As he did so Elora’s gaze was caught by the shape its condensation had left on the table. Without a conscious decision or the slightest hesitation, she reached out a finger to repeat the circle once, then twice.
“What do you see?” the professor asked her.
“Earth, Air, Fire, Water,” she repeated, as she had to herself countless times before, labeling the image on the table as she had so often in her thoughts, tapping her finger at each of the cardinal points of the topmost circle. “The Great Realms of the Circle of the World. Beside it, the Circle of the Flesh: Daikini, Lesser Faery, Greater Faery, I’m not sure. And beyond, the Circle of the Spirit, about which I know nothing, save that that’s where the dragons live.”
“What do you remember from your Ascension?”
“A big blur.” She shook her head. “Been down that road too many times, searching my memory on my own and with Thorn to help me. If the images are there, he couldn’t find a way to pull them loose by spells.” She snorted in rueful dismay. “My immunity to magic proving itself a two-edged sword.
“But I don’t think the images are there, at least not in any way that makes sense like normal memories. The Deceiver hit me pretty hard”—she held out her hands to indicate herself—“as you could see if it weren’t for Duguay’s disguise. In the process he chewed up my memories pretty thoroughly. I was under his glamour most of the time anyway, I had eyes pretty much only for him. I remember Anakerie’s father but I couldn’t describe the man to save my life. Same with Cherlindrea. The only face that’s firm is the dragon.” Her own face suddenly twisted, and she took a quick, convulsive swallow of tea, gasping as the raw heat scorched her throat. “Kieron Dineer.
“And the Deceiver killed him,” she finished.
“Is such a thing possible?”
“Take my word. I was there.”
“To be honest, I don’t much credit their existence.”
“In a world that’s chockablock with all the denizens of Greater and Lesser Faery, not to mention sorcerers of all sizes, shapes, and natures, how can you doubt it?
“Trust me, Professor. Dragons are real. And mortal, at least in body. I can’t seem to get Kieron’s spirit—strange.” She took a more restrained sip as she considered this new thought. “I never considered it before but we were never introduced, so how do I come to know his name? Anyway”—having no answer, she decided to move on—“he haunts my dreams. We’re always on Tyrrel’s tor and he always wants me to kill him again.” Another thought, another longer pause that turned her mouth downward into a frown. “And Duguay’s always there to interfere.”
“Your partner, the troubadour?”
“You don’t like him either?”
“I like looking people in the eye, my dear. It makes me nervous when I can’t.”
She tapped the tabletop again, taking refuge in a return to an earlier stage of their conversation by marking the cardinal points of the circle she’d drawn below and to the left. “I remember animals at the Ascension. No, wait, they were people, robed as avatars to represent them. Makes sense. After all, one circle is the world, the next ought to represent what lives on the world. The flesh. Daikini are a Realm, they get their place on the Second Circle. Or should the animals go first? Do they fill in this missing slot then?”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not. It’s like, all of a sudden, I have too many pieces for the puzzle. Daikini is right. Lesser Faery—brownies, fairies, Nelwyns, trolls, boggarts, and the like. Greater Faery, encompassing the Domains of Elfland and Faery. They all belong.”
“Your animals complete the circle.”
“No, they don’t.” With each thought, as they cascaded from her lips as fiercely as water down the cataracts, her tone grew more firm, her manner more certain. She was onto something. “Animals are of the world, just as Daikini are wholly of the world. They’re a Domain of a Realm, a lesser aspect of a greater whole, the same as brownies and fairies and Nelwyns are Domains of the Realm of Lesser Faery. I said as much to Rool once but never made the connection. They had no business being represented like that at my Ascension, but there was a perceived need to fill all twelve slots in the Great Circle and no one knew the true order—or nature—of things.
“See, Professor?” Again she indicated the circle, excitement energizing both voice and manner. “Start with the World. Move on to the Flesh: Daikini, wholly of the world; Lesser Faery, mainly of the world but with a step beyond the Veil; Greater Faery, of the Veil but with a step still in the world. The final stage has to be something, someone wholly beyond the Veil, the jumping-off point for the next circle entirely, whose only connection to the flesh and the world has to be the spirit, as its name says.”
“Which is?”
“An altogether total mystery, except that at some point we find the dragons.”
“Could they represent your missing link?”
She shook her head. “No. Dragons and demons, they’re outside all the realities, they transcend all the rules. That’s why they’re only supposed to come to you in dreams….” Her voice trailed off and she sagged back in her chair, indicating herself in wry humor. “Case in point.
“Circles are a great image,” she said. “All I seem to be doing is going ’round and ’round in them.”
“Have another piece of cake, you’ll feel better.”
She did, in both regards, and then she thought some more. She got to her feet, drew her sword from its scabbard, and while the professor watched with eyes almost as saucer-wide as hers had been she battled shadows from one end of the floor to the other.
When she was done, he applauded until she quickly shook her head for him to stop.
“That was magnificent,” he protested.
