The City in the Lake (13 page)

Timou sat down cross-legged by her father’s body. She sat like that for a long time. After a while she reached out listlessly, took hold of the silver knife, and drew it out of the wound. She had not expected her father to come back to life after it was withdrawn. Nor did he. The knife melted in her hands, turning into wisps of thin vapor and dissipating in the air. As though all her volition had gone with it, she folded her hands over her knees and sat still.

After a while she noticed that the blood had disappeared. Sometime after that, she noticed that her father’s body had grown somehow less substantial. It faded slowly. She could not see how it went; it did not seem to grow more distant or to become smaller. Only to be less completely present. She watched, too numb to be horrified, as her father faded . . . and faded. . . . She could see the floor of light through his hands where they lay at his sides . . . she could see through all of him. . . . He did not become mist, as the knife had done, and disperse in the air. But he was gone, as though he had become shadow and so could not exist in this place of light.

Timou wondered, her thoughts moving sluggishly, as though for the first time in a very long while, whether this way out was a way she, too, might take.

“That is not a way that leads anywhere you would wish to go,” said the snake, lifting its narrow head to gaze at Timou from eyes like flecks of sapphire. It had come as her father’s body had vanished: with such subtlety she had missed the moment of its arrival. It was just there, coiled and unobtrusive. There was no teasing malice in its tone now, but neither did it speak gently. Its voice held a strange kind of coolness, as though it did not understand human grief and so could not pity it.

It was a coolness that roused both envy and outrage in Timou. She jumped to her feet. “How could you?” she cried at it. “How could you not tell me?” She wanted to throw something at it, break its passionless regard,
make
it care that her father was dead.

“Why do you blame me for your father’s failings? Or for your mother’s cold heart?” asked the serpent, unmoved.

“I . . .,” said Timou, unable to form a coherent protest. “You . . .”

“When you’re ready, your way lies there.” The snake pointed with its head down a path of light that was, to Timou’s eyes, like any other.

On an impulse born of grief and of surprising rage, not caring whether this was a wise thing to do, not caring whether it was a dangerous thing to do, Timou sent her mind toward the snake itself. It seemed both present and not present, both powerful and powerless; it did not seek to avoid Timou’s probing mind, nor did it defend itself, nor attack her. It only slipped through her awareness like smoke, impossible to encompass. She could not find the shape of it with her inner eye.

When she opened merely human eyes again to look for it, the serpent was still there, but it had grown huge: coils rolled out of sight all around her, disappearing and reappearing through sheets of light. Its head alone was larger than a man’s torso, its mouth large enough to swallow her whole. It had become the color of gold, of light. Its eyes, red and gold, contained fire and the memory of fire. Delicate horns, crimson as blood and long as swords, curved back from its broad flat head; its fangs when it smiled were made of crystal and light. Astonished, shocked out of the storm of emotions that had beset her, Timou tipped her head back to stare up at it. She swallowed, blinking, and the snake was suddenly once more tiny and white, with blue eyes and a blue tracery across its throat. Dazzled, her eyes stunned by light, she needed a moment to find it again.

“What
are
you?” Timou asked it when she could speak. Her voice shook. “Which is true?”

It said, as it had before, “Do you not know me?”

Timou took a breath and let it out, looking in lingering amazement for the shadow of the great fiery serpent hidden in the shadow of this little hatchling. She could see nothing. She could not imagine what it was. “No,” she whispered.

“You should,” repeated the snake, and added in a tone like a promise or a threat, “You will.”

Timou was no longer angry. She felt drained, hollow, emptied out of herself by emotion and amazement. She stared at the little serpent with eyes that felt gritty when she blinked. She asked after a moment, in a voice rough with unshed tears, “What do I seek this time?”

The snake tilted its head a little to the side. “What you will find if you go that way is the Prince,” it said, not quite answering her question.

Of course. The Prince. Everyone had been seeking the lost Prince. The stolen Prince. Of course he was here, behind the mirror, in this strange place of solidified light where no one had looked. Except, perhaps, her father. And what had Kapoen earned for his cleverness? “I don’t care whether the Prince is ever found or not!” Timou said passionately.

