The Hidden Queen

by Alma Alexander

  “Nothing,” said Anghara with barely leashed violence. “A half-formed whisper, gone before I could grasp it. And then nothing. Unless…”

  “Unless…” prompted ai’Jihaar after a moment of lengthening silence.

  “There was…”began Anghara, not quite sure how to begin describing this, and then settling for blunt truth, “I smelled the sea.”

  “The sea?” repeated ai’Jihaar blankly, caught completely off guard.

  Anghara, who had been watching her with almost pitiful hope, looked away again. “You don’t know. You see, it means nothing.”

  “I do not know everything,” ai’Jihaar said gently. “But meaning will come to you, in time.”

  Anghara made a sound halfway between a laugh and a choking sob. “Yes. And perhaps it won’t,” she said, when she had her voice back under control. There was a flatness in it which, for the first time, gave ai’Jihaar a twinge of fear. They had Khar’i’id to face again—sooner than she had expected, for there was no reason to linger in this place any longer—and Khar’i’id showed no mercy to the wounded. The strength that had taken Anghara to Gul Qara was spent—it died this night; and without that strength, the grim passage through what remained of the Stone Desert would be a gamble, with Anghara’s very life at stake.

  And ai’Jihaar knew well what lay at the root of this new burden—Bresse, always Bresse, the place Anghara would always think she had abandoned to a revenge which should have claimed only herself. Morgan may have chosen a martyr’s death with a very good idea of what she was doing, but she was a persistent ghost. She could not have imagined the side-effects her deed would have—her act of selfimmolation to ensure her chick freedom to fly may have crippled the young bird’s wings forever. Sif may have been the one to give the order to destroy Castle Bresse, but Anghara had taken the guilt of its ruin on her own shoulders.

  “Bresse chose what it chose, Anghara,” she said, knowing that she wounded but willing to try even pain to shock Anghara back into a semblance of normality. There was a fey quality to her that night, something that would hand Khar’i’id the key for her destruction unless ai’Jihaar could break it quickly, here. “That is not on your conscience, no more than this. The only thing you did at Gul Qara was set free a spirit which may well have longed for release these many centuries—after calling it back, one last time, to offer you what gifts it could in return. I promise you, Anghara, for this night there is no one who could deny you the gold robe of the an’sen’thar.”

  “No,” said Anghara. “Not for death.”

  “Not death,” ai’Jihaar said, quietly insistent, stretching out her hand. “Come. You need rest.”

  “No,” said Anghara again, more softly. “Leave me be. I need to watch. I need to remember this.”

  For a moment, ai’Jihaar hesitated and then, unexpectedly, offered a silent gesture of acceptance and respect with the graceful desert salutation Anghara had seen for the first time at the entrance to the Desert Gate. Its meaning was suddenly augmented by many other nuances: heart—the love and pride of a teacher for her pupil, a mother for her child; lips—a giving into silence of all the words that became unnecessary, already woven into that love and pride; brow—the salute of an equal to an equal, to someone who, although still learning, could rise to be greater than her teacher.

  If ai’Jihaar thought she had succeeded in taking some small part of Anghara’s pain away, it had not been enough. The wind had abandoned Gul Qara, and the valley was hot and airless as they arose the next morning, but Anghara’s hand was cold in ai’Jihaar’s as the sen’thar reached to cover it where it rested on the ki’thar’s bridle. Now dusty and scorched by the harsh desert sun to a faded pink, the bridle was but a distant memory of the brave, royal red of the Sa’alah courtyard.

  Anghara felt her concern.

  “I am all right,” she said, but her voice was oddly lifeless. She had slept at last, by the colonnade of Gul Qara, and when she had woken it was to see two of the great pillars leaning drunkenly against their neighbors. It was a matter of time. Anghara had thought the pain had been deep enough the previous night, but the sight of this new ruin, still perfect in a grotesquely sterile, beautiful way, had showed her there was yet life’s-blood to be had from her. It would take days, perhaps only hours, for the place which had stood everything time could throw against it to crumble in the wake of Anghara Kir Hama’s passing.

  “We could spare the day, if you need it,” said ai’Jihaar quietly.

