The Pattern Scars (44 page)

The fog began to lift the moment I set my feet on the ground at the foot of Ranior’s Hill. This is what I heard people say afterward—that at
my
arrival the worlds stirred and changed. My heart raced, hearing this. And, even after all that has happened since, it still does. (Shame puts such a keen, nasty edge on pride.)

While this might have been a satisfying way to begin a fanciful tale, I must say that I remember it like this: the fog did not burn away until we were about halfway up the hill. I stared at my feet, since they were all I could see well. Teldaru was somewhere ahead of me and the king and his family behind. Behind them was Lord Derris, no doubt still fretting about what all the fog could
mean
, and perturbed that the masses of good Sarsenayans behind him would not be able to see as they should. Instead they were stumbling and laughing, half-blind. I heard them, from my place near the head of the procession. I heard and thought of Grasni, then Selera, and I wished us all fourteen again.

I was gasping with exertion, struggling up the steepest part of the slope, when I noticed that I could see the copper beads at the hem of Teldaru’s tunic glinting at me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Haldrin, who was holding Zemiya’s hand. A few minutes later I could see the shapes of the people behind them. By the time I reached the top the fog was more like mist, and the sky seemed to throb with light. The huge golden mirror that hung by Ranior’s monument was bright, though not yet blinding.

Teldaru and I stood before it, waiting for the crowd to gather. As they did, the laughter faded. The people stood—the Otherseeing students, grandparents, children—and they waited in silence for Teldaru and me to look into the mirror. It was as tall as he was, suspended from its black iron frame. It would catch all the faces, and the sky; it would show us the future of Sarsenay.

“There will be a confusion of images,” Teldaru had told me. “Imagine how complex a single person’s Otherworld often is—and imagine this complexity increased a hundredfold. We must look, for the people must be sure of the vision—and Lord Derris will be watching our eyes, in any case. The words, however, will be different from the images.” I had arched my brows; he had shrugged. “I know—it is the most public and renowned of all Otherseeing rites, and yet the words are made up. Planned. They must be, for no matter what the vision, the people must be reassured that their land will continue strong.”

Made up
, I thought now, as King Haldrin stepped forward.
Planned
. I breathed deeply—cool, damp air that smelled of earth.

There were no speeches made on Ranior’s Hill (these all happened later, in the castle courtyard and in the Great Hall after that). When the king spoke here, it was only seven words. I had listened to them from the hillside, on all those other years, and imagined them being spoken to me. But now I thought,
No, my king—speak them to Teldaru, only, so that the curse does not claim me and force me to see, when now I must make myself blind. . . .

Haldrin faced Teldaru and said, “Tell us what will come, for Sarsenay.”

Teldaru and I turned our faces to the mirror. The last of the mist seemed to vanish, right then. The sky opened above us, blue flooded with its own gold. In another moment Haldrin would repeat the words, and the metal would swim with images. I shifted a little so that Teldaru was between Lord Derris and me. Everyone else was behind me.

“Tell us what will come, for Sarsenay,” said the king. His voice was deep and strong.

I closed my eyes.

The king’s words had only just faded when I whirled away from the mirror and fell to my knees. Some people gasped; one sobbed; a child giggled. A bird called, from the gold-drenched sky. When silence had returned, King Haldrin bent close to me. I felt him doing this but did not see him, since my eyes were still closed tight. I groped for his arm and let him raise me up. When I was standing I leaned my forehead and both hands against the stone of Ranior’s monument. My fingers sought out the carvings there: the spirals and jagged lines; the marks of the hero’s life, its Paths shaped and shaping.

“Mistress.” The king spoke quietly, but many would hear him. “What have you seen?”

I opened my eyes, just a little. I saw Teldaru stir. He too turned away from the great mirror, though he did it slowly. A few who were there spoke of it later: of how he stood blinking the golden centres back into his eyes, the Otherworld subsiding. Of how he gazed at his former student with an expression some called pride, and others anger.

“My King,” I said, my voice cracking, steadying, rising high above the crowd and the hill. “I saw a mountain in the sea, breathing fire and smoke.”

Queen Zemiya must have cocked her head; the gems woven into her hair rang like tiny bells. I could imagine her own eyes, narrowed and dark. I could imagine her sister, gazing at the ground.

“Beyond this mountain was a wall of red stone. It broke the waves, rose higher before my gaze, just as the flames did.” I paused, as if my breath had caught in my throat. “And then a man rose from the mountain,” I went on. I straightened my shoulders, my eyes still mostly closed. Now I imagined the silk of my blue dress shimmering like water, or long, sleek feathers. Those close enough said later that my eyes had rolled, beneath my lids. Some said, too, that the marks Selera had left on my arms began to glow with a steady silver light.

“He was broad and tall, and his head and shoulders were like black, polished stone. Instead of a mouth, he had the black, hooked beak of a bird. He strode out over the water, his spear cleaving a path of sparks. As he approached the red wall, another man emerged from its stones—a man as fair as the other was dark, with the long, gleaming teeth of a hunting dog. He bore a sword, and a shield with two silver hands upon a blue background. The two men met in a splintering of stone and a surging of water. Their struggle churned earth and waves, and nothing could halt it—until a third man appeared.”

