by Carol Berg
She paused for a long time, and I didn't know whether it would be better to keep silent or to encourage her to say more. But without anything from me, she took a deep breath and gave me a quick smile. "Though they were not yet masked when I first met them, I could feel them probing my heart, laying bare my soul, searching for any weapon to destroy all that I loved. I could tell them nothing of the Bridge or its construction or even where it was that my father and brothers labored; it made matters no easier to know my father had been right to keep it from me.
"Once their initial questioning was done, I was left alone—a bargaining token. I was installed in a windowless room, comfortable and safe. They would return me uncorrupted, unsullied, in exchange for my father's sworn word to stop work on the Bridge and to destroy whatever was completed of it. I knew he wouldn't do it. I cried myself to sleep every night, for my father believed that the Bridge was the only hope for our world or for the other . . . that strange, mundane place that lies on the other side of the Breach. He would never sacrifice so many for one foolish daughter, no matter how bitterly he grieved for her.
"I suppose I was fortunate that they had not yet learned the skills with which you were molded. Or perhaps because I was a girl, they were less sure of what to do with me. Perhaps they, too, held out the hope that my father would miraculously change character and relent, for it was an entire year that I lived alone and untouched in their citadel. Servants waited on me, and brought me materials for writing and drawing and for sewing my own clothing. I wrote long letters that were never sent, and drew endless pictures to remind myself of my true life. I was not prevented from wielding power, though it did me little good. I wasn't strong enough to combat the Three together. Only mind-speaking was forbidden, and they monitored me closely to make sure I obeyed.
"Every seven day I was required to appear before the Three. They would examine me to make sure I'd had no secret communication with my father. And then they would tell me stories of him, every time a different one: he was dead, he. was captive, Avonar had fallen, the Vales had burned, I was forgotten, I was named a traitor, I was named Zhid. . . . But I was not a child. I was D'Arnath's daughter and carried the strength and power of his blood. I refused to believe their lies.
"After a year of this, something changed. Perhaps my father convinced them he wouldn't bargain for me. Perhaps he tried to rescue me and failed; I liked to think it was that. Perhaps the Lords could no longer withhold their hatred. But there came a night when I was taken from my room and thrown into a filthy pen with the other Dar'Nethi prisoners. My hair was cut off, and I was given rags to wear. I was commanded to clean the quarters of the Zhid warriors, forbidden to speak, controlled with the lash…. Well, you know all those things.
"But unlike the other prisoners, once every moon's turning I was taken before the Three and offered release. They gave me three choices. I could lure my father into a trap. Or I could yield control of my mind to the Lords, and they would let me 'escape' so I could spy on him. Or I could renounce my father publicly and . . . consort . . . with one of the Lords to birth a rival to him. All these things I refused, and they could not force me without breaking my mind. Nothing could have persuaded me to betray the hope of the world."
Another deep breath and she sat up again, straightening her back and fixing her eyes on nothing that I could see. "So they devised another use for me." Now there was steel in her voice. "I was to test the loyalty of the Zhid officers. I must offer myself to whatever officer they put in my way, begging for my freedom in exchange for whatever he would want of me. If the officer agreed, they would slay him—sometimes right away, but more often after he had taken his part of our bargain. The Lords said they would tolerate no more refusals. They would slay five Dar'Nethi prisoners each time I disobeyed. And I would have to watch them do it.
"For month after month they forced me to do this . . . and other vile things . . . many other things like it. I could not sacrifice the lives of our people for anything less than the safety of Avonar. It was horrid and cruel. But I couldn't refuse. You can see that. You understand."
As the moon settled behind the notched mountains to the west, she waited for my answer.
"There was no honor to be had in Zhev'Na." My father had said those words to me a thousand times over.
D'Sanya nodded. "No. No honor. Always I chose the lesser evil. I told myself that for two long years. I would not turn. I would not betray my father or my brothers, and if they were driven to sacrifice me to save Dar'Nethi lives, I could do no less than they. Always the lesser evil . . . and pray that Papa would come to rescue me."
