Summer awaited the travelers on the other side of the mountains: a summer gracious with wildflowers in the windy meadows above the pinewoods.
They were still many thousands of feet above the plain, on the shoulders of Mineirie, and they had still a long way to go before they reached the lowlands. Yet east of Gwinémon the sunlight had a different quality, being warmer and brighter. Even the air smelled fresher and felt softer on the skin.
And though Sindérian’s nightmares continued, they were every night less vivid, less intense, and she found it easier and easier to forget them during the day.
They were dreams, that was all. And whatever their origin, they could not make her do anything she did not want to do. Anyway, it was dreadfully presumptuous to imagine that she had been singled out.
It came as an ugly shock, then, to look up and see the black wings of the wyvaerun darkening the sky once more.
It can’t be the same, she told herself, as the creature wheeled and dipped in the thin air. No spy sent by Ouriána could possibly cross Éireamhóine’s ward.
But two wyvaerun, solitary, searching, each met by pure chance in the wilderness? That was too much coincidence; it was simply impossible.
Her horse stumbled in a rabbit hole and almost went down. Sindérian tore her eyes away from the sky, tried to focus her attention on the trail ahead. She reached out and gave the gelding an absentminded pat on the withers, but her brain continued to worry at the problem.
Could there be a second spy, she wondered, waiting for us on this side of the barrier, ready to take up where the other wyvaerun left off?
Her head began to ache with all of the dire possibilities that opened up, and the mountain air felt a little colder. Supposing that every move they made, every decision they reached had been anticipated in advance? Supposing that their enemies knew exactly what they would do, long before they did it? And for the first time, when she thought of Gilrain an unpleasant doubt insinuated itself. What if he was not as friendly as he seemed? What if Prince Ruan had been right from the very beginning?
But that was sheer nonsense. The Ni-Ferys had had ample opportunity to betray them before this.
I said I would never let Prince Ruan’s prejudices influence me, she reminded herself. And I would be a fool to break that promise now. And yet—and yet Gilrain was suspiciously eager to attach himself to our party. We never asked him to guide us through the mountains; it would never have occurred to us to do so. He was the one who offered, and in such a way that we could hardly refuse.
The sun was declining in the west, and a cool wind was blowing when Sindérian and her companions came to a place where the path descended in wide stony ledges like a broken staircase. They dismounted and led the horses down. On reaching the bottom, they found themselves in a hollow fringed with dark pine, where the grass grew long and green, and water pooled in a little rock cistern among mosses and ferns.
Though it was early to set up camp, the place seemed so sheltered and welcoming that Gilrain proposed they make an exception, and the others agreed. They unsaddled the horses and left them to graze in the sweet grass, while everyone hunted up deadwood and pinecones to make a fire.
As the men began preparing supper, Sindérian wandered over to the tarn to bathe her hands and face.
The water was deep and cool and mirror bright, reflecting the light-drenched white mountain peaks behind her, a bright blue sky with scarcely a cloud in sight. But there was something else in the water: a face so coarse and sallow, a person so altogether unkempt, ragged, dirty, and wild that it took her several moments to recognize her own reflection.
With a gasp of dismay, she bent closer to the glittering water, staring at the unwelcome image—that thorny, disreputable-looking female, with her thin face, broken fingernails, and ragged dark hair—worse: the creature had a sly, unsteady, almost wicked look about her that filled Sindérian with despair.
Did you really think Éireamhóine’s barrier would wash away ALL your sins, you who have failed everyone you ever loved? And what little remains to you, you’ll lose that, too. Have you not seen it? The end of the world you know, and the triumph of Ouriána—where we all take new bodies and grovel in the dirt at her feet.
Was it even worth living in a world like that?
And yet there were so many ways that offered release: the pool, the knife—and a healer knew just where to strike—she could even halt her own heartbeat with little more than a thought, though that would be a perversion, before which, even in her present state, she quailed.
