“Come along! There’s so much more. I told them I wanted everything as it was in Kir’Navarrin, and if they forget, I make an illusion to remind them. I did that with the dogs, and then I couldn’t bear to give them up, though truly these are so much more like.”
“What is Kir’Navarrin?” Raddoman had mentioned the same word.
“How can you not know of it? You are of Kir’Zarra—a
pandye gash
.” Her brow was wrinkled in puzzled astonishment. “What thief forgets the thing he’s stolen?”
“I’ve forgotten a great deal, but this . . . I don’t think I ever knew of it.”
“Kir’Navarrin is the land we walked before the
pandye gash
cast us out of it.”
Pandye gash
—hidden warriors—the demon name for Ezzarians. So Kir’Navarrin must be their name for the lands the Aife wove, I thought, the souls of humans that we would not allow them to keep. “Please tell me about it, my lady. I want to understand.”
“Not now. Let me show you this first. Here, see?” She took me to a sculpted pile of dogs, playing in a glade of frost flowers. I recognized them as the portrait of my companions, and it was as she had said. These ice-carved beasts were masterfully shaped, perfect in every detail, where the lively illusions of the courtyard were not. Yet neither illusion nor artwork lived.
She pulled me along the path again, through vine-woven arbors, laden with frosted grapes, across lawns of palest green, bordered with terraces of faint-hued blooms. We stood on a delicate bridge, gazing down at a silent pool where swans in full spreading wing were forever at the verge of settling on the still water. Groves of white-barked birches, their autumn yellow pale beside other wan reds and golds, branches bent with unfelt breezes. An infinite variety of trees, mosses, and rocky ponds. All of them made of ice. All of them unmoving and silent beneath the doleful canopy of the clouds. As Vallyne leaned over a bronze-work balcony to point out a magnificent oak, so broad a Frythian family could have hollowed out its trunk for a home, I pulled my cloak tighter and shivered.
“What troubles you, Exile? I thought you were enjoying my garden.”
“It does not change, lady, and it is so very cold. Those are its only faults.”
“Such is the way of our existence.” She laid her chilly hand gently upon my scarred cheek, gathering in my soul with her green gaze. “Neither do I change.”
“But in you . . . that is not a fault,” I said, and I bent down and kissed her. Her lips were cold, and she did not move, only gazed at me expressionless when I pulled away. Then she took my hand and led me down another path.
We walked the entire garden. Vallyne did not speak of what I had done, but, of course, it never left my mind. As I admired her trees and flowers, fountains and figures, my flesh pulsed with fire, threatening to melt the frost-sculpted creations with my shame, fear, anger, and sorrow. The shame and fear and anger were easy to explain. She was a demon. How could I have abandoned caution so completely? How crippled was I, how pitifully fallen, to be swept away by a beautiful face and a kind word from one I should assume meant only harm? And she had known exactly what I would do and exactly how she would respond; I didn’t like being toyed with. But the sorrow was the most complex and the most worrisome. I could not help but grieve for Vallyne—to see such brilliant light bereft of warmth. My body ached to give her something of myself that could elicit the same wonder in her face as stories. It was madness. She was my enemy.
I was bewitched. I knew it as I knew my own name, and with every breath I told myself to beware. Yet when the lady commanded me to come and read to her in her book-room after we had finished with our tour, I trailed after her like a besotted boy. I picked out a book of Derzhi legends, and while she reclined on cushions beneath a crystal lantern, I sat cross-legged on the bare floor, held the book in my shaking hands, and buried myself in words. The Derzhi were a warrior race, but they had a long history of wild and romantic stories. I dared not look at Vallyne while I read. Once was enough, to see her lips parted, her eyes shining in the soft light. All my questions and fears slipped away; my missing memories were no longer of concern. I could see only that if I stayed near her, she would drive me farther on the road to madness than the Gastai had ever done.
CHAPTER 26
And so I settled into life in Kir’Vagonoth. I spent several hours every day reading to Vallyne and varying groups of her friends. For the most part the other demons were as mesmerized by my reading as Vallyne. I thought of what Merryt had told me about the wine and lovemaking, and I came to think it was the same with books. The demons had the skill to decipher each word on a page, but I believed it took a human voice to build the words into stories.
