The Pattern Scars (54 page)

“This is not enough,” Teldaru said. He was pacing in front of the table where I was sitting, by his window. “This violence, and the fires—there will need to be more, if Bantayo is to be sufficiently provoked.”

“But if we’re not ready anyway,” I began, and he whirled to face me.

“This is the time, Nola. The only time. I would have waited longer, but the Pattern has led us by a swifter way.” His eyes were glittering—
feverish
, I thought as I looked at them, and at his sallow, sunken cheeks. He had finally shaved, but he must have done it too quickly; his chin and throat were covered with blood-encrusted nicks.

“The Flamebird of Belakao and the War Hound of Sarsenay.” He smiled. Fell to his knees before me and wrapped his hands around my waist. “They will do battle on the plain. And they will not die.”

“But they will,” I said slowly, finding words that would not bring the curse up into my mouth. “If you and I do.”

He laughed. His whole body vibrated, even after he stopped laughing. He trembled and twitched but did not seem to notice.

“We will not, my love. They will not. Do you have no faith in your own visions?”

And then he went very still, and his eyes fixed on nothing. I almost expected to feel an aching beneath my skin—but he was not in my Otherworld this time; just somewhere else that was far away.

He smiled. His teeth were as straight as they ever were, but they were not so white; there were grey lines on some of them. I wondered if my own would soon look the same.

“So simple,” he said. “The only way to ensure Bantayo’s rage. I should have thought of it before.”

“Tell me,” I said lightly, but he shook his head. He laid his head in my lap and closed his eyes.

“Tomorrow morning,” Teldaru whispered to me at dinner one evening. “You should go see the queen.”

It had been several days of nothing—no notes, no plan revealed. Nothing but the man-creatures beneath the Hill, and a weariness so overwhelming I could hardly sit upright at the lesson table, or here.

“Why?” I whispered back. “I can see her now—look—she’s wearing a green dress and a necklace of wooden beads.”

“Insouciant girl. You pester me relentlessly for information and now I am giving you some. Go to her chambers tomorrow before your lessons.”

We went to the Hill that warm, rainy night. We made one blind, brown eye and five fingernails, and while we were watching, Ranior’s lips parted for the first time, slack and wet. We returned to the castle and I collapsed into bed with Borl beside me, but soon I woke with a start because I remembered Zemiya. Zemiya—why?—I fumbled with bodice laces and slippers and pushed past Leylen, who was just arriving.

“Mistress? What now, Mistress—wait!” But I was running, even though the hallways seemed to melt and bend around me.

I was nearly at the queen’s door when I heard the scream. One piercing note; a girl’s voice.

No one was in the front room. The bathing chamber’s door was open. I stumbled as I slowed, just inside it, and I slipped too—not because I was moving too fast but because the floor was wet.
She is bathing
, I thought in that first instant—
yes, of course; that is all, and perhaps Jamenda only screamed because she fell herself, on the wet floor.

The floor was pooled with red. The walls were sprayed with it. It was like Chenn’s room at the brothel, when there had been different screams, and girls clustered around the doorway, craning to see in. Now it was only one girl—Jamenda, kneeling beside the tub, clutching Zemiya’s blood-streaked hand.

The queen was lying with her head back, as I had seen her do before. But there was no water this time. She was naked, patterned with cuts and blood that looked darker than her skin. Her eyes were open, staring at the great, splayed crab’s legs above her. I looked up too, then down again, toward the window—and I saw another body. A man, lying flat on his back with his arms outstretched, his wrists gaping. His own blood had darkened his clothing, but I could see he was a guard. I knew his face; somehow, in that long, still moment, I remembered him: Jareth, who had let me inside the castle years ago, when I had thought I would tell everyone the truth. Me in my pink dress, and everyone laughing but him. His beard was matted with blood now. His eyes were closed.

I knelt beside Jamenda. She was holding the princess in the crook of her arm. Even as I noticed the baby she began to cry. The sound was thin, and the flailing of her fists was weak, and her white-veiled gaze flitted over everything and nothing.

There was a shout from the outer room. Footsteps pounded away; soon there were others, much closer, and the chamber seemed full of people. Someone gripped my shoulder.

“Nola . . .” Haldrin was beside me, sagging to his knees. His fingertips ground against my bones. “What did you see? What do you know?” His voice was Lord Derris’s, suddenly. His face was collapsing, spreading lines; he was old now, forever.

Teldaru did it. People will say that Jareth did
—and they did, for it turned out that the Sarsenayan youth who had been killed by the Belakaoan merchant family was Jareth’s nephew, and this seemed like reason enough to people already accustomed to madness—
but it was Teldaru.

