The Poet King

by Ilana C. Myer

  What might have been different if they’d encountered each other then, in the depths of the library? Would they have found a kind of friendship, even before Manaia?

  But no—Julien had been like a ghost to the other students. A girl, and soundless, and not much to look at. And Dorn had other things on his mind.

  She never mentioned Etherell Lyr. She knew better than to do that. Not because she feared Dorn’s bursts of anger, though she did, a little. But because she remembered how he sounded during the conversation she had overheard between the two men. She thought pain was the last thing in the world Dorn Arrin deserved.

  Silly, silly girl.

  Today they had decided to devote their research to Poet Kings. She wished Archmaster Hendin were there to guide them. His gentle, watchful presence in the library, though near-invisible, had been more essential than she had known, she realized they tried their hand at this task alone.

  “They say,” Dorn murmured, pushing the hair from his eyes, “that Darien Aldemoor and the Court Poet used this library. Something they found helped them to the Path.”

  He had told her of his dream of Lin Amaristoth. How she’d warned them away. He hadn’t had a chance, in the dream, to tell the Court Poet that they couldn’t leave. Today the waves danced so tall and white as to make a shifting wall of water. All the day it had rained, even as the sun broke through at intervals. Sheets of water from the sky above turbulent waves and a wind that could knock you down.

  “It was Valanir Ocune who guided them, that time,” said Julien. She knew the story, in a more profound way now than she had before Valanir Ocune had given her his mark. She could see it in her mind’s eye—that box buried in the roots of the oak—as if she had hidden it there herself.

  They sat across from one another in one of the carrels. Before them an array of scrolls, age-crisped and faded. So far they had found only one reference to a real Poet King—a man who had lived, not a myth. Or so it appeared, anyway. A reference tucked within another, to an occurrence so far in the past that little beyond its existence was known.

  “If only we had the manuscript Elissan Diar had,” said Julien. Well she recalled the way he and Sendara had pored over that page, shining with a near-identical radiance. She pulled back from reliving it—that sensation of viewing a dance of light on a far, inaccessible shore.

  “I searched his room,” said Dorn. “It was cleared so thoroughly you’d think he’d never been here.”

  “Sendara’s too?”

  She thought he looked at her curiously before he said, “Yes. Nothing there.”

  * * *

  THEIR candles sank to stubs as the day went by. Words and words and words, crabbed and inconsequential. Dorn put his head in his hands and gave a loud, exasperated yawn that made her laugh.

  They went to the kitchen for cold meat sandwiches and cheese. Owayn was there, about to go check his nets now that the wind had calmed. Dorn volunteered to join him.

  “You’ll be careful,” Julien said anxiously.

  His look was withering.

  She understood. They were living so well because of the elderly couple’s work. The least they could do was help.

  “Take a knife, maybe?” she said.

  “Aye,” said Owayn. “I’ll lend him one of mine.”

  * * *

  FROM the kitchen door she watched them go. She knew Dorn was right, but she hated it. After all the stories. And why did they need fresh fish? There was enough smoked fish, flour, and preserves to last a good while. To say nothing of the vegetables and herbs in the garden.

  But to let the day’s catch rot in the nets was unheard of, at least to Owayn’s thinking, so they went off. Julien sat at the kitchen hearth awhile, chin in hands.

  She thought of Dorn’s dream, how the Court Poet had come to him. To warn them. Yet it felt right that they were here. What would she do back home with her parents—await a marriage? She felt a stab at the thought; she missed her sister. There was no simple way to look at anything, she supposed.

  The flames were hypnotic; for a while she watched them without thinking much at all.

  Flames.

  Julien was crouched beside a fire in the woods at night. How she knew where she was, and felt no fear, she could only wonder. She knew it was a dream.

  Across from her, on the other side of the fire, sat a man. It was not the man who had accompanied her until now—though she could see her horse, tethered to a tree. Golden and awaiting her. This man, too, was golden: of hair and eye, even the tint of his skin. Maybe Dorn Arrin’s age, or a bit older. She was so taken aback, and shy, she could hardly look at him.

