Daughter of Ancients tbod-4

by Carol Berg

  "Where does she keep it?" The fact that we had walked through the house unhindered and unnoticed did not prevent me whispering.

  "In there." Gerick pointed to an innocuous little cabinet that sat on carved legs in the center of the room. The black lacquered doors caught a beam of moonlight from the window. "She doesn't lock it. The oculus is not something just anyone could steal. Certainly not I."

  Vasrin's hand, I'd forgotten! I peered into the shadows as if living phantasms might be creeping up on me. "Should you be so close?"

  "Just don't open the cabinet until I'm out of this body." He released my hand and crossed the room to the windows, taking a route which kept him as far as possible from the cabinet. Arranging the cushions to support his back, he drew up his legs and wedged himself crosswise in one of the window seats. He opened the casement a crack and peered out before settling against the cushions. The moonlight sliding through the glass panes left his face all angles and shadows. It looked almost as if he were smiling at me. "I'll try not to fall out of the window. Are you ready?"

  Neither of us had doubts. D'Sanya's implements of power had to be destroyed, no matter which of them was fueling the Zhid uprising. My father would suffer for this particular destruction, but I'd come to believe that he would be set free by it as well. But my father wasn't going to die from what we did here. Others would. I believed Gerick should take the time to warn his father—for both of their sakes—but I was too afraid to insist.

  I felt him join with me this time. Perhaps because I saw his body fall so abruptly and so profoundly still, lacking the familiar animation that marks even human sleep. At the same time my churning emotions were soothed by a warm solidity and a self-assurance rooted in the core of my being. How had I ever believed such feelings were my own? I also felt a renewed urgency. The Lady would follow us here at any moment. I needed to move fast.

  Consider need, assert ownership, disrupt containment, trigger the destruction . . . Oh, yes, and first acquire the object itself.

  I cast a faint handlight. A quick trip to the worktables netted a pair of sturdy tongs with a wooden grip and a short metal-cutting saw. I swept a brass bar across the table to make room to work. Laying out my possessions in the cleared space, I made ready to encircle the oculus and assert my ownership.

  Despite Gerick's lack of concern about locks and spells, I used the tongs to take hold of the porcelain knob on the lacquered cabinet and pull open the door. At first I couldn't see anything inside, only sense a quiet rush of air and the dread settling in my belly. I pulled open the second door, and the brass ring caught the pale illumination from my hand and swept it into a small orb of light.

  But just as I opened the jaws of the tongs to grab the oculus, the air of the lectorium shivered. Instantly, I slammed shut the doors of the cabinet, tossed the tools aside, snatched up my belongings, and dived under the worktable in the deep shadowed corner next to the window. Stunned by the oncoming enchantment, I didn't think about these things, didn't plan them, or even understand why I'd done them. But then the fiber went out of my bones, and I was abandoned, shivering and terrified in my hiding place, watching Gerick gasp and sit stark upright on the window seat only a few steps away from me.

  "Sorry, sorry," he whispered between shaking breaths. "Stay hidden. No matter what." After a moment, shaking his head vigorously, he jumped up from the window seat and positioned himself between the oculus cabinet and the sheet of gray-blue light taking shape in the corner of the room opposite me.

  Another burst of enchantment split the air and a portal yawned. D'Sanya, wearing the trousers, shirt, and mailed vest of a Dar'Nethi woman warrior, strode through the shimmering oval, halting a few steps from Gerick. Though she wore knife and short sword at her side, her hands were empty. At first I thought she'd brought a cadre of other women with her, but soon sorted out that I was seeing the multiple reflections of the opposing mirrored walls. The Lady was alone.

  "In one place or the other," she said, cold as hoarfrost on a steel post. "I knew I'd find you ready to destroy what I've built for Gondai. And here you are, ready to bear witness to your name. Dieste the Destroyer—that's what the Three named their newest partner, was it not? That was the destiny they designed for you."

  "Yes." Gerick's hands were empty, too. Though I doubted steel would win this battle, I wished my knife were in his hand. "But if you've learned that much of history, then perhaps you've learned, too, how I walked away from them. How for four years I failed to understand that they still held me captive and how I wrought havoc without realizing that I did their work. A hard lesson, that: Just because you choose to walk away doesn't mean you're free. But you can be. Let me help you."

