“Will you still be able to speak to me?”
But the question was wasted. She knew the answer already, knew she had but moments left with her mother.
“I am the conduit,” Mahudia said, her voice growing fainter. “You must let me go, beloved daughter, so I can make Cylene safe. Don’t weep, girl; you still have memories of me, and soon you will have your sister. She is special, Lenares, just like someone else I know.”
Don’t weep, she says. Lenares could do nothing but weep as she took the end of the tether linking her to Mahudia and held it loosely in her shaking hand. Lose a mother, gain a sister, overcome a god. The latter a great victory, and yet it felt so much like a defeat.
She opened her hand.
CHAPTER 13
THE LIMITS OF LOVE
NO ONE HAD THE ENERGY to take to the road the next day, or the one following. Smoky, haze-filled days, the weather humid, the air heavy, tiredness draped over their shoulders like a damp cloak. The travellers spent their time foraging for food, sleeping off their magic-induced weariness and trying to understand what had happened.
Lenares received more praise than she ought for the banishment of Keppia, but less sympathy than she deserved for the loss of Mahudia. None here, save Torve, had ever met the Chief Cosmographer, and most seemed to regard Lenares’ explanation of Mahudia’s role in Cylene’s rescue as some sort of made-up story, an attempt to avoid the limelight. Their behaviour made Lenares angry: her mother deserved unending praise for her brave sacrifice, but no one seemed to care.
They cared far more about reports that Umu knew what had happened to her brother. Lenares remembered the moment when Keppia had cried out for his sister’s help and had looked imploringly at the trees at the roadside. A few of those people who had remained on the open road, too frightened to follow Lenares back to the village and her confrontation with Keppia, reported seeing a small, rotund man limping through the trees. Their descriptions matched that of Conal, the Falthan priest.
So close, some said. We could have defeated them both in one day.
But the people who said this were not magicians, nor were they friends or relatives of the eight people who had died that afternoon, drained of their essenza by Keppia in his quest to free himself. They had no appreciation of the cost the battle had incurred, nor did they realise, according to Kannwar, just how lucky they were, how lucky they all were, that Umu had fled rather than attack.
“She did not accurately assess our condition,” the Undying Man had said. “Had she done so, she could have destroyed us all.”
“If she saw Keppia’s failure,” Moralye asked, her brows knotted in thought, “is she likely to try to force us into liberating her in similar fashion?”
“I think not,” the Undying Man had replied, as if conversation between himself and a Dhaurian scholar, his fiercest of enemies, was the most natural thing in the world. “She is likely to find another way. We need to recover our strength and confront her before she grows too strong.”
“What will she do in the meantime?”
“You know the answer to that, scholar. She will slaughter as many people as possible in an attempt to widen the hole in the world even further.”
“Such an action will yield unpredictable results,” Moralye commented. “Phemanderac taught us about the Wall of Time, and his thesis was that the Fountain of Life weakened it in and around Dona Mihst, meaning exposure to the eternal void lengthened the lives of those dwelling there. He argued there may not have been a simple correlation between exposure to the Water of Life and the age to which men lived.”
“And what do you think of his thesis?” The Lord of Bhrudwo’s voice was devoid of inflexion.
“I… ah, perhaps I would defer to one who actually lived in those days,” she said, proving she was not only knowledgeable and brave, but wise.
“No matter her tactic, we all know her ultimate goal. With Lenares’ cleverness and our strength we have rid the world of Keppia, but he was the less intelligent of the siblings. I fear we have a far greater task ahead of us.”
Lenares agreed with the Undying Man’s assessment. Umu was very clever. She had tricked Lenares into letting her go just when she might have done the most good. She was much sneakier and less direct than her brother had been. And she was bent on revenge against Lenares for having ensnared her.
Lenares had been thinking about Umu on that first night in Mensaya when someone approached her.
“Sister, might we not speak?”
Fear prickled anxiously in her stomach as she swept her lank hair aside, looked up and met Cylene’s troubled gaze. “I don’t really want to,” she said.
“I know you don’t,” Cylene said, nodding slightly. “No one understands that while everyone else has gained something today, you have lost.”
“Do you see this?” Lenares said, on the verge of tears. Don’t cry. You must never cry in front of others. They will tease you and call you names.
“Of course I see it. But I haven’t come to offer you counsel. Sister, we have both lost mothers today. I have only just learned the fate of my… our family. I know she deserved it, but… ”
The tears came, and soon neither girl could tell where one’s sorrow ended and the other’s began.
“I don’t like you,” said Lenares, sniffing. “They kept you and got rid of me. What made you so special?”
“You were the special one, Merla,” Cylene said, seemingly unoffended. “You stood up to what Daddy did to us. You were always getting beaten. It hurt us to see it, and made us frightened to disobey him in case we were treated like you.”
“I’m Lenares, not Merla. Merla is dead. She fell from a cliff nearly ten years ago. I don’t want to hear her name any more.”