"But then it ended. What happened?"
Even with the steel foundation, her voice was shaking. Her gaze had lost focus again, telling me that she was reliving her horror just as I had. "I was taken before the Lords once again, to their throne room where the floor was like black ice and the roof was like the midnight sky. They were masked now, and their jeweled eyes gleamed hard and cold. They said they were finished with me. I was too 'expensive,' and as my father would be stubborn, he must be taught a lesson. I assumed I was to die and was glad of it. They told me terrible things, all their lies over again. Then they laughed until it violated my soul to hear it, and the world went dark . . . until I found myself wandering in the desert half a year ago."
"You remember nothing in between?"
"Nothing. No. Nothing."
She was lying. Perhaps it was only that I was so conscious of my own omissions that I could recognize it so easily. Every word she had spoken was truth—until the end. Not all of the truth, but at least no lies. But when she claimed to remember nothing between her last visit with the Lords and her release, the very timbre of her voice cried falsehood. I couldn't blame her.
We sat for a long time, letting the cooling breeze brush away the horrors we had spoken and replace them with the cries of night birds, the rustling of the trees that bounded our meadow, and the quiet ripple of a brook that traveled mindlessly from the meadow down the steep hillside. Then, with no more words, I rose and gave her my arm, and we abandoned the remnants of our feast and walked slowly down the path. Somewhere along the way my arm found its way about her waist, and somewhere along the way her head found its resting place on my shoulder, and we kept our darkest secrets, yet drew some kind of comfort from what truth we had shared. Even after we collected the horses, we chose to walk, parting at last in the stable yard. Only then did she speak. Softly. Lantern light brightening her eyes as if the moon had fallen into a mountain lake. "You'll come again tomorrow?"
I nodded. "But tomorrow, I choose the games."
Chapter 10
I was soon spending most of every day with the Lady D'Sanya. We rode. We walked. We picnicked in the hills. We ran races and told silly secrets. One magical afternoon we explored one of the caves that riddled the mountains of Grithna, D'Sanya casting a light so that we could follow the path to a milky-white underground lake. A forest of stalactites and stalagmites surrounded the lake, the shapes more fantastic than any sculptor could invent.
Some days we stayed at the hospice in D'Sanya's house or in the library or in the garden, looking at books or playing draughts. We tried playing sonquey, a game of strategy played with tiles and silver bars, but D'Sanya found it boring when I would not use enchantment to manipulate the tiles. She said that playing sonquey without the added dimension of sorcery made her feel like a child allowed to use building blocks only in the horizontal plane, forbidden to stack them one upon the other.
On none of these outings did we ever return to the horrors of our past. The secrets we exchanged were innocent and childish. She adored flavored ices and had stolen them from the kitchens before her father's royal feasts so there were never enough for the guests. I abhorred eating green things and had hidden them in my pockets for the washing women to find. She got abominably seasick. I had never kissed a girl. We both preferred being outdoors—riding or walking, running, or just sitting—to any other activity.
My father smiled as I dashed in to greet him and deliver the latest packet of letters Paulo had brought from Avonar and then dashed out again before ever sitting down. He insisted that he did not feel neglected, but rather was pleased that I pursued my investigation with such vigor. Of course, I had not forgotten our purpose. We were close to an answer. I already knew more of D'Sanya than I knew of anyone save Paulo.
Paulo worried more. He accused me of infatuation, warning that my distraction would reap trouble. I told him he was just jealous because his own infatuation was going nowhere, but I did heed his warning and worked harder to keep my head. That very day D'Sanya asserted that my mysterious friend who could read horses' thoughts didn't really exist and begged again to meet him. Though tempted to agree—wanting to please her, wanting to make things honest between us—I saw how blatantly stupid was that idea. I told her he was busy, taking care of my father's business in Avonar. Not a lie. Not really.