When we were not engaged in her reading sessions, I was assigned to be her companion. I played games with her—variations of ulyat, draughts, and warriors and castles—or I walked with her in her garden, or sat and listened to her play music on a lap harp—terrible, screeching stuff, altogether unlike the sweetness of her voice and laughter. She had me sing a bit, but agreed with the forgotten critic who had judged me unsuited for the art. “Your voice is rich and full of melody,” she said. “Serviceable enough. It’s only the notes don’t come out right.” She had me laughing, and I counted any hour successful if I could do the same for her. We talked of the books I read, and she had me tell her of animals and trees and the lands and races of my world. She never asked me of my life or friends or family. Just as well, as those were the very things I was incapable of telling her. I took up running through the castle corridors, and she donned breeches and leggings and ran beside me, never tired, never breathing hard, always trying to learn what it was I enjoyed and craved about the activity.
My investigation—the formless curiosity as to the life and truth of demons, which was all I could grasp of my purposes—went nowhere. I was never introduced to anyone, was never allowed to mingle with Vallyne’s friends, and none of them came over to my stool to speak to me. Vallyne forbade it. But I took pleasure in learning which streak of colored light would turn and reveal, which of Dena’s gyossi—castle guests.
The gold-brown one, ragged at the edges, was Seffyd, the demon who lived for gaming, and thus never paid quite enough attention to his shaping. He would leave off hair or ears or half his clothes. The slowly shifting blue-white was Kaffera, a robust, ageless female with fine, delicate features that spoke only good humor, who indulged Seffyd in his games while kindly nudging him to shape his breeches. Tovall, whose light was a deep, rich purple, wore skin darker than a Thrid. Her drooping earlobes were thick with hair, though her gleaming ebony head held none. Her booming laugh made the candles quaver, and it was so compelling that the cold stars themselves—if there were such above the turgid clouds of Kir’Vagonoth—must have laughed with her.
Gennod appeared as a man of middle years—pale brows and lashes above cold eyes, a long straight nose, and a squared-off jaw that would have made him strikingly fine-looking were he ever to smile. His dark red light pulsed with power that made me wince, and he was constantly engaged in furtive conversation with other serious rai-kirah. He listened to the reading, but the acquisitive eagerness in his expression spoke more of gathering information than pleasure. When the activities turned to dancing or gaming, Gennod would politely take his leave.
Denkkar’s shimmer was sparkling yellow, appropriate for one who brought such light to these gatherings. He worked closely with the Rudai shapers and took unending delight in showing off their latest creations. As for his own shape, it was something different every time he turned around, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes bird or beast . . . until it came time for dancing. Then he would take on the aspect of a tall, lean gentleman of sixty or so, and begin to whirl and step and bow with dignity and grace, his whole being pulsing with yellow delight.
Twenty others I came to know by sight, many that I would be glad to count as friends, some that awed me with the power and anger that seethed beneath their stunning beauty. All of them were wondrously beautiful to me, no matter how unusual the form they chose—beings sculpted of living light, raw passion, and emotion unmuted by flesh.
Though I never heard a word between Denas and Vallyne that was not irritation, teasing, or scathing insult, the demon lord attended many of the lady’s gatherings. We lived in his castle after all, though no one ever explained to me why Vallyne held sway in a goodly part of it, while the two of them were feuding. Perhaps it was just too much trouble for her to move elsewhere—or perhaps there was nowhere else for her to go. I could not imagine her residing in the long low building where Merryt had shown me his hideaway. And the city on the horizon was dark. Vallyne did not belong in the dark. I assumed there must be more residences like the one we occupied, but the talk of comings and goings was not clear enough to know for sure.
As for Denas himself, the handsome demon was forever angry, his brooding fury lurking in the shadows even when he was laughing at someone’s humor or conversing seriously. Whenever Vallyne commanded me to read, Denas would throw down what he was doing and stride out of the room, taking two or three followers with him.