“And you don’t remember… ?”
“I remember nothing.”
“It’s as though you lost something essential in your mind and you became a new person.”
Lenares scowled. “Or maybe I gained something extra that no one else has,” she countered.
Cylene nodded. “I’m sorry, Lenares. Forgive me for my rudeness. I, too, have gained something, thanks to you. I now have a small capacity for magic.”
“Can you hear Mahudia? Does she speak to you?”
Cylene shook her head sorrowfully. “No, sister. Our mothers are gone. You and I will have to do for each other.”
Lenares grunted an ungracious reply, but had not really expected to drive her sister away. Nor wanted to when it came to it. Cylene was her sister, after all.
Sister. She wished to deny it, but the word brought a warm glow to her chest. Though her sorrow at the loss of Mahudia was almost unbearable, she knew she could not have resisted her foster mother’s last request. Some people might feel they were betraying the newly departed by talking to the one responsible for that loss, but Lenares prided herself on always seeing the truth. This wasn’t Cylene’s fault.
“What’s it like to be dead?” she asked her sister.
Cylene’s face fell. “Noetos asked me that and I couldn’t give him a satisfactory answer,” she said.
“Is he your… is he special to you?” He’s so old. As old as our father would have been. The thought made Lenares uneasy.
“Noetos and I are very good friends,” Cylene said, smiling. “We don’t yet know what we might become.”
“Do you love him?”
“He asked me that too. I’m not sure I gave him a satisfactory answer to that question either.”
“Do you remember Keppia?”
Cylene sighed. “I wish I could forget. I’m not sure where I went after the ship crashed down on me, but it was a place of wide-open spaces and twinkling lights, filled with countless voices, some laughing, others weeping, arguing or speaking quietly. I was drawn back into my body, and he was there, filling it up. I can’t describe to you what it feels like to be inside your body but not filling it. To me it seemed as though my whole body was a blister I needed to slough off, or perhaps an unnecessary l
ayer of clothing.
“Then he started to hurt me. It was horrible.” The colour faded from her face. “Lenares, do you mind if I don’t talk about it?”
“I wanted to know,” Lenares said, unabashed.
“You’re a very direct person,” Cylene said, a small frown marring her features. “Noetos told me about you. I think I understand your gift. Sister, can you tell me more about it? What was it like growing up in a foreign land?”
Lenares and Cylene shared stories with each other well into that night. The more they talked, the more intoxicating the talk became; small intimacies led to larger ones, and long after everyone else had found sleep under the stars, the sisters whispered the secrets of their hearts to each other. As the fire died down and the stars came out, they became aware of the great gift Mahudia had given them.
It was one of the best days Lenares could remember.
The next day was not so memorable.
It began with hunger. Despite the many talented hunters among their number, it was impossible to find enough food to keep the whole party satisfied. Arguments started, and twice that morning angry men left the group, taking dozens of people with them. Kannwar did not try to prevent their departure, suggesting it was for the best.
“How will they survive?” Mustar wondered aloud.
“The same way we all will—or will not. No village will have food to spare, no grocer will be willing to part with any surplus he has.”
“Couldn’t you command them?” Stella asked.
“I could,” Kannwar said, “if I thought it would not further inflame those who look for any cause to take issue against me. Objectively speaking, we are the most important people in the world and our survival is more important than any village we might raid. But weighed against that is the division such a raid might cause. For better or worse, the Most High has chosen us. I do not want to lose anyone he thinks should be part of this endeavour.”
Lenares was unconcerned about the lack of food. In Talamaq the cosmographers had learned out of necessity to make do with very little: the Emperor had systematically reduced their funding, making Mahudia’s position very difficult. It had been whispered among them that the only reason the cosmographers survived was because Mahudia used her own personal fortune to subsidise them.
She got up, stretched and made her ablutions in a cool stream some distance from the village. The sight of so much water flowing freely still confounded her senses, and as she bathed she felt like an emperor herself.
As she reached for her clothes, she realised someone was watching her.
“Torve,” she said, and made no move to cover her breasts. Such ought to have been the behaviour of a proper lady—though a proper lady would never have bathed naked in a stream—but Lenares cared nothing for such behaviour. She beckoned him closer.
He had obviously never been taught the male equivalent of proper decorum. Why should he have been? Torve was an animal, after all, according to Amaqi traditions. Such teaching wasn’t wasted on animals. He came closer, edging down the slope to the stream, and crouched on the bank within touching distance.
Lenares couldn’t help it: her thoughts returned to the moment the Emperor had taken his worm. Her mind told her it changed everything, but her mind seemed to have very little influence on her heart. The pink feeling began to spread up and down her body. She wanted him, but she could never have him.
He looked at her with eyes filled with longing.
“Can I touch you?” he said.
Why? Lenares wanted to ask him. Kannwar told me you would no longer feel those desires. But as much as she wanted to know the answer, she was reluctant to ask. She did not want to hurt his feelings.
