That was where
they
were. Rejoicing in the return of their own particular master, in the camaraderie of souls twisted out of true. Settling back into the warm water, Tanaros closed his eyes. Since he was alone, he might as well indulge in his memories.
The bath-oil had smelled like vulnus-blossom…
He tried to summon it; the rage, the old, old anger. Calista's gaze meeting his as she lay in her birthing-bed, eyes stretched wide with guilty fear as she held the babe with red-gold hair close to her breast. Roscus, looking surprised, the hand he had extended so often in false brotherhood clutching uncomprehending at the length of steel that had pierced his belly. Remembering the scent of vulnus-blossom, Tanaros tried to summon the bitter satisfaction that moment had engendered.
It wouldn't come.
Too far away, and he was tired, too tired for rage. There was too much to be done, here and now. Calista had been dead for a long, long time; aye, and Roscus, too. Somewhere, somehow, the fearsome womb of the Marasoumië, the blazing sands and merciless sun of the Unknown Desert, had rendered their ghosts into pallid shadows. It was the living who commanded his attention. One, more than others.
Since the comfort of anger was denied him, he sought to turn his mind to matters at hand, to the report he must make on the morrow to
Lord Satoris and the preparations for battle to come; but the odor of vulnus-blossom wove a distracting thread through his thoughts, He shied away from the memory of Ngurra's uplifted lace and the old Yarru's words. Why was there such pain in the memory, enough to displace the murder of his wife? His thoughts fled to the moon-garden and he saw
her
face, luminous and terrible with beauty. The Lady of the Ellylon.
What did you see
? he had asked her.
You. I saw you…
"No." Shaking his head, scattering droplets of water, Tanaros arose. He stepped dripping from the tub and toweled himself dry, donning a dressing-robe. Despite the fire laid in his hearth, he shivered. She was here in Darkhaven, separated from him only by a few thick walls, burning like a pale flame. Alone and waiting. Had she heard word of his return? Did she care if he lived or died? Or did she think only of Aracus Altorus? Gritting his teeth, he willed himself not to think of it. "Ah, no."
There was a crisp knock at the door to his chambers.
He padded barefoot to answer it, feeling the luxury of Rukhari carpets beneath his feet. Meara was there when he opened the doors, eyes downcast. Another madling accompanied her, carrying a tray. Savory odors seeped from beneath the covering domes.
"Meara!" His mood lightened. " 'Tis good to see you. Come in." He opened the doors wider, inhaling deeply. His stomach rumbled in sympathy, hunger awakening in his starved tissues. It had been a long time since he had allowed himself a proper meal. "What have you brought? It smells delicious."
"Squab, my lord." Her tone was short. "And other things." She watched the second madling lay the table with care. "Forgive us, Lord General, that we cannot stay. Others will return in time to tend to everything."
Tanaros frowned. "Does the Dreamspinner demand your presence, Meara? Or is it that I have offended you in some way?"
She lifted her gaze to his. "Does my lord even remember?"
He did, then; her weight, straddling him. The smell of her; of womanflesh, warm and earthy. Her teeth nipping at his lip, her tongue probing. His hand, striking her face, hard enough to draw blood. Tanaros flushed to the roots of his hair.
He had forgotten.
"Aye." Meara nodded. "That."
"Please." He made a deep courtier's bow, according her the full measure of dignity any woman deserved. "Allow me to apologize again, Meara. Forgive me, for I never meant to strike you."
"Oh, and it's
that
you think demands apology the most, my lord?" She put one hand on her hip. "Never mind. I forgave you
that
from the beginning."
"What, then?" Tanaros asked gravely. "Tell me, and I will make amends."
"No." Gnawing her lip, she shook her head. "I don't think so, my lord. Not if you have to ask. Some things cannot be mended. I know, I am one of them." Meara shivered and gripped her elbows, then gave a harsh laugh. "Ask the Lady, if you want to know. She's heard word of your return. She is waiting, although she does not say it."
"Is she?" He kept his voice polite.
"Oh, yes." She eyed him. "She does not fear you as she does the others. I think she has seen some kindness in you that she believes might be redeemed. Be wary, my lord. There is danger in it."
Tanaros shrugged. "She is a hostage, Meara. She can do no harm."
