Daughter of Ancients (38 page)

“No wonder he couldn't bring himself to say more of your encounter!” Abruptly she motioned me to a greenbrocaded footstool. “Sit down.”

Her command was inarguable. I sat.

“Listen to me,” she said. “I don't know why you've come here, and for the moment we'll put it aside. But you are wrong if you think my son is still what he was in Zhev'Na. The danger you fear—the betrayal you feel—as you watch him go about freely when the world believes him safely dead . . . that danger does exist, but in someone else.”

“You think the Lady D'Sanya is the danger.” I sounded like a petulant schoolchild.

“Yes. Just this evening, I've come to the conclusion that she possesses one of the Lords' devices—a brass ring called an oculus . . . like the ones you saw in their house. I think she makes them.”

“Demons of the deep, she's got an oculus?” Paulo sagged against the wall. “Master Gerick knew someone had power of that kind—I've just come from Prince Ven'Dar, delivering his letter about it—but he never guessed it was her. Never. Even to think it would kill him. Demons take the woman!”

An oculus!
I jumped up and retreated, my back against the garden doors, all my bravado made laughable. My knees felt like mush; my mind screamed. I had seen what the Lords did with their ghastly rings of light—what the young Lord did with them. Mind and body remembered pain and helpless fear coursing through my veins like liquid ice. I laid my hand on my dagger, not thinking what I could possibly do with it, only that I needed to be as far away from this house as I could get. “You can't hold me prisoner. I can't be here.” Not if an oculus was involved.

“Sit down, young lady.” His mother pointed sternly toward the stool I had deserted. “In the name of the Prince D'Natheil—my husband and Gerick's father—who set you free of your collar, in the name of every Dar'Nethi who has suffered enslavement to the Lords as did you and that same prince, or who died fighting the Lords as did Aimee's dear father, and in the name of every man and woman of my own world who lived in bondage there as did Paulo and I, I insist you sit here and listen to me.”

Grim, determined, she took my shaking hands and drew me back to the stool, pressed on my shoulders until I sat down again, and crouched down in front of me, her stern face softening only slightly. Her eyes were just like his, dark and deep, filled with so much terrible knowledge. “We must know what's happened to Gerick and whatever you can tell us about the Lady. If telling you something of our history is the only way to gain your trust, then that's what we're going to do.”

She stayed right there in front of me, sitting on the rug of bright blue wool, and she told me the tale of a mundane girl who had come to love a sorcerer in a land where sorcery was forbidden, and how she had borne him a son two months to the day after he was burned alive, only to believe the infant, too, had been executed. She told me how her son had been hidden away from her and how he had come to believe he was evil, the tragedies of his childhood giving the Lords a sure weapon to twist and corrupt him. As the story of her husband's rebirth in the body of Prince D'Natheil filled me with wonder and astonishment, my shaking eased and my fear receded.

When Lady Seriana stopped to drink a mug of saffria Aimee brought her, the story continued uninterrupted in the soft voice of the young man on the other side of the fire. Unschooled in his speech, yet pouring out a measure of devotion as any man or woman would give a fortune to command, Paulo told how in the stables of Zhev'Na he had discovered Gerick's fight to retain the last shreds of honor, even when he believed his soul hopelessly lost. He told me of his friend's long struggle to be free of the Lords, and his final, dreadful conclusion that the only way to save anyone was to persuade his own father to kill him. Gerick's resolution had rid the world of the Lords.

I was mesmerized by the tale of his battle with the Lords . . . the tale of his talent . . . Was that what had happened to me? Had he taken me away from danger when I could not do it myself? And if so, then he had been closer to me than anyone had ever been in my life . . . and there was nothing of evil in the memory. Could he have masked it from me so completely?

Yet, in the end, it was not for the young Lord that I yielded my past and present anger, but for the woman and the friend and the dying man in the hospice. If these three had been so masterfully deceived, then what hope had any of us to resist the demon son? And if not—if he was truly what these good people claimed—then the land and people I loved stood in mortal danger once again, and I had no choice but to fight.

