Authors: Vera Nazarian
Many wondrous things took place in the Hall of Dreams. It was a place for breathless games of chase, with squealing ladies and panting courtiers, that often ended in orgiastic debauchery. At other times, it was a place of absolute silence, while adult men and women stifled giggles and tiptoed around some unlucky randomly picked individual with a silk veil tied around the eyes as he or she stumbled blindly in search of anyone and anything that moved. In the end, the blind one was poked and prodded and tickled and caressed. And if they happened to be smooth-bodied and pleasing, the Regent himself would take over the teasing, taking full advantage of the piquant situation.
Children’s games, all. And yet, each one began innocently but ended on a twist of the obscene. And because Hestiam Grelias had artistic pretensions, his lascivious patronage extended to dance troupes and masques in which he often performed himself.
These performances were held right here in the Hall of Dreams, and depending on the nature of the piece, elaborate sets were built to reflect fantastic or mythological settings. On more than one occasion, specially constructed stages were filled with water. These pools were surrounded with structures of fire, and
color
orbs were sunk to the bottom to fill the waters with magic. The eerie orblight served to illuminate silhouettes of beautiful nude acrobats engaged in aquatic frolics, while the Regent and his guests viewed their floating forms, appearing to fly through the burning waters.
For the occasion of the Wedding of Beis and Daqua, Grelias had decided—owing to short notice—to make things simple. Hestiam had been in no mood for frolic or fancy while the dark storm-cloud called Lord Vorn loomed in the back of his thoughts. He had seemed so disoriented the night before when Deileala had posed the question that the Regentrix, seeing his inability, took everything upon herself. The nature of this wedding-night celebration was to be completely hers.
“
Y
our Grace,” said Elasand very softly, with a light inclination of his head. “It is by my authority that my bodyguard remains at my side, even upon this occasion.”
“
I see no harm in that,” Hestiam began absentmindedly, overlooking Lord Vaeste and his androgynous guard from the perch of his gray gilded seat. Next to him, Deileala reclined upon a similar contrivance of filigree metal, inundated with silk pillows.
This was their favorite seat in all of the Palace, the Hall of Dreams. Next to Deileala, on a lesser footstool, sat a supple youth, Linnec, her current favorite. He wore hardly anything but a gossamer-thin satin tunic, akin to his mistress who—if it was possible—wore even less.
On the other side of Hestiam stood the empty seat of the guest of honor. Vorn had apparently excused himself, claiming the need for rest, and was to join them later. Hestiam periodically stared at that seat, sideways, practicing inconspicuous glances. He was practicing a means of avoiding the very place where later would repose his guest.
The Hall was only half-full. This was the lazy time just after noon, when most had eaten, but before the grand dinner time. Guests from all the City were gradually pouring in, a steady stream of nobility, while the formal festivities had not yet commenced.
The Bride and Groom, both pale like the sunlight and yet similarly brightly attired, sat in two special chairs at the foot of the Regents. Lixa still wore her Wedding Dress, and her makeup remained without flaw, despite the heat of the day—as though it had been applied upon a corpse. Next to her, Harlian sat frozen, speechless, vying with his new wife for the greater deathliness. Neither looked at the other, nor at the exorbitant gifts that were piled before them upon a special table—gifts from the Grelias and a variety of well-wishers of all ranks.
Elasand had only just arrived, having accompanied Dame Beis, with Ranhé at his side. Seeing him at the entrance, Deileala immediately beckoned. She leaned slightly forward in her chair, barely hiding her eagerness, looking at him with a smile. Her hand toyed with the soft pale hair of the youth seated at her feet.
“
What absolute nonsense,” drawled the Regentrix, after Hestiam had his say. “I’ll have no bodyguards at this celebration other than my own. You are insulting me personally, Elasand-re.”
“
Your Grace must understand my position. It is vital that my attendant remain with me.”
“
Nonsense again!” said Deileala, her fingers beginning to tug angrily at Linnec’s curls, so that the youth winced. “Have you no trust in the ability of my guards, man? Besides, why must we bring up this ridiculous subject again, the subject of this—this
guard
of yours?”
