by Jean Gill
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘Why are you keeping me alive?’ Mielitta asked Rinduran, staring at his sighted eye so as not to look into the blackness of the other.
His eye flashed daggers. ‘Enjoy your accommodation while you can.’ He sketched a mocking bow and indicated the open door. She knew she could either walk into whatever awaited her in some room or be dragged in there by the floor magecraft.
The first time the greensward tendrils had withdrawn from her legs she’d tried to escape and immediately she was clamped in place. After two more attempts, she realised that Rinduran had activated the ground against her, throughout the Citadel. She could be held or dragged, propelled or shunted by grassette ropes or shifting cobblettes. Her only freedom was to walk where she was herded. So she walked into the room and the door clanged behind her. There was no chance that this room was ward-protected to keep others out. She tried opening the door, just to make sure, but neither handprint nor voiceprint, with any password she could think of, made the slightest crack appear in the sealed rectangle. There was, of course, no handle.
Mielitta didn’t need to make an inventory of the room’s contents. There was a bed and a door to a functional washroom. Given the choices available, she took off her boots and lay on the bed. That raised her above the floor. So, if she could widen the door, make the bed fly along the corridors and out through the underground passage to the Forest, without being noticed, escape would be easy. Hah!
She could wait until Rinduran came to gloat, rush him and stab him with her arrowhead. Hah! She was still shaking from his casual suggestion that she might want to kill herself. If he made the command serious, she would do it without hesitation and feel she was leaving the world a better place. She could feel the power in his dead eye, absorbing all hope, all life.
She could pass the time making ever more ridiculous escape plans but they were little better than the Maturity Test fantasies. Why was Rinduran keeping her alive? Maybe if she knew the answer, she could keep herself alive longer. While she was searching for an answer, exhaustion overcame her and the temporary peace of sleep cradled her till dawn’s greylight.
A yawn caught her attention.
What she’d thought was a wall, swayed and became a transparent partition between her own room and its twin. A tousle-haired girl sat up in bed in the mirrored bedroom, looked through the veil at Mielitta.
‘So Daddy caught you,’ she said, running her fingers through long, strawberry blonde curls. ‘He said he would.’
‘I’m Mielitta,’ she stammered, as the other girl got out of bed, threw a robe over her shift and peered at her. It was like being a specimen in a school study but without knowing who was the observer and who was the specimen.
Now she was out of bed, the girl’s childish frame and elfin face suggested that she was about Drianne’s age. ‘Your name doesn’t matter. You’re the traitor.’
‘Perhaps that depends on your point of view,’ Mielitta suggested. ‘Who are you?’
After a long pause, the girl condescended to reply. ‘I am Mage Rinduran’s daughter, Verity.’
‘Bastien’s sister!’ Mielitta spoke the thought aloud. She hadn’t known of a sister, didn’t remember her from school or the archery yard.
‘Mage Bastien’s sister,’ came the reprimand. A coughing fit spoiled the attempt at hauteur. Verity doubled up and wheezed as she took the time needed before she could speak again.
‘I am dying of allergy,’ she explained calmly, ‘so I live within the Perfect protection of my room, to keep me alive as long as possible. Your room is the same. My mother died in there last week.’
Mielitta blinked. Rinduran hadn’t wasted time in his pursuit of Puggy. She screwed up the bedcover in one fist, trying not to think of the room’s previous inhabitant. Things under the bed were bad enough but a ghost in the bed was even worse.
‘You killed her.’ This time the girl’s voice trembled. ‘You brought the Forest into the Citadel and it came into her room on the air. Every time somebody comes to see us, we die a little bit. I mean, I die a little bit. She’s died completely now.’ Another coughing spasm wracked her.
‘I told Daddy I wanted to see you, tell you what you’ve done, call you a murderer. Why did you kill Mummy? And why are you killing me? We’ve never done anything to you.’ Her face was white and severe, an angel’s in judgement.
