by Lynn Abbey
"I'm going to start looking over there—" Taran called as he made his way around the ruin, looking for a nice comfy spot where he would be well hidden from view. He brushed away a pile of dead leaves and lay down with a sigh.
There was a rock digging into his ribs. Swearing, he rolled over, pushing more debris away. But this spot wasn't comfortable either. He sat up and looked at the ground on which he'd been lying. He couldn't see anything pointy, and even sitting up he felt the irritation. It was in his head.
He ought to move, he thought then. But he was tired, and if he got up Shamesh would expect him to start working. Taran cursed again, then lay back and began to breathe slowly in and out, letting the annoyance flow out of him in the way his father had taught him when he was a child. Taran tried not to think about his father too often. Darios had been a wizard too, but it hadn't saved him when the Dyareela cult came to power.
His half-closed eyes focused on something in front of him—a point of light that glittered where he had pushed away the leaves. With dream-like deliberation, he reached out for it.
Darkness falls again, in her forgotten world, the only thing that changes in her endless days. She begins to count, as she often does, a personal measurement of time. It is the only kind she has, now.
A face appears behind her reflection—or has her reflection changed? But that's impossible. There are no changes here. She looks again, and realizes that the face is not, cannot be her own! She is looking at a boy, no, a young man, with a mop of ginger hair, while hers is fair. He looks confused
.
She laughs, then starts to weep, crying out to him, pleading, scratching at the barrier between them with desperate fingers.
The darkness gives way once more to light and the face is gone.
She pounds against the mirror, but only her own image remains to reflect her agony.
Taran sat up, heart pounding, as the vision faded. What in hell was that? His visions were usually nightmares—they'd never shown him a beautiful woman before. Had he been dreaming? The girl had looked like one of those Rankan princesses from a marketplace storyteller's tale.
He felt a sharp point dig into his palm and realized that he was still holding something—it was a jewel. Whatever he had seen, this was real enough, and it looked valuable—an egg-shaped, faceted, indigo stone that left purple light on the ground where the sunlight passed through.
"Taran!" Shamesh was shouting. With a start Taran realized he'd been calling for some time. "Drat you, where'd you get to, boy? There's nothing here, and it's getting late. Time we were on our way home!"
"I'm here, in the back. Just keep your britches on." Taran slipped the jewel into the leather pouch that hung around his neck, got to his feet and dusted himself off.
I had better luck than you did, he thought as he rejoined the older man. But he said nothing. There was no point in getting everyone all excited until he knew what it was he had found.
Dinner had been a silent meal. If the searchers had been successful, the whole house would have heard about it. But Latilla knew better than to question men who were tired and hungry. Taran went off to his room as soon as dinner was done. He had that preoccupied look that usually meant he was trying to keep a secret. Likely he meant to sneak out to join his friends, and didn't want her to know. She frowned at the thought, but let him leave unquestioned.
It was her lodger, pouring himself yet another cup from the flask of wine of Aurvesh he had brought back with him, who was her primary concern just now.
"The place is a ruin," Shamesh said disgustedly. "You warned me—" He turned to Latilla. "I used to think that Ranke was past its prime… compared to this ruin, the capital is blooming!"
Latilla realized that she was glaring and looked quickly away. Why it should gall her to hear someone else confirm her own opin-ion she did not know, especially when the flush on his cheeks showed he was finally being overcome by the wine.
He set down the mug with a thump that splashed blood spots of wine upon the cloth and rested his face in his hands. Latilla repressed an impulse to reach out and touch that bent head.
