"Do you hear music?"
From the faint murmur of agreement, Prince Rydan was the first to speak what many suspected. Aspen hadn't noticed anything, but when he strained his ears, he could just catch the faintest melody. The place wasn't as lifeless as he'd thought.
"This way." The Aurak started around the edge of the central parkland with its cross-shaped lake. The music became more distinct and Aspen guessed at a harp somewhere in the buildings ahead.
Rua Ketu's commander, Hapt-lo Dest, quickened his step, long legs effortlessly taking him to the front of the group. "Shields?" he asked, when the Aurak tilted his heavy head toward him.
The Aurak tipped his head in the opposite direction, meeting the Diamond's eyes. A little pause, then: "Not as yet."
Good manners. They'd already had one demonstration today of how drawing shield could be misunderstood. Which was all well and good, but there was something about this music – delicate, intricate – which got under Aspen's skin to tickle and constrict. Like a net of cobwebs around his veins.
The Hapt-lo's steady pace faltered, and he looked again to his lord. In a moment, Aspen saw what had conjured clear surprise to his stoic features. There, in front of one of the buildings, was another misplaced festival confection. Seven foot at least, greyhound slender, her profile clean, beautiful and stern. A woman, frozen along with the trees and lizards.
She had been caught in a graceful, very upright pose, her head turned to look up a broad flight of stairs to the door of the nearest building: a large, square edifice with high columns supporting a decorated architrave. Music cascaded through the unblocked entrance.
With many wary glances at the doorway, they approached the white figure. Aurak Bes, after a close glance at the glazing, chuckled.
"Stone beneath. This is a statue in truth."
"It's not a statue up there, Lord," the Guard Dog said.
"No, indeed. And – I believe this composition shares a pattern with the valley's shielding."
"Linked, certainly," the Diamond said.
"Stop the music, stop the shield?" Lady Dhara mused. "It's never that simple, is it?" She exchanged a glance with Princess Kestia, their children gathered around her.
"Do we go as a group?" Aspen asked. "Or–?" He paused, and looked uncomfortably toward the three children.
"I'm sure we can find somewhere out of harm's way for you, sister." Jurasel's tone was still cheerful, the malice almost automatic.
Princess Kestia didn't respond, but Lady Dhara snorted and gestured toward the western rim of the valley where the sky was changing colours. "Whatever's able to maintain that shield – let alone an illusion lighting a place this large – is perfectly capable of swatting the lot of us, wherever we lurk. Let's get this over with." She mounted the stair, sweeping them into her wake.
Aspen awarded her at least ten points for taking a daunting prospect head-on, and by doing so somehow reducing it. For what she'd said was true. Here they were, some of the most powerful mages in Western Sumica, walking about a valley none of them could hope to produce. So far as he knew, even the entire Court of the Fair would struggle to manage this kind of effect. If they wanted to bring down whoever had built the thing, they'd have to pray for intervention from Sun and Moon both.
Time to find out why they'd been brought here.
ooOoo
A white marble box, leavened by slender lancet arches reaching from waist-height to within a hand's-span of the ceiling. Four great harps in the corners, polished and gleaming in shades of teak and mahogany. Smaller instruments scattered on divans and elegant cupped chairs. And, at the harp to the right of the door, the musician.
It was the original of the statue. Her hair matched the massive harp she was playing: a very dark mahogany dressed to a high chignon, caught up, looped and braided, with a cascading tail long enough to coil on the floor behind her, pooling on the train of her slate and sage gown. For a moment Aspen was entirely diverted from imminent bug-squashing by the reflection that as soon as he was back in Tor Darest he would absolutely have to put a picture of himself outside his room, to let people know of the delights within. But then the woman stopped playing. Long hands moved from the harp's quivering strings to her lap, and she looked at them.
Momentous thing. The Fair could be quite human at times, particularly those who weren't so full of a sense of their own history. They lived a long time, but they did the same things people did: ate and laughed and longed for whatever met their fancy. Falling into this woman's forest-black eyes, Aspen found no point of common reference.
