by Pearl North
Clauda found herself with a half-formed question on her lips. It was something about why Selene resented Jolaz but not Theselaides, and which comforted her more—research or simply being away from the palace. And of course it was utterly unaskable. “Is there anything about the Wing of Tarsus here?” she said instead.
Selene smiled broadly and led her to a section of shelves along one wall. “From here to the floor,” she said, holding her hand to the shelf at waist height.
Clauda whistled, and earned a glare of reproach from one of the women who were standing by the window.
“Well, it is the national legend of the founding of Ilysies,” said Selene.
“So Belrea was the first queen?”
Selene nodded.
Clauda was about to ask her what Ilysies was before it was Ilysies when they both heard footsteps entering the library. They turned. It was Steward Sopopholis, with Scio trailing behind her.
“Your Grace,” the steward addressed Selene, bowing low. “Her majesty Queen Thela requests your presence in the audience chamber.”
“Of course,” said Selene.
“Shall I accompany you, Your Grace?” asked Clauda.
Selene gave her an ironic smile at her hesitant use of the honorific. “No, Clauda. I will see my mother alone today. Perhaps you would like Scio to show you around the palace.”
Good idea. As soon as Selene and Steward Sopopholis had left, Scio steered Clauda to an empty corner of the library. “Was your mistress impressed?” she asked.
Clauda thought about that. Perhaps you would like Scio to show you around the palace. “Yes.”
“That’s good.” Scio trailed one finger along the spines of the books on the shelf beside her. “And did you talk to her about helping me?”
After a fashion, Clauda thought, but only said, “Yes.”
Scio grinned, then grabbed Clauda by the shoulders and squeezed them. “Do you think she’s talking to Steward Sopopholis about me right now?”
“I don’t know,” said Clauda. Probably not, she thought.
Scio accepted this with a tilt of her head. “Well, we’ll have to find some other way to impress her, then.” She bit her lip and looked around them, then leaned forward and whispered in Clauda’s ear, “Would you like to hear what the queen discusses in her audience chamber?”
Scio led Clauda to an alcove that butted up behind the part of the audience chamber where she had sat with Selene and Queen Thela the day before. Three-quarters of the way up to the domed and filigreed ceiling, the wall to her left sported a tiny, crescent-shaped opening like a winking eye. Through it she saw a slice of blue sky, and realized that on the other side lay the cliffs and the sea.
Though the alcove was ornate enough, it was clear no one ever came here. Light from the window slanted down through dusty air to strike an equally dusty niche on the opposite wall. There stood a small statue, its paint faded with age, of a girl with a fish tail and serpent hair rising out of the waves and brandishing a trident that was missing one prong. Scio pointed to the statue. “The Little Goddess of the Sea,” Scio said by way of explanation. Like the statue Clauda had seen in the alcove outside the Court of the Bull, her face was rendered in great detail, with eyes that still held life, for all that age had blinded them, and lips no bigger than the tip of Clauda’s thumb, parted in an expression of exultant joy. “Let her whisper in your ear,” said Scio.
Clauda did as she was told. For a moment she heard nothing, and then she heard Selene’s voice saying, “Does that matter?”
“I suppose not.” It was Queen Thela. “Go. Get ready. I will speak to General Tadakis and put the plan into action. You will ride out tomorrow.”
Clauda heard the faint sound of a door closing.
“What did you hear?” asked Scio. “Anything good?”
Clauda heard the door again. She shook her head and motioned for Scio to wait.
“General Tadakis, thank you for coming,” said Thela.
“Your majesty,” said a woman whose voice Clauda did not recognize. “I have begun mustering the army, as you asked. What will be our objective?”
“I want you to take the army over the mountains and into the Plain of Ayor. Wait there for the wing. When it arrives, follow it and attack what it attacks.”
“We follow the wing,” said the general.
“Yes,” said Queen Thela.
“You give no further instructions?”
