by Dave Duncan
“Don't bully the child!” said a voice with the brazen authority of a trumpet fanfare.
In front of the offering table stood a God, a figure so brilliant as to be unbearable to look on, although it shed no light on the rest of the room.
With simultaneous gasps, Inos and Mother Unonini fell to their knees and bowed their heads to the floor.
Perhaps Sagorn was a sorcerer, Inos thought, or perhaps not; but this was certainly a real God. All her terror came pouring back tenfold and she wished she could melt into the ground.
“Unonini,” said that terrible voice—somehow it sounded like thunder and yet it was not loud and it did not echo, “what do you know about this man Sagorn?”
Mother Unonini made a sort of croaking noise and then whispered, “His Majesty told me that he was coming. That he is a great scholar...” She paused.
“Go on!”
“That he was an old friend of his Majesty's. They traveled together in their youth.”
There was a tense silence. That dark and icy chapel should be hot and brilliant from the divine fire, but it was not. The flags were cold and gritty under Inos's knees. They smelled of dust.
“So?” the God asked in a voice that Inos thought would not be heard outside the door and yet could have laid low the hills.
With obvious reluctance, Mother Unonini said, “So I do not think he is evil, or a sorcerer. I . . . I should have told her that, to reassure her.”
“Yes, you should!”
Inos had covered her face with her hands. Now she opened her fingers just a tiny bit and peered through them. She could see the God's toes. They blazed so brightly that her eyes hurt, yet the floor beside them was still dark. Greatly daring, she sneaked a glance upward at the glory of the God.
He . . . it . . . she . . . No, They, she remembered. Gods were always “They.” They were a female figure, or so it seemed. They seemed to be without clothes, but she felt no shock or shame as she would have done if they had been really naked. For one thing, her eyes were watering so much that she could not see them properly. For another, there was a white rainbow glow about them, a radiant nimbus that flowed incessantly, a surging tide of iridescence. Within it she seemed to catch glimpses of a female body of incredible beauty and grace, radiating also compassion and affection—
Then suddenly it had a maleness of strength and power, and a terrifying anger that made her very glad she was not Mother Unonini. Inos could feel the chaplain trembling at her side as that divine wrath washed over her.
Her eyes ached so much that she closed them quickly and bent her head again. It had been like trying to see the rocks in a tidal pool when the sun was shining on the ripples, but these ripples were waves of beauty and strength and maleness and femininity and love and splendor—and now anger. Yet in that glimpse of unbearable blazing glory, she had the strange feeling that she had seen familiarity. Her mother, perhaps? Could that have been her mother's face in their coldly burning radiance? She did not feel quite so fearful, then. Probably the God was well meaning and just could not help looking so awesome.
“Unonini,” the voice rumbled, and somehow it was now male, also, although the pitch did not seem to have changed, “what is wrong with the cloth on this table?”
The chaplain whimpered. “Nothing, God.”
“So where is the Good and where is the Evil in frightening the girl into making an offering of something she does not own and does not want to offer?”
The chaplain wailed louder. “God, I was wrong! It was more an Evil than a Good.”
“You are sure? Gods can mislead, also, remember!”
“I am sure, God. I was being spiteful.”
“Very well,” They said, more gently. “Repent!”
The waves of anger faded, to be replaced by something which so wrenched Inos's heart that she wanted to weep and laugh at the same time. After a moment's silence, the cowering Unonini began to make very curious noises that Inos eventually decided were sobs.
Then the God spoke again, and this time the voice had returned to being softer, feminine. “Inosolan?”
Now it was her turn and she had been on the side of the Evil. “Yes, God?” she whispered.
“You will have to try a little harder, won't you?”
Inos heard teeth chattering and realized they were hers. “I shall return the silk, God.”
“No need for that.”
She looked up in astonishment and had to close her eyes at once against the sudden agony, “You mean Father will buy it for me?”