  “Here?” asked Anghara.

  Silently ai’Jihaar’s hand dropped away. Anghara was right, of course; anywhere, anywhere but Gul Qara, was where she wanted to be. She did not want to see the moment when the first column fell.

  “Anghara. Be careful; be vigilant. Khar’i’id cannot understand mistakes, and will not forgive them.”

  “I do not forget,” said Anghara.

  It was not enough. But it was all Anghara was giving, and after another moment ai’Jihaar sighed and turned away. “Go,” she said. “I follow.”

  And so Anghara led them out of the valley and back into the black hills, through the twisting passages with their pockets of still, empty air, and finally back onto the black, stony wasteland of Khar’i’id.

  What had come to pass in Gul Qara was nothing to the Stone Desert—praise or punishment, it had not been in its own power to offer. It had been content to relinquish the travellers into the hidden valley in the heart of the Empty Quarter—and waited with implacable, inhuman patience until they emerged. Now, even as Anghara stepped back into the shimmering heat of the barren plain, Khar’i’id gathered its forces for the moment of destiny, readying the double-edged gift which was to be the desert’s own price for her passage—and her reward.

  When the appointed hour finally came, it burst upon them without warning.

  Despite ai’Jihaar’s repeated urging, neither was vigilant that morning. Anghara found herself lost in dark thoughts of her own, waking up into the reality of Khar’i’id every now and again with a sense of what was almost surprise. Walking behind her young charge, ai’Jihaar could sense her doing this—and knew how deadly it could be, in this of all places. It was during one of these periods—when the desert, which ought to have been the only focus of every waking thought had become no more than a backdrop against which they moved—that Khar’i’id struck.

  With Anghara turned inward and ai’Jihaar focused on Anghara, the two diamondskins sunning themselves directly in their path went completely unnoticed until Anghara’s ki’thar snorted suddenly and bucked sideways with a sudden furious strength. Taken wholly by surprise, Anghara felt the rein jerk from her fingers as she stumbled onto her knees. Equally startled, ai’Jihaar cried out and dropped her own ki’thar’s lead rein—only for the animal to pick up its mate’s alarm, and plunge forward directly into her path, forcing her to step back to avoid being trampled.

  The two diamondskins in the front, the cause of all the consternation, had long since fled, slipping into the shadows of the black rocks.

  The one behind ai’Jihaar, which none had yet observed, was still there. Her heel came down on its tail; the lizard twisted with uncanny speed and sank its poisoned fangs through the soft, thin leather of her riding boot and into her ankle.

  With the lizards which had sparked off their own alarm now out of the way, the ki’thar’en had regained their equanimity and come to a placid stop only a few steps away, trailing their reins. Anghara scrambled up from the scorching ground, her hands tingling with the heat as though she had just passed them through a fire, and ran back to where ai’Jihaar had collapsed almost without a sound, her breathing sharp and shallow, her blind eyes closed.

  “No!” Anghara sobbed, coming to rest on her knees beside the sen’thar. “Gods, no!”

  At her voice, ai’Jihaar’s eyelids flickered open. “Take all the waterskins…and head north…” she said, her voice rasping in her throat, concerned even in these, her last moments, about the welfare of one who was not born
of the desert and for whom the loss of her guide and teacher may well mean death. “Find…a hai’r…a caravan…show them my say’yin…Someone…will take you to Al’haria…to the sen’en’thari…tell them I sent you…they can…take you home…”

  Anghara had seen the telltale puncture marks; undoing ai’Jihaar’s burnoose with hands that trembled, she had seen the pallor of her skin, the white rim around the sen’thar’s thin-lipped mouth. She could feel the white flame flickering erratically, fitfully, dying away.

  She knew what a diamondskin bite meant.

  The knowledge could not prepare her for the surge of rage and anguish which flooded into her as ai’Jihaar’s slight body went limp in her arms.

  But Khar’i’id’s double-edged blade had been thrust home. The first edge had cut—the price was paid. The other only now sliced to release the reward.

  Sliced along the thin skin that held in a sleeping power.

