Sartor (18 page)

Tsauderei spread his hands. “You ought to know by now
that direct interference is not one of my habits. You made an agreement with
Peitar, which you seem to be keeping. I will not interfere with you anywhere
outside of Sarendan’s border.”

A nod.

Tsauderei said, “Then we’d better act
fast.”

Darian Irad roused Lilah, who barely had time to rub her
eyes and look around before magic took hold of her and her uncle.

When Dejain transferred back to put her plans in place, it
was to find her quarry gone.

That had to mean somebody more powerful than she was
entering the game. Sometimes silence was more deadly than overt threats and
posturing of the sort that Zydes favored. It meant that someone was waiting for
the right moment to strike.

She retired to consider and to observe.

o0o

Atan swung down from her sleeping platform, handed herself
down two branches, her feet only touching the vine-ladder twice, and then
dropped onto the grass. When she’d first arrived, it had taken time,
effort, and all her concentration to get up and down again. Now it was easy.

As soon as she appeared, voices clamored for her attention.

“Arlas is not doing her share—”

“They’re accusing us of being lazy ristos again—”

“Atan, I need to talk to you. Just you and me.”

Atan had learned the etiquette of the maulon sleeping
platforms. When you were up, you were away—as if in a locked room—unless
you specifically invited someone up. But when you came down, then that meant
you were ready for company.

She looked around at the faces—some angry, some sulky.
Hinder looked worried.

“Hinder, is something wrong?” she asked,
remembering that he’d volunteered for the last forest sweep. In fact,
wasn’t he supposed to be back in two days?

Hinder ducked his head in a nod, his wispy white hair falling
forward to hide his face. Atan was still trying to make sense of where she fit
in this crowd, but she knew one thing: when Hinder spoke, it never was a
personal demand, it was always about something that had to do with the group as
a group, or the forest.

She moved toward the rock in the center of the clearing,
which she’d come to understand as the group’s speaking place. Since
her arrival, a few had acted like it was her throne.

She felt ridiculous, sitting on a rock with others at her
feet, faces upturned expectantly. But they all did it, so that indicated a
social pattern. She’d read about social patterns. She’d talked
about them with Tsauderei. She understood that humans acted in patterns. But
she didn’t feel a part of this pattern.

As she walked, she observed the others. Irza, as usual, fell
in behind Atan as one who had the right. It had nothing to do with friendship,
and everything with the patterns of rank.

On the other side of the clearing, Rip and the Poisoners—the
four boys and two girls who did food-preparation—sang, a cheery song.
Atan suspected the melody was old, half-remembered, because the kids had made
up their own words:

“Stir! Stir! Stir! The spoon goes in a blur, stir
stir!

Chop! Chop! Chop! Off the leaves with a lop, chop chop!”

Rip and the Poisoners paid no attention to the etiquette of
the rock.

Hinder wriggled his toe talons through the grass at each
step. How he loved sunside and all its growing things! They grew things in the
caverns—of course—but there was no wind and weather there for the
wild beauty of shape, or the tumble of unplanned gardens.

He loved sunside, and his expectations, well, his dread, of
the rumored Last Landis had been met, but she wasn’t another Irza, even
more arrogant and assured of her place at the pinnacle of human hierarchy.

Sin had said earlier, “You tell her.” She added
with a flickering smile, “Are you sure you don’t just like her
because she’s powerless?”

Hinder was sure. Atan was never boring, she knew more
history than he did, and... well, liking to help didn’t mean you wanted
people to be powerless.

He waited until she sat on the rock, then leaned close.
“Your friend who disappeared? I think we’ve found her,”
Hinder said, and watched as Atan’s sober, slightly worried expression
changed.

It was everything he’d hoped for, that
change—like sunrise after a night of storms.

Atan never thought about her face. She was only aware of her
heart giving a thump against her ribs, then drumming. “Lilah? You found
Lilah?”

“I think so. It was your other friend, the one who ran
off, who used to live with Savar, who found me, see—”

“You mean Merewen?”

