The Born Queen

by Greg Keyes

  “Where are we?”

  “In our bed,” she said. “Wait, let me kindle the lamp.”

  A moment later, features appeared and the darkness backed into the distance.

  But it wasn’t Zemlé’s face.

  When he woke again, every lamp and candle in the room was glowing. Zemlé sat across the bed from him, looking concerned.

  “What?” he murmured.

  “Well, at least you didn’t scream at me this time,” she said.

  “It wasn’t you,” he tried to explain.

  “Black Mary follow you back, then?”

  Stephen nodded without understanding. Zemlé offered him a cup of something that smelled minty.

  “Saint Weylan’s root and siftras,” she explained. “That will chase off the Mary.”

  He nodded and took a sip. “There’s something wrong with me,” he murmured.

  “Everyone has bad dreams.”

  He shook his head. “Do you remember what I saw in the scriftorium in Demsted? The face in the flame?”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  “And the thing that passed through our room a few months ago?”

  Her brow crinkled. “Meldhe, that might have been a dream, too,” she said softly.

  “I wrote something in someone else’s hand,” he said, knowing it sounded quite mad. “It was a warning against that thing, I think, against something evil come into the mountain.”

  “Who do you think was warning you?”

  “Kauron,” he said. “I think he’s helped me before, on the way here. Maybe before that. And these Black Marys—I’ve had those before, too.

  “I know,” she said. “More and more often. Almost every night now. But not usually so violent.”

  He nodded and took another sip of the tea, then noticed something.

  “What happened to the side of your face?” he asked.

  She turned away, but it was too late to hide the red mark that by the morning would be starting to purple.

  “I did that?” he asked.

  “You did not mean to.”

  “That’s no excuse!” he cried. “Saints, Zemlé, I’ve hurt you.”

  “You were in a terror. You didn’t know me.”

  “That’s…“ He reached forward, “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  He was afraid she would flinch, but she let him touch her face.

  “I know,” she said. “Believe me, if I thought you did it on purpose, you would know it.” She touched his arm lightly as she said it. “Now, tell me more. About today.”

  “I found the journal.”

  “The journal. Virgenya Dare’s journal?” Her voice pitched up.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “In the shelves, like any other book. I thought it would be hidden away in a secret compartment, but I just happened upon it.”

  “That was lucky.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think it was luck. I think I was led to it. I started reading it, and when I stopped, I found that I had been writing.”

  “And that was a warning about something come into the mountain.”

  “Yes. And not to tell anyone about finding the journal.”

  “Which you just did,” she pointed out.

  “Well, yes. But if I can’t trust you…”

  The remainder of the thought cloyed before it reached his tongue.

  “What?” she asked softly. “Do you think you’ve made a mistake?”

  He stared at her for a moment, then stood and paced across the room, hands folded behind his back.

  Maybe he had.

  “Stephen. Talk to me.”

  He turned. “When we first met, you told me you had attended a coven. A coven not sanctioned by the Church.”

  “And you didn’t believe me.”

  “I believe you now. Tell me about it.”

  Her face went blank. “This whole time you’ve never asked me about that. Why now?”

  “Why now? A very good question. You talked me into coming here. No woman has ever shown all that much interest in me, but you were kissing me the first night we met. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “Stop it, Stephen,” she cautioned. “Don’t walk that trail. Think. Why are you suddenly so angry with me?”

  “I’m not angry,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be the first time you kissed a man to—”

  “Stop it right there,” she said. “You don’t want to say that.”

  You slept with Hespero, his mind urged him to continue, but part of him knew she was right, and so he stopped.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She nodded. “You’re not entirely wrong,” she said. “I wanted to win your trust. But I kissed you because I wished to. Maybe no one was ever attracted to you before, but more likely you were too inexperienced to see it. I am bolder than most women, Stephen. I don’t wait for the things I want.”

  He sat on a stool and passed his palm across his eyes.

  “I know,” he said. “I know. I told you there’s something wrong with me.” He looked straight at her then and saw a tear on her cheek.

  “Look,” he sighed. “When you met me, you had an interest in all of this. You may have liked me, but you still had an agenda. And you weren’t working alone. Zemlé, I need to know who you work for. If the coven isn’t the place to start…”

  “It is,” she said. “It’s the place to start.”

  “Well, then please start.”

  She wiped the tear away and pulled the covers about her like a cloak.