  "Ah, your tongue is still sweet, Destroyer." As her portal vanished, the Lady swept a finger around the room, and fifty candlewicks burst into flame, confusing my eyes with myriad reflections of light and shadow. Her anger was cool and righteous. "Yet you speak with one voice, while your deeds speak with another. I know what you plan to do here this night. To think I was ready to abandon my father's legacy, betray the duty to which he bound his heirs, because I believed that you, my shy, gentle friend, would shrivel and die in so public a place as my father's palace. Yet even now your demon warriors converge on Avonar, ready to destroy everything of beauty in this world. Did you call them to Zhev'Na to release you from my justice?"

  D'Sanya drifted to her right toward the door to the passageway. Gerick pivoted, matching her movements to keep himself between her and the oculus cabinet.

  "The Zhid wear your pendants, D'Sanya. They found you in the desert after the scavengers set you free, didn't they? They forced you to make them an avantir and the lion pendants that link them together … the tools of war . . . the tools of the evil you thought you had left behind in Zhev'Na. Until you escaped again eight months ago . . ."

  "You lie!" How quickly her cool reason burst into flame. "I am D'Arnath's daughter, born to be his Heir. It is my father's power, my rightful inheritance, that I use to make the lion tokens and to heal the poor lost Zhid and to set my people free of pain and war. His power could never be bent to evil."

  Did Gerick feel what she was doing? His gaze seemed fixed on D'Sanya's face as she shifted farther to the right until her back was to the door. But from the angle of my hiding place I could see the reflection of her hands clasped behind her back, her silver rings gleaming brightly in the murk, pulsing with power.

  Incapable of focused mind-speaking, I couldn't warn him without revealing myself. And I feared he was right that I needed to stay hidden. Someone had to carry the tale of what we had learned to Avonar.

  "Your Restored are reverting to Zhid, D'Sanya." Gerick took a few steps toward her. His voice had taken on a mesmerizing timbre, and he fixed his eyes on hers. "As with everything else you've done, your healings fail. You are poisoning Gondai. Listen to me. . . ."

  But his ploy was too obvious. She broke the lock of his gaze. "How dare you speak to me of evil!" she said. "You've come here to kill your own father. Who but a Lord of Zhev'Na could do such a thing?"

  She cupped her hands in front of her. A ball of silver flame took shape within them, and with a twist of her wrists, she flung the ball straight at Gerick. Beams of silver shot everywhere. The panes of the windows behind him shattered, the crumbling shards reflecting the light crazily through the lectorium. A howling wind swept through the room; bottles toppled and shattered on the tile floor. I had to cover my eyes as the flying splinters, dust, and particles of glass bit my face and arms. When the whirlwind calmed, and I dared look up again, Gerick had raised his hands and a curtain of blue-and-gold light enveloped the two of them, flaring so brightly I could see nothing but his back. Their strange duel played out, not in slashes and spins and footwork, but in hand movements and sweeps of the arm and small steps—forward, back, now staggering, now braced for an onslaught that was roaring red light rather than flashing metal.

  Enchantment piled upon enchantment, causing waves of cold fire to
blister my skin and still my blood. I thought my skull must surely crack, and all I could do was cower in the darkness and pray that Gerick had learned enough of power to save himself at least.

  A few steps away from me, in front of the broken windows, the air rippled. Another portal took shape and spit out three men, one of them drawing a bow aimed directly at Gerick's back. D'Sanya had shifted away from the mirrors. As long as his attention was focused on her, he couldn't spot her allies.

  I snatched up a palm-sized shard of glass and sent it spinning toward the thick-necked bowman with a word to set its course true and another to make its impact hard. It struck him in the calf just as he lofted his arrow. His arrow flew high, striking the curtain of light and bursting into purple flame.

  "Take him!" shouted D'Sanya.

  Two men rushed forward, while the cursing bowman threw down his weapon, dropped to his knees, and wrenched a long splinter of glass from his leg. Shouts and grunts and bursts of light flared from the other end of the room. I must have flinched or twitched or made some noise, for the bowman's head jerked around, and he looked me straight in the eye.

