Sartor

Sartor

Sherwood
Smith

Book View Café Edition
August 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61138-192-4
Copyright © 2012 Sherwood Smith
www.bookviewcafe.com

“The problem with being a princess,” Lilah
Selenna grumped to Bren, her best friend, “is that it sounds like more
fun than it really is.”

Bren shrugged. As far as he was concerned, royalty and
nobility were evil, though he admitted that Lilah’s brother Peitar, the
new king, was about as good a king as you could get—if you had to have a
king.

Lilah went on as if Bren was sympathetic. “You would
think it’s fun to always be first going in and out of a room, but while
you’re walking in front of everybody, you notice how this noble girl is
staring at the splotch on your skirt where you accidentally dropped a peach, or
those counts and countesses are whispering about the way your hair sticks up
because you forgot to brush it after you climbed down from the tree.”

Lilah flicked her fingers through her short, wiry, rust-colored
hair, cut during the revolution a few months past, when Lilah had disguised
herself as the palace kitchen’s spit boy.

Bren had shared those days of disguises and desperate
actions, but he wouldn’t be a prince if someone begged him. So he just
laughed, thinking that so far, Lilah was the same as she’d been all
summer—good company, funny, always ready for a game.

“It’s all this talk about duty, but I
don’t have any duties yet. Not while Peitar is trying to patch up the
government, and the city.”

“And so?” Bren asked.

“And so it’s time to keep my promise,”
Lilah said. “To visit the Unnamed.”

“Ah-h-h-h-h,” Bren said. “So why
aren’t you doing it, O princess? You can’t be afraid that Peitar
will rant and storm like an evil king at you.”

Maybe it would be easier if Peitar did rant and storm. If he
ranted and stormed, she could rant right back, and call him unfair, but if he
was all kind and reasonable while counting up the reasons why she
couldn’t go up to the Delfina Valley to visit the Unnamed, how to answer
that?

Maybe it was time to stop worrying about it, and get it over
with.

She got up. Bren went back to his sketch of the lake below
the palace wall as Lilah walked into the palace, ducking around parties of
carpenters, joiners, and other people busy repairing the last of summer’s
damage. Where would she find Peitar? Not in the public rooms, for he did crown
business right after breakfast until his lunch (if he ate one). It was so late
in the day, he either had to be in the private interview room or his new study,
which was next to the palace library. He never seemed to take time off. If he
was not required to entertain someone, he even took his meals in that study so
that he could continue working.

Lilah fumed. Peitar worked
all the time.

The odor of paint made Lilah hold her nose as she dodged
around the gilders and artists painting panels.

Peitar was not in the interview room, which smelled like wet
plaster as two artisans fashioned twined leaves up one of the pilasters. She
poked her head in the dining room. The room was empty except for the table with
its white linen cloth and the gold-edged porcelain plates she’d had to
stack during her time as a kitchen boy.

Lilah ran down the marble hall to the library. She dashed
through the quiet room, paused at the closed door to the annex. Uh oh. That had
to mean Peitar was inside. Studying. Again.

Lilah opened the door, looked in, and there he was, only he
wasn’t studying. He’d fallen asleep, his head down on his crossed
arms, which were cradled around an old book.

She stared. Sometimes she felt like
she
was the
nineteen-year-old and
he
was twelve.

“Peitar,” she exclaimed. “Don’t you
ever
rest?”

Peitar’s head jerked up, and they stared at one
another, both startled.

Peitar blinked the sleep out of his eyes and kept his retort
behind shut lips. Lilah was a kid. She had never wanted to be part of
government, even as decoration. Even if she wanted to, how could he unload half
his responsibilities onto her—responsibilities she was unaware of?

“Lilah,” Peitar began.

“I need to keep my promise,” she said quickly.
“Please don’t tell me all the reasons why I can’t.”

She watched anxiously for the averted face of refusal, the
narrowed gaze that would mean he was doing exactly what she hoped he
wouldn’t. Instead, she was amazed when Peitar’s expression went
blank. Then color tinged his cheeks.

“To visit You-Know-Who,” she said, to clarify.

It was dangerous to even say her nickname, Atan, much less
her real name, Princess Yustnesveas Landis, the last of the Landis family who
had ruled Sartor since humans had come to the world.

Not many things could make a revolution seem small, but
Sartor and its problems was one of those things. There were spells so powerful
that saying certain names could somehow draw the sinister attention of
Norsunder. Atan’s name was one of those.

At the best of times, Peitar could look as if his mind was
in another world entirely, especially after being woken up. Lilah had all his
attention now.

She began babbling. “You know how we got to be
friends, I mean me and the Unnamed, and I did make this promise to go and
report how things turned out. Not that uh, the person of whom we speak, would
not know already, because of, um, the other person who teaches the Unnamed.
They know more than I do, I’m sure. And it’s not like those
promises you have to keep, but I want to, because, you know, the friends...”

Peitar raised a hand.

Lilah stopped talking so fast her teeth clicked.

Peitar’s smile was brief and a little crooked.
“We both made a friend,” he said. “But you are fortunate in
being able to visit. I am not.”

Lilah gawked. “But you’re now the
king
.
You can do
anything you want
.”

