The Seven-Petaled Shield

by Deborah J. Ross

  Jaxar’s expression betrayed no hint of emotion. For a moment, only the sound of his breathing disturbed the silence. Zevaron realized that despite his best intentions, he had insulted the man.

  “Men of honor repay debts with open hands,” Jaxar said. “Surely the matter of a reward, whether it is a sum of money or a position in my household here with your mother, can wait until the morning. Then we can give the matter the careful consideration it deserves. You have my assurance that I will deal generously with you.”

  “Gratitude is best expressed in action,” Zevaron said.

  “What do you want?”

  “My mother’s freedom.”

  “Zevaron!” Tsorreh gasped at the same time Danar exclaimed, “What!”

  Jaxar held up a swollen hand. “That is not possible. I am more sorry than I can say.”

  “Are your words of gratitude mere empty sounds then?” Zevaron demanded. “Where is your Gelonian honor now? Would you imprison her here, within reach of the Ar-King—”

  “Zevaron, you know nothing about it!” Tsorreh cried.

  Lycian recovered her voice. “My husband, this is an ideal solution, do you not see? This boy can take her away, and you can claim she escaped. The Ar-King, may-his-wisdom-never-fail, will be upset, of course, but that will soon pass. No one will blame you.”

  “Blame is exactly what will happen,” Jaxar said to her, “and this entire family will suffer the full weight of my brother’s anger. I don’t need to tell you what that means, these days.”

  Lycian’s already pale skin turned even whiter. She clasped her hands together between her breasts, shaking her head in silent negation. “I see that you will not listen to sense—”

  “Go to bed, my wife. This late hour is hardly suitable for serious discussion. I promise you that nothing of any consequence will be decided tonight. In the morning, when we have all rested, I will hear your thoughts.”

  “And pay as little attention to them as you ever do! No, I am sorry, I did not mean that. Of course, you are right. I will obey you as a loving wife should. In the meantime, I will seek the eternal wisdom of Qr, may-its-power-guide-us-evermore.” With the little dog scurrying to keep up, Lycian swept from the room.

  Zevaron waited until Lycian was out of earshot. He faced Jaxar, curling his fingers around the hilt of his sword and making sure the motion was seen. The old man was a cripple, unarmed, and if Danar had a weapon, he’d lost it in the ambush.

  “Now we will continue our discussion,” Zevaron said, “and matters of consequence—as you put it—will be decided. I ask you again, will you free my mother? Or must I take her from this place by force?”

  Danar, his face suddenly hard, stepped between Zevaron and Jaxar. “You are in no position to threaten my father or make any such demand, not even at sword’s point! How would you like a taste of Cinath’s prisons?”

  “Danar, watch your words!” Jaxar said.

  “I fear nothing from you,” Zevaron said to Danar, “you who did not even have the wit to see the trap you walked into.”

  Tsorreh thrust herself between Zevaron and Danar. “Stop it, both of you! Shall we turn on one another and do Cinath’s bloody work for him?”

  A shudder passed through Zevaron. He had heard words very like those at the council meeting during the siege of Meklavar. His father had been alive then, and his brother, Shorrenon. The councillors had hurled accusations and almost come to blows.

  Remembering, Zevaron removed his hand from his sword.

  “Your son deserves an explanation, at least as good a one as I can offer,” Jaxar said. “Lad, I don’t know what you know of Gelonian politics. Affairs in Aidon are in precarious balance. The Ar-King, the military, the great nobles—”

  “The temple of Qr,” Tsorreh put in.

  “That, too,” Jaxar continued. “I do not know who was behind this attack on Danar or how serious a threat it represents. But to act precipitously is to court disaster. That much I do know.”

  “You will sit here while your ship burns around you, and not even allow your crew to save themselves!” Zevaron said. “Not even the meanest raft-rat in Tomarzha Varya would do so. And you still owe a debt to me, Lord Jaxar, worth the life of your son.”

  “Zevaron, please,” Tsorreh said. “Do not do this. Do not insist.”

