“Oh, I have no ambitions in that direction,” she assured him. “And I would never have agreed to come here if I thought… if I thought I was in that kind of danger.”
“You are not.” His tone was gentler. He turned away and resumed walking, though slower now. “Few women can resist if Valhan wishes to seduce them, but I’ve not seen him do so in centuries. At least, not for the purpose of seduction. And never to an unwilling, er, seductee.”
Rielle nodded, not sure whether to be reassured or more worried by his answer. What Valhan did with other women was none of her concern, so long as he wasn’t the type to force his interest on any.
But Dahli’s answer still didn’t explain Valhan’s interest in her progress as a sorcerer. If all he wanted was to repay her for helping him leave his world it didn’t matter how well and quickly she was progressing. She sighed. How could she ever guess what motivated a man as old and powerful as he? Maybe if she ever lived as long as he had, she would understand. Which meant she would be mystified for a very long time.
And thankful.
CHAPTER 17
The Arrival Hall was, as far as she could tell, at the centre of the palace. It did not link up to the sequence of halls a visitor must travel through on arrival, nor was it as large or imposing. As Dahli led the way through a side door Rielle glanced at the enormous timepiece at one end, hanging high above a dais. It was an hour past the time her morning lessons usually began.
A man stood on the dais, talking to a middle-aged woman Rielle recognised as one of the head servants. The woman nodded, the movement exaggerated so it was almost a bow, then hurried away. Valhan turned, stepped down and walked towards her and Dahli, his every movement smooth and graceful. As always, he was dressed in dark, simple clothing.
Angels, he is a beautiful man.
Yet despite being here for nearly a quarter cycle, she still had to resist an urge to shrink back from him a little. Part of her still reacted with the awe and respect due to an Angel. Part of her hadn’t forgiven him for deceiving her. Both parts she could ignore.
But she was all too aware of his power and age, and that he had killed and would do so again to stay alive, protect his people and maintain control over the worlds. She was not naïve or foolish enough to trust him utterly. And yet she had felt–still felt–that accepting his invitation had been the most logical, fair thing to do.
Except in the middle of the night, when she woke thinking she was still in the room of the weavers’ workshop she’d shared with Betzi only to jolt fully awake with the knowledge of where she really was. Then the only way she could stop worrying she had made a mistake was to tell herself she may as well continue to behave as if she hadn’t until the moment she was proven wrong.
If Valhan was reading this from her mind now, he showed no sign of it.
“Dahli,” he said, then looked at her. “Rielle. How are the lessons progressing?”
“Well enough,” Dahli replied. “We were about to resume them.”
Valhan shook his head. “No lessons today. I have something to show Rielle.”
Dahli’s eyebrows rose. He nodded and took a step back. “I await your return.”
She stared at him, then at Valhan, and as the ruler of worlds extended a hand she mentally shook free of her surprise and took it.
This is new, she thought. It can’t be lessons in immortality. Too soon for that. And he said he wanted to show me something, not teach me.
His grip was firm. The Arrival Hall brightened and faded to white, then darkened to an unrelenting blackness that she remembered from her journey to his world. A green world flashed by, then a landscape of ice. Heat like walking too close to a fire touched her skin briefly, and then an immense ocean came into sight, waves like mountains surging far below and an orange sky above. Finally they stopped at the top of an enormous tower.
“Can people live in the worlds we just passed through?” she asked after she’d caught her breath.
“No.”
“Is there any other route to your world?”
“No.”
“So how did you find it?”
“From records stored on other worlds. It was inhabited and abandoned long before I was born.”
She frowned. “So has it ever been fully occupied since you found it?”
“Once, for a few hundred cycles.”
His fingers tightened on her hand as a warning that he was about to move on. The forest disappeared, and then several worlds flashed in and out of sight in rapid succession. When they had remained at a location for more than an instant, she guessed they had arrived at their destination.
He let go of her hand. She almost wished he hadn’t. They stood on top of a wall so high it made her dizzy to look at the city below. The metropolis stretched out so far that, as her eyes travelled up to the horizon, she wondered if it ever ended. Perhaps this world was one entire city. She stared into the distance and made out, almost invisible in the haze, a shadowy line of mountains.
Valhan turned around to look behind them and she followed suit–nervously, as the wall was one step wide at the top with nothing but the man beside her to grab hold of if she lost her balance. On the other side, but not so far below, lay a complex of buildings set out in a formal and grand arrangement. Quartets of men in identical clothing walked in step around a central square. People strolled or hurried between buildings alone and in groups. She wondered if any would notice her and Valhan, but no faces turned in their direction, and none stopped to point at two people standing in such a precarious location.
In the corner of her eye she saw Valhan look at her. She turned to see his eyebrows rise slightly, inviting a response or question.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“The city of Wuhrr in the world of Puht.”
“It’s huge. Is this what you wanted to show me?”
“This, but not only this.” He looked down at the formal structures. “You can read the mind of a place by reading the minds of its occupants. Reach out to the people here. Brush against their thoughts. Listen when something interests you. In time you will gather a sense of their values and expectations, and a little of their history.”
