She licked her lips, and then spoke. “I am Aran.” And waited for the axe to fall.
So simple and natural, those words, proscribed by law and regulation. Jilo, thrilled by her daring, said, “I am Jilo.”
She gulped in air. The dishes rattled on the tray, and Jilo became aware of rustles and whispers around the corner. That had to be the rest of the females, waiting in line to bring the food.
So Jilo ducked into the mess hall, and awkwardly fumbled his way to the place where couriers always sat. Those seated there quietly made space.
And though everyone’s attention appeared to be strictly on his plate as the women and girls served the food, Jilo was sensitive to the weight of their collective scrutiny. The tuneless, random clatter of eating implements on plates, the rustle of cloth, here and there a quick tread did not mask the sense of . . . of a rounded scrutiny, an instinctively arrived-at roundness divisible by eight. Though Wan-Edhe had denied Jilo a true twi of his own, he could see, he could feel, the rightness, the balance of the twia he saw before him.
After the meal, he was climbing up to the rooms over the stable, when he came up short in a low doorway, face to face with the commander himself.
“Has my granddaughter trespassed?” he asked.
Jilo fingered the onyx ring, ready to transfer out. “I think we’re related.”
The commander said gravely, “You’re the son of my nephew Dzan.”
He wasn’t asking a question, and so Jilo said, “I’m Jilo.”
“We know,” the commander said even more gravely.
“You do?” Jilo asked. “Oh. Do I look like my father? All of you, that is, many of you, remind me of him.”
There was a pause that grew almost to a silence, then the commander said gently, “We know who you are.” He amended quickly, “That is, along the courier routes.”
The words struck Jilo like a blow to the head, only from the inside. Of course the couriers would talk. Though not to him. They had their twia. They could not, dared not, read the dispatches they carried, customarily sealed with lethal spells against tampering, but just because they were expected to remain silent, that did not mean that every person was not using eyes and ears exactly as Jilo did.
“Why are you here?”
Jilo hunched defensively. “Trying to learn . . .” Words failed him. As always. He looked down, hating his inability to articulate his thoughts. But because Commander Shiam still waited, he said, “Everything.”
And because that steady gaze reminded him of Mondros, up there in the distant mountains barely visible to the south, Jilo said, “To see what damage Wan-Edhe has done. If . . . if he doesn’t come back. How to fix it.”
The commander let out a slow breath. “We call him The Hate. That word cannot be magic-bound against mention.”
Jilo still had not managed to ascertain whether or not Wan-Edhe actually had a spell to warn him whenever his name or title was spoken, the way many believed Norsunder was warded. He jerked his head in assent, accepting that a fuller conversation was impossible.
“If he is not dead, and some believe even then, he will return,” the commander said.
Jilo shrugged again, more sharply. “I know. I think on that each day.” More he dared not say.
He didn’t need to. Jilo’s demeanor, his lack of regulation reaction, the dropped tone of his voice when he said ‘I think on that each day’ implied to Shiam that there was more going on than met the eye. It implied that he was not Wan-Edhe’s creature, that he was possibly, miraculously, taking steps against the evil tyranny that had begun to seem inescapable. Eternal.
So when Jilo asked the question he had not been capable of considering until he had been days away from Narad’s poison—“Does my father still live?”—Shiam did not hide his surprise.
Jilo flushed guiltily, old habit, after using the forbidden words ‘my father.’ “Prince Kwenz warned me never to ask, for my loyalty might be questioned.”
Shiam accepted that, and said in a voice of low regret, “We were told he died in a border dispute with the Danarans. He was in charge of the supplies.”
We were told. Jilo inclined his head.
They parted then, Jilo to wander over and peer out at the dreary sleet, and occupy himself as he might until the next meal. A gradual awareness of a qualitative alteration in atmosphere resolved into a repeat of the sound patterns he’d noticed on his travels. Furtive, brief: tapped fingers here. The clatter of nut shells on a string, which he discovered suspended high up under a rafter above the scrawny cows. He was very certain he had not overlooked it on his first exploration through the barn.