“Khory is magnificent,” she told him. “I’m competent. A modicum of skill, but no art.” A memory touched her. “Like the grandfather of a friend of mine. He was saying…”
“Yes,” the professor prompted.
“I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly, setting aside the sword and walking stiff-legged with eagerness along the line of shelves she had appropriated for her own use, to hold the books she was using. “Something,” she told him over her shoulder, “another friend told me. About a legend, of a race called the Malevoiy.”
“Umm. Black leather cover,” the professor called out, “almost big as you. Silver chasing, three straps, somewhat the worse for wear, a little further toward the corner there.”
“Got it!” she cried exultantly, and then grunted with the effort needed to carry the book to a table.
“What’s this leather wrapped around, anyway,” she demanded of no one in particular, “lead?”
“I’m surprised you’ve no one to help.”
“They’re all working for Thorn tonight, even the brownies. Duguay’s down in Kinshire, talking to the Factor about our show.”
“Those old scribes had their ways of keeping their work from being stolen. Were I some thief, I’d choose booty I could carry, not something that weighed as much as me.”
The cover, once unbuckled, made an audible thump when she heaved it open. Here, Elora had to sigh, and not with exertion. The writing was indecipherable.
The professor adjusted his spectacles, which left them perched precariously at the end of his nose, and slipped the middle pair of his fingers down what she assumed was a table of contents, making comments whose ambiguity nearly drove her crazy before he let out a squeak of accomplishment and folded over a thick sheaf of pages.
“Here we are,” he announced, and then asked Elora, “What did your friend say, about the Malevoiy?”
She had to think a moment to get it right. “That they could speak firsthand of the dawning of the world, but that no one’s knocked on their door in living memory.”
“Interesting turn of phrase, that.”
“Why?”
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“They were, so it says here, the first of the races to step wholly beyond the Veil.”
“What do you mean, ‘step’? As in from the world?”
“Could that be why the Realms are linked by circles? To imply that their status can change? Oh, that would be delicious, to find the High Elves of Greater Faery suddenly banished to this side of the Veil. Serve them right, in their arrogance.”
“Professor, do you know what’s happening along the frontier? Greater Faery’s been raiding the outland settlements. Suppose banishment isn’t the change of status they contemplate, but conquest?”
“Well that wouldn’t be at all pleasant, for either side. The Malevoiy are the oldest of Faery,” he said flatly, and then his eyebrows rose. “And they are apparently as feared on their side of the Veil as some of the Veil Folk are on ours. Could they be the progenitors of demons?”
“You tell me, you read the language.”
And so he did, to the best of his ability, long into the night as their tea turned cold and their cakes stale. With reading came inspiration, which sent him to another floor in search of some title to pursue a phrase that had popped out of nowhere in his thoughts, while Elora scrambled through a pile of notes and pages of her journal to satisfy a notion of her own. She wasn’t sure which was more daunting, that for all her work there was still so much that remained unknown even within these walls, or that in these past weeks of effort she’d managed to discover so much.
When the professor returned, he found her dancing, an elegant skitter-step routine that was accompanied by the hum of a random tune interspersed with phrases he recognized from her researches. This time he didn’t interrupt.
She looked fearfully embarrassed when she caught him out of the corner of her eye. “As a kid,” she explained in a great rush, “I wasn’t allowed to do anything. I like being physical, I like moving, it establishes a bond between my mind and my own body, the same way I use my InSight to merge with Bastian. Sometimes I can dance my way to an inspiration.”
“Any luck?”
“I’m still working on it. And you?”
“The Malevoiy texts make reference to a World Gate, and you’ll never guess where.”
“Don’t, please don’t say it’s somewhere in this building.”
“It would be useful.”
“You mean it is?”
“Good gracious no, whatever gave you that idea? No, it’s somewhere within the environs of Sandeni, up here on the plateau. But of course that was ages upon ages ago, when the Malevoiy were manifest on both sides of the Veil.”
“The ley lines have moved, the Gate won’t be active. Will it?”
He huffed a sigh. “I honestly don’t know. But there’s something else I’ve found.”
This volume wasn’t nearly as impressive as the Malevoiy chronicle. The binding was torn, as were a number of pages, and there was water damage throughout.
“There was a flood,” the professor told her apologetically. “Basement storage, below water level, a weakness in one of the retaining walls, an unholy mess. See here, though”—and he pointed to an illustration—“what do you make of this?”
“A Daikini country dance, what of it?”
“Look at the border illuminations, Elora. I know the ink’s faded but I also know what I see. Is that not the frame of a World Gate?”
The breath went out of her, all at once, so suddenly she had to grip the edge of the table to keep from swaying. The professor sensed her distress, took her with an arm across her shoulder, and held her close, which is when she noticed they were very nearly of a height together.
Without slipping loose from his grip, she stretched arm and torso along the table to pluck up the “bestiary” Luc-Jon had sent her. There was no hesitation about which page to turn to and she slapped the open book beneath the illustration the professor had set before her.