“Yes,” she said.
He reached out and took her right breast in his gentle fingers. She gasped at his touch, and a delicious heat spread across her skin. His eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t feel anything,” he said.
“I can,” said Lenares, biting her lip.
“There is no future for us,” Torve said, and the despair in his voice stole her pink feelings away.
After washing and drying her clothes, she dressed. Torve waited patiently for her, then walked with her back to Mensaya. They talked as they walked, the discussion a pessimistic one.
Once there, Lenares and Torve walked boldly into the town square, where the others had gathered. Various conversations were proceeding, accompanied by arm-waving and even diagrams drawn in the sand. Lenares wished she could have taken part in them—her thirst for knowledge seemed to be increasing with every day of this adventure—but she needed their help. How should she do this? The old Lenares would simply have stood in the centre of the square, held up her arms and called for everyone’s attention. But Torve was a private person, painfully private. She could not make a public spectacle of him.
She flicked a glance over the crowd and saw her sister. Cylene sat beside Noetos, their hands entwined, flanked by his children. Lenares had heard murmurs about the age difference between her sister and the fisherman and once again wondered if her sister knew why she was attracted to the older man.
They are in love. I will start with them.
As Lenares approached, Noetos looked up, shielding his face from the sun. “What has happened?” he asked her. “Is it the Daughter? Is another disaster on the way? Are we in danger?”
She gazed at these people, strangers to her, yet people she hoped to make her friends. They were here because they trusted her, because she had saved them, because they saw her as their hope against Umu and the hole in the world. At the least, she was their warning should Umu attack them. They respected her and would help her.
“I need your advice,” she said.
They waited patiently.
“I am gifted,” she told them, “in many ways. I am the last cosmographer in the world, and the best for many centuries. Perhaps of all time. I am not like you: I do not lie, and I see many things more clearly than others. But because I am immersed in my gift, I am not familiar with a number of the things you take for granted.”
A couple of sniggers followed this comment. Others in the square had ceased their discussions and were listening to her. She sighed. Ignorant people could be found everywhere.
“This is private,” she said loudly. “Mind your own affairs and leave me to mine.”
Their faces turned away.
“Torve and I are considered animals back in our home-land,” Lenares said, more quietly. “He is Omeran, and I was called a half-wit. Neither of us were instructed in matters of love. We want to know—”
“You wanna know ’bout fuckin’?” someone called out.
They were still listening!
“Is that all there is to love?” Lenares responded angrily.
“All that matters,” called another male voice.
The words were followed by a sharp comment from a woman and a ringing slap, an indignant cry, then hearty laughter from somewhere to her left.
“You want to talk about love?” Anomer sounded puzzled.
“Such questions should surely wait until we have done what the Most High has called us to do,” Kannwar said.
Lenares almost leapt into the air, so startled was she by his voice. He stood only a few paces behind her.
“You should stop telling us what to do,” she said, turning to point a finger at the Undying Man. “I rescued Cylene yesterday. I drove Keppia away. If people want to help me in return, you don’t get to stop them.”
“He’s only opposed to it because he has nothing to contribute to the topic.” Robal stood near the edge of the square, arms folded, a bitter smile on his face.
“Very well,” Kannwar said. “Continue your most important discussion. I, however, have other matters to attend to.”
People poured out of the square like water through a colander. The sight angered Lenares almost to the point of incoherence. These were the people she had risked everything to save! The people Mahudia—no, she couldn’t th
ink about it. She knew her anger was irrational; she had told them not to listen to her, so why should she be unhappy if they chose to leave?
Perhaps twenty people remained in the town square when the water finished draining away. At least her sister, the fisherman and his children had not left. Moralye smiled up at Lenares, and behind the scholar sat Robal, Kilfor and Sauxa, the three Falthans surprisingly interested in the proceedings.
Stella sat to one side, alone.
The rest were people Lenares had not properly met: interested locals, those perhaps too weary or heartsick to join those who had left the square. A couple wore trouble on their leering faces.
“You want to know about love, girl?” Sauxa asked, his perpetual scowl fixed on his face.
Lenares liked this man, so she nodded enthusiastically. He wore his frown like a mask, but he was a man who feared nothing and valued the truth, even though he played strange games with it. She was pleased Sauxa had asked her the question.
“Yes, I do. You all know what happened to Torve,” she said. Torve stood beside her, saying nothing, obviously uncomfortable with the exposure but willing to trust her. “We want to know if we can still love each other. We want to know what to expect.”
“Alkuon, woman, he’s lost his manhood.” Noetos spoke kindly, but his words still hurt. “You keep asking the question and the answer remains the same. What you can expect is nothing.”
Cylene frowned at him.
“If by nothing you mean no… ah,” Lenares stumbled over the word, “no fucking, no children, then we understand that. But can’t we love without it? I was in love with Torve before he… before the Emperor made him a eunuch. We hadn’t made love, but we loved each other.”
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