The Tattered Lands

by Barbara Ann Wright

  Now she had to start over from the beginning. Again. Maybe she should rewrite her dissertation and disavow any knowledge of her former life. “No, I’m not that Vandra Singh. I’m a different one who wrote a very important book and did absolutely nothing else!”

  Someone knocked on the door. “Show’s over for today,” she called.

  “Pity,” a familiar voice answered, “I was looking forward to it.”

  Vandra stood so fast, her chair fell with a thud. Ariadne Bahn, junior assemblyperson, stood watching Vandra and smiling. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her black hair seemed a bit limp. No one seemed to be sleeping well in the government these days.

  “I didn’t…” Vandra cleared her throat and bowed. “Assemblyperson Bahn. A pleasure, as always.”

  Ariadne laughed. “You don’t have to be so formal.” She smiled softly, a look Vandra remembered from their brief time as lovers. Ariadne had held some lower level government job at the time, and Vandra had been a student. Nearly the same age and constantly run off their feet, they’d been happy with a quick exchange of kisses and caresses in whatever space they could eke out. Work eventually took them away from each other, but that was all right. Life had too much to explore for slow, ever-burning love affairs. Better that they should flame out as quickly as they’d kindled.

  Vandra cleared her throat. “What brings you by?”

  “Right to the point, eh?” She sighed. “There’s always more work to do, isn’t there?”

  She sounded bitter, and Vandra didn’t know what to say. There was always more work. Unless Ariadne had been hoping for a quick round of sex. After all this time? Vandra’s cheeks burned. Not only could she not spare the time, but after her failure, she wasn’t in the mood.

  But no, Ariadne seemed sad. Maybe her rise in stature had turned out as disappointing as Vandra’s had. “What’s wrong?” Vandra asked.

  Ariadne shut the door and sank onto a stool as if she had the world on her shoulders. Her long tunic and loose trousers were bright yellow, save for a red satin sash that led from her right shoulder down across her chest. It didn’t move, sewn to the tunic, and Vandra wondered if all her clothes had the assembly sash sewn in. That would certainly save time.

  Ariadne hooked her booted feet under the stool. She’d never gone in for the slippers that many in the ruling class favored. She always had somewhere to go, she’d said, and boots would get her there faster and without blisters.

  Vandra smiled at the memory as she righted her own chair and sat. The sting of her failure faded, but she felt it hovering in the back of her mind like a cloud of flies.

  Ariadne opened her mouth then shut it again. Vandra tensed. Ariadne never had trouble speaking her mind.

  “One of the pylons has gone out,” Ariadne said, almost a whisper, as if she feared her words would have more weight when spoken aloud.

  Vandra leaned forward; she couldn’t have heard right. The one thing that kept the remnants of the five kingdoms from succumbing to the horrors in the tattered lands could not have simply gone out. “Failing? Stuttering?” She pawed through her books. “With one pylon malfunctioning, we should be all right, and if it’s only a glitch—”

  “Gone out. Ceased working. Three days ago. One of my sources who lives near the border sent a message.” Her dark gaze seemed to take up the whole world. “We need corroboration before word gets out, and I can’t send an entire team or the population might get wind of it.”

  Vandra waited for more, her heart thundering. A small part of her thought Ariadne might have come to her for comfort, but by the way Ariadne stared, almost as if she was willing Vandra to see her point, Vandra suspected it was something else.

  They needed someone to check on the pylon, someone who knew about syndrium. An alchemist. But surely Ariadne wouldn’t ask her. There were more senior alchemists who weren’t viewed as failures, who…

  “Oh.” Vandra’s heart thundered louder. No one would miss the failure when she’d gone. “Me.”

  “You’re an expert on syndrium.”

  “Yes, but that’s not the whole reason you asked me.”

  Ariadne simply stared, waiting.

  “I’ll do it,” Vandra said, hoping she sounded less bitter than she felt. “It’ll be nice to finally have failure working in my favor.”