A whistle, soft and low, that might have been mistaken for the wind moaning through the rocks, but it wasn’t. It was too regular and too short for that.
As night fell, and the storm abated to drips and plops along the edges of eaves and overhangs, the shadows closed in, and once more Jilo found himself in the ruins.
This time Aran came toward him deliberately, barely discernable among the deepening shadows.
“Is there anything I can get for you?”
Jilo took another cautious step toward understanding. “Information only.”
“As in?” Aran replied.
“Your twin.”
Aran stiffened. “What about him?”
Jilo said, “Him?”
That was all. Aran stilled. Jilo could hear her breathing, then she sighed softly, and began to speak in what at first sounded like storytelling mode: “Long ago, it is told in great Chwahirsland, under the great king . . .”
That way every story, false or true, had always begun, fanciful stories being forbidden by Wan-Edhe as frivolous and time-wasting when drought conditions required a steady mind and constant labor. But then she said, “In faraway Shadowland, the law required every family to kill or shell a second girl—”
“That’s not true,” Jilo interrupted. “I was in the Shadowland. That law was here.”
Aran said firmly, “In faraway Shadowland, the law required every family to kill or shell a second girl.”
And Jilo had it: the storytelling mode hid a truth behind “in faraway Shadowland” the way his own folk had hidden it behind “long ago.”
When he didn’t interrupt again, she went on more softly, “There was a family who had two sons. The regional commander spread the word through the land that a third son would gain the family a better placement, and as they had no daughter, the birth of one would not cause lament.”
Jilo was silent. He knew about Wan-Edhe’s method of dealing with the encroachment of drought upon the resources of a hungry kingdom, where all must support the army above anyone else. Second daughters were a luxury Wan-Edhe decreed the kingdom could not afford.
“. . . and so, to this family was born twin girls, named Aran and Kirog. But the decree raised consternation among them, and because twins are rare, word had spread all through the region, unto the ears of the regional commander himself. His merciful solution was to shell Kirog to Kinit—”
Jilo’s nerves jolted. Until this moment he had not known that magic could force a person to change gender. He’d assumed the will of the changee must be obtained first.
“—and so the process was begun, but somewhat into it, Wan-Edhe assembled all mages for great purposes of his own, and so the process was incomplete. But Kinit was accepted by the family, and by his twi, and by the regional governor who assigned that twi unto the study and maintenance of horses.”
A pause, which became a silence. Jilo stared at the silhouetted girl, his mind proliferating so many questions he had no idea where to begin. Or if he should.
The first being: what did that mean, ‘the process was begun’?
Did it matter?
Until now he had not troubled himself thinking about what lay under anyone’s clothes, so why should that become an item
of interest now? Identity was a matter of mind, that much he had learned from observing those Mearsieans: Falinneh, a Xubarec, who shapechanged between genders as easily as people changed clothes; Dhana, whose natural form looked like a crack in water, but who had decided to experiment with human form, one closest to that of the girls she’d been watching from the water; and even Puddlenose, who had a habit of disguising himself as a girl when he was bent on escape. When he dressed as a girl, people believed he was one, tall and bony as he was.
Enough. The matter was plain: Aran’s twin was, to the family, to his twi, and to the world, Kinit the stableboy. No more, no less.
And so Jilo gave the prescribed reply, “Long ago, in great Chwahirsland, under a great king, life was truly great.”
He expected her to leave him to himself. He would not have minded if she had, because he wanted to think through everything he’d heard.
But she said softly, “Come.”
The note of her voice sent a frisson through his nerves, for so profound a change—a girl in effect giving him an order, though her tone was invitation—meant that he had been tested without his knowing, and something else was about to occur.
Then fingers bumped against his arm. He jerked it back, and took a couple of steps away.
Aran said, “I will leave you if you wish, but . . .”
