The Pattern Scars

by Caitlin Sweet

  “There will be a confusion of images,” Teldaru had told me. “Imagine how complex a single person’s Otherworld often is—and imagine this complexity increased a hundredfold. We must look, for the people must be sure of the vision—and Lord Derris will be watching our eyes, in any case. The words, however, will be different from the images.” I had arched my brows; he had shrugged. “I know—it is the most public and renowned of all Otherseeing rites, and yet the words are made up. Planned. They must be, for no matter what the vision, the people must be reassured that their land will continue strong.”

  Made up, I thought now, as King Haldrin stepped forward. Planned. I breathed deeply—cool, damp air that smelled of earth.

  There were no speeches made on Ranior’s Hill (these all happened later, in the castle courtyard and in the Great Hall after that). When the king spoke here, it was only seven words. I had listened to them from the hillside, on all those other years, and imagined them being spoken to me. But now I thought, No, my king—speak them to Teldaru, only, so that the curse does not claim me and force me to see, when now I must make myself blind. . . .

  Haldrin faced Teldaru and said, “Tell us what will come, for Sarsenay.”

  Teldaru and I turned our faces to the mirror. The last of the mist seemed to vanish, right then. The sky opened above us, blue flooded with its own gold. In another moment Haldrin would repeat the words, and the metal would swim with images. I shifted a little so that Teldaru was between Lord Derris and me. Everyone else was behind me.

  “Tell us what will come, for Sarsenay,” said the king. His voice was deep and strong.

  I closed my eyes.

  The king’s words had only just faded when I whirled away from the mirror and fell to my knees. Some people gasped; one sobbed; a child giggled. A bird called, from the gold-drenched sky. When silence had returned, King Haldrin bent close to me. I felt him doing this but did not see him, since my eyes were still closed tight. I groped for his arm and let him raise me up. When I was standing I leaned my forehead and both hands against the stone of Ranior’s monument. My fingers sought out the carvings there: the spirals and jagged lines; the marks of the hero’s life, its Paths shaped and shaping.

  “Mistress.” The king spoke quietly, but many would hear him. “What have you seen?”

  I opened my eyes, just a little. I saw Teldaru stir. He too turned away from the great mirror, though he did it slowly. A few who were there spoke of it later: of how he stood blinking the golden centres back into his eyes, the Otherworld subsiding. Of how he gazed at his former student with an expression some called pride, and others anger.

  “My King,” I said, my voice cracking, steadying, rising high above the crowd and the hill. “I saw a mountain in the sea, breathing fire and smoke.”

  Queen Zemiya must have cocked her head; the gems woven into her hair rang like tiny bells. I could imagine her own eyes, narrowed and dark. I could imagine her sister, gazing at the ground.

  “Beyond this mountain was a wall of red stone. It broke the waves, rose higher before my gaze, just as the flames did.” I paused, as if my breath had caught in my throat. “And then a man rose from the mountain,” I went on. I straightened my shoulders, my eyes still mostly closed. Now I imagined the silk of my blue dress shimmering like water, or long, sleek feathers. Those close enough said later that my eyes had rolled, beneath my lids. Some said, too, that the marks Selera had left on my arms began to glow with a steady silver light.

  “He was broad and tall, and his head and shoulders were like black, polished stone. Instead of a mouth, he had the black, hooked beak of a bird. He strode out over the water, his spear cleaving a path of sparks. As he approached the red wall, another man emerged from its stones—a man as fair as the other was dark, with the long, gleaming teeth of a hunting dog. He bore a sword, and a shield with two silver hands upon a blue background. The two men met in a splintering of stone and a surging of water. Their struggle churned earth and waves, and nothing could halt it—until a third man appeared.”

  I opened my eyes. Even though I knew their centres were clear, people said that they had seen the darkness of the Otherworld in them yet, like the fog that had wrapped them all, before. I was still—everyone was, except for the queen, who moved her head again, to look at Teldaru—and Teldaru, who raised his to look at me. Neluja still gazed at her own feet. The slope of her neck was long and graceful, beneath the red cloth that covered her hair.

