Bones of the Fair

by Host, Andrea K

"I hope so," Lady Dhara said, with a grim look toward Prince Jurasel and Lord Aristide both. "We've camped ourselves at what we think may be an exit to this place, Lord Couerveur, but we're making little progress with it. Perhaps you'll have better luck. Shall we go?"

  She was already turning away, her daughters' hands caught in her own. Prince Jurasel, although obviously nettled by her assumption of command, had lost enough momentum to merely glower at Aristide before striding in her wake. Aristide, in his turn, made an 'after you' gesture to his brother, and glittered at his brief hesitation. Capitulating with a sudden lowering of dark lashes, the man called Seylon followed Prince Jurasel, and Aristide Couerveur strolled after him.

  Rua Ketu, having been left very much to one side during the encounter, bent close to her fellow hapt-guard's ear as they joined the troop, with Captain Djol behind them. Gentian, thoughts preoccupied with the fate of Vostal Hill, was about to join the procession when Lord Aristide's apprentice caught at her arm.

  "Magister Calder," he began, glancing at Captain Djol's back.

  "Call me Gentian. If I can call you Aspen?"

  "Yes, of course," he said, shaking aside pleasantries. He was literally quivering, she noticed, with an equal mix of excitement and consternation. "Mag – Gentian, you understand that we were sent along to protect the Diamond?"

  That was news. "If you say so," she said, blankly.

  "And–" Another harried glance, though Djol was now out of earshot. "Look, that was Seylon Heresar. The Heresar family, probably Seylon himself, was directly involved in an attempt on King Aluster's life last autumn, one that would have finished the Diamond as well. Cya particularly considers Darest's recovery a threat and second to King Aluster suffering an accident, nothing would please Queen Rithana more than the Diamond's head on a platter. I don't know what would have happened just then, if we hadn't a few non-Cyan witnesses. We need to–" He broke off, perhaps unsure exactly what they could do. Neither of them were carrying weapons, and in this place without magic Gentian at least knew herself to be entirely negligible in methods of battle.

  "Be on our guard?" she suggested, and he nodded gratefully. "Who is Lady Dhara?"

  "Princess Kestia's wife. Very high-level mage, and heir to one of their largest dukedoms. Queen Rithana doesn't get on with the current duke, but together Kestia and Dhara have quite a power base, so the marriage is less than popular with the rest of the family. Heresar's the Diamond's elder by a year or so, and assumed their father's dukedom years ago. He's in the Queen's pocket, works with whichever of her children is heir of the moment, and plays no favourites." Aspen gazed at the group ahead, shifting abruptly from tension to speculation. "For a moment there I thought Prince Jurasel was going to grab the Diamond by the throat. Quite a handful."

  With a tangled smile, he hurried after the others. Gentian trailed him thoughtfully, trying to sort out all these names and consequences. Travelling half her life, she'd had little involvement in politics. Always an outsider, not really concerned with anything beyond her gardens. She found she didn't like the idea of someone trying to scuttle Darest's fortunes by killing her King, and supposed she would be naïve to believe Aristide's brother wouldn't be ready to make himself an only child. What she could do about it was less clear. Aristide Couerveur she considered well able to look after himself when he had the resources of magic, but she wasn't sure he even knew how to use the sword he was carrying. And there was every possibility that the saecstra would soon take him out of the picture.

  Leaving as soon as possible was the obvious course.

  And escape was important for more personal reasons. Gentian knew this was still Darest – the overarching identity of the land hadn't changed – but the corridor itself was blank, as if it wasn't really there. The rubbed-over empty wrongness kept pulling at her. She suspected they were still in the Skorese, but couldn't be sure, and she didn't like the sensation at all.

  Catching up to Captain Djol, she was in time to hear the kidnapping from the barge's point of view.

  "Most of us were below deck, of course," the Lady Dhara was saying. "I was woken by Hapt-lo Dest giving the alarm, felt a wash of power, but no casting except his. Then I fell over, couldn't even make it out of our cabin. And was in this place."