I never allowed D'Sanya to see the scars on my hands. Most of the time I wore gloves, claiming that a childhood illness had left my hands persistently cold. She teased that it was just another aspect of my shyness. I did not argue with her, just kept my palms out of sight when gloves would not do. If she saw my scars, then, like Sefaro's daughter, she would know I had been one of the Lords. Every day it seemed more important that she never find out. Whether she loathed the Lords or served them, I would lose something I had never thought to find.
D'Sanya teased me about Sefaro's daughter, as well, saying she must be smitten with me the way she followed me around. Had I perhaps rebuffed the young lady's attentions? Professing ignorance, I changed the subject quickly.
One evening as I was hurrying to meet D'Sanya, I discovered I'd forgotten my cloak and reversed course abruptly to return to my father's apartments. I slammed right into Sefaro's daughter, grazing her shoulder against a brick wall and stepping on her foot. I started to make a comment about us needing to mark our current positions on a map, but checked my tongue when I met her gaze. Of course, she wasn't going to appreciate levity. "Sorry," I said.
"What meaning can sorry have coming from you?" Along one fine cheekbone a ragged scar shone white against her angry flush.
I crowded along the hedge as I passed so as not to touch her again.
She lurked in the shrubbery, in the cloisters, in corners and shadows, her constant presence ensuring I didn't forget the past in the pleasures of the present. Though I tried to dismiss her, I never made the nighttime journey from the hospice to Gaelie without keeping a close watch for mountains ready to fall on my head.
D'Sanya and I spent one long, rainy afternoon in the library reading a book of Dar'Nethi legends. At sunset, Na'Cyd summoned us to dinner. Afterward, D'Sanya wished to take up the story again, so I returned to the library to fetch the book. Sefaro's daughter was leafing through the pages. Seeing me, she threw it on a table as if it had scorched her fingers. "How dare you read of Vasrin and beautiful things!" she said, her cheeks a fiery scarlet. "What are you playing at?"
As usual, I had no answer.
"Before we set out for Tymnath, I have a riddle for you, my play friend." D'Sanya dragged me up from the grass beneath an ash tree where I'd lain waiting for the past hour listening to locusts buzzing in the grass, unable to concentrate on my book for my impatience to be with her. A delicate strand of sapphires set in silver dangled from her wrist, the color matching the flowing tunic she wore atop her leather riding skirt. "Forgive my dawdling, but one of my gardeners—my stone gardener—was showing Na'Cyd and me the work he's just completed. Now I want to share it with you."
"Stone gardener? That sounds like a riddle itself."
"You'll see." Waving to the ever-present onsiliar, who stood watching us from the gate, D'Sanya led me across her lawn, up the wide steps, and into her house.
"Does Na'Cyd ever do anything but watch us?" I had found the consiliar's gray eyes fixed on me four times that morning: as I arrived at the hospice, as I left my father's apartments, as I met D'Sanya in her garden, and now again, when he ought to be off about hospice business. "I'm beginning to see him lurking in my sleep."
"Pay him no mind. I believe the man considers himself my substitute father, ready to protect me from mysterious handsome fellows who constantly distract me from my work."
Beyond the sunny sitting room where we talked and played children's games lay an enclosed garden, lush and green. It included three apple trees, a small lawn, a gravel walk lined with beds of flowers, but its heart was a magical fountain where spraying water sculpted the misty shape of three swans taking flight from the pool. On my every other visit to this garden, the solid gate in the stone wall on its far side had been closed and locked. D'Sanya had told me it was a part of the house construction that remained unfinished. But on this morning the gate stood open, and the Lady motioned me to walk through, into a small courtyard. I gaped in amazement.
Before us lay almost the exact replica of the green garden behind us, but in this courtyard, every flower and tree and blade of grass was gray stone, its surface as smooth and luminous as pearls. Even the magical swans had been duplicated in stone, their rising wings as light as if filled with air.
"I've never seen stonework so delicate, so exact," I said. I ran my fingers over the rose petals. Each flower was slightly different, just as true flowers grew, and the artist had captured the fine veins in the leaves, the motley blights and blemishes of real flowers, even a rose beetle here and there. The thorns seemed real, as well, sharp enough to prick my finger when I touched them.