For the first time since entering the valley he was acutely aware of their intrusion into the hidden past, as out of place as a mouse in the Feast-Hall of the King of the Cats. And about as brave of heart.
~To what purpose do you disturb Telsandar?~
There was precious little expression to the voice and no change at all in the smooth oval face. Her lips hadn't moved, and the words weren't Sumican. Translation didn't appear to be necessary: they reverberated, with the absolute clarity of struck crystal, inside Aspen's head.
He wasn't feeling anything he recognised as casting, but it occurred to him that the free magic in the room was behaving more than oddly. There was a kind of current to it, a general wash toward the near corner of the room where the woman sat. She was drawing on the ambient magic so massively that, even though he couldn't actually detect any intent to her casting, he could see the wake it left. That was...entirely outside his experience, and Aspen was certain he wasn't the only one in the room feeling an urgent need to back right out the door and find something to crawl under.
Aurak Bes took a step forward. With his head high, and his pale bed-robe settling in authoritative folds, he managed a complete and uncowed dignity. "No purpose of ours, My Lady," he said, polite in the grandest of ways. "We have been brought to this place unwilling, and would be glad of your assistance in leaving it."
~That I cannot give.~
Her impassive, unremitting gaze shifted past the Aurak and seemed to fix on Aspen. But she was looking past him, out the open doors, and a sudden surge in the tide of magic prompted him to turn sharply, to witness a spark of blue fire ignite on the crown of the pavilion that sat at the very centre of the valley. The light, burning water, flowed down the curving roof and the marzipan glazing went with it like melting wax, exposing green and brown marble, then a brighter green and blue beneath as the frosting was stripped off grass, and the water of the lake. Gardens were revealed, bordered by pathways of faintly pink stone edged in charcoal. The buildings remained white, but lacked the pearly gloss, and gained details picked out in charcoal, dusky pink, and a lighter grey. Brighter colour sparked: flowers, fruit, the rows of corn, and a flash of crimson as a red and black falsehawk launched from a tree, spiralled in a rising circle, and battered itself against the sky.
~Use what you will,~ said the voice in their minds.
Incredulity thick in the air, they turned as a group to look back at the Fae. She had lifted her hands preparatory to resuming play, and before this sorely-tried group the sight was a goad. Prince Jurasel made a choking sound and Lady Dhara seemed to be grinding her teeth. The Aurak had become grave with affront and the golden Aloren was decidedly less languid. Even the Diamond was frowning. Prince Chenar painted himself into a whole new light by being the first to manage to speak.
"Use what you will?" he repeated, diffidence falling away as he took two entire steps forward. "Who are you, to abduct and then dismiss us? You–"
~I am Suldar. Regent of this land.~
They were outside. Standing next to the now grey stone statue as the first deep notes of the harp sounded. There had been no sense of transition, no warning, no chance or hope to resist their dislocation. True to their insect status, she had brushed them aside and then closed – removed – the door behind them. The stair now led to an unbroken marbled wall, and they were left with one final statement, struck ringing into their minds:
~Your presence i
s no act of mine.~
Chapter Eight
"God?" Aristide Couerveur asked, lips curling. "Or monster?"
For the first time since she'd entered the valley the sick knot in Gentian's stomach relaxed, disarmed. "Face to face, it might be hard to tell the difference."
He nodded agreement, but turned away as Prince Chenar climbed down from anger, took a shuddering breath, then said: "I assume you are not content to remain in this place, Couerveur?"
"Not at all. However, I found nothing in that encounter to suggest we will escape tonight. Using what we need seems a most sensible suggestion."
"Water, food, a place to eat while we discuss this." Lady Dhara ticked each item off on her fingers. "Then rest. For you know he's perfectly right, Chenar. Unless you're capable of breaking back in there and forcing this Suldar to let us go, we're going to be chipping at these walls for weeks."