The God laughed. It was simultaneously a quiet chuckle and an awe-inspiring explosion of vast, immortal enjoyment. It should have been deafening and it should have echoed around and around the tiny chapel, but it did neither. “That and many others; We do not say that you deserve this. We are only making a prophecy. There are hard times ahead for you, Inosolan, but you may find a happy ending if you choose the Good.”
She said, “What must I do, God?” and was astounded to realize that she was questioning them.
“Seek to find the Good,” They said, “and above all, remember love! If you do not trust in love, then all will be lost.”
And they had gone. Without waiting for a reply or thanks, without demanding praise or prayers, neither worship nor ritual, the God had vanished.
5
Mother Unonini had uttered a great wail and prostrated herself completely.
Inos considered that procedure for a moment and then decided that it was not called for. Nor did the chaplain seem to want to continue their earlier conversation. Come to think of it, old fishy-breath Unonini had been most divinely snubbed and put down. The God had made their appearance to save Inos from Mother Unonini's spite.
Feeling very calm and pleased now, Inos rose and walked out of the chapel, blinking at bright sunshine that was nothing compared to the brightness of a God. She had seen a God! Most people lived all their lives without such an honor. What a pity she had been wearing her dowdy brown worsted, she thought, and then scolded herself for such improper vanity.
Nevertheless, she decided to go back to her room and change. Once she was looking a little more regal and princessy she would see what she could do to patch things up with Aunt Kade and the man who was obviously not a sorcerer. And she must show Father the silk that he was going to buy for her. That and many others, the God had said? Most curious!
She had seen a God! It would be a topic of general interest at dinner.
She headed toward her chamber, walking with her head very high, feeling elevated. Yes, elevated! It was as if she weighed nothing at all and had to reach her toes down to touch the ground as she walked. If she passed anyone on the way, she did not notice. She came to the stairs and began to float up them . . .
But by the time she struggled to the top, her mood had changed totally and she seemed to weigh as much as the whole castle. She dragged her reluctant carcass up the last few steps and could hardly find the strength to open the door. She staggered in and the first thing she saw was herself, in the mirror, her hair still all smeared with cobwebs and her face as white as a seagull, with a seagull's round, bright eyes.
And behind her reflection, her father was sitting on her bed, waiting for her. She saw an expression of impatience change instantly to alarm. He jumped up and held out his arms and then he was hugging her tight and holding her head as she buried her face in his soft velvet collar and began to sob.
Still holding her tight, he sat her down beside him on the bed and held her for a long time as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
And sobbed.
At last she was able to find one of her mother's linen handkerchiefs and wipe her aching eyes and blow her nose and even, somehow, manage a small smile. Her father regarded her with a worried frown. He was wearing a deep-blue robe and he looked very regal with his short brown beard—very comforting and reassuring. A little tired, perhaps. His velvet collar was stained with tears and cobwebs, and she dabbed at it with her handkerchief, feeling s
tupid now, and childish.
“Well!” he said. “You haven't had a good cry like that in a long time, young lady. What provoked all that?”
Where to begin? “I thought he was a sorcerer!”
“Sagorn?” Her father smiled. “No! He's a very learned man, but he's not a sorcerer. I don't think it would be possible to eavesdrop on a sorcerer, my princess.” Then the smile faded. “He's also a very private man, Inos. He does not like to be spied on. How much did you hear?”
“You said you would not marry me off to Kalkor. Or Angilki.” She paused and thought carefully. “I didn't understand the rest, Father. I'm sorry.”
“Sorry?” He laughed ruefully. “You realize that you almost burned down the castle?”
“No! How could I . . . Oh, no! The urn?”
“The urn,” he agreed. “That disgusting, smelly, hideous old thing that your aunt is so absurdly attached to. The oil went everywhere. Luckily young Kel was quick-witted enough to throw a rug over the flames . . . Well, don't do it again! And that's all? All that weeping because you thought you'd met a sorcerer?”
She wiped her eyes again and fought down an insane desire to laugh. “No. Then I met a God.”
“What? You're serious?”
