The Hidden Queen

by Alma Alexander

  “An’sen’thar,” said a Sayyed elder, his hair almost white with age, with grave and unexpected sympathy, “you are welcome to stay as long as you need. A day’s rest now will speed your journey all the more. Stay and gather your strength, and we will give you fast dun’en for the last lap to Sa’alah. You will reach your destination as though you had never tarried. But leave now, and the weariness will cling to you, and slow you down. My daughter said you might pass this way, and bade us give you our assistance should you do so; it is no more than we can do to offer you a place of comfort and safety to rest in.”

  So they had been expected, in a way.

  “Your daughter…” asked Anghara fuzzily.

  “That is ai’Farra ma’Sayyed’s father; he is Sa’id Say’ar’dun,” said al’Tamar in a low voice close to her ear.

  Say’ar’dun turned out to be a small city, less striking than spired Al’haria but far more focused in its existence. The reason for its being was dun’en, and everything in Say’ar’dun revolved around the beasts. Anghara, whose idea of the animals was shaped by their rarity and preciousness in her own land, could not get over seeing herds of them in one place. There were dun’en being groomed, or exercised, or doctored, or if the physical beasts were absent, then the residents of Say’ar’dun surrounded themselves with records of their breeding, with distinguished pedigrees stretching back generations. When Anghara, whose weariness seemed to have abated after a good meal and a short nap, requested to be shown the city, it was the yellow-eyed Sayyed youth who acceded.

  Dogging Anghara’s footsteps as always, al’Tamar commented whimsically in the Records House, “Some of these dun’en know more about their ancestry than I do.”

  “The records go back hundreds of years, in some cases,” their guide said, unrolling one long scroll. “Here, for example, is one where twenty-five generations have been tallied.”

  Anghara peered at it. “But how long does a dun live?”

  “Twenty years, sometimes thirty,” said the guide. “A lifetime companion for a man.”

  “Twenty years?” she repeated. “But that means this scroll is…over five hundred years old!”

  The young man bowed lightly, allowing the scroll to roll up again under his fingers. “A copy,” he said diffidently. “But yes, that is correct.”

  “I have not seen many dun’en in my land,” Anghara said thoughtfully, “but I do remember my father had at least two separate sets from Kheldrin in my own lifetime. I do not recall ever hearing of any surviving for longer than ten years.”

  “Taken away from their country,” said the Sayyed guide gravely, “it is possible they do not live as long. Perhaps there is something we do not understand—a tie which, severed, means they cannot exist beyond a certain number of years. I know of this; my own dun’en, and my family’s, are like children to me, and I grieve for their lost years as I would sorrow for those lost to any child of mine.”

  “And yet they are still taken,” murmured Anghara softly.

  “Those that go,” said the youth, “help those that stay behind, both dun’en and their masters, to survive the dry seasons. The wealth they bring in provides food for those who might otherwise go hungry. And it is never the best who go.” The smile that crept onto his face as he tapped the ancient pedigree in his hand with one long tapered forefinger was almost sly. “None of his line will ever be sold beyond these shores…and these are the real dun’en, the jewels of the desert. They are companions, not servants—they are ridden for the joy of it, not for need or necessity. They are kings here, and what is a king when you send him away from his country? He is diminished when torn from the place he was born to rule.”

  “Perhaps there are other callings,” said Anghara.

  The youth bowed in a graceful apology. “Forgive me. I forget myself sometimes when I speak of these animals; I do not often speak of these kings to one who is queen in her own right, and in whose presence it might be more prudent to hold my tongue. But you will see; we will give you one for your journey. And afterward, nothing you ever ride will be the same again.”

  He was right, of course—in everything. It would have been all too easy to stay there, resting in the high cold breezes that swept the plateau, watching the proud herds of dun’en graze on the banks of the small lake which made their life in that place possible. But it was this young man’s words, inadvertent or not, that made Anghara look with fresh passion on her journey. Yes, there were other callings, as she had told him—and she would never regret her Kheldrin years and the gifts the Twilight Country had chosen to bestow upon her. But she was a queen, and yes, she was diminished by her distance from the land that was her own. Her home. It was time to go back.

