Points of Departure

by Patricia C. Wrede

  And my parents. It would be a poor return, even for Mama and Papa. They would never understand, as long ago Deleon and I had dreamed of making them, all their own weakness and folly and blindness that had made us think dying a fitting revenge. They would think it my own weakness, my own folly, my own blindness. And it would be. I did not want to make anybody feel as Etriae and Verdialos, killing themselves, had made me feel, not even my parents.

  The House of Responsible Life has always dissuaded more suicide than it has encouraged. Usually the process takes less time, and proceeds nimbly in a round of classes explaining in lovely detail the horrors of this or that death. Anybody who stays that course is welcome to devise his own. But Verdialos, sparing me that round, nevertheless made his own death, if less ugly than a natural one might be, still far uglier than anything I had managed to imagine. He used other signposts, and took me the longest way round that is, they say in Acrivain, the shortest way home.

  When I went downstairs to get the water for the peonies, I took the red ball away from Floradazul and set it on the low wall by the gate, in case it might belong to some neighbor who would want it back.

  The Levar’s Night Out

  By Patricia C. Wrede

  Tazli Ifino iv Larwin, Levar of Liavek, pressed her nose against the heavy glass windowpane and scowled down at the dome of the palace. From where she sat in the highest chamber of the northeast tower, she could see ant-like figures in the streets below, laughing and hanging colored lanterns and garlands of evergreens from the Silverspine Mountains in preparation for the celebration of the evening’s Festival parties. Some were already hurrying off to change into their Festival clothes. Everyone in Liavek, from the poorest beggar child to the richest merchant would be celebrating the turning of the year in the company of their friends. Everyone except Tazli Ifino iv Larwin, Liavek’s Levar.

  “‘Go to a public celebration? Out of the question! She’s the Levar,’” Tazli muttered, her tones a fair imitation of the Countess ola Klera’s. She dropped her voice half a note, to the calmer and more reasoned tones of Merchant Councilor Pora Dannilo, and continued, “‘I’d disagree, except that it’s her true birth day. When one’s birth luck is so unpredictable, it’s best to stay indoors.’ Bah!”

  So she, ruler of Liavek, was confined to the palace from—she cocked her head; yes, the conch-shell horns had sounded from the Black Temple several minutes ago—from now until mid-morning tomorrow, during the full period of her mother’s labor, with a little extra time on each end just to be sure. She wasn’t even going to get to go to the party downstairs in her own ballroom or watch the fireworks from the specially built benches in Fountain Court just in front of the palace; Geth Dys, priest of the Church of Truth and the third of her trio of Regents, professed himself worried about the impact of her uncertain luck on the foreign dignitaries who would attend.

  Tazli wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at the white marble temple of the Church of Truth on the other side of Fountain Court. She supposed she ought to consider herself lucky not to be incarcerated for all of the last two days of Festival Week. It had taken her three co-Regents half an hour of wrangling to agree that she would be allowed out of the palace at noon the following day, when her luck period was safely over, to participate in the traditional street-sweeping on Restoration Day. “The Levar of Liavek doesn’t get to go to any parties; she just gets to clean up after them,” Tazli muttered. “Some birth luck!”

  Something small and blue flashed across the dome of the palace below and vanished from Tazli’s sight. Tazli blinked, wondering whether she had imagined it, then shrugged and looked out across the city. She had been coming up to the tower rooms ever since she had realized that Resh—Scarlet Eminence of the Faith of Twin Forces, and until a few months ago her Regent—was afraid of heights. She had insisted on observing the custom of leaving out bowls of nuts for Rikiki, the chipmunk god, for a similar reason; it was a safe way of annoying Resh. Both habits were with her still, though none of her current Regents found heights or chipmunks bothersome.

  “I’ll cut off all their heads when I’m Levar; that’ll bother them,” Tazli said, but she knew she wouldn’t.

  The light of late afternoon was fading fast; soon the first groups of celebrants would come down the street, lighting the paper lanterns as they passed. It was considered lucky to light one of the Festival lanterns, so long as the sun was down. “Luck!” Tazli said in tones of disgust, and pushed herself away from the window.

