Atan spoke quickly. “I only met Liere once. She didn’t seem undisciplined to me. A little odd, and ignorant, but she was aware of that. She made mention of a lot of reading.”
Hibern let out a slow breath of relief as Erai-Yanya said sardonically, “Do you want to lecture a child who can read your innermost thoughts on what you perceive to be her duty?”
Veltos recoiled, then shook her head.
“Exactly,” Erai-Yanya said, more cordially. “The fact is, no one quite understands what goes on in her mind. In the meantime my son has done everything possible to make her welcome in Bereth Ferian. As for her friendship with Senrid of Marloven Hess, my understanding is that he was very close to a female younger cousin until she left to study music, and Liere is used to older brothers. She’s a sister substitute, he’s a brother. No doubt, like all youth, they will grow apart.”
Veltos’s brows contracted, her gaze downward lest the others somehow see the pain she couldn’t quite control, or hear the whispers from her youth about the future King of Sartor, Prince Connar Landis falls out of love as fast as he falls in it.
He certainly hadn’t fallen out of love with Diantas Dei. And Veltos had never lost her painful, hopeless love for him, even when he was a middle-aged king with thinning hair, a large family, and a war he did not know how to fight. Every time she looked into Atan’s face, she had to stop herself from trying to find traces of her father there.
Veltos said to the countryside, “Children need to be learning discipline. They need good examples to emulate. Especially someone with her gifts. Liere’s parents relinquished authority, then?”
“If you had met her father, you would understand why no one wished to send the child back to him. In any case, he did not really want her, for the same reason neither one of the schools has tried to take over her instruction.” Erai-Yanya tapped her forehead. “Everyone agrees that, pending Lilith the Guardian coming forth from beyond time and directing us, Liere needs to learn to control her gifts before undertaking formal training. And none of us can teach her to do that.”
Veltos bowed again.
“Then there’s my own worry, one I expressed to Hibern today, after not having seen Liere for months. She looks ill, though she insists she’s fine. Given no other discernable cause, I wonder if the dyr poisoned her somehow. Do you really want me bringing that thing out again? Especially if we’re expecting a Norsunder attack? How long do you think that child would escape their hands this time? There is certainly no chance they would be surprised again.”
Veltos sighed. “They’ll probably be after her anyway.”
“Bringing us to our meeting now,” Tsauderei said. “And the sooner I get my old bones out of this cold, the better. Hibern, tell them your idea.”
Hibern said, “It’s not a great solution, but if nothing better comes along, well, you’ve got this weird forest here, that the record books say distorts time.”
“Shendoral,” Atan, Veltos, and Tsauderei said at the same time.
Erai-Yanya said suavely, “I believe that’s the one in which inexplicable things happen if you’re within its border.”
Tsauderei said, “Correct. If you commit violence, that violence recoils upon you. It is quite real.”
“Time is not trustworthy in Shendoral,” Chief Veltos said. “Or direction. But what has this to do with this meeting?”
Tsauderei smiled Hibern’s way, but smoothed his face as he said to Veltos, “It has to do with our proposed plan, which is to set up careful illusions that will lead Norsunder’s warriors into Shendoral.”
“Illusions?” Veltos exclaimed. “Those are so easy to dispel.”
“Only if you know they’re there,” said Hibern.
Veltos frowned. “But surely Norsunder will send along mages to perform tracers.”
“And they’ll sense all these wards meant to deflect, or to swallow, their magic. Illusions are so easy, so deceptive if they’re placed right. If they aren’t expected, they can be quite effective.” Tsauderei grinned. “Hibern, time to demonstrate.”
Hibern walked with self-conscious care over the slippery ground toward the extreme edge of the ridge. She slipped off her mitten, pulled from her pocket the handful of carefully preserved seed-halves and rocks, held them on her open palm, and whispered the transport spell over and over as the objects vanished one by one to meet their other halves. As the others watched, the landscape below transformed itself in subtle ways. Illusion can be done by design, like drawing from memory, but it is most convincing when images are made of existing things combined so that the effect is not mirror image.
