Aloren (32 page)

Trid stared at the man and slowly shook his head.  “I never heard.” 

“Well, you wouldn’t have.  It was kept quiet.  And years passed and Lorila’s other peers grew…unhappy.  Natridom was sent to train at Norembry’s court for his safety, and Caveira became nervous when he learned Yelse had got hold of the
Aebelavadar
and all its baggage.  His nephew was over there and he suspected her of designs against his family––and I see why, now.  It was because she had failed to kill the baby prince.  Caveira was nervous already, for the other Lorilan nobles were plotting against him, and the Ravyir would listen to no counsel.  You know what they say about him––surrounded by thieves and murderers and can’t bear to think ill of any of them.  And so Caveira thought he would have to win Lorila by force. He was only thinking of the country’s stability, he said to me.

“So he began to collect men.   He already had an accomplice in Herist, whom he had entrusted with Natridom’s safety.  He promised Herist land, a whole province, if you can believe it.  And when Yelse, who was calling herself Faiorsa, invited the Ombenelvan mercenaries into Norembry, Caveira thought to collect more men by frightening the Ravyir with rumors of invasion.  Herist did his part on the other side of the border, threatening Lorila with war.  Whether that was what Yelse had intended for the mercenaries, I don’t know.  But she was very ill by that time (poisoned, folk say) and Herist was free to go forward with his warmongering, and of course the Ravyir gave Caveira more troops. 

“Caveira only ever wanted Lorila.  But Herist, it seems, was more ambitious.  He had control over the Ombenelvan mercenaries, as well as Caveira’s nephew.  Caveira should have expected it.  If Herist had guile enough to pry power away from Yelse, then certainly Herist had the wits to carve his own agenda from this tangle of scheming.

“But Caveira never guessed, and he had no choice but to turn to the city of Even-Alehn when Herist betrayed him.  And the city sent
me
, whom Caveira thought dead by his own hands!  When he saw that it was I, Calragen Eligarda, he knew he had better tell me the whole of it. Herist had his
balls in a twist
, as he said.  So he told me, thinking I might have a way out for him, and he must have been keen on a particular way out, for he failed to mention that Yelse had never fulfilled her promise to him, had never done away with the Ravyir’s son.  Andrei, that’s you.”

Andrei put his bowl down in front of him.  

“Demyan Eliav,” said Calragen.  “That’s your name, if he is in fact you.  But there is story here I do not know.”

“So that’s Lorila sorted out,” said Arin. He took a big bite of hash.  “Remind me, though, how many countries are we dealing with, and whose is which?”  Forgetting he was disabled, I smacked him over the head.

“Lorila sorted out?” said Calragen.  “An amusing theory, my good young Gireldine, but haven’t you heard?  The Ravyir’s under siege.  Been cornered at Akurya.”

“By whom?” said Trid.

“Keldanst of Olefeln.  And I’ve just been told an army of Goyinki is marching on Dirlan, and there’s no one to defend it because Caveira’s troops have mutinied, and  Caveira was caught in the brunt and killed.  The land’s a mess.”  He wiped his mouth with a sleeve.

“It’s about time someone mutinied,” said Trid.  “Leadership’s gone to shit in these parts.  I want nothing to do with it.”

“Born into it, weren’t you?” said Arin.

“Over in Benmarum people aren’t born into anything except the world,” said Trid.

We didn’t move for a long time; and the sun slid off the grass, and the evening chill moved in. 

Thirty-Three

A few days went by.  I did little except sleep, eat, and suffer tonics and treatments from the medic.  Arin lay beside me, and we talked and fought.  Sometimes Andrei was in the bed opposite mine, asleep, or pretending.  He didn’t speak, didn’t look at me, but I liked having him there; and when everyone else was gone or sleeping I would slip from my bed and make sure it was him.

Sometimes all my brothers would come, and Floy, and they would crowd around my bed.  We would talk about Norembry, and the wide world outside, and I was scared it was all a good dream. 

One day I knew it for a dream, because a Simargh came into the tent after my brother Tem.  “Ackerly spoke with her people,” Tem said. He opened the door flap, and sun poured in a stream to where Calragen and Trid were standing and talking to Andrei.

The sunlight condensed at the foot of the cot and took the figure of a woman.  She rendered everything else so unreal that lines and edges faded before and behind her.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, thinking perhaps the sunlight had dazzled them. “This is a dream,” I said to Arin, who was sitting up in his bed beside mine.

“A dream?”  Arin blinked fuzzily.  “Maybe.” 

What seemed layers of wings, translucent, veined, feathered, were wrapped around her bright body like robes.  “I gave you a choice,” she said to Andrei.  “You didn’t much like it.”

He sat forward on his cot, looking ready to bolt.  She said to a dazed-looking Calragen, “You asked after the whole story?  I’ll tell my part.” 

Her voice shook my insides like a great bell.  At the sound of it memories came into my mind: the tiered bottom of the pool; the bright door behind the blue glass; the glowing soul. 