"You didn't guess, then!" She stood behind me, her delight warming me more than the hot sun on my back. "But then perhaps you've never seen shellstone."
"No. Never. What is it?"
She dragged me back to my feet and through an open doorway into a long, low-roofed building—a garden workshop. On one side were pots and shovels, barrows, barrels of dirt, and wooden tables on which sat trays of seedlings ready to be set out in the rich black soil of the valley. But one long table was topped with a slab of gray stone, and on it lay a variety of plants and flowers, feathers and twigs, each one partially encased in thin layers of pale gray.
"Do you understand now? Though I knew of it from childhood, I'd never seen shellstone for myself until we found a deposit in Grithna Vale. If you lay an object— anything, a natural object or a model that you've made from wood or clay or steel—on the slab and don't move it, the stone will grow around it, preserving the exact shape. Even as the stone grows thicker, the details are all retained. A fresh and lovely rose will look fresh and lovely forever."
I started to ask if she didn't miss the smell or the color, but I didn't want to spoil her pleasure. The sculptures were indeed marvelous. A natural material of this world—that explained why I'd felt no prickling or coolness to indicate enchantment.
"The gardener, who is truly a Stone Shaper, takes the individual pieces—the flowers, the stems, the trellises, the insects or other creatures—along with sculpted pieces of his own invention, and he arranges and links them together to accomplish his vision."
Once I had expressed sufficient admiration for her "gardener's" talents, we rode out for Tymnath, a sizable town with a bustling market three leagues south of Gaelic Over the past weeks we had made frequent visits to Tymnath market. With the same amusement, wonder, and delight as the children who ran barefoot through the lanes, we had picked up and put down everything we found there: jewelry and fabrics, cooking pots and music boxes, games, artworks, and magical devices of infinite variety. I had never imagined such magical things existed, invented just to entertain or amuse. We had eaten every kind of foodstuff that was offered: little pastries filled with bitter fruit, sugared leaves, savory skewered bits of meat, shellfish in butter so spicy D'Sanya turned red and drank three cups of saffria before dissolving in laughter, and wine so potent I had to sit in the middle of the lane for a quarter of an hour before I could walk straight again.
On this day several artisans h
ad set up a display of painted silks, some already sewn into scarves and gowns, some raw lengths hung from frames taller than my head. The designs and rich dyes confused the eye, forming colors I could not name and shapes that were not imprinted on the fabric itself, but only on my mind.
As we turned to go, I glimpsed Sefaro's daughter leaning against the side of a sausage-seller's cart, watching us. Did the woman truly travel so far just to spy on us?
I took D'Sanya's arm and led her away from the central market. A woman strolling toward us with a child at each hand stopped suddenly, staring at D'Sanya, her jaw falling open.
"Ah, not yet," D'Sanya murmured. "If we could have just a little while longer to ourselves . . ."
"The Lady!" whispered the woman, trying to be polite without taking her eyes from D'Sanya's face. Bowing awkwardly and raising her hands, she elbowed her children, a pale boy and a girl wearing a pink ribbon in her hair. "Your hands, J'Kor, Ma'Denne. It's the enchanted princess." The gaping children raised their palms and bobbed their heads.
D'Sanya nodded quickly and hurried onward, propelling me through the crowded lanes of the market, turning her face toward my shoulder so people could not see her straight on.
Someone always recognized D'Sanya on our outings. Word would spread through the market-goers, and before very long a crowd would gather around her, people begging for help, for healing, for blessings, for relief from their fears. Some people only wanted to touch her, or to have her say their names, thinking some wonder would come of it. She gave everything she could, always apologizing to me with a glance before delving into their problems: listening, healing, touching, comforting.
I had worried at first that someone would be curious about me, start to ask questions I couldn't answer, and uncover my false identity. But I soon learned that no one ever looked at me if D'Sanya was nearby. When she tired, she would glance at me over their heads, and while she told her petitioners where to apply for more help or when she might return, I would stretch out my arms and make a way for her to retreat through the press.