‘I did not kill your mother!’ Mielitta’s vehemence was doubled by a nagging suspicion that she might have. Who knew what effect her bees had on the Citadel? Or what had come in with them. A fly that had died and wrecked the magical fabric of the library floor. Stones, she wished her bees were with her now.
‘Daddy said you had creatures inside you. Insects.’
Mielitta said nothing but the girl nodded.
‘Thought so,’ Verity said. ‘And Daddy said you want the canopy ripped open so sun destroys us all.’
‘Sun doesn’t destroy! It’s warm and gentle!’ Mielitta retorted.
‘See.’ Verity was smug. ‘Daddy was right. You’re evil.’ Another coughing fit interrupted her speech. She wiped the blood from her mouth and showed the red wetness on her hand to Mielitta. ‘This is what you did. And when Daddy and Bastien have finished wiping you clean, nobody will have allergy again.’
‘But you’re talking to me now. If,’ she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘your Daddy’, ‘if Mage Rinduran is right, this should be making you worse. Maybe I’m not so bad after all.’
‘But I told you.’ Large brown eyes opened wide at Mielitta’s stupidity. ‘Our rooms are protected. Both of them, separately. Mummy and I could see each other through the partition but it’s clean. Nothing gets through except sound and light. It’s the doors that allow bad air in, the badness that you brought.’
Mielitta tried. ‘I’m sorry that you’re ill. I don’t want anybody to have allergy.’
The brown eyes appraised her in sceptical accusation.
Mielitta ploughed on. ‘I just think… maybe… if we could learn to live with the Forest, it would be better, people would be better… maybe there would be less allergy.’
‘Daddy said you thought you knew better than everybody in the Citadel. Better than the walls and centuries of Perfection. One stupid, evil girl destroying the whole world. And Mummy. And me.’ Verity’s breath came in pants and sobs as she lost control. She lay back down on the bed, curled up like a foetus, her back to Mielitta as she breathed in great rasping shudders that raked Mielitta’s conscience raw.
Was this her punishment? Watching Verity die of allergy, an accidental target killed by Mielitta’s loose arrows? What had Tannlei said? The archer and the target must become one, linked by the arrow’s flight.
Mielitta tested the floor’s tolerance with one cautious foot, then the other: walked a couple of paces. There was no hindrance to her walking around the chamber. She stooped into a back exercise, extended it to stretch her calves, then upped the pace on her workout until she built up a sweat.
Her pulsing temples covered any sounds of ragged breathing from the other room and driving her body to work harder stopped thoughts that hurt worse than her muscles ever could. Verity would never know the exhilaration of running through the woods, turning a backward flip, loosing arrows. But did that mean Mielitta shouldn’t do it? Did Perfection mean that people like herself should be stunted to save people like Verity? Did people always live full lives at others’ expense? There must be another way!
She ran on the spot another fifty times, lifting her knees high to increase her heart rate. She paused then repeated the exercise. Then some jumping jacks and, followed by fifty squat thrusts. And again, until sweat dripped into her eyes.
Then she took a shower. While the water did its job, she remembered the wild joy of bathing in the stream. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she settle for the Citadel life?
There was no movement now from the other side of the veil. Verity must be asleep again. One dull day after another. Mielitta paced the
floor. She hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours but she’d drunk water from the washroom. It tasted the same as every other kind of water in the Citadel. She remembered rain pelting down in the Forest, drumming against the hive.
Pacing up and down, she measured out the steps she could take in each direction, wondering how long she could stay sane, whether she was sane. Without her bees, she didn’t know what to think.
She lay down on the bed, shut her eyes, drifted into the rustle of leaves and chatter of goldfinches. Someone’s hand was smoothing her brow and calm rippled inwards from each movement. Her mother’s hand. She must have had a mother and now, when most needed, her mother was here, giving her strength.
‘There, there, darling,’ soothed the voice.