“You will,” said the little serpent.

Even through shock, Timou knew that this was probably true. She rubbed her eyelids with the tips of her fingers, trying to calm her heart. The mere attempt made her think of her father and she found it impossible. She made a small sound, which she tried to catch back but could not quite suppress, and put her hands over her eyes.

“If not now, when?” asked the snake, unmoved. It uncoiled itself and indicated a narrow angle of light that crossed in front of them perhaps a hundred feet away. “The Prince is that way.”

After a moment Timou stood up wordlessly. She hesitated, looking at the place her father’s body had lain for her to find it, but there was no sign it had ever been there. The blood was gone. Yet she was oddly reluctant to walk away, as though as long as she stayed in this one place, her father might suddenly reappear, might not really be dead. . . . She knew this was not true. She was alone.

The snake had not waited. It was not out of sight, but soon it would turn along a different angle of light and then it, too, would be gone. . . . Timou moved, stiffly, to follow it.

It seemed this time that she followed the little snake for only a little while. It turned swiftly and confidently from one flat plane of diamond-hard condensed light to another, from one path to another that always led in some strange and unpredictable direction.

At length the snake stopped, allowing Timou to come up to it. Ahead of them a path crossed theirs at a nearly perpendicular angle, slanting upward steeply. “The Prince is there,” said the snake.

Timou was still not certain she cared. But she asked after a moment, “Is he alive?”

The snake let its mouth open a little, seeming to smile. Timou could see the milky crystal of its fangs. “Go and find out.”

“Where will you be?”

“Everywhere,” said the serpent. It watched her, its winterblue eyes impossible to read.

Timou turned her back on it, cleared her mind of expectation—this was difficult, because the image of a silver knife and a trickle of blood kept wanting to appear before her mind’s eye—and walked forward, turning the sharp-edged corner when she came to it, and finding herself on a level path, as always.

The Prince was there. He sat staring intently into a wall of opalescent light, cross-legged on the floor, his hands on his knees, his back to Timou. She wondered what visions or memories or wishes the Prince might see moving within that wall. All she saw in it when she followed his intent gaze was a faint blurred reflection of his face.

The Prince’s hair, dark oak-brown and perfectly straight, fell down his back in a neat braid, bound off at the end with gold. He wore a russet shirt with gold showing through narrow russet ribbons at the puffed sleeves, brown leggings embroidered with russet and gold, and black boots with an intricate gold tracery around their cuffs. He looked like a Prince. A naked sword with a black hilt lay by his side. Timou could see the rise and fall of his shoulders as he sighed, so at least she was sure he was not dead.

She came a step forward, oddly reluctant to speak and thus break the privacy and silence that held the Prince. But he heard her step and turned his head.

At once he was on his feet, and at once, in an attack wholly unexpected, that sword was in his hands and driving at Timou with all the fury and desperation of long trapped months. The Prince was very fast. Timou could never have avoided that blow. Vivid terror shocked her back into the moment; she melted into the blade instead, became a line of light reflected along its deadly edge, rode it through the arc of its attack, and poured herself into the wall of light on the other side. The light tried to carry her with it along its infinite path; for a moment Timou almost went with it, letting herself dissolve into it forever. But even as that impulse formed, Timou knew it was childish; she was ashamed even to have felt it. She pulled herself back into her own form, shaping her body out of the fall of light and the memory of darkness and the movement of air. It was harder to do this time than it had been when she’d first found herself in this maze: she had less to return to now.

The Prince, with a sound of despair, flung down his sword. “What do you want?” he cried. “Just tell me what you want!”

“I think—” Timou said shakily, “I think, Your Highness—you are Prince Cassiel, of course?—I think you are mistaking me for someone else.”

The Prince stared at her. Slowly his expression changed. He did not look much like his older half brother. His face was gentler, elegant rather than harsh. His eyes were not the night-dark eyes of his brother, but a warmer color: the color of the wood at the heart of an oak. They were wide now, with rage and desperation just giving way to dawning surprise. His mouth was tight. He said harshly, in a voice not meant, Timou judged, for harshness, “Who are you?”

“No one you know.” Timou came forward a cautious step. “No one who is your enemy.”

