Alphabet of Thorn

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  In a chamber far beneath the earth, a stone room full of stone words, she found the thorns.

  Her heart recognized them before her eyes realized what they saw: an open book with thorns on every page. She touched them, felt her heart grow confused, desperate, distressed. Beware, they said to her, in the voice of the dreaming warrior. Beware. The room was empty. There was a pallet along one wall, with disheveled blankets. The book lay on a stack of tablets used, apparently, as a desk. Beside the book were pens, jars of ink, a stack of papers. Someone, Tessera guessed, was in the midst of translating the language of thorns. Who? she wondered. Who living in that world within the stones bore so much malice to Raine? Who could work so quietly with such dangerous powers without being harmed by them, and unnoticed by librarians or mages? What formidable enemy did she have living down here in the library, plotting to destroy her realm?

  The queen sat down on the stone tablets, picked up the nameless scribe’s papers, and read them while she waited.

  Hours later she still waited, as silent as one of the old slabs around her and invisible to everyone except the living, luminous eye of history open and watching for the slightest movement from her.

  Axis and Kane, she thought numbly. Axis and Kane.

  The names were among those that had littered her mind like fallen leaves, learned early in her life and discarded when she achieved enough perspective to realize that they could no longer trouble the world. They were dead, forgotten, harmless as words chiseled on a broken tombstone.

  “Axis and Kane,” she whispered, and felt the dark wind of their power blowing through her heart.

  The tale had ended abruptly at a disturbing shift of pronoun. The pen, lying across the unfinished sentence, had leaked a pool of black instead of the next word. The jar of ink stood open. The transcriptor, startled by something, perhaps her own writing, had gone and not returned. Nothing, not even the assembly she was probably missing, not even Ermin of Seale at her door, could have made Tessera move, not until she saw for herself how the tale would end for Raine.

  She recognized the dangerous transcriptor easily, of the two that finally entered with their arms piled with scrolls. “N,” the ink jars said, and “Nepenthe” was what the lanky, thin-haired young man called her. His eyes were anxious, but Nepenthe’s looked stunned and desperate, in an elegant, unusual face that might have been molded in forgotten eons of history. Tessera, watching her narrowly, saw not the formidable, malicious mage she had expected, but a young woman who, in troubling Raine, had managed to trouble herself beyond all expectation.

  “Don’t despair, Nepenthe,” the young man said softly, even as his own voice shook a little.

  “That’s not my name,” she said tautly, dropping scrolls on the floor. She sank down to unroll them; the parchment trembled in her fingers.

  “It’s the only name you know. You should finish it.”

  “No. They’re dead. They must be dead. Laidley, don’t stop looking.”

  “Nep—” He stopped himself, then continued doggedly, “How will you know exactly what you have to fear until you finish the translation? It may reveal something completely unpredictable. It might even explain itself away somehow, tell us that it was not Kane at all who wrote the story, that someone else imagined the whole thing.”

  Nepenthe, opening one scroll after another, did not seem to be listening. “Laidley, none of these are about Axis at all. They must have been put on the wrong shelves. They’re old legal documents dealing with property.”

  She began to gather them up again with wild haste; Laidley coaxed them out of her hands.

  “I’ll take them back. I think I know where the ones we want must be. You finish the tale.”

  “No.”

  “Nepenthe, we’ve been searching for hours to find out how they died, and it seems they never did. Maybe the book can tell us what truly happened to them.”

  “No,” she said again, fiercely. “Don’t argue with me. I’m right about this.”

  “What if you’re not?” he asked on his way out. His voice floated back down the hall behind him. “And how can you bear not to know how it ends?”

  Nepenthe paced as she waited for him. Her path between turns grew shorter and shorter until, Tessera saw with sympathy, she seemed to be turning circles in the middle of the floor.

  Finish it, the queen told her silently. Laidley is right. We will not know all there is to fear until you do.

  As though Nepenthe heard, she stopped her futile circling to face the open book.

