Prospero's Children

by Jan Siegel

  “The Rose Palace. Pharouq built it for Tamiszandre, because she didn’t like the old palace in the lower city, but he died a month after it was completed, and she would not live there anymore. She spent the rest of her life in a house by the sea, a long way from here. Now, it’s Zohrâne’s principal residence.”

  “It’s beautiful,” said Fern.

  “It’s high up,” said Rafarl. “She likes to look down on her subjects.”

  He turned off the path to the right, leading her through a wicket gate into a grove too dim for her to see clearly. And then they were ascending some steps up to a veranda, and there were windows onto lamplight and a doorless arch with a curtain that swung and glittered. Crystal beads tinkled as they passed through. A woman sitting alone on a sofa sprang to her feet with a cry.

  “Raf! Oh, Raf!”

  She hugged him; he responded cautiously, evidently disconcerted by so passionate a welcome. “Mié—!”

  “I’m sorry, dearest—I know you hate fuss—but something so dreadful has happened . . . Your uncle Rahil—”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “We were in the temple. Mié, I want you to meet a friend of mine.”

  “Is this the little nympheline you told me about?”

  “No,” said Rafarl. Too bluntly, Fern thought, but the returning pang of unwanted emotion had no time to linger. The woman had moved toward her with an outstretched hand and a smile at once warm and elusively wistful. She was little taller than Fern and slender to the point of thinness, large-eyed, bird-boned, impossibly fragile about the wrists and ankles. Her dark hair hung loose: paler threads gleamed here and there as if it were woven with moonlight. Her sun-sheltered skin was ivory-fair and so fine the veins showed blue beneath it and shadows marked it like a bruise. Instead of the usual trousers she wore a long dress which covered more of her anatomy than was customary, made of some dull silk, the color of dusk. A single veil, so insubstantial its hue could only be guessed, clung around her as if of its own volition, perceptible as hardly more than a blurring of her falling hair and a haze over the sheen on her robe. No jewelry adorned bare arm or throat and her features were untouched by the cosmetics favored by most Atlantean women. The smile lit her face like spring in a faded garden.

  “This is Fernani,” said Rafarl. “Fern, this is my mother. Cidame Ezramé Dévornine.” In Atlantis, Fern knew, women of high lineage kept their kin-names if they married a man of lower rank, and had the right to pass them on to their children. The abbreviation Dev, which Rafarl used, was discretionary, perhaps because of his illegitimacy.

  Disdaining more formal greetings, Ezramé clasped Fern’s hand between both of hers. “Why, you’re just a child,” she said. “From the north, I think. What are you doing here in our city? I fear . . . it could be unfriendly to you.”

  “I haven’t found it unfriendly,” Fern replied.

  Rafarl interrupted. “It’s a long story, and would go better with food. We’re starving. I could do with a bath too.”

  “Of course, dearest,” said his mother, and to Fern: “Forgive my impatience. I am a little distraught today . . . Rahil is—was— my only brother. We had not been close for many years—” Rafarl muttered something inaudible “—but we grew up together, he was my family. There was always a remnant of affection between us. This has been a great shock.”

  “I should go,” said Fern, acutely uncomfortable. “You must want to be alone with your son.”

  “Not at all,” Ezramé responded with her swift warm smile. “I didn’t mean that you were unwelcome: on the contrary. Rafarl, believe me, would show less sympathy than you. He and his uncle were never on good terms.”

  “We weren’t on any terms,” Rafarl remarked in an aside.

  “Come with me,” Ezramé said to Fern. “I expect you’d like a change of clothes, wouldn’t you? Those breeches must be horridly uncomfortable in the heat.”