  "I, too, felt nothing I would call casting," said the Atlaran man, evidently Hapt lo Dest. "At first it seemed to me that the wind had freshened." He shook his head, the beading in his hair clicking. "That is understatement. I thought it a gale, a storm-front. The mist began to stream past the prow of the barge. I found myself unsteady on my feet, and still did not understand. Then – then we were above the mist."

  This scarcely made sense to Gentian. Magic of such high order should have shouted its intent, warning every true-mage in the area of casting. But then, between floating above the Cauldron and finding herself in this corridor, she had felt only a strange kind of surge, with no murmur of will behind it. Like the tide.

  "The speed of it far outstripped any ordinary flight," the Hapt lo added. "Miles in moments. I could see mountains ahead, shouted an order to erect shields. We began to slow, as quickly as we had accelerated, and were about to strike rock, hard, when we were brought here. We retained only a little of our speed, enough to bruise us against the wall, the most minor of injuries. To those of us who came through."

  His pause was a question.

  "All dead," Aristide replied, without elaboration.

  "With such power, why not translocate from our original location?" asked Captain Djol, while those who were on the barge each tamped down on their reaction. "Rather than remove the entire barge, performing a feat a dozen mages would struggle to achieve?"

  That was unanswerable. Lady Dhara considered him restively, then continued her story: "So we were here. We chose a direction and eventually came across a knot of Fae script, the only marking so far on these walls. There was a body before it." She glanced down at her younger daughter, but continued, "Some months dead, as best we could judge. The script is an enchantment, of that we are sure, and our hope is that it is a gate. Some of us travelled on, walked for hours, with only more corridor to show for our effort. It seems to be a very large circle. We had just regrouped when Aurak Bes told us he felt enchantment approaching. There is our camp."

  The curve of the corridor had revealed the rest of the lost, sitting among a scatter of blankets and small objects. A strange sight, this collection of young and powerful in their bedclothes, their stances declaring tension and distrust.

  Like an island of calm in their centre was Aurak Bes, fortunately in one piece. He smiled in surprised recognition at the sight of her, but before Gentian could respond Seylon Heresar, who had been murmuring quietly to Prince Jurasel, stepped once again to the fore.

  "I'm sure it is hardly necessary," he said, with a suggestion of purr, "but allow me to introduce my brother, Aristide Couerveur of Darest, who is anxious to come to our rescue as soon as he discovers how." He looked with undisguised pleasure at Aristide's saecstra-marked hand and added: "I understand your title to be Councillor of Mages now, brother?"

  "Currently," Aristide replied, displaying no particular concern at the intended barb. He bowed with a pleasing elegance, then spared a glance for the wall to their right, where an intricate medallion of twisting lines, pale purple in colour, stretched from the floor to well above their heads. Fae script as promised, with an elaborate border.

  The first to step forward was a highly polished piece of courtly gallantry. His bed robe displayed skin of velvet cream and, while not muscular, he was certainly well-formed. Dark eyes were framed by extravagantly long lashes, and his curling black hair was lightly tousled.

  "This is unexpected, Lord Couerveur."

  His voice, with a slight Saxan lilt, matched the beauty of his face and Gentian guessed this to be Crown Prince Chenar. The most she knew of him was that he suffered from a land-hungry father. Beneath his muted dismay, the man seemed nervous, his eyes flicking between Aristide and Prince Jurasel bef
ore settling on the uniformed figure who stood between them.

  "Djol, what has been happening?"

  Captain Djol, with a precise salute, said: "Highness. After over a day's search the wreckage of your barge was located in the Skorese Mountains of Darest, along with the bodies of those...not here. No hint of those responsible could be located, but on investigating a trace of what must have been the translocation spell, we were brought here. Since we were not immediately followed by others among the searchers, I consider it likely that route has been closed."

  "I see." Prince Chenar did not quite manage to hide the blow, but glanced aside as a younger, less highly finished version of himself touched his arm. "Rydan, you'll not have met Lord Couerveur before. If you have been caught in this trap on our behalf, Lord Couerveur, I can only offer my regrets."

  "I imagine no fault of yours, Prince Chenar."

  Gentian sensed something unspoken, but couldn't read the exchange. She heard Prince Jurasel shift position, still at a slow seethe, and wondered if it was even remotely possible this group would survive another day without coming to blows.