“No. And for now, you will not mention the wing. All your women need to know is that you are taking them into the plain, and that the heir herself will lead them to glory.”
“The heir? Then I take it that the search for a pilot is finally over.”
“Yes, no more of your women need be injured attempting to train on it. Jolaz will lead you.”
“That is well, Your Majesty. The women will like that.”
“I know,” said the queen. “Now come with me, I want to show you the new rose garden.”
At the sound of the door shutting, Clauda slid to the floor and sat slumped against the wall.
“What did you hear?” said Scio.
Clauda shook her head in an effort to clear it of a faint buzzing sound. She stood up and went to the opposite wall. She was shaking, but it wasn’t entirely nerves. This was how she’d felt in the cave just before she collapsed on the ledge in the mountains. There was that same trembling feeling inside, in the place that Adept Ykobos referred to as her energy core. She was having a fit, right here in front of Scio.
Her hands and feet prickled with pins and needles, and the edges of her vision grew fuzzy as if gray flies hovered in the air all around her. She sat down on the floor abruptly, but it was either that or fall. She breathed, concentrating on fighting back the buzzing cloud that threatened to obliterate her awareness.
“What’s wrong?” said Scio. She came and knelt at Clauda’s side. “What is it—what did you hear?”
Clauda sank her head onto her hands and focused on taking slow, deep breaths and visualizing herself as a tree.
Scio put a tentative hand to her shoulder. “Are you ill?”
Clauda could not maintain her focus and lie at the same time. “It’s because of the mind-lancet attack. Sometimes I get dizzy.”
“Do you want me to help you back to your chamber?” she said, her voice wistful.
“No. Just . . . give me a moment.”
A few more breaths, and the buzzing retreated. Clauda blinked. She could feel her extremities again. It had passed.
Scio still knelt beside her. “Better?” the girl asked.
Clauda nodded. Then without warning she grabbed Scio by the arm, holding her firmly. “Why are you showing me these things?” She kept her voice low.
Scio gave a little start and shook her head. “What? I told you already, so we can help each—”
“No,” said Clauda. “There has to be more to it than that. The wing, what I just overheard, these are important things people aren’t supposed to know about. This is dangerous. You’re taking big risks. Why?”
Scio stared at her a moment, then seemed to make up her mind. “Okay, I’ll answer your question, but it’s best if we don’t stay in any one place too long. Come with me.” Scio led her down another servants’ passage, this one leading behind the palace baths. As they went the passageway became increasingly dilapidated, until at last they came to a dead end littered with discarded tools and half-empty bags of mortar. The wall sealing the end of the passage was constructed of gray bricks and appeared to be newer than the surrounding stonework. “On the other side of that wall is the old queen’s chambers,” she said, sitting down on a sack of mortar.
Clauda sat down beside her.
“Not everyone likes the way Queen Thela does things,” she said. “And some of us would like a different heir than the one she’s chosen.”
Oh. “And you’re one of them.”
Scio sniffed. “Queen Thela likes secrets, and so does her heir.”
“And you li
ke to know what’s going on, don’t you?”
Scio gave her a defiant look. “What’s wrong with that? It hasn’t always been this way. When the old queen reigned, the Ilysian people knew the mind of their queen. She trusted us.” Scio put a hand on Clauda’s shoulder. “Your mistress is much like her.”
Comprehension dawned. “I see. So you would like Selene to be heir instead of Jolaz.”
Scio nodded slowly. “Now you know,” she said, and cast Clauda a sidelong glance. “Will you tell me why she has returned?”
Did she dare? Telling the truth might lose Clauda the help Scio provided. But Scio had just told her that she prized honesty and hated secrets. Clauda hoped her instinct was correct. “For what you’ve already done, I owe you the truth. Selene is not here to challenge Jolaz for the throne.”
Scio gave no reaction. “So why are you here?”
“My friend. My best friend, and Selene’s clerk, a girl our age named Haly, is a prisoner of the Eradicants. We seek Queen Thela’s help in rescuing her.”
