by Carol Berg
“No wonder it took us only three days.”
“We were no threat to you! You didn’t need our land. You took it only because you could, and you killed thousands of innocents in the taking. Must we love you for it?”
“You forget yourself, slave. I’ll not argue history with you. What’s done is done.”
Indeed. Words would change nothing. Passion, desires, grief—none of them mattered. I had to be satisfied with the small graces I had been granted.
I lit a fire in the hearth, then, unable to hold off any longer, I opened the front door a crack and peeked out. The first cottage beyond the guest house would be the Weaver’s home, always outside the forest boundary, always in a place of honor in the open village, standing between the outside world and the rest. Fleeces hung in her window, and battered copper dye pots and wooden drying racks were stacked against the side of the house. A string of metal strips hanging from her eaves made a musical tinkling in the breeze.
The boy and girl had run into the center house of the row nearest the river. It was likely the school. As it was morning, they would be doing lessons there: reading and writing, maps and geography in case they became Searchers, mathematics for discipline and logic, herbary for healing and spellmaking, philosophy for health of mind. The mentoring for those with melydda would take place in forest homes all afternoon and into the evening. For some, that schooling would gradually take more and more time, until by the age of twelve one was immersed in it every minute of every day, practicing, learning, studying, perfecting the skills you would need for whatever role the gods had chosen for you, until you were ready to take your place in the secret war Ezzarians had waged for a thousand years. The demon war.
The third house I could not know, as I saw no one go in or out, but I guessed it was the Record House. There one of the Queen’s record keepers would compile the reports of the Search teams, and families could come to learn if there was any word of those sent into the world to seek out souls possessed by demons.
The investigator would come from the forest. Those with melydda always lived in the forest, to draw strength and power from the forces of nature in a place so rich with life. I could not settle, so I turned back to Aleksander, who was examining a weaving on the wall beside the bed. It depicted a ring of white stone columns set in the midst of a forest, pairs of men and women walking into it, while the moon shone from the heavens.
“The woman who comes will ask you about the enchantment,” I said. “She will examine you—a bit like I do, but with true power behind it—and she’ll see it. Tell her about the Khelid, as completely as you can. Everything they’ve done. How they trapped you with the illusion. How they affected your sleep. How Kastavan seems to be directing the others. And you must be truthful. She’ll know if you lie, but she might not be able to tell what about. You need her trust.”
“I didn’t think it wise to tell them who I am,” said Aleksander defensively. “It complicates everything. I didn’t think it would matter.”
“It doesn’t really matter with regard to the enchantment. The other, about the Khelid and the threat to the Emperor and his heir, is far more serious. It turns around beliefs ... prophecies ... seeings that we have relied upon for hundreds of years. They must believe you, so they’ll take action.”
The Prince stripped off his gloves and threw them to the floor. “This is insufferable. To explain myself as if I’m some thieving clerk trying to get a position at court. I don’t see what a few fugitive magicians can do about this anyway.”
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “I don’t have any idea what they’re capable of anymore. It depends on who survived.” I turned my face back to the cold afternoon air.
“And who was enslaved?”
“That, too.”
“Will you show yourself to them?” he asked, coming to stand beside me at the door, pulling it open a little wider so he, too, could look out upon the village.
“Not if I can help it.”
He was going to ask me about it, but just then a woman walked out of the trees and down the road toward our house. She was bundled in a thick cloak and brightly woven scarf. I abandoned my watch post and retreated to the corner of the room, thinking my stomach might twist itself in a knot when she walked through the open door. She removed her scarf and shook out long dark hair. I didn’t know her. What had I expected? That she would happen to be the single person in the universe I would give my soul to see?
“Greetings of hearth and home to you, Zander of the Derzhi,” said the young woman. “And to you Pytor of ... Your guide did not know your people, sir,” she added, tilting her head to the side, as if trying to see my face beneath my hood. I needed to come up with a good excuse to remain hidden. But I couldn’t at that moment, so I just bowed and sank to the floor in the corner, making sure the dark wool was pulled low over my face.
She was small, slender, and scarcely as tall as my shoulders. Her shining dark hair fell to her waist, pulled back from her face by a green ribbon at the back of her neck. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold air, and her small, serious face radiated intelligence. She was perhaps in her mid-twenties, very young to be investigating a report of a demon enchantment and a feadnach, not to mention the oddity of a Derzhi supplicant. Very few Ezzarians must have survived. But I refused to be sad. I was watching an Ezzarian investigator. My people lived, and still carried on their work. I had grieved for the dead long years ago.
“My servant is not concerned in this matter,” said Aleksander, drawing her uncomfortable attention away from me. “Can we get on with this? I need to speak to someone who can help me, not someone’s daughter who wants to gawk at a Derzhi.” I groaned inside.
“Certainly,” said the young woman, seating herself in the plain wooden armchair beside the hearth. “I would not think of allowing anyone to gawk at our guest. Will you sit here please? I need to ask you a few questions.” She laid her slender hands in her lap, calmly waiting for a disgruntled Aleksander to seat himself in the chair facing her. There were perhaps two paces between them.
