Aloren

  “But look at her tears,” said Andrei. I scraped turnip from my eyes.

  “All right then. Where shall we put the lady’s bath?”

  “Is there a room nearby?”

  The boys rolled the bath into what looked like a broom closet and ran off with the two oranges Max had given Andrei. “We’d better hurry,” Andrei said. “They’ll come to their senses soon enough and draw him another.” We hauled the tub back into the laundry and emptied it some, and I uncorked the acid.

  “This won’t hurt him,” I said, pouring it into the water. “It’s too diluted. But it’ll give him a rash. And it’ll sting like a hundred hornets.”

  “If that doesn’t hurt I’ll boil my own head in spit.” Andrei dug through a basket and pulled out a large house tunic with a hood.

  We dressed ourselves in russet tunics and rolled the tub, with much maneuvering, repositioning, and slopping, along the corridors. Six guardsmen were seated outside Daifen’s chambers, drinking their new year’s gifts and playing dice. One of them got shakily to his feet and opened the door for us. We had to stand to the side, though, because a human man about near tumbled out.

  “Fine Murig leather, completely ruined,” he called back into the room. “I want compensation––”

  “A new jacket?” came Daifen’s voice. “Strip the hide off those Garvad boys.”

  “You staged it, I’ll stake five hundred sheep on it––”

  “And you’d lose every one, you gangling human weed. Out, out, I’ll have no more of your stupidity.”

  The man left, muttering, and we pulled our hoods tighter and wrestled the tub into the rooms within. I almost felt sorry for everything, until Daifen turned in his chair. “Took your time, didn’t you? You can expect gruel and saltwater for the rest of the week.”

  Andrei gave me a keep-quiet look, and we dragged the tub over the hearth. We draped dressing linens over the rim and slipped out to wait in the corridor with the sentries.

  “Saltwater?” one of them said. I nodded. “He’ll forget by tomorrow.” The others laughed and invited us to join in the game.

  One of our dice was a soft wood. Out of habit, I rolled it down the stairs (as if by accident), and at the bottom hammered one of my lock-picking needles into into it. Then I brought it back up to play with. And Andrei and I sat winning a ridiculous amount of coins until the die was actually thrown down the stairs by a soldier who leaped up and watched all of its one-sided progress, at the end of which he howled about swindlers and cheats. But a much louder howl came from behind Daifen’s door.

  “For a mercy,” cried a sentry, “he’s being murdered in his bath!” He grabbed an axe from his fellow and hacked at the door, making a sizable hole.

  The four soldiers tumbled through it, weapons at the ready, and disappeared into the bedchamber. Andrei and I followed, but no farther than the anteroom. I crawled beneath the washstand, swept Floy from the flagstone, heaved it up with Andrei’s help, and found an ant colony.

  “I can’t believe this,” said Floy. I shook ants from my fingers. “He must’ve had more than one hiding––”

  “Aly! Aly,” said Andrei, concentration crossing his eyes. We stopped our breathing, listening to Daifen calling for talc and soap. “He needs water. The closest water.”

  “Why can’t you––”

  “He’ll recognize my voice.”

  I scrambled to my feet, slid towards the noise and shouted, “M’lord, clean water’d put you to rights. Where’s the well key?”

  There was a great splash and the drops irritated my face. “Boy,” Daifen yelled, “I’ll tan you red as a lobster’s arse.”

  “Can’t do much tannin when yer dead, m’lord,” I said. “Could be shark lye got in the laundry cistern, and that stuff melts bone.”

  I’d never heard of shark lye, but he must’ve. “The arch! Above the––” His words became unintelligible, and one of the guards shouted something about a keystone.

  The only arch in the room was above the entrance. Andrei looked at the stone in the top. “The door will collapse,” he said stupidly.

  “Try above it.” I pushed him next to the doorway. He couldn’t reach that far, and dropped to his knees. I seated myself on his shoulders, and he shot upward. I felt feverishly for the loose stone, wrenched it from its place, and dropped it to catch the key in my palms. The stone landed on Andrei’s foot. He collapsed and cried on oath when I fell on him; and I jumped up with the key and dragged him over to the small door of iron sunk into the wall.

