The Storm Witch

by Violette Malan

  *What if she’s gone over to their side*

  #Lionsmane says it is not so# #It is Lionsmane who knows her# #He is to be trusted#

  Darlara bit her lip, wanting to continue the argument, but knowing that what they said was right. Mal put his hand on her shoulder and she covered it with one of her own. The other rested on her belly. It was too soon for there to be any roundness, but she touched it nonetheless.

  “Dar.” That her twin spoke to her, instead of using the medium of the Crayx, showed how thoroughly he understood her need to stand apart, if only for a few minutes.

  “Would have stayed,” she said. “Was floating into that current. Know he would have stayed.”

  “Don’t hate him for choosing his own life.”

  Darlara pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “Don’t hate her either,” Mal added. Trust her twin to go unerringly to the right spot. “She has her rights. We have the bloodline. That’s what’s important.”

  It took her a long while, but eventually Darlara nodded in agreement. “Just that I started to hope.”

  #A communication comes from Lionsmane#

  “Done?”

  Parno opened his eyes and nodded. “What did I look like?”

  Dhulyn considered. “As if you were playing a particularly difficult piece of music, and weren’t sure you remembered all the notes. You’ve told them everything?”

  “Everything you told me. The White Seers, the Marked, the spirit of the little girl. Oh, and I told them to move the decoy ships back out of sight. Let the Mortaxa think they’ve been scared away. Once the Storm Witch is dealt with, it will be safe for the Nomads to come back.”

  Dhulyn lay back on the bed. They had slept in their clothes, and she had only taken off the sashes that held the short Mortaxan swords. She’d be able to have her own weapons back now, if they could return to the Wavetreader.

  “Parno, my soul, do you think they tell the truth, the Crayx? Are their treaties and agreements made with the Caids of old? Do their tales go back so far?”

  “Not their tales, their memories.” Parno stretched out beside her, his hands underneath his head. “It isn’t some Crayx of long ago who knew and came to terms with the Caids, it is these Crayx, themselves. They spawn new bodies, but they are the same entities.”

  “They knew the Caids? Before the coming of the Green Shadow and the rise of the Sleeping God? They knew the Caids then?”

  “So they say. Though they weren’t always known to each other. The Crayx had been creatures of the deep ocean, living their long lives and thinking their long thoughts. Something happened which made the Crayx seek out the Caids, find the Pod-sensed ones who had always lived among them, unnoticed by anyone, and begin communication with the landsters. Once they were aware of each other, they quickly came to accommodations and agreement.”

  “The Caids must have been a very different folk from what we are now, if that is what occurred. Nowadays we cannot get two groups of humans who live in neighboring valleys to agree so easily.”

  “And a good thing, too, or we Mercenary Brothers would have very little work. No, the Crayx say they were not so different, but they had more knowledge.” He laughed as Dhulyn rolled her eyes.

  “That’s blooded helpful,” she said. “That much we already knew. And so awareness of the Crayx became just another piece of the old learning that we on the land lost?”

  “Not entirely,” Parno said. “Apparently it became customary for those with Pod sense to live at sea for long periods of time. And when the Green Shadow rose for the first time, those who were at sea stayed there, and never returned to the land, except for the havens. Eventually they became the Nomads.”

  Dhulyn rolled over to face him, propping her head with an elbow. “But then they must still have some of the knowledge of the Caids?”

  Parno shook his head. “The Crayx never had that knowledge—nor wanted it, so far as I can make out—eventually, the Pod-sensed Caids would have started to feel the same way.” When there was no response Parno looked over at his Partner. “You’ve gone white,” he said, sitting up. “Dhulyn?”

  “SISTER.” “SISTER.” DHULYN IS In A LONG AND NARROW CORRIDOR, WITH WALLS OF PANELED WOOD, AND A FLOOR TILED In BLACK-AND-WHITE DIAMOND SHAPES. A LONG ROW OF SCONCES EACH HOLD THREE CANDLES THAT SMELL WARMLY OF BEESWAX. THIS IS A FORTUNE In WAX, SHE THINKS, AS SHE PASSES THEM BY. SHE HEARS GIGGLING COMING FROM A ROOM AHEAD OF HER AND PICKS UP HER PACE. THE ROOM, WHEN SHE REACHES IT, IS FULL OF SUNLIGHT, AIRY DRAPERIES In EVERY COLOR OF THE RAINBOW BLOW In A WARM BREEZE. TWO YOUNG GIRLS, WHITE BRAIDS SWINGING, TINY BREASTS BARELY FORMED UNDER THEIR SHIFTS, SQUEAL WITH DELIGHT WHEN THEY SEE HER, AND RUN TO THROW THEIR ARMS AROUND HER.