The pool? To slip quietly down beneath the cool waters and be gone before anyone missed her; it would look like an accident. Only perhaps one of the men would notice after all, and pull her out too soon. It seemed that the Prince, in particular, was always watching her, always spying on her.
The knife, then. It would be swift and certain.
With a wondering terror at her own resolution, she was sliding the blade out of its sheath on her belt, when something else about the reflection in the water drew her attention, distracting her from her purpose.
It was the wyvaerun, flying lower than she had ever seen it before. Even worse, it was the same wyvaerun, the one that had followed them all of the way from Hythe, for it was impossible not to recognize that slightly erratic flight, one wing stroke shorter than the other.
And now that she saw the creature so close, she could see the reason for that peculiarity: under the left wing, where something was lodged, something that might have been the shaft of an arrow, or a bolt from a crossbow, except that it glittered almost like glass—
A sudden rush of blood to her head made her all but swoon. The world turned dark for a moment, and all she knew was the loud hammering of her pulse.
And when her vision cleared, when she turned to tell the others what she had seen, Sindérian saw something else, something that sent a cold jolt of panic right through her: Gilrain fitting an arrow to his bow, pulling it back to full draw, aiming—
“Hold! Hold your fire!” she cried springing to her feet, giddy with joy and sick with apprehension all in the same moment. “Don’t loose that arrow, whatever you do.”
To Prince Ruan, watching her cover the distance between the pool and the camp at a dead run, then arrive flushed and breathless to hang on Gilrain’s arm, her eyes blazing with excitement and her whole body shaking with the wildest agitation, it seemed that Sindérian had lost her mind.
“Your sight is much keener than mine,” she panted, looking from the Ni-Ferys to Ruan, then back again. “Tell me what you see—” She swallowed hard, struggled to catch her breath, and went on, “—tell me what you see, in the hollow under the left wing.”
The Prince tilted his head back, shaded his eyes with his hand. At first, he saw nothing remarkable. But then, as the wyvaerun turned in a wide arc exposing its breast to the setting sun, something dazzled his eyes with rainbow colors, refracting the sunlight like a shard of glass or—
“The shaft of a crystal arrow…it might be,” he said, beginning to catch a little of her excitement.
The words were scarcely past his lips when Sindérian dropped Gilrain’s arm and was on the move again. Flinging herself back toward the path they had so lately descended, she began to scramble from ledge to ledge until she reached the top. Once there, she ran out along a rocky outcrop, gathering up her skirt and plunging fearlessly ahead, stopping only when she came to the very brink.
And there she stood, with her dress, her cloak, and her dark hair all in motion, dangerously balanced at the windy edge, utterly reckless of her own safety. She called out in a high sweet voice that seemed to echo from mountain to mountain:
Watching and listening down below, the Prince hardly dared breathe. If she was wrong in what she had guessed, the great raptor could easily swoop down and tear her to shreds before anyone else could come to her rescue. If she was right…But it hardly seemed possible that she could be right.
The wyvaerun was circling again, it was coming
back. Now it descended in a terrifying rush of oily black wings and gleaming scales, its snakelike tail curled over its back, its knifelike talons extended. But it stopped just inches from her face, batting wildly.
The air around the bird shimmered and the wyvaerun disappeared: in its place, a blue-grey peregrine falcon hovered on the lucent air. Then, as lightly as thistledown, as gently as a breath, it landed on Sindérian’s outstretched arm and tucked in its ragged wings.
21
It was a bright day of wind and sun when Prince Cuillioc’s reunited armada sailed into the Bay of Mir—Mir of the sapphire waters and fragrant breezes, of the palm trees and the silvery white beaches—Mir, the gateway to the mines and the cities of the interior, and all their riches.
Cuillioc stood on the deck of his flagship surrounded by the knights of his household, his jeweled armor glittering in the sunlight, and watched the approach of a floating delegation from Xanthipei, the great city on the bay.
