First Truth

by Dawn Cook

  Amazed by his rush of words, it wasn’t until Alissa opened her mouth to apologize herself that she recognized all of them. Her mouth snapped shut in confusion. “I didn’t move your chair,” she said slowly.

  “What?”

  Alissa shook her head. “I didn’t move your chair. I thought you had. I figured you were so mad at me for making such a fuss, you didn’t want to talk to me.”

  They looked at each other blankly for a moment. Together their confusion melted away.

  “Bailic,” Strell all but spat, his eyes narrowing.

  Alissa sank back into the cushions with a heavy sigh. “Bailic indeed,” she repeated. What a black and twisted thing to do, she thought darkly. He had probably hoped to worsen their argument, thinking one of them would give him the book out of revenge. Still, she couldn’t blame it all on Bailic. She could have confronted Strell about the chair. Or not become so angry about the salve. It wouldn’t have taken much. Her pride and temper had gotten in the way.

  Silently Alissa crossed her fingers, vowing to never let her temper keep her from ending an argument properly. Then she uncrossed them, promising she would never let her pride rule her again. It had nearly cost her a friendship. Taking a deep breath, Alissa met Strell’s eyes. “I’m sorry for making such a fuss yesterday,” she said shyly. “It was a good trade. Thank you.”

  A slow smile came over Strell. “Yes, it was. And you’re welcome.”

  Alissa busied herself with Talon. The silly bird had finally stopped crooning, and Alissa moved her back to the chair arm. This time the bird stayed. “You have no idea how sorry I am,” Alissa said.

  “Me too,” Strell said. “I can’t believe Bailic did that.”

  “Never again?” Alissa whispered.

  “Never again,” Strell said firmly. He held out his pinky finger, and with a smile of delight, Alissa linked hers with his in the age-old practice of children making promises. The childhood custom had apparently crossed the border from foothills to plains with no prejudice. The young are often wiser than their elders when it comes to matters of common sense.

  “What fools he made us into,” Strell said, seeming embarrassed as he dropped his hand. “I ought to thrash him.”

  Alissa’s breath puffed out in understanding. “Perhaps.” She winced as she looked at the crack in the wall. “But then I would have to find my book on my own, as you would be nothing but a fond memory. Forget it.” She brought her gaze back to him. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She was just in time to catch that same uneasy look racing over him. His attention went back to his ankle, studiously avoiding her. She eyed him warily. “What’s the matter, Strell?”

  “Nothing,” he grunted.

  That grunt she knew very well. There was something he didn’t want to tell her. Talon shifted her feathers in warning as if having recognized the questionable validity of his words, too. Alissa shifted her gaze from the bird to Strell. “Come on, Strell,” she wheedled, “tell me.”

  He looked up, an obviously innocent expression pasted onto his face. “You’re tired. It can wait—for a bit. I want to know if it worked.”

  “What worked?” Alissa asked in confusion, trying to figure out what under the Eight Hounds he was talking about. It was clear he was trying to change the subject, but her curiosity won out—as usual.

  “Removing Useless’s ward.” He grinned.

  Her heart gave a thump, and she nervously tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. “I don’t think so,” she said cautiously. It didn’t seem likely. She remembered a lot of pain.

  At Strell’s encouraging nod, Alissa licked her lips and set her attention on visualizing her source.

  Much to her delight, the glowing sphere swam into existence alone and unfettered. “It’s free!” she said in delight, feeling a smile steal over her. “Strell, somehow I did it.” Her source shimmered faintly in her mind’s eye, again free of Useless’s ward. It glowed a soft blue-gold in the darkness of her thoughts. It was hers to do with as she chose. She had done it. Something, though, wasn’t right.

  The harsh buzzing that had been plaguing her all night became worse, and she turned her attention to where her pattern spread in all its glory. The faint glow of black and purple was gone. She felt herself go ashen and her stomach tighten. “Strell?” she said, hearing her voice quaver in fright as she saw what was once her tracings. “They’re gone! My tracings are gone!”

