“She was here…” came a slightly hollow voice, resonating eerily through Tsorreh’s skull. It seemed to fill the narrow, lightless passage. She quivered like a wild thing caught in an iron trap, waiting to be discovered.
More voices came through the door, voices raised now in argument. The hollow voice—a Qr priest?—insisted that their quarry was very near, but the strongest of the other voices sounded tight with suppressed resentment.
“We’ve wasted enough time here.” The clipped speech reminded Tsorreh of the Elite Guard at the Hall of Justice. “We have more pressing responsibilities this night.”
“No, we must not leave yet! I command you to search further!”
“Search where? Do you think this woman is hiding in the mortar between the floor stones? Or in the stuffing of one of these pillows?”
“She was here, I tell you…is still near…”
Tsorreh could almost hear the whispered sweep of the priest’s long robe as he glided nearer.
Another man’s voice, edged with impatience: “Captain, shall we arrest the man and be done with it?”
“On what charges?” Marvenion demanded. From his voice, he was standing on the opposite side of the room, beside the outer door.
“Harboring a treasonous witch,” the priest hissed.
“Not without evidence she was actually here,” the captain snapped. At any other time, Tsorreh thought, he would simply have taken Marvenion and anyone else within the house for questioning. But the priest had antagonized him, challenging his authority, and he was angry.
Strong, slender fingers closed around Tsorreh’s arm. Grasping Rebah’s hand, she let the girl’s steady presence flow into her. The te-alvar was quiescent, and yet she knew it had not abandoned her. It was, in a way she could not understand, sheltering her, placing her beyond the priest’s powers of detection. She could feel him, standing before the wall hanging. Searching for her.
By some miracle, he moved away, still probing. Catching her scent in the chamber, perhaps, but nothing more.
What if the guard captain became suspicious? What if he lifted the tapestry to reveal the door? Should she make her escape now, while she still could? Or would an inadvertent sound, or perhaps the very sensation of motion, alert the priest? She felt sure that the petal gem could not protect her against physical discovery.
Rebah gestured with their joined hands to move down the passage. Tsorreh followed and tried not to think about even a single misstep.
The sounds from behind the door fell away. They went on, one careful step after another. Their progress was slow, too slow. At any moment, Tsorreh expected the door to be flung open and to hear the shouted command to halt.
With a creak, the door did swing open. Tsorreh glanced back, her muscles tensing for a useless sprint down the passage. A bar of light fell across the narrow space, revealing the silhouette of a man.
“It’s all right, they’ve gone,” Marvenion called out, his voice tremulous, almost quavering.
“Papa!” Rebah hurled herself into his arms.
Tsorreh followed, shaken with astonishment. The next moment, Marvenion led them both out of the passage. Tsorreh crumpled into one of the chairs. Her heart was beating so hard, she could not speak.
With a child’s unshakeable confidence, Rebah accepted the miracle of their escape. Smiling, she went in search of restoratives, and returned only a few minutes later with a tray of fresh mint-tea and almonds crusted with crystallized honey. The maid servant had fainted after being summarily shoved aside by the guards, but was recovering well.
Tsorreh cradled her cup of tea in her hands and tried to stop trembling. Marvenion kissed Rebah on the brow. “You carried yourself with the valor of our race. I am proud to call you daughter. However, should there be another time, you are not to linger. You must do as I bid you.”
Rebah lifted her chin. “I will do as I see fit. Who can know ahead of time what will be best?”
Listening, Tsorreh wanted to laugh and weep, all at once. She supposed that fathers had been cautioning their children in this manner since the beginning of time. She thought of Jaxar and what he might say of this night’s misadventure. He would rail at her for the risk she had taken. More than that, he would be hurt and disappointed that she had broken her word. She must find a way to keep it from him.
Chapter Twenty-five
AFTER a brief rest, Tsorreh gathered up the courage for her return. She dared not delay too long, lest someone in Jaxar’s household, perhaps Jaxar himself, realize she was gone. For all she knew, the Qr priest and his fellows, aided by the Elite Guard, were still searching for her.
