Beneath Ceaseless Skies #122

by M. Bennardo

  That was a lie; and even if it hadn’t been, the Empire of the Center had fallen long ago. However, time ran more slowly out here; perhaps here the Center still stood and her assertion might carry some weight.

  “Well, this is a surprise.” Gemma looked confused. “I hadn’t expected to have a woman on Imperial commission here. Of course I’ll assist in any way I can.” She frowned in thought. “If you’re really looking for tales of myth and magic, best start with the claimholder of Twin Pine Ranch—that’d be Lia’s da, there. He was one of the first settlers in this area—he’s almost an unofficial historian, collecting old crones’ tales about Senpost, the outlying farms, that sort of thing. Yes,” she said, nodding decisively. “Tharin would be your man.”

  Chaladon nearly dropped her cup. “I’m sorry. Did—did you say—”

  “Tharin, ma’am,” said Mayor Gemma, looking at her in confusion. “Former River Trader, come out here from the Center some years ago. Stays out on his ranch, raises cattle, minds his own business. Quiet fellow; polite, well-respected.... Are you all right, Lady Chaladon?” Gemma leaned forward solicitously. “You don’t look so well.”

  “No—No, I’m fine,” Chaladon said, though it was far from the truth; her heart lurched in her chest, and a shiver passed over her, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Could it be? No—no, it couldn’t. But still— She saw Lia again in her mind’s eye—the tilt of her head, the shape of her hands and eyes, and something deep inside her, deeper than conscious thought, knew it for truth—perhaps had already known it the moment she first saw the girl.

  But how? How was it possible? She thought of the hot, perfumed stillness of the Garden of Forking Paths, the flower-bedecked arches, each of which led to a different life; of the Rift in the sky, and its progeny, the rents in the fabric of the world; of the Dreamforest, where all that one had dreamt might come to be. Something like that, perhaps? But which? Have I— Can there— Wild ideas raced through her head, bubbling and colliding with each other, each stranger than the last—

  Abruptly, she took hold of herself, recalling where she was: seated on a sofa, holding a teacup, gazing into Mayor Gemma’s kind, troubled face. “I think I may have had a little too much sun; that’s all,” she replied unsteadily.

  “If you would like to lie down for a while—”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. Where can I find him, this—this Tharin?” Triune, the name felt so familiar on her lips....

  “Farm’s maybe half an hour’s walk out of town along the road to the north. Just a few acres and head of cattle. Two pines standing on a hill and a house between ‘em, with a barn and a shed. Can’t miss it.”

  “Well, thank you, Mayor Gemma,” Chaladon said. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Least I could do. Here, let me call the footman, he’ll show you out. Best chance, Deep Dancer,” Gemma added as Chaladon rose. “May you find what you’re looking for.”

  * * *

  As Chaladon walked along the northern road, she tried to collect her thoughts by tallying what she had learned. It was depressingly little. A strange magic filled the area. There was a barrier to the west preventing further travel. The rift in the sky that had been steadily growing since Chalaëstra’s actions at Shalott was gone. As to what it all meant, Chaladon had speculations but no answers. She watched the sky as the town fell further behind her, but it stayed smooth, blue and unbroken. Occasionally, she clasped her necklace; always, the same background shimmer of magic surrounded her.

  And that meant... what? She did not know.

  Tharin, Tharin.... Was it truly he, she wondered, or a stranger who simply bore his name? A married stranger. No, it had to be he; there was too much of him in Lia for it to be otherwise. But why is he here? Why now?

  They had loved each other once, in the dawn of the world, when her quest had lain spread out unmapped before her and each morning shone bright with the promise of a new adventure. He had been a riverboat captain, newly confirmed among his people; she and her line-sisters had taken ship on his boat, the Pretty Lady, for the thousand-mile outward journey along the Great Serpent River.

  Triune Goddess, he was so beautiful, she thought, remembering those vivid, impossibly blue eyes, the thick dark curls that made a woman long to run her fingers through them. Ah, he had been young, and she had been young, and in those days they had made the promises that youth speaks to youth. Yet back then, Chaladon had still been naïve enough to believe that those promises might come true—had truly believed that she would return to him someday.