Scio gave her a rueful smile. “Then you will need help. Queen Thela does nothing out of mercy or charity.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Scio sank back on her haunches and looked at Clauda. “You told me the truth even though it might have cost you and your friend an ally.”
“You said you don’t like secrets. I judged that you would appreciate my honesty,” said Clauda.
Scio smiled. “And you judged correctly.”
The Book in the Iron Box
No knife or jar sat “forgotten” on the little table beside the chair in Siblea’s office today. Instead there was a stout iron box, secured with padlocks. “I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone before,” said the book inside the box.
Haly hadn’t realized how much she missed book voices. She ran to the table and ran her hands over the box, her fingers quickly tugging the padlocks in useless eagerness.
“Now, now, that would ruin the test, wouldn’t it?” said Siblea, coming through the door at the back of the room.
Haly stood straight, her hands at her sides. “You have a book. Why haven’t you burned it like all the others?”
Siblea was taken aback, but he quickly recovered, smiling. “Why, because of you, my dear. Because with this book we can determine with certainty whether or not you are our Redeemer. It was found two nights ago beneath the floor-boards of a house right here in the citadel. Apparently the family has been hiding it for generations. Well-respected folk, too. Very disturbing.”
They’d be in the dungeon now, Haly realized, wondering who they were and what had made them take such an enormous risk.
Siblea shrugged. “It is also fortuitous. We have received recitation of a portion of the text from the father of the house.” Siblea waved Haly to her chair. “Now we will hear yours.”
Haly tried not to think about how the father’s recitation was obtained. She looked over her shoulder to where Gyneth stood holding the back of the chair. He nodded and smiled encouragingly.
“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart,” said the book.
With her heart beating very hard, high up in her chest, Haly sat down. Siblea seemed barely able to contain his excitement. He stared at her avidly and clasped his hands together. “You hear it, don’t you?”
She nodded, frantically trying to think. She could fake it. She could recite something other than what the book told her—and go straight back to the dungeon. The muscles in her arms and back spasmed at the memory of what she’d endured there—and that had been only one day.
“There’s no need to be frightened, my dear. What we’re going to ask of you is very simple. Gyneth, bring our guest a glass of water.”
Gyneth crossed to the hidden cupboard, poured a glass of water from a pitcher there, and handed it to Haly. Her hand shook. She grasped the glass with both hands and raised it to her lips. They didn’t have The Book of the Night. And as long as they didn’t have that, they wouldn’t destroy the Libyrinth, Redeemer or no. She hoped.
She drained the glass before handing it back to Gyneth.
“When the others arrive, you will simply recite to us what the book tells you, starting from the beginning. Do you understand?” said Siblea.
“Others?”
There was a knock on the door.
Gyneth opened the door and Censor Michander entered, followed by the oldest man Haly had ever seen. He was older than ninety, she guessed, maybe even a great deal older. He was very thin, and he walked with the assistance of a brown-robed attendant. But once settled in Siblea’s chair he lifted his head and fixed her with black eyes that were perfectly clear all the way down to the seventh hell.
“Welcome, High Censor Orrin,” said Siblea, bowing low. “May your voice ring sweetly now and forever in the Song eternal.”
Orrin’s voice was reedy, his tone perfunctory. “May Yammon’s melody bless your ears.”
“High Censor, Brother Michander,” said Siblea, “it is with unutterable joy that I greet you on this day, which will be the first new day. Allow me to present to you the Libyrarian Halcyon.”
Clerk, thought Haly.
“Enough, Siblea,” said Orrin. “You say the girl is our Redeemer. You have the means to prove this. I’m waiting.”
Siblea turned to Haly. He knew, of course, that she could fail on purpose—spew a babble of nonsense that would send them both to the dungeon.
But she’d been to the dungeon. She nodded and focused her attention on the book in the chest, doing that thing where she sort of asked it to start at the beginning. “Anne Frank, the diary of a young girl,” it said, and Haly repeated it.