She nodded, and told him. He believed her, listening solemnly. Then he stared at the floor and tugged his beard for a while, looking worried.
“Well, I'm not surprised you were upset,” he said at last. “Meeting Gods must be a very scary experience. I fear it means trouble. We must discuss it with Sagorn. But I'm not sorry to hear about Mother Unonini, I must say.” He glanced sideways at her, his eyes twinkling. “I can't stand the woman, either! But don't tell anyone I said that!”
“You can't?” She was astonished at both his words and his conspiratorial grin—not regal at all!
He shook his head. “It's very hard to find a suitable, well-educated chaplain willing to live in a place like Krasnegar, Inos.”
“There's nothing wrong with Krasnegar,” she protested.
He sighed. “Well, I agree with you. But many wouldn't. Now, what was all this about silk?”
She jumped up and fetched the silk from where it lay beside the mirror. She shook it loose and draped it over her shoulder for him to see and, before he could speak, she hurriedly explained how the gold matched her hair and the bronze was just right for her skin and the green for her eyes. “I was hoping you would buy it for my birthday?” she finished hopefully.
He shook his head and motioned for her to sit again. She dropped the silk, feeling her spirits drop with it. As she sat, he lifted a small leather box from the bed beside him.
“I am giving you these for your birthday.” He opened the lid and she gasped.
“Mother's jewels!”
“Yours, now.”
Pearls and rubies and emeralds! Gold and silver!
“They're not a great fortune,” he said, “but they are all good pieces. Beauty, not riches. Some of them are very old. This belonged to Olliola, Inisso's wife . . .”
She was overwhelmed, listening with open mouth as he told her the history of some of the jewels. Then she hugged him and wanted to start trying them on, but he closed the box.
“As for the silk . .”
Trouble! “Yes, Father?”
“Where did you ever find something like that?”
“Mistress Meolorne's.”
“I might have guessed!” He smiled. “How much?”
“Well, more than I meant to pay, but—”
“You sound just like your mother,” he said. “How much?”
Inos bit her lip and whispered the terrible truth.
“What?” He stared at her. Then he quickly turned away, and after a moment she realized that he was laughing.
“Father!”
He looked around at her, and his laughter exploded aloud. He bellowed with laughter. “Oh, Inos, my pet! Oh, princess!” He laughed some more.
She felt hurt, and almost angry.
“Come!” he said at last, still fighting down amusement that she did not understand. “Come and meet Doctor Sagorn.”
Once it had been called the Queen's Room, but now it was His Majesty's Study. Inos had not been in it very much recently, although it was almost the only place in the castle that could ever be classed as cozy in the winter. She preferred now to seek warmth and friendship in the kitchens, mostly. The familiar chairs and sofa had not changed since her mother's time, but they suddenly registered on her as the furniture in her father's bedroom had done—old and shabby, and not regal. She was annoyed to see the long and bony form of Doctor Sagorn stretched out in her mother's favorite chair.
He rose awkwardly and bowed to her, and she curtsied. She had insisted on changing and felt much better in her cypress-green wool. It was too warm for this weather, but it did have a hint of padding and it did make her look older.
Keeping her gaze firmly on the threadbare rug, she apologized.
He bowed again. “And my apologies to you, Highness, for frightening you.” She thought he could have put a little more conviction into the words. “Your father and I were perhaps a little too trusting in not locking the bedroom door.” The old blue eyes gleamed nastily. “We put too much faith in the aversion spell. It must be wearing thin, I suppose, after so many centuries.”
“Spell?” Inos echoed. “Sorcery?”
“Did you not feel it?”
“She thought you were a sorcerer,” her father remarked, smiling as if that were a big joke.
“Alas, no! I should hardly go around looking like this if I were a sorcerer, now would I?” Doctor Sagorn attempted to match her father's smile, but his angular face looked even more predatory when he did that.
Inos could not think of a ladylike answer to that question, so she countered with one of her own. “How did you know about the silk and the dragons?”
“I saw you in the road! You were clutching it as if you thought all the Imperial armies would be trying to snatch it from you. You went by me at a tremendous rate.”
