The Floating Islands (29 page)

The sun, high above, glinted in the master’s kajurai eyes. He was not exactly smiling; his expression was too grim to be called a smile. “Yes, in a rather convoluted fashion. Or so I gather. You, and your cousin, and the mage Tnegun, and, ah, Ceirfei.”

Trei thought Master Anerii had only just stopped himself from saying “Prince Ceirfei.” He said, “Ceirfei? What did
he
do?”

“Tell me, Novice Trei.” The master sounded stern at last. “Did you and Novice Genrai deliberately leave Ceirfei behind when you conspired to commit this, ah, exploit of yours?”

Trei winced at this question. “Was he very angry with us? We were sorry to do it that way, but we couldn’t … You must see that we couldn’t possibly tell him.…”

“Indeed not.” The master sounded much less stern. He patted Trei’s arm. “No, indeed. That was also well done, Trei. I vow before the Gods, you and Ceirfei between you will turn the rest of my hair dead white. If I understand correctly, he and that mage Tnegun together acted to send one of our own dragons here. Where it turned—don’t ask me how—from a dragon of sky and wind into a fire dragon, shattered the earth beneath the Tolounnese engines, released the fire beneath the earth, and rescued the young dragon you left stranded in the, speaking relatively, cold of the failed furnace. Incidentally destroying roughly half of Teraica in the process.”

“Oh,” Trei said after a moment. His voice sounded odd even to his own ears.
Destroying half of Teraica.
That was … that was horrible. He had never intended … never thought …

“Don’t repine,” Master Anerii said briskly. “This also left the Tolounnese on Milendri stranded and willing to reach an accommodation. Now: I came here to offer an exchange of prisoners, Trei. The provincar did not seem favorably disposed to my offer, however. So I do not know.…”

It was like suddenly getting a perfect wind after struggling in dead air. Trei stared, arrested, at Master Anerii. “You came here as an ambassador?” he asked, and heard his own voice tremble. “You came here as an ambassador and asked to trade for me, and the provincar had you imprisoned in an
oubliette
?”

The master stared back at Trei. “Obviously, yes,” he said after a moment. “Does this signify in some way?”

Trei jumped to his feet and strode back and forth across the oubliette shaft. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to shout up the oubliette shaft, call the guards. They might even answer. Probably not, but they
might.
He spun back to Master Anerii, who was still staring at him in astonishment.

“You don’t—” Trei broke that off and began again, trying to keep his voice from rising in hope and in the terror that hope might fail. “Novice-master, please. Tell me. Exactly what you did, and what you said, and to whom, and what the provincar answered.”

Master Anerii folded his hands across his knees, sternly calm. “Have I failed to understand something important?”

“I don’t know,” Trei said. “Please tell me—”

“I came down in the courtyard of the provincar’s palace. I gave my name and told them I had come from the king of the Floating Islands to discuss matters of mutual concern. I told them there are thousands of Tolounnese soldiers trapped in the Islands and said I wanted to discuss the disposition of the young kajurai they were holding here—”

“Told who? Courtiers? Soldiers?” Trei leaned forward urgently.

Master Anerii blinked in surprise. “Well, a soldier, first. And then an officer of some kind, I suppose, and then the provincar himself. I thought I was polite enough. He has a temper, that one, and he doesn’t take reversals well. He put a good deal more bluster than thought into his responses, it seemed to me.”

“Did he shout? At you? At the soldiers? There
were
soldiers present, weren’t there?”

“As I recall, he shouted at everyone. Certainly there were soldiers, Trei: an officer with a red-hilted dagger and a file of men.”

“A teruann. A company commander, and at least some of his men. So
you
said there were a lot of soldiers left on Milendri, and the
provincar
answered, what? That he would redeem them? Did he say that?”

Master Anerii tilted his head in intense curiosity. “No, he did not. He said … let me see. He said Tolounn was well rid of any men who would surrender, and he said he would bargain with the Floating Islands when Tolounn itself mounts into the sky, but he’d hear an ambassador if one came as a supplicant to hear terms. He warned me that when engines have been built, they can be rebuilt and said I could carry that word back to my little Island king. So I asked, what about you? And he said, well, a great many unconsidered things, and I wound up demanding you be put into my hands, and …” The master shrugged. “Here I am.”

“The provincar is a
fool,
” Trei said, not really paying attention to this last.

“Well, and?”

Trei stared at him. It seemed incredible anyone would not know—but then, the provincar
himself
seemed blind to the obvious. He said, “Sir, Tolounnese soldiers are the best in the world.”

“So they generally declare,” the master said drily.