  “AM I DREAMING?” SHE ASKS THEM.

  “OH, NO,” AMAIA SAYS, THE GOLD FLECK In HER RED EYE SPARKLING. “WE’RE SEEING, AND WE DECIDED TO SEE YOU. COME, SEE WITH US.”

  THE WINDOW LOOKS OUT ONTO A BROAD CITY STREET, WITH TALL BUILDINGS, SOME HAVING AS MANY AS TEN STORIES, TO EACH SIDE OF THE THOROUGHFARE. DHULYN KNOWS IT IS NIGHT, THOUGH THERE IS SO MUCH LIGHT In THE STREET THEY CANNOT SEE THE STARS. A YOUNG WOMAN, SLIM, WITH HER HAIR CUT In A SHORT CAP RUNS DOWN THE STREET TOWARD THEM. IT’S HARD TO BE SURE LOOKING DOWN, BUT DHULYN THINKS SHE IS TALL. WHEN THE WOMAN LOOKS UP AT THE SKY, DHULYN SEES THAT SHE KNOWS THE WOMAN, SHE’S SEEN HER BEFORE. BUT ALWAYS OLDER, SHE THINKS.

  “THAT’S THE STORM WITCH, ISN’T IT?” KERIA LAYS HER HEAD On DHULYN’S SHOULDER AS SHE SPEAKS. THE TWINS ARE OLDER NOW, DHULYN SEES, NO LONGER CHILDREN.

  “YES, AS A YOUNG WOMAN.”

  “OH, SHE’S NOT SO OLD, NOT SO OLD AT ALL.” AMAIA TAPS THE WINDOWSILL WITH HER INDEX FINGERS, AS IF PLAYING A DRUM. DHULYN NOTICES THAT THE GIRL BITES HER NAILS.

  THE STORM WITCH RUNS INTO THE BUILDING BELOW THEM, AND DHULYN TURNS AWAY FROM THE WINDOW, HALFWAY EXPECTING HER TO RUN INTO THE ROOM. BUT THERE IS NO ONE In THE ROOM BUT HERSELF AND THE WHITE SISTERS.

  “IS THE CHILD XENDRA STILL SAFE?

  KERIA SHRUGS. “WE CAN’T GO TO THE WOODS WITHOUT YOU, YOU KNOW. THAT’S YOUR PLACE. WE CAN LOOK NOW, IF YOU WISH.”

  DHULYN CONSIDERS. IS IT BEST TO MAKE SURE NOW, BEFORE SHE COMES BACK WITH THE OTHER MARKED?

  THEY TURN BACK TO THE WINDOW AND THIS TIME IT LOOKS OUT On A FOREST SCENE, A GROVE OF TREES, A SLEEPING CHILD. SATISFIED, DHULYN STEPS BACK.

  “WE SEE YOU HAVE FOUND THE LIONSMANE,” KERIA SAYS, SLIPPING HER ARM THROUGH DHULYN’S. “WE’RE VERY PLEASED FOR YOU, SISTER. IT IS HARD TO BE ALONE WHEN YOU’RE USED TO HAVING SOMEONE WITH YOU.”

  “WAIT.” DHULYN PULLS AWAY. “DO YOU MEAN YOU KNEW WE WOULD BE REUNITED?”

  “OF COURSE, WE SAW IT.”

  “BUT WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?”

  FOR An INSTANT THE TWO SISTERS HAVE THE FACES OF STRICKEN CHILDREN. THEN AMAIA SPEAKS. “BUT, SISTER, YOU DID NOT ASK.”

  “It’s a little sterile.”

  Xerwin stood to one side, watching Naxot as his friend watched the Witch Carcali spinning slowly around, taking in as much of the garden as she could from this vantage point. “This is the dry season,” he said. “In the winter it’s much more lush.”

  “Oh, I know, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out the way I meant it.”

  But perhaps it did, Xerwin thought.

  “The plants are beautiful,” Carcali said.

  It was still his sister’s voice, even if the intonation was completely different. How long, he wondered, until he no longer heard Xendra when Carcali spoke?