  Andrei grabbed a lantern and striker tipped against the wall and set about lighting it with fumbling hands.

  “Oh, come on,” I said when the key wouldn’t rotate.

  “I’ve seen those before.” Andrei blew on his burned fingers. A flame flickered in the lantern. “You’ve got to push before turning. Hard.”

  I did so. It shoved the keyway back into a place too muffled for the finger-joint language of the lock-pick, and the key turned. The heavy door opened a crack. We squeezed ourselves inside, and a wind sucked the thing closed with a gong-like sound. Floy was on the other side.

  It was absolutely silent.

  Andrei tried the door. “Well.” His voice echoed. “Doesn’t open from the inside.” A cold damp raised the hair on my legs, and the lantern cast strange shapes around us. “Did you hear it lock?”

  “The wind came from this room,” I said bravely. “There’s another exit somewhere. Goes outside, probably. And Daifen can’t get in––the key’s in here.”

  “How very reassuring.”

  “Get looking, the wick’ll burn down.”

  “Help me, then. It’s a chain with a silver pendant.”

  So I crept into the circle of lantern light, and we rifled through boxes of jewelry, stacks of books and maps, and purses of silver. Sharp stalagmites grew like needles on either side of the path, and we jumped from stone to stone to explore the deeper recesses. We found buttons and clasps, and broaches and rings, but no pendant.

  I inched up the path, shoving fingers into crannies. Andrei jerked me back. The well opened right before us––a large black hole that gaped through ceiling as well as floor.

  An ancient iron contraption stood to one side, its barrel wound with a single coil of rope. A lever stuck from the middle.

  “I wonder.” Andrei raised his lantern over the hole. “Could it be down there?” Groaning, he loosened the lever. It began to spin, slowly at first, and then accelerating, winding the rope around the barrel faster than my eyes could see. “It must be clockwork,” he said, staring. “Or powered by water.”

  The machine droned for a time and finally came to a clanking halt. Andrei pulled on the rope and hauled a bucket over the edge. His sleeve sloshed as he felt around. His face shone triumphant, and he pulled a silver chain from the bucket. The pendant was hidden in his fist.

  I peeled an orchid off my neck. “Why’d he hide it down there?”

  “Water won’t give it away,” he said. “You put something in water and it’s as though it disappears off the earth.”

  “Must’ve been a right annoying necklace.” Andrei squatted and dropped the thing between his feet. He cupped his hands in the water and drank.

  “Mmm.” He took another drink. “Come and have some. This stuff’s special.”

  “Does it taste like beans?”

  “That’s why it’s special.” He flicked some at me, and I knelt beside him. The water was like sunlight; it made us giddy. We hopped up, playing with each other’s limbs. Andrei kicked the empty bucket down the hole and pulled the front of my tunic in a wide arc around the well. I made a face at the silver chain that had snagged on his sandal strap.

  I bent down and took it, and ran down the path into the darkness, where I kicked off Natty’s shoes so I could feel my way. The air chilled, the closeness fell away, and the ceiling was alight with stars rolling over the sea, and a wide moon. Spray wet my feet. I kept the stone at my back, shivering and waiting for Andrei and
the lantern.

  The pendant was silver, skinny, curved like a claw. When the lantern cast light around my fingers I saw it was a miniscule bottle, cap fastened to the chain.

  “I was taught something terrible would happen if I opened it,” said Andrei, looking over my shoulder.

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe the oceans would flood the South.”

  “Or the sun would go out.”

  “Or we’d all go crazy.”

  “Or the earth would be squeezed inside-out.”

  “Or we’d disappear.”

  “Open it,” I said. The wind whipped my hair loose. He set the gasping lantern at our feet, took the pendant, and screwed the cap loose.

  He dropped it and reeled back. He slammed against the stone, and then crouched, arm over his face.

  I picked the pendant up and held the opening to my eye. I couldn’t see anything. I picked the chain off the ground, screwed the cap on, and crouched next to him. “Are you going to die?” I whispered.