  The Sayyed were true to the young man’s promise when Anghara prepared to depart; Anghara’s mount, a rare gray in a breed that was usually sleek and dark, was truly a prince amongst dun’en. The yellow-eyed youth himself held her reins as she came to mount up, and his eyes gleamed.

  “This is one of my own,” he said, with not a little pride. “One whose ancestry lies revealed on the scroll I showed you. A king, who has never been away from his kingdom.”

  “You do me great honor,” said Anghara.

  He tilted his head in respect, accepting her thanks with his usual grace. “What greater honor,” he said, “than for him to bear an an’sen’thar on a journey…and a queen back to her realm?”

  Here, she was an’sen’thar first, queen second. It was a different world; but hers, also, just like Miranei. She reached to pat the horse’s arched neck. “I will see he is well cared for, and returned to you to reign in his kingdom again,” she said.

  “Sen’en Dayr,” he said, stepping back. “God speed, an’sen’thar.”

  The gray dun’s paces were silken, but it could fly like the winds of ai’Dhya herself, and Anghara sped across most of Kharg’in’dun’an at a flat-out gallop, for once not because she wished to hurry but for the sheer joy of it. But that meant they were upon the southern desert almost before they knew it, and the first glimpse of Arad Khajir’i’id from the edge of the high country, her first after many months in red Kadun, smote Anghara with an almost physical pain. She seemed transfixed by it, so much so that al’Tamar, himself mounted on a princely chocolate-colored dun, had to all but lead her down into the yellow sand together with the pack beast he still dragged behind him.

  They crossed the Arad without meeting another living being, and all too soon the mountains that were the desert’s barrier swelled from a distant shimmer into the great buttresses of naked rock she recalled, as if from a dream. And then the mountains shrank down to a point—Ar’i’id Sam’mara, the Desert Gate, the place where an exiled Roisinani princess had first set foot into a hidden, forbidden land. Anghara stood for a long time, looking back into the yellow desert—treasuring this parting glimpse as much as she treasured the memory of her first. And when she finally turned to follow al’Tamar into the maw of the Gate, she felt a ghostly self fall away from her, to stand guard at the gate and watch for her return. Much as she had once done on a ship’s deck, watching the shape of the land of her birth fold away under the horizon, now she made the same vow to the land she was leaving behind: I will return. And then, with tears stinging her eyes, she wished bitterly that somewhere in all the knowledge she had gained over the years she could find, in this moment, a single iota to tell her how to cope with her divided heart.

  It was close to dusk when they reached Sa’alah. Anghara left al’Tamar in the serai where they had bespoken rooms, the same one from which she had once started out on this adventure, and went alone to the quays to bargain for a passage to Roisinan. It was full dark when she returned; al’Tamar had not been idle, she found supper waiting, and lais tea steaming in delicate porcelain cups.

  To you, ai’Jihaar, thought Anghara, sipping the hot tea with a smile.

  “Sit down,” she said to al’Tamar, who showed every sign of hovering at her elbow as she ate, ready to wait upon her as he did
with al’Jezraal. “We are not in Al’haria, and I am not your Sa’id. It is your supper, too.”

  He did as he was told, breaking a handful of flat pan-bread to sop the juices in the bowl of stew. “Have you found your passage?”

  “A ship leaves in two days; there is nothing before,” she said. “I took it…al’Tamar…”

  “I know what you want,” he said, staring down into his lap. “And I will not, Anghara. I will not go back until you leave. You might not want to have someone wave goodbye to you from the shore, but I came with you to Sa’alah, and I will stay until you leave.” He glanced up, briefly, and Anghara could read his soul in his eyes, the soul he tried to keep so carefully hidden, the pain of what he knew could never be.

  He loves me, she thought, without surprise. “Even if I gave you a task to do for me?”

  “I would do it,” he said, after a small hesitation. “But what could you need to have done with such urgency that you would send me away at once?”

  “There are the dun’en to return to Kharg’in’dun’an,” she said, “but that you can do at any time on your way back. But there is something else. Have you forgotten the say’yin you promised me?”

  “But you will…” You will be gone by the time I am done. Gone. And will you ever come back?