  But her harp was there, by the fire. This harp that existed only in her dreams, pure gold. She spoke to it and the ground. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  It was all she could say. She didn’t know the name of the man who had accompanied her until now, on the journey that made her nights a marvel.

  The newcomer’s voice was as unsettling to her as his appearance. It had the quality of simmering coals. “I was told you had questions,” he said. “It was decided we move to this phase. You can ask me anything.”

  This phase.

  She shook her head. “How did you find me?”

  “Not quite that sort of question.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Nonetheless, perhaps it’s as well you should ask. The mark of the Seer summons guides to you in dreams. How else to complete your learning? Your first guide—he is always first, for everyone. He helps to recover what you’ve lost. What we all have, in the beginning. Until the wear and toll of our lives take from us that enchantment.”

  She dared look up. “Then why are you here?” I liked him, she thought, of the old man who had brought her this far. He had reminded her of her grandfather, a little. If her grandfather had been a happy man. Her looks had not mattered, nor that she was a girl. She had felt safe.

  The man said, “You seek answers. About a great conflict in the world. Don’t you?”

  “A conflict here in Eivar, certainly,” she said. “A Poet King with a mind to do us harm.”

  “No,” he said flatly. “That is but a part of the story. But I see you don’t know more.” He stood. His shadow stretched across the circle of firelight, over stones, toward the trees. “Riddle me this, young Seer. Why return our enchantments at all? Why is what Davyd Dreamweaver did considered, in the pillared halls, a sin?”

  In the firelight that reached across his chin and beneath his eyes, the man looked older now, and stern. She ventured up at him, “The world needs the enchantments.”

  “Why?”

  She looked down again. “I don’t know.”

  His arresting voice softened. “Because there are things at work beyond what we see,” he said. “With enchantments, once, we kept the perils of the Otherworld at bay. The world depended on us for that, though how many knew? Perhaps some magicians of other lands, some wizards. In service of that task, we worshiped Kiara; we prayed the White Queen to accept our songs and spare us harm.”

  “Kiara is one of the Three.”

  “Not to poets,” said the man with a secret smile. “Never.”

  * * *

  SHE awoke to something crawling across her field of vision. Her head rested in her arms on the table. Dorn was standing across the table, looking pleased. “We’re back,” he said.

  Julien blinked. Saw the black shell and claws of the creature he’d set on the table. This had come from a bucket Owayn set down for Larantha to inspect. She had gotten out a round-bellied pot. The two warbled a tune together as they worked. The music of habit, days accumulated like a long string of beads, tight-knotted. Love, too, Julien thought. Quiet, habitual, and strong.

  Dorn patted Julien’s shoulder. “Come along, sleepybones, let’s get to it. It’s to be crab stew.”

  * * *

  EVENINGS were her favorite time. After dinner, Dorn was tasked to entertain them as they washed up. He’d taken up Owayn’s fiddle and played a ridiculous son
g about a farmer and an assortment of animals; and it was the rhythm of the thing that mattered, the way it could make drying a pot or scrubbing down the table feel like dancing. And then Owayn took a turn with a song about a maid who had the hearts of all the townsmen on a string, so great was the beauty of her face. And as he sang he began to follow Larantha around the kitchen, as she reddened and shooed him off.

  Later still, the two men smoked pipes, and Julien asked if she could try it. That didn’t last—she thought tabak fumes were nasty, and screwed up her face. The men laughed. She and Larantha played a game of Hide-the-Badger near the fire, an easy flipping of cards that allowed them to take part in the conversation. Owayn told stories of Archmasters who had made fools of themselves, such as one who got himself stuck in a puddle of glue he’d spilled and had to stand there all night until Larantha found him in the storeroom the next morning. “Standing like a statue,” she said, “if any statue could look as angry as that.”

