, they were part of her. She could never really be alone, and the concept of “enemy” was meaningless.
At least for as long as the Song lasted. When it was done, Haly sat stunned, her heart aching with the loss of that all-connecting, all-encompassing sound. And in another moment she felt despair for herself and her home. The Seven Tales were untidy and diffuse, whereas the Song was unified and powerful. The Tales took years of study to appreciate. They weren’t something you could explain to a stranger in a few minutes. Few enough of her own people had the dedication to seek their wisdom. But anybody could understand the Song. She understood the Song, and yearned for it.
The Wing of Tarsus
Clauda let Scio lead her by the hand through passages narrower and less adorned than those she’d seen in the rest of the palace: servants’ passages. As they passed the laundry, Corazol emerged, her face red from the steaming vats, and offered an all-purpose rebuke: “You two are up to no good, I’m sure.” Scio flashed her a broad, smug smile, and her hand tightened around Clauda’s as they continued on their way.
They passed more people as they neared the familiar clatter and cooking smells that meant kitchen in any land. Some of the servants were friends of Scio’s who either congratulated or chastised her for her good fortune in avoiding the postfeast chores. Others merely gave them suspicious looks, but everyone stared at Clauda. She was beginning to wonder if she had gravy smeared on her face when it struck her that most of them had probably never seen an Ayorite before. With her broad build and coppery hair, she looked nothing like the Ilysians. She was exotic. Clauda grinned at the thought and was almost disappointed when Scio steered her down an even narrower passage that led away from the bustle of the kitchen.
They came to a small door that opened onto a spiral staircase. Scio took a glow stick from its holder beside the door, and with a conspiratorial smile, led her down into the darkness.
The walls around them changed from cut stone to sheer rock, rough hewn and glistening with moisture. They were far below the palace now. Clauda shivered in the damp. She heard a distant crashing sound, and then heard it again. A periodic, muted catastrophe—the ocean.
They came to the bottom of the staircase and made their way along a small, winding tunnel. Clauda was grateful that she didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. All the same, her hand sweated in Scio’s grasp and she felt the tremor inside herself that she associated with the effects of the mind-lancet attack.
They came to a shadowed alcove in the tunnel wall. Scio showed her a crevice in the stone, through which a little light shone. “It’s a spy hole. The palace is full of them. This one—there’s a crack in the cave wall,” said Scio. “Ages and ages ago someone carved out a hole in it, so you can look through it and see . . .” The hole was about the size of Clauda’s fist. Scio stepped back and gestured Clauda toward it.
Through the hole Clauda beheld a moderately sized and well-lit cave, open on one end to the ocean, but dry. And in the middle of the cave sat a large gold object in the shape of a crescent moon, spanning roughly twenty feet from tip to tip. But this crescent was gold and it was carved with the same flowing lines she’d seen on the Devouring Silence. Unlike that horror, this thing was beautiful, whatever it was. Clauda took her face away from the spy hole and looked at Scio. “What is it?” she whispered.
“None other than the Ancient flying machine,” said Scio. She leaned in so her face was right next to Clauda’s and she whispered in her ear, “The legends are true. It’s real.”
“A flying machine?” Clauda leaned back, flushed and amazed—and suddenly a little skeptical. She tried to get a good look at the girl’s face but failed in the dim light. “Have you seen it fly?”
“No, but come on. Doesn’t it look familiar to you?”
“What?” Clauda was lost.
“A wing of gold, inscribed with the name of the ocean? Look at it. It’s the Wing of Tarsus.”
Oh, of course, the Wing of Tarsus. “What’s the Wing of Tarsus?”
Scio gaped at her a moment, and then understanding dawned. “Oh, of course, you’re an Ayorite. You don’t know the legend of Queen Belrea and the Wing of Tarsus. It’s an Ancient flying machine discovered by our founder.”
“Does it really fly?”
Scio nodded slowly. “If you know how to operate it, it does, but not many have the skill to master it.”
This was a very big deal. A secret weapon. A flying machine. Clauda had a sudden vision of the wing sailing across the Plain of Ayor, smiting every Eradicant in sight. That, as much as her awareness of the great secret to which Scio had made her privy, brought tears to her eyes. Her view of the wing blurred and she blinked rapidly, turning her face back to the tunnel and to Scio. “Thank you,” she said, clearing her throat. “But why are you showing me this?”