  Ariadne stood and crossed the room to take Vandra’s hand. Her fingers were cold. They always had been. “Whatever you can tell me, you’ll be rewarded. Someday. For now, no one can know.”

  Vandra nodded and gave her a squeeze before letting go. The remains of the five kingdoms had been crammed into the last kingdom standing. Every town and village was full to bursting. If people found out a pylon had gone out, even if the other nine pylons still stood, there might be riots, not to mention a massive exodus where people ran farther south to get away from the threat nipping at their heels. Vandra imagined the pressure on the coastal towns as people sought passage on ships that could go nowhere. Some might even try swimming into the ocean, thinking the taint of the tattered lands couldn’t follow them there.

  They were wrong, at least to a point. The tattered lands corrupted everything they seeped over, flora, fauna, and mineral. It certainly changed the creatures of the sea as well.

  Vandra shook the thought away and put her bitterness aside. “Of course. Yes. I won’t spread any news, but I’ll need someone to come with me. There are bandits near the border.”

  “I can get your brother and sister released from the Watch for a few days. You can tell everyone you’re going north to visit relatives.”

  Vandra nodded. She hoped no one would ask. She’d never been good at pretending. But Fieta and Pietyr could lie enough for all three of them. They’d probably have an entire extended family invented by dinner.

  “You can do this,” Ariadne said. “The only way we could find a better expert than you would be if we could resurrect one of the original builders.”

  Vandra smiled. That was true, even if Ariadne was just saying it to bolster Vandra’s ego. “When do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow. I took the chance you’d say yes and set the wheels in motion. I’m afraid I couldn’t requisition mounts without looking suspicious, so you have a few days of walking in your future.”

  Vandra nodded. A failure of an alchemist going to visit relatives wouldn’t rate a mount. That meant backpacks as well as walking, but Vandra didn’t mind a nice long hike. For her research, she’d had to explore the syndrium mines, and she’d even visited a pylon. She enjoyed the outdoors and fresh air…and the lack of people. It was a shame she’d have to hurry back to Parbeh afterward. Maybe she’d send Fieta and Pietyr back with the information and find somewhere lovely and quiet to stay in the countryside.

  Where she wouldn’t be a failure. But she would be bored to tears.

  Chapter Two

  Lilani breathed deep and let the scents of the forest surround her. She tried to relax, but the ritual posture consisted of resting on her knees, sitting back on her feet, arms along her legs, with her palms turned upward. It gave her cramps in three different places.

  Especially if she had to sit for what felt like an eternity.

  She could feel Faelyn watching even though he stood behind her. She’d once asked him how he imbued his gaze with such weight, and he’d said it was the mark of a good teacher. She pitied any offspring he might one day have.

  “Forget I’m here,” Faelyn said, but that seemed impossible when he insisted on staring.

  She shifted, frowning.

  “You’re not relaxed.”

  She knew he leaned against a tree; she could picture his crossed arms and irritation. But she’d not even begun to annoy him yet. Her mother once said she could perturb even the eldest seelie, and they didn’t move for anyone or anything.

  But now wasn’t the time to think about that. After a sigh, she tried to relax into the feel of the sunlight coming through the tangle of leaves overhead and become lost in the sweet scent of lavender.
The breeze whispered over her skin, ruffling her hair and the edges of her long-sleeved tunic. She heard birdsong and the whine of insects. Not far away, some creature rustled through the underbrush. So perfect.

  So boring.

  “Your shoulders are tense,” Faelyn said.

  Lilani groaned. “I can’t forget you’re there if you keep talking.”

  “Hush. Focus.”

  Right. She must become lost in the sounds of nature as she sometimes did when falling asleep, only now she couldn’t accidentally nod off. She would become one with her surroundings and let them flow around her, carry her into the background until she became hidden, shrouded from sight. A natural ability of her people, they could fade from the view of other creatures. But not without practice. Masters of the technique could even hide from other seelie. She’d done it once when she’d been scared out of her wits, but seelie were supposed to be able to do it whenever they wished.