  "Well, see what we have here!" he said. "Something hiding in the corner! Is it a nasty Zhid girl?"

  A huge man, whose neck was the same width as his head, he lurched to his feet and reached under the table. I considered removing his hand with my knife, but better judgment prevailed. Unless Na'Cyd had reported us, they had no evidence against me. Remembering the blow Gerick had laid on the consiliar, I chose to gamble that Na'Cyd still lay tucked under the rosebushes.

  "Please, sir! I'm no Zhid!" I said. "I saw him sneak in here . . . the devil himself. I thought you and your fellows had come to help him against the Lady!"

  The bowman grabbed my hair and dragged me from under the table, just in time to see Gerick smash the heel of his hand into a man's chest. The fellow collapsed. A third man, a long-limbed, wiry fellow with gray-streaked hair, spun and staggered against a worktable when a blast of light from Gerick's fingers ripped his upraised sword from his hand and flung it across the floor far out of reach.

  The wiry guardsman snatched a metal bar from the worktable and swung it at Gerick's head. Gerick threw up a hand to block the blow, but the bar must have grazed his temple anyway, for he dropped to his knees, his hands fallen limply to his sides. His gold curtain of light faded. The man kicked him in the belly, and he fell prostrate.

  Breathing hard, D'Sanya sagged backward against the solid door and the blue lightning faded. "Bind him," she said harshly, "and then fix his hands to the chain in the corner." Her head dropped back against the wood and she closed her eyes. "Quickly!"

  The wiry man knelt on Gerick's back, tossed his metal bar to the floor out of Gerick's reach, and unhitched a coil of silver rope from his belt. The bowman dragged me across the room and shoved me to the floor. "Stay right there until the Lady can deal with you."

  The two of them soon had Gerick bound with the silver cord. They dragged him to the corner, and one man lifted him up while the other looped his bound hands over the hook at the end of the chain. The position raised Gerick's arms so high behind his back that his head drooped below his waist.

  Only then did D'Sanya move. She walked slowly to the corner and ran her fingers over the links of the chain until it glowed red. Then she lifted his head and spat in his ear. "Oh, what I would give to slay you now, Lord Dieste, lest villainous chance snatch you from my fingers yet again. But my people's fears demand that your execution be a public display, and so I must follow the proper forms. Even so vile a creature as you will not force the Heir of D'Arnath to corrupt our law. But that should cause only a small delay."

  He could not have heard her. I wasn't sure he was alive.

  D'Sanya let his head drop and turned to the fallen guardsman. Bending over the dead man, she closed his eyes and smoothed his forehead. "I thank you for your loyal service, good Mi'Tan. May your Way lead swiftly beyond the Verges." Her voice was all tears and kindness.

  She wiped her eyes as she moved on to the oculus cabinet. As she opened the lacquered doors, the candles flickered, their flames taking on a dark red core. My shoulders sagged under the now-familiar burden of the oculus enchantment, and my own inner being felt as if it burned crimson as well. I must have moaned, for only then did the Lady take notice of me.

  "Jen?" The Lady's chin lifted, and her eyebrows, reclaiming a self-assurance that appeared badly shaken by the combat. "Whatever are you doing here?"

  "Blessings of life, Lady," I said, scrambling to my knees. The eerie light from the spinning globe only a few steps away tickled my skin. "Your Grace, all my thanks for saving me. I've been so afraid."

  She motioned me up, her frown showing no sign of royal indulgence. I bounced to my feet.

  "I followed him, Lady," I said, as if my fondest wish was to open my soul to her. "All these weeks, I've suspected him. He seemed so like the boy the Lords trained to become one of them. I was a slave there, Lady, as a child in his house, and I've been waiting to catch him at something to tell me whether or not my eyes were deceiving me. You've seen me spying, I know, but I meant no disrespect for you. And when I saw him sneak into your house tonight—"

  "Why did you not tell me what you suspected?" She grabbed my chin and lifted it up so I could not ignore the dangerous storm in her great eyes.