  Danar looked stricken. Jaxar, his face flushing with emotion, said, “I care for Tsorreh as if she were my own daughter. If only it were a simple matter of releasing her, I would gladly send her to safety and then deal with the political reprisals. But such a rash deed would have dire consequences for more than myself or even my family. I cannot say how far the repercussions might extend, but I greatly fear it would be wider than this household, even this city. Perhaps even all of Gelon.”

  With reluctance, Zevaron admitted to himself that he was not going to succeed. Not this night, at any rate. His best chance was to remain as Jaxar’s guest until he understood the situation better. Even facing the difficult task of spiriting his mother out of the city and to a safe haven, he was not without resources. There might be other Meklavaran exiles in the city or Denariyans he could call on in Chalil’s name.

  Jaxar and Danar retreated to their respective chambers, leaving Zevaron alone with Tsorreh. It astonished him, after so many years, to be standing beside her.

  “Are you hungry?” she said. “Tired?”

  Zevaron shook his head. On more than one occasion, he had fought when he was far more weary than he was now. His nerves were so taut, he doubted he would be able to sleep.

  Tsorreh smiled at his silence. “The Gelon are enthusiastic on the subject of cleanliness. Come, I’ll take you to the bathhouse, and you can tell me what happened to you since we parted ways at Gatacinne.”

  Taking a lantern, she led him from the main building and along a neatly kept path. He could not see much in the darkness, only the arch of willowy trees. He tasted sulfur on the cool night air.

  From here, they descended a short flight of stairs to the bathhouse itself. It was divided into two areas, presumably one for men and the other for women. Tsorreh indicated the left entrance. Inside, partitions separated private bathing areas. Each one contained an enormous basin set in the floor, easily large enough to accommodate a grown man. Pipes set in the wall carried a stream of sulfur-tinged water.

  Setting the lantern on a shelf set in the wall, Tsorreh placed a cork plug in one of the basins. While the basin filled, she brought in a towel, a basket of soap chips, and a pile of clean clothing, undergarments and a soft white tunic of the sort Danar and Jaxar wore. Then she retreated behind the partition to give him privacy.

  Zevaron placed his sword within easy reach, then stripped and immersed himself. The water was surprisingly hot. Curling vapors tickled his nose. He leaned back and sighed deeply as heat softened the muscles of his back and shoulders.

  “Yes, I thought the same at first,” Tsorreh’s voice came from behind the partition. “These baths are one of the wonders of Aidon. In other cities, the water must be boiled and carried by slaves, but there are hot springs deep within these hills and when the city was first built, pipes were laid in. You’ll get used to the smell in time.”

  Zevaron picked up one of the soap chips. At least, he thought it was soap, but the texture was far smoother than the lye-and-oil chunks he’d used onboard the Wave Dancer. He began washing himself. The creamy lather stung the small cuts that were the inevitable result of travel. It took two of the palm-sized chips to clean both skin and hair.

  At last he was warm and clean. As he lay back, relishing the feeling, Tsorreh spoke again. “Tell me of your last four years, my Zevaron.”

  Where to begin? “I tried to get to you back in Gatacinne. But there was fighting everywhere and I ended up—” A slave, a rebel, a pirate. “When I thought you were dead…”

  The Gelonian officer’s face, contorted with rage, the nights spent rocking with the Wave Dancer’s rhythm, too sick in soul and heart to care if he lived. Walking t
he streets of Tomarzha Varya, drinking in the spice-laden sun, dancing with the girls in the market. The wavering scorpion shape at the entrance to the temple in Roramenth…

  How could he tell her about those things? How could he make her understand what his life had been like? “I spent a time in Denariya,” he said.

  “Did you, indeed?” She waited for him to go on, but he did not. “Later, I hope to hear more.”

  “When we are safe,” he answered. The seductive warmth of the bath and the fine soap, the obscene luxuriousness of it all, suddenly sickened him. He yanked out the plug and began toweling himself dry. Twisting most of the water from his hair, he bound it in a sailor’s knot.

  “Mother, we have to get out of here. Aidon isn’t safe for any Meklavaran and neither is anywhere else in Gelon. Tomorrow I’ll find us a ship for Isarre—not Gatacinne again but Durinthe by way of a neutral port, maybe in the Mearas.”