  Alissa stared at the destruction, unable to tear her horrified gaze from the charred landscape of carnage in her mind’s eye. Where there had once been the delicate blue-black lines of loops and swirls, there was now only twisted, disfigured channels clogged with burnt debris. She had thought them lifeless before when barren of the source’s energy. She had been wrong. This ruin with all its black char and ash was truly dead. It was over. She was undone. There was no reason to find the book now, she thought emptily. She wouldn’t be able to use it.

  Despair thundered down, crushing her. Strell was calling her, but she was helpless, unable to even look away. “Gone,” she murmured, then, “Ouch!” as something pinched her ear. It was Talon, bless her little bird-soul.

  “Not again, Alissa,” came Strell’s voice, close and worried. “I can’t take it again, not twice in one night.”

  The pain in her ear pulled Alissa from her inner vision, and the mangled remains of her tracings vanished to all but her memory. The damage was still there. It would probably remain forever, but now that she wasn’t looking at it, the shock seemed easier to bear. “They’re gone,” she repeated, her eyes filling with tears. “There’s nothing left!” Then there was only Strell kneeling beside her, holding her as she sobbed, trying to describe what she had seen. He silently listened, his arms tight about her to keep her from losing herself completely.

  “I did this,” she wept into his shoulder, taking comfort in the honest scent of sand and wind that clung to him even over the smell of ash. “Why,” she sobbed, “didn’t I leave them alone as I had been told?” Alissa looked up, surprised to see the shared pain in Strell’s eyes. “What will I do?” she whispered vacantly. “I’m nothing. I’ve lost it all.”

  “First,” he said firmly, “you will have some tea.”

  Alissa looked at him numbly through eyes wet with tears.

  “Then,” he said, “you will eat, and finally, as it’s nearly dawn, you will sleep.”

  He was half right. She fell asleep before she finished her first warming mug.

  35

  Strell sighed as he gently removed the tea from Alissa’s senseless fingers. “I should have married Matalina,” he said in jest, and Talon, perched protectively over her mistress, shifted her feathers as if in agreement. It hardly seemed possible it had been hours, not days, since he prepared dinner alone in the empty kitchen. He thought he had lost her completely as she shunned him again. When she returned to the hall having changed into her new dress for what he thought had been Bailic, he was certain.

  Desperate to break their silence, he was going to play her favorite song on his grandfather’s pipe. He only made things horrendously worse by helping Bailic lull her into a highly suggestive state. Strell hadn’t meant to. He thought himself immune to such tactics, but he fell under Bailic’s sway as easily as Alissa. If it hadn’t been for Useless, they would both be dead by now.

  Strell felt his dislike for the mysterious Useless shift a hitch to gratitude. He had to find a way past that locked door. It was obvious Useless and Bailic despised each other, and that gave Strell a renewed sense of hope. He couldn’t allow himself to believe Useless’s claim that he couldn’t be freed. Once found, he could take care of Bailic. Strell wouldn’t even have to tell Alissa of his dark bargain with the pale man.

  Strell glanced guilty at Talon as he eased closer to the fire. He was glad the bird couldn’t talk. There would be a time to tell Alissa he had promised Bailic her book, but not tonight. Not after she’d nearly killed herself. Not after she saw her future as a Keeper burnt to dust. Str
ell smiled. Not after realizing he might love her.

  With a slow, resigned shake of his head, he turned to his throbbing ankle. The knots on his boot were tight from the swelling. A tug on them nearly sent him to the ceiling as the pain shot from agonizing to excruciating. His stomach twisted as he cut the laces and slipped the boot off. A moan, half pain, half relief, slipped from him. “Wolves,” he gasped, looking down to see the swollen purple mass that had once been his ankle. He had torn it to shreds. Better he had broken it cleanly than this. It would never be the same. Strell threw the boot from him in disgust.

  They were still leaving, he thought with a frown. As soon as his ankle could bear his weight. Maybe Alissa knew a foothills’ remedy. Her ankle had healed in a day. He’d ask her to look at it. Now that she would, he thought, so pleased, he felt as if he would burst.

