Daughter of Ancients (19 page)

“No. Never. What is it?”

She dragged me back to my feet and through an open doorway into a long, low-roofed building—a garden workshop. On one side were pots and shovels, barrows, barrels of dirt, and wooden tables on which sat trays of seedlings ready to be set out in the rich black soil of the valley. But one long table was topped with a slab of gray stone, and on it lay a variety of plants and flowers, feathers and twigs, each one partially encased in thin layers of pale gray.

“Do you understand now? Though I knew of it from childhood, I'd never seen shellstone for myself until we found a deposit in Grithna Vale. If you lay an object—anything, a natural object or a model that you've made from wood or clay or steel—on the slab and don't move it, the stone will grow around it, preserving the exact shape. Even as the stone grows thicker, the details are all retained. A fresh and lovely rose will look fresh and lovely forever.”

I started to ask if she didn't miss the smell or the color, but I didn't want to spoil her pleasure. The sculptures were indeed marvelous. A natural material of this world—that explained why I'd felt no prickling or coolness to indicate enchantment.

“The gardener, who is truly a Stone Shaper, takes the individual pieces—the flowers, the stems, the trellises, the insects or other creatures—along with sculpted pieces of his own invention, and he arranges and links them together to accomplish his vision.”

Once I had expressed sufficient admiration for her “gardener's” talents, we rode out for Tymnath, a sizable town with a bustling market three leagues south of Gaelie. Over the past weeks we had made frequent visits to Tymnath market. With the same amusement, wonder, and delight as the children who ran barefoot through the lanes, we had picked up and put down everything we found there: jewelry and fabrics, cooking pots and music boxes, games, artworks, and magical devices of infinite variety. I had never imagined such magical things existed, invented just to entertain or amuse. We had eaten every kind of foodstuff that was offered: little pastries filled with bitter fruit, sugared leaves, savory skewered bits of meat, shellfish in butter so spicy D'Sanya turned red and drank three cups of saffria before dissolving in laughter, and wine so potent I had to sit in the middle of the lane for a quarter of an hour before I could walk straight again.

On this day several artisans had set up a display of painted silks, some already sewn into scarves and gowns, some raw lengths hung from frames taller than my head. The designs and rich dyes confused the eye, forming colors I could not name and shapes that were not imprinted on the fabric itself, but only on my mind.

As we turned to go, I glimpsed Sefaro's daughter leaning against the side of a sausage-seller's cart, watching us. Did the woman truly travel so far just to spy on us?

I took D'Sanya's arm and led her away from the central market. A woman strolling toward us with a child at each hand stopped suddenly, staring at D'Sanya, her jaw falling open.

“Ah, not yet,” D'Sanya murmured. “If we could have just a little while longer to ourselves . . .”

“The Lady!” whispered the woman, trying to be polite without taking her eyes from D'Sanya's face. Bowing awkwardly and raising her hands, she elbowed her children, a pale boy and a girl wearing a pink ribbon in her hair. “Your hands, J'Kor, Ma'Denne. It's the enchanted princess.” The gaping children raised their palms and bobbed their heads.

D'Sanya nodded quickly and hurried onward, propelling me through the crowded lanes of the market, turning her face toward my shoulder so people could not see her straight on.

Someone always recognized D'Sanya on our outings. Word would spread through the market-goers, and before very long a crowd would gather around her, people begging for help, for healing, for blessings, for relief from their fears. Some people only wanted to touch her, or to have her say their names, thinking some wonder would come of it. She gave everything she could, always apologizing to me with a glance before delving into their problems: listening, healing, touching, comforting.

I had worried at first that someone would be curious about me, start to ask questions I couldn't answer, and uncover my false identity. But I soon learned that no one ever looked at me if D'Sanya was nearby. When she tired, she would glance at me over their heads, and while she told her petitioners where to apply for more help or when she might return, I would stretch out my arms and make a way for her to retreat through the press.