  “Zevaron, no. Cinath made Jaxar responsible for me, and I won’t put him at risk. The political situation is much less stable now than when I first arrived. Even before Cinath sent his son Thessar off to Azkhantia on that suicide mission—you’ve heard what happened? Even before that, Cinath was apt to turn on those around him. Now he’s gotten even more unpredictable and paranoid. You could say he’s more than half mad. The priests of Qr are the only ones he’ll listen to. They encourage his ambitions, as if the present size of his empire isn’t enough. They—”

  “That’s exactly why we need to leave now.” Zevaron ignored the clean clothing she’d left for him. He was damned if he’d look like a Gelon. His old Denariyan clothes, worn and travel-stained as they were, were good enough. He pulled them on and stepped around the partition.

  Tsorreh was sitting on the wooden bench, her hands folded neatly on her lap. She’d braided the Arandel token into her hair.

  “Let Cinath spew his venom on anyone he likes if it will divert him while we get away,” he said.

  “Jaxar has been my friend, my protector, and my teacher. I won’t place him in danger.”

  “Danger? Just look at this place. He’s a rich man. And wealth like this comes with power.”

  “He’s Cinath’s brother,” she said pointedly. “Lately, Cinath has gotten the idea that everyone near to him is conspiring to usurp his throne. With Thessar dead, the succession’s clouded between Chion, the next son, and Jaxar.”

  He didn’t want to hear this. Why should she care? Hadn’t Cinath and his kind burned her city, slaughtered her husband, scattered her people? What had happened to her in Jaxar’s house, that she now cared what happened to him?

  “Jaxar is still kin to the Ar-King, so he deserves what he gets,” Zevaron said, his voice cold with anger. “They’re killing or enslaving every Meklavaran they can get their hands on, or haven’t you heard? Do you think Jaxar will protect you if Cinath’s men come for you?”

  “Yes, I do, and yes, he has!”

  Zevaron remembered in a flash of understanding that Tsorreh had said Jaxar was her protector as well as her friend. She must have come to see his interests as her own. Maybe he could use that alliance to convince her. He moderated his tone. “Then don’t you endanger Jaxar even more by staying?”

  “You’re not listening. If I disappear and Jaxar cannot account for my absence, Cinath will consider that a treasonous act.”

  “All the more reason to leave now, by whatever means we can! If the Ar-King is determined to suspect his own brother, he will,” Zevaron said. “The only difference is that you will be safely out of it.”

  “There is no safety anywhere in this world. There are forces at work here, and not just ordinary human politics.”

  What did she mean? Then he remembered the sea king and the temple at Rorameth. Prophecies and cultish rites meant nothing compared to the cold reality: Meklavar was conquered, his father and brother slain, his mother a prisoner, and he himself an exile, all at the hand of Ar-Cinath-Gelon.

  “Explanations can wait,” Tsorreh said, sighing. “I should not burden you with a long debate, not when you are weary and newly come to this place.”

  “I will not rest until we are both away from the land of our conquerors.”

  She stood, suddenly looking very much the Queen of Meklavar. “Come with me to the laboratory that has been my home, my workplace and refuge.”

  * * *

  Tsorreh set about making up a pallet for Zevaron in the far corner, beside the place where she slept like an insignificant servant. Together they sat. She took up one of his hands, running her fingers over the scars.

  “Zevaron, you have been a long time away from our people and traditions, but you must remember the stories in the te-Ketav, the tale of King Khored.”

  Memory stirred. Zevaron was once again a child, lying in his bed with his mother’s favorite cat curled at his feet, she beside him, a book open on her lap, her voice rising and falling with the rhythm of the ancient verses. With the room almost dark, except for the circle of light cast by the oil lamp, he had closed his eyes, the better to see the marvelous pictures forming in his mind: A great king, bearded, mighty, garbed for battle, stood before his army. Gemstones blazed with iridescent light.

  “And Khored forged a magical Shield,” Tsorreh had read, “six perfect alvara crystals surrounded Khored’s own gem, the te-alvar, the soul of the Shield.”

