Northlight

by Wheeler, Deborah

  Over the years, the Starhall had shifted in Terricel’s imagination from an implacable enemy to a tool against which he honed his will. He’d learned to sit absolutely still through the long meetings, not a muscle quivering. Learned to keep his breathing slow and deep, his hands steady, his eyes unflinching as he followed the debate. It became a matter of pride that he let nothing show of what he truly felt.

  o0o

  Pateros entered the central chamber first, followed by the Inner Council and their various assistants. Green silk robes rustled as they took their places around the oval table. Last to enter was the gaea-priest. The tree and sunburst charms on his breast clinked gently with each step. Above his lined face, cheeks sunk almost to the bone, his head was smoothly shaved. His eyes bore a glazed expression, as if he hadn’t quite emerged from his morning meditations. Carefully he set the ritual silver bowl and planter on the table. The bowl was filled with water. He dipped his fingers into the water and touched his lips, then dipped again and sprinkled the drops over the miniature tree.

  “In the name of all oneness,

  Which we pledge to preserve

  In thought and deed.

  May the cycle of life

  Bless these proceedings.”

  He placed the tree in the center of the table and passed the bowl to Pateros.

  Pateros dipped into the water with his tapering, big-knuckled fingers. With his silvery-gold hair and strong-boned features, he had not aged visibly since Terricel was a boy. Like most Laurean men, he used a beard suppressant that kept his face smooth for months at a time. He wore a single ring, a river-opal set in silver. The gemstone, wet, shone as if it had been set afire. As he stooped to reach the planter, his hair fell forward across his eyes. He brushed it back absently as he handed the bowl to Esmelda, who stood in her usual place at his right side. When his eyes met Terricel’s, they crinkled in a fleeting smile.

  When the bowl had passed around the circle, the gaea-priest received it again and indicated the dedication had been properly performed. With sighs and scrapings of chair legs, the members of the Council sat down in their padded armchairs. The aides and adjutants, Terricel included, settled into their seats behind their principals.

  “It’s good to see you again, Markus. I trust your retreat was restful,” said Pateros, nodding to the gaea-priest. His hazel eyes flickered across the table. “Hobart, what’s happening with the Cathyne tariff debate?”

  The Senate presidio drew in his breath, his shoulders hunching under the brocaded yoke of his robe. His rank medallion, an ornate disc of copper and gold, glittered in the bright light. Terricel had heard rumors that he was scheming to get his daughter married to Pateros, who did not yet have an heir, which had recently become a cause for some uneasiness.

  Terricel bent over his note pad, transcribing the discussion for Esmelda’s records. His pen skimmed the paper in line after line of his precise cursive script, each letter sloping at exactly the same angle as its neighbor, each descender brief and unflourished. The rhythmic movement helped steady him, pushing back the enveloping presence of the Starhall from his consciousness.

  Hobart made a small, almost apologetic gesture. “It’s hard to say at this point. The Traders Guild wants one thing, the city fathers another. And of course Redding and the other river towns have got their own interests. If the traders win too many concessions here, they’ll start aiming for other ports.”

  “What you’re saying,” Pateros observed dryly, “is that the problem’s bogged down in the usual endless debate and whatever gets decided — if anything — will be some hopelessly inept compromise.”

  He leaned forward and tapped the table in front of him. “I’ve had enough of every port city skimming whatever it can. No wonder our traders won’t go farther north than Brassaford — their profits are eaten up tenfold by the time they get back to Cathyne!”

  With reduced tariffs, Terricel thought, they’ll search out new markets, new sources of goods. He sat up straighter, his attention sharpening. This was not going to be an ordinary meeting, not if Pateros were talking about shifting the balance of power in Laurea.

  Esmelda leaned forward, her eyes flashing. “You’re talking about establishing trade with the north, aren’t you?”

  “You always were a half-step ahead of me, Esme,” Pateros answered.

  Not just the balance of power in Laurea — maybe all of Harth! He scribbled madly.

  General Montborne shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it. Not with hostilities smoldering there.”