  “Nuts?” said a high voice from the ledge she had just vacated.

  Tazli jumped, staring at the window and thinking instantly of assassins. But assassins would hardly be asking about nuts. Cautiously, she leaned forward and peered out once more. A chipmunk was sitting on the ledge outside the windowpane. His fur was bright blue. “Rikiki?” Tazli said incredulously.

  “Yes,” said the chipmunk. “Where nuts?”

  “I think there are some in a bowl around the corner,” Tazli said, feeling stunned.

  “Good!” said Rikiki. “Like nuts!” His tail twitched once, and he walked through the windowpane as if it weren’t there. Tazli stared as he jumped down to the floor and ran out of the room; a moment later, she heard crunching noises in the hallway. Still bemused by the sudden appearance of a god, even an extremely minor one, in the northeast tower room of the Levar’s Palace, Tazli walked out into the hall. Rikiki was just finishing the last three nuts from the shallow bowl on the floor outside the door.

  “Nice nuts!” said Rikiki. “Thanks, nice nut lady!”

  “I’m not a nut lady,” Tazli said, offended. “I’m Tazli Ifino iv Larwin, Levar of Liavek!”

  “Oh!” said Rikiki. He tilted his head to one side and stared up at her with his beady black eyes. “Nice Levar lady?” he said in a doubtful tone.

  “I am referred to as Her Magnificence,” Tazli said with dignity, though she was not sure that gods were among those required to use this form of address. She was not used to being uncertain about protocol, and it made her more irritable than ever.

  “Too long!” Rikiki said decidedly.

  “Well, you may call me Tazli,” Tazli said graciously. She wondered how many rulers were on a first-name basis with a god; the thought cheered her up a little.

  “Good,” said Rikiki. “More nuts, Tazli?”

  Tazli blinked at him, then called for one of the palace servants to bring her another bowlful. She was annoyed at the time it took, but most of the staff had already begun their own celebration, or joined the official party in the ballroom. Rikiki disappeared under a cupboard when the servant arrived at last, and Tazli did not mention him. She had been known as the Mad Child of Liavek for too long to say anything that might rekindle unpleasant rumors.

  The servant returned quickly with an enormous green glazed bowl of walnuts. Tazli was startled at the quantity, until she saw the sympathetic expression on the man’s face. He knew as well as the rest of the staff just how much of the Festival celebration Tazli wouldn’t see.

  Tazli’s scowl returned. “You may go,” she said brusquely.

  “Yes, Your Magnificence,” the servant said, bowing.

  “And see that I’m not disturbed until tomorrow morning!” Tazli shouted after him as he closed the door behind him. She was still scowling as she set the bowl on the floor.

  Rikiki ran out from under the cupboard. “Nuts!” he said joyfully, and dove into the bowl. He disappeared almost completely; the tip of his blue tail was all that Tazli could see protruding from among the nutshells. She sat cross-legged on the floor and leaned her chin into her hands, listening to the crunching noises and happy squeaks from the green bowl. “Everybody has fun at Festival but me,” she muttered.

  “What?” said Rikiki, poking his head out of the rapidly diminishing heap of walnuts.

  “I said, everyone but me has fun on Festival day!” Tazli repeated angrily.

  Rikiki’s eyes went wide. “No fun? That bad!” He munched several more walnuts, she
lls and all, then ducked back under the pile. An instant later the contents of the bowl vanished except for Rikiki, who sat on the smooth porcelain and looked cheerfully up at Tazli. “Nuts for later,” he explained. “Now have fun!”

  “Some fun,” Tazli said. “Me and a blue chipmunk, having a Festival party in the northeast tower.”

  “Not here,” Rikiki said impatiently. “Fun place.”

  “But they won’t let me leave the palace,” Tazli said, then wondered if perhaps they might. Rikiki was a god, after all. Her scowl returned; it would be just like her Regents to listen to a blue chipmunk after they’d ignored her wishes completely.

  “Don’t care,” Rikiki declared. “Nice Tazli want fun; Rikiki fix.” He jumped out of the bowl and scurried over to the window and up the wall to the window-ledge. “Hold tail,” he commanded.