Once again, she was able to lose herself in the celebration. Merrymaking continued throughout the city at an even higher pitch of frenzy than before. From the greater size of the gatherings, she concluded these people meant to carouse until dawn. By the time she reached the foot of Bathar Hill, every nerve in her body quivered with strain. Every few moments, she glanced behind her or peered into the shadows at the edge of the light cast by bonfire and torch, or searched the crowds for hooded figures. The drunken caresses of strangers held no terror for her now. By comparison to her pursuers, the revelers seemed benign, clumsy but not malicious.
Tsorreh found the compound gate as she had left it, closed and unbarred. The house was dark and quiet. She was able to slip inside and up to the laboratory without notice.
The next days passed slowly. She alternated between restlessness on one hand—craving news and sights beyond the compound walls, and most especially, contact with her countrymen—and apprehension on the other. What was happening in the city, in the court, in Cinath’s mind? What were the Qr priests whispering in his ears? Or in the ears of his foppish son, Chion, since Thessar apparently wanted nothing to do with them? Had Thessar become their enemy because he would not be their puppet? What were Mortan and that hideous Veramar scheming?
She tried to convince herself that the Elite Guards would soon be assigned to other duties, just as the attention of the Ar-King would be diverted, perhaps to a military action or courtly intrigue. Yet in her belly, she knew that the minions of Qr would not tire in their search for her. Her only hope of safety, a fragile one at best, lay within the confines of Jaxar’s domain. Until she could be sure of a secure passage beyond the Ar-King’s reach, she dared not risk arrest.
* * *
During those next days and weeks, she greeted each morning with the certainty that today, the Ar-King would summon her again, and this time Jaxar would not be able to protect her. Despite Jaxar’s confidence in his own position, Tsorreh worried that he might have pushed his brother too far. The priests of Qr might create enough suspicion in the Ar-King’s mind to overcome the ties of blood and the bounds of reason. Then, not only would she be vulnerable to the growing influence of Qr upon Cinath, but Jaxar might suffer as well.
In her nightmares, she envisioned terrible fates for the men she had seen in the holding cell. Her imagination roiled with images of Qr temples becoming so tall and numerous they blotted out the bright marble palaces. Faceless priests in their hooded robes glided through twilit streets, leaving trails of condensing darkness in which disturbing shapes slowly began to take substance.
Jaxar tried to be patient with her during this time. Besides their usual work together, he arranged for musicians and poets to give performances in the privacy of his compound. Lycian was delighted, even if Jaxar insisted that she invite no more than a handful of friends. The intimacy of the events lent them even greater glamour in Lycian’s eyes and enhanced her social standing. Although Tsorreh was not permitted to sit with the family, Jaxar directed Issios to provide her with a comfortable seat, shielded from the prying curiosity of Lycian’s friends, so that she might enjoy the music.
Danar, too, did his best to divert Tsorreh. Together they read aloud and memorized her favorite selections from the Cilician Odes, and explored the work of the poets who participated in the evening performances.
* * *
<
br /> Months passed. The seasonal rainstorms turned the skies dark and turbulent gray rivers ran down the paved streets. With the return of warmer weather and sunshine came a sense that the storms had passed in more ways than one. Cinath, who had moved his court to a more pleasant location during the winter, returned to Aidon, and still had issued no further summonses.
Cinath now divided his military ventures between Isarre and Azkhantia. The situation in Meklavar had apparently settled down after a series of arrests. The prophet everyone had spoken of had apparently fled to the mountains. After the first flurry of anxieties, watching daily for new developments, life in Jaxar’s compound resumed its own rhythm of meals and rituals and daily work in the laboratory. Astreya married the young oil merchant. Danar spent more time away from home, both at court and training in various weapons and military skills expected of any young nobleman. Tsorreh missed his company, but felt relieved that his infatuation with her seemed to be maturing into friendship.