The bitten lips curved in a mirthless smile. "Go to her, then. One day, you will remember I warned you. I did from the first. It was a mistake to bring her here." She beckoned to her companion and turned to depart.
"Meara," Tanaros called after her.
"I have to go, my lord." She walked away without looking back. "Use the bellpull if you have need of aught else."
He stared after her a moment, then closed the doors. The aroma of his supper called him to the table. Despite the accumulated hunger of weeks of privation, he delayed for a moment, savoring her words.
Cerelinde was waiting for him.
Ushahin Dreamspinner sat cross-legged on a high chopping block.
All around him, his madlings pressed and swarmed, jostling for position, reaching out to touch his knee or his foot in reassurance. He sat and waited for all of them to assemble—not just the cooks and servants, but the launderers, the maids, the stable lads. All of the folk who tended to his Lordship's glorious fortress.
His people.
Darkhaven's kitchens were roasting hot and greasy, redolent of cooking odors. For the madlings, it was a safe haven, one of the few places in the fortress in which they enjoyed the comfort of domestic familiarity. Here, they established their own society, their own hierarchy. Cooks possessed by mad culinary genius worked cheek by jowl with half-witted assistants and found common ground. All took pride in their labor, knowing that Darkhaven could not function without them; and the kitchens represented the pinnacle of that pride.
Ushahin did not mind being there. The atmosphere soothed his aching joints, reminding him of the moist, fecund air at the heart of the Delta. The belching ovens might have been Calanthrag's nostrils. The thought gave him pleasure, though he hid it from his madlings.
Their mood, at once ebullient and penitent, disturbed him. It came as no surprise, in light of what Vorax had told him. Sifting through the endless tangle of their waking thoughts, Ushahin saw a single image repeated: Cerelinde, the Lady of the Ellylon.
He kept a stern visage until all were assembled. When Meara and the lad who accompanied her returned from their errand, he raised one hand for silence. With whispers and broken murmurs, a sea of madlings obeyed. Their twitching faces were raised to listen, gleaming gazes fixed upon him.
"My children," Ushahin addressed them. "I have labored long and hard, through countless dangers, to return to you. And now I find Lord Vorax is wroth. How do you account for yourselves in my absence?"
A hundred faces crumpled, a hundred mouths opened to shape a keening wail of guilt. It surged through the kitchens, echoing from the grease-blackened rafters and the bright copper pots and kettles, scoured to an obsessive shine. Some went to their knees, hands outstretched in a plea for forgiveness.
"So." Ushahin nodded. "You know of what I speak. Did you bring her
here
?"
A wail of protest rose in answer. Heads shook in vehement denial, matted hair flying. No, no. They had not brought her here.
"Where?" he asked.
The wailing trickled into shuffling silence. Ushahin waited.
"A place." One of them offered it in a mutter, eyes downcast. "A place behind the walls, lord, that we made bigger."
Another looked up, pleading. "You said those were
our
places, lord!"
"The spaces in between." Ushahin nodded again. "I did. Those are the places we occupy, my children; those of us whom the world has failed to claim. No one knows it better than I. And I entrusted those places to you, with Lord Satoris' blessing. Why, then, did you bring the Ellyl woman there?"
The hundredfold answer was there in the forefront of their thoughts, in their hungry, staring eyes. None of them gave voice to it. It didn't matter; he knew. Lives of happy normalcy, wives and husbands, sons and daughters. An honest livelihood filled with the myriad mundane joys of living.
What-might-have-been
.
Oh, yes, Ushahin Dreamspinner knew.
"'Tis a bittersweet joy," he said softly, "is it not? What might have been. I, too, have wondered, my children. What might
I
have been, had my Ellyl kin claimed me?" He lifted his gnarled hands, gazing at them, then at his madlings. "A bridge, perhaps, with limbs straight and true, built to span the divide between Haomane's Children and Arahila's. Instead"—he shook his head—"I am the abyss. And when they seek to gaze into the spaces in between and stake a claim there, they will find
me
gazing back at them. I am the dark mirror that reflects their most fearful desires. I am the dark underbelly of Haomane's Prophecy."
The madlings were silent, rapt.