“He was used as a tool, and it was partly our fault.  You’re familiar with the legend of Calabren?  This is similar.  It begins with a djain that tricked a Simargh and and got her with child. 

“The Simargh carried her child to term––a boy––and we did our best to protect him.  But the djain are cunning and we feel always their malice, and as a precaution we took the boy’s soul and hid it.  And not too soon, because the boy was stolen by his djain father.

“We searched for the child but the djain guarded him too well.  We kept watch over the soul because we knew the djain was also searching––without the soul it could not turn the child.

“Only later, when it was too late, did we learn what happened.  In devising a way to steal the soul the djain conspired with a human woman.  Yelse, as she used to be called, was the Ravyir’s lover.  The man took a wife more suitable, and she rankled with hate and was bent on revenge.  She had saebeline blood and some small magic, and was the more irrational for it. 

“For the djain’s work Yelse needed a soulless child. Not the Simargh––the djain couldn’t risk it.  

“So she murdered the Ravinya, took her boy, and did not suffer him to know any kindness.  She had an urn crafted, the kind Virnrayan artisans use to bottle power.  She thought to put the Simargh soul, when she had got it, in the urn, and hide the urn in a secret-keeping broach. 

“She and the child journeyed to Lorlen, where we live.  The tortured boy had hidden his soul away, much the same as we had hidden ours.  With the djain’s help, Yelse cast a shroud of illusion about him.  We though he was our souless Simargh babe, stolen back. 

“Even the Simargh are vulnerable to djain craft.  We, who think ourselves wise. We should have hidden the soul in a safer place, should have waited a thousand more years for the Simargh boy to mature.

“Instead we gave the soul to the wrong boy.  Right away we knew our mistake. But a soul given is a soul kept until she is given by the keeper.  The keeper grew, and there was nothing we could do except watch.  The djain began to fulfill it’s half of the bargain: Yelse gained control of Norembry, and promised the soul, the
Aebelavadar,
to a country controlled by the djain.  She was given troops by this country, and planned to move against Lorila by means of Norembry and the Ombenelva.  I believe her objective was revenge––to end her bitter score when the bastard prince of Norembry conquered Lorila and killed the Ravyir, his real father.  In her madness she overlooked several details.  Norembry wasn’t so anxious to go to war, and she and her djain forgot that the soul couldn’t be taken without the boy’s permission. We shed light on the courses. He didn’t give permission.”

It was all silence for a while.  I opened my mouth. “Shed light on the courses?” It was just a dream, after all. Cruelly absurd in the way of dreams.  I could say what I wanted.  “Oh, that’ll make up for it, sure.”  Tem’s face had a terrible expression; he looked toward my hands and I buried them in my lap. 

“I don’t understand,” said the Simargh. 

Of course she didn’t understand.  “Partly your fault, you said. So where were you when my father died?” 

Arin hissed my name.  I ignored him.

“Where were you when they grabbed up them flowers like a bunch of idiots and I had to rip my spirit out?   When I spent years sunk in dirt and nastiness? And
him
.”  I pointed at Andrei.  “The hateful monster.  Where were you?  Did you see Nefer die?   Wille’s eyes? You’re as bad as a djain, watching your mess spread like a plague.”

My face was wet––I had never cried in a dream before. 

“We’re not so powerful as you want us to be,” she said.  “We can only give help to those who see us.” 

Having nothing more to say, she dissolved, and the light from outside brightened and fell across my legs.  Everyone else trickled through the door, except for Arin, who lay back down without looking in my direction. 

And Andrei, who’d got up from his cot.  He was holding his head as though it ached.  I asked him, “What happened to your eyes?”

“What?” He looked down at me.

“Your eyes are brown.  Why are they brown?”

“Why do you care?”  He walked out the tent.

I slipped from my cot and shambled after him.  I watched him throw together a bedroll and biscuits. 

Suddenly, instinctively, I knew I wasn’t dreaming.  My mouth went dry.

“Where’re you going?” I said.

“Hell if I know.”

“You can’t leave.”

“Watch me,” he said.

He began to walk toward the river.

“How did Trid wake you?” I called after him.  “When I was tied up, how did he wake you?”

“He hasn’t said.”

“Well, now you’re awake, you’ve an obligation.” 

He laughed at me.  “To do what?” 

I should have run after him.  Instead I said softly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought it was a dream.”

***

Floy found me stuffing salt pork into my old knickers.

“Where are you bound?” she said.  “With burns like that?”

Emry, Chief of the brigands, was standing beside her with a cloth full of green stuff.  She grew red in the face.  She was very young: too young to have been sentenced to death. 

“Have you ever,” said Floy, “seen a palendry bloom?”  It was an odd question.

“No,” I said.  “I don’t think they do.”

“I fancy they would look something like that aster.”

“If they bloomed.”