  In his mind, the boy Zevaron had watched the Shield blaze forth all the colors there ever were and even more that had never been imagined. Fire and Ice thundered across the battlefield, white and blazing like a vast, misshapen frost-giant. Through his mother’s words, he watched as rivers turned into steam and mountains into sand, green fields hardened into ash, and the Sea of Desolation flooded over the battlefield.

  “And it came to pass,” she read, “that Khored and his brothers defeated Fire and Ice and exiled its fragmented remnants to the far regions of the world, to the mountains of the north, and then beyond the veil between the worlds.”

  Now, seated in this strange room in Aidon, Tsorreh fell silent. Zevaron sensed that there was more she would say, something of great importance that she could not yet bring herself to utter.

  “When we have thrown off the Gelonian occupation,” he said in a soothing tone, “we will sing those songs once again. I promise you.”

  “They are not fables, Zevaron. They are history, a history that continues to unfold to this day.”

  When Zevaron snorted in disbelief, Tsorreh gave no sign that she noticed. “What is not recorded is that over the generations, the alvara have become scattered. Not all of them, and not all at once. Oh, each descendent of Khored and his brothers was faithful to his task, but the world changed too much. They no longer understood why it was important to keep the Shield intact. For a long time, enough of the guardians remained in Meklavar to maintain Khored’s magic.”

  “Much good it did us, when the Gelon came,” Zevaron made no effort to keep the bitterness from his voice.

  Tsorreh looked sad and thoughtful. “When Meklavar itself fell, the te-alvar went into exile. All that stood between Fire and Ice and the living world were the northern mountains, its prison. The last defense was a physical barrier, do you see?”

  She leaned forward, her mood shifting. Her eyes gleamed with more than the reflected light of the lantern, and the touch of her fingers felt hot. A fever burned in her.

  “Each land has its own incarnation of evil,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “Azkhantian enarees preserve the legend of Olash-giyn-Olash, the Shadow of Shadows. The Scorpion god Qr haunts this land of Gelon, growing stronger with each passing day. But Fire and Ice, whose secret name is known only to Khored and his heirs, is the origin of them all. As the power of the Shield failed, so has it grown in strength. Even now, it marshals its resources, searching for a way back into the world.”

  Zevaron stared at her. She must have gone insane, these four years as a prisoner of her most bitter enemies. Or else she had fallen into an elaborate superstition, or perhaps she had
been like that all along, being the granddaughter of the high priest of Meklavar. She had always spent too much time studying the ancient holy texts. Her prayers had not protected her from Gelon. No matter what she said, she was a slave here.

  “Now the white star has fallen to earth far to the north, if Jaxar’s observations are correct,” Tsorreh went on, as if she had not noticed his reaction. “Don’t you see? In the north. In the mountains where Khored imprisoned the ancient enemy. Before that, Qr had little influence here. The sect was no more than a handful of priests who went around frightening ignorant people.” She paused, her focus turning inward. “Now the Scorpion temples are everywhere, and the priests whisper their poison into the ears of the Ar-King himself. And he heeds them.”

  Zevaron shook his head. What did it matter if the Gelon worshiped a crawling thing? He felt as if he had stumbled into a world where nothing made sense, where grown people believed children’s stories.

  Yet, in a way, it did make sense. His mother had been through a trial of horror and fear, with her husband dead and her city set on fire, fleeing for her life, now alone here, cut off from even another to speak her own language. What woman would not turn to the comfort of childhood beliefs?

  He took her hand, the fingers slender and strong between his. “It is late, not a good time to debate explanations.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “It’s too much to understand all at once, and here you are, a stranger in Aidon. Tomorrow or the next day, you and Danar must explore the city. You will see for yourself what is happening. Everything will come clear in its own time.”

  Weariness crept over him. He would need his strength for the morning. It would not be easy to convince Tsorreh to flee. Once away from Aidon, he hoped she would see sense. One way or the other, with Jaxar’s permission or without it, even if they were fugitives with nothing but their own resources and each other to depend upon, they would find their way home.