Sasha atobas-1

by Joel Shepherd

  "She deserves a distraction or two," Errollyn said quietly. "She misses Tassi. She does not relish the long ride back to Petrodor without her."

  Saalshen's trading interests in Petrodor were huge, Sasha knew. Kessligh said that Saalshen's wealth had built Petrodor and turned it from a little fishing village to the most wealthy city in all Rhodia. She did not pretend to understand the complex web of power and relationships between the various competing families that dominated the Petrodor trade, the trading interests of Saalshen, the mainland feudal lords, the dockside poor with their strong ties to the Nasi-Keth, and, of course, the hugely powerful Verenthane priesthood. But she was determined to learn as much as she could from Errollyn before she arrived in Petrodor herself. A three-week journey to a foreign land where she had never travelled before. A part of her looked forward to it. And a part of her dreaded it, for fear that she would truly never see her homeland or her people again.

  "I'd love to see Petrodor," Sofy sighed. "It's not fair that I have to travel all the way to the Bacosh, but I won't get to see anything interesting along the way."

  "Oh, untrue," Errollyn said with a smile. "If your column takes the most direct route from Baen-Tar, you will travel through Vonnersen and see the riverside capital of Lanos. The crown palace there has sheer walls that rise a hundred armspans from the riverside, and towers that loom well above even that. And I hear that Telesia is a lovely place, where the highlands fade into low, and the land is rolling meadows with a thousand kinds of flower and a hundred kinds of grapevine."

  "I don't think they'll travel through Vonnersen," Sasha replied. "When Sofy's wedding party goes, it'll be as part of the marching Lenay army. Vonnersen won't want that army marching through their lands. They've had bad experiences with Lenay armies in the past. And Telesia will want them crossing furthest from their cities too."

  Errollyn shrugged. "Well, southern Torovan is very pretty," he offered. "And you'll travel through northern Bacosh, where there are some fantastic castles and palaces."

  "Such a long way," Sofy said quietly. She sipped again at her wine. "Still, it shall be spring. I have a winter yet to last through."

  "I'll be there, Sofy," Sasha assured her. "Somehow, I'll be there. You shan't be married without me, I swear it."

  When Sofy looked at her, her eyes seemed to shine in the firelight. "You shouldn't make promises you don't know if you can keep," she replied. "I'll be fine. My father shall be there to marry me off. And some of my brothers, at least."

  Sasha shook her head. "Kessligh insists that Petrodor is the key to preventing this conflict. I'm still uncertain. I have a feeling that I'll be finding my way across to the Bacosh at some point. I think we all will, whether we like it or not."

  Sofy smiled. Then smothered a laugh behind her hand. "Oh dear," she half-giggled. Sasha and Errollyn exchanged glances. "I'm sorry," said Sofy, recovering herself. "It must be the wine. I just recalled that Alythia's wedding party should be arriving in Baen-Tar from Petrodor just now. Only no one's there! How beastly of me to find that funny. The poor girl, she must be distraught. How embarrassing for her."

  "Another reason for her to hate me," said Sasha with a shrug. "I'm sure that'll suit her well enough."

  "She'll learn," Sofy sighed, considering the contents of her cup.

  "What?" Sasha pressed, with a sly smile. "No haughty defence of Princess Alythia?"

  Sofy smiled. "It's not that. It's just that… well, I was feeling so sorry for myself for a while as I was gardening here… you know, wishing for the innocent little girl that I was, and wondering if I could ever be her again. But then I realised that no one can. This valley is different today. It'll never be what it was, and the Udalyn will never be what they were-and for the better, I hope. And it occurred to me that not only is it inevitable that people can't always get their own way, it's good. Usyn didn't get his own way. The Tyree lords didn't. And if they can't, then it should be no surprise that I can't, either. And neither will Alythia."

  "Nor I," Sasha agreed sadly.

  "Nor any of us," said Errollyn.

  Sasha gazed at him for a long moment. She could not, at this moment, be with her Baerlyn friends. Kessligh had gone to Petrodor. The old foundations that had once underpinned her life had all shifted, and now there was a new path before her. She had served Lenayin as best she could in this one, desperate act. Now, she would follow her uman to Petrodor. She was Nasi-Keth, and Petrodor was a stronghold not only for them, but for the serrin as well. She gazed at Errollyn, and wondered if this future she glimpsed was really so strange and unpredictable after all. The serrin had always been an enormous part of her life, through Kessligh, and the svaalverd, and the many teachings of the Nasi-Keth. Kessligh thought she had not given those teachings, and that heritage, the respect that it had deserved. Perhaps now it was time to put old grievances to bed. Time, as the old Valhanan saying went, to put the shoe on the right foot for a change.

  "So, Master Errollyn," she said. "Ras'el malhrahn tilosse?" How do you see the road?

  Errollyn smiled. "Way' un ei," he said. Steep. No… more than steep. Ei, the active tense of ei'lehn, the root word for "curl," as a girl's hair might curl, or a dying leaf. Saalsi words came often in two parts, which came together and came apart to make new meanings, and hint at many more. Steep and winding, but with a hint of beauty in the treachery. "Leh bel'eraine mahd'se fal svain'ah si." But the view has such beauty. Or no… not beauty. Enlightenment? Svainerlai was an old form of "beautiful," meaning something ancient and beautiful, but the ah probably came from ahshti, a related word that meant, very roughly, "to gain enlightenment from beauty." And so…

  She shook her head in faint amazement. The grammar was appallingly vague, by human standards. But then, humans were empirical. Serrin made imprecision into an artform. Serrin words. Serrin thoughts. Serrin worlds. One door closed, another opened.

  "What are you saying?" Sofy pressed with intrigue. "Oh please, don't talk Saalsi without me! I need to know what you're saying!"

  "You need to know what everyone's saying," Sasha told her. "The Princess of Gossip. It's an addiction."

  "Something old and wise and extremely dirty," Errollyn told the younger girl.

  "Don't tease me," Sofy sniffed, with a haughty angle to her slim jaw. "I'm very frightening when I'm angry."

  "Finish your wine," Sasha told her with a smile. "The night's only young yet. Father may get you back, but he won't get you back so pure and innocent as he'd like."

  Sparks swirled and climbed into the night sky from the fire, mingling with the sparks of many surrounding campfires. Sasha watched them rise into one of the few constellations bright enough to brave the light of the rising moon. Hyathon the Warrior, with his belt, sword and helm. The hero of Lenayin, clear in the night sky above the Valley of the Udalyn-brave, proud and free.

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