The mages looked down at new hills, ridges, and thick copses of trees that hid the road, creating a new road over flat areas.
Atan exclaimed, “Oh, Hibern, that’s wonderful!”
“This is just the bit we can see from here. I don’t know your countryside all that well, and I only had a few days. As you can see, my false road gently divides off from the real road by connecting to existing paths. So, the invading army will think they are on the road to Eidervaen, but if they follow the illusory road, they’ll find themselves in Shendoral.”
“Excellent job,” Tsauderei said with a glance Veltos’s way.
“The spells would have to be renewed frequently, as they wear off so fast,” Veltos said doubtfully.
“Which is easy enough. Of course you marked your locations on a mage’s map?” Erai-Yanya said briskly.
“Right here,” Hibern said, withdrawing the scroll from inside her coat, with its carefully measured lines, its exact ratio of fingerbreadths to paces, and the magic symbols for her spells at the proper locations.
“You could put your students to that,” Tsauderei said to Chief Veltos. “Do the same from the Luyos River. You can even get the magic to last longer by binding it to the moving water of the rivers without the least harm.”
“What did you do, precisely?” Veltos asked, peering out over the countryside.
“Create what looks like impassable objects at road crossings, to direct them along the roads you wish. Mask landmarks,” Hibern said. “And recreate illusions of famous landmarks where they ought to lie on their maps. Their maps are going to be wrong anyway, as so much repair has been going on.” She was quoting Senrid directly.
“It’s wonderful,” Atan said firmly, and asserted herself again. “I intend to bring this idea before the high council, and then the circles. I trust you will support it, Chief Veltos.”
Veltos looked at Atan’s long face, but she wasn’t seeing the teenage girl. She was thrown back in memory, hearing Connar’s warm, husky voice as he bent over his daughter in her cradle, whispering, “I suppose we ought to name her Yustnesveas, which will satisfy several and insult none, but to me, she will be Atanrael . . . Atanael . . . Atanelen . . . what do you think, Dian?”
“Atan,” said Diantas Dei, who had legally given up her family name to marry a king. “She is too small for more.”
“Ah, love, as always you are right.” And he’d straightened up to kiss her . . .
Veltos had to physically turn away from the memory. He was gone. Now a century in the past. And at least all those Deis were gone, too, except for that poor mad child Julian.
She bowed. “I shall, your majesty.”
“Then we’re done here,” Tsauderei said. “Back to defrost my old bones at my fireside.”
Atan watched as Chief Veltos and Erai-Yanya walked toward the edge of the cliff, speaking in low-voiced conversation.
Atan said equally low-voiced to Hibern, “This is the first time I’ve told them what I want to do, rather than them telling me what I ought to do. You did a brilliant job. Thank you!” Then she raised her voice. “Chief Veltos, Tsauderei. You’re shivering. You have to be cold. Please return to warmth.”
Hibern knew a hint when she heard it. “Erai-Yanya?”
Ata
n smiled at Hibern, and as the elders vanished, Atan transferred to Miraleste, capital of Sarendan.
* * *
—
Atan had been corresponding with Peitar and Lilah long enough to know not only the time difference, but Peitar’s schedule. So much less ritual in Sarendan!
Peitar and Lilah sat at their midday meal, each with a book propped before them. Atan’s heart gladdened at the genuine welcome in the two faces, so unalike: Peitar slender, his dark hair waving back from a high brow, Lilah short and square, freckled and slant-eyed, like so many people in both Sartor and Sarendan.
“Atan!” Lilah leaped up. “Want some lunch?”
“I’ve only a short time before I’m expected back. Am I keeping you?” She looked around, hoping Derek was not nearby. “If you’re expecting anyone . . .”
