Daughter of Ancients (27 page)

“An Arcanist?”

“When a Dar'Nethi boy or girl comes of age, it is usual for the child to be gifted with one of the hundred named talents.” Her speech reverted to the precisely pruned simplicities of a nursery tutor. “That particular talent comes on them over a period of years and eventually dwarfs the smaller skills that all Dar'Nethi—”

“I know all about the Hundred Talents and coming of age.”

“Hmm . . . well . . .” The woman cleared her throat, disgruntled at my interruption. “Perhaps you also know that enchantments of great difficulty and complexity often cross the boundaries of the hundred?”

I bit my tongue and held patient. “No. Please go on.”

“Well, Arcanists are gifted in such matters. They are quite powerful . . . unusual . . . and often become dangerous, as I've said. Garvé is our only living Arcanist. He happens to be off investigating the site of these Zhid attacks just now, but he returns in a few days. If you like, I could ask him to see you.”

“Yes, I'd like that. That would be very kind.”

“I'll send a message to Mistress Aimee's house. I should get on with my work now. Everything seems to be taking longer than it should of late.”

“Certainly. You've been most helpful. Just one more question before I go.”

V'Rendal had bent her head to her work again, brushing a stubby finger delicately about the ragged border of a page. But she didn't say I couldn't ask more.

“I want to speak to those who first encountered the Lady.” Those who witnessed her return to the world of the living might have insights or impressions that had been suppressed by later evidence.

Sighing and pulling a sheet of paper and an ink bottle close to her, V'Rendal wrote out several names. “These are the Gardeners who first spoke to the princess. Come back tomorrow morning, and I'll send you to their present location—assuming they've not pulled out. I've a book to send out that way, so I'm having a portal made. Easy enough for the portal-maker to send you on as well, assuming he can get the thing to work at all.”

“Thank you so much for your help, Mistress V'Rendal.”

As the workroom grew suddenly chilly, the Archivist nodded, but did not speak. Enchantment filled the space like a shower of unseen feathers, and the brittle edge of the thin sheet beneath her hand seemed to soften and flow together, as if it were knitting itself together again. But then the shower of enchantment came to an abrupt halt, and she swore at her clumsiness. I pulled open the door and hurried out, closing it softly behind me.

 

V'Rendal's portal left me at the dusty village of Megira, a deserted cluster of whitewashed mud-brick buildings once used as a watch post where Dar'Nethi warriors could keep a wary eye on the desert. No permanent settlements existed out so far as yet. The Dar'Nethi had abandoned the security of Avonar and the Vales only slowly after the war, and talk in Avonar said the recent attacks had brought that movement to a halt. V'Rendal's information said the Gardeners were working somewhere out past Megira, and that I should take the road straight west to find them. I set out walking down a cart track that showed signs of recent use.

The day was warm and windy. Megira sat in gently rolling hills of grass and rock and scrubby trees, but the cart track descended quickly into wide expanses of grass-lands newly claimed from the desert. I wasn't worried about the Zhid. The recent attacks had occurred far from this region.

Evidently in ancient times, few cities or towns existed in the twelve kingdoms of Gondai beyond the royal cities used for governance. The Dar'Nethi had preferred large, sprawling dwellings sprinkled randomly across the landscape. With the ability to make portals for urgent travel, journeys were for exploration and pleasure, and long guesting was the custom. Dar'Nethi householders had thought nothing of having fifty guests at a time staying a month or more. Those who desired solitude had built themselves retreats in the woodlands, mountains, or open spaces, and warded them with enchantments so that no one would happen across them uninvited. Only since the Catastrophe had the people felt the need to huddle together tightly for safety and survival. And as their talents declined through the centuries, complex skills like portal-making and mind-speaking became beyond most people's abilities.

After an hour's walk I caught sight of blue tents billowing and flapping in the warm, gusty wind, small figures moving around dark mounds, and many flat wooden structures. Closer approach showed the dark mounds to be piles of rich earth, and the wooden structures long, rectangular trays of small plants, filled ones scattered all over the area, empty ones piled one upon the other. A number of people were unloading . . . no . . . loading three half-filled wagons with the seedling trays.