A log snapped in the fire, showering sparks into the air like a cascade of stars, and as if it were a signal, I inhaled deeply. “Yesterday morning at dawn I woke to the sound of a man screaming . . .”

It was as well I chose to fight, for just as I finished my own story we heard shouts from the street and a hammering on the door. Aimee hurried out to investigate and returned moments later with the news that war had returned to Gondai.

“They say the flames can be seen for thirty leagues,” said Mistress Aimee, whom I'd learned was the owner of this house. She whisked the breakfast things from the table as she delivered the newest details of the night's dreadful events. Without warning, a massive force of Zhid warriors had fallen on Lyrrathe Vale, slaughtered or captured every inhabitant, and left the fertile wheat fields of the easternmost Vale of Eidolon an inferno. The imagining left my flesh cold. I knew all about Zhid raiders.

“Prince Ven'Dar has commanded every seasoned warrior to take up a weapon and find an untrained youth or maiden to stand beside him. He is riding out himself with Preceptor W'Tassa and six hundred guards to take their stand at Lyrrathe Vale, and he dispatched another five hundred fighters—all that he could summon in the middle of the night—to the northern borders. Je'Reint has been charged to defend the city and to muster more troops to send to Lyrrathe as soon as possible.”

“Ven'Dar must be told she's taken Gerick,” said the Lady Seriana—Seri she said to call her, but I wasn't ready for that kind of intimacy with the family of a man I'd once sworn to kill. “He must hear what I suspect about D'Sanya, as well.”

“I'll see the message sent,” said Aimee, handing a stack of plates and bowls to a wide-eyed girl who was evidently the only servant left in the house. Everyone with talent had been summoned to the aid of Avonar.

“Je'Reint has summoned me to the palace. I go to him within the hour.”

Paulo perked his ears up at that. “He wouldn't send you out with the fighters? Not a lady like you.” His face took fire as it did every time he addressed Aimee. Not difficult to see how the wind blew in that quarter.

For her part, Aimee gave him a smile that could have melted a boulder. “Certainly not, sir. Master Je'Reint is very wise. He knows that my skills are of far more use in planning strategies than in executing them.” She then proceeded to demonstrate that very fact by tipping a tray of cups just far enough that three of them fell off, splattering her white gown with tea. Paulo jumped to her rescue, snatching up the cups and gently removing the tray, while Aimee threw up her hands in good humor. “I can help them lay out an image of the terrain or the placement of troops without being on the battlefield. I'll be quite safe and out of the way, so I don't risk upsetting anything more important than teacups!”

It had taken me more than an hour to realize that Aimee was blind. I had just thought her clumsy. It didn't seem to bother her all that much, even her awkwardness. Indeed she was fortunate—intelligent, talented, well provided for, and with a naturally gracious disposition and the kind of face and figure that made men forget their own names. She even spoke of her family with love. I decided that it would be very easy to dislike Aimee.

But then again . . . she couldn't see the way Paulo wrapped his eyes around her. And she was the daughter of a Dar'Nethi Preceptor, while Paulo was . . . well, I still wasn't quite sure what he was, other than a friend such as anyone might wait a lifetime to have. But I would guess that he could never aspire to a woman of prominent family in his own world. And the secret reading lessons hinted that he had never told Aimee of other yearnings she could not see. Perhaps he never would, and she'd never know. I'd always thought there was a goodly bit of perversity in the turnings of the Way.

“Clearly we'll have to find Gerick on our own.” Lady Seriana's mind was fixed neither on war nor romantic attachments. “Could she have taken him back to Maroth?”

While Aimee busied about her household, preparing to answer her summons to the palace, Lady Seriana and Paulo worked on strategies for tracing Lady D'Sanya's movements, and for searching the hospice—just in case I might be lying about him being gone—and the second hospice in Maroth. They even discussed hiring a Finder to help them discover him. They seemed to have forgotten about me.

