Wings of Flame

by Nancy Springer

  “I have told you, the condition called shuntali has no legal status in my kingdom.” Auron sounded very tired. “But custom dies hard.… I admire Seda more than ever for her ingenuity.”

  “It just happened,” she said quietly. “And then … I couldn’t have traveled with Kyrem had I been a girl. He is too honorable for that.”

  He stared at her, all his righteous wrath forgotten, sensing her meaning and realizing that things would never again be the same between them, that he had forced a drastic change. And slowly he too sat down on the steps of the dais.

  “So, Prince Kyrem,” Nasr Yamut taunted, “your catamite has turned out to be your concubine, ay?”

  The two footbearers had spread word of their discovery quickly. The whole palace was full of the news that Seda the boy was now a girl, and even the stable, apparently, where Kyrem had come to find some peace in communion with Omber.

  “Of course it is to be expected,” Nasr Yamut went on. “You Devans are so fond of mounting, you hardly seem to know where to leave off.”

  The priest stood a bit too close for his own safety. Kyrem swung out with lion quickness and hit him hard in the mouth. Nasr Yamut fell sprawling, sullying his yellow robes with the dirt of the stable yard, and in the same instant Kyrem realized with sickening certainty that he had done exactly what Nasr Yamut wanted of him.

  “Blasphemer!” the priest screamed as blood started from his split lip. “Infidel! To attack the body of Suth’s anointed fire-master!”

  All the priests in the place ran to the defense of their stricken master, and for the first time in his life, Kyrem found himself facing a truly angry mob. Men were shouting, and some were brandishing broom handles and the like. Kyrem could perhaps have held them off with his personal magic, his presence, but perhaps not—he was tired, and it seemed to him that the day had held tumult enough. He chose the obvious way out. Omber stood close at hand. He vaulted onto the steed and galloped through their midst; they scattered before the horse’s driving hooves, and in a few moments prince and mount were beyond the stable gates and the city gates and away.

  The free wind of the open farmland was balm. Kyrem let Omber gallop until the horse slowed to a walk of his own accord. Then he drew him to a halt, laid his head against the black silky mane and sighed. He would have liked to have galloped all the way to Deva. But after an hour or so of roaming among the gentle hills that surrounded Avedon, he turned back and started home—Auron’s city was home to him now, and Auron awaited him, and he did not know how he was going to manage the priests, and he did not greatly care.

  He walked Omber quietly through the city, in no hurry. At the stable gates he found a troop of Auron’s household retainers awaiting him, and raised his black brows at the captain in inquiry.

  “We’re here for your protection, young my lord Prince,” the man explained, and Kyrem had to smile.

  “What, does King Auron hear everything?”

  “Sees everything, my lord.” The men ranged themselves to either side of Kyrem as he dismounted. Priests watched from a sullen distance as he cared for Omber and put the steed in his stall. They would not attempt to harm the horse, Kyrem felt sure, or fairly sure, since the stallion was a sacred animal. Such must have been Auron’s reasoning also, or he would have seen to that matter as well.

  Auron was awaiting Kyrem for a late dinner.

  “Where is Seda?” Kyrem asked him.

  “In the women’s quarter. They’re fussing over her and trying to find her some clothing.” Auron looked up with a tilted smile. “It is going to take some getting used to, that Seda is a girl.”

  Kyrem nodded in weary and wholehearted agreement and lapsed into his chair.

  “What in the world did Nasr Yamut say to you?” Auron asked.

  The prince shrugged. “Something about Seda and me. Ignorant insults.”

  “Why did you not just turn them back on him, as you did the last time?”

  Kyrem laughed softly in a sort of despairing wonder; he had not told Auron about the last time. Then he sobered. “I don’t know why not,” he said. “I just felt … spent, and I reacted in anger. I am sorry I have caused trouble.”

  “Trouble would have come soon or late anyway,” Auron said. “The priests think they run Vashti, and to a large extent they do. All the ceremonial nonsense that hems the king in, the proscriptions, the sacred silliness, is largely of their making. They want power; that is all they understand. Nasr Yamut has had an eye on you from the first day you arrived, sensing power in you, seeing you as a piece in some game of power. But he does not know what game.”