“Aunt Tislah went home in a huff, as she always does after trying to matchmake for Peitar,” Lilah said with a grin. “Bren is traveling with Innon, and Derek is at Obrin.”
“Obrin? Is that not where the Sarendan army training takes place?” Atan said in surprise.
“Derek has become quite popular with the remnant of my uncle’s army, at least at Obrin.” Peitar’s smile faded into pensiveness.
Lilah put her spoon down. “I went with him to train the summer before last,” she said proudly. “They didn’t much like him, at first, on account of our civil war. But Derek said we should go to the back row, with all the age tens, and work our way up. That was kind of fun, especially when he made jokes, and told stories in the dorm at night. By the end of that summer, I made it to scout trainee, and Derek got promoted to leader of a foot patrol. Then we returned to Miraleste, and he taught the orphans things we learned. He went back last spring, but I didn’t, because I was visiting up in the Valley.”
Atan’s attention was on Peitar. He listened to his sister with a thoughtful air. Atan knew how much Peitar cherished this friend of his, and how distrustful he was of war preparations, so when Lilah finished, and no one had anything to add about Derek, Atan used the rest of her time to describe how Chief Mage Veltos had reacted to Hibern’s demonstration.
At the end, Lilah clapped her hands, and Peitar gave his rare, thoughtful smile. “If Chief Veltos was impressed, then I have more confidence about the illusions I placed around Diannah Wood. I could only get away for a day or two, and then there’s the fact that Diannah Wood is not as strange, and as inhospitable to enemies, as Shendoral is reputed to be. But it’s a great idea. And if Chief Veltos agreed, well, we can hope the illusions will at least discourage the enemy.”
“I know Tsauderei will be giving you his impressions of Hibern’s demonstration, but I wanted to tell you first,” Atan said.
Actually, she wanted what she’d seen: the genuine glow of friendship in both their faces. They would have accepted Atan the Mage as happily as they accepted Atan, Queen of Sartor. Sometimes she needed that reminder.
* * *
—
Veltos arrived back in her quarters, her head pounding. She tried to walk off her irritation at having found that Marloven girl there, after all the work the high council had done getting rid of her. It was clear that the young queen was corresponding on her own, in spite of all the thought and care dedicated to surrounding her with the very best tutors the kingdom afforded.
Well, if her mages liked the illusionary diversion plan, at least they could dismantle everything the Marloven had done on the southern border, and make their own.
When Veltos had her temper under control, she summoned her mages to report. As she expected, they hailed the illusion plan with cautious enthusiasm, and added a lot of froth about how wonderful it was that their queen, young as she was, showed signs of becoming a fine Sartoran monarch. Veltos endured it in smiling silence.
Over the next few days, she took volunteer mage students to the border. As the young will when inspired, they set to the task with almost frightening alacrity.
And so she was able to return to her normal rounds of duty and study, keeping her thoughts to herself until her brother, a scribe, came to visit her, as he did every week or two. He felt for his older sister, who had lost more than people realized, during the war.
But even so, a short way into their discussion, he exclaimed, “Veltos, remember how much we hated being twitted by our elders? I don’t agree that these young folks coming south from other lands have no manners or wits. They’re simply different from our day.”
Veltos said, “Come here to the window. Look down there. No, that way, at the end of the street. Do you see what’s going on there?”
Her brother obliged her, his graying hair brushing his shoulders as he leaned in the thick stone window to peer out. “Someone seems to be getting rid of their furniture, as far as I can tell.”
“No.” Veltos gripped her elbows. “What you see is a man—a young man, though he’s from our day—losing his home. Not just his home, which has been in his family for a very long time, he is losing everything.”
“What happened?”