  "Your Grace, no one believes those of us who were slaves when we bear witness to the wickedness of the Lords. They want to put the war behind them, and we are accused of stirring up hatreds and imagining old fears come to life. You . . . Dear Lady, you cared for him so, I began to think I must be wrong. I was so young when I lived in Zhev'Na. But after you proclaimed that the Fourth Lord walked in Gondai, I swore that if ever I caught sight of him again, I would deliver him to you. Tonight when I came to visit Papa, I glimpsed the villain in your garden. Please forgive me my cowardly hesitation that left you in such danger."

  I thought my skin must flake away with her examination. "Have you no respect for your father that you come to him in such disarray?" she said after a moment. Her fingers picked at my hair, pulling out dry rose petals, and she brushed at the red dirt ground into my leather vest. "And have you no consideration that you come to him so late of an evening?" Her voice was cool . . . like shellstone.

  I shivered. "My lady, call on a Speaker to verify my truth. The young Lord sealed the slave collar on me, and for his training was my father tortured and my brothers murdered. I witnessed the Three devour his eyes and his soul. You cannot believe I would serve him."

  "I don't know quite what to believe. And I've no time to deal with you." She stepped away abruptly, as if I had vanished from the room. "Ri'Tsse, P'Tor, keep the girl here with the Destroyer. I'll return for him as soon as I've declared his condemnation to the Preceptorate. They are expecting it, so matters should move swiftly."

  The bowman bowed. "But we've no more dolemar for the girl, Lady. Have you—?"

  "You've no need to bind her. Her physical prowess can scarcely match the two of you, and her own father admits she is not competent in any true Art. She's likely just another gull. At worst, she's his Drudge. Just secure the chamber and keep her here. It is the devil Lord you need to watch. My binding chain held him well before, but his power has grown."

  Extending one hand, D'Sanya pointed a finger at a glinting arc of metal embedded in the tiles. The narrow silver band formed part of a complete circle—a permanent portal frame—and she stood in its center. "Be alert, Ri'Isse. I'll reopen this portal when I'm ready for him."

  Sweeping her hand around the gleaming circle, she constructed her magical enclosure, and in only moments, a tremulous oval appeared. Even depleted by her struggle with Gerick, the surging power was startling, disorienting, nauseating. As the portal vanished, I felt hopeless as I had not in days. What, in the name of sense, was I to do now?

  The two guardsmen, wearing the white-and-gold livery of the Heir, moved efficiently to their duties. While Ri'Isse the bowman took up a gua
rdsman's stance beside Gerick—hand on his sword hilt, feet apart, balanced, relaxed, and ready—his older companion shot the two sturdy boks on the door to the passageway and applied some magical working to them. My flesh stung as if I'd been struck with a riding crop.

  P'Tor moved across the room to the window, shoved the half-ruined casements open wider, and leaned out. "All's quiet. No one abroad," he called over his shoulder.

  I moved toward the corner where Gerick hung suspended like an abandoned string puppet. I was not quite sure why I did so, except that I needed to get farther away from the oculus. The spinning sounded like the contemptuous hiss of the Zhid, evoking images that made my blood run hot and cold.

  "Just sit right there on the floor, girl," said Ri'Isse, pointing to the dark-colored tiles at my feet, halfway between Gerick and the oculus. "Give us any trouble, and we'll chain you up like the devil."

  "Please, sir, I feel . . . sick. …" I stepped closer to him.

  Truly my head was horribly muddled. The world felt wrong. The older man was working some protective magic on the gaping window openings, and it grated on my skin like a carpenter's rasp.

  Only two of them. They perceive no threat. Certain advantage . . . Another step. I pressed the heel of my left hand to my forehead; pain pierced the spot between my eyes like a lance, as I imagined lightning bolts shooting from my fingertips . . . The soldier dropped the metal bar on the floor. Where is it ? My right arm lay across my stomach as if I were sick. My fingers flexed. Death lies in these hands . . . power for the taking . Something monstrous and horrible burned in my belly. No! You know other ways . . . stay in control. Move .

  What was happening? What was I thinking? Another step closer. "Please, sir, I just need …" I slammed my knee into the bowman's groin.