As he waited, he had not a shadow of a doubt how this parley would go. First the Mirazhites would demand to know whether he came in peace or in war. When he told them he had come to conquer them and to collect tribute in the name of the Empress, there would be a polite exchange of threats, rapidly degenerating into open hostility, whereupon the ambassadors would retire in a state of high indignation to communicate his demands to their countrymen.
With all this settled in his mind long in advance, he welcomed the envoys on board with his usual grave courtesy, stifled a yawn, and waited for the questioning to begin. Much to his astonishment, they seemed already to know his intentions. More than that, they were ready to comply, ready indeed to welcome him and his armies into their city, even to provide hostages—in token of their respect for the Empress—as a pledge of their good behavior—whatever the Great Prince Cuillioc should decree.
Cuillioc felt the deck dip violently under his feet; the world spun around him. He hardly knew how to reply, this was so unexpected. To prepare for this campaign, he had spent many months poring over antique papyrus scrolls and wax tablets, studying the languages of the east. He considered himself reasonably proficient, yet he feared that he made—he must have made—some odd errors in translation.
They could not possibly have said all that he thought they had said.
Searching for some excuse to temporize, he sent for Iobhar. But the furiádh, his curiosity aroused, appeared rather sooner than might reasonably have been expected, arriving all in a hot impatience to learn more, and a rowboat manned by two of his acolytes. Though he reacted with surprise and no little wonder when Cuillioc explained the situation, the priest made a swift recovery and proceeded to ask a number of shrewd questions, the answers to which at least made the matter somewhat easier to comprehend, if no less remarkable.
It developed that the oracles, haruspicers, soothsayers, and prophets of Xanthipei had, every one of them, foreseen Cuillioc’s coming, to the day and hour. More, they had predicted his ultimate and bloody victory in the event of a battle. Therefore, the great men of the city had agreed to follow the only course which prudence dictated—an immediate and unconditional surrender, thereby avoiding the tumults and alarms of a futile resistance and the resulting bloodbath.
The Prince looked from Iobhar to the noblemen of his household, and back again, still scarcely able to believe what he heard. Never before had he met with people so willing to rely wholly and utterly on the advice of their seers. Yet it seemed that he had no choice but to accept their surrender, accept, too, the offered hostages, and prepare himself to enter his newly conquered city.
He watched his fighting men disembark first, shipload after shipload. When he had seen them safely landed, he, Iobhar, and all the Pharaxion nobles brought their households ashore. Once on land, Cuillioc was escorted to a seat in a howdah on an elephant—a creature he had hitherto considered unlikely, if not strictly fabulous—then, with his senses all awhirl, carried amidst great pomp and gaudy celebration to the great palace, or Citadel, at the heart of the city, where he was soon comfortably ensconced in a suite of sumptuous rooms.
Many days passed, in which the men of Phaôrax sampled the varied delights of that remarkable city. The nights were long and languorous, the wines heady, and the women supremely skilled in the arts of seduction.
While the others caroused, Cuillioc remained always on his guard. He, whose life had been one long series of misfortunes and cruel, unexpected turns, must naturally suspect the ease with which he had taken Xanthipei, the good fortune by which he stood perfectly poised to conquer the interior and make himself master of all Mirizandi.
For many days he hardly dared venture outside his luxurious residence in the Citadel, content to receive visitors and grant audiences, to spend hours in the vast treasuries selecting suitable gifts and tribute to send back to the Empress, or wandering through the shady porticoes and pergolas of the palace, the collonades and the sanctuaries—all built of cool green marble, with a well, a cistern, or a fountain in every courtyard and garden.
“The great men of Xanthipei smile and smile,” he said to Iobhar, “but you have only to look at the faces of the people in the streets. We are not welcome here, we are not wanted. I fear we have walked into a trap.”