  “There was a light. You couldn’t see it? A blinding light.” He fingered his eyes. “I can’t see.”

  “Joker.” But his face remained perfectly serious. I waved my hand in front of him. “Anything?”

  He shook his head. “No––just dark. There’s a stream of dust over my head.”

  “Stars, aren’t they?”

  He stared at the sky, then at me. “I see you, now.”

  “You sound happy about it.”

  He grabbed the lantern from me. “You really didn’t see it? It was so bright, like lightning striking right in front of me.”

  “It must be a human thing.” I passed him his necklace. “Happy Yule.”

  Twenty-Five

  We did a few things more I can’t quite remember—we were still giddy—but after the stuff wore off, the wind bit at our faces and the surf froze our feet. We walked close together down a steep path until we reached the hall and the horses, and finally, my old tunic.

  The acid canister lacked a stopper but Nefer had wanted me to return it.

  It was snowing outside the smithy: the wind blew the white through the door in giant feathers. Wille, whose little girl had come into the world sometime last month, wasn’t there, but Paddy was, and Nefer, who flicked his hammer and shattered a clay mould. The silver tumbled from the shards and rang on the counter.

  I walked over and stared at it. “Where’d ye get that?” I remembered the weight in my palm and the invisible light that had stricken Andrei with blindness.

  “I made it,” he said. “It’s the bit missing from the middle.” He tossed it into a tub of acid with four other pieces: two dragonfly wings and the hollow parts of an abdomen. “The whole thing’s guesswork. Won’t have no diamonds to sparkle it up, nor magic. But we’ll fold it together anyways, won’t we Paddy?”

  “Nefer.” I was flabbergasted, hanging onto the counter. “How long did it take? You even got the circles in the wings?”

  “So a Simargh could understand em,” said Padlimaird, looking up from his billet.

  “Why,” I said, “did you become a brigand?”

  “Was piracy, first.” Nefer dipped a rag in powdered rottenstone and polished a doorknob. “Around Noldecelah and the Gulf.”

  “Couldn’t take his master’s knocks.” Padlimaird tapped the metal with his hammer. “Fellow doin the knocking must’ve had some right big old arms.”

  ***

  I stumbled out the door, sat on a slagheap, and wondered about Nefer. And Andrei. Was he the boy Calragen was looking for, the lost prince? But he had a sister. But perhaps she wasn’t, really. And God help Lorila.

  Just then Mordan and Floy flew down to me, stark against the white.

  “We have a year left, come this spring,” said Mordan. I knew what he meant—we had spoken about it before. Tears froze on my lashes.

  “Must you go?” I said. “Couldn’t one of you stay?”

  “Floy’s staying––she’s the best for spy work. We need those asters. Our hearts are growing brittle. We can feel the end. We need those asters.” This wasn’t the Mordan of three years ago. This Mordan flickered like a small, cold flame. “There’s a letter we want you to write, after we’ve gone searching,” he said more briskly. “Floy can give you the details. She’ll meet us a year from today at the usual tower. And give yourself time enough to fly there,” he told her as they huddled into my cloak against the wind.

  I met my brothers at the pool to wish them well. They flew away, and I paced and pulled at my hair, feeling so miserable that I asked Floy to distract me. She told me about the letter.

  “It was kept quiet,” she said, “but about a year back an Elde went to Lorlen, where the Simargh are, to ask for help. Remember Ackerly? Was him. Hasn’t come back yet, and you know how the Simargh are about clay people’s business. So Tem said a letter written about help that mayn’t come is best sent when all other help has failed. To stay a rebellion, he said.”

  “Stay a rebellion?” I said. “With a letter?”

  “You did it once before,” said Floy. “Remember the hanging?”

  “No wonder they didn’t want to tell me in person.” And then I stared at the ground in sudden thought. “Do you suppose,” I said, “if I wrote a letter to Calragen he’d come across the sea with an army?” She laughed at me. “He’s forgotten us,” I said.