  “I should have said formal, not sterile,” she continued, coming back down the path toward him. “The way everything is laid out in straight lines, squares, rectangles.” She gestured at a nearby edging of green hedge. “Even where things are rounded, it’s as if it was laid out with compasses.”

  “I’m sure it was,” Xerwin said. “The garden has been this way as long as I can remember.”

  “Perhaps the Holy One would enjoy the grotto.” Naxot was turning out to be tongue-tied
now that he was actually in the company of the Storm Witch.

  “Ooooh, a grotto, I’d love that. I guess I’m used to something a little rougher, more natural looking. We were always careful not to mess too much with what nature intended.” Her voice trailed away, as they followed Naxot, and the adult expression of frowning abstraction looked very odd on her little girl’s face. “I can’t do what your father wants me to do,” she said quietly. “I won’t. This time the Nomads went away by themselves, but next time . . .” She looked up at him, squinting her eyes against the morning sun. “Next time it may not be the Nomads.”

  She was right. Xerwin knew she was right. But what to do? And how to do it?

  “Did you have a chance to speak to the Paledyn?” she said.

  “The Tarxin wanted her this morning.”

  “Come, you two, it’s much cooler here.” Naxot’s voice called to them from farther along the path.

  It only took the tinkling sound of moving water to make Carcali walk faster and in a moment more they were in the coolest part of the garden. Willows overhung a large pond filled with lily pads and surrounded by mossy rocks. Rough rocks had been built up on one side to create a tiny waterfall, and behind it was a small cave that could be entered using strategically-placed stepping stones.

  “How lovely.” Carcali squatted down and trailed her hand into the water. “Where does it come from?”

  “It recycles,” Xerwin said. “I’m not sure how, to tell you the truth, the gardeners look after it. All I know is that it uses the same water, over and over.”

  Carcali picked out a rock bright with moss and sat down, removing her court sandals and dangling her feet in the water. There was another rock close by, and Xerwin took that seat for himself. He kept his sandals on, however, his feet dry, and his eyes on the Storm Witch. Naxot remained standing to one side. He couldn’t seem to relax.

  “So you think my sister is gone?” Xerwin said.

  She lifted her shoulders and let them drop with a small sigh. “Look, I know what you’re thinking. I’d say your sister was gone anyway, wouldn’t I? ‘How can I trust anything she says?’ you’re asking yourself. Well, I don’t know what will convince you.”

  “Either you are lying, or the Paledyn lies.”

  “And you don’t want it to be her, I get that. And not just because you want your sister back, am I right?” She was searching his face. “If it’s any consolation to you, I don’t think she is lying, the Paledyn, I mean. But . . .” Carcali paused, tapping her upper lip with her tongue. “It doesn’t seem likely she would make that kind of mistake.”

  “What if the Paledyn is neither lying herself nor mistaken, but being lied to?”

  Both Xerwin and Carcali looked up at Naxot. “Why would the Marked not lie?” Naxot said. “If the Golden Age of Mages and Paledyns is returning, the Marked will surely lose their special status. What are they, after all, but slaves with privileges?”

  “Sure.” Carcali was nodding. “Think about this. Those Marked people dropped the ball, didn’t they? They were supposed to heal your sister by finding her wandering mind and restoring it to her body, this body.” Carcali tapped herself on the chest. “Well, how good a job did they do? And they tried to fix it you know, afterward when they figured out it wasn’t her—I wasn’t her—you know what I mean.” She didn’t wait for Xerwin’s nod, she went right on speaking. “And they couldn’t do it, could they? So then the Paledyn comes—she’s sort of like an official investigator, right? A neutral party who can look into things, arbitrate disputes, and so on?”

  “That is the tradition, yes,” Naxot said. “Honor and fair dealing. There have not been Paledyn on this side of the Long Ocean for generations. But they existed still in Boravia.”

  “Well, I didn’t believe in any of that until I met her, but you have to admit, Dhulyn Wolfshead doesn’t strike me as anyone’s cat’s-paw.” Carcali frowned. “That didn’t come out right, but still, you get what I meant.” She lifted her feet and watched the water drops fall back into the pond before submerging them once again.

  This time both Xerwin and Naxot recognized they weren’t being asked anything and simply waited for her to continue.

  “All right. So the Paledyn shows up, asks the Marked to explain themselves, and suddenly they claim they can find your sister. They know where she is and can get her back. Why now and not before?”