“That’s the one.” Hinder held out his hand
at approximately Merewen’s height. “Blue skin. Came smack on me
like a dropped rock as if we saw each other every day. Said she’s been
all over the eastern end of the forest—I guess she can travel a whole lot
faster than we can.”

“She’s part Loi,” Atan said.

“Ah, that would explain not just her speed, but some
of the other part.”

“Part?” Atan was thoroughly confused.

Hinder sighed. “I’m telling it backwards. Merewen
said she’d tried to go after Lilah, but when she got to the border, she
said she was drying up like old leaves. She was afraid if she tried to cross
into Norsunder’s parched lands, she would fly into ash.” He cocked
his head. “I thought she was being, you know, poetic.”

Atan opened her hands. “I don’t know her well
enough to tell you if she speaks truly or figuratively.”

“Ah. Well, she seemed quite sad, said she’d
returned, having failed to help Lilah and failed to find Savar.” He
hesitated. He came close—so close he could feel the first word shaping
his tongue—to saying
Fancy her going off all alone to run a rescue.
It
was exactly what the rest of the patrol had said, but he looked at Atan’s
wide gaze, bright with a suspicious gathering of moisture, and remembered that
Atan had wanted to do the very same thing.

She would have, if the group hadn’t stopped her.

So why did her smile of happiness hurt?
Because she
thought she was our prisoner
.

He cleared his throat, fingered the scab on his scalp, and
continued as naturally as he could, “They’re way down the south end
of Shendoral, which you’d expect, I guess, coming from the Norsunder
base.” He waved his hand behind him. “They look like two Norsunder
riders, I mean, one our age and one man. The man is dressed like a Norsunder
warrior, and the other one like those spies that sneak around at night—you
know, all in black. I waited for daylight so I could get a better look at
’em.” His tone changed to uncertainty.

“And?”

“Well, the scout could be a girl or a boy, I can’t
tell. Red hair, like you said, and slanted eyes, but that’s not so
unusual among sunsiders. No gown, though. Black uniform. The man is somewhat
like the one that brained me—not tall, lean—but he doesn’t
have curly, short black hair. This one’s got long brown hair.” Hinder’s
thin, taloned morvende fingers wiggled downward, indicating waves. “Blue
eyes. The one I followed I was mostly behind and so I never got all that clear
a look at his face, but I do remember he had blue eyes. Those were the last
thing I saw before he hit me. And this one also has blue eyes. I saw ’em
clear as anything when they made a campfire. So you might want to be sure.”

He paused, rubbing his chin again.

Atan said, “Take me to them! Or is there something
else?”

“Only that they were talking in another language. Not
Norsunder’s tongue, which has no familiar words, and this language did. In
the middle of it, I heard the little one say what sounded like ‘Uncle
Darian’. Or would have been in Sartoran.”

The name obviously meant nothing to Hinder, whose historical
perspective stopped at Sartor’s border a century ago, but Atan drew in
her breath. It couldn’t be Darian Irad—could it?

Of course it could. Atan remembered having asked Tsauderei
once what Darian Irad looked like, to which the mage had replied,
I would
not say this in any of the family’s hearing, but except for the Selenna
slant to the eyes, Peitar Selenna could be Darian Irad’s son, so strong
is the resemblance.

And she had a clear memory of Peitar Selenna: medium height,
slender in build, and long, waving brown hair.

So if that was indeed Darian Irad in that uniform, had the
deposed king of Sarendan known for his cold-bloodedness gone over to Norsunder?

Why would he have Lilah with him? Tsauderei had never named the
former king as an evil man, just driven. And Peitar Selenna had said last
summer that his uncle hated Norsunder.

Atan dug her thumbnail into the lichen growing across the
rock on the south side. If the ‘scout’ was Lilah, there was at
least a chance that Darian Irad had helped her escape. Only why would he come
into Sartor?

Stupid question. What better prospect for a deposed king
than another kingdom that needed, above anything else, either a mage—or a
military leader?

She looked up at Hinder, who waited for her to answer, his
happy smile fading to question. In the background, the singing voices rose and
fell once more, then broke into laughter, and then chatter, the succession of
sounds reminding her of the waterfall splashing down onto the rocks and into a
sunlit pool.