“No, sir—they really
are
the best in the world. Everyone knows that.”

“Spoken like a true citizen of Tolounn. No, forgive me for interrupting, Trei, and make me understand what you mean.”

Trei paused, trying to gather his thoughts. He said at last, “Tolounnese soldiers are the best in the world. That’s because they always obey orders. Even if they hate their commander, even if their orders are to march forward and die, they always obey orders. Except …” He tried to think how to put this.

“Except?” Master Anerii prompted quietly. He seemed to understand Trei’s excitement now, even if he didn’t know whether he should share it.

Well, Trei himself didn’t
know
what would happen. But he said, “He’s a fool. Because he threw blame on the men when the first engine exploded, even though that wasn’t their fault, and then he did it again when the dragon came. And he threw those men away. He said Tolounn was well rid of them? He might as well have accused them all of cowardice! They weren’t cowards—were they?”

“No,” Master Anerii said fervently. “Not at all. By no means.”

“Of course they weren’t. They had bad luck, and maybe bad planning, because everything depended on those engines and the provincar didn’t plan for what he’d do if Tolounn lost those. He can’t have, can he? Even though he ought to have known the Islands would try anything to ruin them. So he put the blame for the first explosion on me and sent me here to die forgotten, which wasn’t truly honorable—” He saw Master Anerii didn’t understand what he meant, and tried to explain. “I might have ruined his engine, but if your opponent makes a brave counter to your attack, it’s not honorable to hold it against him, is it? If you’re going to attack people, it’s only natural they should fight back. You can execute a brave opponent, but it’s not right to punish him, do you see? So the soldiers didn’t like the provincar sending me here, but he didn’t see that or else he didn’t care. I thought then—but Tolounnese soldiers always obey orders. But then you came to negotiate, and he wouldn’t hear you and he threw away all those men, and he sent
you
here, which is
very
dishonorable, because you aren’t a soldier or a spy, you’re an ambassador whom your king sent in good faith—he did, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did. So … Trei, am I to understand that you expect the provincar to cause his own men to mutiny?”

“He’s not honorable. And when he fails at something, he puts the dishonor on the soldiers. He’s a
fool,
” said Trei passionately. “When Tolounnese soldiers decide to throw over a commander, they
all
decide to do it, all at once. They send to the Little Emperor and demand a different commander. Sometimes they send him pieces of their previous commander, too. If the Emperor’s wise, he picks somebody much, much better. It’s happened four times, and the last time all the armies joined together and unseated the Little Emperor himself and made the Great Emperor put in a man they approved. That was Medraunn enna Gaourr, great-great-grandfather of our Little Emperor now. My tutor taught me that. Did
his
teach him nothing?”

“Some men are not capable of learning anything that does not agree with their own opinions,” the master observed quietly. “And what will this mean for us, if the soldiers here overthrow the provincar?”

“Oh, they’ll let us go, of course. At least, they’ll take us out of here and treat you as an ambassador, but probably they’ll just let us go without asking anything at all.”

“They’ll do that, will they? Even after losing half of Teraica?”

“Well, that’s awful,” Trei said honestly. “I wish—they’ll think—” He caught himself, swallowed, and went on, “They’ll be angry, of course they will. But it
was
war. They won’t
blame
us for doing that. It’s just stupid to
blame
an opponent for fighting back. They think I was brave, and of course you were, sir, to put yourself forward as the Islands’ ambassador. And you did it to get me back, which is honorable. The soldiers will like that; they’re Tolounnese, after all. Of course they’d let us go without demands. That’s exactly what they’d do. They’d expect
your
honor, sir, and the king’s, to make you treat your prisoners decently and negotiate in good faith for their return.”

After a pause, Master Anerii said in a dry tone, “Well, I’m grateful to have a half-Tolounnese novice kajurai to explain Tolounn to me. I don’t think I understood half of that, for all I’m supposed to be an emissary.”

“But—”
That’s all obvious,
Trei wanted to say. Except clearly it hadn’t been. He was still amazed that Master Anerii hadn’t seen it all plainly himself, but he could hardly say so.

“Oh, I knew almost everything you said. I remember that tale, about the Little Emperor’s overthrow. But I knew it academically. I wouldn’t have—didn’t—put that all together with our situation the way you just explained it.”

Trei nodded. That made more sense. He looked wistfully up toward the light, wishing again, desperately, that they were in some tower prison where they could
see.

Master Anerii got to his feet at last, stretching. “Cold down here for a man my age,” he commented. “Earth-cold, stone-cold; not like the high winds at all, is it? I wonder why that is?” Then he gave Trei a sharp look and asked, almost as though he expected him to be able to answer, “I don’t suppose any such mutiny, if it comes, will happen today, however?”