  And through this incision it poured out, cold fire, wrapping Anghara in a blaze of golden light that rivalled the sun beating down on Khar’i’id empty spaces. A rustle of huge wings mantled at Anghara’s back, and shadows shrank from where she stood cloaked in the glow of power—power born of the utmost depths of love and fear and fury, released from a dark place deep within her, the last where Khar’i’id had not yet been, where she herself had never ventured before. But that which had been hidden there was free now, and it was mighty.

  No, Anghara said, and the words were a power within the power, uttered only to be obeyed. Her eyes were the eyes of a goddess. No! I will not have it. I will not have it!

  But even as she was bending over the lifeless body she held in her arms, feeling the great white wings of Khar’i’id’s gift spread and begin to fold over the shell that had been ai’Jihaar, there came a sound like distant thunder. The descending wings were met and held back, with a crackle of electricity, by something adamant and implacable. Anghara looked up and saw a muscled bronzed body too immense to belong to any mortal, tapering to the naked neck and smooth, dangerous head of a vulture whose beak was bloodied and whose eyes gleamed with something ageless and eternal. The creature’s massive black wings had stopped Anghara’s own, and their wingtips, black and white, now rested against one another with the infinite gentleness which is power restrained.

  And Anghara straightened, looking the Lord of Death in the eye.

  This is not her hour.

  That, al’Khur said gravely, is for me to decide.

  No, said Anghara, and there was no supplication in her tone. She was not asking for this, she was taking it. Not this time. Not this woman.

  They stood thus for a moment, wingtip to wingtip, eye to eye, and then al’Khur’s great head bent infinitesimally.

  You do not know yet what you are, Changer, he said. You know that you may bind me, but you do not know why. I must obey you, but because you ask this before your time, it is given to me to bind you in return.

  For this life, I accept the binding.

  Very well. Then this is what I lay upon you. You will remember what you have done here today, but not how you achieved it; yours, the memory of resurrection, but not the paths which lead to it. And also, because I must—you will forget the name by which I called you, until it is time for you to claim it. This balance I am not permitted to disturb. And something like compassion gleamed in the vulture’s bright eye as he looked upon the being who held death’s wings at bay. And this I tell you freely, little sister, and ask no price: this is not an easy geas. At least one whom you might have wanted to save will come to me before you and I shall meet again. I see suffering.

  Anghara looked at him steadily. For this life, she repeated, I accept.

  The god stood for another moment in silence, holding her eye, and then the great black wings were furled with a soft rustle of feathers as he stepped back and bowed his majestic head.

  She is yours, then, he said. Until we meet again, little sister. Go; remember what you can, forget what you must—al’Khur’s own blessing be upon you.

  Then he was gone, as suddenly as he came, and Anghara was only Anghara again, the hot black stone of Khar’i’id searing her legs through her robe as she knelt with ai’Jihaar’s head cradled on her lap.

  The seer’s eyelids flickered open in this instant, the familiar blind eyes beyond them ranging out with Sight that was beyond sight. She lay quite still for a moment, and then drew a deep, shuddering sigh.

  “Did the diamondskin not bite me, then?” she murmured; and then, as an impossible, incredible memory came flooding back, her eyes widened with cold shock. “I died,” she whispered. “I died. I remember it.”

  The white flame that was ai’Jihaar’s psyche leapt up, stronger than ever, reaching for power, for answers that it held. And was met with a gentle, so gentle, flicker of the gold.

  “Hai haddari!” ai’Jihaar breathed. For a moment she had ceased to be an’sen’thar, was simply an old woman of the desert who had been a part of a miracle. The desert nomads’ superstitious phrase of awe and wonder had been a visceral response torn from a younger, more vulnerable self. “You brought me back. You brought me back!”

  A bringer of life, not death. Brief visions of Bresse, of Gul Qara, flickered across Anghara’s consciousness, and then they were gone. Paid for. She dropped her desert-veiled face into her hands and wept for it all, the first clean tears of mourning untainted by guilt and remorse.

  Rising to her feet, ai’Jihaar’s every gesture was one of purest wonder, taking a moment to refasten the trailing veil of the burnoose Anghara had undone. And then she reached out with both hands, placing them palm-down on Anghara’s bent head in a gesture of blessing which cut across untold ages and civilizations, and the white flame poured down through them, weaving through Anghara’s gold.