  “It was the Coven Saint Dare,” she said.

  “As in Virgenya Dare.”

  “Yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “You know that Virgenya Dare unlocked the secret of the sedos power and used it to defeat the Skasloi. You know that she ruled the first Kingdom of Man and that one day she walked away from it and never came back.”

  “Everyone knows that story.”

  “It’s easiest to start there, Stephen, because here is where the story my coven tells is different from the one your Church does. According to canon, Virgenya left the throne to her husband, and it was he who founded the Church and became the first Fratrex Prismo, Niro Promom.”

  “You dispute that?”

  “My order does, yes. According to our teachings, Saint Dare had a council of four women and two men known as the vhatii. She left them in charge when she vanished. For half a century, the majority of highest officials of the Church were women.”

  “The Revesturi told me a similar tale,” Stephen said. “Except they mention only one woman ruling, like a fratrex.”

  “That’s true. When the vhatii finally understood that Saint Dare would never return, they elected a mater prisma, because Virgenya taught that a woman must rule the church.”

  “Why a woman?”

  Zemlé frowned. “I don’t know. The sisters believed that women rule with more mercy, but I can’t recall any text that says that. Doesn’t the journal say?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far. She’s still a girl, a Skasloi slave.”

  “How can you resist skipping to the end?”

  “It’s in cipher, and the cipher changes as I go along. Besides, I don’t want to miss anything.”

  “Well, read faster.”

  “I will. Go on with what you were saying.”

  “The arrangment didn’t sit well with some of the men, but the older generation respected Virgenya’s wishes. But eventually a mater prisma was elected who was really little more than the mistress of a powerful sacritor named Irjomen. She died soon after—murdered, probably—and he assumed the title of Fratrex Prismo. The vhatii objected, and war followed, but Irjomen had been planning his rebellion for some time. The loyal were slain, the male vhatii joined the fratrex, and the women fled into exile. Women were eliminated from all positions of power, and the covens where they once had been trained became their only homes in the Church. Certain covens remained true and were destroyed or went into
hiding. Mine was one such coven.”

  “And your mission is to bring women back to power in the Church?”

  “No. The church is hopelessly corrupt. Our mission was to watch the heirs of Virgenya Dare until the arrival of the next Born Queen, the woman who will re-create the Church, remake the world, and set all right.”

  “Anne Dare?”

  “So my coven believes. When the sedos throne emerges, she must take its power and rule.”

  “But what has that to do with me?”

  “You’re supposed to find the throne,” she replied. “Her throne. And keep him from claiming it.”

  “Him? Who would that be? The Blood Knight? The Demon Lord you mentioned when we first met?”

  “The Vhelny is your great enemy, Stephen. He wants to destroy the world, all of it and everyone in it. But there is another foe, a man who would claim the sedos throne for himself.”

  “Hespero.”

  “That’s what I think,” she replied.

  “Well, Fend says he’s found Hespero and is off after him. If that’s true, we won’t have to worry about him much longer. But if he’s lying, if he’s gone to join forces with him…”

  “If he was going to do that, why wouldn’t he have done it months ago instead of battling him?”

  “Maybe they needed me to find the journal. Maybe the battle was a ruse to make me feel safe and in charge. Maybe Fend is stark raving mad. That wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

  “Or maybe, as some of the legends say, the Blood Knight is your servant and ally,” she said.

  He nodded. “That’s his claim.”

  “The thing in the mountain—suppose that’s the Vhelny? What if it’s here, watching, waiting?”

  She paled. “I hadn’t considered it. I’ve thought of all of this as prophecy for so long, as an ancient and distant thing. In my mind’s eye, the Vhelny would come like a dragon, all flame and shadow, not sneak about like a thief. But no tale or legend describes him.” She rubbed her forehead. “Saints, it’s likely, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said, reaching for his clothes.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To read more of the journal. Virgenya Dare found this place. She walked the faneway I’m supposed to walk. Let’s see what she has to say about it.”

  SLAVES HAVE SECRETS, AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM, THIS CIPHER. WILL AND I INVENTED IT TO WRITE EACH OTHER. WILL’S MASTER MAKES LEAD TISSUE, AND SO HE FINDS IT IN PLENTY.