  Some were better at it than others. Maybe she’d be the first in history who had no natural ability whatsoever. The idea should have upset her, but she would trade any natural ability for the opportunity to skip this lesson, grab some wine, and spend the afternoon with friends.

  By the elders, she’d trade the ability for the opportunity to stand up and stretch. She wriggled her toes inside her soft boots, trying to bring life back to her feet.

  “I saw that,” Faelyn said.

  Of course. What made her think he wouldn’t see her toes through her boots? With a frown, she unfolded and sat, wincing as the blood flowed back into her legs. With a sigh equal to the one she felt inside, Faelyn sat beside her.

  He wore the lower half of his blond hair loose; the top half tied in a braid at the back. Like hers, his hair moved on its own, shifting in an invisible breeze, moved by his natural seelie magic, the same magic which allowed them to shroud.

  If they could master it.

  Faelyn’s pale features were as sharp as his crystal blue eyes that stared into the forest, and the slight point of his ears stood in line with his cheekbones. He’d come to this forest long ago when the seelie of the ice-bound northern enclaves fled the tide of humanity and the creep of the tattered lands. But now what was left of humanity crowded against the forest of the Court, the last remaining enclave of the seelie, and there was nowhere to run.

  Everyone had to be a master at shrouding now.

  “Maybe if I stood up and tried?” she asked hopefully.

  He snorted a laugh and took one of her light brown hands in his pale ones. “My dear Princess, you can try standing on your head if you wish, but unless you relax, it won’t matter.”

  She resisted the urge to jerk away, not wanting him to know how easily he annoyed her. “I’m not a princess.” He only said it to show her he didn’t care that her mother was the empress. Or to let her know he had to report back to her mother whether she had a successful training session or not.

  Well, there went any hope of lying to her mother. Not that she ever would. “I was thinking about our mathematics lesson the other day—”

  “Stop.” He rubbed his forehead. “I know you love mathematics and history and everything but this. I do, too, but you cannot distract me. This lesson is necessary, so says your mother.”

  She grinned. “I can get around my mother. All you have to say is—”

  “No.”

  “We could go for a run! We could grab the telescope and climb the Highpeak—”

  “Forget it.”

  “I started reading the history of the—”

  “No, no, no! No equations, no running, no telescopes, and no history! No books of any kind!” He sighed. “That is a terrible thing for a teacher to say. No books of any kind right now. Sit properly and concentrate.”

  Lilani groaned. She hated sitting still unless she had a book in her hands. Even then, she never read at a table like a proper student. She had to have one leg thrown over the arm of the chair or be lying on the rug with her legs stretched up the wall. Her mother had reprimanded her once for lying across her bed with her head off one side, reading upside down.

  “Books, especially ancient ones, have to be treated with respect!” her mother had said.

  Lilani didn’t see how a book could care one way or another. Besides, she was careful, if not exactly respectful. A book never left her care in worse condition than when it arrived.

  Lilani tried to sit on her knees again and fell backward in the grass. “What if I promise never to leave home? Then I won’t have to learn how to shroud.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “You’re prepared to make such a promise?”

  She thought of how close these woods and the Court would seem if she did. “No.”

  “Then up! Relaxation pose.” He prodded her leg. “We’ll stay out here all night if we have to, and won’t that be so much fun!”

  Lilani resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Master Poet Janlyn says sarcasm is a mask for those with no true wit.”

  “Master Poet Janlyn can stuff it. Get up.”

  Lilani laughed as she knelt again. “I’ll tell her you said that.”

  “Do. I love being attacked by poets. Now, focus on the forest, on Master Poet Janlyn, or whatever you need to focus on. Relax.”

