The Ordinary (32 page)

“He sent a letter? May I have it?”

He fetched it out of his saddlebags, sealed in a leather packet. She could feel Uncle's seal as well as see it. “My dear,” she read, “you may trust my new friend Arvith to escort you into the mountains. I prefer that you come with only a few of your people, though I know you can't do without them all. You may arrange for further messengers to reach you here with business, as you choose. I hope to give you some respite, once you're here, but we've all that to talk about. I look forward to seeing you with much affection, thrice your uncle, the Thief of Karns.”

Thrice? He had known what she would see in the chant when she sang for seeing with the choirs of Prin.

She made no delay but fixed immediately on a plan to take a party of twenty with her on the journey into the mountains, meaning to leave behind a horseman at intervals along the way to guide her daily messengers. By the time she reached Chalianthrothe, there were only herself, Hegra, and Arvith, but even that was not privacy enough, apparently, since Uncle Jessex contrived to find her when she was almost at the border of his lands, alone.

Hegra and Arvith had fallen behind and Malin was pausing to give them a moment to find her. She could feel their confusion even at a distance, since both of them were Prin and, at the moment, kei; she could also feel that they were moving in the wrong direction, away from her. The quality of their presences troubled her, and when by some instinct she turned in the saddle, there was Uncle Jessex nearly beside her, standing with his hands folded. She had sensed nothing of him.

He looked much older than she had ever seen him before. Reaching a hand, he said, “I thought I'd come to meet you. I wanted to find you alone, at first. Forgive me for tampering with your new Marshall.”

“And your friend.” She flooded with sudden warmth, his face looked so gentle and familiar. Swooping down from the horse in a rush, she threw herself at him, as if she were fifteen again. “So good to see you.”

They stood silent and content. His bones felt thin, and he felt so tiny. He said, “It's been a long time.”

“Yes. But I was still surprised, when I got your letter.” She moved away from him on the words, hardly knowing how to ask the question.

He answered it anyway. “I'm through the worst of the sickness, I hope,” he said. “I've made a solution that allows me some freedom, though it may end up creating a worse problem.”

“You mean that there are now three of you, rather than two.”

His face lit when he smiled. “I thought you had been peeking. Very good. There are three of me now.”

“What happened?”

“In due time,” he said. “That's better talk for indoors. Come let me show you around a bit, and we'll get used to each other again. It's been too long.”

He was building a tower here, nothing like the other towers, this one a frame of metal reaching up half the height of the peaks, but also dug very deep into earth and rock. “The kirilidur goes down through the rock,” he said. “The Orloc have hollowed it down to twice the height of Ellebren.”

“You have Tervan here, too?”

“They made the frame and are helping me to engrave it.”

What Malin knew about the construction of a High Place was no more than she had picked up from him in conversations like these; the Prin did their work in choirs and never used the older devices of the soloists, the wizards who could work alone. “What goes on top?”

“Nothing. The seeing stone goes down below. A new one, from the Untherverthen.”

“Where do you work?”

“At the bottom,” he said. “Where the seeing stone will be. There'll be a workroom and then, beneath it, a platform for the stone.”

“Why?”

“To make an antitower.” He shook his head after a moment. “It won't make any sense to you; the chant works in a different way from the other languages, and I'll use all three in this place.”

“Three?”

“Yes.” He looked at her. “I went to Cunevadrim to learn Eldrune. I've learned it. This tower will be made of the three together, Eldrune, Wyyvisar, and the Malei.”

They were standing alone at the work site, which was deserted in the late twilight. Rhythmic sounds rumbled from deep below, beyond the fenced area where lay the open top of the kirilidur. They had climbed so high the air was thin; the main entrance to Chalianthrothe was below, where the mountain flattened for a moment. “Have you named it?”

“No. Not yet.” He touched one of the metal beams, slid his palm along the bright surface. “I've thought about calling it
Kirithren,
after the King.” He shook his head. “But I don't know if he'd be pleased.”

With a gesture he signaled that he was ready to descend to the others, who were patiently waiting at the border of the work site. She walked down with him, nearly offered him her arm. She had never seen him feeble before. He caught her thought and said, “Yes, I know how I look. I'm vain, you know, and I don't like it.”

“Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. It's time for me to go into the Deeps again, that's all.”

By then he had led her back to Hegra and Arvith, and they walked through splendid spring gardens into Chalianthrothe. After reading the books she'd borrowed in Montajhena, she expected to be let down by the place, but it was like no other mountain house she had ever seen. Rooms were hollowed into the mountain, designed to resemble a series of clearings in a forest. The Orloc had begun the house for Jurel Durassa and enlarged it for Uncle. Lightstone panels in the ceilings brought down sun from somewhere high on the mountain, up where it had not yet fully set, a liquid luminescence tinged with red. Uncle Jessex showed her to a room lit with an assortment of scented lamps, and sent her a householder to help her bathe. All the guests would come together for dinner, and Malin and Uncle would talk after.