  Strell carefully slid down the hearth to look into her quiet face. Her skin was still woefully pallid but not dangerously so. Her eyes were shut, but he recalled them easily enough. The deep gray was unforgettable. How, he wondered, could he have ever thought them strange? They fit her perfectly.

  “I wonder which family her mother comes from,” he whispered, knowing he hadn’t enough presumption to ask. Alissa seemed adept at so many things, not showing the usual adherence to one skill or task that was so essential in keeping the peace in the plains. She was good at fashioning clothes, but half the population in the plains could do that. Chipping stone was rather unique, but he had never heard of a chartered family specializing in that. Rema must be from a common line. Alissa once said her mother hailed from deep plains. The only people who managed to survive there were thieves and assassins. Strell knew his mother wouldn’t sanction such a union, even if Alissa was plains, and he pushed the thought aside in guilt and grief.

  A wisp of hair lay across Alissa’s cheek, and he carefully tucked it back behind an ear. Her hair was so different from any he had spent time looking at. Almost like spun gold. “That’s it!” he whispered suddenly. “That’s what I will make for her.” The solstice was nearing, and tradition was to exchange gifts. He had found lots of beautiful things in the annexes, but nothing seemed appropriate. Besides, nothing in the annexes was his to give.

  “Perfect,” he breathed, wiping the last of the ash from his fingers and gently shifting Alissa’s head to slowly pull the thick mass of hair from behind her.

  She mumbled, and Strell froze. His gift was to be a surprise, and he couldn’t very well ask for a lock of hair. He had to steal it.

  He waited impatiently until her breathing slowed, then selected a portion of silky wisps from the nape of her neck where she wouldn’t miss it. Eyeing it critically, he frowned. Her hair was still terribly short. Even the lowest plains beggar had more status to wear it longer. But it was smooth and silky. Nicer than what he was used to working with.

  Still holding the small bundle, he reached for his knife, his hand slapping into his calf. His shaving blade was in its boot sheath on the other side of the room. Strell sighed. He looked at the boot in the corner, then at Alissa, beginning to frown in her sleep. Finally he looked at Talon. The cagey bird was watching him intently, and she shifted, seeming to shrug. Strell reluctantly allowed the shiny stuff to slip through his fingers. There was no help for it. He would have to cross the room for his knife.

  Limping to the pile of leather, he slipped his knife free. As he turned, his swollen foot hit the table leg, flooding him with pain. “Ahhh . . .” he moaned, desperately clamping a hand to his mouth. Suddenly nauseated, he lurched to the flagstones and collapsed.

  “Strell?” Alissa mumbled.

  Talon appeared to chuckle, and he eyed the bird sourly, failing to find the humor in the situation. “Hush, all is well,” he murmured anxiously, and he hummed a lullaby until Alissa was again deeply asleep. He glanced up at Talon as if for permission, then quickly cut free a small bundle of hair, pleased Alissa never woke. “See,” he quipped sarcastically, “that wasn’t so hard.” The falcon fluffed her feathers and closed her eyes, seemingly convinced nothing more of interest could possibly happen.

  Strell leaned back against the warm stones running up the hearth. He twisted the bit of silky smoothness into a coil and tucked it away with a distant smile. Later he would weave the hard-won gold into a delicate charm. It was silly, and he didn’t believe in such things, but it would make a lovely bit of nonsense, perfect for his desires. All that remained was to decide what kind of charm to weave. It wasn’t a hard choice, and he smiled as he decided upon a luck charm. Never would he have believed he would ever use this bit of knowledge. His grandfather Trook, of all people, had taught him this particular skill, and it was as far from pottery as was piping.

  As the youngest son, it had often fallen to Strell to “entertain” the old man, although to be more accurate, it was often the other way around. They had spent an entire summer in the shade of a bartok tree making charms from horse hair. He knew them all: luck, fortune, wisdom, contentment, even love.

  Oh, that last was a tricky one, and he grinned as he looked toward the ceiling in remembered frustration. He had even tried its potency once as a boy. Of course it had failed. It was only a bit of hair knotted and tied. There was no magic in the intricate absurdity, no magic at all, but it would be a pretty little thing when done.