  With another chuckle, Lilani closed her eyes. Her thoughts drifted to Janlyn, Lilani’s first crush when she’d been old enough to know what a crush was. As she’d gotten older, she found she still respected the poets and philosophers, but she wanted to have fun with singers and actors, the seelie who appreciated a laugh. Everyone in the Court was older than she was—as their long-lived race didn’t often produce children—but many were still young at heart. She recalled fine evenings in this forest, running through the moonlight, laughing and singing. There’d been a few wine-soaked kisses, some heated caresses, bodies intertwined in soft leaves.

  Like a lover’s sigh, her magic flowed around her, covering her like a warm blanket.

  Faelyn’s sharp intake of breath interrupted her reverie. She opened her eyes to find him staring.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You shrouded!”

  “I did?” She beamed, but her surge of elation faltered when his shocked expression didn’t change to one of pride. “Isn’t that what I was supposed to do?”

  “Yes, but…” His smile seemed tentative. “I can usually see a shimmer when someone shrouds. Only the elders and the Guard can hide from me, but I couldn’t see you at all.”

  She blinked, trying to process what he was saying and how it could possibly be bad. She grinned. “Well, then! It seems the ability comes naturally for me. Test over.” She stood and took a few steps toward home.

  Faelyn caught her arm. “Do it again.”

  She tried not to look worried. She had no idea how she’d done it in the first place. She started to kneel, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “No, do it standing. Members of the Guard can do it while running or fighting, and the elders, well, some vanish for centuries.”

  “All right.” She closed her eyes. What had she been thinking of? Running? Moonlight? Wine? A few minutes passed, and her magic didn’t rise again.

  “I can still see you, naturally gifted one,” Faelyn said.

  “Give me a minute!” So, not wine. Singing and laughing, then. And after that, she’d remembered… Oh, sweet elders. Was it the sex? How embarrassing!

  “Still not happening.” He moved around her, and she opened her eyes but couldn’t meet his gaze. “What were you thinking about to make you so relaxed?”

  She told herself to blurt it out, that they were both adults, but he was so much more…adult than her. She tried to say it and couldn’t, and now she felt the heat rising in her cheeks. He blinked at her several times, frowning, before his frown turned into a smirk, and she wanted to run for home.

  “Something…personal,” he said. “I see.”

  Why did he have to say it like that? “I was only thinking of…having fun instead of kneeling here and listening
to nothing, and—”

  He held up a hand. “Whatever you need to do. I’m not judging your methods.” He was; there was no denying his grin. He waved as if telling her to get on with it.

  She turned her back and closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about lovers with his gaze still pinned on her. She needed something else, like running or exploring, climbing rocks and trees, tracking deer. She remembered the first time she’d climbed the Highpeak: breaking through lines of scraggly trees and crevasses after hours of scrambling upward. She’d turned to see the forest of her people spread below her, but in the distance, she’d spotted the hint of a human city. She’d read about humans, but she’d never seen one or anything they’d constructed. At that moment, the world seemed far wider than she’d imagined, even with all her studies.

  Now, she felt her magic gather around her again.

  “There,” Faelyn whispered. “Hold on to that.”

  His words broke the spell, and her eyes snapped open.

  He crossed in front of her, hands on his narrow hips, and even though he was a little shorter than her, he still managed to radiate authority. “All right. If you have to think of lovers or—”

  “I was not thinking about that!”

  He shrugged as if to say it didn’t matter, but she couldn’t help feeling as if it did, imagining what he might tell her mother, of what others might say, of the teasing she’d have to endure. “Lilani has to think about sex in order to shroud,” they’d say, tittering. No one cared who she loved or how often, but to have to focus on it while doing a task that should have been as easy as eating or sleeping? Who needed to think of sex in order to eat?

  And it wasn’t about sex, anyway! “I was thinking of freedom,” she said. “Running free, exploring. Obviously, that’s what relaxes me.”

  “Among other things.”

  She put her hands on her hips and tried to summon her mother’s regal air, but she couldn’t think of a good retort. She raised one eyebrow instead, going for imperial.

  He rolled his eyes. “For the elders’ sake, Lilani, I’m not going to tell anyone. Your mother only wanted to know if you succeeded, and I will tell her you did.”