  “These aren’t civilized people,” said Karlen, the Senior Court judge. “They don’t think the way we do. Any overture we make, official or not, they’ll interpret as weakness and attack again.”

  “The northers aren’t going to disappear, no matter how many times we beat them back,” Pateros said somberly. “Not so long as we have what they want. We have to create an alternative to fighting for it.”

  Esmelda rubbed her ring, frowning. Terricel noticed the characteristic gesture and felt her thoughts racing ahead of Pateros’s words. “The norther culture is marginal at best,” she said in a deceptively mild voice. “The pressures of accumulating furs or elk skins or whatever they have that we might want could easily lead to over-harvesting or disrupt wildlife migration patterns. Not to mention the effects of putting a string of trading posts up there. We’ll have to be careful.”

  “I don’t see what any of this has to do with coddling the traders,” said Andre, the elderly representative of Laureal City. “Squeezing the port cities won’t make the northers any less dangerous. If anything, it’ll weaken our own economy. We need those tariffs.”

  “I don’t intend to cut you off,” Pateros replied. “What I want is an incentive for our traders to take the risk of opening up the north. I intend to levy a single tariff — a fair one — for goods shipped anywhere along the great rivers.”

  The Senate won’t like that, Terricel thought. Hobart, across the table, frowned and shook his head.

  “I know cities will be unhappy and you,” Pateros nodded to Montborne, “are justifiably wary about the defense aspects. That’s why I’ve brought up the matter privately. I need you to chew it over, tell me all the reasons it won’t work. And then help me find the way it will work.”

  Montborne traced a design in the wood grain of the table, his usually smooth forehead creasing. “Are we talking about military escorts for traders, increased border patrols, what?”

  “It’s your business to tell me what we’ll need,” said Pateros. “Even with our Rangers, we’re no better than a sieve up there right now.”

  “If I had more men, or weapons...” Montborne leaned back in his chair with a cryptic expression. “But we’ve been all through that, haven’t we?”

  “We have,” replied the gaea-priest, “and you have had your answer — the Law forbids it. Would you have us go the way of the Ahtom and rain destruction on all Harth?”

  “What would you do, lie down and let the northers run right over us when a simple invention could make the difference?” snapped Montborne.

  Terricel’s spine stiffened as he caught the shift in tension. Montborne was making no effort to disguise his anger at Markus, but there was something else there, too, something hidden. Terricel glanced at Pateros and noticed his flash of awareness.

  Markus had jumped to his feet, gesturing wildly. “There are no simple inventions, there is only the blindness that leads the simple-minded to extinction! The Ecologs tell us so, which is why this priesthood exists in the first place and why we have the ultimate decision over any new technology. It is our divine responsibility to ensure than no simple invention destroys our entire world!”

  “And it’s mine to make sure we’re around to debate the issue!”

  Pateros silenced both of them with a single raised finger. Terricel heard the quiet power of his voice and marked how smoothly the Council came under his command. “If we let our own fear of the northers force us into a military st
ate,” Pateros said, “then we will be living under their yoke just as surely as if they had burned the Starhall to the ground.”

  The gaea-priest lowered himself into his chair, his face still flushed. Montborne looked away, as if accepting the rebuke.

  Pateros signaled the end of the discussion by charging the Councillors once again with finding the innovative solutions that would make his plan succeed. This time there were no objections. The rest of the meeting was filled with ordinary business, yet a sense of unresolved tension hung behind every word.

  o0o

  Terricel stepped into the flat light of the plaza, sandwiched between his mother and one of Montborne’s aides. The morning breeze turned the beaded sweat on his face slick and cold. He took a deep breath. The knots in his shoulders eased as the burning-ice pain in his belly faded. The pavement beneath his boots felt comfortingly solid.

  Voices reached his ears. “Why else could I speak so frankly to you?” Pateros was saying to Montborne. “I’m as sure of your devotion to Laurea as I am my own, on some days even surer...” Esmelda murmured to Cherida, the head medician, something about changing a theater date, and Hobart tried to get Pateros to accept a dinner invitation.