  “And you’ll never guess who it was,” said Owayn with a grin.

  Larantha rounded on him. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Let’s just say,” said Owayn, “that it wasn’t someone with a sense of humor.”

  “But that could be almost any of them,” Julien said, and they had to agree it was true.

  When it grew later yet, Larantha spoke of the poets whose memories she enshrined. Darien Aldemoor had been a favorite, with his merry ways. She had known he was flattering her to get extra food, but he had a way of doing it that made it all right.

  “That boy could break every rule and do it in such a way that you wanted to help him at it,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Marlen Humbreleigh was another matter,” said Owayn. “We knew he was a bad apple.”

  “Don’t say that,” his wife remonstrated. “He was one of my boys. I knew his heart. He was only bad if you thought that of him.”

  In moments like that Dorn and Julien would exchange a look. Both amazed to be speaking, in ordinary terms, of people who had become legends in their lifetime. Darien Aldemoor, Marlen Humbreleigh, all the rest, eating meals from this kitchen as they were now.

  * * *

  THAT night she went up to her room, warm and content. But then the memory of her dream in the kitchen arose. The strangeness of it.

  She put on a nightgown—her favorite of the ones Alisse had made, with mother-of-pearl buttons. The night sky caught her eye. She went to look at the stars, cloudless now, and knew she was awake. Before she had time to think, she was slipping into shoes and going downstairs. When she reached the main level she was tempted by the Hall of Harps. But knew her purpose lay farther beneath. She kept descending until she reached the library. Lighting the taper at its entryway she entered, then lit a lamp.

  Perhaps what they needed wasn’t hidden. Not obscure, but in plain sight.

  Hours later Dorn Arrin found her. He looked pale, perhaps worried to see her there in her white gown like an apparition. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Did you sleep at all?”

  She leaned on her elbows at the table. “Come here.”

  He did, and sat. Sometimes she could do that.

  She ran her hand across one of the books spread before her, the smooth vellum. Finding the page she sought, slid it across to him. “Read this.”

  “A History of the Academy, Volume IV,” he said, checking the binding. “Not what I expected, seeing as you’re still awake.”

  She smiled, but otherwise didn’t react. She watched him read. She was not tired yet, though knew she soon would be. Meanwhile she liked to observe his bent head to the page; the angles of his face she knew well. When he lifted his head, there was a crease of puzzlement in his forehead. “All right. It says the Academy was established in order to—to guard against forces from the Otherworld.”

  “In a time past remembering,” she said. “But see what else it says.”

  “I did. That the boundary to the Otherworld is here, in the seas about this Isle. It’s why they put the Academy here, I suppose.”

  Julien gestured further down the page. “Look,” she said. “It speaks of a battle in the Otherworld. One that never ends. Between a White Queen and a Shadow King.”

  “This king—do you think it’s Elissan Diar?”

  “That, I don’t know,” she said. “But look at this.” On the next page was drawn a shape, two spirals that twined together, made a circle.

  “That’s the shape from the carving in the Hall of Harps.” Their eyes met. Dorn shook his head. “I feel no nearer to understanding this.”

  “The battle—I found more about it in this book,” said Julien, holding up Tales of Academy Isle. “It repeats and repeats, in different forms, from the beginning of time and forever. The first poets were dedicated to keeping it contained in the Otherworld. Otherwise, it could overwhelm the mortal plane and destroy us all.”

  “Then how to stop it?”

  “Something about their true names,” said Julien. “The king and queen. It’s not clear. We won’t find everything in these books.” She thought of telling him about her dreams since they’d come to the Isle; of the Seers who had come to her as guides. The words stuck in her throat. She felt that to speak of it, that secret, would shatter it. She wanted it safe.

  * * *

  “TODAY Owayn and I are checking the nets on the western shore,” said Dorn over breakfast. “Want to come out this time? If the catch is good, we could use another pair of hands.”

