Daughter of Ancients (51 page)

I remembered the bag of jewelry Je'Reint's man had shown me, and of course it was true she wore such things all the time . . . adored them . . . wouldn't allow me to buy them for her. And of course I, too, had wondered why she hadn't put up more of a fight that night.

“She's a Metalwright whose mentor taught her to link her devices together.” The woman leaned closer to the fire, the firelight licking at her small face and fierce eyes. “Perhaps all her adornments focus power as an oculus does, working together like the avantir and the Zhid earrings to create some more intricate enchantment, something larger than a single device. Perhaps her power is not so strong as she claims if she must always enhance it with her metal toys. I think she puffs herself up too much. She's lied to you all along. Destroy her devices and you'll have her.”

Anger rippled through me. “You're wrong. She is not doing these things on purpose. And I've already said I can't—”

“I know what you said.” She attacked instead of retreating. “And you think you know everything about evil and corruption and doom, not to mention being the world's first and only man who ever fell in love to see his heart betrayed and to discover that his holy beloved wasn't so holy. So you're feeling sorry for yourself and sorry for the world, and I'm very glad to hear that you care about all of us, but you can't just retreat into whatever strange little hole you've found to hide in for the last five years. For once you just need to listen to someone who knows a few things that you don't.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“That's exactly the truth,” she snapped. “And so I intend to teach you a few things about Dar'Nethi power.”

“
You
teach
me
? I know enough about power to choke you!”

But like a stinging fly on a hot day, the damnable woman would not stop. “Of course, you're angry. You have every right. And yes, an oculus does terrible things to you. But this power that's grown in you is nothing of the Lords'. Don't you see? I heard you describe what you did when you lay on that stone table, how you followed your father's teaching—your father, proven the most powerful Dar'Nethi sorcerer since D'Arnath himself. For what did he do when he died on a pyre before you were born? He reached across the universe and opened the Gates to the Bridge that had been closed for centuries! You have to understand . . . what you did in that tomb . . . what you described to Paulo this morning . . . was exactly what
my
father taught me was the greatest mystery of our world—how we Dar'Nethi transform life in all its aspects, its wonders, its horrors, into power.

“Here—” She thrust the last clump of thornbush into my hand. “Put this in the fire and slow its burning so it will last the night. A simple spell for a Lord of Zhev'Na, isn't it? It takes hardly a thought to strip the essence of life from a bird or a tree or a slave, infuse that power and your will into a bundle of dead brush, and make a fire burn as you please, whether it consumes anything or not. Well it's a simple spell for a Dar'Nethi, too, but one that takes thought if you've not been trained to it. A spell that transforms matter into light and warmth at a rate that you decide. So, step one: Consider the dry thing, the life it once held, the place where it grew, the cycle of its life and death and seed and germination.”

The thorny wad pricked at my hand, but not as the woman's words pricked at my spirit. What did she know about anything?

“Step two: Consider the need.” She wouldn't stop. “Tonight will be cold in the desert. Your body needs warmth to recover its strength and warm food to heal and nourish it. And your friend Paulo and this ugly stubborn woman you can't quite trust need to sleep warm so they can care for you and lead you out of this cursed desert. But brush will burn too fast if you leave it to flame at its will.”

I had seen thornbushes burning in Zhev'Na. From dry lightning. From intent. They burned hot and fast, snapping and spitting gold sparks.

“Step three: In your mind, use your need to transform the essence of the thornbush, and then take one tiny portion of that monstrous power you fear and let it flow into your creation. Do it, and then feel what you have done and tell me whether it is good or evil.”

As she counted off her steps, I found myself obeying her commands, resisting the old habits I had developed in Zhev'Na in favor of this new way of thinking. And when I tossed the dry bundle onto the fire and carefully let power flow into the spell I had made, I did not create a holocaust, only a small hot fire that would burn bright through a long night. I felt whole, and the world did not end.

“Didn't I tell you?” She leaned back on her rock and nodded. Without smirking. But her chin was ready to challenge my least hesitation.

“The water,” I said. “I could make it more palatable . . . get the grit out of it . . .” Was it possible?

“Settle the sand to the bottom, perhaps,” she said, tossing me a muddy flask. She looked at me sidewise, out from under half-lowered eyelids. “A little more difficult than a slow-burning fire.”

I went through the steps again. Felt an anxious hitch in my breath as I released a dribble of power. But the working felt right. I opened the flask, drank, and passed it to Sefaro's daughter.

She took a sip, cocked her head to one side, considering, and passed the flask to Paulo. “What do you think? How did he do?”

Paulo, who had been crouched between the woman and me as if ready to leap into the breach when flaming arrows started flying between us, took a sip, stared at the flask, and then proceeded to drain it. “Cripes! I've not tasted anything cold in a year . . . I'm sure of it. And no sand in my teeth!”

“Well, we can't afford to do that any more,” said the woman, snatching the flask back again and tossing it onto the sand beside the sinkhole. “He doesn't have time to learn how to pump more water from the earth into Nim's puddles. And he has more important matters to deal with.”

My astonishing feeling of well-being fled in the face of the future. We needed to get back to Avonar. “So, mentor, how are you at making portals?”

She looked up sharply. Her small face hardened like cooling lava, leaving her features rigid and pointed and angry. Paulo was sitting behind her, and he immediately shook his head vigorously, giving me a bleak wince that was some odd mixture of embarrassment and sympathy.

“Portal-making is not exactly in my list of skills.” She could have frosted the desert. “If it were, I wouldn't have been fool enough to spend four weeks riding through the Wastes to find you, now would I?”