  One of the other adjutants said a few friendly words and Terricel nodded back. They’d been friends as junior students, having both lost fathers during the epidemic when they were still babies.

  Pateros finished declining Hobart’s attempts to induce him to play honored guest to his daughter’s hostess. He moved into the little crowd that had gathered, as one always did whenever he appeared in public. Esmelda once remarked to Terricel that this wasn’t always the case, only in the last five years, since the Brassa War. Whenever she herself was recognized by visitors from outside the city, it was all, “The Esmelda, still alive?” Now she angled away from the crowd, as sour-faced as if some poor fool had tried, once again, to kiss her hand.

  Montborne matched his stride to Esmelda’s, the officer who served as his bodyguard only a pace behind. “We didn’t have time to discuss the youth situation, but — ”

  “There’s no point in wasting your breath.” Esmelda folded her arms across her chest. “We don’t need another military division, whether you call it the Youth Corps or the Brainless Battalion. What’s wrong with this country is not the inability to follow orders.”

  “I agree absolutely,” Montborne said smoothly. “That’s why I need your counsel. During your time as Senate presidio, you led Laurea in a bold new direction — ”

  “I led Laurea in the only direction possible for her survival.”

  Terricel, trailing behind them and only half listening, arched his back and took another deep breath. He glanced across the plaza, toward the University complex hidden beyond the Senate Building. With any luck, he’d be able to slip away before lunch and get in a solid afternoon’s work on his dissertation proposal. He still had a few references to check and his written summary to polish. All he needed now was a little more time.

  And yet, Terricel thought as he turned his face to the gentle breeze, it would be a shame to waste such a day indoors. The sun was high enough to burn off the night’s chill, the sky clear and blue. Somewhere along the western coast, waves thundered against jagged rocks. He could see them in his mind, could almost taste the salty foam and feel the shards of deep-sea shells beneath his bare toes. If he sent his imagination soaring in the other direction, out toward the eastern steppe, he could hear the alkali winds wailing around the nomads’ felt and wicker jorts. Ghameli, their pack-saddles safely stowed, lowered themselves to the bare rock and prepared to wait out the storm. Within the shelters, he breathed the dense, pungent smoke of sandalwood and ghostweed. Deep inside of him, something hard and twisted, like a plant struggling in the darkness, now began to open, reaching hungry tendrils to the sun.

  Terricel’s gaze lingered for a moment on the steps of the military building. A woman Ranger stood there. He recognized the pocketed leather vest, the emblem bright on one shoulder. His heart beat faster. But no, the Ranger’s hair wasn’t black like his sister’s, it was dark red, like bloody copper.

  In the center of the crowd, a heavy-set man in laborer’s overalls began shouting something about the Cathyne tariffs. The two City Guards elbowed their way toward him, placing themselves between him and Pateros. “This is no place for petitions,” said one. “Take it to your Senator!” The other drew out his baton, ready to seize the man.

  “The man has a grievance, even if this is not the proper time for it,” Pateros said gently. “I won’t have him hauled off like a common criminal for speaking, as is his right.”

  The Ranger was no longer standing on the steps but yelling something unintelligible, sprinting toward the crowd. Terricel’s stomach, which had almost regained its equilibrium, twisted suddenly.

  What the hell is going on?

  The shouting man sounded more belligerent than ever. Around him, the crowd muttered and surged. The Ranger was nearer now, her face contorted with effort, her legs pumping fast and hard. Behind him, his mother and the general were still talking, now on some more neutral subject.

  “Esme — ” Terricel began.

  But it was Montborne who spun around first. His eyes followed where Terricel pointed, flickered over the Ranger, the crowd, Pateros. The next moment, he darted toward Pateros, shouting to his aides. His bodyguard whipped out his knife and rushed after him.