Deileala threw an icy glance in Ranhé’s direction.
Ranhé stood, only a step behind Vaeste, her gaze somewhere halfway between the Regent’s feet and Deileala’s angry chin.
“
That does it!” said the Regentrix. “I command you, Elasand-re, as your Lady Liege, to dismiss this female minion
now
. I’ve decided I do not like her. I do not like her standing at your side like a post every time I see you.”
Her breath catching, Deileala looked intensely at the dark silent lord before her. Even she knew when she had gone too far, for the face of the man was bloodless with control, with absolute fury. And that is not at all what she had intended; she never wanted him to be angry, never at her. . . .
A moment of silence.
And then, very slowly, he bowed. “As you wish,
Your Grace
,” he said, with a foreboding calm that portends a storm. And then Elasand half-turned formally to look behind him, saying to Ranhé, “You are dismissed for the moment, freewoman, as Her Grace decrees.”
Ranhé looked at him in that instant, raising her gaze to meet his eyes. She saw complete sympathy there, and could almost read his thought:
Humor her, for now
.
And then, as Ranhé bowed curtly to obey, he added softly, so that only she could make out his words, “You may as well enjoy yourself, now. Go on, Ranhé, celebrate together with the City, with everyone else. I will see you in the morning. Go.”
A moment of sympathy. And then he was blank again, as though she had never been there. With a bright cold smile he turned to the Regentrix, who in turn looked at him with devouring eyes.
“
Have a seat brought forward for the Lord Vaeste! Yes, up close, right here by my side—”
Ranhé ceased looking at what was taking place. As she quickly left the Hall, she could hear Deileala’s laughter, and remnants of Vaeste’s deep voice, and then general buoyant conversation, interspersed with background
gitarah
music.
At the Palace doors, she received her cloak. And then she descended the endless stairs, past numerous nobles and glittering ladies, past running footmen and servants in varied livery, past preening ebony peacocks that strolled upon the steps of the Palace colonnade as though they were themselves of Monteyn blood.
Finally she was beyond the crowd, stepping into the silence of the Inner Gardens, her booted footsteps ringing against marble. And she could hear the wind.
Overhead, the silver sun had shifted off center in its cycle, and the charcoal shadows fell at a twenty-degree angle past the noon hour. Furious gray radiance knifed down upon the City.
Ranhé stood alone under that sun, placeless for an instant. With a blank receptiveness she watched the softly swaying contrast of the foliage, smelled the recently watered freshness of the growth, that still lingered in the wind. Around her, the sinuous trees of smoke hues, the obelisks of cypress. Before her, the gravel path. That path led, only a hundred feet away, through the Inner Gates of the Palace, to the Outer
Dirvan
, and with it, the City—all aflame with ashen light.
She stood, head lowered for a moment, vacuous, and plied the gravel with her mirror-polished boots, watching the dust gradually matting the surface. She had drawn her cloak about her, despite the heat, and soon the gray radiance came to burn her scalp, past the listless straight hair, gathered behind her in a single stern braid.
And then, with the wind directly in her face, Ranhé walked along the path through the Inner Gates, past the still Palace Guards, and out to the freedom of the public park area that was Outer
Dirvan
. In the distance, glittered the black roiling surface of the Arata, its waters rich like oil, in darkness. And near one of the cultivated banks shimmered the pallid dome of the Mausoleum—maybe but a mirage in the heat.
She would stroll there, maybe, to glance at the Tomb of the last Monteyn King. For her heart had stilled also, like a sepulcher, and it sought the company of its kind.
Thus she was, Ranhéas Ylir, still, and cold, and once again alone.
R
anhé had almost no memory of that afternoon, with all things but a silver blur of sunlight and gardens, and then the markets and streets of the City. The sun rode high, followed her like a floating lily on the pond of the sky, attached it seemed, via a fine psychic cord, a silver stem that grew, invisible, from her.