“I know nothing,” I heard myself say. “I was coming to see the princess—
I knew Zemiya was having trouble, still, and I couldn’t sleep anyway, so I thought . . .”

I reached for Layibe then, my body confirming the lie. Jamenda let me have the baby, who quieted as soon as she was up against my shoulder. She burrowed and snuffled and clung to my dress and my braid.

“No,” Haldrin said. I could feel him shaking. “Not this.
Moabene
. . .”

“Oh, Hal.” It was Teldaru, behind us. His own voice broke. “Hal—my King—come away; let someone cover her.”

“I will. I will wash her, too.” I looked up at Teldaru as I spoke. “It is only right.”

He smiled down at me sadly, but his eyes were still glittering. I wondered where he had put his bloodied clothes, and how long it had taken him to get himself clean. I wondered if she had managed to laugh at him at all, as she had long ago, by the courtyard pool with its tiny glowing fish.

They left us alone: Jamenda, Layibe and me. Jamenda fetched me buckets and buckets of water. I poured it over Zemiya’s ruined skin, and Layibe listened, kicking her legs out in delight.

It is so difficult to remember everything that came after Zemiya’s murder. This is strange; it happened so recently, and yet my days in the brothel are clearer. I want to make a list of words, only: Soldiers, Bardo, Uja, mourning, tomb. But it would not be enough. I must try harder.

I stumbled to the kitchens, the day Zemiya died. Or I intended to, but when I was only halfway down the stairs to the main courtyard, Teldaru called out from behind me. I ran a few more steps (three of my footfalls in the time it took for the gatehouse bell to toll once). Then I stopped, because he was beside me, holding my forearm.

“Where are you going?” His voice was tight. He was clawing at my bare skin.

To find Bardrem. And to find the words, somehow, that will tell him he is right: you must be stopped. I have waited too long to try to find these words, and maybe I won’t—but I need to go to him
. “Away,” I said. “Anywhere.”

“Foolish girl—you know you won’t be able to leave these walls while I’m still within them. And in any case, you mustn’t leave me, even for a moment. I need you close. We must be close.”

I smiled into his fevered eyes. I thought,
I will find another way.

I was alone later that evening, though I knew I would not be for long. I dipped a quill in ink and set its tip to paper.
Help me
, I tried to write.
I will help you. Trust me, even if you cannot understand me
. I tried to write very quickly; tried to hardly think about the words, since this might keep the curse at bay for a moment. But I wrote only, “I will”—and the rest flowed out, unplanned and strange, as smoothly as if I had intended it:

“I will eat mutton before dusk.”

Teldaru came for me early. “Haldrin is silent,” he said as his piebald mare bore us toward the gate. “He says nothing at all, so Derris is speaking for him. We will summon soldiers from other cities and even from the borderlands. We will be ready to face the islanders when they arrive.”

The bell was still tolling. The streets beyond the castle were empty.

“Are we not going to the Hill?” I asked, for he had turned the horse away from the road that would have taken us toward the gate. I felt a throb of hope, though I was not yet sure why.

“No—to the house. There is a sword there that I think will be useful.”

I was alone again, while he searched for the sword. I slipped into the mirror room and stood with my hands wrapped around the bars of Uja’s cage.

“Uja.” She blinked at me from her highest perch. “I know you understand me. I don’t know why, but you do. And you have seen . . . everything.”

She cocked her head. I could hear Teldaru’s footsteps above me.

“You . . . open things. You’ve opened them for me. Now I need you to sing me to sleep.” I shook my head violently and pressed my forehead against the bars for a breath. “I need more opening. Listen, Uja.”
Listen, for Bardrem will follow us, or come here again alone, and you must let him in just as you once let me out.

She bobbed her head. Her crimson neck feathers ruffled and smoothed.

“Thank you,” I whispered—and that was all, because Teldaru was in the hallway, calling my name again.

What are you doing, Nola? You and Teldaru?

I’ve seen inside the house. I’ve seen the island bird and the creatures—a man, a woman, and they are dead, except they breathe. And the red book in the library—Bloodseeing—what is this? Tell me now—or is it already too late?

When I straightened from the wardrobe (this note slipped away with the others), Leylen was behind me.

“Do not look at me like that,” I snapped. “And fetch me a clean dress; this one was filthy when I put it on.”

She stared at me a moment longer, then turned and went to do my bidding. I sat on the bed, hunched forward. My tears were warm and clear on the backs of my hands.