She watched Uncle with Arvith during dinner and wondered whether they were lovers. The thought had never occurred to her before, in all these years, that Uncle Jessex might want company himself, sometimes; there was something in the intimacy of their conversation, Arvith treating Uncle Jessex as if they had known each other for a very long time, that reminded Malin of the King. Yet he was an awkward, almost homely fellow, this Arvith. All through the meal she had the feeling she had met him before.

Uncle showed the rest of the house after dinner, the lower floor including Jurel Durassa's study and workroom, and a floor beyond that which included the underground entrance to the antitower. He let her look into the doorway, into a circular room the use of which she could not guess. “Perhaps I'll show you through those rooms another time. There are workrooms and a library for texts I've collected that I want to keep safe. You'll see them all in due time. But not tonight.”

“Due time?”

“Yes. When you begin to study with me. As I hope you will.” He regarded her without any change of expression and gestured that she should follow him into Jurel's study. Householders had prepared the place, setting out a spring liqueur and a pot of steeping tea in the warm, richly lit chamber. “That's what I've brought you here to ask you.”

“To study with you? You mean, to come away here and live? I don't have time.”

He smiled.

“Really, I don't,” she said, and stopped, looking at him. “Oh.”

He touched her hand affectionately. “So you've been enjoying yourself while I was away. You do like being in charge after all.”

“I suppose I do.” She was confused at her own feelings of turmoil; but she understood.

“Don't look so startled, my dear. I mean to give all this back to you, as soon as I can. But there are things I must teach you, first.”

“Like what?”

“Like Wyyvisar.”

He was on his knees, laying dry wood for a fire, taking his time to stack the tinder and kindling, the smaller split logs and the larger. When he gestured, the fire began to burn, smoke disappearing up the stone vent, out of sight. She had time to hear what he said, to watch him, to feel his surprise. She said, “I didn't think you could teach Wyyvisar. I thought you would forget it yourself, if you did.”

“So I will,” he said, and looked at her. “But I'm not the real one, of course. I'm a phantom. So what I forget won't matter.”

In the crackle of the fire they sipped the liqueur, which tasted of a fruit she could not bring to mind. Infith, maybe. He had told her he was not real, yet he was calmly sipping brandy and had moved the logs for the fire easily, with his hands. He watched her a moment, then watched the fire. “What's happened?” she asked. “If you're a fraction of my uncle, you're not like any I've ever seen.”

“No. I'm much more functional. More independent. But still only a projection. A copy.”

She felt suddenly afraid, for no reason she could think of. He felt like her uncle, same as ever, but she could not shake the fear. “Where is the real one?”

“Inniscaudra,” he answered. “He never really left.”

“But I saw him go,” she said, and he smiled at her and she understood. Feeling a fool. He had tricked her again and again.

“You had to believe,” he said. “You had to see the trick, just like the rest.” After a moment, he said, “I've made you afraid.”

“Yes.”

He became more distant, cool, and shook his head. “It can't be helped. I am who I am.”

She made no move, her glass a weight in her hand, the fire meaningless, the room still cold.

“You said you'd seen the three of me,” Uncle Jessex said.

“I had. I just didn't understand what it meant.”

“I told you the last time we talked that I'd have to hide after I established the gate.”

“I remember.”

The fire crackled and spit; he knelt to poke the logs a bit. He liked to use his hands. She watched him and felt herself grow calmer. He turned and smiled, less distant than a moment ago. “This is part of the hiding.”

“Are all three of you the same?”

“No.” He shook his head. “We're different in very specific ways. Only the one in Inniscaudra is complete. The real one, I mean.” He frowned, as if he did not like saying it this way. “And the one in Cunevadrim is causing trouble.”

She hardly heard that part. She was remembering that she had leapt from the horse to embrace him, the genuine affection with which he had greeted her. This one, the fraction of her uncle who was here. “So my uncle is ready to announce he's returning to Arthen? Even though he's really already there. That's what you're telling me?”

“We would prefer that you make the announcement,” he said.

“We?”

He bowed his head in assent. “Your uncle wants this. If you insist on my stating it that way.”

“Am I a prisoner here?”

He frowned at her impatiently. “Don't be a fool, Malin. If I wanted to make you a prisoner I wouldn't need to bring you here to do it. You're free to go anytime you like, anywhere you wish. But we also have an opportunity that you need to think about. I can teach you Wyyvisar without any danger to your real uncle.”