She vaguely recalled wandering the empty Outer Gardens, then strolling along one deserted bridge over the sparkling Arata. In the Markets of the Sacred Quarter she bought a pie from one of the aromatic food stalls. She stood and ate it blandly, without appetite, only remembering how it had been warm, and how it had crumbled in her mouth, and served to fill some bottomless nether place within her. And she observed the street-urchin pickpockets run, scamper through the stalls, watching the passerby with predator eyes.
One of them had followed her for a while, for she looked distracted enough, and soon Ranhé felt a butterfly-soft touch on her waist. The thieves usually worked in groups, one trying to dislodge the moneybag from under people’s cloaks, sometimes making several attempts to cut through the cloth, while others would serve to distract.
Despite her desolate mood, Ranhé could not help a smile as she softly reached out behind her and grabbed a skinny wrist. The boy yelped in surprise, then attempted to wriggle out of her grasp.
“
Try someone else,” she said through clenched teeth, drawing the boy close to her and glancing almost kindly into his watery hopeless eyes. “Or else, join the appropriate Guild and learn to do it
right
. . . .”
And with that, she loosened her grip, letting him go.
The urchin ran like an alley rat, and with her peripheral vision she could see his various accomplices gift her with looks of esteem.
And for a moment there she thought she felt another set of eyes upon herself. The feeling was brief but almost physical. But when she glanced around with appropriate carelessness, there was no one in the vicinity out of the ordinary.
As the afternoon wore on, Ranhé made her way through the sparsely busy Markets to the Academic Quarter, and strolled through the Lyceum grounds. Lone scholars moved through the Library building next door, passing her like self-absorbed shades. All of the City had been affected by the celebration in the Regents’ Palace, and most had taken advantage of the day to be away from regular business. However, it was felt least of all here, in this softly illuminated place of dreamers and thinkers.
Even now, he tarries with the rest of them, with her
, Ranhé thought, seeing in her mind’s eye the man who had dismissed her without a blink it seemed, at the Regentrix’s whim. And yet, one half of her knew full well that he’d had no choice but to concur with Her Grace’s wishes, that he had been angry, that he had wanted her to be there at his side. And yet, Elas had agreed in the end, succumbed to the petulant whim of that petite terrible woman who ruled the City.
There was no point in recalling any of it, no point in imagining where he was now, what he was doing at this very moment with
her
whose whims he obeyed. And yet, depression ate at her, and Ranhé continued visualizing him as he had been in that last instant—suave and cold and bright. Not that it would have made much difference if she had been with him now. Rather, it may have been worse, may have cut her like a dull blade, to witness.
It is better that I do not see it
, she thought,
better that I don’t know
.
And thus she walked in a daze through emptying streets, while the shadows from the sun grew longer, stretched out into cowering slaves behind all things.
Soon, darkness would fall upon Tronaelend-Lis. It would happen instantly, like a lid over a kettle, with hardly any twilight, hardly any
in-between
time to create a transition between day and night. Thus it had been, always.
Only, with this nightfall, a rock lodged itself deeper into Ranhé’s soul. As she wandered, thoughtless, aimless, past pedestrian strangers that unconsciously gave way before her singular cloaked form, she knew that when this night came, she would want to drown in it, drown and find oblivion from her own burning imagination, her own desperate wounded consciousness.
And possibly—and most sadly of all—she did not even truly allow herself to know
why
.
O
rbs of lascivious
scarlet
lit up the
Red
Quarter. The teahouses were packed full of customers loudly celebrating, in their own way, the impromptu festival night that had been so propitiously decreed by the Regents.
From everywhere came laughter, music, voices upraised in inebriated song. The teahouses burned bright in all shades of monochrome
red
—
red
that seeped in pale shades of
pink
against the fine grillework of the windowpanes, that shimmered through gauze curtains, appearing
rose madder
, that danced like pale delicate lightning on the surface of crystal goblets filled with rich liquids. That same basic
red
, now incarnated as blinding
crimson
, blazed forth from the chandeliers formed of clusters of miniature orbs instead of candles, like bunches of wine grapes. The
crimson
also flowered in grand orbs that were installed outside on the streetlamps that stood on every corner of the district.