We hurried into the quieter streets of houses and shops before the word could spread too far. “Perhaps we should just go,” I said, slowing her pace. “We could ride back through Caernaille. Stop at the ponds and watch the blue herons.” For some reason this day had felt sour from its beginning; I couldn't bear the thought of the reverent, babbling crowd or all the Dar'Nethi magic that would grate on my spirit like sand in my boot.

She smiled up at me and squeezed my arm. “I've never known anyone so shy as you. Behind your gentlemanlike manner you've the reflexes of a cat, the strength of a bear, and the eye of a seer. I've a guess that not ten men in all of Gondai could best you in a test of mundane combat, or even if they brought their own sorcery to bear for that matter. So it cannot be lack of confidence or fear for our safety that frets you so. Your voice neither stammers nor grates. You are ravishingly handsome and so graceful in posture it cannot be uncertainty as to your welcome . . .”

“Lady, you flatter me too much.”

She spun around to face me, taking my hands and walking backward down the lane, evidently trusting me to keep her from falling into potholes or tripping over gutters and lampposts. “. . . and certainly no dullness of intellect keeps you back. Your mind is as keen and bright as an enchanted blade, and new learning brings your face to life. I've learned that when you squint in just a certain way, your mind is racing, questioning and formulating answers, all inside yourself. Yet once we're outside the hospice grounds, you never speak a word to anyone but me. I'll wager a year's breakfasts that you would never come to even so tame a place as Tymnath market if I didn't force you.”

“Most likely not.”

“Well,” she said, taking my arm and squeezing it to her side, walking frontward again, “for today I will indulge your fancy, but in the future we shall work on your social skills. You must learn to enjoy yourself in all ways!”

We strolled through the lanes that skirted the marketplace, poking into a luthier's shop to watch the master steam and shape and join the thin slices of wood that would form the shell of a new instrument. We found a jeweler's cart, and I bought D'Sanya a jade comb she admired—a gift she allowed only because it was unlike anything she already owned. She adored jewelry, never leaving her door without three or four rings on each hand, bracelets on her wrist or arms or ankles, and something dangling from her neck. The pieces were most often pure goldwork or silver, sometimes set with gemstones, though never garish or overdone. But she wouldn't allow me to buy her more, saying she had enough.

When we came to the hostler's yard at the edge of the town to reclaim our horses, we found a furor. Twenty people or more were clustered around a small party of horsemen. From the center of the crowd came thuds, grunts, and shouts. A horse squealed and reared. Curses and epithets flew through the air, along with rumbling blasts of enchantment that unsettled my stomach.

“P'Tor, fetch the Winder!” a man shouted. A youth in bright red and green burst out of the shifting crowd and streaked past us toward the center of town, his long braid flying.

A man screamed in pain as a sharp crack split the air above the fight, a streak of darkness that might have been the absolute reversal of lightning. Many in the group drew back. And then came a low, soul-grating hiss that chilled the day, shadowing the sun as surely as a rising storm cloud.

“Sssslay us if you will.” The voice that shaped the hiss into words was harsh and brutal.

“They are cowardsss like all Dar'Nethi vermin,” said a second voice, “sssneaking, binding with their pitiable magics. None dares challenge us with a blade.”

Zhid.

I stepped backward into the lane we'd just exited, ready to draw D'Sanya away from danger. But she shook off my hand and hurried across the trampled dirt and grass, leaving me no choice but to follow.

“What's going on here?” she called out. Her tone of command was irrefusable, as I well knew.

Men and women turned to gape at her, stepping aside as she walked into their midst. Five or six men were struggling to force a bedraggled captive to his knees. The Zhid, a thick, shaggy man with blood smeared across his face, was half standing, refusing to go down. Backs and arms strained to retain their hold on the warrior's brawny arms; boots scuffed the dirt as the Zhid shoved his captors inexorably backward. Zhid were wickedly strong and hard to kill. While one townsman held a roll of thick silver cord, two others were cutting off lengths of it to wrap around the captive's wrists and ankles.

I couldn't see the second Zhid, as he lay face down on the ground with two villagers sitting on his back, binding his limbs with more of the silver cord;
dolemar,
it was called, a material enchanted to prevent use of power. While a man in a blacksmith's apron tried to restrain a wild-eyed horse, two women tended to a groaning townsman with a horrific gash in his side. Dark blood soaked the hard ground beneath him.