“Please tell me why you’ve come here, sir,” she began.
“As I told the man, an enchantment,” said Aleksander, his face an unsettling shade of red. “A curse from a demon Khelid.”
“And how long have you lived with this curse?”
“An eternity.” She sat calmly, waiting. Serious. Serene. “No ... six ... seven ... damn, can it be only seven days?”
“What causes you to believe it is a demon-wrought affliction?”
Aleksander was already out of patience. He jumped from his chair, and I feared he might strike the woman. “Because I am not mad, and I have no other explanation for it. The slave ... I was told it was a demon thing, and I have nothing else to call it.”
“Please sit down, sir. I will hear everything you wish to tell me.” Her face was impassive. She was not judging, not condemning or approving. Only weighing and watching as was her duty. She would listen to him carefully, and only then would she look inside to see if he was what he said. “Now, tell me of your affliction.”
The Prince flopped back into his chair like a sulking child told to sit in the chimney corner, and he told her, though not very thoroughly. He said he was the son of a wealthy man, not mentioning that the man happened to be the Derzhi Emperor. He kept me out of the tale, and did not explain how he had happened to throw the Khelid’s gift into the fire or keep his mind together when he was changed into a beast. The first flicker of surprise from her came when he described his transformation.
“Others have seen you make this change?” she asked, interrupting his narrative.
“Of course others have seen it. I’m not mad. I did not see myself. I only felt it and thought ... But I was myself after it. My servant here has witnessed it.” He continued with the story of his uncle’s murder, and how the Khelid had turned his father against him, and how he was imprisoned until I had brought him a sword so he could make the change on his own terms.
; “This is an extraordinary story, sir, and a matter of grave concern to us as you have surmised. I must now ask your permission to examine you, to view this enchantment that causes you such pain.”
“You can do it? A bit of a girl like you?”
“Quite adequately. Better than most men. And I would guess that I’m several years older than you.”
“Hmmph. Doesn’t seem likely. And I didn’t know you needed permission.” Aleksander grimaced my way. “But go on with it.”
“To do so I will need to know your true name.”
“The whole thing?”
She nodded, wrinkling her brow at the question.
He sighed. “Zander ... Aleksander, that is. Aleksander Jenyazar Ivaneschi zha Denischkar.”
She did not lose her composure, though she very certainly recognized the name. She only widened her eyes a bit and nodded slightly to herself. “That clarifies a great deal.” With no more fuss than this, she passed the back of her hand before her eyes. Her pupils grew so large that I could see them from my corner ten paces away. And I could tell the moment she recognized the feadnach. Hands that rested so serenely on her green skirt stiffened and clasped together, and she leaned forward in her chair. “Who was it told you of the feadnach, sir?” she said with quiet intensity.
“A slave.” Aleksander’s eyes flicked to me again. “A slave boy captured a few weeks ago.”
The young woman lifted her small chin and cocked her head as if listening, then shifted her gaze to me. Quickly I held up my hands between us and cast my eyes down so the hood fell further over my face. “Turn your witch-eye away from me,” I said harshly. “I gave you no leave.”
“My apologies,” she said coolly, turning back to Aleksander and passing her hand before her eyes again. “I was only curious as to your employer’s lies about the boy. I believed you shared the lie, and I forgot myself. But it is of little importance.” The sad undertone to her explanation told otherwise. She would not ask Llyr’s name or whether he yet lived. He was dead to them, whether or not he breathed.
“As for everything else ... you are indeed grievously cursed, sir, and you are all that you have claimed. This news of demons is astonishing and must be brought before our Queen immediately.” The investigator rose from her chair. “I’ll speak with her right away, and also with those who might be able to heal you of this evil.”
“Might be able ...” Aleksander leaped to his feet. “Are you saying you might not be able to cure it?”
“I can promise nothing. We are much diminished ... as you, of all men, must certainly understand. The one who sent you here must have warned you.”
“So it’s because of who I am,” said the Prince bitterly. “You think to avenge things done when I was in the nursery by leaving me with this horror.” He gripped the back of the chair with bloodless knuckles. “I cannot touch a sword. Do you understand what that means? I might as well be dead.”
There was no fear, no hesitation, no apology from her. “We will heal this enchantment if it is possible. We have sworn to do so no matter whether you be prince or beggar, Derzhi or Ezzarian. The guilt you bear for those you have destroyed is yours to deal with as you please.”
“I bear no guilt.”
“Then, you are indeed cursed, and perhaps the light I have seen in you is false. Good morning, gentlemen. I’ll be back with news as soon as I can.” She nodded politely to both of us, threw on her cloak and scarf, and hurried out of the house.
“Insufferable, pious wench. She’s as bad as you!” Aleksander slammed the door after her.
I pulled off my hood only after burying my grin. “Has a woman ever spoken to you so boldly, my lord?”
“Only the cursed witch of Avenkhar.”
“The Lady Lydia?”
“Yes. The dragon duchess herself. They are two of a kind. My sympathy to Ezzarian men if all your women are like those two.” Aleksander rummaged around the pots and bundles on the shelves, finally throwing a small tin pot at me. “Get me some water. I’m in need of something to clear my head after all this skull work.”