Iobhar shrugged. “I have deployed my spies throughout the city—as you no doubt have deployed yours, Great Prince, and the other Great Lords theirs—and not so much as a hint of a whisper of sedition has reached my ears. It seems that the Goddess Ouriána inspires fear and worship even here. It is that fear, I believe, that has influenced the masters of Xanthipei, for all their talk of seers and predictions.”
Cuillioc tried to believe him. He wanted to believe, and was well on his way to doing so when an incident occurred that reawakened all of his former doubts. Quite by accident, he learned that the hostages he kept under constant guard in an isolated wing of the palace were not, as they had been presented, the sons and daughters of noble families. They were, in truth, foreign slaves decked out in the cast-off finery of their young masters and mistresses.
As word of this deception spread through the Citadel, the Pharaxion nobles were soon in an uproar, gathering in the corridor outside the Prince’s chambers to express their dismay. Lord Cado and his brother Armael waxed particularly vociferous.
“They must be taught to fear us utterly. They must tremble at the thought of our just retribution,” said Armael, in his pompous way. “Let those responsible for the imposture be taken and executed; let others be arrested as well, to serve as an example.”
With an effort, Cuillioc managed to keep his temper. All along, he had expected these parasites of the court to seize on some such opportunity to cause him embarrassment, but this passed all bounds. “Arrest and execute men who have welcomed us here with elephants and processions? What sort of example would that be?”
“Yet they have deceived us in the matter of the hostages,” Cado protested. “Worse, they have made fools of us. What more proof do we need that they have intended treachery all along?”
Oddly, it was Iobhar who stepped in to conciliate the two sides.
“Let new hostages be taken from among the great families, now that we know who they are,” said the priest. “Let Lord Cado and his brother do the choosing, but let the noble lords of the Prince’s household make the arrests, so that all may be done fairly and honorably.”
Though Cado and his faction continued to protest, they did so in an undertone, and Prince Cuillioc himself, try as he might (he could never quite trust the furiádh), could find no fault with his plan. He immediately ordered that it should be so, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing it done.
Once he determined to leave the palace and become better acquainted with the life of the streets, Prince Cuillioc spent his first weeks in Mirizandi overwhelmed by the sights and the smells, the colors, and the sounds, at the same time equally intrigued and appalled by the unabashed hedonism of the Mirazhite nobles.
The Goddess knew he was no stranger to luxury, n
or to the reckless extravagance of a royal court. And yet—and yet at home in his mother’s capital city there was always a somber undercurrent, a sense that every pleasure would eventually have to be paid for with prayers and penances. Temple spies were everywhere, and just retribution seemed always to be lurking around the next corner, so that even the most dissipated, no matter how reprehensible their lives in between, always turned up sober and subdued for the principle religious festivals.
In Xanthipei, there were no such mitigating factors. Those who could afford to do so reveled in pleasure, became resoundingly drunk, ate until they vomited, gambled, whored, spent a king’s ransom on clothing and trinkets—all with a thoughtless abandon that was as foreign to the Prince’s nature as it was to his experience.
Here, he had seen noble youths, for mere sport, cast pearls into wine, wagering on which vintage would prove the more efficient solvent. In the schools attached to the playhouses, he was told, they castrated young boys to keep their voices sweet. In the gambling houses, they kept a ready supply of comely young virgins for the amusement of their patrons.
He became wary of the food on that memorable day when he discovered that the sweets he was happily devouring were actually a confection of beetles drenched in honey and stuffed with spices. It seemed there was nothing these people did not dip in honey or roll in sugar: fruits, flowers, dragonflies and honeybees, powdered gemstones; the tongues of nightingales and the hearts of hummingbirds. Some things were to be eaten, and some to be sniffed and tasted, as actual consumption was likely to prove harmful and others simply to be admired and wondered at.
The streets were full of fire-eaters, snake charmers, and sword dancers; of beggars juggling delicate glass balls that flashed in the sunlight; old women who cast knucklebones or read portents in wine or water.
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