“Sounds as if you're offering a bone to a dog.”

“Have you really grown so fond of power that you can't give it up? Even if it's only for a while?”

That stopped her. She flushed and stood, and nearly left the room.

“Do you have any idea what you're being offered?” he asked.

“He might have told me this himself.”

“He is doing exactly that.” The voice had grown very stern and hard. “I am your uncle in every way that matters. I am Jessex Yron. You'll understand this when you know how to do what I'm doing, if you get that far. If you choose not to learn, that's your choice.”

They were quiet, the sound of their breathing mixed with the sound of the fire. From upstairs drifted the echo of music, someone singing in one of the far halls of the house. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Maybe we should talk about this again tomorrow, after I've rested a bit.”

“Perhaps that would be better.”

“You know I don't like sitting on a horse, day after day. It leaves me tense.” She met his eye.

He laughed abruptly, accepting the implicit admission. “Yes, I know how much you hate horses. Did you camp? Did you actually sleep in tents?”

“Of course we did. I'm half Erejhen.”

“Oh, I know.”

The tension eased a bit. She said good night, seeing he meant to remain in the study; she took the last of her brandy and climbed the stairs to her room.

By morning she reached a state of calm. She would have to break the news to Hegra; the Marshall of the Ordinary served the Thaan, and in a short while Malin would no longer be Thaan. Hegra would become a simple marshall of stewards. But that could wait.

She took morning tea with Arvith in one of the sun gardens in the open air. Fresh from a night's rest, the young man had a clean, strong appearance, a homeliness that was endearing. Her uncle was meeting with a party of Orloc builders deep below in the bottom of the antitower. Arvith was good company, quiet, waiting until she was comfortable with her teacup cradled in her hands, her long legs curled into a wicker chair. “Did you have a pleasant talk with your uncle last night?”

His question struck her as forward, but she resisted making too biting a reply. “Some of it was pleasant. Some not.”

He was uncomfortable for a moment, then shrugged. “That's the way of families, I guess.”

“You know we're not really kin,” Malin said.

“Yes. But you've lived so long together.”

She sipped her tea. He spoke to her as an equal. No doubt because he had grown so used to Uncle Jessex. “How long have you been in service here? How long has he been here?”

“Ten years,” Arvith said.

She had sensed nothing of this in all that time. “He's been here that long?”

“Off and on, yes. He came here permanently before the winter.”

“You've become very close to him.”

Something softened at the center of Arvith's eyes. “Yes.”

“But you know what he is.”

“I know he's only an extension of the real Irion.”

“That's one way to say it, I suppose. And you don't mind that.”

Arvith spoke with perfect simplicity. “This one is very real to me.”

The copy of Uncle Jessex was crossing the garden toward them, casting a shadow in the morning sun, shaking dew from the branches that he brushed as he passed. She was thinking she liked the way his face had aged; she wondered if she looked as dignified when she got old, before going into the Deeps for renewal. He joined them at the table and called for tea. He spoke to Arvith pleasantly and sent him away on some errand that would keep him for a while. Malin said, when Arvith had departed, “He's a nice young man.”

“He's very talented. I'll want to teach him some of what I'm offering to teach you.”

“Wyyvisar?”

He nodded. “I think he can learn.”

“Why not send him to one of the colleges?”

“I don't want him to be Prin. At least not yet.” He had asked for tea and one of the householders brought it. For a moment he mulled over the tea, face blank of expression. “How are you feeling?”

“A bit less irritable.”

“And?”

She found her heart quickening a bit. “I want to learn whatever you'll teach me.”

He smiled. “At least you give me that much faith.”

“I give you quite a lot more than that, I think,” she answered. “I know who you are, Uncle Jessex. It's just very strange, and you ought to know that.”

“I suppose I do.” He watched two birds flittering on the ground on the near part of the lawn. “I guess I've gotten used to this, myself. It seems normal for there to be three of me.”

“Have you crossed to the other world again?”

“Yes. I have to be careful now. But I travel there as often as I can.”

“You have to be careful?”

“This thing we call magic doesn't work so well there, yet, though I'm doing what I can about that. Its presence there is dangerous in other ways.”

“Tell me.”

“The world beyond the sea is called Sha-Nal or Sah-Nal. We have apparently known this for a very long time, since this name or one very like it is recorded here in very old records. But the people who live on Sah-Nal, including the ones who we call the Anynae who crossed the ocean into our country, say they were not made on this world. They were neither created here nor did they evolve here. This world is a colony of another world, named Earth.”

She was interested in spite of her reluctance to talk so freely, her wish to nurse her resentment a while longer. “This thing we call magic, that's what you call it now?”