"Never forget." Ushahin's voice hardened. "It was the
Ellylon
who rejected me, who wanted no part of a child of mixed blood, gotten in violence and tainted—
tainted
, they say—by Lord Satoris' Gift. I am the very future they court in fear and loathing. I am the shadow that precedes the children of the Prophecy they seek to fulfill. And who can say that they will not despise their own offspring? For they, too, will carry the taint of Lord Satoris' Gift with them."
Someone hissed.
Ushahin smiled. "Oh, yes," he said. "For they despise his Lordship above all else; always and forever. They may grieve at your pain, and they may offer pleasant visions, but they are Haomane's Children, and they will not lift one finger"—he raised one crooked finger—"to aid you unless Haomane profits by it."
The kitchen erupted in indignant rage. Ushahin rode their anger like a wave, letting them seethe and rant until they subsided, turning toward him with expectant eyes, waiting to hear what he would say next. His madlings knew him. They understood him. He had been broken and had risen triumphant nonetheless; he bore the badges of his breaking—his uneven face, his twisted limbs—in painful solidarity with their aborted lives and shattered minds. It was for this that they loved him.
A vast tenderness infused his heart, and he wondered if Shapers felt thusly toward their Children. It seemed it might be so.
"It is well that you remember this," he told them, "for war comes upon us. And we may put faces to those enemies we know, but 'tis harder to put faces to the enemies among us. Who among you would betray Lord Satoris?"
No one, no one, arose the cries; at once both true and not-true. Somewhere, the seeds of betrayal had already taken root. Listening to the madlings' protestations, Ushahin thought of Calanthrag the Eldest and the things of which she had spoken. A shadow of sorrow overlay the tenderness in his heart. The pattern was fixed and inevitable. He could only serve his Lordship as best he might and pray that these spreading roots would not bear fruit for many generations to come. The Eldest herself had borne the same hope. He remembered her words, uttered in her knowing, sibilant hiss:
Yet may it come later than sssooner for ssuch as I and you
.
"Well done, my children," Ushahin said to his madlings. "Keep faith, and hope. Remember that it is his Lordship's mercy that protects us here." He held up his hand to quiet them and made his voice stern once more. "Now, who will speak to me of the hole that pierces the bowels of Darkhaven? How is it that a gap has opened onto the marrow-fire itself?"
This time, the silence was different.
"We didn't do it, my lord!" It was one of the stable lads who spoke, near the exits. He ducked his head with a furtive blush. "It was just
there
."
Madlings glanced at one another, catching each other's eyes. The question was asked and answered. There were nods and murmurs all around. Each time, it was the same. They had had naught to do with it.
A cold finger of fear brushed the length of Ushahin's crooked spine. He thought of how Darkhaven had been built, of how Lord
Satoris had used the power of Godslayer to raise the mountains that surrounded the Vale of Gorgantum and laid the foundation of
Darkhaven itself. What did it mean if the foundation was crumbling? What did it mean if Lord Satoris himself had allowed it to happen—or worse, was unaware?
For all things mussst be as they musst.
"No." He caught himself shaking his head, saying the word aloud. With an effort, Ushahin willed himself to stillness, breathing slowly. The madlings watched him with trepidation. "No, never mind, it's all right." He forced a lopsided smile. "You did no wrong, then. It is nothing that cannot be mended. All is well."
A collective sigh of relief ran through his madlings. With a final nod, Ushahin gave them license, permitted them to shuffle forward, a sea of humanity surging against the small island promontory of his chopping-block dais. He gave them his broken hands to clutch and stroke, offering no false promises nor comfort, only the sheltering shield of his stubborn, enduring pain.
"Oh, lord!" It was a young woman who spoke, eyes bright with emotion. She kissed his fingertips and pressed his hand to her cheek. "I tried, my lord, I did. Forgive me my weakness!"
"Ah, Meara." Bending forward, Ushahin caressed her cheek. He touched the surface of her thoughts and saw the shadow of Tanaros' face therein. He grasped a little of what it betokened and pitied her for it. What was love but a little piece of madness? "All is well. I forgive you."
She caught her breath in a gasping laugh. "You shouldn't. I brought her there. We are weak,
I
am weak." She cradled his hand, gazing up at him. "You should kill her, you know. It would be for the best."