  Tomorrow he would find a way to convince Alissa to abandon her shattered room, but for tonight she was here, safe beside him where she ought to be if he had any say in the matter. Strell shook his head ruefully. He knew he had no say at all. He would simply have to wait until she figured it out for herself. Still, he mused, there was probably enough to make an additional charm for himself—not one of luck, though—and a little insurance never hurt.

  36

  It was marvelously hot, and she sat in the dappled shade of the birch trees behind the house, working on her walking stick. It seemed she never could get the bothersome thing done. From behind her came the smallest shift of dry pine needles. The honest scent of sheep dung wafted to her on the late afternoon breeze mixing with the laceflower pollen.

  “Hello, Papa,” Alissa drawled, and she heard him groan.

  “How did you know I was there?” he asked, settling himself down beside her upon the split-log bench before the well.

  She looked up and wrinkled her nose. “You’ve been with the sheep.”

  “Ashes.” Taking her stick from her, he looked over the ivy-leaf design. “I haven’t been able to frighten you since you were five.”

  Alissa’s eyebrows rose. “Four. Hiding in the tree outside my window and moaning on Allhallows Eve doesn’t count.”

  He harrumphed. “Four, then.” Silently he handed the stick back. Taking a pebble, he tossed it into the well. They never had gotten a wall around it, and the perfectly cylindrical hole just begged to be fallen into. “You know . . .” He hesitated, and the cold splunk of the stone finding water came to them. “There are better ways to spend your time.”

  Alissa flushed and studiously applied an oil-soaked rag to the end of her stick. “I’m looking,” she grumbled. “Every day.”

  “Dillydallying about in the annexes isn’t looking.”

  Her eyes dropped. “I can’t use it anymore.”

  “It’s still yours,” he said gently.

  From inside came her mother’s shout of dismay. Apparently they would be having charcoal instead of bread tonight. He stood, and she looked up in alarm. “Wait. Papa.”

  “Gotta go, Lissy,” he said, his gaze fixed almost hungrily upon the house.

  “But where is it!”

  “You know exactly where it is,” he called over his shoulder.

  The staff clattered to the ground, and she flung herself after him. “Papa!” Bursting into the empty kitchen, she saw the door to her room thump shut. “Papa, don’t go!” She threw her door open and stood in a shocked surprise.

  Someone was halfway out her window—and it wasn’t her papa.

  “Who are you?” Alissa blurted, and
the girl turned, looking as embarrassed and awkward as a fifteen-year-old can.

  Unhooking her leg from the sill, she stood and fidgeted, her eyes carefully on the floor, her hands clasped behind her back. She was dressed in shades of purple, her tight vest nearly reaching her knees, looking like a feminine version of Bailic’s latest outfit. The ends of the yellow sash about her waist brushed the floor. “I like your father,” she said. “I don’t remember mine.”

  “But who are you?” Alissa repeated.

  “Silla. I’m sorry, was this your dream?” Her eyes rose, shocking Alissa with their unnatural gold color. “Sometimes I can’t tell who’s the dreamer and who’s the dreamed-up.”

  “Dream?” Alissa mouthed.

  Alissa started awake with a gasp.

  The soft gray light of a winter’s twilight was pooled about her, chill and lonely in the abandoned clutter of the dry-goods annex. “Aw, Wolves,” she swore, disentangling herself from the linen she was nestled in. She had fallen asleep again, but at least Strell hadn’t caught her this time. Alissa’s eyes rose to the ceiling. She was going to be late with Bailic’s supper tray. She didn’t care. Bailic couldn’t frighten her anymore. He practically ignored her, convinced Strell was the latent Keeper. It was the only good to have come from her misery.

  “Talon?” she whispered, reluctant to break the hush, but she was alone. She took a deep breath, brushed herself off, and made her slow way up to the kitchen. It was pleasant today, even in the annexes. This morning, the moist coastal air had pushed itself into the first of the mountains in a spiteful tease of heat. Tomorrow it might be so cold as to crack stones, but today was unusually mild. Alissa would like to blame her drowsiness on the unusual warmth, but she had been falling asleep without meaning to all these past three weeks.