Trei guiltily brought his gaze down from the circle of light above. “No, sir, I don’t think so.”

The master smiled, a little grimly. “Then perhaps we shall have time to discuss your landing style and the manner in which control of the winds can be used to compensate for overenthusiasm. I must conclude from your report that your skills in that direction are gravely lacking. Even in a pit such as this, the winds are not
absent,
” he added when Trei stared at him. “Merely attenuated. Now, name for me the five principal qualities of the wind and explain, if you please, the nine methods by which a kajurai may influence each of these qualities.”

Trei laughed. He couldn’t help it. But that was all right, because the master laughed, too.

14

A
raenè thought at first that after the unnatural Tolounnese strength was broken and the dragon’s magic of sky and wind freed, everything would be
over.
Master Tnegun might have collapsed, but that wouldn’t matter; he would rest for a while and then wake, the Tolounnese ships would meanwhile take all the Tolounnese soldiers away, and they could all go
home.

She knew very well that some of the towers and underground buildings at the edge of Canpra had been damaged; she knew that there had been fighting and that people had died. There would be a lot of work to do to fix everything. She knew that. But that’s all she thought it would be: a lot of work, and tears for those lost, and then they could all go on with their lives.

At first, nothing interrupted this hopeful idea. She and Prince Ceirfei together arranged Master Tnegun in reasonable comfort by the edge of the pool.

“He will be well; he passed the edge of his endurance, but I think he needs no more than rest. No place in the Islands is safer than this, and he may perhaps have useful, or at least interesting, dreams,” the prince said to Araenè.

She had been kneeling by Master Tnegun, watching his slow breathing and assuring herself that he would be fine. She didn’t think he had overextended—he didn’t look nearly as dead as Tichorei had. So she looked up at the prince and nodded, hoping this was all true. She let the prince lead her away from the pool to stand at the edge of the cliffs at the top of Kotipa and stare across the sea toward Milendri. So when the power of the Tolounnese mages failed and the kajuraihi led the dragon winds down from the heights, they saw the result plainly.

The winds drove the sea into violence before them, so that the Tolounnese ships staggered where they lay and struggled to turn their prows to the increasingly powerful waves; one ship, still anchored by its boarding ladder to the stone of Milendri above, released its ladder too slowly to come around. A great wave rose across its length, and Araenè put her hands over her mouth as the whole ship rolled over, broached, and went down. She knew she couldn’t hear the screams of the men on that ship, not over this distance, not over the roar of the savage wind. But she imagined she could hear them.

A Quei swept between the waves, tiny at this distance, the sun striking its plumage to iridescent emerald fire. The bird rode the violent winds with nonchalant skill. Two kajuraihi, wings crimson as the lowering sun, followed the bird. The men were almost as indifferent as the Quei to the violent winds and surging sea. One of them tilted his wings, skimmed along the leading edge of a wave, and flung something neatly against the side of another ship: fire bloomed, and again Araenè imagined screams.

The remaining Tolounnese ships fled. Kajuraihi pursued them, riding the storm winds, fire in their hands.

“I should be with them,” Prince Ceirfei said in a low voice, staring after the kajuraihi. He stood on the sheer edge of the cliffs, perfectly at home with the winds that shredded around the rocks. His dark hair whipped in the wind. Araenè was afraid a particularly fierce gust might blow him right off the edge, but he seemed fearless. He looked exactly like a prince should, she thought. And extravagantly good-looking, though she had no business thinking that. He glanced at her just then, and she blushed and looked down—then up again.

“What are you thinking?” the prince asked curiously.

Araenè could hardly answer that. She asked quickly, before she could blush again, “The dragon wanted something from you, didn’t it? You told it that you weren’t bargaining, that we wouldn’t protest the cost.” She paused, added uncertainly, “Isn’t that what you told it? But what cost …?”

Prince Ceirfei shook his head, not as though he was refusing to answer, but more as though he simply did not know how to put the answer into words. He said at last, “The destruction of Teraica is a price the Tolounnese paid for their defeat: they might have brought the ruin of their city on themselves, but no one could deserve what happened to Teraica. The wind dragon became fire and gave up the sky; that was the price the wind dragons paid for our victory. But what
our
cost will be, eventually … that I do not know. But I know that we will have no choice but to pay it.” He looked very serious. “Only, what other choice did I have but to promise anything I must, when your Master Tnegun put a chance of victory, all unlooked for, in my hand?”