  “Dhulyn Wolfshead says she was Seen by the White Twins.”

  Carcali looked sideways at him, with her eyebrows raised and her lips twisted. “And who are they? More of these Marked, right? It’s not as though Dhulyn Wolfshead saw your sister herself, is it? I mean, I’d be inclined to believe her, who wouldn’t? But these White Twins . . .” She shook her head.

  Naxot had found a rock to sit on. “I have never heard that Seers could be used to Find. They See Visions of the future, that is all.”

  Carcali was nodding again. “It’s too convenient. It sounds to me as if they’re just trying to get out from under. You know,” she added in response to Xerwin’s look of puzzlement. “Trying to make out that none of this was their fault. And maybe it wasn’t, not really. I mean it was your father scared them into trying something, anything, to get him what he wanted.”

  “And what he ‘got,’ as you say, was something that he wanted much more than my sister.” Xerwin took in a deep lungful of air and let it out slowly. “You both make it sound very simple,” he said.

  “Well, it is for me, you see. That’s the point.” She twisted, pulling her feet from the pond, until she was facing him directly. He was grateful that she didn’t touch him. “I was there. I’m the only one who really knows. I know your sister was nowhere near, and she couldn’t have survived long outside her body, not without the training I’ve had. That’s why it’s simple for me. I know.”

  Xerwin nodded. What the Storm Witch—Carcali—said made a great deal of sense. Especially since it explained how Dhulyn Wolfshead could still be in the right. He made a decision. He would tell them.

  “The Paledyn goes tonight to the Sanctuary,” he said. “To Find my sister, she said.”

  “You mean she believes so,” Naxot said. “If she is being misled, as we think. But we should consider that the Marked are capable of any trickery. They could expel the Storm Witch, and this time permanently.” Naxot swallowed. “And so? We would lose a Weather Mage, a useful person, and gain nothing—or worse.” Naxot looked from Carcali to Xerwin and back again.

  Xerwin found himself nodding. Better that some good should come from his sister’s loss. For he found he was convinced, his sister was lost. He would go to the Sanctuary himself. He would see what kind of trick the Marked had prepared for the Paledyn, and he would put a stop to it.

  And then there would be only the Tarxin to deal with.

  Twenty-one

  “I CAN’T REMEMBER EVER being in a palace—or castle large or small—where there was not more movement than this during the night.” Parno kept his voice low, though not quite in the nightwatch whisper. Remm Shalyn, in the lead position two paces in front of Dhulyn, would have no trouble hearing him. Parno would rather have walked point himself, but he was the only one of the three of them who had never been to the Sanctuary of the Marked. So Remm walked in front, sword in his right hand, a shuttered lantern giving minimum light in his left. Dhulyn was second, her hands empty, with her sword in its sheath, her wrist resting on the hilt. Parno brought up the rear, with a bare blade and a shuttered lantern of his own.

  They walked quietly, but didn’t trouble to keep to the deeper shadows. Back in her rooms, Dhulyn had explained to Remm what the Common Rule had to say about situations like these.

  “Attitude is the best disguise,” she had said. “If we come upon anyone who has the authority to stop us—”

  “Or who think they have such authority.”

  “Or who think so,” she’d agreed, grinning. “You are merely two attendants escorting the Paledyn.”

  So far, as Parno had p
ointed out, they had encountered no one to impress with their charade.

  “We left the palace as soon as we came down a level,” Dhulyn said in answer to his observation. “If you think of this as a city, or of each level as a town, you’d be closer to the mark. We’re away from the cliff face here, so this,” she waved around them. “This is a public street in an area where the lesser Houses live. They don’t have grounds, in the sense that we think of in Boravia, so all they need is porters, or door guards. And they’d have little inclination to look outside their doors once night had come.”

  “Isn’t it always night here?”

  “See those sheets of metal?” Remm Shalyn used his sword to point up at a tall wooden pole. “Shafts are cut in the rock, and when the sun rises, its light is reflected down, across, wherever those mirrors are found, lighting up the whole interior of the City.”

  “So all keep the same schedule of days and nights?”

  “Those without windows have to wait upon and serve those with,” Remm said. “It follows that they keep the same schedule.”

  Having been given these insights, Parno had no trouble recognizing crossroads as they came upon them, or even squares, strangely emptier of life than they would have seemed when out under the stars.

  “Odd to think of people setting up their barrows and their market carts here,” he said.