  WILL’S MASTER BROUGHT HIM HERE WHEN I WAS TWELVE, BY MY FATHER’S RECKONING. THEY PUT US IN A ROOM TOGETHER, AND WE KNEW WHAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DO. THE MASTERS WERE WATCHING, BUT THEY COULDN’T HEAR WHEN WILL WHISPERED AND TOLD ME IT WOULD BE OKAY. HE WHISPERED A LOT ABOUT HOW OUR FATHERS KNEW EACH OTHER, ABOUT WHERE HE LIVED. IT HELPED ME FORGET WHAT WAS GOING ON AND HOW SCARED I WAS. AFTER THAT I WASN’T SCARED. I LOOKED FORWARD TO OUR WHISPERED CONVERSATIONS. IT WAS LIKE MY BODY WASN’T THERE AT ALL. WILL STARTED TEACHING ME THE SECRET LANGUAGE THE SLAVES IN HIS FORTRESS HAVE, AND I MADE UP THESE LETTERS FOR IT. WE PASS EACH OTHER NOTES WHEN WE MEET. I’LL SEE HIM AGAIN NEXT WHEN THE MOON IS FULL.

  I DIDN’T BLEED THIS MONTH, AND WILL DIDN’T COME. THE MASTER SAYS I WILL HAVE A YOUNGLING. THE HOUSE SLAVES TELL ME THAT A LOT OF WOMEN DIE WHEN THEY DO THAT. I DON’T WANT TO DIE, BUT I AM OFTEN SICK. MY FATHER SAID WE ESCAPE THE MASTER WHEN WE DIE. I WONDER IF THAT IS TRUE.

  I HAVE SEEN WILL AGAIN. THEY RACED HIM, WITH FIFTY OTHERS. THEY DROVE THEM WITH CHARIOTS, AND IF ANY FELL, THEY CUT THEM TO PIECES. WILL RAN HARD; THEY DIDN’T CATCH HIM. MY MASTER KEPT ME CHAINED AT THE FRONT OF HIS FLYING BARGE, SO I WOULD HAVE TO WATCH HIM, BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO LOOK AWAY. TWO DAYS THEY RAN, WITHOUT SLEEPING OR EATING. BY THE END OF THE SECOND DAY, ONLY THREE WERE LEFT, AND ONE OF THEM WAS WILL. I WAS SO PROUD OF HIM. I WAS PROUD TO HAVE HIS DAUGHTER IN MY BELLY.

  SIX MOONS HAVE WAXED AND WANED. MY BELLY IS LARGE, AND THE MASTER HAS TAKEN ME TO THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS FOR THE REST OF MY PREGNANCY. IT IS A HABIT FROM THE OLD DAYS, WHEN MASTERS COULD HAVE CHILDREN. I HAD NOT SEEN MOUNTAINS BEFORE, AND I LOVE THEM. THEY MAKE ME THINK STRANGE, LOVELY THOUGHTS. AND THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE FORTRESS, OR DEEP BELOW IT, SOMETHING THAT MAKES MY BELLY TINGLE AND SOMETIMES SETS MY TEETH ON EDGE.

  I HAD A DREAM LAST NIGHT. I DREAMED I WAS A MOUNTAIN, AND MY FEET PULLED LOOSE OF THE EARTH, AND I WALKED, CRUSHING EVERYTHING BENEATH ME. I CRUSHED THE MASTER. WHEN I WOKE, I WAS FRIGHTENED HE WOULD FIND OUT AND PUNISH ME, BUT HE DIDN’T. I ALWAYS THOUGHT HE COULD SEE MY DREAMS. HE HAS TOLD ME WHAT I DREAMED BEFORE. BUT THIS DREAM WAS DIFFERENT. I THINK SOMEHOW THE MOUNTAINS HAVE TAUGHT ME HOW TO DREAM IN SECRET. THAT WOULD BE NICE.

  IT HURT, JUST AS THEY SAID IT WOULD. IT HURT SO MUCH, I ALREADY CAN’T IMAGINE THE PAIN. AND THERE WAS BLOOD, A LOT OF IT. EVERYTHING WENT DARK, AND I THOUGHT I HAD DIED AND WAS IN A STRANGE PLACE. THERE WERE TWO RIVERS THERE, A BRIGHT BLUE-GREEN STREAM AND A BLACK ONE. I STOOD WITH A FOOT IN EACH, AND I WAS TALL, LIKE A MOUNTAIN. I WAS TERRIBLE.