I opened my eyes. Even though I knew their centres were clear, people said that they had seen the darkness of the Otherworld in them yet, like the fog that had wrapped them all, before. I was still—everyone was, except for the queen, who moved her head again, to look at Teldaru—and Teldaru, who raised his to look at me. Neluja still gazed at her own feet. The slope of her neck was long and graceful, beneath the red cloth that covered her hair.

“He was taller even then the other two,” I said. “Black fire streamed from his eyes. It surrounded the warriors, who stood poised, frozen upon the sea. Their eyes were fixed on him. He raised his hands and black and gold light leapt from his fingertips. The waves calmed. The orange fire turned to ash and fell away to nothing. The warriors bent their heads in obeisance. And the red stone wall grew higher and higher, toward the sun whose gold did not glow as brightly as the man’s eyes.” I turned. I held out my hand, palm up, fingers pointing. “This man’s eyes. Teldaru’s.”

For a moment the silence returned. The wind rose with a long, low moan; the mirror creaked on its iron hinges. A bird cried—a different one, or the same—and then a baby, in short, breathless gasps that soon quieted. Then someone shouted, “Teldaru!” and someone else “Ranior!” and “Sarsenay!” and the sky seemed to shine brighter yet with their rejoicing.

Teldaru did not speak to me, as we watched people Pattern-dancing on the plain below. Almost everyone was there now, though there were still some children at the summit, doing their own wild dances around the stone and pausing sometimes to pant and send wide-eyed glances at the king and queen and Otherseers.

Teldaru did not speak, so I did.

“Teldaru.” My voice was low, even though the others were not close enough to hear. “You are displeased. Tell me why.”

“Why.” He chuckled, but there was no amusement in the sound. “That should be my question, not yours. Why did you say what you did?”

“I thought only to help you. To speak words that would have more strength coming from me than they would from you. Why does this upset you?” I put my hand on his back. I felt his muscles bunch; I felt the gentle inward curve of his spine, low down. “Do you doubt the visions—mine or Neluja’s, from so long ago?”

He reached a hand behind him and wrapped it over mine. “I do not.”

“So you do not fear the disdain and disappointment of the people, if the visions do not turn out to be true.”

“They were true. They are.”

He was not looking at me; I smiled so that he would hear it. “Then you should be grateful to me, for I have only made it truer.” I paused and wiggled my fingers until he loosened his grip, a bit. “Surely you are not angry because you were not the one to speak of it before all those people? Surely you are too strong a man—too strong an Otherseer—to be envious.”

Someone was singing, below. One voice, then more; an ancient Pattern-song with my name woven into it. I felt myself flush, deliciously slowly.

“Teldaru!” Haldrin called. “Join me, please.”

Teldaru let go of my hand. As he walked toward the king, Zemiya and Neluja walked toward me. I thought,
Look at his shoulders and neck—so stiff—he wants to turn to us but he won’t let himself.

“
Ispa
Nola,” Zemiya said when they reached me. “That was a wondrous seeing you had.”

My heart was pounding; I felt as if it were lodged in my throat. “Yes,” I said.

The queen ran her hand up over her bracelet. I watched the bones shift. Some of the smaller ones turned completely around so that different bumps and veins were showing.

“So wondrous,” Zemiya said, “and so strange, that
isparra
would bring you the same pictures as it brought my people, years ago. Pictures that—”

“There were no pictures.” Neluja spoke softly but her words were jagged. “Not years ago in Belakao, Zemiya-
moabene
—you know this, and I have told Nola so. There was no vision at first—just the gift used as a plaything, by you. Deception that became truth. And there were no pictures today, either.”

Her eyes were steady on me. I looked up into them, though I did not want to. Their centres were
isparra
-marked white.

“Your words were different,” Neluja said to her. “You are different. There is something in you—a silence. A weight on my ears when I see you, as if I am diving.
Isparra
thick but dark.”

The pounding was in my head now.
Yes
, I thought, and,
No
. But why such dread, when there should have been only hope?

“She is
his
lover,” Zemiya said. “Perhaps it is his taint you see.”

It was too much; I thrust away the dread.
Neluja,
I wanted to say,
your sister saw my scars but did not understand them—look at them, now, because you will—you will understand the marks of Bloodseeing. . . .
I tried to lift my hands to tug at my bodice, but they remained motionless at my sides.
Ah
, I thought, feeling the laughter in my throat again,
I see: it is my desire and will that wake the curse; Zemiya only saw my scars because I did not think to show them to her.
I imagined the curse as lengths of cloth, wrapped tight and knotted.

“No,” Neluja said, and frowned. The lizard poked its scarlet head out of the neck of her dress and gazed at me without blinking. “That is not it—I—”

“Come now!” The king was walking toward us, waving his arm. “Back to the carriages!”

Teldaru and I went first down the hill. Everyone watched: the dancers, the children, the king and Lord Derris and the Belakaoan women. When we reached the bottom, Teldaru put his hand on my neck, beneath the knot of my hair.

“What did the island witch say to you?” he murmured. “What were you talking of?”

I shrugged a little and his fingers shifted. “My vision,” I said.

“Mistress Nola!” a man called then, from somewhere deep within the crowd, and I lifted my hand and smiled.