  I should have known better. Even then.

  The rot that would eventually doom the Empire had already been far advanced; the Great Serpent River was a hotbed of strife, with bandits and slavers raiding up and down its winding silver coils almost with impunity. They had only been a week ashore when the word came: the Pretty Lady had been attacked by slavers and its crew abducted, to be sold to the hill-dwelling wilders.

  The news had shaken Chaladon to her core. Every fiber of her being had demanded that she turn back to rescue the man she loved.... Yet to do so would have been to miss the Winged Winds, the perpetually changing rivers of air streaming forever from the top of Windshorn Mountain, that would carry them on the next leg of their journey outward.

  They had chosen to continue. No—she had, though the decision had ripped her heart from her chest. It was the first of the choices that would come to define her life.

  And now, leagues and centuries from the place where she had left him standing on the docks at twilight, here he was again.

  She wondered by what road he had come to this place, and if it was one they could have walked together. Perhaps... if she had gone back... perhaps then.... The thought ached, a deep, muted pain like the twinge of a broken bone long since healed. No, what was done was done, and she could not have chosen any differently, not then and not now. She had known, from the moment she and her companions had left the crèche, that there could be no turning back. This quest, this destiny, was her burden and she could not lay it down till it was finished.

  She thought of Lia, and wondered briefly about Lia’s mother—what she looked like, when Tharin and she had met, when they had wed. A flash of jealousy startled her, as strong as it was unexpected—not just of Tharin’s wife, whomever she might be, but of Tharin himself. He had found a mate, a child, a life; whereas she had nothing but this endless, empty road.

  She drew a breath, putting that jealousy aside; it would not serve her and was unworthy of her as well, for she could not have been the wife that Tharin deserved. It is for the best, she told herself. It is.

  The heat of the day was starting to wear on her when she reached her destination: a house of weathered gray boards with a porch and overhanging roof, surrounded by a small cluster of outbuildings: a barn and shed, and a smokehouse out back. The buildings were set back from the road and flanked by two spreading pines, at the top of a long, low, rise. A turnoff led to the single-story house; Chaladon started up the drive. She stepped up on to the porch and rapped at the door. Footsteps echoed within. Chaladon had a moment to wonder whether it would be Tharin or his wife who answered, and then the door opened.

  * * *

  Any doubts of whether or not it was her Tharin were immediately silenced. It could be no other. The years had worn on him as they had on her, but she could still see the young man she had known in the older man before her; see the instant recognition in his eyes.

  “Chaladon,” was all he said.

  “Tharin.” His dark curls were threaded with silver and his fine features weathered from sun and wind and time. Chaladon could say no more; her heart was so full it choked her.

  “Da, what is—” Lia stepped into the room from the inner door, then stopped short as she caught sight of Chaladon, a dishtowel hanging in her hands. “Lady Chaladon!” she cried. “I—”

  Tharin held up one hand and Lia fell silent. He was watching Chaladon with a still, guarded expression that she remembered well—i
t was the way he looked whenever he was facing an unknown. It hurt a little, seeing that look directed at her now. “I had heard you were in town,” he said. “I wasn’t sure it was you. Or that it was best for us to meet again, in any case.” His voice held a muted reproach. “You said you would return.”

  Lia was looking back and forth between them. “Da? I—”

  “Quiet, Lia,” he said.

  So many thoughts crowded her that all she could speak were inanities. “I thought you were dead.”

  Tharin considered for a moment, then sighed. “Perhaps. It makes no difference. What’s done is done. Water under the keel, and it can’t be brought back.” He paused. “And you’re here now? But not to stay.” It was not a question.

  Chaladon drew a breath, trying to steady herself, collect her thoughts. “But not to stay,” she confirmed quietly. “My quest is not yet finished—”

  “Your quest. Yes.” Tharin sighed again, heavily. “I had only hoped.... It’s been a long time. For both of us—myself and Lia, I mean.”