  "You will be familiar with Princess Kestia, of course," Prince Chenar continued, bowing with toward a tall, red-haired woman standing between a boy of four and the girl called Desseron. The woman inclined her head a bare fraction, austere to the point of rigidity.

  "Well met, Your Highness," Aristide said. He left a little pause, a kind of auditory underscoring, then with deliberate care unslung the water-skin he was carrying. "I understand you have been short of food and water?"

  "Sweet of you." The speaker, her tone drawling, was the only one still seated, watching the encounter with lazy detachment. The last of the missing heirs of the West, surely: the Cerian Crown Princess.

  White gold. Her hair, her skin, her brief silken shift. Even her eyes were a molten honey-brown. But beyond her colouring, with her long legs curled under her, and her head drooping almost as if it was too heavy for her neck, she was quite the most innately graceful creature Gentian had ever seen. Improbably out of place seated on a blanket in this stark corridor, but Aristide's equal for self-composure.

  "Princess Aloren." Passing the skin to Lady Dhara, Aristide bowed again, this time with a flourish, ironic tribute to the display the woman made. For she was certainly beautiful, enough to make Gentian blink and look away from the figure hidden, flaunted, by the golden shift.

  "Aristide." Heavy lashes dropped as she surveyed him, lazily critical. "I see you haven't grown any taller. But I like the black. I do hope you're going to live up to your reputation, for this is certainly the dullest place in all Sumica."

  Lord Aristide seemed to find Princess Aloren highly amusing, and was probably well aware that Prince Chenar and Prince Jurasel were both watching the exchange with disfavour. "I see I must produce an exit without delay," he said, aplomb undiminished.

  "For that, I suspect you may well have brought us a key."

  Aurak Bes, never long to remain in the background, walked forward. Grand in an ochre bed-robe, he was six and a half feet tall and over sixty years old, though the advantages of being true-mage kept any hint of grey from his neatly beaded hair. He was very dark, and had the imposing build of Atlarus' south, with a deep chest that made his voice boom. Without a doubt he had caught and weighed every nuance of tension, but no hint of concern marred the warmth in his eyes.

  "Lord Magister Couerveur," he said, a hand going to his chest as he inclined his head. "It is indeed a pleasure to meet you."

  He nodded acceptance of Aristide's return courtesy, then turned to Gentian and held out both his hands, capturing hers and bowing over them. "'Gentian, Gentian, meek and mild'," he quoted, with great good humour. "You are the very person I have been wishing for. It has been over a year, has it not?"

  "Near to two, Sir." She smiled up at him, then freed her hands. "I could hope to have found you in better circumstances."

  "I am whole. I breathe. I understand that is more than I can say for the other passengers." He looked back at Aristide. "I have undertaken to bring the Arachol's good wishes to your King, Lord Magister, and I mean to fulfil my commission. To this end, I suggest that together we turn our minds to unravelling this puzzle of the Fair." His eyes turned briefly toward the writing on the wall. "But first there is another matter I feel should be drawn to your attention. If you would follow me?"

  They obeyed, Gentian pausing to unload her bags and hand Lady Dhara a box of rose jellies meant to be a gift to her parents. Gentian's experience of Kubara Bes had been full of these moments where he would sweep in and take control, and everyone would just do what he said because it was the best and most logical course. She could remember one of his daughters complaining about the total autocracy of a benevolent man. No doubt his presence was the reason the storm of tension had yet to break.

  With half the castaways in tow, Aurak Bes led them a short way along the corridor, to where a blanket covered an unmistakeable shape. "We moved her here," he said, sketching the Moon's crescent. "Rather than leave her in the middle of our camp."

  A curious quietude came over Aristide Couerveur's face as he lifted the blanket to reveal the pinched and shrunken features of a woman months dead.

  It's not a pose, Gentian thought. He really has been enjoying himself. Despite the risk to Darest and his own life, this mess had simply put him on his mettle. But this, this he definitely isn't pleased about.

  "Desia Metral," Aristide said, drawing the blanket back across the corpse's face with particular care. He straightened. "A diviner I sent to survey the Bonisen Mines, some eight months ago. I will be able to call off the search."

