A ship came toward her out of the strangely twisted sky, its hull and mast shining like pearl. She saw that each challenge would require a different spell, that her invention must not be allowed to flag once during the night. She recited a brief prayer to the goddess Sbona, mother of light, and found to her surprise that the first word of the prayer—“mother”—could be used as a keystone. Solid words, just as Val had advised. She spoke the rest of the spell confidently. The apparition wavered, frayed into gusts of light, and was gone.
Nothing moved in the sky for a long time. But someone came toward her over the crest of the hill, a soldier wearing a tattered cloak and carrying an old rust-eaten sword. His eyes glittered silver in the darkness. He was a ghost, she realized, one of the many who had spent the night on the mountain before her.
Dozens of ghosts crowded around her now, clamoring for her attention. A man held his arms out to her beseechingly; she could see the places where he had slashed his wrists with his sword. A woman with a glittering crown came after him, the legendary Queen Ellara I, the beloved of Callabrion. She hadn’t realized that Ellara the Good had been both ruler and poet-mage. And there was Cosro, a short round man who had been capable of writing both piercing satires and sonnets of surpassing beauty.
Cosro smiled at her. She remembered the stories told about him, that he was unable to lie, and she wondered what that smile might portend. It seemed knowing, almost unpleasant.
She forced herself to look back toward the sky. Another sending came toward her, a great forest of moving trees. She began an invocation, thinking that the challenges were simpler than she had anticipated. But then why had Cosro smiled?
One of the ghosts began to whisper to her. She shook her head, trying to concentrate on the sending before her. The muttering of the ghosts became louder. She hurried through the remaining verses of the spell, hoping to finish before the sighing voices of the ghosts forced out all other thought.
Pictures formed before her, blocking out the sight of the trees. She shook her head but the pictures remained. She was in Soria, watching a thin, unhealthy-looking woman come toward her from an alleyway. She remembered seeing the woman when she was a child, remembered asking Pebr who she was. Pebr had hurried her into a shop; he had pretended to have business there.
Now she realized that the woman had been a prostitute. But why had she been shown this picture? The voices of the ghosts grew louder, a susurrus rushing past her like a brook in full flood. She was helpless against this magic; it had none of the formal logic of meter, alliteration, rhyme. A whisper came out of the darkness, a mocking echo of the invocation she had used earlier. “Mother of light.”
Was this woman her mother? No, she thought. Revulsion twisted within her so strongly that she almost screamed aloud. Another ghostly voice whispered: “Aye, your mother …” She shook her head again, but the insinuations continued.
The pictures wavered for a moment and she saw that the apparition of the forest had moved closer. She had forgotten most of her spell, could not even remember the meter she had chosen. Panicked, she spoke something, anything. The trees gusted as if blown by a wind and then returned, as solid as before. She reached for her keystones, joined them in a final phrase. The trees frayed outward again, grew transparent, and then disappeared.
As soon as they had gone the picture of the woman returned. Could the ghosts be right? She did not remember her parents. Pebr had said they were fisher-folk, but Pebr might have lied. At that thought she heard Cosro whisper, “Aye, Pebr lied.”
Cosrd. Cosro, who always told the truth. She closed her eyes, barely caring what apparition might be sent against her. Despair overwhelmed her. She rested her head on her arms, wanting only for the night to be over. She understood then why the ghost she had seen had killed himself.
“God’s child,” one of the ghosts whispered mockingly, and the others laughed. “Was your father Callabrion or Scathiel?”
“You are like your mother,” someone else said. “Think of your feelings for Val. You want him, don’t you? You, the daughter of a woman as common as dirt, a woman at the very base of the ladder. You even believed his protestations of love for you. You must have known he didn’t mean it—courtiers flatter as easily as breathing.”
“It’s ludicrous, isn’t it?” another of the ghosts whispered. “To think that the king will even notice you after he claims his birthright, that he would ever think of you as other than lowborn.”
She looked up. The ghosts massed before her stepped back a little, and she saw with surprise that they feared her. At that moment she felt her power grow within her, knew with certainty that she was the strongest poet-mage to sit on Wizard’s Hill since Cosro. Hadn’t she triumphed over every apparition sent against her?
She faced them all defiantly. It didn’t matter who her mother had been. She would be stronger than the ghosts before her, strong enough not to give in to despair.
Another form appeared in front of her. No glow of silver came from the eyes; this person was not a ghost. Val? she thought. How had Val braved the terrors of the night to come to her? But the person before her was smaller than Val, and bent over like someone of great age. “Very good, my child.”
“Mathary?” Taja said, astonished. “Why—How did—”
“You have survived your night on Wizard’s Hill,” Mathary said. The ghosts hurried away before her, dispersing into the night air. “By our customs another poet-mage must come to welcome you among us.”
“Poet—but then—are you a poet-mage?”
“Aye, my child.”
My child. Taja gasped, hardly daring to hope. “You’re—you’re my mother,” she said.
“Aye.”
Pebr had lied, Taja thought. Pebr had lied and Cosro had told the truth. She wanted to ask a thousand questions, but at the same time she thought that all her questions had been answered with one word. She understood who she was now; that seemed all she needed to know.