  “No more do I,” said Kyrem. “Do you think Nasr Yamut could be the one who set those horse-bird demons on me, and the archers?”

  “What do you think?” Auron turned the question back on him.

  “I think he has not the means,” said Kyrem. “Nor the imagination.”

  “No more do I,” said Auron.

  Kyrem was weary in more than body and went early to his bed and took it ill, though he did not say so, that an unfamiliar servant waited on him. He did not know that Auron spent most of the night on the alert, watching with his mind’s eye from afar the shadowed form of a splendid blue roan stallion within a stall in a hostile stable.

  “I can’t get used to it,” Seda said. “This being a girl, I mean.”

  She wore a long indigo skirt with a paisley overskirt and a fringed maroon sash, a white cotton embroidered blouse with a paisley shawl and a lapis brooch. Her scraggly hair had been rinsed with henna and trimmed into a semblance of style and symmetry, then practically hidden under a beaded headdress. Her thin face gazed out plaintively from amidst the finery.

  “You are yet half a boy at heart,” Auron told her. “No wonder you fooled me so. Your body is still thinking of riding through the mountains.”

  “And I still want to give you Omber,” Kyrem said.

  They sat around the table in Auron’s private chamber, holding impromptu council. The matter of Omber had to be settled, and the matter of the priests added urgency to that of Omber. Auron sat back in his chair and his eyes turned sleepy; for several moments he stared at nothing, and no one spoke or disturbed him until he blinked and came back to them.

  “Omber is munching his morning grain,” he told Kyrem.

  “Good. Do you think they would treat him as well if they knew he is Seda’s?”

  “It is hard to tell what priests might do,” said Auron. “They do not always react as other men.”

  “Keep your horse,” said Seda. “I … I think I am going to have to go away.”

  “But why?” exclaimed Auron. Kyrem sat silent, his face taut.

  “I … ache,” she said softly. “I have felt it since I became woman—a sort of pang, an empty feeling, as though something is missing, some part of me.”

  “Your twin,” said Kyrem through dry lips.

  “Maybe. I don’t know for sure. I have dreams sometimes, and I feel a sort of … of whereness, eastward, toward Deva. That alone would not have made me leave you, Ky. But everything seems different now that I have put on these skirts.”

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  “But I can’t stay with you in this body. I don’t have—strength. Someday I may be a woman, but I am nothing now. I must go.”

  “Stay,” he begged. “You’ll have Omber, you will be someone. Auron, tell her!”

  “I’ll still be a shuntali. You can’t change me from one thing to another just by giving me a horse,” said Seda rather sharply. “And I cannot shelter in your house forever, Liege.”

  “So you will go to find your twin,” said Auron slowly.

  “Maybe. And maybe my mother and father. Perhaps something has changed. Perhaps they will accept me now.”

  “You are very brave.” He stared straight at her, but his eyes misted over with thought or more than thought, so that she sat still and scarcely dared to breathe, wondering what he was seeing in her.

  He stirred at last and spoke.
“I would be willing to protect you for as long as I live,” he said. “But that may not be so long after all, and you need more than protection, you need … you need heart’s ease, this quest of yours, call it what you will. And let me say a thing to you: Do not underestimate your own magic as you search. I have had a sure sense that you are, or you could be, more powerful than I, as powerful as Kyrem.”

  “I?” she murmured, looking at him in puzzled disbelief.

  “Do you not think too highly of my power,” Kyrem told her wryly.

  “The powerless are often powerful.” Auron looked serenely at air, straight between them. “But for the time, there is a problem. We know what is done to female shuntali here, and you can no longer be a boy, Seda; neither your body nor your heart will allow it.” He turned to his hostage and guest with a gesture of decision. “Kyrem, give her the horse as a Devan,” he said.

  A storm of protest arose from both of them. “But I am not taking Omber!” Seda cried, and Kyrem hotly held to the Vashtin ritual of the Gift.