  Tazli stood up and reached for the chipmunk’s tail. She felt nervous and excited and a little doubtful. “Careful!” Rikiki warned, and walked out of the window, pulling Tazli behind him.

  The next few minutes seemed like a dream. Afterward she had a clear memory of crawling down the outside wall of the tower like a three-legged fly, head first with one hand clutching Rikiki’s tail. Partway down it occurred to her that this was not a very dignified position for the Levar to be in. She lifted her head, intending to point this out to Rikiki, and saw the flagstones of the courtyard far below. Her hand tightened on Rikiki’s tail, and she decided not to mention the matter just then.

  When they reached the base of the wall, Rikiki pulled his tail out of Tazli’s hand and scampered off. Tazli, who had not quite made the transition from the vertical wall to the horizontal courtyard, was sent sprawling across the gray flagstones in a thoroughly undignified manner. Muttering curses that she had overheard from the palace guards who had drawn Festival Day duty, she climbed to her feet and looked quickly around to see whether anyone had noticed.

  No one had. There were, in fact, only two other people besides Tazli in that section of the courtyard, and they were just disappearing around the northeast corner of the palace. Oblivious to the unusual arrival of their Levar, they were heading for the main entrance, where a loud voice was announcing the early arrival of the Chancellor of Colethea. Tazli felt a bit miffed.

  “Tazli!” Rikiki called insistently from somewhere near the bottom of the outer wall.

  “Shh!” Tazli hissed as she ran across the vast emptiness of the courtyard. She scooped the chipmunk up in one hand and swerved toward the small door mid-way along the outer wall. It had been installed during the reign of Andrazi the Lucky, and since then had served as an inconspicuous way into and out of the palace for spies and secret messengers of the Levar, second assistant cooks late for work in the palace kitchen, and ambassadors from Tichen who wanted to visit the palace unremarked. Tazli had once heard a guard refer to the door as “the Ambassador’s Gate,” presumably because the Tichenese ambassadors used it nearly all the time, except when they came to the palace for official functions such as the Festival Party.

  Because of the ambassadors and spies, the door was never locked, and because it was Festival, the guard who should have been standing beside it was somewhere else. Tazli yanked it open and slid through just as four guards in full dress uniform, their breast-plates polished to a mirror hue and their blue capes flung jauntily over their left shoulders, marched around the corner from the rear of the palace. She pulled the door shut behind her and leaned against it, panting, wondering whether Rikiki or her birth luck deserved the greater credit for her escape.

  The street on the north side of the Levar’s Palace was wide but relatively empty. A laughing couple in Festival finery was coming slowly up the far side, admiring the evergreen garlands, and several people in ordinary clothes were hurrying in the opposite direction, presumably heading home to change. A black-haired girl about two years older than Tazli was hanging blue streamers from the bottoms of the Festival lanterns. She stepped back to eye her work, and saw Tazli.

  Tazli stiffened, but the girl only smiled and said cheerfully, “Well, what do you think? Are they too short?”

  “Too short?” Tazli took a more critical look at the streamers. “You’re right; they’d look better if they were longer.”

  “That’s what I told Darik,” the girl said with great satisfaction. “But he thought the Levar’s guests would find longer ones inconvenient, and he said no one would notice if the proportions were wrong.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Tazli said. “You’ll have to change them.”

  The girl laughed. “I don’t think your opinion will weigh much with Darik; you’re not the Levar, you know.”

  Tazli opened her mouth, and shut it again just in time.

  “What have you got there?” the girl went on.

  “Nothing that concerns you,” Tazli said, putting her chin up. She didn’t know what would happen if the girl recognized Rikiki, but she suspected that it would cause nearly as much fuss as if she herself had been identified.

  “Oh, something for your Festival costume,” the girl said. “Don’t worry; I won’t tell anyone. What is it?”

  “Fun?” said Rikiki, sitting up in Tazli’s palm. “Have fun now!”

  The girl’s eyes widened. Before she could shout for help, or for everyone to come see, Tazli was running again. “Hey, wait!” the girl called, but Tazli did not stop. As fast as her legs could carry her, she ran toward the rear of the palace and plunged down the hill toward the Cat River.