  “It will be a special say’yin, al’Tamar, and not only because it will be a friend’s gift and a friend’s hand will have made it,” Anghara said. “You already have the amber, and the promise of the silver. But there is something else I want you to put in it.”

  He looked up, hooked despite himself. “What is it?”

  Anghara ducked her head, drawing off a fine chain and withdrawing something she had kept hidden beneath her robe for all these years, something that had kept her faith burning through all the dark times, that her mother had given her with her own hand. Anghara’s own trembled a little as she held out Red Dynan’s Great Seal for which Sif had searched so fruitlessly, and met al’Tamar’s wide golden eyes with a calm gray gaze, full of a serenity she was far from feeling. “The Royal Seal of Roisinan,” she said quietly.

  He reached out, and then his hand jerked back. “I cannot—I cannot take that…How will you go into your country without it? How will you prove what you are?”

  “When I have need of it,” Anghara said, “I shall send for it…or return for it. For now…there are other ways; or I will simply have to be enough in myself.” In truth, Anghara had no arguments, for her gesture had been pure instinct, a decision made in that instant. She did not know how she knew the seal would be safer here with al’Tamar than with her, but she did—and she gave it into safekeeping, without a pause.

  Reaching out again, this time more slowly, al’Tamar took the seal from her open palm as though he was handling something that would burn him, or else disintegrate in his hand. It did neither, and he sat holding it for a moment, frozen, as Anghara’s own hands fell into her lap; he did not see her fingers twist into her skirt there, against an almost uncontrollable urge to snatch it back. The seal lay in the palm of his hand, still warm from the heat of her body.

  His hand closed over it abruptly but very gently, and he nodded stiffly.

  “I will make your say’yin for you and hold it safe; none will know of this until you claim it.” He had gone cool, detached, his soul fire more a barrier than a reaching out; his mind had accepted the role of a companion, a friend, but his heart railed against the circumstances that made this girl a fram’man, an an’sen’thar, a queen—three times removed from him. Friendship, and the trust she had bestowed upon him, would have to be enough.

  He rose to take his leave, and bowed to her, deeply; her eyes glittered suspiciously in the lamplight as she shook her head and embraced him once, as she would a brother.

  “Good-bye, al’Tamar, the blessing of al’Zaan be upon you,” she said.

  “And with you,” he said.

  “I will come back,” she whispered, not even sure if he heard as he ducked under the curtain and stepped out of the room, carrying the Great Seal in one tightly clenched fist. “Or I will make you an’sen’thar, and you will come to Sheriha’drin—and if I ever regain Miranei you will sit at my right hand and I shall call you my brother, and my friend…”

  Her brother. Her friend. But the love that burned in al’Tamar’s soul fire was of a different kind. They had shared deeply on the shores of the Kadun ocean, learned perhaps more of one another than was altogether prudent. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been a binding experience, something that should have twinned their spirits, melded their lives. Instead…all al’Tamar had was a deeper understanding of the barriers which conspired to keep them apart. He understood, in his mind. It would take time, however, for his heart to accept that understanding.

  He was gone from the serai in the morning, and so were the dun’en. Anghara, who had claimed her quarters on the ship upon which she would sail, stood at the prow and lifted her eyes up to the mountains, imagining him galloping across the flat yellow sands of the Arad, the two other dun’en thundering in his wake. And then he was climbing the High Road, taking back his ki’thar’en, descending down into the red desert to finally gain the spires of Al’haria, his entire journey telescoped into the space of a few minutes, into the image of Kheldrin she carried in her heart.

  But al’Tamar was not on Kharg’in’dun’an, nor even yet in the Arad. He had been hiding from sen’en’thari for years, and had it down to a fine art. For all her gifts Anghara was utterly oblivious to the fact that one of the myriad pairs of golden eyes which watched her ship cast off from the dock were his. He stayed on the quay, alone, staring out to sea for a long time after her ship had vanished from sight and the rest of the quayside crowd had departed. Then he turned and retraced his steps to the new serai in which he had spent the previous night. As much as he had felt the need to stay in Sa’alah while she was still in the city, now he felt the pressing urge to leave—and he was on his way within an hour of returning from the quay.