Tsauderei had said that she would spend the rest of her life
compromising between burdensome choices.

“What bothers me most,” she said slowly, “is
that Merewen wasn’t sure that the scout was Lilah.”

“She saw them last night. Then
whish
.” Hinder
waved a hand through the air. “She ran to find us.”

“Is anyone watching them now?” she asked,
pressing her forearms across her middle, which was tight with worry.

“Sin and Pouldi.”

“Good.” She let out her breath. “Take me
to them.”

o0o

Darian Irad woke up from the first long, unbroken sleep he’d
had in half a year at least.

Shendoral Woodland was unlike any forest in Sarendan, even
the ancient and tricksy Diannah, though some types of growth and scents were
familiar. The light filtering down through sky-scraping trees in moisture-laden
shafts, the constant rustle of wind-stirred foliage, all took him back to
childhood, when his father had still been alive to protect him from the worst
of his grandfather’s inimical focus. In those days, camping with the
cadets at Obrin, exploring the palace’s secret passageways with his
sister Rana, and later, running the forested hills above the military school in
Khanerenth had been the happiest times of his life.

It seemed appropriate that his present surroundings should
hearken back to childhood, for his mood was much the same. In those days, every
dawn had brought the light of promise: anticipation of mastering the
wherewithal for change, and the prospect of at last using what he’d
learned. One day, if he lived, he would be king, and when he was, life would be
different. Better.

But it hadn’t become better. His plans for improvement
had stretched on and on into the future, leaving him striving for years to
ready for war with Norsunder, after the sighting of Norsundrian scouting
missions all during ’33—a fact that the civilians didn’t
believe when he’d raised taxes again in order to support the force he
knew he’d need.

Scouting missions, he’d discovered since his summary
recruitment, had been sent by Kessler Sonscarna, who indeed had been planning
an invasion.

But events had prevented them both from meeting in battle.

Meanwhile, during those endless nights in the barren stone
of Norsunder’s fortress barracks, breathing in the atmosphere of fear,
and force, and intent that had nothing whatsoever to do with moral authority,
he had faced the bleak truth: he had failed as a king, and though one could
trace the reasoning behind every single decision, the end result was the same. Failure.
Only separation from the bindings of power—and of expectation—gifted
one with the space to contemplate the slow distortion of perspective that had
brought him to face his own people in revolt.

He had failed as a king, but Sarendan would not founder, for
Peitar Selenna would not compound generations of error.

Peitar comprehended the exigencies of power, all right. Otherwise
he wouldn’t have sat there quite alone and unarmed when Darian was waking
up after that dose of Lilah’s magical flowers, at the very end.

They both were aware that it would take Darian about two
heartbeats to kill Peitar. They both knew that Peitar’s strength lay in
the willing and loyal crowd beyond the door. And so they’d walked out
together, Darian to exile, and Peitar to the throne that Darian couldn’t
keep.

Darian got to his feet and set about refreshing the campfire
that had kept him and his scruffy young niece warm during the night. The horses
were not far, their heads down over a small stream. He bent to drink water,
clear, cold, and tasting faintly of wood. Refreshing. Only hunger remained, but
that was no great matter. Very soon he would be sitting alone on the bank of a
stream, catching a trout or two.

Lilah woke a little while later, rubbed her eyes, and
breathed in. It was true! They were out of Norsunder’s horrible land! She
scooted closer to the fire, for the morning was chill. The bite of winter was
in the air.

Then she looked around, her mouth open, her freckled face
round and expressive with wonder and joy. “Shendoral,” she
breathed.

“We’ll just make certain of that,” Darian
said.

“I’m sure it’s Shendoral,” she said.
“It looked, and smelled, just like this. All we have to do is find Atan!”

She sat back, eyeing him in an uncertain manner that had
become familiar. She’d rescued him not for her own protection, he had
discovered, but because she had thought it right. Even so, she clearly did not
trust him.

He had made no effort to change that. In his experience,
trust resulted from experience, not persuasion.