Her father chuckled and gestured for her to sit. “Like the time you befuddled the customs men in Jal Pusso, Sagorn?”
Sagorn guffawed and folded himself back into the chair. “More like you and the meat pies!”
Her father laughed in turn. Evidently these were old adventures that Inos would not be invited to share. Now he had produced a decanter of dwarfish-cut crystal that she had only seen once or twice before, and three of the precious matching goblets—three! To her astonishment she found herself sitting on the edge of the sofa and holding one of those goblets. Sagorn must have noticed her surprise, and her father had noticed that he had noticed.
“I think Inos has earned this,” he said. “Sip, my dear. It's powerful.”
Sagorn sipped and sighed. “Superb! I would not have expected this in Krasnegar. Elvish, of course.”
The king smiled. “Valdoquiff itself. Kade brought a cask of it from Kinvale. I hoard it like a dwarf.”
He was answering a question that had not been asked. Obviously Sagorn and he knew each other well. Inos felt a little reassured, and sipped at her drink. She did not care for the taste—like drinking nettles, and the fumes burned the inside of her nose—but certainly it was an honor—and a sign of forgiveness? She felt very grown-up!
“Now, Inos,” her father said, settling back in his chair. “Tell Doctor Sagorn about the God.”
“God?” The eagle's eyes flashed to her again.
Inos related her experience once more. When she was done, she thought she had managed to maintain a very matter-of-fact decorum. There was a long silence. Sagorn scratched at his cheek in deep thought. He emptied his goblet. Her father rose and refilled it.
“Had the God not come, Holindarn, what would you have done?”
She had never heard anyone except her mother and Kade call her father by name like that.
Her father shrugged at the question. “Given my daughter a hard scolding, sent Meo a couple of crowns,
and dispatched Unonini out of here on the first boat.”
The old man nodded, then smiled mockingly. “The silk would have stayed in the chapel, then?”
“I do not steal from Gods!”
“Quite! The silk seems unimportant. If the Gods did not want this chaplain woman to return to the Impire, They could have found a simpler way to produce the effect, I should think.” Sagorn turned his calculating eyes on Inos again. “So the message to you seems to be the important part. But Gods do not meddle in trivial matters . . . Are you in love at the moment, young lady?”
Inos felt herself turn very pink. “No! Of course not!”
“Hardly!” her father protested mildly.
Sagorn sent him an odd glance. “So she is going to fall in love? She will have a choice to make? Highness, has your father ever explained the importance of Krasnegar?”
Inos shook her head dumbly.
“Well, Krasnegar is very unusual. You have jotnar here and you have imps. There are very few places in all Pandemia where that combination exists in peace. Did you ever hear of the Mad Sorcerer?”
She shook her head, surprised at the sudden shift in subject.
“It's a name that was given to Inisso. Does it not seem strange that a man of such vast power would choose to build his tower in a barren, isolated spot like Krasnegar? But he was not so crazy as he seemed, I think. This is a very strategic little town. It has the only good harbor in the north.”
Why was he telling her this? He seemed very solemn. Inos glanced at her father, and he frowned as if to tell her to listen carefully.
“Both Nordland and the Impire think they should own Krasnegar. Is that not so, Majesty?”
“It has always been so.”
“And it has always had a king, not a queen regnant!” Sagorn said triumphantly. “So you see, Highness, the thanes and the Impire will all take a great deal of interest in whomever you choose as husband. Yet they both need you.”
“Need me?” she asked. “Us?”
He nodded. “Need Krasnegar. There is much your father must teach you if you are to rule here after him. Salt, for instance. Even humble things like salt. The jotnar need salt to store their meat over the winter. Salt doesn't sail well, so most of it comes overland from the south in the summer, to Krasnegar. Goblins and jotnar trade furs for it. The Impire wants furs. Things like that. The imperor would not like to see a jotunn king in Krasnegar. Nordland wouldn't like you to marry an imp.”