  “He was taller even then the other two,” I said. “Black fire streamed from his eyes. It surrounded the warriors, who stood poised, frozen upon the sea. Their eyes were fixed on him. He raised his hands and black and gold light leapt from his fingertips. The waves calmed. The orange fire turned to ash and fell away to nothing. The warriors bent their heads in obeisance. And the red stone wall grew higher and higher, toward the sun whose gold did not glow as brightly as the man’s eyes.” I turned. I held out my hand, palm up, fingers pointing. “This man’s eyes. Teldaru’s.”

  For a moment the silence returned. The wind rose with a long, low moan; the mirror creaked on its iron hinges. A bird cried—a different one, or the same—and then a baby, in short, breathless gasps that soon quieted. Then someone shouted, “Teldaru!” and someone else “Ranior!” and “Sarsenay!” and the sky seemed to shine brighter yet with their rejoicing.

  Teldaru did not speak to me, as we watched people Pattern-dancing on the plain below. Almost everyone was there now, though there were still some children at the summit, doing their own wild dances around the stone and pausing sometimes to pant and send wide-eyed glances at the king and queen and Otherseers.

  Teldaru did not speak, so I did.

  “Teldaru.” My voice was low, even though the others were not close enough to hear. “You are displeased. Tell me why.”

  “Why.” He chuckled, but there was no amusement in the sound. “That should be my question, not yours. Why did you say what you did?”

  “I thought only to help you. To speak words that would have more strength coming from me than they would from you. Why does this upset you?” I put my hand on his back. I felt his muscles bunch; I felt the gentle inward curve of his spine, low down. “Do you doubt the visions—mine or Neluja’s, from so long ago?”

  He reached a hand behind him and wrapped it over mine. “I do not.”

  “So you do not fear the disdain and disappointment of the people, if the visions do not turn out to be true.”

  “They were true. They are.”

  He was not looking at me; I smiled so that he would hear it. “Then you should be grateful to me, for I have only made it truer.” I paused and wiggled my fingers until he loosened his grip, a bit. “Surely you are not angry because you were not the one to speak of it before all those people? Surely you are too strong a man—too strong an Otherseer—to be envious.”

  Someone was singing, below. One voice, then more; an ancient Pattern-song with my name woven into it. I felt myself flush, deliciously slowly.

  “Teldaru!” Haldrin called. “Join me, please.”

  Teldaru let go of my hand. As he walked toward the king, Zemiya and Neluja walked toward me. I thought, Look at his shoulders and neck—so stiff—he wants to turn to us but he won’t let himself.

  “Ispa Nola,” Zemiya said when they reached me. “That was a wondrous seeing you had.”

  My heart was pounding; I felt as if it were lodged in my throat. “Yes,” I said.

  The queen ran her hand up over her bracelet. I watched the bones shift. Some of the smaller ones turned completely around so that different bumps and veins were showing.

  “So wondrous,” Zemiya said, “and so strange, that isparra would bring you the same pictures as it brought my people, years ago. Pictures that—”

  “There were no pictures.” Neluja spoke softly but her words were jagged. “Not years ago in Belakao, Zemiya-moabene—you know this, and I have told Nola so. There was no vision at first—just the gift used as a plaything, by you. Deception t
hat became truth. And there were no pictures today, either.”

  Her eyes were steady on me. I looked up into them, though I did not want to. Their centres were isparra-marked white.

  “Your words were different,” Neluja said to her. “You are different. There is something in you—a silence. A weight on my ears when I see you, as if I am diving. Isparra thick but dark.”

  The pounding was in my head now. Yes, I thought, and, No. But why such dread, when there should have been only hope?

  “She is his lover,” Zemiya said. “Perhaps it is his taint you see.”

  It was too much; I thrust away the dread. Neluja, I wanted to say, your sister saw my scars but did not understand them—look at them, now, because you will—you will understand the marks of Bloodseeing. . . . I tried to lift my hands to tug at my bodice, but they remained motionless at my sides. Ah, I thought, feeling the laughter in my throat again, I see: it is my desire and will that wake the curse; Zemiya only saw my scars because I did not think to show them to her. I imagined the curse as lengths of cloth, wrapped tight and knotted.

  “No,” Neluja said, and frowned. The lizard poked its scarlet head out of the neck of her dress and gazed at me without blinking. “That is not it—I—”

  “Come now!” The king was walking toward us, waving his arm. “Back to the carriages!”