  ***

  Andrei went missing. All winter I did not see him, and when the thaw came with a new crop of saxifrage, I decided to ask Trid and Max about him. But Max was no help at all, and Trid proved as hard to find as Andrei. He might have been on some sort of probation––Lorila and Norembry were still head to head, Caveira and Herist still pulling the strings behind it for all I could tell, and then there was the matter of the Queen.

  Faiorsa was dead, poisoned, it was rumored. The authorities had hidden it from the country for half a year. I couldn’t believe it, almost didn’t want to. What I wanted was for her to be tortured horribly, in public. But if she wasn’t dead, she had vanished. The tension didn’t ease; Herist just took her place.

  It was mid-spring when I finally found Trid on the old Llenad Bridge.

  “He’s in Even-Alehn, maybe,” he said. “There was an emissary from Benmarum, and they both left. Didn’t speak a word to me.”

  “Max said he went on a hunt.”

  “Someone else’s doing the hunting, then. Andrei’s the fox.”

  “Has it something to do with the Queen disappearing?”

  A piece of the bridge fell from beneath his foot into the canal, and he looked nervously down at the rushing water. “I’m not telling you what I think.” And then he blushed, and another board swung loose and splashed beneath us. “We’d better get off this bridge.”

  I stepped in his way. “Scared Herist’ll see you in one spot for a long time?”

  His mouth drew as close to a sneer as I’d ever seen it. “Keeps getting worse. He controls the Ombenelva, and nobody sees but us. All the rest just let him get on with it, slip him the reins. Because we’re keeping the letter about him and Caveira hidden so Andrei needn’t worry.”

  “About what?”

  “The other story getting out. About the King’s children. Like some sort of sick stalemate.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Trid.”

  Trid shoved past me and began walking away. “When Andrei comes back,” he said in an irritable voice, “You should probably stay away, princess.”

  I ran after him off the bridge and whacked him hard over the back. He was so much bigger than me it made no difference.

  “Fine,” I said, “go on back to your hiding hole.” We left each other alone after that.

  Summer came early. When Herist the merchant made an ally of Herist the commander and blockaded the harbor against competing ships, levied a tax on the goods from his own vessels for the maintenance of the bloated military, and fed most of these goods to his soldiers, I contemplated writing the letter. But the riots swelled
with little planning and were quelled with little injury. I ripped up a signpost and took part in a couple myself, until Sal caught me during my third and threw me in the river.

  I watched nervously as the Noremes became gaunt and the foreigners grew fat, as close-cloaked Max, encouraged by Padlimaird, joined the unrest, as Herist grew bolder.

  Autumn came late. No one was shocked when Herist ordered a citywide weapon confiscation and a weekly inspection of the city’s smithies. Bequen called for active measures, the Elde responded with fervor, and I wrote the letter. I added to the bottom that they ought to send a message to Calragen Eligarda of Evenalehn, hoping to stop certain insurgency. I was fifteen.

  ***

  I wanted Floy’s leg for the letter. She was foraging for seeds along the riverbank. As I rustled through the dead weeds, I found Andrei first, asleep beneath a yellow willow.

  I slipped the letter into my pocket and roughed up his hair with a willow wand. He leapt up, tripped over his own feet, and fell back down.

  “Friendly thing to do.” He put his knife away.

  “You deserved it.”

  “Learned my lesson, then.” His voice was rough and dark, like walnut bark. I had missed it. “I about had a conniption.”

  “Trid said you were taken away by an emissary.”

  “Gagged and chained.”

  “Really?” I sat beside him and wrapped a willow branch around and around my arm, wondering how to broach the question. So Andrei, about that pendant...

  “I went over the sea to Even-Alehn and talked to a firebird.”

  “Did she give you a wish?”

  “No, a choice. But it was a my-heart-or-yours choice, like in the song.”

  “Not much of a choice.”

  “No. I think I chose wrong, but I would have left a big mess, and been unhappy, and it made little sense.”

  He wasn’t bantering anymore. “What was it? The choice?”

  His eyes were shaded and looked brown. “Either I use the thing now, or hide it away for a thousand years, where it can wait until it’s ready.”