  Fern murmured a further protest and was thankful to be ignored. The Cidame led her to a disrobing room, swathed her in a towel, and then left her alone in the bath chamber. “Raf can wait till you’ve finished. I know northern customs are different from ours.” Fern immersed herself in the warm water up to her neck, luxuriating in a pleasure unknown in the Viroc. But the Viroc seemed impossibly far away, her whole childhood as remote and illusory as a fairy tale, the memories mere transparencies slotted into the back of her mind. She had not thought of her home for some time: indeed, she hardly thought of it at all. She tried to remember her own mother, and an automatic picture came into her head—a taciturn figure with a thick plait of hair—but it was strangely artificial, frozen into a woodcut: she wasn’t even sure what color the hair ought to be. Ezramé Dévornine, a woman she had only just met, a foreigner, an aristocrat, seemed not just nearer but infinitely more real, reminding her of a tenderness she had long forgotten, something which had no place in the saga of her village in the mountains. The inchoate fear returned, nibbling at the edges of her thought, but she disregarded it. There was nothing she could do about it, nothing she needed to do: she had only to follow her fate and trust that the stars which had sent her knew their business.

  She got out of the sunken bath and wrapped herself in the towel again. In the dressing room, clothes had been laid out for her: loose trousers of pale green gauze, gathered on the ankle, silver sandals, a bodice stitched with seed pearls. And the inevitable veil, patterned with faint leaves like the ghost of a vanished woodland. She was uncertain precisely what to do with it but settled for draping it shawl-like around her shoulders, while behind her the electricity caused by the friction of silk on silk made it cling close to her legs. “You look lovely,” said Ezramé, coming to find her. “How fortunate you’re so small: my things fit you almost perfectly. The trousers are probably too long, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “You’ve been so kind,” Fern began, suddenly shy to find she was wearing her hostess’ clothes; but Ezramé brushed aside both gratitude and gêne.

  “The veil isn’t quite right . . . here, that’s it. Long ago, they say, it was worn for modesty—it is still traditional to cast it over your head in public, at least on ceremonial occasions— but Atlantean women scorned to hide their beauty, and the veils grew thinner, until they became little more than a fashionable accessory. Some, however, are rare and valuable.”

  “Like yours?” Fern asked.

  “This is an heirloom,” Ezramé admitted with a slightly rueful smile. “It was made by my ancestress, Phaidé Dévornine, who was the most Gifted of our line. Legend says it will protect the wearer. It cannot be stolen or lost, only given to another. I’ve noticed myself how the patterns seem to shift and change, but that may be because the design is so large and complex, so I am always finding new things in it.”

  “Do you have the Gift?” Fern said, and then wished she had not; from Ezramé’s expression, the question was too personal.

  “A little,” she said at last.

  “But—” Fern hesitated, seeing the weariness and sorrow of ordinary aging in her face.

  “I do not choose to use it. I desire neither power nor long life.”

  “I see,” Fern whispered, and she did.

  The three of them sat down to eat in the salon overlooking the garden. The windows were shielded with gauze screens to keep out the insects; within, a galaxy of candles filled the room with flickering gold. This is how I shall remember it, thought Fern, pushing aside the thought of the stone chamber beneath the temple. Always golden, by day and by night. I shall remember when it is long gone . . . And suddenly she shivered, though the evening was warm. Rafarl, also bathed and changed, looked her over critically but offered no comment. A slave brought them dishes of rice speckled with sultanas and herbs, vegetables cut or carved into exotic shapes, fish in its skin and fish in its shell. “Your stepfather will not be back,” Ezramé told her son. “These days, he prefers to spend his nights elsewhere. No, dear one, don’t protest. I too prefer it: you know that. Besi
des, it gives us an interval to talk.” She had been informed of her brother’s death by the servant who had escorted him to the temple; no official notification had been received and she had been refused permission to tend his body. Rafarl told her the rest: his own incarceration and meeting with Fern, the conversation she had overheard between Ixavo and Zohrâne, the breaking of the Lodestone and the devastation they themselves had witnessed. As he spoke Ezramé bowed her head in her hand. “I do not know whether to feel joy or regret,” she said. “The Lodestone has been the cause of so much that is evil, yet it is not—was not—evil in itself, or so I understand. Evil is made by men, not stones. Its power founded our city and our empire, but I fear we are self-corrupted. And without the source of that power, who knows what will happen to us?” She lifted her goblet but did not drink; her eyes were full of shadows. “I feel . . . I feel in my heart this is the end.”