“Not quite. You’ll remember our uncle ended up
with a revolting populace because enough people didn’t like what he was
doing.” Peitar began to straighten his books, a task that seemed to
absorb all his attention. Finally he spoke. “You should probably go very
soon, before the snows close the mountains in.” Then he gave her a real
smile, more like the brother she knew. “How long was I asleep? I’d
better warn you, Aunt Tislah showed up for another visit. She has her neighbor’s
great-niece in tow...”

Lilah jumped up indignantly. “Another would-be queen?
She might be very nice, but I am
not
going to sit by while Aunt Tislah tries
to kill us with disgusting matchmaking.”

“Death by flirtation?” Peitar murmured.

“Bren and I will make certain there is
no
threat of romance to ruin dinner.” She made a gag face. “Let me see
if I can tear him away from drawing.” She ran out.

o0o

The number of former revolutionaries roaming around looking
for trouble had considerably lessened, in part due to Peitar’s new rule
that roaming gangs who did not seem to have work would have work found for
them, and there was plenty of cleaning and rebuilding to be done.

Still, he sent an escort with Lilah to Diannah Wood. The
forest guardians saw her safely to the southern border. From there, she climbed
a grassy ridge until she could see over the treetops of the forest, and then
made the magical sign. Her body tingled, she breathed deeply, feeling light as
a cloud—and then she took that glorious first jump, straight into the
air.

How she adored flying! As Peitar had warned, many of the
familiar sky-touching peaks now wore blue-white mantles gleaming in the sun.
Magic kept her warm, though, as she sped up and up over the vast mountain
ranges until the ancient spell pulled her down at last into the Valley of
Delfina, which long ago had been a secret retreat for mages. It was full of
magical protections. There below was the lake, a deep blue, and all around it
cottages built on the ledges.

She did not go to her family’s old home, but drifted
down to the tree-secluded dwelling tucked against the side of a great mountain,
until she landed lightly. The moment the flying-magic relinquished her, the
cold wind of impending winter closed in with a sudden chill. She shivered, glad
of her sturdy cotton-wool gown.

It was so strange to be back. There was no sign here of all
the drastic changes that had taken place just a few days’ travel to the
north.

Even stranger was the fact that she had a friend like...
well, she could
think
her name, right here, ten paces in front of the
cottage where she’d been hidden for fifteen years: Atan.

Lilah shivered. She, ordinary Lilah, a princess for barely
two months, friends with the last descendant of the famous, powerful Landis
family, who had ruled Sartor for nearly four thousand years.

Four
thousand
years—since the time when Old Sartor
had been destroyed and human life nearly eradicated by the mages of Norsunder.
Who knows? Maybe the Landis family had even existed
before
those
mysterious days!

There were no royal parents now. There was no royal Sartoran
court, or retainers, or heralds. There was no Sartor, for it had vanished
behind that horrible enchantment for nearly a hundred years.

Lilah’s life had seemed pretty exciting until she
thought about that. She laughed at herself, gave her gown a tug, tried to
flatten down her thatch of hair, then thought,
Why am I fussing?
Atan’s
princess wardrobe seemed to consist of cast-off clothes belonging to some old
hermit mage.

While Lilah marched up the path toward the Hermit’s
Cottage hidden among the tall trees, Atan herself was thinking only of how
delightful it was to have a visitor.

She turned away from one of the little windows to face the
elderly mage Tsauderei, her guide and tutor. She exclaimed in delight, “Lilah
is here!” Then she laughed. “And of course you knew that.”

Tsauderei’s mouth twisted. “Of course. Nobody
gets into the Valley without my knowing. Or out.” His bristly white brows
twitched upward.

Atan’s cheeks burned. Tsauderei had cautioned her many
times against the risk of flying to the border and staring down into the cloud-shrouded,
blighted land that lay below.

But Sartor was
hers
. There could be no peace for her
until Sartor was free—or she died trying to make it so. Her
nursemaid-guardian, Gehlei, had flown over to the main village to buy fresh
food. Gehlei hated it when Atan talked about Sartor and the enchantment, so the
time to bring it up was now, with Gehlei away.

Though she’d meant to come around to it gradually, Atan
blurted, “I think it’s time to make my try.”

“Yes,” Tsauderei answered.

Atan gazed in shock at the mage’s lined, sardonic face.
Her carefully-thought-out arguments vanished like smoke.

And that was when Lilah knocked on the door.

Atan got up to open it, though she wished she could freeze
time, the way poor Sartor was frozen, until she could get all her questions
answered.

But she couldn’t, so she pulled open the door with her
biggest smile. “Lilah! Enter! Tsauderei is here.”

Lilah stepped down inside the homely cottage, grinning at
the white-haired old sorcerer sitting near the fire. Ruddy light gleamed along
the old man’s braided white hair and long beard, and glinted in the
diamond drop hanging from one of his ears.

Lilah turned to Atan, her slanted eyes wide with her anxiety
to explain. “I know I promised to come back, and I wanted to, ages ago! Oh,
you can’t
think
how much. But I didn’t want to leave Peitar,
and then it seemed he was so busy, and I—”

Atan sank down onto a hassock, her hands tightly clasped,
her long, bony face serious. “Oh, Lilah, Tsauderei told me about Peitar
being chased about, and then captured, and then put on trial, before things got
resolved. Of course you stayed. It has only been a few weeks! I didn’t
think to see you again for a year, but I am very glad you came.”