"You have done all that a man may," she said softly. "No one will blame you if you give up the search now. You don't have to go back—you could make a new life here…"
"Think it's blame I fear?" He surged to his feet, swaying, and she stood up quickly to keep him from falling. " 'S my family… We were great, once, you know? But m'grandfather, and father, they had a genius… for choosin' the losin' side!" He giggled a little at the rhyme. "All the money's gone, 'n most of the land. To Koron Eridakos, whose forefathers were kings!" He raised the wine cup, and with drunken deliberation, spilled the lees out onto the floor. "Last chance… last chance't' save m'name…"
"Let's get you up to bed," murmured Latilla, draping his arm across her shoulders. Her husband had been a temperate man, but she could remember how her mother had dealt with her father in the days when he still had a weakness for wine. Some men got ugly when in drink. Shamesh, like her father, tended towards the maudlin. But these were more than sentimental maundering. The wine had dissolved the man's impervious aristocratic calm, and her heart ached as she realized the depth of his pain.
His coordination was a little improved by the time they reached his room, but not his control. As Latilla eased him down to the bed his hand brushed her breast and remained there. "Stay…" he muttered. His eyes were closed. "I don't want… to be alone…"
He thinks I'm someone else, she thought, allowing her gaze to dwell on the finely cut features and mobile lips that had been haunting her dreams. His other hand closed on her shoulder. Even drunk, he was strong. Too strong to resist, she told herself as he pulled her down beside him, knowing even then it was a lie.
"Please… Can't you hear me? Someone, I know there's someone… I will go mad, surely… it has been so long. …" She turns, battering against the glimmer of light that refracts around her. Something has changed, she is sure of it, something has changed the alternation of light and shadow in which she has lived so long. Hope, that fragile spirit she thought dead a lifetime ago, is stirring, frantic to be free.
Blue… he is trapped in a maze of blue and purple light. Moaning, he struggles to get free. But wherever he turns his own reflection blocks the way, fair hair tossing, gray eyes wide with anguish. His senses reel, not least because in this nightmare he has somehow become a beautiful girl. He flails at the barriers that surround him, feeling the rasp of rough wool, and is confused anew, for all he can see is the polished prison of the Jewel. "Help me!" he cries. "Can't anyone hear?"
Someone is shaking him. He opens his eyes. Through shattering purple lenses he glimpses his mother's face and the familiar outlines of his room, and falls back with a moan of pain.
Taran shuddered, struggling to focus. His mother was bending over him, a lamp in her hand. Grasping for normal consciousness, he noted that she was still dressed, though she was disheveled as if she had slept in her clothes. "Hush—" she was murmuring, "you've had a nightmare. You're home in your own room. You're safe here."
"Purple…" he muttered. "It was purple, and I was a girl…"
"Ssh…" said Latilla. "It's over now."
Taran shook his head. "But I have to understand. I was a girl, and I was a prisoner in the jewel…"
His mother stopped patting his shoulder. "What jewel?" she asked.
"I found it in the weeds. I was going to tell you—" he added quickly, "but you were talking to him, and—"
"Do you still have it?" she interrupted him.
"Yes…" he muttered. He felt almost himself again, and was already regretting having given up his secret. The girl had been so lovely! He heaved himself up on one elbow, unhooked his neck pouch from the bedpost and tugged it open. Violet refractions skittered around the room as it fell into his hand.
"I found it and I thought it was pretty, that's all. I thought it might be valuable."
"You know that's not all…" Latilla frowned. "There's mag
ic in it—if you haven't sensed that already you're not your father's son, or mine! And you found it in a sorcerer's den…"
Right, he thought, grimacing at his own stupidity. And I just lay down in the middle of it to have a snooze!
"Do you think this has something to do with that girl Shamesh is looking for?" he asked when her silence had gone on too long. He had agreed to help the Rankan. Did that mean he was honor bound to give up the jewel? "Are you going to tell him?"
After another long moment his mother sighed. "I don't know."
Will he remember? Latilla wondered as she ladled porridge into wooden bowls. The donkey-driver and the silk merchant who were her other guests this week were already sipping their tea. Shamesh had not yet appeared. She wondered if he would make it down to breakfast. She wondered if he would remember that he had not spent last night alone.