  They crept into each other’s dreams that night, the first on both their journeys—she returning home at last, he travelling toward his own. He dreamed of the say’yin he would make of sea amber from the foot of Gul Khaima, Kadun silver, and the Royal Seal of the land of Sheriha’drin. He dreamed of her to whom he would give it, the glow in her gray eyes as he reached out to place the say’yin around her neck—dreamed of what might be, or of what he wished could come to pass. Anghara, an’sen’thar, dreamed of what was. She saw him sitting outside his tent in the starlight, just before he retired inside to sleep, turning the seal over in his hands so the pale light cascaded from it like water. She wept in her sleep at the things she had given him, and those she had taken away. He would never again be the carefree young man who had set out from Al’haria to look for an oracle—and found the answers to questions he had never thought of asking, before he had first laid eyes on the stranger from the land called Sheriha’drin.

  Glossary

  Some names and concepts originating from different parts of the world have been annotated for ease of placement, i.e., Kheldrin (K); Roisinan (R); Shaymir (S); Tath (T).

  Adamo Taurin: twin to Charo Taurin (q.v.), Chella’s younger sons, later important to Anghara’s cause

  -ah (K): feminine suffix added to words to indicate feminine gender; sometimes occurs within a word (as in havallah), implying an inherent grace, beauty, or feminine quality in the concept the word describes

  ai’Dhya (K): Kheldrini Goddess, Lady of the Winds

  ai’Farra ma’Sayyed: Keeper of Records in Al’haria, chief an’sen’thar of the Al’haria Tower

  ai’Jihaar ma’Hariff: blind Kheldrini priestess (see an’sen’thar); Anghara’s friend and teacher

  ai’Lan (K): the Sun Goddess; similar to Roisinan’s Avanna except that her worship is more bloodthirsty—can offer great power and protection in return for the right sacrifice

  ai’Raisa: young gray-robed sen’thar who remains as the voice of the orac
le of Gul Khaima (q.v.)

  ai’Shahn, often known as ai’Shahn al’Sheriha (K): messenger of the Gods, Water Spirit; a holy entity

  Akka! (K): ki’thar command: Go!

  Algira (T): a beautiful canal city in Tath, once pride of Roisinan; a training center for the Sighted, similar to Castle Bresse, lies nearby

  Al’haria: red city of Kheldrin, place where the Records are kept, city of scholars, priestesses and craftsmen

  al’Jezraal ma’Hariff: Lord of Al’haria, brother of ai’Jihaar

  al’Khur (K): Lord of Death and also of dreams that come in the Little Death that is sleep, half-man, half-desert vulture

  al’Shehyr ma’Hariff: son of al’Jezraal

  al’Tamar ma’Hariff: nephew of al’Jezraal, son of his brother; sen’thar-gifted, but untrained because he is heir to an important Hariff silver mine

  al’Zaan, Sa’id-ma’sihai (K): al’Zaan the One-Eyed, Lord of the Empty Places, Kheldrin’s chief God, cannot be worshipped in any confined place, only in the open

  Anghara Kir Hama (ma’Hariff): Princess of Roisinan and an’sen’thar of Kheldrin, heiress of Red Dynan whose crown was usurped by her half-brother Sif when their father died in the battle at Ronval River, powerfully Sighted, events turn around her

  Ansen Taurin: Anghara’s oldest foster brother and cousin, son of her aunt, Chella

  an’sen’thar (pl. an’sen’en’thari)(K): wearer of the gold robe in the sen’thar priestly caste of Kheldrin; high priestess, used both as noun and form of address

  arad (K): south

  Arad Khajir’i’id: the Southern Desert, sometimes also known as Mal’ghaim Khajir’i’id (q.v.)

  ari’i’d (K): desert

  Ar’i’id Sam’mara: Desert Gate, name given to the canyon which forms the passage between Kheldrin’s coastal plain and Arad Khajir’i’d

  Avanna of the Towers (R): Lady of the Lights, Roisinan’s harvest goddess, patron of all that is bright, glowing and growing; she created the sun, the moon, and the stars, and blesses everything grown under them; Roisinani infants are presented to the Gods within her towers