  Rafarl reached out to touch her; the teasing note in his voice was very gentle. “Because the past has been dark you expect the future to be darker,” he said. “The roots of Atlantis go deep, mié. I doubt if even the shattering of the Lodestone can shake them. Anyway, Fern here can outdo your forebodings: she believes Zohrâne’s ambitions could destroy not only the city but the whole world. She thinks she’s going to prevent it, and I’m to help her, which is rainbow-chasing . . .”

  Curiously, Fern was unaffected by the flippancy of his attitude: instinct told her that mockery and self-mockery were the weapons he used to disarm his feelings of guilt, frustration, futility. His mother, equally intuitive, listened to the words rather than the tone. She was looking at Fern with a steady gravity which ignored all attempts at jest. “How did you get here?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Fern said, responding to candor with truth. “I remember a sea-voyage, on the argosy from Scyre, but the recollection is so vague, like something in a story. Reality started yesterday—” she could scarcely credit it was only yesterday “—after I landed. There are times when I almost feel I just . . . arrived. Out of nowhere. That’s the most frightening part. Out of nowhere.”

  “There’s a worm in your head,” Rafarl said lightly, “eating your brain.” It was a slang phrase for the onset of madness.

  “I know,” said Fern, recognizing the sense if not the idiom. “I’ve wondered about that myself.”

  “Nonsense!” said Ezramé. “You fell from the stars: I suspected it all along. Are you not star-pale, white as the young moon? Please don’t argue: my mind is made up. You know, I too lived briefly in the north, many years ago—my father was a consul—and there was a flower growing there that I always loved, nevelinde the natives called it—” she pronounced it never-linda “—the snowbell. You remind me of that flower. It was very small and very delicate, but it came long before the spring, braving the winter snows. I thought it was the strongest and most valiant of flowers. It doesn’t grow here: our climate is too warm. We have only those opulent blooms which like an easy life.”

  “My mother is fanciful,” said Rafarl, and his smile was wry.

  “You’re kind,” Fern told her, and her smile was not.

  Later in the evening, a servant returned who had been out to glean information, the same who had accompanied Rahil Dévornine during his fatal attendance at the temple. Ixavo had circulated a description of a girl, he reported, his gaze avoiding Fern. The temple guards were combing the streets for her and her associate, bribing any who would take a bribe, threatening those who would not. “They couldn’t come here!” Ezramé protested.

  “They might, Cidame,” said the man. “Who would gainsay them? Only the queen can overrule the authority of the Guardian, and in this affair, why should she? She has made it very plain that she has no respect for ancient lineage . . . even her own.”

  Ezramé turned to Fern. “You’ll have to leave,” she said. “I’m sorry: I had hoped you could stay here tonight; but it’s too dangerous. My son will take care of you.” Rafarl raised one eyebrow, followed presently by the other. “Keep those clothes; they are not in the official description. Cover your hair with the veil. I’ll have Aliph pack up some food and a water-skin: Raf can carry it. If there’s anything more I can do—”

  “There is one thing.” Fern was hesitant. “The inn where I stayed last night—I was expecting to go back, so I didn’t pay my bill.” She felt in her purse, which she had pinned to her waistband. “I’ve got some money here . . .”

  “Keep your money: I’ll see to it. Tell me which one it was and Aliph will go round there in the morning.”

  “If the world is going to end,” Rafarl said dryly, “what does it matter?”

  “You shouldn’t die leaving your debts unpaid,” said Fern.

  It was deep night when they left the villa. The moon was just off the full, a fat, smiling, yellow moon which outshone the neighboring stars. Tangled shadows made walking hazardous. Only a few scattered lights illumined the mountainside, but in the city below the streets were picked out in flambeaux, doorways spilled radiance, unshuttered windows shone from dark buildings like golden tesserae in a mosaic of darkness. “I have heard Atlantis called the Jeweled City,” Fern said softly. “Now I know why.”

  “Mistranslation,” said Rafarl. “Not the Jeweled City: the City of Jewels. The name isn’t metaphorical, it’s factual. We’ve dragged the mainland rivers, mined out the mines, pillaged the treasuries of little kings. We’re overloaded with precious gems. The nobility no longer wear them: they think it’s vulgar. Here, diamonds are commonplace.”