“You are a mage. How old are you?”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Ageless,” the Prince said. His voice shook, then steadied. It occurred to Timou that he was not, in fact, much older than she. “I think you are as old as the world, and as cruel as the sky. If you would tell me what you want, at least I would know.”

“I am seventeen. My name is Timou. My father—” Timou stopped briefly, and then went on with difficulty, “My father, the mage Kapoen, was here. He died here. Blood ran from his heart in a great river.”

“I saw him,” the Prince said slowly. “I followed the river of blood out of curiosity and found the man at the end. He was already dead. I did not know him, but I tried to draw out the knife. It was like smoke in my hands; I could not grasp it. He was your father? I am sorry for your loss.” He sounded perfectly sincere, as though even in this strange place and suspecting her of being his enemy, the Prince could still spare a moment of compassion for the loss of a father.

Timou did not want to think about that loss, and somehow the kindness of the Prince’s voice hurt her as the chill indifference of the serpent had not. She wavered for a moment toward tears.

The Prince’s voice, questioning, steadied her and drew her back to the present. “Do you know who killed him?”

Timou bowed her head. “I think . . . my mother.”

The Prince moved a little, and stilled again. “Your mother.”

“I think you have seen her. I looked in the mirror in your Palace and saw myself reflected, but I think . . . I think it was my mother looking out at me. From this place. This trap she had . . . she had prepared for me. I wanted to find her,” Timou confessed, “but I know now why my . . . my father did not want me to.” She shut her eyes for a moment, waiting to be beset by sorrow or anger. But there was, for the moment, nothing but a cold silence. “If only he had told me about her,” she whispered. “Why didn’t he ever tell me?”

“Perhaps he couldn’t bear to,” the Prince suggested gently. “Perhaps he loved her, or feared her. Perhaps he hoped you would never need to know about her.” He came closer to Timou and stood gazing down at her. She brushed her hair away from her face impatiently with her hands, blinked away tears, and stared back at him.

“Your eyes are different,” he said at last. “Your face is a little different. Rounder. Softer. Or maybe that, too, is your eyes. . . . You look younger. She looks . . . Her eyes look like they have seen all the ages of the world. Your voice is different. You sound . . . She mocked me. She told me . . . well. Your voice is not like hers. Timou. Is that your name?”

Timou nodded.

“She would not tell me hers. But I know it, or at least I know the one she gave my father. Lelienne. Was that your mother?”

Timou closed her eyes for a moment. She was remembering that the name had unlocked her father’s most private book. “I think that it was. I think it must have been.”

“You are not her. I see that now. She could . . . I am sure she could make herself look younger or older. But I don’t think . . . I don’t think she could change her eyes. Not to your eyes.”

“It isn’t hard to change the color of one’s eyes.”

“I was not referring to the color.” The Prince moved restlessly. “You say this is a snare she meant for you?”

“Yes,” Timou said reluctantly. “For me, and for . . .”

“For your father, yes.” The Prince touched her hand in quick sympathy.

“And for you, perhaps.”

“I have indeed been trapped here a long time, I think. This is a good cage, and not only for mages. I have not found a way out.”

“There is always a way out.”

The Prince said, his voice sharp with despair, “Did your father teach you that?”

“Yes,” said Timou. It was true, she realized. Her father had not told her about this maze of light, about Deserisien and his sorcerers . . . about her mother. But he had taught her to trust that no puzzle was unsolvable. And she knew that was true. The things he had taught her had been true. She drew a slow breath and let it out, feeling her heart begin at last to settle with that realization. She closed her eyes and sat down where she was, on the floor, her back against a wall of light. She said, her eyes still closed, “My father taught me that riddles have answers. We will find the answer to this one.”

The Prince did not respond.

Timou wrapped her arms around her knees and bowed her head, reaching after stillness, the quiet of mind and heart that would let her find the answer she sought. She held in her mind the shape of this place, the space the Prince occupied, the space the sword occupied. She knew when the Prince bent and picked up the sword, and knew when he sat down on the floor, cross-legged, as he had been when she had first seen him. She asked, “What were you looking for, earlier, in that wall?”