* * *
Three years after Tsorreh’s arrival in Aidon, the city was thrown into mourning by news of the death of Prince Thessar. Cinath had dispatched his elder son to lead the Azkhantian expedition, and things had gone badly. Rumors abounded as to whether Thessar had made a last glorious stand against the bloodthirsty nomads, or whether one of his own officers, most likely in the pay of Isarre, had stabbed him in the back during a battle, or whether he had perished as a result of black Meklavaran sorcery.
Jaxar and his family attended the official state funeral. Afterward he said little beyond that Prince Chion had taken his brother’s place as heir to the throne. Jaxar sounded so grim that Tsorreh hesitated to question him for further details. Danar’s opinion was that Chion might very well have conspired against his own brother, a notion that Tsorreh found appallingly possible.
* * *
During the warm summer nights of Tsorreh’s fourth year in Aidon, she and Jaxar concentrated their efforts on nightly astronomical observations. Jaxar had long been fascinated with the study of comets, comparing historical records with current sightings. A new comet, not mentioned in any of his texts, had recently appeared. Tsorreh helped him to track its course as it moved through the heavens. Jaxar’s enthusiasm grew with the increasing brightness of the celestial object.
They had first observed the comet as a single ice-pale mote at the limit of the focusing capability of the telescope. Instead of waxing and waning, it grew steadily in size. Through Jaxar’s best lenses, Tsorreh saw its filmy tail for the first time, like a smear of chalk against the deepness of the sky. Its growth seemed to accelerate, as if it were rushing headlong toward the earth.
At last, Tsorreh could see it without the lensed apparatus, although for a time, Jaxar’s eyesight was not keen enough. Then even he could make it out. He commented that if the comet continued on its present course, it would soon be visible during the day.
Tsorreh had seen enough of the temper of the city to worry how the people would respond. They would think it an omen and would rush to the priests of whatever gods they worshipped. She reflected that the priests knew no more of the nature of such phenomena than did anyone else, but that would not stop them from making pronouncements and prophecies, or selling protective amulets for as much as their devotees could afford.
* * *
As afternoon drifted into twilight, heat hung in the air like an invisible blanket. The city drowsed, the people moving languidly about their tasks. Only Jaxar, fired by the passions of his scientific curiosity, seemed immune to the pervasive lethargy. When he noticed Tsorreh yawning over her notebook, he sent her off to bed. At first, she resisted sleep, but she had been up late for several nights in a row. Her body craved rest, and her eyelids burned with fatigue.
She awoke with a start hours later. The air was cooler but very still, expectant. A dim light bathed the laboratory. The door leading to the observatory was open. She went to the bottom of the ladder.
“Jaxar? Are you up there?”
A rustle of footsteps answered her. “Tsorreh! You’re awake? Splendid! You must see this. Come up at once.”
Tsorreh had never heard Jaxar so excited. Wonder infused his voice. She scrambled up as quickly as she could. For an instant, she wondered if she had slept through until dawn, the sky was so bright. As she took in the sight, she staggered, for a moment too struck with awe to speak. Jaxar sat on his stool, equally transfixed.
A brilliant sphere blazed in the west, moving slowly toward the east along the northern horizon. It pierced the night, casting off shards of light like trails of falling stars. As if, Tsorreh thought, it had been composed of fire and ice, now shattered into a hundred fragments, plunging toward the arctic dawn.
It was both beautiful and terrifying.
Behind Tsorreh’s breastbone, the te-alvar flared. So sudden was its awakening and after so long a slumber that she cried out and pressed both hands over it. Its invisible light pulsed through her fingers, filled her chest, and streamed through her entire body. Her bones vibrated with its power.
The heart of the Shield had been waiting, watching for this very moment.
“Tsorreh, my dear? Are you ill?”
“I am well,” she managed to gasp. “Only…overcome for a moment.”
“Ah, you might well be,” Jaxar sounded both wistful and awed by what he had seen. “A phenomenon like this comes to us but rarely. Most men live their entire lives without beholding such a sight. We shall not see its like again.”