  Teldaru and I went first down the hill. Everyone watched: the dancers, the children, the king and Lord Derris and the Belakaoan women. When we reached the bottom, Teldaru put his hand on my neck, beneath the knot of my hair.

  “What did the island witch say to you?” he murmured. “What were you talking of?”

  I shrugged a little and his fingers shifted. “My vision,” I said.

  “Mistress Nola!” a man called then, from somewhere deep within the crowd, and I lifted my hand and smiled.

  Neluja left Sarsenay two weeks later. “Haldrin’s just told me,” Teldaru said

  as he pulled me behind him to the stairs that led up to the castle wall. “She spoke to no one but him—and Zemiya, of course. She wanted to walk out alone—to walk! Imagine! But Haldrin sent her with a guard; we may still be able to see. . . .”

  The sun was bright and directly above us. The air felt cool and pure, as it always seemed to up here, away from stables and midden heaps and kitchen chimneys. I looked even further up, at the gatehouse tower. Haldrin and Zemiya were there. He was behind her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders. She was standing very straight. Her hands were clutching the battlement stones.

  “There!” Teldaru said. “That must be them—just beyond the city gate—a carriage and two soldiers ahead and behind.”

  I did not look. I could not move my gaze from the king and queen. She was so stiff—her arms and neck, her jaw. I wished I could see her eyes. Haldrin bent his head; I thought that his lips must be against her neck. Perhaps he said something; perhaps he kissed her. She tilted her head toward his. His hands slipped down over her belly and stayed there, fingertips touching. She took her own hands away from the stone and placed them over his.

  Beside me, Teldaru sucked in his breath. “Ah,” he said. I did not glace at him, but I knew he was seeing what I was. “So it is true—an heir, already. Hal told me on Ranior’s Pathday; he said she was almost certain. Nola, Nola—do you see the Pattern branching? All the Paths—and they come from us. Look at them, love. . . .”

  The Flamebird’s bones glinted as Zemiya tightened her grip on Haldrin’s hands. “Yes,” I whispered, “I see.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It is full winter, now. I keep my shutters open while I write, since I seem to need the clouds more than I do the heat of my poor, guttering fire. Sometimes the quill falls from my fingers because they are so cold, and only then do I notice that their ends (outside my gloves’ wool) are purple.

  There’s still so much more to write—but how much? A winter’s worth? A spring’s? Will the lycus trees be blooming again by the time I’ve finished?

  Teldaru told me I had to steal the bracelet myself. He told me he didn’t want to know how I planned on doing it, or when.

  “Bring it to me,” he said. “That is all. And do not try to trick me. You wouldn’t do that, would you, Nola? You’re a changed girl. A woman.”

  It took me ten days: three to think of a plan and seven more to set it in motion. On the fourth day Teldaru found me outside the school (for I had finally begun teaching again) and said, “Now that your lessons are done, where will you go? I won’t come with you, of course—I was simply curious.”

  I shrugged and smiled at him, that time. Two days later, when he fell into step with me in the lower courtyard and said, “Where to now, Mistress?” I mock-scowled at him and replied, “I am secretive because you told me to be. Now off with you; I cannot have you underfoot for what I must do next.”

  I laughed when he scowled back at me, but I was also pressing my fingernails into my palms. For my plan was nearly ready, by then, and I was giddy with terror and anticipation.

  Queen Zemiya had two serving girls: one Belakaoan and one Sarsenayan. The Belakaoan waited on her during the day and the Sarsenayan during the night. They both helped her with her baths—one at dawn and one at dusk. The Sarsenayan servants said they had never seen anyone bathe so often; the Belakaoans informed them that if Zemiya had been at home, she would have spent half the day in the sea or in a hot pool or spring. I had a serving girl now too, named Leylen, and she told me these things. She also told me that when the queen’s girls were not attending to her, they lived in two of the tiny rooms that lay below the kitchen. Leylen had a room there as well. “Take me to it,” I told her one day, “so that I will know where to find you if I need you.”