"We will aim for a quicker escape than that, My Lady," Seylon Heresar said. He emphasised the 'we' just enough to suggest that not everyone was working to the same goal, and coolly assessed the result. No doubt Cya would be delighted to set Sax at Darest's throat.
But Prince Chenar had recovered his quiet manner, and nothing seemed liable to strike more than glitter from Aristide Couerveur, who simply said: "Shall we choose a base of operations?"
They moved away from Suldar's building toward one of the mansion-sized houses, and Gentian again reached with all her senses for the place around her. Darest. Intensely, inescapably Darest. But the hate wasn't there. She didn't understand.
And then there was the pavilion, the hub for the valley surrounded by grass and a cross with a complex border. The pavilion itself was stone: clean columns for trunks, stylised branches, and a lattice of pale grey leaves curving to a peak. It was beautiful, a work of art. Now that she'd recovered some semblance of equilibrium, she was able to study its frame without flinching, and begin to nudge her mind toward facing the implications.
"There's sure to be a kitchen around here somewhere," Lady Dhara was saying, pushing open the doors of the first house around the circle to reveal a simply lovely hall, all honey-toned marquetry. She strode onward with unstinting determination, opened another door, another, then was gone.
"It's been too long since I last played follow the leader," Aspen murmured in Gentian's ear. "Shall we move on to hide and seek?"
"King-in-his-castle's more likely."
He chortled, a delighted burble. "At least the Fair can be relied on to have littered this place with every comfort. There's something about abandoned luxury that makes me itch to take advantage of it."
"Abandoned is about right," Gentian replied, stopped by the crowd in the doorway of what had proven to be a kitchen.
Spacious, opening on a working garden, the room told an eloquent tale. Chopped and withered vegetables sat beside bowls of blackened meat. Pastry had been rolled into a sheet amidst a scatter of flour, and the shattered remains of a bottle twinkled in a dark stain on the slate flags. As if the residents had dropped everything and run. The scent of vinegar was still sharp in the air.
"This sat a week or more," Captain Djol said, prowling forward as others conjured mage-glows against the waning light.
"Before the preservation was activated." Lady Dhara followed him in and, with a nice display of perfectly controlled true-magic, lifted shattered glass, bowls, vegetables, and even the dusting of flour from the table. She walked it all out into the garden, then returned, shutting that door behind her. "Sit down," she ordered, with a sudden impatience. "Talk. Kassen, Desseron, help me find something to eat."
The two girls, along with Rua Ketu and Captain Djol, began to explore the kitchen's cupboards and pantries. Everyone else, after a hesitation full of sideways looks, collected chairs to cluster around the heavy table in the centre of the room. They were marvellously out of place, and not just because of the bed clothes. It occurred to Gentian to wonder how many of these people had actually been in a kitchen before, let alone used one. All this royalty, and barely a servant in sight.
She'd thought that Chenar and Jurasel would again be jockeying for access to Princess Aloren, but instead the seating arrangements took on a distinctly factional flavour, everyone clumping according to kingdom. Gentian felt very Darien, sitting at one end of the table at Aristide Couerveur's right hand, with his apprentice on her other side. Aspen had manoeuvred himself next to Princess Aloren and was making droll remarks, which the princess listened to with lazy attention. The two Saxans, Rydan and Chenar, were on her far side, murmuring together.
The Aurak had taken the other end of the table and, after setting down bowls full of apples, nuts and dried apricots, Rua Ketu joined Hapt-lo Dest in standing behind the ambassador. The three Atlarans seemed somehow removed from proceedings: as trapped as the rest but falling into the role of arbiters, with no stake in the tensions between Sumica's western realms.
On the final side of the table ranged the Cyans: Prince Jurasel, Seylon Heresar, Princess Kestia with her son on her lap, and empty chairs for Lady Dhara and the two girls. Cya certainly had the numbers. Not a good thing, if Aspen's talk of assassinations was true.
When the last of the chairs had been fetched, it was the Cyans who took the floor while Prince Chenar sat with head bowed, and Aloren, as ever, simply watched.