  “Is that why your mother doesn’t wear any?” Fern inquired suspiciously.

  “No.” He paused, apparently selecting a trail in the uncertain night. “She doesn’t like them, that’s all. She wears only the ring my father gave her.”

  Avoiding the public paths, he found a route down the slope through private gardens, descending from terrace to terrace via narrow flights of steps or a scramble down a crumbling wall or uneven rock-face. Fern hid her qualms, following Rafarl with a confidence she did not possess, fumbling for purchase on steps she could barely see. On a couple of occasions they had to jump, once into a clump of shrubs from which Fern emerged scratched and battered, once more than fifteen feet onto a close-cropped lawn. The landing left Fern stunned for several seconds. But: “You’re all right, aren’t you?” said Rafarl, and she was, determined that where he could go, so could she, without faltering or complaint.

  They crossed the ring-road at the bottom of the steps as quickly as possible and plunged into a bewilderment of back-streets. The buildings drew increasingly close together, hiding the moon. Here and there, through a gap between jostling roofs, Fern saw the dome of the temple away to their left, like the rim of a planet rising into a blue-black universe. Her sense of direction was poor but she guessed they must be some way east of the inn where she had spent the preceding night. This was an area given over to street-bars and snack vendors, skulking taverns, anonymous doorways emitting the throb of jungle drums where sinister wardens vetted all comers. Women lounged on corners with their lips tinted purple or blue, many of them showing bare breasts under the obligatory veil. Rafarl turned into an archway so dark that its guardian could hardly be seen except as a pair of huge shoulders heaving themselves out of the gloom.

  A voice like gravel said: “They’re looking for you, Dev.”

  “I know.”

  “You and a girl.” There was a glint as eyes swiveled in an unseen face.

  Rafarl ignored the implicit question. “Do they know my identity?”

  “No. Only the description. We know. That dodge with the scorpion . . . you’ve used it before. A giveaway.”

  Rafarl did not comment. “Is Ipthor in?”

  “Probably.”

  The shoulders moved aside; Rafarl stepped forward into almost complete blackness. Fern, behind him, grabbed a fold of his loose shirt. “Stairs,” he warned her. She felt her way down the irregular treads which twisted dizzily deep into the ground. At the bottom, Rafarl thrust a
nother door open and she found herself following him into a wide chamber. It was very large but low, as if the weight of the city, pressing down from above, was gradually compressing the space between ceiling and floor. The ceiling in question was coved, dipping at intervals to meet squat pillars; the walls were enlivened with gargoyle-carvings. Many of the monsters held colored lamps in their gaping mouths, or candles in translucent vessels: the light these emanated was multi-hued and erratic, making separate caves of green and scarlet and magenta, leaving some corners—the room contrived to have many corners—in darkness. Several musicians were playing in a remote alcove, a soft background rhythm consisting mostly of thrumming strings and drumming fingers. Rafarl roamed the chamber, peering into the shadows, stopping at length beside a niche where two men were sitting close together, rolling dice.

  “Ipo.”

  One of the men gathered up the dice and dismissed his companion with a quick jerk of the head. “Sit down, Raf. I’ve been expecting you.” Rafarl sat on the bench opposite him; Fern perched on the end. Ipthor gave her a swift glance that might have been cursory but was not. What little light reached them was greenish and unsympathetic, washing the warmth from Rafarl’s skin, highlighting the slight roughness of pock-marks or old scarring on Ipthor’s sunken cheeks. He was darker than Rafarl, yellow as drab, and his whole face appeared concave, as if he had been punched by a huge fist early in life and all his features had been driven inward. His eyes were crooked and set in a downward slant, making his expression seem both sly and sad. His clothes were ragged but he wore golden ear-rings and there was the glint of commonplace gems on his fingers. The winnings from recent gambling were stacked at his elbow; Fern automatically suspected the dice were loaded. “I hear you’re in a lot of trouble,” he remarked conversationally. “The guards came here—”