  “Lia. Yes.” Chaladon glanced over at Lia, who still stood frozen, watching with luminous eyes. She managed a smile, though it hurt a bit. “And her mother...?”

  “Lia’s mother?” Tharin asked, and traded an unreadable glance with his daughter.

  “Is she here? I would like to— That is, if it wouldn’t be too much bother, of course—”

  Chaladon broke off. Tharin was staring at her strangely, his brow furrowed. Comprehension slowly dawned in his eyes, and as she looked from his expression to Lia’s eager face, suddenly, somehow, the knowledge hit her so hard she staggered.

  “You don’t remember, do you,” Tharin said, each word careful and precise, as if he was tasting it for the first time. “You really don’t....”

  He came to her and took her hands. His touch was the same—a gentle, warm strength—but Chaladon scarcely felt it. With delicate care, as if she were an invalid, he drew her forward.

  “Chaladon,” he said, though it was not necessary. “This is your daughter, Lia.”

  * * *

  Daughter....

  She stared at Lia; the young woman’s eyes were fastened on her. My daughter...?

  She knew it couldn’t be; she had never even been pregnant. Yet in that moment, it didn’t seem to matter. Ah, Triune, now that she knew, she could see herself in the shape of Lia’s hands, the curve of her lips, the tilt of her eyes... could see herself and Tharin both, blended together, in the face of the beautiful girl before her.

  Lia’s lips trembled. She turned wildly to Tharin. “Da, is she— Is Lady Chaladon—”

  Tharin nodded, looking older still. Tears filled Lia’s eyes. The girl took a step forward, then halted as if she were afraid.

  Chaladon hesitated—Triune, she felt as uncertain as she had at her first presentation to the Empress—then tentatively held open her arms. Lia looked to her father. He reached out and gave her shoulder a rough, awkward squeeze.

  “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go ahead, Lia.”

  Slowly, half-distrustfully, Lia went to her, and Chaladon’s arms closed involuntarily about her daughter.

  “How did this happen?” she asked Tharin, still reeling. “How—”

  “Maybe you’d better tell me what you do remember,” he said, looking at her with concern.

  “I—” But she couldn’t; as she stood there, confronted with her lover, her daughter, Chaladon suddenly could not speak—could not bear to relate to them how she had turned her back on Tharin, abandoned him to the slavers. “No. I— You first. I need to know how this—” Miracle, she might have said, gazing at Lia. “How this happened.”

  Tharin nodded. Taking her hands again and speaking with a strange gentleness, as if to someone not quite in their right mind, he began. “It was a week or two after our parting—my barge, the Pretty Lady—you remember that, at least? The Pretty Lady was set upon by bandits. They overwhelmed us and took us prisoner. I thought we were going to die—and then you returned.”

  There was such depth of feeling in his eyes that it broke Chaladon’s heart.

  “Your path through the Winged Winds would not open again for another year and a half, you said. Despite that, you still returned.” Tharin laid a hand on her shoulder. Chaladon felt as if she could not breathe. “While we were—waiting—Lia was conceived.” He smiled at his daughter—no, our daughter—with quiet warmth. “When the year and a half was up, you and your friends moved on, leaving Lia with me. I didn’t want you to go, but I knew that you carried a charge more weighty than our love. And you promised to return.” He was silent a moment. “And now, here you are.”

  “Here I am,” Chaladon murmured. She could scarcely speak. She thought of her memories, comparing them to Tharin’s tale, and was filled with a powerful, unaccustomed shame.

  “And you’re going to stay now, right?” Lia asked. “Mother? You’re going to stay with us, and we—together we can—” She swallowed hard, looking as if she did not quite dare to believe.

  “Lia...,” Chaladon began, and then broke off. What can I say to her?

  Tharin glanced over at Lia, and then back to her. He exhaled slowly. “Will you stay, Chaladon?” he asked her. “At least for a few days. Lia should get to know her mother, and I... I’ve thought about you, as well.” He spoke with quiet dignity; yet his eyes said much more. “Stay with us, Chaladon, if not for me, then for your daughter. Please.”