Intrigued, she braced her legs and tried not to think of the drop behind her. Selecting a structure, she sought out a mind within it. She found one instantly.
A man. A guard on duty. He was bored. Nobody had passed this way in hours. He was entertaining himself thinking how he would spend the night with his wife.
Amused and a little embarrassed, she moved on and found a room full of people rushing about, preparing food. Focusing on the mind of a young woman, she learned that a dignitary had arrived who had very particular tastes and she would be generously rewarded if she pleased him with the meal she prepared. But she had to compete with other cooks for access to the best contents of the storeroom, and one had taken the last of an ingredient she needed. She was fighting the temptation to steal it when he wasn’t looking.
A butcher was leaving, and Rielle switched to his mind and rode it back to his quarters, where his elderly father was playing a game with a pair of old friends. They were debating politics yet again. Recognising a good source of information, Rielle travelled around the circle, learning that one man had come from another world to this one many cycles before, and become stranded. His people, the Koijen, had built the city. He was proud of the achievement but also sad, as they had enslaved the local people and stolen much of the world’s riches. He had come to see and regret the evil in that.
But the Koijen had paid a high price. The rulers of nearly all the countries in Puht had sent sorcerers to the Raen to appeal for help. He had driven the Koijen out. The price had been reasonable, the old man was thinking, but he knew the older of his two friends did not agree. Rielle moved on to this man and sensed anger and grief. His son was dead, and he blamed Valhan and those who’d struck the deal.
His mind was full of more passion than details so she moved to the butcher’s father. Not
hing in life came without a cost, this man believed. Better to lose some of their men and women fighting for the Raen than continue to lose them to the slavers. He had no idea what the war in the other world had been about, but most likely it had been to help others escape tyranny as well.
Easy for me to say, the butcher’s father acknowledged, my son was too young to fight. Soon he’ll be too old, if the Raen comes looking for another army.
The conversation shifted to a local matter, so she moved on, touching the minds of more and more people and gaining an understanding of the purpose behind this place. It was a palace, but not for a ruling family. As in the city she had grown up in, a group of influential men and women ruled this land, making decisions by vote. It was a good place to learn about the country, she realised, as the occupants were all involved with ruling it in one way or another. Valhan had chosen it for this, she guessed. He also must have known she’d see more than gratitude for his help in their minds, too.
Yet these were the elite of the city, and the servants of the elite. The majority of the population lived on the other side of the wall. Turning slowly, Rielle looked down at the city far below. The buildings were further away and she strained outwards. The minds she found were faint and mixed, with gentler thoughts easily drowned out by stronger ones. Thoughts of daily tasks, work and interactions formed the hum of mental voices, with occasional shouts of pain or excitement or anger rising above. Rather like listening to a crowd at a distance, she mused, only most of the people were unaware of the rest and no purpose or reason had brought them together.
It was impossible to focus on one person so she withdrew her mind. Frustrated, she turned to find Valhan watching her.
He smiled faintly, took her arm and the sensation of cold air ceased. They slipped over the edge of the wall and her mind supplied a giddy feeling of falling as they descended. It didn’t help that they’d withdrawn from the world at such a small distance that she could see no sign that their surroundings had faded except in the darkest of shadows.
They plunged towards the rooftops, then between two and into a narrow gap. The walls on either side were brick, and a damp smell filled her lungs as they arrived. The alley turned left at one end and met a busy, wider street. Valhan looked towards the other thoroughfare but did not move. Rielle wondered what would happen if he emerged. Would the people recognise him? She reached out for their minds to find out.
Though she jumped from one person to another, all were too busily concerned with the task they were involved in to think about the ruler of worlds. When she did finally encounter one who did, it was a wood-shaper thinking wistfully that the drudge work his employer always gave him would never attract the eye of the elite, let alone the Raen. But at least I’m paid for it, he added, not slaving for the Koijen–though on these wages I’m not much better off.
A noise close by dragged her attention back to the alley. Into the narrow space a woman strode carrying a basket of dirty clothes. She pulled up short in front of Rielle, frowning in annoyance.
“Sorry,” Rielle murmured, stepping aside.
The woman shifted the basket onto her other hip ready to squeeze past, then froze as she saw that someone lurked behind Rielle. As she recognised the maleness of the stranger her annoyance turned to apprehension, but at Rielle’s lack of concern she relaxed again. Strange clothing, she thought. Fine clothing. A rich foreigner or Other-Worlder. She gave Valhan another look. Him too. But he looks familiar… And then she gasped as she realised where she’d seen that face before.
In the museum. In the voting hall. The museum’s statue was a much better likeness, she noted before a different thought overtook it.
Ask him! her internal voice shouted. Ask, before he goes and it is too late!
The words, forced past fear and awe, gasped out of the woman.
“My daughter!” she said. “She has a bad leg. Will you heal her?”
Rielle looked at Valhan. He held the woman’s gaze until she lowered her eyes. There would be a price, the woman knew. There was always a price.