“Yes,” said Araenè. “I mean, of course there wasn’t any other choice.”

“No. But I hope the Tolounnese … One is never entirely certain what they will consider a legitimate act of war and what an uncivilized act of barbarism.”

Araenè was not entirely certain she understood why it mattered what the Tolounnese thought, but she didn’t want to ask Prince Ceirfei to explain. She tried to look curious and attentive.

“Hundreds must be dead, hundreds more wounded,” the prince told her quietly, which she had known already. But he added, turning his gaze at last toward Milendri, “Thousands of Tolounnese soldiers will have been stranded in Canpra. If they will not surrender, how many more will die before they can be defeated?”

“
Can
they be defeated?” Araenè asked doubtfully.

“It’s true we have no soldiers,” the prince said, understanding her doubt, “but we have broken their power. Our dragons have returned to our sky. Our mages will recover, and theirs have been driven away. They have no supply, no reserves, no support, no mages. They can achieve only a brief and temporary victory. But …”

Araenè nodded. Even a brief, temporary Tolounnese victory could hurt Canpra badly. She bit her lip. “Surely they will surrender? Won’t they see what you see, won’t they understand they
have
to surrender now?”

“Those are
Tolounnese
soldiers,” Prince Ceirfei said grimly. “They are not accustomed to surrender. They may not be able to hold the city for very long. But it would be better for us all if they did not establish that fact through practical experience.” He paused. Then he added, “If they are to surrender, they must have someone to surrender
to.
Someone of proper authority who can persuade them of the wisdom of that course.”

“Oh,” said Araenè, understanding him at last. And then asked doubtfully, “But is it safe for you to go to them?”

“I think so. They
are
Tolounnese. Honor is everything to them. To them, this has been something like a game, to be played according to honorable rules,” Prince Ceirfei added, irony edging his tone. “It’s important they view us as playing by those rules as well. They prize courage and directness, I believe.” He paused. “Your master came to me because he needed a kajurai. Now … I think now the need is for a prince.” He glanced sidelong at Araenè. “Though perhaps you should remain here, in case I am mistaken. Truly, there are few places safer in all the Islands.”

“No!” Araenè glared at the prince. “If Master Tnegun can’t help you, then you’ll need me!”

“I do,” conceded the prince. “Open me a door, Araenè. Something useful. Preferably something that will take us near, but not too near, the ranking Tolounnese officer. A place with a view, ideally, so that we can see what we’re stepping into.”

Araenè’s glare had turned into a stare of surprise at this very specific request. “A door?”

“If you can,” said the prince. His eyes met hers, measuring.

Araenè stared at him for another heartbeat. She was afraid she was blushing again.… She shut her eyes. A door. Master Tnegun
said
she had an affinity for doors. There
would be
a door when she opened her eyes. Standing off to one side, set right into the air of the mountain slopes. Not a door to the hidden school. Something helpful. The sort of door that would open to a high balcony near … Where would the Tolounnese forces be? She had no idea how to coax a door to find a Tolounnese officer she’d never even met. Where would such an officer be? Near the center of the First City? Near the court ministry?
In
the ministry? Prince Ceirfei said he thought the Tolounnese could take Canpra; maybe they already had?

She opened her eyes. Turned her head.

The Akhan Bhotounn, the “friendly door,” stood near at hand. It was not quite where she had meant to put it. It stood instead right at the edge of the cliff, so that it seemed that taking a step through it would surely send you plummeting toward the sea. The ebony wood was carved with dragons, Araenè saw: the abstract swirls hadn’t made any sense to her before, but now she could see the hinted curve of the long necks and powerful shoulders, the complicated filigree that barely suggested feathers, the swirl where talons tore through clouds. One of the dragons had its head in the upper left panel of the door, the other in the lower right panel: their tails twined together all across the middle section.

But it showed signs of burning now. It had not been badly damaged, but wisps of smoke were still rising from the edges of the doorframe.

Master Tnegun had also said “an aptitude for fire.” Araenè stared at the “friendly door,” hoping it would not open into a furnace or burning building. She stepped cautiously forward to the edge of the cliff and touched the knob, which was hot. But when she opened the door a crack, she found it opened merely to her own apartment in the hidden school.

“Where is that?” Prince Ceirfei asked, looking curiously through the open door.

“That’s the hidden school,” Araenè admitted. “My apartment. Probably it wouldn’t be very useful to go there.” She closed the door. Opened it again. It opened this time to the hall of spheres and mirrors. The hall was deserted. Tichorei no longer lay against the wall. Araenè hoped that was a good sign.