“Maybe they do, though. We ignore them most of the time.  And they do sprout by water––”

“Ye’re following him?” Emry said.  “Here.”  She held out the cloth.  I smelled palendries.  “Give him these. I don’t want to.  He frightens me and he’s dumb.  After I woke him I said to his friend, ‘Don’t let him out o’ bed for a week,’ and there he goes!  Like he’s made all of wood and bolts.  Maybe he is.  Idiot.”

“You were the one who woke him?” I said, taking the cloth. 

“Yes. Should I have?”

“How’d you do it?”

“Palendries.  And that big, warm flower was up his sleeve, so I put it back where I thought it ought to go.  And I and the nob got it all across because,” she said, bearing herself proudly, “Seacho and them got to do what I say now cause I’m Chief––”  Emry stopped in astonishment when I gathered her to my chest. 

“Thank you,” I said, and cried all over her neck. 

“Look at that,” said Floy.  “They’re both blubbing.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Sending
you
after
him,
” replied Floy, “is like rescuing a sinking ship with a sunken one.”

But Floy was just a pot girl, and I walked toward the river with my salt pork and palendries.

***

Andrei blundered along like a human, and though my feet hindered me I soon caught up with him. I hid behind trees and banks, and near the day’s end, watched him fall asleep beneath an apple tree. It was raining again.  He looked ill, almost as bad as before he’d woken, and I decided to replace his poultice. 

I mashed the palendries between my hands and pulled down his shirt. He grabbed my wrist––I almost wet my trousers.  A blade glinted, I dropped the stuff, and he sighed.

“Thought you were Max.”  He lay on his back, staring up at me. 

“You can’t cut a ghost.”  

“Been changing my poultices?”

“Obviously.” 

He turned on his side. “Why’d you bring me back?”

I got off my knees and squatted in front of him.  I was scared he was going to make a run for it.

“Answer.”

“I like to dance,” I said, and wiped my sticky hands on my shirt.

“Yes. You like to dance so much you brought me back.” 

“Did I ever hate you.”

He sat upright.  “I know.  Why’d you bring me back?” 

I took a couple deep breaths.  “What sort of imbecile would run a djain through with a dagger?”

“Me.”  He was angry now.  “Why the hell did you bring me back?  How did it feel?  Being tortured and tied to a stake half-naked?”  He stared stonily at the tree trunk.  “Let me try to reason it out for you,” he said.  “I thought my life was hell––so horrible I was proud of it.  But you took even that away from me with your sadness and your damn hands. You should have killed me.  I have nothing to stand on now, and I want to hurt you for it.” 

His face was wild.  I made to rise, but he shook his head.  “No.  Are you so dumb?  It must be obvious.  Why are you doing this? ”  He started to cry. “I know why you’re doing this.” I felt my ears burning up.

“Andrei––”

“Leave.”  He turned his back to me.

I closed my eyes.  I would go back to camp, back to my brothers.  They would ask me why I was so sad, tell me I had no business crying–– 

“No,” I said stubbornly.  “No.”  I put my hand in his muddy hair––his head was burning––and I kissed him on the mouth.  I pulled away a little, and his eyes didn’t look so dark as his face, for his blood was rushing something awful.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“It’s been done before.”

“You’re playing a trick.”

“I’m not.”

“And imagine what your brothers––”

“They’ll bear it well enough.  They owe me a country.”

“Oh gods––” He was laughing now.  “You
are
dumb.”  He wiped his wrist across his eyes.  “The saddest princess I ever laid eyes on.  Your hands!”  He took my hands and kissed the fingertips.  “What happened to your finger?”  He moved to my face, and before he could poke me in the eye I pulled his hands down between mine.

“Go on about my hands.” I was so hot I thought of taking off my shirt.  “You look like a three-year-old corpse.  But I’d say”––just like a girl I couldn’t stop talking––“we’re the prettiest couple in the country, cause of what the drabs say––in better worlds than this, beauty is measured by the scars you’ve managed to collect rather than avoid––”

“Bunch of shit.”  He kissed me again, and I pushed him away.

“So’s most things.  And that woman who ruined our lives?  Fuck her.  Fuck her backwards and forwards.”  I looked up at the branches, and the rain fell into my eyes and made them run.  “Can you hear us?” I yelled.  I pressed his hand into the mud.  He pulled back, but my grip was tight, and laughing at his face, I poured it through his hand and into the tree until she bloomed and rained white.

***

Andrei’s strength came back, and as my feet were causing me trouble he carried me on his shoulders back to camp.  I gave Nefer’s dragonfly broach to Emry (as the whole thing had started with her mother) before she disappeared back into the wild with Seacho and the others. 

But the silver urn was put to use, and the Evenahlen contingent preceded the Ombenelvan one back to Ellyned, where Calragen stood brazenly on the quayside and waited until each black cuirass had boarded a ship bound for the Aclun and the South.  How long they would remain satisfied with the decoy was anyone’s guess. 

We kept out of sight for a time, across the estuary at Daifen’s place, and learned firsthand why Daifen had acted as he did. He wasn’t the villain we’d made him out to be.