“I've come to see the Gardener Eu'Vian,” I said to a dirt-streaked young woman who came out to meet me. “My name is Ser . . . S'Rie, and I've been sent by the Archivist V'Rendal to interview her.”

“Ah! About the Lady.” The girl offered me one of the water flasks tied to her belt, and I accepted gratefully. “Poor Eu'Vian will be happy when everything is written, and she can retire from celebrity. Usually she's hounded only when she goes into the city; you're the first in a while who's come all this way to meet her. I'm K'Tya.”

The young woman reattached the water flask and tied a red scarf around her hair as she led me into the busy Gardeners' camp. Sweating men carrying picks, shovels, and small trees nodded as we passed, and women wearing brightly colored shirts, trousers, and scarves bade me a good day as they wheeled barrows filled with dirt and plants out into the dunes.

I hurried to keep up with the young woman. “Archivist V'Rendal is hoping for something—”

“—to make her history superior.” K'Tya finished my thought with an accompanying sigh. “Some new fact. Some new clue. We know. But you'll find that Eu'Vian is not the kind of person to remember things unevenly. She'll tell you only what she's told before. I'll warn you not to waste her time. We're awfully busy just now.”

“I saw the wagons.”

She nodded. “Preceptor L'Beres has sent out a notice to forward parties like ours, recommending we pull in at least as far as the nearest settlement. We're trying to get enough done that our newest plantings can survive our absence for a while. Can't say I'm not a mite nervous with these awful reports coming in so fast, but it tears you apart to leave your work at such a vulnerable stage. The last half-year has been such a struggle.” She slowed and waved to a sturdy woman who was stacking seedling trays onto a small handcart. “Eu'Vian! You've a visitor!”

K'Tya's prediction was exactly correct. The square-jawed woman with whom I sat in the shade of a dusty plane tree quickly demonstrated that her mind was highly organized, and she was unlikely to have forgotten anything. In no more than a quarter of an hour, Eu'Vian had recounted her tale of the young Gardener J'Savan bringing the starving woman with the incredible blue eyes to her camp, where the poor soul grieved for the long-dead king she claimed was her father.

“. . . We fed her and cleaned her and put her to bed. She carried nothing with her but a primitive bronze knife and J'Savan's water flask. She bore no scars—none visible at least—and no evidence of beatings, torture, or enslavement. We were sure she was mad, yet she touched us so deeply that we wept to see her sorrow.”

“And you took her back to Avonar right away?”

Eu'Vian sat up as straight as a child reciting lessons, her hands folded around a gray stone water flask. She did not fidget as so many do when questioned. “Not for three days. Though we had no Healer among us, she was so weak, you see. We woke her only to give her water and nourishment. On the third day, her madness seemed behind her, and she was already picking up our modern speech. She called for me and asked if she could hold my hand while she asked me a question. Of course, I agreed.”

“And what was the question?”

“She asked how many years it had been since King D'Arnath had died. I hesitated, fearful of her delicate state, as you can well imagine. She spied my reluctance and smiled at me so sadly. ‘Good mistress, I promise I will not retreat into madness,' she said. ‘As I have lain here enfolded in your kindness, I have searched my memory and concluded that something extraordinary has come to pass. If I am to confront my fate, whether it be truth or enchantment or some disease of my mind, I must know its full compass. So—you spoke of D'Arnath as if he were a being of myth, his life and passing well beyond your own span of years. Tell me, Eu'Vian, how far beyond?' ”

“And when you told her?”

“She wept, but did not falter. ‘So there is no one living who knew him, or his sons, or his children's children. No one who could tell me of his dying words?'

“ ‘No, gentle lady,' I said to her. ‘Unless they are written in our histories, no one could tell you that.'