  Lia’s face was full of hope and fear; Tharin’s expression hurt her heart. It seemed she had never wanted anything so much. I will, trembled on her lips. Tharin, oh, Tharin, my daughter, I want....

  Instead, she drew a breath, and looked Tharin straight in the eye. “I can’t.” Her heart was heavy within her. “This isn’t real.”

  And time stopped.

  * * *

  Tharin and Lia both became completely still. Tharin was frozen in mid-gesture, reaching out to her; Lia’s lips were parted as if she was about to speak. Grains of dust floating in beams of sunlight halted, preserved as if in amber. No noises drifted from outside to break the perfect quiet. Chaladon had seen something like this once before, when she had faced the Guardians of the Clock of the Long Now; instinctively she freed her Fire Veil and rose onto her toes, prepared to face any threat.

  She was casting about for the cause, when the door to the house banged open. “Well,” said a familiar voice, “I had thought that you would be willing to stay. Even knowing in your heart that it couldn’t be real. It seems I underestimated you.”

  Mayor Gemma stood in the doorway. She showed no surprise at seeing Lia and Tharin frozen; she took them in with a single glance and dismissed them.

  Chaladon clasped her Fire Veil tightly. “Who are you?”

  Gemma ignored her question. “What finally caused you to reject it?”

  The veil was warm in Chaladon’s hands. She twitched it a little, testing its weight and fall. “When Tharin appeared. I knew then, on some level, that I couldn’t stay, even if I didn’t want to admit it. Even if—” She drew a breath, then continued steadily, “Even if he’d managed to survive enslavement, the distance in time between then and now is too great. And Lia—” Lia.... She swallowed. “I have never given birth. Lia was never mine.”

  Gemma only nodded. “You did not consider that perhaps you had crossed into another world, where all had happened as Tharin told you?”

  Chaladon let her eyes roam over Tharin, taking in every detail of his golden-hued skin, his vivid blue eyes, framed by long, almost feminine lashes, his blue-black curls. Those slender, sensitive hands, strangely fine despite the rough work he performed with them, strong shoulders, trim hips.... Her eyes went to Lia, seeing the blended features of the two of them in the beautiful girl before her.

  “In any other world,” she said quietly, “I would never have left him.”

  Gemma nodded again. “Ah. I did underestimate you, Deep Dancer. I had thought you would be content to remain.”

  Chaladon wrenched her
gaze away from her husband, her child. A surge of wild anger flared in her heart. Who was this creature who thought to torment her so? She took two turns of the Fire Veil around her hands, and pivoted to face the woman. “What are you?”

  The trim, silver-haired woman studied her for a long moment, then her shoulders straightened; she shrugged as if casting off a cloak, and she changed.

  Her form stretched upward, her weathered, aged face thinning; her silver hair lightened toward white and lengthened, descending about her like a curtain. Her fine clothing blurred to garments of flowing silver; her cheekbones flared and her eyes tilted, lightening to a crystal, inhuman blue. Within moments, no trace of the elderly mayor remained. Instead there stood before her a woman clad in silver: tall, almost elongated, with dead white skin, radiant shining eyes, pure white hair falling past her hips. Chaladon took a step back, gripping her veil more tightly; the new, strange woman turned those crystal eyes on Chaladon, and a thin smile edged her lips.

  “I have many names.” Her voice was thin, dissonant, with eerie resonances and harmonies. It acted on the ear like an auditory razor, slicing through the air with a slender, gleaming, metallic sound. “I am known as Death of All Things. She of Dissolution. Lady of Snows. Ruler of the End. You may call me the White Queen. Welcome to my domain, Chaladon the Last.”

  Chaladon wet her lips. “Very well, then, White Queen,” she said softly. Again, she twitched her veil, studying her new opponent. “It is good at last to learn with whom I am dealing.”

  The White Queen’s lips parted, showing teeth in a smile like the edge of a knife. It looked artificial, as if she knew that humans smiled, but had not quite grasped the reason. Around them, the dust motes hung perfectly still in the sparkling sunlight.