I filled the pot from the small drinking cask outside the front door, carefully replacing the lid so nothing would fall in to foul it. Then I hung the pot over the hearth flame and searched for real tea in the guest house stores to boil for myself. “The Lady Lydia saved your life, you know,” I said after a while. “If not for her, you would be on your way to Khelidar with a demon passenger.”
“She what?” It was truly a pleasure to astonish Aleksander so completely.
I didn’t tell him of the lady’s admission of love, only how she had given me the opportunity to help him. It was long after we had boiled and soaked and warmed and stirred his nazrheel that he could bring himself to speak again. “So what is this feadnach? Is it another curse that makes me beholden to slaves and shrews?”
“No, my lord. It is your heart. Difficult as it may be to comprehend, there is a possibility you may have one.”
Chapter 21
We staved off the pangs of long-delayed hunger with herb-crusted bread and new butter from the cottage shelf. For me it was a feast, for Aleksander, famine worthy of an hour’s grumbling. Shortly after we finished and I had cleaned up our crumbs, the investigator returned. She tapped on the door and stepped in at Aleksander’s word.
“I am to take you to the Queen immediately. She has only a brief time to spare you just now, but she agrees that the matter is of sufficient importance to hear your story herself.”
Aleksander threw on his cloak, but I remained seated by the fire. “Come, Pytor,” he said, glaring at me. “You must stay with me.”
“Your servant has judged rightly, sir,” said the woman. “The Queen has no need to see him. She will see you, and you alone.”
“But I insist!”
“Then, you shall not go to her. This is her domain, sir, not yours. We are beyond the boundaries of your Empire”—she quieted his protest with her hand—“because you’ve sworn not to use your knowledge of this place to harm us. Is that not true?”
“Word twisting.”
The lady motioned him through the door.
“Speak truth, Aleksander,” I said after he was gone. “If things have fallen out as I suspect, this Queen will read you like a child’s first book.” I curled up and hid from my thoughts in sleep.
It was two hours until the woman brought Aleksander back to the guest house. “I’ll fetch you at first light tomorrow. Until then—”
“What are we to do until then?” said Aleksander. “I won’t stay cooped up in this hovel like a prisoner. I should at least see to my horse.”
“I understand this is difficult,” she said. “Perhaps ...” She hesitated just for a moment. “Perhaps you would consider coming to my home this evening for supper. It’s certainly not the accommodation to which you’re accustomed, but perhaps it would be more comfortable than our poor guest house. We have very few guests here, and our customs are quite strict, but we have no wish to make a prison.”
“You would have me as a table guest—your enemy of whom you disapprove so heartily?”
She colored a bit. “I spoke out of turn this morning. My feelings intruded upon my work, which is unconscionable. Therefore I must make amends. Those who come seeking our help are equal in our sight. We must not and should not judge.”
“Fair enough,” said the Prince. “Then I presume my servant is also welcome.”
She glanced at me uncomfortably. I had pulled up my hood again when she returned. “I had no reason to believe he would wish to come. But if it is his desire, then he is also welcome. Will you come, Pytor?”
I shook my head. “I cannot—”
“Of course he’ll come,” burst in Aleksander. “He’s better company than his shy aspect and his boorish tongue would tell. If we are equals here, then servant and master will both sit as your guests.”
“I’ll come for you after sunset,” she said. “And, by the way, your horse is well cared for. You needn’
t worry save that some of our lads won’t want to let him go.”
As soon as she was gone, I protested. “My lord, I cannot.”
“I’ll not argue it. If I go alone, I’ll want to bed the wench; she’s fair and pleasing when she controls her tongue. It’s likely not a clever notion, and if you’re there, you’ll shrivel my eyeballs for it, so I’ll lose the desire right off.”
“Bed her?” I was smitten with horror. “I beg you forget any such idea, my lord. It is not our way to be so free about such matters, and she must live here long after you are gone. It’s very unusual for her to ask you to her home unchaperoned. It’s a great kindness, so you must be—”
“All right. All right. Ease your mind. I had no serious thought of it. I would at least not take her unwilling.” He sprawled on the bed and closed his eyes, smiling to himself in smug satisfaction, as if I couldn’t see it. I wanted to throw something at him. He knew I could never let him go alone now. “Let me sleep for a while. Your women are exhausting.”
“What of the Queen?” I took my petty vengeance by preventing his sleeping until he satisfied the curiosity gnawing at my gut.
“I’ve never been probed and examined and poked at so thoroughly. I didn’t know there were so many questions in the universe.”
“But what did she say?”
“That I had a curse on me, and she’d have to think about it. A lot of bloody nothing for all the questioning. Comes of having a woman do it. Her consort was with her. He was listening right enough. Asked a few questions of his own, but left most of it to her.”
“We decided hundreds of years ago that women were better at such things than men. In our particular work, it made the difference between success and failure, and failure with regard to demons is more devastating than most failures.”
“So Ezzarians chase demons. However did you get yourselves into that?”