“No, no. I can see that. I wasn't implying—I just—” What had I done to offend her now? As ever, it was impossible to come up with the right thing to say, especially with Paulo making unintelligible faces in the background. “I understand true talent doesn't imply the ability to make portals, but I thought you might know what was needed. I've likely power enough to do it. You've shown me that. But just . . . I don't know how.” The Lords never traveled physically, and so had no need for portals.

The woman tilted her head and wrinkled one side of her face. “So you just want me to
tell
you how to make a portal?”

“As you did with the other things. I could take us back to Avonar tonight. We could find some help.”

“What about this oculus? If it is possibly empowering the Zhid, you can't just leave it. You likely have power enough to destroy it, if you'll just try.”

I tried to hold patience. “I told you. I can't go near an oculus. I daren't touch it. It doesn't matter what I want or what I intend. All the power in the world isn't going to enable me to destroy it.”

Flushed and silent, she sat by her rock, digging her boot heel into the sand so ferociously one might have thought her worst enemy buried there. She was thinking about something she didn't like at all, and I didn't want to blurt out anything else until I had a clue about what was making her angry this time.

“So this soul weaving,” she said at last, “that's what you did to get me off the Lady's roof?”

Was that what this was all about? Gods, she must have been disgusted when she realized what I'd done. “I'm sorry. It's just . . . D'Sanya was so angry. So dangerous. There was no time to explain or to ask you. If she'd seen you . . .”

“I'm not asking for an apology. I want to know how it works. If you can make me scramble across a roof and race off to find your mother”—her glance was as pointed as her chin, and I felt my own skin heat up—“can you make me work sorcery as well?”

“Yes. But I—”

“And do things I might not be . . . capable . . . of otherwise?”

“He had me writing words one time.” Paulo spoke up. “There's no bigger magic than that. He can take or give what's needed . . . allow you to do what
you
need, as well. He won't trespass where you don't say, neither. He could, but he won't. I think it could work.”

Paulo had clearly heard something I hadn't. I puzzled for a moment, watching the woman biting her lip and grinding her heel. I thought her hand might crush her cup.

Then she stuck out her jaw and kicked a last rock out of the hole. “There's daylight enough left. We can be to the place I buried it within the hour. You can stay well out of the way while Paulo helps me dig it up. Then you can do whatever it is you do, and we'll destroy it—with my hands, not yours. I wish I could do it without your help, but I can't.”

Earth and sky! “You want me to join with you . . . come into you . . . and destroy the oculus?”

“There's no other way. We've no assurance Prince Ven'Dar will be in Avonar or that he even has the power to destroy one of D'Sanya's devices. You do. You have no idea . . .” She shook her head and mumbled to herself. “And now you have my body to do it with. Let's just get it over with and don't let me think about it too much.”

Paulo was already up and saddling horses. I sat speechless, my mind running through five chains of reasoning at once, none of them concluding she was wrong.

“Some day you're going to understand how lucky you were to have me along,” she said, scrambling to her feet and running her fingers through her shaggy hair vigorously. “Every Dar'Nethi child is taught complex skills such as how to make portals and how to destroy objects of power. Not one in five thousand can actually do such things, so not one in five hundred remembers more than half the steps. But I—” She dropped her cup into the pack that sat at her feet. “I never forget anything.”

Paulo did the digging. He said he didn't have much to contribute to the night's activity but common labor.

Gerick had remained with the horses two hundred paces up the hill. His spirit had closed up like a slamming gate as soon as we crossed the top of the ridge and started down the track to the burial place, and I made him stop right there. I didn't want any “imaginary” Zhid poking spears into Paulo and me while we did this thing.

A slight chink interrupted the steady crunch of the shovel.

“Ouch! Demonfire!” Paulo threw down the shovel and clenched his hands to his chest. “Shovel hit metal, not rock. Cripes . . .” He bent over, his fists flying to his head and grinding into his temples.

“Time to change the guard, then,” I said, jumping up from the flat rock, grabbing his elbow, and dragging him back up the trail toward Gerick and the horses. “Any damage that won't heal?”

After a moment he walked a little straighter, but clamped his fists under his arms grimacing. “I saw a man struck down by lightning once. I'm not smoking, at least. Listen—” He halted at a bend in the track where we could see the desert stretching out behind us, the ugly scars of the Lords' reign a blight on the land. “What you're doing . . . are you sure?”

“Not sure at all. But I've some sense. We'll start slowly and see if it's possible before he—I just don't see any other way. I'll tell you this: He has power enough.”

He nodded and started walking again.

Indeed, I couldn't believe Gerick doubted himself. Even in the small workings he'd used to brighten our fire and clear our water . . . I'd never sensed such power, even from my father in the days before Zhev'Na. I issued a fervent prayer that the Lady Seriana was right about her son's heart.

Gerick was perched on a rock, his arms and legs drawn into a knot, when we walked into the little grotto where the horses were tethered. His head popped up. “So you found it.”

“Just where I left it,” I said, taking far too much time and effort to take a drink and loop my water flask's cord back on my belt so it wouldn't fall off. I didn't want to look at him, to think about him. “Let's get this done. Do I have to touch you or anything? Stand anywhere in particular? Well, I suppose not.” I emitted something halfway between a laugh and a bleat. “The last time we did this, you were dangling in a corner, and I was flailing on a window ledge.”

He unwound his arms and slid off the boulder onto his feet. His eyes were so dark in the failing evening.

I had to see . . . I stretched my hand out so my weak handlight would reach his face. “There . . . I'll stand over there,” I said, offering a pitiful explanation for my waggling finger.

Ridiculous. His eyes were their natural color. And concerned. I walked over to a boulder near him and propped my backside on it, facing away so I couldn't see him anymore. “Get on with it.”

“How can you do this?” he said quietly from behind me. “How can you bear asking me to come inside you after the things I've done to you? Aren't you afraid? Don't you remember?”