“ ‘But you've told me you have a prince . . . a successor. . . . Is he not of D'Arnath's line?'

“I told her how the direct line of D'Arnath had ended so honorably with Prince D'Natheil and so tragically with his demon son, and I told her of good Prince Ven'Dar.”

“And how did she react to that?”

“With resignation, I would call it, as if my news had met her worst expectations. All she said was, ‘I would dearly love to have met my great-great-grandnieces and-nephews to the hundredth degree, but I suppose I shall have to be content with your prince. Am I right that my identity will be a great sensation in Avonar?' When I confirmed that it was already, she laughed sweetly, but with her sadness yet entwined with it. ‘It is a wonder, is it not? I cannot explain it.' That's all she said of the matter to me. As we escorted her back to Avonar, she asked ten thousand questions as to matters of our history, exclaiming over each revelation as if it were a wonder in itself.”

My fingers traced the sun-faded patterns of the woven blanket, feeling the malleable firmness of the warm sand underneath. My mind was racing. “You say she asked about D'Arnath's dying words. Did you not think that strange?”

Eu'Vian glanced at me oddly. “Not if one considers the traditions of our past. Did your family not—? Well, I suppose so many died in the war that some families have forgotten the old ways.”

She seemed to be waiting for me to respond. I didn't want her wondering about me or examining me. “My family was never traditional,” I said. “No one had time for it.”

She shook her head, not quite in disapproval, but in disappointment. “How will our young people ever grasp the value of our Way if those of us with graying hair forget? That's why our enchantments continue to weaken, even though the Lords are gone. No one remembers. Well, it was long the custom that a father's dying words would make a family whole: settling grievances, resolving disputes, setting recompense for offenses, finalizing judgments. The family left behind was required to adhere to the dying man's saying. Before a battle, a man would set his words in writing or hold them in his weapon or a ring or something that could be given his family.”

“Ah yes. Of course, I've heard of that custom.” Only a small lie. “Just one more thing. Did the Lady ever give any hint of her true talent?”

“No. Certainly not to me. I've never even thought about it.” Few Dar'Nethi would ever have asked the question. She puzzled over it for a few moments, but shook her head.

“What of the youth, J'Savan? Did he ever refer to it?”

“I never heard anyone speak of her gifts—except in the months since that day, of course, when they reported of their astonishing magnitude. Do you think there is some . . . significance in the direction of her talents?”

“Most likely not. We would just like to have the records complete. So, I'd like to ask J'Savan about it, and about other small things he might remember from the first encounter. Mistress V'Rendal says that no one has spoken to J'Savan himself since those first days, as you are the leader of your group and you've been so clear and reliable in your reports. But every mind remembers small things so differently. Would it be possible for me to speak to J'Savan? I promise not to take much time from his work.”

For the first time Eu'Vian looked a bit uncomfortable, shifting her position on the blanket and brushing away gnats or hair from her face. “J'Savan no longer works in our group. He—” She shifted again, frowned, and pressed her water flask to her mouth for a moment without drinking from it. “It is very sad about him, as he is so young. No one knows quite what happened.”

“What is it, mistress? I would really like to speak with him.”

“J'Savan fell ill several months ago—a terrible disease of the mind. I ask after him frequently, but no one has yet been able to help him. He is confined in Feur Desolé, the prison house at Savron. You could learn nothing from him.”

“You're saying he's gone mad?” Dread crept into my soul, roiling and growing and thickening like yellow winter fog.

“Indeed. He slaughtered three members of our work group and tried his best to murder us all.”

Any jailer in the Four Realms would have scoffed at the Dar'Nethi idea of a prison. No dank dungeons, no chains, no whips or rats or moldering foulness, no starvation or torture. Not even very many prisoners compared to the bulging horrors in Leire and Valleor. Even Gerick, the most dangerous prisoner the Dar'Nethi had ever held captive, had been imprisoned in a cell that was clean and dry. And though confined deep in the palace in Avonar, he had been given comforts of blankets, food, writing paper, and wine.