It was that but, in the same invitational tone.
Every sense alert, he stepped forward once, twice. This time he reached, and when he encountered the girl’s cold fingers, he stilled as her hand patted his arm lightly, then slid under his elbow. And tugged with gentle insistence.
He walked with her through the dripping ruin, into the barely warmer stable, and through that into the garrison mess. But that room, too, was empty, though light spilled, pale gold, down the staircase from above.
On they walked to the kitchen, and through that. Jilo followed in growing surprise as they entered the unlit larder; he fought a sneeze from the sharp scents of dried herbs. Dimly he made out a narrow entrance beyond the barrels of bitter beer.
Down they walked, not into the dankness of rot and moss, but into a malty-warm vapor of ancient brewing. He could see nothing, he could hear nothing, but he knew that the cellar was not empty.
Aran pulled the cellar door closed, and then one by one came the scritch of sparkstones, and light sprang into being: candles wavering here, throwing dramatic shadows up the plastered walls, and in the center a single glowglobe, its magic fading. More candles were lit, and set on a bare little table in the center. Above it someone had hung a cloth so old it was almost rotted, fragile beyond belief, age-spotted.
When Jilo made out the circular pattern on it, shock flared through all his nerves: it wasn’t even the forbidden circle symbol of Chwahirsland. This was far older, long forbidden, the eight intertwined linden leaves, heart-shaped, the twi symbol that had become Chwahirsland’s circle, which in turn Wan-Edhe had forbidden because it implied loyalty to one’s group, and loyalty must only go to his person.
Jilo stared up at it, shocked by the trust implied in his seeing this sacred treasure as, in silence, someone ladled something whitish yellow and unfamiliar-looking into tiny bowls that were then passed from hand to hand, the fragrance rising from them delectable.
When a bowl reached him, he stared down at the tangle of nearly translucent vermiform shapes, then he gasped. Rice noodles! Kwenz had occasionally eaten them, in the Shadowland days: Jilo had sometimes slipped in and finished the old prince’s bowl if he wandered off, forgetting the meal he’d been eating. They had been delicious.
And they were absolutely forbidden to the ordinary Chwahir, again, on pain of death—a death not only for the eater, but for his entire village. Rice, once the great Chwahir staple, now so precious, had been reserved for the upper echelons for at least four centuries, and in this century, reserved for Wan-Edhe and his elite guard only.
Yet here. In Jilo’s hand. Was fragrant rice, beaten with milk into batter, laid out on wooden racks to dry, and then cut into noodles, an act that required secrecy from all involved.
The weight of the village’s trust nearly overwhelmed him, the sharing hollowing him with emotions he had no experience with except that they hurt, and yet it was a sweet anguish.
Jilo didn’t even know how to eat the noodles; he had no eating sticks, which of course had also been forbidden to the people. Spoons only. No one could assassinate with a spoon.
So he tipped his head back and let the warm noodles slide into his mouth. The pungent flavor was unidentifiable, but it tanged on his tongue, shading to sweet, with a lingering hint of sour. Two swallows, and the little portion was gone.
He opened his eyes and discovered the empty bowls being passed and stacked. He relinquished his.
When all bowls were stacked, the people stepped forward, not in their tidy regulation rows of rank, but forming a circle. What’s more, hand moved to hand, linking at elbows, until they stood in two circles, one within the other: females within, males in the greater circle. Aran left Jilo with Kinit, the sister turned brother, whose firm arm interlocked with him on one side, and old commander Shiam on the other, his arm gnarled as the branch of an apple tree.
Jilo scarcely had time to take his place, with these people pressed up against him on either side—strictly forbidden—when the first sounds reached his ears: a soughing, that reminded him of the sea that he had sometimes visited from the Shadowland, half a morning’s ride.
Hiss, rush. The people breathed in unison. In benison. Jilo’s heart beat in rhythm, his breath sibilated, in, beat, beat, out, thrum, thrum. A little giddy, he let his eyelids fall, and faint as a distant bird’s cry far over the water came a high-voiced “Ah-h-h-h.”