“What can you offer in return?” The different language sounded strange coming from him. He spoke slowly. The woman’s mind automatically supplied words she expected he might use, and he chose those he needed.
“Anything!” She held her hands out palms upwards, but her confidence was waning as she realised she had nothing to offer. Nothing one such as he could ever want or need.
“A favour,” he said. “In the future.”
Rielle had not seen those words in the woman’s mind. Perhaps he’d drawn them from others nearby. The woman nodded in agreement. “I’ll do it. I, Semla, swear it.”
“Where is your daughter, Semla?”
“At my home.”
The route flashed through the woman’s mind. Valhan reached past Rielle and held out a hand. Semla stared at his hand in disbelief, then before she could lose courage she grabbed it. Fingers encircled Rielle’s arm and then the alley brightened. The woman’s eyes went round as they slid through the wall.
Bleached walls, doors and windows, people and animals swept past. Rielle watched for the reactions of the people they passed. Few saw the passing half-visible trio. Mostly children, she noted. Everyone else was too busy.
They stopped and returned to the world in a small room. In the centre was a brazier, a conical hood suspended above it funnelling smoke through the roof. A bed fitted snugly between three of the walls, a window and open door pierced the wall on the opposite end of the room. A child sat in the doorway, her back to them.
“Oerti,” Semla called.
The child twisted around and stared at them in astonishment, wondering how her mother and these strangers had slipped past her unnoticed. Had she fallen asleep? Then a spot of brightness appeared above the brazier and expanded to form a small, glowing ball. Mother and child gaped at the magical light. The child recovered first, her eyes moving from Valhan to Rielle. Sorcerers!
“Come here, Oerti,” Semla said.
The girl stood, grabbed a crutch leaning near the door and approached cautiously. Her right foot was twisted and smaller than her left.
“Who are they?” she whispered.
“A healer and…”–her mother glanced at Rielle–“his friend. Go lie on the bed.”
The girl obeyed, setting the crutch down on the bed beside her. She was frightened, but trusted her mother, who everyone said was sensible. It was her father who was the fool. Yet the way her mother looked at the man worried her–afraid and excited. Not much scared her mother.
Valhan moved to the bedside. The girl watched him with wide eyes, thinking she would hit him with the crutch if he did anything wrong to her, or her mother. His gaze was fixed somewhere inside her, moving slowly down to her leg. She winced at his scrutiny of the ugly, twisted thing that was her right foot.
Pain ripped through it with no warning. She gasped and sucked in a breath to yell, but as quickly as it had come, the pain vanished. Her mother had grabbed her hand and was murmuring reassurances. Oerti slowly relaxed. She could feel bones and more moving around in her leg. The sensation was disturbing, but it brought a flood of hope. Can this really be happening?
Rielle extracted herself from Oerti’s mind and looked with her own eyes at the girl’s leg. It was now almost straight, and had grown to the same size as the left. Impossible! But she could see it morphing and changing, defying her inability to imagine how such a thing could be possible. Memories of Valhan changing his appearance sprang to her mind–a trick that probably took less effort than this healing. And agelessness… It’s not something as visible and obvious as this, but somehow seeing this makes it easier to believe that Valhan, and Dahli, truly aren’t getting physically older.
She understood, then, that Valhan had been right not just about the unfairness of her marrying Baluka when she didn’t love him, but that she had needed to know exactly what she would have missed out on in doing so. What she could do.
Staying with the Travellers w
ould have been unfair on me as well as Baluka. Baluka had believed it would be a waste for her not to realise her potential as a sorcerer. He was right. And he could not have taught me this.
She touched the little paintbrush pendant hanging from the chain around her neck. It had been a constant reminder of the Travellers. Each time she saw it she’d felt a pang of guilt or sadness, but she had continued to wear it because she did not want to forget the debt of kindness she owed to the family. Now she felt no guilt, only acceptance.
I didn’t belong with the Travellers. I was never meant to be Baluka’s wife.
Only a lingering concern that Baluka was still searching for her remained. Valhan had instructed Dahli, at her request, to send out sorcerers to search for Baluka and deliver a message from her. So far none had found the Traveller, and he had not returned to his family.
Valhan stepped away from the bed, which, in the small room, brought him back beside Rielle. Oerti sat up and looked at her leg with bright, round eyes. She wriggled her perfect toes.
“I think it worked,” she said.
Her mother gave a little gasp and wrapped her arms around her daughter. At the same time, a hand encircled Rielle’s arm, and the scene dissolved into whiteness.
Not staying for their thanks, she thought at her companion.
“No,” he replied.
His mouth hadn’t moved, yet she had heard his voice. Rielle absorbed that revelation, then returned to her former train of thought. Why, indeed, would he accept thanks when he’d asked for something else? She shaped a question in her mind.
Why did you require something in return for helping them?
“If people expect me to help them for free they will be resentful if I refuse.”
So if he refused to do what they requested, they could not know whether it was because he did not want to do it, or because what they offered as payment hadn’t been worthy enough. Some people probably assumed the latter, and would keep offering greater and greater payments in return–though only if he was around long enough for them to keep approaching him, which she doubted happened often.
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