And if he does? If he looks at me, and remembering, smiles? If the quest that had brought Shamesh here failed, he would have no reason to go home. We could be happy together, she thought, if happiness based on a lie could endure…
But the jewel might have nothing to do with his search, and she would not have to lie. Even if he did not remember, what had happened once might happen again. Her imagination started on its round once more.
By the time her Rankan lodger finally made his appearance, Taran had finished the morning chores he usually weaseled out of and had wheedled a second bowl of porridge—proof of her distraction. His eyes shifted uneasily from his mother to Shamesh as the older man sat down, squinting at the light flooding in through the eastern window. Behind him the fresco of Shipri, Queen of the Harvest glowed, the colors almost as bright as they had been when Latilla was young. Her mother was supposed to have modeled for that image. She found it hard to believe.
Perhaps it was the hangover that made Shamesh so distant, she thought, but she did not think so. Keeping silent about Taran's discovery would be a fitting punishment for a man who could not even remember what she had given him.
As the tea hit his system Shamesh looked up, the fine eyes clearing. "That wine of yours was stronger than I expected. I'm afraid I talked a lot of nonsense last night—"
You talked about the things that matter to you… She thought, gazing back at him, and understood that though she had held his body in her arms, she would never touch his soul. She sighed.
"Taran has something to show you," she said aloud. Her son cast her a stricken look, his hand going instinctively to cover the leather bag. We are both giving up a dream… thought Latilla, but her own pain made her ruthless. "There was something left of Keyral's magic after all. Taran found a jewel."
For a moment Latilla wondered if her son was going to obey. She could see the struggle in his face, but after a few moments he opened the bag and very gently, set the jewel on the mat. Violet coruscations flickered across the walls as it caught the morning sun.
"When I hold it…" he muttered, "I see a girl… a beautiful girl with fair hair."
Shamesh sat back in his chair, the color draining from his face and then returning in a rush. "The transmutation of souls…" he whispered. "It must be… But is she in the jewel, or is it only a gateway?"
"To an alternate dimension?" asked Latilla. He looked at her in surprise. "My husband was a mage," she explained with a bitter smile.
"Exactly. Magecraft can create a container that is bigger on the inside than on the outside. If that's what we have here, then opening it will set Elisandra, if that's who it is, free."
"But if it's not, you'll kill her!" Taran cried.
"If the jewel holds no more than her soul," Latilla said gently, "then her body died thirty years ago. Would you keep her imprisoned here?"
Taran gaped back, gaze shifting between them. "Will you just… shatter it?"
"No! That would be destruction!" exclaimed Shamesh.
"You are a mage…" said Latilla, understanding what it was in him that had attracted her.
He shrugged. "I have learned a little about… jewels. It is heat, not force, that will relax the bonds that hold this spell together. A gentle heat that slowly grows, until the barriers dissolve and the prisoner is set free."
There are some sorceries that are best performed during the hours of darkness. But for this one, Shamesh deemed it best to make use of the radiant heat of noon. Within the circle he had drawn upon the ground in the garden, mirrors focused the pale spring sunshine around and beneath the jewel.
"Aren't there words you should say? Some kind of a spell?" asked Taran doubtfully. "I will… that what should be, shall be…" murmured Latilla. "That each soul be free to find its own truth… that by my acts I may aid the forces of order in the world…"
Latilla nodded. This man and Darios had both poured out their souls in her arms, but with her husband, she had poured out hers in turn.
"Look!" exclaimed Taran, pointing at the jewel. It glowed like a purple egg in the sunshine. But now the flicker of refracted light was disappearing in a violet radiance that gradually grew.
"Illin tan's'agarionte—" Shamesh intoned, fingers rigid and quivering, arms extended towards the Jewel. "Kariste! Kariste!"
Violet light flared suddenly, then paled—no, the white blur was something that was taking shape within it, writhing in the churning light, then collapsing in a swirl of draperies as the glow, and the jewel, disappeared.
There was a moment of shocked silence. Then the huddled figure moaned.
"She's alive!" whispered Taran.