“Sunday, 14 June, 1942. On Friday, June 12, I woke up at six o’clock and no wonder; it was my birthday.” Behind her, she heard Gyneth gasp. Siblea’s eyes seemed to glow. Orrin and Michander exchanged glances and turned toward her attentively.
She hadn’t read to anyone since the vault. She had thought she might never read to anyone again. It felt wonderful. Anne’s words came from another planet thousands of years ago and yet they held in them her spirit. She was a truth, sailing across a limitless ocean of nothingness, with no light to guide her, and yet reaching them just the same.
Here was something that song did not do: The very particular and precise record of another person’s inner life. A person who confided to you that the very things that make you feel weak and foolish and frightened, frighten and embarrass and frustrate them as well. That they love as you love, that they faced even worse problems than yours, and their love triumphed in the end. How do you mea sure the value of that? she wondered, unable to repress a fierce grin as she recited, “There is a saying that paper is more patient than Man.”
They all stared at her in open wonder now. “The same, exactly the same,” murmured Orrin. Behind her she heard Gyneth utter something midway between a sob and a laugh. Michander and Siblea fell to their knees, as did Orrin’s attendant. The high censor himself bowed low in his chair. And they all sang, “Redeemer oh Redeemer, raise your voice for us. Speak the murdered word and save us all from silence.”
She had passed their test and lost her audience all at once. Frustrated, she cleared her throat and continued reciting, but it was clear they were no longer listening. Siblea cried openly. The gleam in Michander’s eyes balanced on the knife edge of triumph and terror, and old Orrin stared at her with avid hunger. Her voice trailed off.
Gyneth came around from behind Haly’s chair and clasped hands with Orrin’s attendant, who said, “It was the same. All exactly the same! Did you hear?” Gyneth, his face red and wet, nodded his head. The light in his eyes was so bright it was hard to look at. His sob turned to a laugh, and both boys jumped up and down together, hugging and crying and laughing until with a start they remembered that they were in the presence of holiness. Subduing themselves, they got to their knees again and bowed to her. Their noses ran. They
looked as unlike a pair of menacing Eradicant book burners as anything she could imagine. They looked like two people who would walk through fire for her.
Meanwhile, Siblea had joined Orrin and Michander in huddled conversation. Their voices were low and tense. She could make out but a few words: “But will She cooperate?” “If only we had the book.” “. . . announced, but when?” “Not before the horn is completed.” From time to time they glanced over at her speculatively. It gave her a very odd feeling to see these men she feared so much looking at her like that.
She tried to glean as much as she could from their conversation, but was constantly distracted by Anne’s description of her birthday festivities. After so long away from the Libyrinth, the sound of a book voice was like cool water in the desert. She knew she should pay attention to the Singers; they were discussing her fate. But all she really wanted to hear was what Anne had to say: “Anti-Jewish decrees followed each other in quick succession.”
All too soon, the Singers seemed to realize that she might be listening in on their conference, and they straightened. Their faces were formal and respectful, and they bowed to her.
“Gyneth, will you escort our Redeemer to Her rooms?” asked Siblea.
Reluctantly she got up and went to the door. Then she stopped and turned around. She was the Redeemer, damn it. “What about the book?” she asked them.
They all looked at her, at a loss.
“What is going to happen to the book?” she elaborated.
“It has served its purpose,” said Michander. “It will be liberated.”
Haly swallowed against the dryness in her mouth. “But what if you need it again, to prove to others . . .”
Orrin smiled, showing her two rows of small, square teeth. “Holy One, I am the high censor. If I say you are the Redeemer, then you are the Redeemer.”
Haly did not know where her sudden courage came from, but thought perhaps it was the book in the iron box. “Then let me fulfill my purpose. Let this be the first book I redeem.”
Orrin narrowed his eyes. Michander frowned and said, “The Book of the Night will be the first book you redeem.”