  “As a Devan?” he shouted at last. “But why?”

  “So that she may ride it,” said Auron. “Have some sense, you two.”

  The words cut through the tangle of their emotions. They stared at each other, finding the beginning of agreement in that look.

  “Very few Devan women ride,” said Kyrem slowly. “Those who do are generally the daughters of warrior chieftains, nomads, who wish to show that their daughters as well as their sons are proud and valorous.”

  “Excellent,” said Auron promptly. “Let her be such a Devan princess then. And so you are, Seda, from this moment, and if anyone says or acts otherwise, let me have the correcting of him.” There was a glint in his gaze, diamond hard.

  “There will be a royal escort,” he added, “and gold, and whatever you need to get you safely out of Vashti, lass.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, looking dazed and somewhat discomfited.

  “You deserve all the aid the world can give you,” Auron told her. “Remember that.”

  “How are you going to find your family?” Kyrem asked her.

  “I remember a few things. And I hope my dreams will aid me.” She hopped awkwardly out of her chair and gave Kyrem a shy hug. “I will take Omber,” she told him. “Thank you. And I hope I can—I mean, I want—I will try to bring him back to you someday.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next few days were spent in preparation. Kyrem passed the time rather tensely, avoiding Seda. Knowing she was a girl had subtly altered his perception of her, and seeing her made him uncomfortable. For the first time he had noticed that her features were, indeed, attractive, her eyes dark and expressive, her hands slender. At the same time it guiltily disturbed him to remember how tireless, even tough, she had been during their journey and afterward, how he had depended on her as a comrade and an equal. She deserved all his love. Why, then, did he find himself acting condescending and slightly aloof?

  “You look very nice,” he said to her one day, meeting her in a passageway. Oh, the brotherly tone of that remark! He clenched his jaw in inward fury, but Seda did not see; she was looking down ruefully at her indigo skirt.

  “How am I supposed to ride Omber in this?” she asked.

  “Sideways. I have been working with him. He’ll take you that way.” What a treat that had been for the priests, to see the prince of Deva riding out woman-fashion. They had jeered heartily. But he had done it.

  “I’ll need some boots. These things are useless.” Seda indicated her fringed and beaded sandals.

  “I’ll go see Auron about it.” Kyrem took the excuse to turn around and start off, but Seda called after him.

  “Ky—” It was an appeal.

  “What?” He turned back to her, stiffening in apprehension.

  “What the ruddy devil is there for me to do all day except clean my nails?” she asked with the sort of passionate intensity most people reserve for matters of romance or gold. Kyrem grinned with relief. She was no more ready for love than he was.

  “Do you want to mend my shirts?” he teased.

  “Son of Suth, no! Mend them yourself.”

  “Let us take a walk then. Have you never been down among the shops of the town? Come, I’ll escort you.”

  The days went by far too quickly after that. Within the moment, so it seemed, it was time for her to leave.

  On the morning of the appointed day—one auspicious to travelers, according to the stars—Kyrem was up before dawn, making his way down to the stable to ready Omber. There, under the sour surveillance of the priest on duty, he groomed the horse and set about braiding the black mane and tail. Seventeen braids for the mane, including one over each intelligent eye; he tied the ends with red wool as he went along. Seven braids for the tail, all along the top of the bone, and the rest of the hanging, spiral-twisted hair gathered into a single great knot. When he had finished, he fastened the red riding blanket onto the horse, checked the hard blue hooves and led, not rode, his stallion out of the stable and up the brick-paved street to the steps of Auron’s palace, where he knew Seda would be waiting.

  There she stood at Auron’s side, almost hidden amid a crowd of servants and soldiers and the onagers they were to ride and pack donkeys with their silly little fringed headstalls. Her mouth came open as he walked up.

  “Kyrem,” she demanded, “whatever have you done to poor Omber?”

  “You should talk,” he replied, staring pointedly at her short, beaded braids. Then he relented and explained. “It is Devan custom. The braiding and knotting ensures that the luck of the beast will go with the new owner.”