“A place near the Tolounnese army,” prompted Prince Ceirfei. “But not
too
near. Someplace deserted. Someplace with a view.”

“I
understand
that,” Araenè snapped. She closed the door, opened it again. To the balcony where the black gulls nested. She sighed, staring at the squabbling gulls in disgust. “We could go to the hidden school first, I suppose. I can probably get a better door from there than from”—she glanced around uncertainly—“here.”

“If you like,” the prince agreed.

His tone was too carefully gentle. Araenè glared at him. “I’ve not
been
an apprentice even one senneri! A boy couldn’t do it, either!”

The prince looked at her in surprise for a moment. Then he laughed. “All right,” he said, in a much more ordinary tone. “Forgive me, Araenè.”

“Arei,” Araenè muttered. “It’s Arei when I’m supposed to be a boy. I—it’s complicated.”

The prince tilted his head to the side. “Is it? It seems simple to me. I had to fight very hard for leave to attend the kajurai audition. Very hard. Because princes do not fly. Only, in the end my family gave way, and of course a girl cannot even ask hers for leave to go to the hidden school. So you did not ask, but only became a person who could go … his … own way.”

Araenè stared at him. She had not expected Prince Ceirfei, of all people, to
understand.
She had never before conceived of the idea that being a prince was, in a way, like being a girl. But she saw at once that he was right: it
was
a similar thing. In a way. You were born, and immediately everyone
knew
what kind of person you had to be.

“Shall I call you Arei, then?”

Araenè paused, uncomfortable. “I don’t … Call me Araenè, if you like. Now that Master Tnegun knows, I suppose … call me Araenè.”

The prince nodded. “You always wanted to be a mage, I would surmise?”

Araenè gave him a hard stare, but the prince didn’t seem to be mocking her. He seemed sincerely interested. She said at last, “The mage gift comes on you like a rising tide. They say. And it’s true; it does. They say you can smother it. I …” Her voice trailed off.

“Didn’t care to smother yours?”

Araenè bit her lip, shook her head. “There was nothing in my life I wanted to keep. Except things I couldn’t have anyway. It would have been—I couldn’t ask Trei to give up the sky! Especially when I didn’t even want the life a girl ought to have. Only a
boy
would at least know about mathematics and rocks and things.”

That made the prince smile. But he asked, “Trei?” And, with dawning understanding, “You are his cousin. Of course. He said you had gone to the country.”

“Oh,” said Araenè, realizing. “You know him, of course.” She lifted a hand to her hair. “He said I would hate the country. He was right. So I cut my hair instead.…”

“And that’s as well, we find,” said the prince. “So, the hidden school? Or will you try again from here?”

Araenè looked at the door once more. She said impulsively, “You open it.”

Prince Ceirfei lifted his eyebrows. Then he came forward and opened the door.

The Akhan Bhotounn showed them a high, narrow, windswept balcony. The balcony completely encircled a slender spire of white stone. Araenè could see a small chamber inside the spire, and a narrow, sweeping flight of floating stones that dropped from the balcony to a lower tower nearby, and that was all. She said uncertainly, “It
seems
to be deserted.…”

Prince Ceirfei grinned, a swift flash of humor breaking through his usually serious manner. “I know that tower: that’s Quei Tower, in my uncle’s palace. The only way to that balcony is by floating stairs—and since nobody wants the Quei disturbed, there’s no magic on those stairs to keep you from falling. The stones would have fallen when the Tolounnese mages drove the dragons away. Even now, when the stones have likely risen back to their places, well, those are
Tolounnese
soldiers. I can nearly promise you, however firm their grip on the palace, Tolounnese forces will not have crossed a
floating
stairway to occupy Quei Tower.”

“Oh. That makes sense.…”

The prince put a hand on the door’s ebony frame and held his other hand out to Araenè. “I think this will do very well. If you will join me?”

*    *    *

The room at the top of Quei Tower, round and small, was indeed empty of everything except the wind and a single Quei nest. There were windows all around the room, the sills narrow and rounded, appropriate perches for Quei: half a dozen leaped into the air, crying in their high, wild voices, when their tower was invaded. Aside from the room with the windows, there was nothing but a narrow balcony. That was all. The balcony had no rail. The stairs were small, most of them less than an arm’s length across. Though the steps all floated neatly in their places, many of them did indeed show signs of having recently been broken: white chips missing from their edges, or cracks that split one step into two or three pieces. They didn’t look at all safe, in fact. Araenè wasn’t surprised that the Tolounnese soldiers hadn’t stationed men here, even though the tower offered a spectacular view of the palace and the First City.