  THEN I WOKE, AND THERE WAS MY DAUGHTER, AND I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT MY FATHER MEANT BY THE WORD “LOVE.”

  I WON’T WRITE WHAT THEY DID. I WILL NOT. IT IS DONE. But I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill all of them.

  Stephen gasped and pulled his fingers away as the lead scrift was suddenly too hot to touch. The purest hatred he had ever felt scalded through him, so uncontainable in its fury that he found himself shrieking. And as that awful rage trembled through him, he turned and caught a motion from the verge of his eye. He spun to find a boiling, kinetic darkness like black oil poured in water and almost a shape. Then his gaze rejected it and turned his head away, and when he was able to look again, it was gone.

  The anger burned away as quickly as it had come, replaced by shivering fear. He sat, quaking, for long moments, his brain refusing to tell him what to do. Where was the thing? Was it still here, perhaps a fingers-breadth from him, hiding in the air itself, waiting to strike?

  You don’t have to be afraid, a voice whispered. You never have to be afraid again.

  “Shut up,” Stephen muttered, rubbing his shaking hands together.

  It took a long time for him to manage to stand, and when he did, his body felt light enough to blow away on the wind.

  He flipped through the journal until he found what he was looking for.

  A little later he heard a slight scuffing and saw that Zemlé was watching him from the stairwell.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes. “Enough,” he said. “Enough.”

  “What?”

  “Call Adhrekh. I’ll start walking the faneway. Tonight.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THREE THRONES

  ASPAR SHIFTED his grip on the knife a bit and licked his dry lips. He’d heard—or thought he’d heard—something coming through the dense bottomland forest, but now all he could make out was the rushing of the stream and the scraping of branches in low wind.

  But then, behind him, he caught the faintest hiss of fabric on wood and whipped around to face whatever it was.

  He found himself staring down an arrow shaft at Leshya’s violet eyes.

  “Sceat,” he muttered, sagging against the rough, twisty bark of a willow.

  “I took the longer way down,” she explained.

  “Yah.”

  She glanced at the corpse of the utin. “You’re still alive,” she said.

  “Yah.”

  “I’ve lived a long time, Aspar White, and been almost everywhere. But you, my friend, are unique.” She shook her head. “Any open wounds need stopping? Broken bones?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I noticed a rock shelter not far from here. Let’s go there and take a look.”

  He nodded wearily.

  He winced as her fingers prodded the tissue of his leg, but actually it almost felt good, like sore muscles after a hard hike.

  “Well, you didn’t break it again,” she said.

  “Well, Grim must love me, then
,” he said.

  “If he loves anyone, I’d say so,” she replied. “Now let’s have your shirt off.”

  He didn’t feel like he was capable of doing much more than raising his arms, but she shucked it off with a few sharp tugs. He felt a jagged pain in his side.

  “Need a bath,” she said.

  “Sefry bathe too much,” he replied. “Unhealthy habit.”

  “But we smell good,” she said.

  In fact, she smelled of sweat and leather, and it did smell good.

  “Ah, there’s a home for gangrene,” she said.

  Aspar looked down and saw a ragged but not particularly deep cut on his ribs. Blood had glued his jerkin to the wound, which was what he’d felt when she had dishabilled him.

  He took deep breaths and tried to stay relaxed as she cleaned out the gash with water and then pressed some sort of unguent from her haversack into the cut.

  “You saved my life,” she said, her voice sounding oddly soft.

  “Yah. You’ve saved mine a time or two.”

  “You’re important, Aspar. You’re worth saving.”

  Without thinking, he caught her hand. “You’re worth saving, too,” he said.

  Her startled gaze met his and settled there, and he felt a sort of jolt, and in an instant he was gazing into the deepest forest in the world, more impossible to enter than the Sarnwood, even less possible to leave. He felt beaten, and happy to be beaten, happy to finally go home.

  He saw the path in for perhaps ten heartbeats, and then the trees closed ranks. She pulled her hand away, and he knew that if she had just squeezed his fingers, he would have acted foolishly.

  Sceat, he thought. At a time like this he was thinking about women? Two of them? Was he seventeen?

  “I don’t think we have all that long,” Aspar said. “The utin said Fend sent him. If Fend is leading that motley up above—”

  “He is the Blood Knight, then.”

  “Yah, whatever the sceat that means.”

  “I’ll tell you, I promise. But right now we need to go. And quietly.”

  “Soon,” he said.