  Anghara of the white circle, I raise you to the gold, and name you an’sen’thar. The words were formal, all ice and dignity, and then ai’Jihaar’s voice softened into warmth and gentleness that was the purest love and pride. Once before I offered the gold, and you refused.

  Not for death. Anghara had looked up, her gray eyes a gleam in the shadows of her burnoose. There was a ghost of a memory in them, but its sting had been drawn—there was regret at Gul Qara’s passing, but no guilt, not any more.

  Will you accept it now, for life?

  There is so much that I still do not know…

  There is time enough to learn, said ai’Jihaar. When you come to Al’haria, you will be ready.

  Then…if you will it…

  Not I. Greater than I have written the chronicle of your life.

  Such had been the power of this moment that even Khar’i’id had faded into insignificance for a brief while. But now it reasserted its presence, and the solid, choking heat descended upon them like a blow. Khar’i’id had given what it had to give; from now until the moment they left it, it would be neither more nor less than an implacable enemy.

  As she turned toward the ki’thar’en, ai’Jihaar reverted to her practical survival mode. “It is time we were on our way,” she said. Anghara, still caught up in the wonder of it all, turned and looked into the vast expanse of black desolation which still lay before them to be crossed, and laughed.

  They made good time, taking just under two days to traverse what remained of the Stone Desert. It was under a sun already low in the west that Anghara had her first glimpse of Kadun Khajir’i’id.

  The red-gold light picked up the colors of the desert, not flat and yellow as the Arad had been but sculpted into breathtakingly magnificent dunes of coral pink sand, streaked with bands of ochre, purple, red and gold. It was beautiful, like a work of art; they passed into it as they had left the Arad, through the same eerie and almost physical line which divided the Stone Desert from the sands. The oppression that was Khar’i’id fell away from them. As they stepped into the reddish sands, there was even the first faint stirring of a cool night breeze.

  Better still, Anghara swept her eyes across the near horizon an
d saw, almost disbelieving, the unmistakable tall fronds of a pahria palm catching the last long rays of the sun.

  “A hai’r,” she breathed.

  “Shod Hai’r,” said ai’Jihaar.

  Anghara turned to her, puzzled. “Did we not leave that behind in the Arad?”

  “It is also known as Fihra Hai’r, the First Oasis,” said ai’Jihaar. “As is the other. It depends from which direction you have come. It is also, like the other, a gift from the desert. Come, we will find water there.”

  There was no pool here, under the solitary palm tree, as there had been in the Arad. Instead, there was a stone-rimmed well, and skins for drawing the water, and shallow stone troughs where water could be poured for animals to drink. It was that which Anghara did first, emptying out three waterskins into the trough and leading the two ki’thar’en, magically revived enough to begin a litany of grumbling, snorting complaints, to drink. Then she hauled out a fourth skinful for herself and ai’Jihaar. After they had sated the first raging edge of their thirst, Anghara poured what remained in the well-skin into one cupped hand over the animal trough, so the run-off would not be wasted in the desert sand. She let it trickle down her fingers over her face and throat with a feeling of blessed relief. While ai’Jihaar seemed to have weathered the Khar’i’id well enough—the desert was, after all, her natural environment—Anghara’s fingers were sunburned, in some places quite painfully. Her face was caked with dust, even through the concealing veil of the burnoose, and her hair was tangled and matted from sweat and the close wrap of the burnoose. For a newly created an’sen’thar, she looked bedraggled, and knew it.

  “In Miranei,” she said conversationally, standing with her eyes closed and her face lifted into the breeze, “there is a pool in the mountains, just outside the keep. It’s mountain water, icy cold, but there is one part fed by a hot spring, and it’s warm enough to swim in. We often used to go there in the summer…”

  Something stopped her, even the memory cut in mid-image. Her eyes opened wide to see ai’Jihaar standing a short distance away, and next to her, kneeling on the sand, three strange ki’thar’en whose riders had not yet dismounted. They wore black burnooses, fastened desert fashion, and their eyes were turned toward her.