  Julien mumbled, her chin perilously near the jam on her plate.

  Dorn laughed. “I didn’t think so. You’ll sleep all day, most likely, then repeat the same folly tonight. I may start calling you Owl.”

  She pouted. It was too much to hope that he’d think of a delicate, perhaps more flattering name for her. But she was too tired for indignation. By the time Julien crawled into bed she thought she’d sleep for a year.

  * * *

  A FLURRY of whispers, of voices. Julien felt as if she were trying to wake, that something required her attention, but the weight of sleep pinned her down. What is it, she murmured. What, what do you want.

  She thought she glimpsed the fire of earlier. Heard the sensuous voice of the golden man. But all from beneath her eyelids; she couldn’t wake. Couldn’t make out words, though from his tone knew it was urgent.

  Danger, she heard him say, and she felt fear. And guilt. It was her fault; if there was danger, she was the only one who could stop it. Being what she was. And instead lay sleeping, useless.

  The flames came into focus. So, too, did the man standing over her. “The boy,” he hissed. “Why did you not tell me? She’ll want him back.”

  “She?”

  “He belongs to her.” A note of sadness amid anger. “The rite of Manaia cannot be unmade.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Wake me,” she said. “Help me.”

  * * *

  SHE was standing in her room, already dressed to go out. It was like Manaia—how well she remembered that.

  The western shore. He belongs to her.

  This time she couldn’t find a way to transport herself as she had that night. Perhaps because she could not calm herself enough to breathe. Perhaps for reasons beyond that. She didn’t know, and there wasn’t time. She ran downstairs and out the door before Larantha saw her. The last thing she wanted was to worry the kindly woman.

  Owayn and Dorn were together. That meant Owayn was in danger, too.

  Julien ran out the front doors of the castle. She ran into the forest and made for the western shore. Desperation was an ice rod up her back. In her mind she reached out to the golden man. To the older man, too—her first guide.

  Help me. Her breath scraped her lungs like a blunt knife. Help. Me.

  Now in the distance she could hear it. Howling. Their screams?

  No, she thought, running toward the sound. No. Those were not human sounds.

  Tears blurred her eyes. Help, she begged. If the older Seer could hear her, he would have c
ompassion. He would, she was sure. And that was her only hope.

  First thing she saw, through the trees, was water. Blue now that the sun was high, sparkling.

  Then a glimpse of white—two faces. Dorn and Owayn stood back-to-back. Their knives upraised. Surrounding them were large white shapes. Shapes that lifted their heads to howl: white wolves, as if answering a call. They circled. Julien saw Dorn say something to Owayn. He wouldn’t know, of course. That he was the target.

  Julien shrieked. With excruciating slowness, calculation, the wolves turned their heads toward her.

  She lifted her arms wide, an uncharacteristic motion, as if something moved through her. Her lips parted before she knew what she would say. The words that came were in a voice she didn’t know, nor a language. Something else spoke through her. She heard herself, and it was as if her voice joined a host of others: the old Seer, the golden Seer, and more. More and more. Back and back through the years.

  A time past remembering.

  And then she was collapsing to earth, her head striking the root of a tree. She lay winded, gasping. Closed her eyes.

  When she opened them, Dorn was kneeling beside her. “Again,” he said, and sounded anguished. “Again you saved me.”

  “They’re gone,” said Owayn, behind him. “Whatever you did, girl—we’ve been lucky.”

  She let herself go limp. Now that the voices had done speaking through her she had no voice of her own. Dorn took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. He looked up at Owayn. “I should have told you. They—whoever they are—mean to have me. I’ve put you all in danger.”

  “Hush,” she said. Finding she could speak. “I don’t care about that. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  His eyes were as sad as she’d ever seen them.

  Owayn said, “It’s about time we went back.” Determined to be stoic. “Larantha will be worried.”

  “I’ll say,” said Dorn. “The two of you—I can’t thank you enough. Nor expect your forgiveness.”