“Come here, little maid, and tell these brutes to leave off,” said the shaggy Zhid, his pale eyes settling on D'Sanya. He snarled and wrenched his shoulders as the townsmen knotted the silver cord about his left wrist and yanked his hand behind him to tie off with the other. “You've a pretty face. Won't you have pity on a ssstarving warrior?”

“Pity, yes,” she said softly. “What is more pitiable than a being without a soul?”

“It's the Lady . . . the princess . . .” I couldn't see who said it first, for the words swept through the circle of Dar'Nethi like an autumn wind. Some stared. Some bowed. Some dropped to their knees. Eyes flicked from D'Sanya to the growling Zhid and back again, anticipating.

The burly Zhid scrabbled his feet back under himself and lurched upward, toppling one Dar'Nethi and smashing his captor in the face with his boot. But a wooden club in the gut felled the Zhid warrior instantly and left him in the dirt. The Dar'Nethi rolled him onto his face, jerking brutally on the cord about his wrists and wrapping it around his ankles until his back was arched like a bow.

D'Sanya flinched at the blows and the vigor of the Dar'Nethi captors. “Careful,” she said. “He is sick and broken, but not irredeemable.”

“I don't know, my lady,” said one of the men tightening the cords. “We caught these two at Hy'Tan and J'Kari's house . . . and the two of them and their two little ones murdered. These damnable creatures were drinking J'Kari's blood! If Prince Ven'Dar had not commanded us to keep Zhid alive . . .” His voice broke.

“We'll drink yours as well before we're done,” said the second Zhid, a long thin man with a tangled mop of red hair. He lay face down, arms and legs trussed as awkwardly as his fellow's. “We'll savor it . . . sssssssavor it . . .” The Zhid's unnerving expression of disdain issued from him like a viper's greeting.

Unlucky that I had stepped up to stand beside D'Sanya, for when a heavy boot rolled him onto his side, the red-haired Zhid's eyes fell directly on my own. His face brightened in astonishment . . . and then glee. “So it's true—”

I bellowed and pounced on the Zhid, throttling him so that he could not utter the words of honor and greeting that sat so eagerly on his tongue. I gripped his head unmoving and locked my eyes on his, forcing my thoughts into the villainous murk that was a Zhid's mind—especially this
particular
Zhid's mind.
You will say nothing, warrior. You will neither speak my name nor give the slightest hint that you know me. I am your master, your Lord, and my purposes are beyond your comprehension. You will obey me or I will squeeze the blood from your heart.

Even as Dar'Nethi hands tugged at my arms, trying to pull me off him, I ripped power from the Zhid's exhilaration and his fear, and I squeezed his heart with an invisible fist, feeling its pumping stutter, using his pain and the panic of his failing breath to strengthen my hold on his body and mind.
Acknowledge my command or die this moment, Gensei Kovrack. You will say nothing of me. You will not look upon me. You will not think of me.

My hands were shaking as they dragged me off him, hatred and murder flowing through me like a river of fire. I bit my lip and tasted the blood, and the hunger came near choking me. I required every smattering of will I possessed, every scrap of control I could summon, to take my hands from his throat and release his heart without killing him. By earth and sky and all gods, I wanted him dead—Gensei Kovrack, the red-haired Zhid general who had taken me into the desert and taught me the arts of command and torture.

The eyes of the crowd were hot on my back. An explanation. I needed an explanation. Someone might have sensed the vile enchantment I had worked. No one would guess it mine, not when Zhid were present, but my actions were very un-Dar'Nethi. “I've seen him before,” I whispered. I was kneeling in the dirt, five men restraining me. “He slaughtered . . . so many . . . enslaved my father . . . my family . . . so powerful. Don't trust even dolemar bindings to hold him. I'm sorry . . . so very sorry.”

“We understand.” The hands that held me gradually fell away, a few squeezing my arm tight or touching my back in comradeship and sympathy.