“What else? A hundred years ago, when the word went out that Norsunder had crossed the border in force, he sent his young wife with everything they had to her family somewhere up north, including the house-deed, which he’d made over in her name as a measure of safety. Then he did his duty as he saw it, joining the king to mount the defense. He being an artisan, not a warrior, he was wounded almost at once, and left for dead. He was still wounded when we came out of the spell. When he recovered, he wrote first thing to that family in the north, who, it turned out, no longer lived there. His wife had remarried, thinking him dead with the rest of us, and all his holdings had been passed down through her second family. With those holdings had been the deed to this house. They own it. He doesn’t.”
Her brother grimaced. He’d thought the busy scene at the end of the street was an everyday occurrence, the sort of thing you could see anywhere at any time. But now the steady stream of workers carrying furnishings out took on a new meaning. “That’s horrible. There must be something that can be done.”
“The family wishes to bring business, which this country sorely needs, and so two guilds backed the family. His guild offers him a room among the old folks, but as his wound prevents him from doing fine silverwork anymore . . .” She gave a sharp shrug. Her mouth twisted bitterly. “There are those who consider the family generous, as they have given the old furniture they least want to the man. It means nothing to them, of course. Even most of the family relics in the room of honor are also cast aside, except someone told me that they’ll keep the most prestigious of them, because after all, where can the man put them in his single room? In so many ways, brother, that man represents Sartor.”
Her brother patted her shoulder. “He is relatively young, and he has his training. He’ll find a place in the world. As will Sartor.”
“I told myself that,” Veltos retorted, “until Tsauderei came to us with the news that we’re facing another war.”
Chapter Three
Marloven Hess
ONCE Hibern and Erai-Yanya had spent a day catching up on Hibern’s studies, Hibern transferred to Marloven Hess to keep her promise about reporting on the success of the Sartor border illusions idea.
Senrid wasn’t in his study, or in the public rooms. Hibern walked to Keriam’s tower, and as always, the moment he saw her, he waved off the cluster of gray-coated boys with which he always seemed to be surrounded.
She asked, “Where’s Senrid?”
Keriam pointed a sheaf of papers at the window.
Hibern had already glanced out Senrid’s study windows at the bleak winter sky. From Keriam’s tower she got a different angle over the plain roofs and dull light brown stone of the academy. This time she caught what she’d missed previously, the small figure sitting on the farthest roof out, his shapeless gray blending with the gray of the sky.
She t
urned back to Keriam, her question in her face.
“He’s watching the lance practice,” Keriam said.
“Lance practice? Way out beyond the corrals?”
“Unofficial,” Keriam said.
“What does that mean?” Hibern asked, trying to hide her exasperation.
“It means that the boys are forbidden to do heavy weapons training unsupervised, but they are not fighting each other, they are rehearsing a demonstration. Working very hard at it,” Keriam added in a reflective tone. “Let’s just say they have something to prove, to themselves as well as to the rest of us. As for Senrid, I suspect he could use the diversion.”
Sure enough, Hibern thought, the explanation didn’t really explain anything other than that there had been trouble among the academy boys. No surprise there! But one thing she did understand: Senrid was fretting.
So she ran down the stairs, bent into the bitter wind, and made her way along the barren stone walls. The air smelled of snow. Senrid perched on the roofpole with his knees drawn up under his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs. He looked over, his face nearly invisible between his scarf and his knit hat, except for a plum-red nose and a pair of narrowed eyes. “Did they go for it?”
“Yes. But Atan and I agreed to leave you out of it. The Sartoran mages think it was my idea, and even then, Chief Veltos eyed me like I’d farted in their Star Chamber. Erai-Yanya reminded me about five times that she does belong to the last century.”
“Which means she was probably around at the same time as my unlamented great-grandfather Senrid.”
They considered the songs and stories about the bloody warfare during that reign, Marloven against Marloven, as the Hesean plains jarls and those of the northern reaches led by the Olavair family tried to conquer one another. That particular Senrid-Harvaldar had led a campaign of such destruction that the squabbling northerners had united long enough to fight him to a standstill, forcing him to a treaty.
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