He started to move, but Shamesh was before him, reaching the woman in one swift step and gathering her into his arms. They were strong arms, as Latilla had reason to know. She watched in silence as Shamesh lifted her, noting the smooth skin, the cornsilk hair. Thirty years had passed, but they had not touched her.
"Elisandra…" he said in a shaking voice. "Elisandra Donada-kos… You are free, Elisandra. Your sister is Empress now. I will take you back to her. Can you hear me, my lady? We're going home!" He gazed down at her, his face radiant with triumph, with ambition, with joy.
For a moment Taran watched them, jaw clenched. Then his thin frame seemed to sag. Head down, he turned and slowly walked away. Latilla opened her mouth to call him back, but let the words die unvoiced. Let him keep the illusion that he could run from his pain. She blinked back her own tears and folded her arms. Elisandra opened her eyes and smiled, a prisoner no more.
Selina Rosen. Ritual Evolution
Kadasah was doing what she normally did towards the end of the early watch on an Ilsday night. She was holding up her end of the bar at the Vulgar Unicorn, her hand wrapped around her fourth glass of Talulas Thunder Ale, and trying desperately to ignore Kay-tin who was as usual bugging the living shite out of her.
"Kadasah," he started in a sultry, silky voice. Kaytin was tall for a S'danzo man but still several inches shorter than Kadasah, and she had to look down at him when he talked to her. When she bothered to pretend to be listening to him at all that is. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he was about to feed her a line. "Your eyes are as dark as the blackest night, your lips like the reddest cherries, your hair like golden, liquid moonlight…"
Kadasah interrupted him with an uncharitable laugh. "You're so full of crap your back teeth are brown. And my eyes are blue. Gods! If you're going to sling such total horse crap about, at least have the good taste to get my coloring right. And just what the hell is 'liquid moonlight' supposed to mean?"
"Horse shite! My hair is braided like it always is." Kadasah laughed, genuinely amused. When he wasn't driving her completely crazy with his unbridled lust, she occasionally found his attempts to bed her entertaining. Besides, in a strange way, except for Vagrant, who was a red stallion and therefore an even worse conversationalist than Kaytin, he was really her only friend.
"Maybe so, but sincere horse shite at the very worst," Kaytin said with a smile. And then he started the touching.
Kadasah was a little surprised. By her reckoning they hadn't gotten that f
ar into the evening's festivities. Normally he would have waited for her to drink at least three more ales before he felt safe enough to start manhandling her. He had wrapped his arms around her waist and was nuzzling at her neck. She was about to smack him hard enough to send him careening across the room when she realized that this wasn't his usual horny, loverboy move, but his, "I'm showing that I'm attached to the big blond mercenary with all the weapons so don't even think about kicking my ass move." She also realized that a strange silence had fallen across the bar. Apparently Kaytin had heard it before she had, which meant that he was expecting trouble. She wondered what the philandering little thug had done this time.
Kadasah turned slowly to see who had walked in and made a face of disgust in spite of her best efforts.
"All right, get off me before I knock you across the bar. Frogs! It isn't some angry husband, just that horrid, slimy, dead-looking guy. No doubt he's coming after his equally horrid toady." She shoved Kaytin roughly back, and he managed to catch and straighten himself without looking clumsy in a way that only Kaytin could do. No doubt because he'd had so much practice.
He smiled at her appealingly. "My own sweet love. What is this talk of a jealous husband? Kaytin has nothing to fear from any irate man who has an unfaithful wife, for I only have eyes for you, and I am saving myself only for the day when you will make me the happiest man on earth by agreeing to be mi—"
"I don't think your eyes are the problem. However, perhaps you're telling the truth. After all, I find it hard to believe that any woman could be stupid enough to believe the utter crap that springs forth from your mouth," she said, cutting a look at him from the corner of her eyes. He started to speak again, and she held up her hand. "Oh, enough already. Just shut up." She wasn't in the mood for any more of his flowery tributes, or his lies.
Kaytin had a tendency to lie when it would have been easier to tell the truth.