Mielitta opened her eyes, looked straight into the bloody cauldron of a damaged eye with a bee-sting black in its centre. Her instinctive recoil was mirrored in Rinduran’s as he stepped backwards from the bed, placing a safe distance of flooring between them. Too late now to jab him and run.
To her shame, the loss of her imaginary mother flooded her with grief and overspilled in heavy sobs.
‘There, there, darling,’ Rinduran mocked, as she rocked on the bed, shaking. ‘You wondered why I kept you alive? For the Citadel of course. We can learn from you.’ His voice softened, almost to the tones she’d mistaken for parental love. ‘And for Verity.’
At the sound of her name, the girl through the partition roused, raised herself up on her elbows and looked through the partition. Like Mielitta, she’d woken and seen Rinduran.
‘Daddy,’ she said with a sleepy smile. ‘Are you going to fix things?’
‘Yes, sweetheart,’ he replied, then returned his attention to Mielitta, who could not control her tears.
‘How did you bond with these creatures?’ he asked, as if enquiring politely about her daily routine. But with the words came the same stab of power she’d felt when linked to him by the bee, pulling out words she didn’t want to speak. This time she was alone, no bees, no friends; betrayed and abandoned. And so, the interrogation began. Smooth and considerate questions, accompanied by needle-thin spikes of pain that left her sweating, panting and talking.
She told him everything. The bee attack, the sigil, the summons to the hive, the beauty of the Forest. Worse than that, she told him how she felt about Jannlou. Amid her shamed tears, he smiled, the kindly uncle of a girl’s nightmares. If she’d written a private diary and been forced to read it aloud in public, this was how it would feel. With jabs and prods of power to shock her into continuing.
‘Don’t,’ he warned her gently as she thought of her arrowhead, wondered once more if she could hurt herself back into control. She yelped as a blast immobilised her hand. Without her bees, she was nothing. Just an ordinary girl.
Just when she felt she could bear no more, Rinduran’s attention wavered. His sighted eye lost focus as if seeing something outside the room. She avoided looking at the other eye.
‘Other business calls me,’ he told her, apologetic. ‘You have been very helpful but I have more questions before proceeding to a more physical dissection of your aberrant brain. Unfortunately, further discussion must wait.’
He looked over at Verity, who took it as a sign she could speak. What had the girl seen? Mielitta wondered but she knew the answer. Just her Daddy asking civil questions to a freak, who jumped and shrieked, cried and shivered for no reason.
‘Do you think you can find a cure for allergy?’ Verity’s eyes showed that her life hung on the question.
‘Yes, little Vee,’ he assured her. ‘We’ll have to experiment but I think we can extract a substance from this girl that might change everything. I need to consult the walls. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Promise?’ Verity asked.
‘I promise,’ Rinduran said, looking at Mielitta.
She curled up in a ball, hiding her eyes, didn’t watch him leave.
Never again, she told herself. Never again. Whatever she had to do. Although she told herself she would not sleep, her body decreed otherwise, in fits and starts, wakening always into sickening fear. What she feared most was the glamour of a gentle voice, the deception and mockery. So when she heard such a voice again, her instinct was to hide.
There was nowhere to hide and the voice was insistent.
Mielitta. Watch!
She had prayed to the walls so many times to open to her but since the time she’d hidden from Shenagra after the Council Meeting, the stones had been inert. She’d thought her birthday gift, with the cryptic verse, had come from the walls, but if so, there had been no explanation. Just consequences. She was tired of mysteries and she was alone. She should ignore this new torment but how could things become worse?
Mielitta. Watch!
Wary but incapable of doing otherwise, she obeyed.
Now, one wall shimmered and settled, screening a large image: the Council Chamber, with a meeting in full session. And every word was audible, at least to Mielitta. She glanced across at the bed in the other room but there was no movement. Verity seemed unconscious of the drama playing out, with her father at the centre.
Mielitta touched the wall, expecting her hand to move through it, for this to be the moment she could finally enter the walls, but the stone remained cold and solid, as if it had no pictures or sound flickering across it.