  Leylen was thirteen. Teldaru had had the king give her to me when I was recovering from my injuries. She was the only castle servant I had yet met who was not afraid of Borl. I liked her for this, and for her chatter and her wild tangle of red hair, but there were times, when I asked her questions and she answered—so willingly—that I wished Teldaru had never brought her to me.

  She took me to the servants’ rooms. They were barely large enough for the straw-stuffed pallets that lay on the floors, and they had cloth doors, not wooden ones. The Belakaoan girl’s had a crooked shelf with a spiral-ended shell on it. The Sarsenayan girl’s did not have a shelf, but it did have a hook with an embroidered bag hanging from it. The drawstring was a ribbon—faded blue, with frayed ends that had been tied into knots.

  Leylen’s room had a hook too, though all that hung from it was a plain brown dress just like the one she was wearing. “I have nothing pretty,” she said as we watched Borl nose at her pallet. “Nothing like the queen’s girls, anyway. My mother told me not to bring anything or it’d be stolen. The queen’s girls are different, though. No one would steal from them.”

  “What are their names?” I asked a few minutes later, as we climbed the steps to the keep. I breathed deeply; the warren of rooms had smelled of onions and meat. “The queen’s girls.”

  Leylen said, “Jamenda’s the Belakaoan one. Selvey’s the Sarsenayan.”

  Selvey, I thought. It must be you.

  Why are you doing this, Nola-girl?

  My knuckles were resting on the door. I heard muffled noises behind it: words, a ringing of metal, quick, high laughter.

  Why?

  The planning had consumed me, these past ten days. Only now, standing still and ready, did the question come. But there was no time. Nothing would move forward if I did not do this. Nothing would end if it did not begin. I smiled when I thought this, because it sounded like Yigranzi.

  I knocked, loudly. The door opened right away. Jamenda was there. She was wearing a Sarsenayan dress, which looked bright against her dark skin. I wondered, as she bowed her head to me, why she was wearing this.

  “I need to see the moabe,” I said.

  “She is in her bath.” Jamenda’s voice was soft and low. I did not know if she had come from Belakao, or if she
had been born here. I would ask Leylen.

  “It is an important matter.”

  Selvey walked up behind Jamenda, who opened the door a little wider. I did not want to look at Selvey but I did, steadily, taking in her golden hair and her freckles, which reminded me of Grasni’s. Her eyes were light, though I could not tell what colour they were because of the shadows and the lantern glow.

  “Mistress Nola,” Selvey said. She was only a few years younger than I was. Perhaps she was the age I’d been when Orlo had taken me from the brothel.

  “The Pattern has brought me a vision,” I said. “I must see the queen.”

  Jamenda and Selvey glanced at each other. “I will tell her,” Jamenda said, and slipped off into the room.

  “I am sorry to make you wait.” Selvey was very solemn. I wished she were not so pretty. Yes, if she only had snaggleteeth and pockmarked skin and a goiter on her neck . . . Stop, I thought. Concentrate.

  “Ispa Nola,” Zemiya, called from a farther-off room. “Come in.”

  I had never been in the queen’s rooms—just the king’s, when he had asked me to help him choose the gift for her. I saw that gift now: the statue of Haldrin’s great-grandmother, standing on a shelf above the narrow day bed in the first chamber. The bracelet was lying at the statue’s feet. I told myself to keep walking, to look away from it, but this was so hard. It was close. It was not on her arm or coiled on the floor by the bathing tub. It was away from her, as I had hoped it would be.

  This room was nearly bare, except for the bed and the shelf and the thick carpet that covered the floor. I wondered, as I followed Selvey across it, where all the Belakaoan things were—and then we walked into the bathing room.

  The tub was in the middle. It was the biggest one I had ever seen; it was like Teldaru’s mirror, glinting and vast, its facets catching lantern light. Water reflections rippled over the walls and ceiling. Things hung from the ceiling, too: crab shells, and shells of other creatures whose names I did not know. Some were tiny and others were huge; they were strung together with black, brittle stuff that might also have come from the ocean. I saw fish skeletons, stitched up whole somehow, their mouths gaping and lined with tiny teeth. A spear too, its bronze tip angled toward one of the skeletons. Everything seemed to be moving. Waves of light and air, and Zemiya lying looking up, imagining it was all sea.