Scio’s smile was little more than a glimmer in the darkness. She stood close, and she smelled of the lavender soap they’d both washed with. “We can help each other,” she said. “I can help you impress your mistress by showing you things that might be useful for her to know, and you can help me by getting her to praise me to Steward Sopopholis. I mean, she is the princess. If she says I should be promoted . . .”
The next morning Clauda jumped out of bed as soon as she awoke and dressed herself in the clothes she’d worn the previous night. She splashed some water on her face, grimaced at her unkempt reflection in the mirror beside the washstand, and headed for the door. She needed to find Selene.
As if summoned, the princess of Ilysies appeared at her door, looking every bit as postfestive as Clauda did. “Oh, good,” she said, “you’re up. I told Scio you’d breakfast with me this morning. We need to talk.”
With grave trepidation, Clauda followed Selene to her chamber, where a feast of braised hare, fresh asparagus, poached eggs, and the ever-popular pastries awaited them. Clauda forgot her fear in the rumbling of her stomach, and for a time no word was spoken. They ate with relish. At last, Selene wiped a smear of egg from her gently curving lips and poured the coffee. “My mother thinks there is a spy in the palace,” she said, sitting back, her voice half muffled by the cup as she held it before her and inhaled the steam.
Clauda dropped her fork and it fell with a clang onto her plate. Her hands and feet tingled and she felt dizzy. She stared at the floor and forced herself to breathe slowly. She waited for Selene to tell her that she’d been found out, that all was lost. Selene didn’t say anything. Clauda looked up.
Selene regarded at her over the rim of her coffee cup. Clauda could not quite decipher the expression lurking in her dark eyes. “So you were up to something last night. You should learn to school your reactions better. And relax. She thinks the spy is an Eradicant and she doesn’t suspect Scio, because if she did, she would never have assigned her to you.”
Clauda caught herself gaping and closed her mouth. “Why do you mention Scio?” she managed.
Selene gave a derisive little snort of laughter. “The two of you left the feast together. When I went to your chamber to check on you, it was empty. I can only assume you were with Scio, and from what Vorain tells me, her reputation as a busybody is much the same as yours was back home.”
Busybody! Anger flashed through Clauda. “You checked up on me?”
Selene glared back at her. “I was worried about you.”
That put a stop to the next bitter thing Clauda was about to say. She turned her attention to the pastries, bit into one, and chewed it a moment before saying, “Do you want to know what I found out?”
There was silence, and Clauda looked up to see Selene downing the rest of her coffee. The Libyrarian finished, set the cup down on its saucer with a clink, and said, “Yes.”
“Have you heard of the Wing of Tarsus?”
“Of course I have. It’s a national legend. Every Ilysian child over the age of three has heard the story of Queen Belrea and the Wing of Tarsus. What of it?”
Clauda ignored her contemptuous tone. “The wing is real. I saw it in a cavern beneath the palace.”
Selene looked abashed for a moment, then skeptical. “Are you sure?”
Hiding her smile, Clauda described what she’d seen.
Selene stared off into the middle distance. “So that is Mother’s secret weapon,” she said at last. “I knew she had to have something.”
“Scio told me it is a flying machine, and that it can slay enemies.”
Selene nodded. “It is a powerful weapon for the defense of Ilysies . . . if Mother has found someone who can pilot it.”
“Can’t anyone fly it?”
Selene shook her head. All skepticism, all contempt was gone from her now. “It is a device of the Ancients, and they are notorious for being . . . tricky. Maybe one or two women in a generation have the aptitude to master it. It was supposedly lost at sea by Belrea’s great-great-granddaughter, Ama. I wonder where it was found, and when? For all I know, it’s been there all along.” She paused and then gave Clauda one of her dark, intense looks. “What’s almost as interesting is why Scio showed it to you.”
Clauda found herself taken aback in the absence of Selene’s arrogance. She didn’t quite know what to do with this neutral regard she suddenly enjoyed. “She said we could help each other. She wants you to praise her and get her a promotion.”