  She moved toward it slowly, one soundless step at a time, as though she were trying not to awaken some terrifying monster. She reached out, touched the pen lightly with her fingertips. Just as noiselessly, Tessera moved off the stack of slabs she sat on and went to watch over the transcriptor’s shoulder as she finally picked up the pen.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Bourne wended his slow way out of the depths of the library to the top of the highest tower in the palace.

  He could think of no other way to find Vevay. Neither desire nor need would fashion a path to her. He had no desire to see her at all, and was not sure which he feared more: the mage or what he needed to tell her. She would feel him looking for her, he thought, and find him first. He only hoped desperately that she would let him speak before she stopped him from wandering in secret under the queen’s roof by tossing him over the cliff.

  It took hours, it seemed, after he left the library, to find the mage’s tower. He was never certain of remaining invisible from one moment to the next. In the library it hardly mattered, since everyone there had their faces in books. But he didn’t want to disturb already jittery courtiers and tense guards by appearing out of nowhere in front of them. He measured his invisibility constantly in the eyes and expressions of those he passed. No one seemed to notice him; even if they saw him, he must look like just one more in a place full of weary and perturbed guests who had long exhausted every welcome except the one to leave.

  He wandered in the maze of palace expanded through the centuries like a seashell constantly growing new chambers around itself. Finally, by sheer luck, he found the tower as he followed a pair of guards, hoping they would let fall something useful to him as they talked. They led him into what looked like an ancient portion of the palace, with tiny windows and thick, drafty hallways. Then they climbed stairs endlessly up into more recent history, where the stones were carefully cut and mortared and the windows on both sides overlooked sea and plain as well as courtyard walls. At a thick doorway, guarded by another pair, they stopped. Bourne saw stairs spiraling farther upward to one side of the door. Another tower, he guessed, this one not so old as some and promising even giddier views.

  The guards saluted one another, the pair at the door moving aside with relief.

  “Any trouble?” one of the guards Bourne had followed asked.

  “They demand to see the queen. They demand to see Vevay. They demand paper, pens, visitors, and more blankets. They complain that their food is always cold by the time it reaches the tower.”

  The guard gave an unsympathetic grunt. “So is ours,” he said, and took his place beside the door.

  “Any news?”

  “Ermin of Seale is marching along the Sevine to the plain.”

  Bourne, feeling his skin constrict, shifted into shadow. My family, he thought numbly. This is where they locked away my brothers and cousins.

  He glanced at his hands, wondering if he had shocked himself out of his own spell. He couldn’t tell. He took a soundless step into torch light. The guards paid him no attention.

  “Is the mage upstairs?”

  “Who knows, with mages? But we haven’t seen her pass.”

  They didn’t seem to see Bourne either, as he slunk across their vision in the circle of fire and reached the shadowy stairs.

  He began to climb.

  The mage lived so high that Bourne could practically see into the Sevine Valley across the chain of hills to the east, where his pighe
aded uncle was marching. So high that his thoughts seemed to fall dizzyingly away from him, leaving only fear and determination, and a nagging sense of the futility of trying to explain himself. But he had no choice. There was no choice. There was only—

  “Thorns,” he breathed, as the mage’s door flew open at the top of the stairs and he stood face-to-face with Vevay.

  She did not look surprised to see him. She gripped his arm, pulled him firmly into her comfortable aerie, and closed the door.

  “I’ve been watching you for hours,” she said dourly. “I thought you were searching for the door out of here, or for your family. I didn’t expect you to come up here.”

  “I’ve been searching for you.”

  That did surprise her. Her gray eyes grew a shade less frosty, and then began to darken, color seeping up from beneath the melting ice. “What was that you said,” she demanded, “when I opened the door?”

  “Thorns,” he said starkly. “I know what they are.”

  Her brows leaped upward. Her fingers tightened on his arm. She pushed him backward, guiding him into a chair, looking, he thought as he sat heavily, as though she were swelling visibly with words, and when one finally came out he might be forced to duck.

  “That book,” she snapped finally. “Isn’t it?”