Although he was still at the head of the table, wearing his leader’s braid, Magaram was no longer exuding the confidence she remembered in him. Shenagra was at his side but she too seemed diminished somehow, her braids waving a plea for help rather than threatening to dispense judgement.
The voice booming out was Rinduran’s, his gold braid glittering more than Magaram’s as he waved his hands to emphasise his words. Puggy’s place had been filled already – by Bastien – a clear indication of where power lay now.
‘No mage greets his own retirement with pleasure and we all appreciate what you have done in your time, Mage Magaram, but we need new blood to deal with new dangers and it is your time to step down.’
There was no shock visible around the table, not even from Shenagra, who moved closer to Magaram. Some mages shuffled, looked away, but nobody spoke against Rinduran. He and Bastien had obviously made their moves as planned, gained more than two reluctant brides from their manoeuvres.
Looking grey, old, in need of retirement, Magaram could still command respect. ‘I do not accept.’ His voice pulled at any strings of loyalty left around that table but nobody spoke up.
He addressed his usurper. ‘So this is what late starter means? A man who hides his magecraft and bides his time, lays the explosive that will destroy the building then steps into the breach to save it? A man who whispers slander in each ear, tailor-made for the listener, until all believe they will see a better world with Rinduran the master of it?’
He glared at each member of the Council who dared look his way. ‘Make no mistake – if he wins, he will be a tyrant and you will find out the lies he’s sold you. The Forest will be the least of your problems when the enemy within the Citadel achieves his own ambitions. Mage Puggy is only the first of his conquests and an example of how he treats his peers.’
‘Lady Puggy,’ corrected Rinduran. ‘And we all know that mage work is too much of a strain for women, how much they sacrifice to wield magecraft. It’s not fair on them and, let’s be honest, they are struggling to compete with men when they lack the capacity. They shouldn’t have to struggle! We have strayed from Perfection and our women have paid the price. Now we’ll restore them to their proper place and protect them as we should. I spent enough years studying the lessons of the walls to know what resulted from women trying to behave like men. Assault. Rape. Incest. Child abuse. Child neglect. All because men felt diminished and women didn’t care about their proper responsibilities.’ Each word came out like a stab to the guts.
Shenagra’s braids turned white-hot as she blazed up under Rinduran’s words. She was the only woman in the room. ‘Mayb
e that’s up to men to do something about,’ she muttered.
‘Oh, we are, my dear. We are.’ Rinduran’s smile twisted the knife.
‘Shenagra,’ ordered Magaram and Mielitta knew what was coming. The braids hissed and snaked towards Rinduran, heedless of anyone or anything in their way, oozing poison. There would be no question of acceptance. He was condemned. The Chief Mage’s face drained of all colour in some invisible battle of wills as the tendrils of hair reached inexorably for their target.
‘What’s your target?’ murmured Mielitta and suddenly she knew Magaram’s mistake. He was Rinduran’s target, not Shenagra, and while all his concentration was on reinforcing their attack, he was open and vulnerable. And he was Jannlou’s father.
Mielitta called, ‘Magaram! Beware!’ Maybe his blue eyes flickered in response or maybe not. The paralysis hit him too quickly to be sure. The Chief Mage was turning to stone in front of his colleagues’ eyes and nobody except Shenagra moved to help him.
‘Appropriate, I thought,’ commented Rinduran as he built up layer by layer of wall where there used to be a man. Feet, ankles, knees, thighs disappeared within tight-packed dry stone.
Shenagra’s braids rushed back to the growing wall, ripped ineffectually at it and were tangled in the construction like black ivy.
When the stones had transformed Magaram up to his eyes, Rinduran told him, ‘She loves you. That’s what is killing her, not me. So blame yourself. As I said, female mages are too emotional, incapable of government.’
In a screaming rush, Shenagra was consumed in the braids as they drew her into the wall that had once been Magaram. No lovers could be closer than the stone and the black creeper intertwined in every layer. Then the wall and its partner crumbled to dust.