  "Dehydration seems the probable cause," Aurak Bes said.

  "Very likely. Shall we?" Aristide asked, turning back toward the intricate patch of writing. This time the undertone was 'enough games'.

  Gentian could haltingly read Fae script, but she did not need to even look at these words to know them. They had been telling her their meaning long before she came within sight of them, murmuring, scratching, sucking at the edges of her mind. It had inspired a queer uncertainty, a reluctance to think about, to even look at the wall. Another new experience: she'd never been prone to fits of nerves. But she kept remembering the sea-fetch, staring up at her out of her own drowned eyes.

  "'Bow your head in shame before Telsandar'," Aristide Couerveur read. And smiled.

  "I am not such a scholar of the Fair as you, Lord Magister," Aurak Bes said, watching the smaller man with full attention. "I have never heard of a Telsandar."

  "It is this land. It is the name the Fair had for Darest before it was given as gift to Domina Rathen."

  This produced a spate of questions and demands from those behind them, which Aristide completely ignored. Gentian wondered what he felt from the medallion. The Couerveur bloodline was strong, but she'd not known the family to be sensitive enough to touch the soul of the land, had been surprised he'd known they hadn't left Darest. Still, he was true-mage, great-mage, and had quite a reputation.

  The Couerveurs also had a reputation for turning into autocratic madmen as they aged. Gentian's mother had made it a policy to have as little to do with their regency as possible, and Gentian suspected that sooner or later she was going to come in for a lecture for finding this autocrat entirely too entertaining.

  "The casting is too subtle, or perhaps too old, for me to read the intent," Aurak Bes said. "That is why I am glad to see you have brought Magister Calder with you. It is a gate, is it not?"

  "Yes."

  They said it together, more deliberately this time, and Aristide's eyes narrowed meaningfully. Gentian saw, with an inner curl of hilarity, that Aristide Couerveur had decided to be suspicious of her, of the convenience of her. He could well have said "We must talk of this later," as he had when he so unexpectedly fired up about her plans for Vostal Hill.

  "It feels like it's one way," she added, turning away to gather up her bags. "Wherever this takes us, we'll only be using it the
once."

  "How can you be sure of that?" This from Prince Jurasel, obviously having had enough of standing about in the background. "None of us could read intent from that thing, just those words." For all he made no move toward her, his dissatisfaction, the vivid desire to strike out at something, anything, made her shoulder blades itch.

  No need to tell this tinderbox of royalty she thought they were walking from one trap to another, and that she had no idea what the consequences would be. What gain admitting to a feeling of being dragged under whenever she came near the thing? Dying of thirst in this corridor was surely the worse option.

  "Why don't we find out?" she asked instead, and put her hand through the wall.

  Chapter Seven

  Aspen had a new god. Anyone who could call the Diamond short to his face was worthy of the most slavish devotion, and he made no effort to hide his approbation. Like Prince Jurasel and Prince Chenar, he was going to make every effort to win her good graces.

  He appreciated that she saw and accepted his admiration as her due, sparing a moment to look him up and down. At this stage that was enough, for it would surely be a difficult pursuit with two Crown Princes trying to annex her as territory. Not that both of them weren't worth second, third and fourth looks as well. Aspen was suffering from an embarrassment of riches.

  Continuing her role as proclaiming oracle, Gentian had walked into the wall like it was wet mud, and was now only an arm, shoulder and bags projecting from the middle of the tangle of purplish script. She waggled splayed fingers, and the Atlaran ambassador took the hint, enveloping them before offering his free hand to Aristide. Seeing exactly where this was going, Aspen was caught between getting to hold the Diamond's hand, and jockeying for position by the golden Aloren.

  But the Hapt-lo blocked Aristide and Chenar and Jurasel quickly bracketed Aloren. Aspen ended up between Lady Dhara and her blood-daughter. The girl, Kassen, was blinking back tears, which Aspen did not think was at all the appropriate response to escape, especially by means of filing absurdly hand-in-hand through a wall. She caught him looking askance and ducked her head, then glowered at him in an it's-all-your-fault way.