Selene pursed her lips. “Let’s hope it’s as simple as that. In the meantime, be careful.” She drained her cup and stood. “I’m going to the library. Do you want to come along?”
Clauda nodded. As she followed Selene out of the room she chided herself for feeling proud to be asked. Yesterday she’d been furious with Selene; now she was gobbling up scraps of praise from her like a puppy. She should find Scio and talk her into showing her more spy holes. Then again, if she went to the library with Selene she could learn more about the Wing of Tarsus.
Selene led Clauda down the hallway, around a corner and down another hallway until they reached the Courtyard of the Petitioners. They took the low, broad steps to the right of the pillared hall, and Clauda found herself in a garden filled with rosebushes.
They followed a path through the roses to another set of steps on the other side, and took those up to another pillared hall. To their left, on the same side as the doors to the queen’s chambers, stood a pair of doors carved with images of books and scrolls and quills. Selene opened them to reveal a large, rectangular room four stories tall, lined with shelves.
A gentle hush lay over the room and Clauda recognized the smell of old paper. She wondered what Haly would hear if she was here, and wished she could be here to tell her.
There were three other people already in the room, one a servant dusting the shelves, the others two elderly women seated on benches beneath the windows on the far wall, reading in silence. It was a far cry from the bustle of the Great Hall back home.
“Of course, it’s not the Libyrinth,” Selene said, as if reading her thoughts.
“No, but . . . it’s impressive, all the same. How many books are there here?”
“Ten thousand,” said Selene. “About three-quarters of them Ilysian, the rest Earth texts acquired from the Libyrinth.”
Clauda looked at her. “I didn’t know we sold books from our collection.”
“Not often, but in times of famine, it’s been known to happen.”
And Ilysies the Fat would always have food to trade, thought Clauda, trying to decide how she felt about that. As an Ayorite servant of the Libyrinth, she’d been educated to read and she had access to the books of the Libyrinth—as long as the book in question was not needed by someone more important. But in practicality, her duties in the kitchen left little time for reading. In the evenings, when Palla told tales by the fire, she welcomed them, and seldom sought out the printed page.
Except for one book that she’d found on an afternoon when she’d snuck away to explore the stacks with Haly.
She’d read The Cricket in Times Square all through that night, though she felt groggy the following day. She hid it under the loose hearthstone in the kitchen, and when it was her turn to keep the fire burning through the night, she read it again and again and again.
She looked at Selene, gazing fondly at the shelves around her. “What’s
your favorite book?” she asked the Libyrarian.
A soft laugh crinkled the skin at the bridge of Selene’s nose, and for a moment she was the spitting image of her mother. “Can’t you guess?”
Clauda shrugged.
Selene drew herself up, a parody of her typically dignified posture, but the little smile at the corners of her mouth gave her away. “Why, Theselaides, of course.”
Clauda wrinkled her nose. “Theselaides? That’s not a story.”
Selene shook her head. “But it is a story. It’s the story of his life and all that he learned. A story is nothing more or less than a sequence of facts, or in the case of fiction, lies, that are imbued with meaning.
“Theselaides was a wealthy nobleman, and he left his comfortable home to seek knowledge of the world around him. And he discovered the Libyrinth. What could be a better story than that?”
Especially to an Ilysian princess who abandoned her own home for the sake of learning, thought Clauda, glimpsing for the first time how plain facts could be a story as stirring as the most fantastic fairy tale. “Is there a copy of it here?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. Over here.” Selene led her to a shelf in the corner and reached down to retrieve a battered and obviously much-loved book. She cradled it gently for a moment, smiling fondly at it, and then handed it to Clauda.
The front cover was tenuously attached to the binding by a few worn threads. Opening it carefully, Clauda found its pages smudged, and here and there notes had been scribbled in the margins in a childish version of Selene’s elegant scrawl. This was obviously Selene’s childhood copy of the book. “Why didn’t you take this with you when you went to the Libyrinth?” she asked.
“Oh, my mother would sooner part with a daughter than a book,” Selene said without rancor. “And the Libyrinth has two copies of its own.” She took the book back from Clauda and replaced it on the shelf.