Vyx was the cipher that I was still waiting to untangle. Not a gathering occurred without his purple and blue and swirling gray-green presence. He prattled endlessly, upset game tables, told humorous stories that were incomprehensible to me, drank endless vats of wine, and dodged not a few angry blows from irritated demons. He never spoke to me, nor did he seem to listen to my reading, though, unlike Denas, he stayed in the room. Whenever I looked up from my book, I would find that he alone of all the crowd was watching more than listening. But I was unable to guess his thoughts from his expression. His eyes were too distracting. He did not hide the blue fire as did many of the demons when in human form, but rather left it burning like a torchlight at the gates of himself.
As for Merryt, I saw him very little. He did not attend Vallyne’s reading sessions, nor any other entertainment that I observed. I learned that he carried messages for Gennod, and once I saw him leaving Gennod’s apartment when I was sent to return a book that Vallyne had borrowed from the red demon. On occasion I would catch sight of the man limping through the castle corridors. He would nod or wave, then hurry on his way.
“Does Merryt ever read to your friends as I do?” I asked Vallyne once, after glimpsing the big Ezzarian skulking in a corner as we walked past.
“There was a time when I employed him in that way,” she said. “But he was not suited to it. I’ll not have him in my chambers.” She paused in her steps and gazed at me thoughtfully, as if it had never occurred to her that I might be interested in the only other human in the demon realm. “He has chosen other paths, Exile. He is your kind . . . but he is not like you. Never think it. Stay away from him.” She changed the subject and, as had become my habit, I allowed her to lead me where she would.
One morning I was told that Vallyne was occupied and would not need me until three hours had passed. The clever Rudai shapers had solved the problem of sunless days and starless nights. In the center of the grand entrance to Denas’s castle was a hive-shaped vessel filled with water. The vessel had markings on its interior, and a small opening at the bottom where the water ran out into a fountain. Vallyne had told me that as the water passed each marking, so passed another hour, though they did not know which one, or whether it was a part of night or day.
After washing and dressing and checking the time—and chastising myself for the hollow disappointment of her temporary abandonment—I decided to set out for the book-room to find a supply of tales to read for her. I disliked making a hurried and risky choice each time she took the whim to listen.
The book-room lamps were not lit, which meant that the gray radiance of the ceilings, columns, and few mezzits of bare wall were all the light available. I berated myself for not asking Merryt how to make fire in this place. If he wanted my trust, perhaps he could give me some truly useful information. I climbed up to the third gallery, where I had found the books written in Aseol, and I spent several hours sitting on the floor and taking out one after the other, examining the pages, looking for stories. More than three-quarters of them had blank pages—even books that looked well-worn—and many illustrations looked entirely wrong. Some had letters so small I could not read them in the weak light. But the most interesting revelations of the day were not from books.
“. . . in here. There’s no one about, and we’ll know if anyone comes.” Denas was talking to someone as he walked into the room through the door at the bottom of the opposite stair. His golden light illuminated the dim book-room as no candle, lamp, or hearth fire could ever do. Denas never took on physical form. Perhaps he knew that it could only mute the power of his presence.
“I want nothing to do with your scheme. It’s too late to change leaders. Rhadit is weak, but he knows what needs to be done, and we can afford no delays.” The second voice was unfamiliar, as was the sickly green light that flickered on the ceiling alongside Denas’s gold.
“There will be no delays,” said Denas. “We are committed, and Kir’Navarrin awaits us. The Rudai say they’ll soon have the ylad hosts in place, awaiting our passage. The venture will occur, whether under my banner or Rhadit’s. Better it be mine.”
The tenor of the conversation told me from the beginning that I was in trouble. Conspiracy has its own particular voice, and eavesdropping does not harmonize with it. Unfortunately, there was no retreat, so I shrank into the shadows.
“Better it be one who has the key to open the way. Turn the yddrass over to Rhadit as he demands, and Rhadit will force the vermin to join with one of us. With you to prevent our greedy kin from disrupting the joining, we can use this ylad as we will.”