  “How do you—how did you—”

  “I’ve been watching you since you came here. What do you think the rulers of Raine keep mages for?”

  “But why didn’t you come for me?” he asked bewilderedly.

  “Because I didn’t.”

  “You have the rest of my family imprisoned in your tower.”

  “Never mind that,” she commanded, so he didn’t. She sat opposite him, her hands linked very tightly, keeping herself from flying apart, he guessed. “Watching you,” she repeated, “and listening to you.”

  “In that chamber?” he interrupted, appalled, thinking of Nepenthe.

  “It’s far past time to hide things, Bourne. Or protect them. When did you sense the power in the book?”

  “I didn’t. But it had an odd effect on Nepenthe. The young woman who was translating—who—”

  “Yes.”

  “I still don’t understand that. And she herself is beginning to be uneasy. But she doesn’t understand it either—”

  “Neither do I,” Vevay said succinctly. “Do you know what you’re talking about?”

  He nodded. “I think—I think so. I’m talking about Axis and Kane. And about the thorns you told Felan were only the beginning of trouble, and the brambles that the warrior in the wood showed to Tessera.” He hesitated, wondering suddenly how in the world to make her believe him, wondering why anybody would.

  “Axis and Kane.” Her eyes were growing cold again, colorless. “They’ve been dead for thousands of years.”

  “Have they?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “According to Laidley—” he began carefully.

  “Who is Laidley?”

  “One of the transcriptors. He’s been helping Nepenthe. He told her that none of the poets who wrote epics about Axis and Kane ever described how they died.”

  Vevay closed her eyes, touched them. “It’s very odd how those two names, even at a time like this, have such a soporific effect on me.”

  “Do they?” Bourne said hollowly. “They terrify me.”

  She looked at him again, silently. “All right,” she said. “Axis and Kane. I’m listening.”

  “They became puzzled—Laidley and Nepenthe—”

  “Laidley and—yes.”

  “About why Kane kept writing about Axis conquering kingdoms that didn’t exist when he ruled—or when everyone thinks he ruled.”

  Her eyes quickened with a touch of interest. “Kane wrote that book?”

  “Yes. She was an immensely powerful sorceress—”

  “Kane was a man,” Vevay protested. “If your Nepenthe could not even translate that much correctly—”

  “Kane was a woman,” Bourne said steadily. “One of Axis’s cousins, who loved Axis and fought beside him all her life. That’s why she never permitted anyone to see her face. She became the Masked Sorceress. The Hooded One.”

  Vevay’s face seemed suddenly masklike now. “Go on.”

  “If you read her book, you get a clear sense of Axis’s power. What he wants he conquers. No one ever defeats him. Ever. With Kane, he conquered all the kingdoms he knew about that surrounded his own land. And when he had nothing new to conquer, Kane discovered the enormous kingdom to the east—Gilyriad. His army swarmed over that and he took it. And after Gilyriad, he ran out of lands, so Kane opened time itself to him.”

  “Opened time.”

  “Yes. I know it sounds—” He gestured helplessly.

  “Go on.”

  “So that he could take any land he wanted for his empire, even centuries into the future. He would appear out of nowhere—the Gates of Nowhere—with his army as numberless as the stars, and Kane the Hooded One beside him, opening time, turning night into day with her power, and he would utterly overwhelm those who fought him, plunder their wealth, decimate their cities, and vanish again, leaving desolation behind him.”

  Vevay regarded him fixedly, like an old owl on a stump, giving no hint of which way her thoughts turned. “And you think Axis has his eye on Raine.”

  “Kane. She chooses; he invades.”

  “How long has this book been rattling around the Twelve Crowns in the back of a trader’s wagon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No. Nor do you, I suppose, know why an orphaned transcriptor in the depths of the royal library can translate it when none of the mages could.”

  “It’s her profession. She was trained for that.”

  “The librarians couldn’t decipher it either? So they gave it to Nepenthe?”

  “No. She—” He swallowed. “I gave it to her to take to the librarians, but she kept it. The librarians never saw it.”