Thrum, thrum, a low rumble, “Ho-o-o-o-h-h-h-m.”
The two voices splashed through the rhythmic tide of hiss, hiss, hrum, thrum, gradually subsiding into harmonic resonance, and cold showered through Jilo’s nerves when the truth struck him. They were humming.
Absolutely forbidden! On pain of death!
A new high voice: “Chika-chee, chika-chee, Tsa-tsa-tsa,” the mating cry of the marsh river’s bird.
New voices joined, “Hoo-wee, hoo-wit!”
“Caw, caw, caw!”
“Orble-roo, orble-roo!”
On Jilo’s right, Commander Shiam uttered a subsonic rumble that Jilo felt more than heard, an abyssal fremitus resounding steadfast as mountains, “Hrummmmhrumhrummm . . .”
Here the rhythmic popping noises, made by lips and tongue, the snap of beans and greens, there the chuckle of boiling liquid, sung on a note that blended into the chord that now sustained itself through at least six voices, three male and three female.
“Korroo, korroo,” the cry of the rooster.
“Sssssa, ssssa,” a winding snake.
Hrumm, thrummm, bound together by the low, eternal rhythm of the sea, the glorious music encompassed the comforting sounds of life and the shared cadences of work: the clop of horse hooves, the keen of the saw, the chink of stone, each voice adding to the rhythm until all found a place in the syntonic chord, a sound that reverberated through his bones, drenching his being with the blessedness of tears.
How Wan-Edhe would hate this flouting of his decrees, the evidence that there was more to life than fighting, and feeding warriors so they could fight! Jilo found himself sustained by the will of the people, unspoken evidence that the Chwahir did not exist to serve Wan-Edhe’s will, though he had exerted his vast power to that end.
And they were trusting him enough to count him in the circle.
Trust. How simple a thing. How powerful, when one trusts eight, and each of the eight reaches out to another twi, which becomes sixty-four, and sixty-four becomes four thousand . . .
Jilo’s fragile cage of bone and flesh could not contain the intensity of his joy and wonder—and of sorrow, for all they had lost.
Sobs welled up, shuddering against his ribs, and would have sent him running, but those arms held him tight, the sound swelling in glory and pain and brightness and darkness, drowning his own voice with the birth of a new emotion, as yet unrecognized. But it was there.
He got his ragged breath under control, though he couldn’t see for the burn of unaccustomed tears, as around him and through his body flowed the Great Hum of the Chwahir, which had never gone silent at all. One by one the voices ceased, except for the rhythmic breathing, and the moment, precious as life, flowered into memory.
PART THREE
The Alliance Meets
Chapter One
Winter, 4742 AF
Unnamed bay east of Norsunder Base
THE alliance had a name, and a communications center, but as yet it had never met in a body.
It was going to take the advent of war to achieve that, as we shall see presently.
Right now, everyone was busy thinking of home defense, except for Rel, who sat alone on a wintry palisade overlooking the green-gray ocean, watching for Norsundrians.
* * *
—
On his fourteenth early-morning sweep of the horizon, Rel was surprised to discover his first sign of Norsundrians coming from the land, and not the sea.
He’d expected to see the transport ships arrive first, but wariness had forced him to survey in all directions as soon as he opened the flap of his tent.
So though he was surprised, he was not caught by surprise.
Obedient to his promise to Tsauderei, at the first sight of movement cresting the far ridge that stitched the gray, rocky landscape to the equally gray low sky, Rel crawled all the way out of the tent the old mage had given him, and said the words he’d been taught.
The tent’s interior had been chilly but livable. The cold struck hard when the tent vanished. Rel hunched into Tsauderei’s magnificent yeath-hair coat, yeath hair being extraordinarily hard to glean high in the mountains, the hair scraped off by the animals onto brambles and rough rocks each spring.
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