  “I thought you Devans didn’t believe in luck,” she said.

  “You’re a Devan now,” he told her. “Remember. And we are a bit more careful in regard to horses than we are with other things.” He grinned sheepishly.

  “Well.” She swallowed. “He looks lovely. Will you help me up?”

  He set her on Omber wordlessly. Auron reached up to hand her a cloth purse full of gold.

  “You know your way?” he asked anxiously. It had been agreed she would take a northern route, indirect, to avoid the ill-fated Kimiel pass where Kyrem’s retainers and Auron’s patrol had come to woe.

  “Well enough.” She sounded almost brusque. It was an awkward moment, for no one knew what to do or say, not even Auron. She left finally with very little said. She thanked the king, thanked Kyrem obliquely—“It feels good to be back on Omber,” she said. Then she rode away with Auron’s gold beneath her shawl and her retinue around her.

  Kyrem watched her progress down the street until she turned toward the city gates and disappeared behind shops and houses. Then he ran for the steep spiral stairway of the watchtower. Coming out at last into the cuplike enclosure under a brilliant turquoise sky—those bright skies of Vashti, every day the same—he saw her pass through the gate and traverse the terraced fields beyond—peasants hard at work pouring water on the crops stopped their labors to look at her—then he saw her ride beyond the terraces of red earth into the gently rumpled meadowlands. She would disappear behind a sparse hedgerow of stunted thorn and reappear in the pasture beyond, disappear again into the fold of a hill. He watched her grow smaller and smaller with distance. Finally, near midday, he lost sight of her for good in the heat haze of far away, and he could only assume that she still existed.

  There was not much for him to do after Seda left. No horse for him to groom and caress and exercise, no lad for him to tease. He even missed his former colloquies with Nasr Yamut. Since he had no excuse to go near the stable, he never saw the priest at all, not even to exchange insults. His friends among the servantry were busy during the day. Perforce he spent much of his time with Auron, and perforce he learned much of Vashti’s affairs and of Auron’s ways of dealing with them. Auron’s ways were often different from Devan ways. Kyrem watched and thought and sometimes made judgment.

  “Might I interest you in learning the runes, lad?” Auron ask
ed him.

  Kyrem had been taught to scorn such skill as in the realm of scribes and clerics, underlings, but he needed ways of passing the time. He applied himself to the task, and within the week he was able to decipher at least parts of the documents Auron placed before him. They were mostly compilations of Vashtin law. He read them with interest until they raised questions they did not answer.

  “Have you no works of philosophy,” he asked Auron over dinner, “or lore—wisdom, if you will?”

  “Such matters are in the province of the priests, and they distrust writing, even in the mystic glyphs.” Auron smiled enigmatically. “They keep all lore very much to themselves. What is it that you wish to know, lad?”

  “The power of the stone Suth and of the jewel between its eyes.”

  “All concerning that statue is shrouded. I can tell you only what is the popular knowledge, which may be either wisdom or folly.”

  Kyrem settled himself to hear, and Auron leaned far back, closing his eyes and trying to remember. “There is a sort of rhyme, or jingle …

  “Blue is for love, red for desire.

  Beware, fool, of Suthstone’s fire.

  Those who to that jewel aspire

  Learn the ways of wealth or death

  Or the name of true desire.”

  “Anything else?” Kyrem asked after waiting a while.

  “Not really.”

  Kyrem stirred restively where he sat. “But what is the name of true desire?”

  “I have my own thought on true desire,” said Auron, “but you may have another.”

  “Let me hear your thought.”

  “I think that the true desire of every soul is heart’s ease, the peace within self.”

  Kyrem shook his head. “I know nothing of that desire,” he said.

  “From what I have heard, from what I have seen in vision, I think it is such heart’s ease that comes on one in the Untrodden Lands. Where the powers be, where Suth feeds on melantha. Power with peace at the core.”

  Power for peace, power not for domination? “I know nothing of such power,” said Kyrem.

  “I think you know it better than you deem, lad.”