The sigil in her volume and the one atop the illumination were the same. As they were for the image seared in Elora’s memory from Carig’s rogue Gate.
“Is there a name, a reference to any being?” she asked.
“This is a story of some kind, an entertainment.” The professor clearly disapproved. “There is reference to an otherworldly being, but not a hostile one. His role is benevolent, one might almost consider him a force for creation.”
“A name,” she prodded further.
“He is called the Lord of the Dance. Wait.” The professor’s voice tightened with concern as he flipped further through the book. “I may have spoken too soon.”
“How do you mean?”
The framing illumination was the same, though significantly more damaged than its counterpart. A tremendous amount of detail had been lost from the illustration as well, but what could be seen conveyed totally the opposite impression of the one before. That had been a celebration of joy, this was one of transcendent horror, as far removed from the other as could be conceived.
“Which is it?” Elora demanded. “When I first saw this sigil, the entity it represented was being Summoned as an agent of destruction, yet you’ve just been telling me something completely different, that it works for creation.”
“Can’t it be both?”
“I don’t know!” she cried, and was immediately sorry for her outburst.
“Realms exist within the circles, and Domains within the Realms, that is the structure of things.”
“Try telling that to a demon, they hate structure of any kind.”
“Chaos is a state of nature. Is it merely a Domain or a Realm unto itself?”
“We know the dragons are a Realm,” she said. “Else why would Kieron have been at my Ascension?”
“The references aren’t to a single entity.”
“Hmnh?”
“To do his work, the Lord of the Dance needs a partner.”
“There you are,” Duguay called in hearty greeting from the top of the circular stairs. “I have been looking for you so hard, my pet.”
His smile was as glorious as a spring sunrise, filling the room with a warmth and radiance Sandeni hadn’t seen since snowfall and might not ever again.
Elora didn’t notice. At long last she had eyes only for his.
* * *
—
Cascani House, as it was called, was chosen for both banquet and discussions because it was recognized by all the parties concerned as both neutral territory and safe ground. Not only did their reputation for scrupulous honesty and fairness in business dealings make the Cascani ideal hosts, but more important their Rules of Hospitality applied to all their guests. For so long as company remained beneath their roof and in no way transgressed that hospitality, no harm would come to them. To that cause, Factors pledged their honor, their fortunes, and if necessary their lives.
Sandeni troops ringed the wall that surrounded the large, comfortable mansion and the square that opened off the main gate. The house itself stood atop a crookback bluff that jutted out into the Morar like a solitary tooth, providing a magnificent view eastward of the Wall and the falls, as well as an equally impressive panorama of the first cataract. That meant, unlike most residences, which were oriented parallel to their main courtyard, this house was designed perpendicular to it. Instead of the formal rooms branching off on either side of the reception areas, guests proceeded to them along a straight line. The layout, with its towering windows, played to the visual strengths of the scene. Regrettably, it also made the building a devilish pain to heat and in this harsh a winter that proved no small task. Two huge hearths blazed away in the formal dining hall, combining their efforts with a succession of vents along the baseboards that admitted hot air pumped out from a pair of holocausts in the basement.
Officers of the Sandeni Constabulary manned the gate itself, complemented by Cascani Household Guards, who in turn were complemented by Maizan at the entrance to the house
itself. The mood overall was wholly professional, and if an undue amount of attention was focused on the Maizan, with hands ever so casually close to the hilts of swords or knives or cudgels, everyone was tactful enough to take no overt notice or make a comment. As the saying went, “The lion may be housebroken, but those are still a damn fine set of jaws.” No one wanted to be bitten, even by accident.
Elora wore her leathers, her tartan warcloak flung diagonally across her chest and over the opposite shoulder and down her back in the highland fashion. With Duguay by her side she crossed the square in long, leonine strides as if the land itself were hers. When she blossomed from the shadows and the massed torchères of the gate caught the hues and shadings of her painted features, she claimed the instant and absolute attention of every figure present.
It was a superb meal and Anakerie had proved to be an utterly charming guest of honor. She sat at the high table with the Chancellor and the Cascani Factor, her ranking officers interspersed at a dozen other tables among representatives of the council, the parliament, the business community, the trading and banking community, the diplomatic corps, and anyone else with influence enough to wangle an invitation.
As severe as she’d appeared during the procession through town, she was utterly resplendent this evening. She normally wore her hair, for convenience in battle, in a thick, single plait that touched the base of her spine. Tonight it hung undone, swept sharply back from the right side of her face, then over and around the crown of her head into a glossy fall of color that draped across the opposite shoulder and breast. On her forehead was a circlet of pure silver that had been handed down from mother to daughter in her family for countless generations, whose only ornamentation was a sigil of woven knotwork marked with four precious stones. Ruby, emerald, sapphire in a triangle surrounding the dominant element, a delicately faceted, perfectly cut diamond. The knotwork itself was difficult to see because of the modest size of the sigil itself, but close examination would reveal an interlocking arrangement of circles.
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