  The owl blinked; Vevay leaned forward a little in her chair. “So we have one mysterious book in an alphabet of thorns, one young transcriptor who alone can read it, and the threat it portends of a king who conquered his known world three thousand years ago, alive and well and about to attack Raine.”

  Bourne’s hands closed on the arms of his chair. He said tautly “I know it sounds—”

  “Yes. It sounds extremely suspect. I’ve looked at that book twice, and if there was ever any magic in it, it’s about as quiescent as the long-dead magic in the names of Axis and Kane.” She raised a hand at Bourne’s indrawn breath. “Two things bewilder me. The thorns themselves, which, if we discount the book entirely, still troubled the Dreamer enough to wake and warn us of them.”

  “The Dreamer—” His voice rose incredulously. “The Dreaming King woke?”

  “Queen. She warned Tessera of—” She stopped short at the quick flash of power that echoed Bourne’s astonishment. “You really must learn to control that. It reveals you.”

  “Mermion was a queen?”

  “Tessera said the Dreamer was an armed warrior-queen, very tall, with a beautiful face and long pale hair.”

  “Like the rider she saw in the wood that day.”

  “Yes.”

  “Warning her of thorns.”

  “Yes.”

  Bourne’s hands twisted the chair arms, leaving smudges of light on the wood. “And the second thing?”

  “What?”

  “You said two things bewilder you.”

  “Yes. The second thing is: Why would a young woman, inventing a story for herself out of a language nobody else knows how to read, choose to unbury that hoary, antiquated tale? Axis and Kane…” Her voice trailed away; she contemplated some memory.

  “What is it?” he asked, feeling his own face grow taut with dread.

  “I did, too,” she answered surprisedly. “I unearthed that tale for Gavin one night before the queen’s coronation. Axis and Kane. I couldn’t remember how they died, either…” S
he shivered slightly, as at an errant breeze, then looked past memory at Bourne again. “Are you very brave?” she wondered. “Or just very calculating to come to me with this?”

  He regarded her silently a moment, and then himself, trying to see through her eyes and marveling at what she found in him. “I’m terrified,” he said simply, “that I might be right. And if I am right, then I am terrified of the answer to another question: Why Nepenthe? She is obsessed with this tale. She won’t let anyone else study her thorns; she is frightened, too, but she can’t stop herself. She wants the ending to this tale. I’m afraid of the ending.”

  Vevay stood up, paced a step or two. “I’ve never heard such unlikely nonsense in my life.”

  “I don’t suppose you have.”

  “And how could we possibly fight a three-thousand-year-old king leading an army as numberless as stars who comes out of nowhere without warning—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And why Nepenthe?” She whirled, paced back to him. “Where is Nepenthe now?”

  “Probably with the thorns in the library.”

  “I looked at those thorns. They were nothing. Shapes. They said nothing to me. There was no warning in them. I felt no power.”

  “They’re just words,” Bourne said carefully. “They tell a powerful story.”

  “To Nepenthe.”

  “Yes.” She was silent again; he watched her as she stood thinking, her face a waning moon’s profile within her white hair. “Well,” she said finally, “they are the only thorns causing any kind of disturbance anywhere in Raine that I can see. The queen went searching for thorns some hours ago, and I’ve spent the last hour searching everywhere for her. Perhaps she saw what I couldn’t in Nepenthe’s book. Let’s find out.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The child of Axis and Kane was conceived in the king’s secret chamber in Eben, and born in Gilyriad. For several months before the birth, Kane, who refused to risk her unborn child on the battlefield, walked the private, scented royal gardens in Gilyriad alone. Axis had left his consort and his army to return to Eben and attend to affairs of state. If Kane had asked him, he would have stayed with her. But she did not ask: it was far more prudent for him to go home for a while, placate the queen and see to his land. He would soon grow restless, she knew. But even great lions must wait for their prey with calm and patience; so he must wait in Eben, until Kane could give her attention once again to his battles.