But Mathary was speaking. “I was one of Tariel’s wizards. My husband was as well, your father. Godemar, Callia’s mother, wanted her daughter to succeed to the throne, but she knew that she would have to defeat us all before she could kill Tariel. We were prepared for magic, but not for ordinary poison. I was fortunate—I was not at the banquet where the wizards died.”
“But where—where were you?” Taja said, whispering.
“You were sick that day—I stayed home to nurse you. You saved my life, my child.”
“And then you came to Tobol An.”
“Aye. After the poisoning Lady Godemar and her wizards turned their attention to me. Her wizards were strong—Penriel’s father was one of them. My husband was dead, by Godemar’s hand, and I could not think what to do, where to go. Then I remembered my husband’s brother Pebr, and I managed to escape to Tobol An. Pebr offered to raise you—you would be in great danger if Godemar discovered where I was.” Mathary shivered a little, remembering something. “So Pebr took you away from me. I didn’t know he would turn you against me, against all magic. His brother had died, you see, and he wanted to keep you safe.…”
“All these years—” Taja said, breathing the words. It seemed incredible that such a secret had been kept from her. “All these years you pretended to—to be a little foolish, a harmless old woman—”
The other woman shook her head. “It may not be pretense, after so much time. When they came after me I was badly injured. I had to give up a good deal of my power just to survive.”
“And my father—”
“He was a good wizard, and a just one. Our heritage was strong within you—I hoped that despite Pebr you would one day find your way to Wizard’s Hill. You did well, my child.”
Mathary was crying, Taja saw, and that seemed the strangest of all the strange things she had seen that night. Why should she cry? Taja had learned the truth and come into her power at the same time; from this night forward there would be no more lies. Mathary’s long time of waiting was over.
She reached out to the other woman uncertainly. My mother, she thought. The words seemed strange, foreign; she had never used them before.
Mathary came forward and held her in a long embrace. Then she stepped back and wiped her eyes. “A foolish old woman,” she said. “Come—Val is waiting for you.”
The wind whistled loudly past Val as he sat among the old ruins. Several times he thought he could hear shouts from the summit of the mountain, someone reciting a string of strange words, and once a silver light flared out and shook from horizon to horizon.
He forced himself to stay where he was; he could do Taja no good if he went scurrying toward her like a rabbit. But it galled him to do nothing; he wanted to fight an enemy he knew, someone of flesh and blood, not insubstantial things made of sorcery. He spoke the same mindless prayer to Callabrion he had been repeating all night, and felt again for the amulet beneath his tunic.
A light moved on the plain before him. He stared at it, trying to bring it into focus. The plain was dark; the only light came from the stars. Had he truly seen it, or had he conjured it up out of boredom and fear? No, there it was again, closer this time.
He stood, reaching out blindly in the dark. His hand fell on an iron bar and he picked it up. It would do against a lone traveler, a single bandit or outlaw, but what if he faced a clan the size of Rugath’s? Or what if others had seen the shining light and had come to investigate?
The light moved closer. It resolved itself into a string of lights, torches. The torches turned and headed toward the base of the mountain, then disappeared as the men began to climb.
Val stood, uncertain. Moments later the torches appeared again, bright enough now so that he could see the men carrying them, acolytes wearing blue and priests dressed in white. They came closer, stood before him.
“You said you’d been to Wizard’s Hill,” a priest said. Val thought he might be the same man who had spoken to them at the temple. “An absurd claim, of course—only men and women of Shai can spend the night on that hill and survive. But we thought that perhaps you had given away your intentions, that perhaps you were going to Wizard’s Hill. And so we followed you.”
Val said nothing.
“Take him,” the priest said. “And there was another, a woman—”
The acolytes came forward. Val raised the iron bar. At that moment he saw something move at the edge of his vision. The acolytes stopped, hesitant.
Val turned quickly. Taja stood there. A corona of light surrounded her, and there was a distance in her eyes that he had never seen before. For a moment he thought he saw someone behind her, but then the light faded and the figure was gone.
“Drop your weapons,” Taja said. The acolytes’ swords clattered to the ground. “Go back to your temple. You have never seen us. You do not even know that we are here, in Shai.”
“We have never seen you,” the priest said. He turned and led the men away from the mountain.
Val looked at Taja. She seemed a figure out of legend, wise and stern and unapproachable. A queen made of light. He did not know how he should think of her. Was she still the daughter of fisher-folk that he had hoped to dazzle with fine words and splendid poetry? Or did she stand high above him on the ladder, as far above him as a king to a peasant girl?
“Come,” she said to Val.
“Who was—Was there someone with you?”
“Aye. My mother.”
She said nothing more. The mystery of her initiation surrounded her; he thought that she might still be half walking on strange paths he could not imagine. What had happened to her, there on the mountain? Hadn’t she told him once that her mother was dead?
He bent to take one of the swords dropped by the acolytes and followed her. She led him along the featureless plain, then turned and continued along a dirt road leading north. He would have missed the path in the dark; he wondered how she had found it.