  The milling bodies parted in front of Terricel for an instant and he saw a man, all in blue and lean as a norther wolf, standing beside Pateros. Pateros nodded to him and stooped over a little, as if to listen better. Terricel could almost see the familiar expression of concern on Pateros’s face, the light in his green-gold eyes, his ready smile.

  The next few moments came to Terricel in fragments — a swirl of green silk — the man in blue sprinting away — Pateros falling back into Montborne’s arms — someone screaming.

  Terricel’s legs, after having carried him to Pateros’s side, folded suddenly under him. The gritty pavement burned his knees. At first all he could see was the blood on Pateros’s green robes and the hazel eyes open so wide that they seemed to take in the entire sky at once. The irises had turned green, all the gold drained from them.

  Cherida bent over Pateros, beginning resuscitation. Her hair was coiled on the back of her neck and the muscles stood out like twin ropes of steel.

  “What good will that do now?” came a whisper at Terricel’s side, a woman’s voice.

  The Ranger knelt beside him, breathing hard, her lips drawn back from slightly uneven teeth. Ragged chestnut curls framed her face. For a moment her eyes held his, pale translucent amber. He’d never seen human eyes that color before.

  He wanted to grab her and ask how she’d known what was going to happen. She must have known, the way she came charging across the plaza.

  The Ranger spiraled to her feet, taut and graceful and looking fit enough to fight off half of Laurea. A moment later, more City Guards arrived and herded all the bystanders to one side. People muttered as they crowded together, a few sobbing, others praying aloud with the gaea-priest.

  Terricel broke into a cold sweat. His hands started shaking. Someone shoved an elbow into his side and he gasped in a lungful of cheap floral scent, sweat and stale garlic.

  He stepped back, almost stumbling over Esmelda’s feet. In the horror and confusion, he’d lost sight of her, yet there she was, right behind him. Steady, unwavering and always in the center of things.

  She might have been stone except for the movement of her breathing. Her eyes, dry as a lizard’s, focused inward, on something no one else could see. He wondered if she were remembering other times — the Brassa War, perhaps, or the epidemic when she’d taken over as Senate presidio, her husband dead and she alone with two young children, one of them, himself, a mere baby.

  Esmelda grasped Terricel’s shoulder with one hand. He opened his mouth but his throat had gone dry, his voice paralyzed. No words came. Her fingers, t
hin and hard, dug into his flesh.

  “Right now, we’re all in shock,” she said. “It’s a natural reaction and will pass. We have work to do, meanwhile, so get your brains uncorked. Orelia will hold these people for questioning, but she’ll release us as soon as she can.” She put a slight emphasis on we.

  “Work?” Terricel stared at her. Pateros had been her friend as well as her political ally.

  “We must begin setting up the electoral college immediately,” she said.

  He frowned as he searched his memory for details of succession that he’d studied only because the civics course was compulsory. He couldn’t remember how a non-dynastic Guardian was elected, except the process was complicated. The Senate, however, could appoint an emergency pro tem.

  The Senate, he thought grimly, couldn’t appoint a dish washer without written instructions.

  Esmelda released Terricel’s arm. “There are forces at work here that even I can’t see,” she said, then went on in a tight, bleak voice. “I suspect that today’s horrible business is only the beginning.”

  Chapter 5

  Terricel held himself very still under the covers, hardly daring to breathe, lest the movement catapult him into full waking. The slats of sunlight that penetrated the shutters hadn’t reached his eyelids yet. He still had a little more time. On most mornings, he clambered out of bed as soon as he woke, no matter where the sunlight touched his pillow. Today he lingered, waiting for that half-magical moment when time assumed a strangely liquid substance and its ripples could carry him in any direction he wished.

  The Ranger woman yesterday had stirred up memories of the night his sister left for good. He’d lain in this very bed, a boy of nine, in this same almost-dreaming state, staring up at the walls that were not yet the dark, depressing blue as they were today, but eggshell color, like all the rest — his mother’s choice. He always wondered why she’d let him choose his own color.

  On that day, he’d waited for the house to grow quiet after the visitors left, the ones from faraway places with exotic names, the ones he must never, never interrupt.