  “Wheee!” said Rikiki. “Faster, nice Tazli!”

  Tazli obliged as best she could, dodging carts and footcabs and people carrying baskets of last-minute supplies up to the palace. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” one of the pedestrians said as she whipped past him, nearly upsetting the basket of peaches he was carrying. “Must be some fine Festival party, if you’re in such a hurry to get to it!” a woman called from a passing footcab. Tazli did not bother with a reply to either.

  Halfway down the hill, she ran out of breath and slowed to a walk. A nervous look over her shoulder told her that no one was following her, though several of the carters gave her amused looks. She glared at them, but it only made them chuckle harder. Disgusted, she turned away and continued toward the bottom of the hill, trying not to pant.

  Rikiki stirred in the palm of her right hand. Tazli relaxed her fingers which had closed around him when she started to run, and he immediately began combing his ruffled fur with quick strokes of his paws. He looked like a cat washing itself at triple-speed, and Tazli had difficulty in suppressing a laugh.

  Rikiki looked up. “Fun ride!” he said. “More?”

  “Not now, Rikiki,” Tazli said between breaths. “Maybe later.”

  “All right,” Rikiki said in a regretful tone. Then he brightened. “Go fun place now?”

  “Which way?”

  Rikiki sat up and pointed back the way they had come.

  “No!” Tazli said automatically. “If we go back past the palace, somebody’s sure to see us and we’ll get caught. We’ll have to go around.”

  The streets on this side of Temple Hill had originally been laid out as part of the palace defenses, and they twisted and turned and doubled back on themselves in a thoroughly confusing fashion. The golden sunset had dissolved into purple darkness by the time Tazli finally reached the east bank of the Cat River. Tazli turned south, toward the harbor, intending to follow the river a little way and then turn east again toward Rikiki’s “fun place.”

  She soon discovered that she had made a mistake. The Canal District began near the foot of Temple Hill, and Tazli was quickly lost in the maze-like web of waterways. Streets turned into narrow corridors between high wooden buildings outlined in Festival lanterns, linked by the stone bridges that arched across the canals. Lanterns hung from the bridges, too, though as Tazli went further, the strings of delicate paper and imported bamboo lamps gave way to simpler, less expensive lights. Even the boats and barges were decked in lights that glimmered against
the water like reflected stars.

  The streets were full, but hardly anyone seemed to be in a hurry. After a while, Tazli gave up trying to find her way and let the crowd take her where it would. Rikiki did not seem to mind; he sat quietly in her hand and blinked complacently at the passers-by while he washed his whiskers. Tazli herself was amazed by the diversity of the crowd. She was accustomed to the silk-robed nobles, ambassadors, and merchant princes who found their way to court; her only real experiences with the common folk of Liavek were her brief dealings with the guards, spies, and servants at the palace and her view of colorful, cheering crowds on those occasions when she had been allowed by her Regent to participate in a procession or ceremony. She had come to think of them, on the few occasions when she did, as a sort of large, faceless mass of interchangeable parts, all of which, in one sense or another, belonged to her.

  But it was not possible to think of the people who now laughed and called and cheerfully jostled each other on all sides of her as either faceless or interchangeable. An enormous man with a shaved head and a gold ring in his ear nodded to a woman dressed in leather who was as dark-skinned as a Tichenese. A boy in a colorful tunic sprang onto the stone rail of one of the bridges and did a handstand to the whistles and shouted encouragement of his companions. A woman with dark, liquid eyes, leaned laughing out of an upper window and pelted three admiring youths below with dates while they pretended to recite a long (and very bad) poem that seemed to be about her elbows. A red-haired man in the gray vest of the City Guard went by amid calls of commiseration from the crowd at his having to work on Festival Night. A woman with greying hair and a seamed, weather-beaten face sat in a doorway throwing dice with a fat man in the brown robes of a Pardoner and a younger, short-haired woman with an ivory-handled dagger in her belt. To Tazli, they were more exotic than Ombayan tiger-flowers, and she watched them all with wide eyes.