Seylon Heresar, gazing at his brother as a cat would a potential meal, started out with: "I own, I don't know what it is prompts me to turn to you for answers, Aristide. You've already told us this place is as much a surprise to you as it is to us. Perhaps, since you served your 'prenticeship among the Fair, you will forgive us for treating you as an expert and showering you with a few more questions?"
"If you wish." Perfect indifference, almost a statement that he and Darest had nothing to hide or apologise for. It was effective, but immediately undercut by Prince Jurasel.
"It's not Couerveur I want an answer from," he said flatly, his glower now directed at Gentian. "We spent an age trying to unlock the door to this place, with about as much success as a kitten trying to roar. Who are you to walk through it as if you had a key?"
"Laeth Varpatten's daughter."
The Varpatten reputation stretched well beyond Darest, and as a child Gentian had delighted in the string of mages bringing her father magical puzzles they hadn't the sensitivity to unravel. She had hoped her bloodline would provide enough of an explanation, and keep them from pressing her further, and thought it had done that.
"I do think I had a key," she added, feeling unsettled. "That door – I don't think you could ever have opened it. You don't belong here."
"True enough," Lady Dhara said, setting a jug and two bottles on the table. "But if you're suggesting that being Darien gave you right of entry, what about that wretched creature we found dead before it?"
"Saxan," Aristide put in. "Immigrated ten years ago." He glanced at Captain Djol, who seemed to have taken the role of cook to himself. "Transplanted, but not native."
Djol somehow managed to slice onions and gaze dispassionately back at the same time, not missing a stroke. Gentian wondered what the Easterner thought of the far more powerful mages he served. Not a native of the West, there was no guessing how he'd react to plots and intrigues against Darest.
"It seems this land has an excess of Regents," Lady Dhara said, sitting down as her daughters arrived with a fine collection of mugs and glasses. Her brusque manner was a relief, bare of the overtones of insinuation and attack which were making conversation such heavy weather. "Regent of Telsandar-as-was, I presume. Telsandar which became Darest, what, six or seven hundred years ago? And stood empty for centuries before that. With this Suldar hidden away here all that time? The Fair don't live that long."
"Nor do they own the kind of power displayed here. Nothing has that kind of power." It was the first time Princess Kestia had spoken. There was a dry, definite quality to her voice, and she surveyed them over the dark head of her meal-preoccupied son.
"Fae, but more than Fae
," Seylon Heresar mused, sounding doubtful. "The question is, does she stay here by choice, or is this her prison?"
"If I am any judge," Aurak Bes said, "the Lady Suldar is the one maintaining this place. The illusion and the shield. There was certainly an echo of their shape in that music. What prisoner shores up the walls of their cell?"
"Warden then?" Lady Dhara suggested. "Or – is this better termed a museum, and Suldar the curator? Either way, if she told the truth about not bringing us here, we still have no idea who did."
"And what reason for the message on the door?" Seylon Heresar turned back to Aristide. "Another of the questions I am keen to ask, brother. 'Bow your head in shame'? That is hardly typical–"
Princess Kestia lifted a hand. "We are going nowhere with this. Tell us what you do know, Lord Couerveur, so we might progress."
Aristide lowered his chin minutely. The group around the table watched him impatiently: no friendlier, but with the sharp edges of temperament restrained. They were anxious for answers.
"Three things," Aristide said, assuming the detached air of a scholar. 'Suldar', which means dusk, is a word I have only encountered in older works of Fae poetry. That is significant purely because the term is no longer in use. Essan is the most stable of the languages, with few archaisms. It is too closely related to Elachar for the Fair to abandon any word without reason. Secondly, the Fair maintain the strongest of Bans upon Shaping their own kind, far harsher than our own laws." He paused, and then his mouth, which had relaxed from its habitual curve, twitched at the corners. "The last thing I can say with certainty is that Darest is cursed."
Bones of the Fair Page 9