I sat on the little footstool with my chin on my hand, my ugly, serviceable clothes stiff with dried mud because I had been too stubborn to yield to Aimee's offer to have them cleaned for me. What in the name of sense was I was doing with these people? Their concerns were corrupted souls and wars for control of the universe; their acquaintances were Princes, Preceptors, and Lords, and men who visited the land of the dead and came back again. Vasrin had shaped no such path for me. I needed to be on my way back to Gaelie. Papa would be wondering where I was. As soon as they stopped talking long enough, I would take my leave.

I stopped listening, wandered over to a tall window, and stared out at the deceptively peaceful sunlight bouncing off the garden walls and the city towers beyond them. The air wasn't peaceful . . . not by a long way. War. The Zhid. Avonar's fear was thicker than the daylight. I could feel it in the way you feel the coming of the first storm of winter.

“You've never told us your name.”

I almost jumped out of my skin. Aimee had come up just beside me. Her eyes were closed as the sunbeams bathed her smooth skin. “I'd be pleased to know you better before you leave us. And Lady Seriana will wish to tell Master Karon of you. It will give him heart to hear that Gerick was able to help you . . . that he retained some power the Lady could not control.”

“Is it truly Prince D'Natheil who lies at the hospice? The very same?”

“It is, though he goes only by his other name now. I served him with my Imaging in the years he reigned in Avonar, and once I have imprinted the image of a person on my mind, I cannot mistake him. He is the noblest gentleman I've ever known save my own dear father who has passed on to L'Tiere.”

“It hardly seems possible.”

“Their story is astonishing, is it not? I'd never heard it told all at once until now. Had I not been privileged to witness a small part of it, I'd never believe it.”

“I need to get back to my father.”

She nodded, understanding. “And then to answer the summons of your own talent in this coming war?”

“No summons comes for such as me. Oh, I've useful skills, but no true talent. It seems to have been lost along my Way.”

I waited for the effusive sympathy and subtle aversion that was the usual when a kind person finally made the connection. It probably just took Aimee longer because she couldn't see the ugly telltale about my neck.

Though her voice could not have been heard across the room, she bent closer to my ear. “Someday you and I will have to decide which is easier on those around us: your skills with no true talent, or my true talent with so little skill at anything truly useful.”

I had to laugh. She spoke with such sincere good humor as to make me forget my usual bristling at discussions of true talent.

“My name is Jen'Larie,” I said. “But I've always been called Jen.”

“Jen'Larie—what a beautiful name! I've never heard it.” She extended her hand. “May I?”

I wasn't exactly sure what she wanted, but I wasn't afraid of her. I took her hand and felt the warm flow of sensation up hand and arm that accompanied a touch of sorcery. She squeezed my hand as she released it a moment later.

“Now I shall be able to recognize you should we meet again. You are so strong and lovely and delicate all at once, just like your name!”

Now I believed Aimee was blind. No one in all the world had ever called me lovely. “It was my mother's name, too,” I said. “Everyone shortened mine to tell us apart.”

“My mother shared my name, as well, but we didn't have much confusion,” she said. “She did not survive my birth. It came too early and was very difficult. Many weeks passed before the Healers were sure I would live, with or without sight.”

“And your father?”

“The Lords destroyed him. Their sworn traitor used one of these horrid rings of power to control the Prince's son, trying to convince the Prince—Master Karon—that Gerick had murdered my father and betrayed the defenses of Avonar. But all of it was the Lords and their puppet. I offered Prince D'Natheil my talents afterward. I cannot permit such horrors to happen again.”

Aimee might have been the very incarnation of Vasrin Shaper in that moment, the stern and flawless female half of our dual god, whose image graced the gates of Avonar to warn away those who would violate our peace. And I had only thought her pretty and kind.

“So you believe this son is worthy of his father and his mother?”

She clasped her hands at her breast and crinkled her brow. “I wish I could find the right words. I don't know Master Gerick well. He is very quiet and shares little of himself in company. But I've witnessed the feeling he bears for these three who have shepherded him from the darkness into the light, and no being of evil could devise it. When I write the image of love on my mind, Jen, it is Gerick's care for his mother and his father and his friend that I model.”