The sun rose, revealing a gray and featureless world before them. She stopped and looked at him; she had the disinterested gaze of a cat, or a god. She said a few words and the bonds of rope at their wrists dropped to the ground. And something happened to his cloak as well; the bright gaudy colors of the outlaws swirled and then changed to somber gray and black.
A short while later they came to a locked storehouse. She spoke something and the lock broke open and fell to the ground. He hurried forward and opened the door, remembering suddenly how hungry he was. Shelves of nuts and dried apples and cured meat stood before them.
To his surprise she sat on the dirt floor and began to eat. But she would probably be able to tell if they were threatened, he thought, and he joined her. The food tasted wonderful after days of hunger.
Suddenly she stopped and looked up. “What?” he said, alarmed. “What is it?”
“I don’t—”
“Is someone coming?”
“Something …” she said. “I think—Yes. It’s Narrion.”
“Narrion?” he said, astonished.
“He’s trying to summon Callabrion.”
“How do you know?”
She raised her hand for quiet and began to speak. He listened, amazed, as she spoke what seemed to be a counterspell for magic that had somehow spiraled out of control. Then she began a poem of such complexity that he soon lost the thread of it, and only realized how brilliantly it had been constructed when she finally joined the two keystones together. She recited a final invocation and then fell silent.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I called up Callabrion for him,” she said. To his surprise he saw that she was smiling; she had started to come back from wherever she had been. “And what will he do now, I wonder? No one sees a god face-to-face without being changed in some way. I wonder if he considered that.”
Thirteen
NARRION FOLLOWED CALLABRION TO the Street of Stones and turned with him toward the Darra River. The Street of Stones was too wide, too public, for Narrion’s liking; it was one of the main thoroughfares of Etrara. But Callabrion had insisted on going out into the city, and Narrion could not let him wander through the streets alone. He sighed. Whatever he had expected when he had summoned the god it hadn’t included acting as nurse-maid.
Three Shai guards came toward them. Narrion pulled up the hood of his cloak and pretended to shiver with cold. The guards continued on.
Narrion threw back his hood and shook out his long hair. It was warm work following Callabrion; the god seemed made of fire. He could not remember when he had last been so hot.
They came to the bank of the river. Callabrion stopped and stared down into the clear depths. Small waves beat against the shore.
“Where would you like to go, my lord?” Narrion asked. He wanted to take Callabrion to the observatory; he would enjoy seeing the faces of those cowardly priests when they realized just who it was who visited them. That would be a jest worthy of the Shadow King, the Lord of Misrule himself. But the Shai guarded the observatory, letting no one in or out.
“Where? Here. The river.”
“The river, my lord?”
“Yes.” Callabrion looked at Narrion. His strange eyes, the golden green of the sun on leaves, shone with delight. “The changing colors, and the sounds it makes against the shore … Look—it moves quicker there, where it is forced between the pilings of the Darra Bridge. Do you see it?”
“You must forget the earth, my lord. The earth will be here when you next return.”
Callabrion said nothing.
“You must ascend to heaven,” Narrion said. “There is a balance in all things—summer must follow winter.”
“You killed a kinsman of mine, did you not?”
Narrion looked up quickly. Callabrion’s deep, even voice had not changed; he might still be discussing the river. “I—What do you mean?”
“You killed King Gobro, a son of Sbona.”
“I did not kill him, my lord. Callia and Mariel asked me to find poison, nothing more.” He had made the same excuse to Val, he rememb
ered, but what had seemed reasonable in the palace of Etrara now sounded hollow, contrived.
“Did you think of what might happen if Callia ruled? Her poor judgment, her disastrous war? You speak of balance, but there is no balance in your own actions. You have bound yourself too closely to Scathiel, the god of death.”
“I—”
“Was it worth it to kill Gobro? What good is your high position now?”
“I—Nothing,” Narrion said bitterly. He looked down at the river. “It is worth nothing at all.”
“We should go,” Callabrion said gently. “The others will be worried.”
They walked back to Noddo’s house, saying nothing. Once there Narrion took out the key Noddo had given him and opened the door. Tamra looked up; she held conjuring sticks in her hand.
Noddo hurried toward them. “Did he say anything about returning to the heavens?” he asked quietly.
Narrion shook his head. “We’ll have to think of something,” Noddo said. “The days grow shorter—”
“Close the door,” Tamra said. “It’s cold as Scathiel’s heart out there. Come inside and wager with me.” Narrion closed the door and locked it carefully behind him.
Callabrion moved to the small table and took the sticks from Tamra’s hand. He threw one down. His image gazed back up at him from the conjuring stick, the green and gold face of the summer god. “Summer,” he said, and laughed.
The door opened again, letting in a gust of cold air. Narrion turned quickly, one hand on the hilt of his sword; he would have sworn by all the gods that he had locked the door.
At first he did not recognize the two people who came into the room. They wore bulky gray and black cloaks that nearly hid their features. But as he watched the colors shifted, swirling to become the barbarous hues of the Shai: red and gold, purple and black.
The man shook back his hood and looked around him. There was a purposeful expression on his face that Narrion had never seen before. But it was the woman who caught and held his attention; she seemed to command a power as unmistakable as Callabrion’s.
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