Tsorreh lifted her face once more to the sky just as the fiery-white comet disappeared behind the northeast ridge of house tops. She felt herself half in the world, half in a dream. The te-alvar hummed through her bones and colored her vision. With a breath, she might stand again with Khored under the ice-raptured sky.
Although she could no longer see the comet, she felt it still—racing, falling, hurling itself earthward. Her vision went gray and opaque. She sensed the screaming speed and momentum of the thing and its desperate need.
Something pulled it, commanded it, something fed by the very place in which she stood.
Qr? Reaching out to the shadowed evil of ancient days? To Khored’s enemy?
Far, far to the north, beyond the limit of her physical vision, she saw light surge up into the sky, blotting out the stars. Bedrock trembled. Mountains fractured. Echoes slapped back from one cliff face to the next, and blood-colored light limned the jagged line of peaks. And from deep within the earth, deeper and darker than even the tunnels of Meklavar, something stirred. Something reached out with slow and terrible sentience.
Tsorreh wrenched her awareness back to the rooftop in Aidon. She trembled in every muscle. Her heart stuttered, then grew steadier, bathed in the power of the petal gem. Slowly, her breath softened, and her pulse slowed toward normal. She felt herself once more in her body.
They sat for what seemed an eternity, as night wrapped itself around the compound once more. Jaxar gave a deep, satisfied sigh.
“What a sight.” His voice was hushed, almost prayerful. “I never thought to witness such a thing. A comet falling to earth.”
Tsorreh swallowed. Her throat was hard and dry. “Where? Where did it strike?”
“Let us see what we can determine. I will need a map.” Jaxar gathered himself, moving with his usual awkward stiffness. Together they went down into the laboratory. While Tsorreh lit the oil lamps, Jaxar spread out his charts. Consulting the notes he had taken of the comet’s approach and descent, he made calculations, measuring out distances on the maps.
“There, more or less.” He jabbed a stubby finger somewhere in the northeast region of the Azkhantian steppe. “Alas, it’s unlikely that any Gelon will be permitted that far within the nomads’ territory. It would be—” he sighed again, wistful now, “an amazing thing to study whatever is left of the comet.”
Tsorreh shivered inside. The last thing she wanted was to stand before that frozen, fiery brilliance. She bent over the map. “These markings indicate mountains, I
believe.”
“Yes, so far as we know. The map is old, pieced together from traders’ reports that go back to times when relations between the Azkhantians and ourselves were less contentious. My old friend Sadhir, may-his-spirit-rest-in-peace—whom you and Danar were so kind to visit—created some of these maps, based on his own travels. The distances may be in error, but I believe we can reliably say that a range of mountains borders the northern steppe in that location.”
Tsorreh went to the bookshelf where she had arranged the small collection of Meklavaran texts. Jaxar did not possess a copy of the te-Ketav, but some of the historical works in his collection made reference to it. Gelonian scholars were notorious for quoting the scriptures of other races. She paged through several volumes while Jaxar once more bent over the map, muttering under his breath about trade routes.
The third book yielded what she sought.
“And it came to pass,” she read, moving her lips with the words, “that Khored and his brothers defeated Fire and Ice and exiled it to the far regions of the world, to the ring of glacier mountains of the north, and then beyond the veil between the worlds.”
To the glacier mountains of the north…
She felt dizzy, thinking about the comet smashing down into those mountains, freeing what lay there. The te-alvar was summoning her, bidding her act after all these years of watchful waiting.
But what was she to do? Given her status as a prisoner and the increasing influence of the priests of Qr and their tenacious watch over her, what could she do?
Tsorreh realized, then, that she was trembling as much from fury as from fear. She was tired of secrets, tired of waiting, tired of hiding like a hunted animal, tired of her very existence being dependent on powerful men.
She had been given a burden, a guide, a treasure beyond measure, but for what purpose? To flee and sneak and keep it hidden while the world crumbled around her? Why had she been the one to receive the te-alvar if she were not also meant to use it?
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