"What do you have to do?" she asked when she finally let go.
"Will you keep watch for me? This will take all my concentration."
"All right."
He sat down and vanished in the shadow.
"I can't see. How can I keep watch?"
He didn't answer.
For a while Megan moved about, fighting her own exhaustion and worrying about what he was up to. She stood and stared up the stars for a long time, remembering how she had done that as a child. The constellations had names, she knew, and everyone knew the obvious ones: the plowman, the spear. Others she was not so sure of. Her brother would know, but she had not seen him in years; he had never left their parents' village, and lived there still with his unfriendly wife and four demanding, incurious children.
How strange to be here. She repressed an urge to skip and laugh at the strange turns life took. The day when she found Armiger half-dead on the path near her cottage had started just like any other. Before she knew it, she was nurse to a wounded, emaciated soldier, listening to him rave in the night about the Winds and gods... and three days later she awoke in awe to the fact that he was so much more than a soldier, more than a man.
And he had let her come with him. They were, at least for now, a couple. It was as though she were suddenly living someone else's life. She shook her head in wonder.
A gleam of red in one of the horse's eyes brought her attention back to ground level. At first she thought Armiger had lit a fire, but the glow was too small and faint for that. She went over to him and crouched down.
Armiger sat cross-legged, his eyes closed. His hands were cupped together in front of him, and the glow came from between his fingers.
Seeing this, Megan stood and backed away. "Don't", she whispered. "Please. You're still too weak."
He made no move. The glow intensified, and then slowly faded away. When it was completely gone, he stood up, hands still cupped. Then in a quick motion he flung his arms up and wide, and brought them down again loosely. His shoulders slumped.
"There," he said. "Now we wait."
"What have you done?" She took one of his hands. The skin felt hot, and there were long bloodless cuts in his palms.
"I have called the queen," said Armiger. "Now we will see if she answers."
15
Galas waited in her garden. It was a cool night, the air laden with water after evening thunderstorms. Their clouds still mounted up one horizon, giant wings lit by occasional flickers of lightning. The rest of the sky was clear, and stars were thrown across it in random swatches. The moon had not yet risen, but the night flowers were opening all around her, giant purple and blue mouths appearing from dense hedges that ringed deep pools. The garden was made around its pools, each one isolated by some artifice of growth so that it seemed a world unto itself, and a thousand years of tradition had dictated as many rules for its seeming disarray as the Queen had for her court.
She had decided to pause beside a long rectangular pool. Diadem, the moon, would rise directly above this pool tonight; that was what this pool was for, to catch the rays of its light on this and the following two nights of the year, to prove that harvest time was over. Throughout the rest of the year it was tended carefully by men and women whose lives were dedicated to the garden, but who would never see this nocturnal vision. All the night flowers would bow to Diadem, all transformed at the critical moment into a magical court, the queen herself its centerpiece. She loved this pool, and this garden, as few other places in her land.
She pulled her shift around her and delicately sat on the stone bench that was hers and hers alone to sit upon. Her maids had woven diamonds into her pale hair, in anticipation of the lunar light; her shift was purest white, belted with onyx squares, and she carried in her right hand her short staff of office, carved of green jade.
Queen Galas smiled at the placid water. Total silence blanketed the garden. She knew quite well that Lavin was encamped within sight of the garden walls, but he was forbidden to attack on this and the next two nights by ancient custom more strict than law. It was the Autumn Affirmation and war was forbidden for its duration. It was a fine irony, she thought, that she should have this time to prepare for his coming. She smiled at the pool's beauty. Aware as she was that death and ruin lay in wait outside her gates, she marveled that such peace should maintain itself within.
"Flowers will grow on your grave too," she said to herself. "The moon also smiles on slaves and cripples."
The smile broke, and she lowered her eyes.
For a long time she sat like that. When she looked up again, Diadem was fully visible, like a brilliant jewel held aloft by the arms of carefully tended trees. Its reflection came slowly down the water towards her, lighting up the curves of bole and stem and creating that lovely illusion of animation that happened only once every year. She had missed the beginning of the event. She frowned a chastisement to herself and sat up straighter.
But a flaw had appeared in the full whiteness of the moon. She stood up quickly, as it resolved into a giant black night moth, two hand-spans across, of the sort that inhabited the mountains many days east of the palace. It dropped from the moon and fluttered across the surface of the pool, directly to Queen Galas. It paused in the air before her.
She sat down. "What do you want, little one?"
It dipped down, then up, and then appearing to gather its courage, landed on her knee. She had never feared insects, and sat admiring it, trying to pretend it was some sort of omen. That was no good, though—she was well past the stage where omens could tell her anything she didn't know. Lavin was coming; nothing would change that.
The moth beat its wings, but didn't rise. Suddenly it seemed to sprout another pair of wings, and then it gave one flap and... unfolded.
She blinked at the single sheet of paper that now lay on her lap.
Galas' fingers trembled as she reached to touch it. The sheet was square, smooth and dry, and slightly warm. Writing was faintly visible on it.
The skin of her neck crawled. She had never seen anything like this, never heard of such an occurrence. The morphs could change animals, she knew, but they didn't understand writing. Could this be a message from some new Wind, whom she had never met? Or had the desals, the Winds who had helped her take the throne, decided to intervene again in her life?
She picked up the letter by one corner, and turned it to the moonlight. She read.
May I humbly beseech Queen Galas, wife of this world, to grant an audience to a traveller? For I have not rested on green earth since before the ancient stones of your palace were laid, nor have I spoken to a kindred soul since before your language, oh Queen, was born.
I came as a falling star down your sky, and now feel again what it is to breathe. I would speak to one such as myself, whose eyes encompass this whole world, for I am lonely and own a question even the heavens cannot answer.
Signed: Maut.
Below this was another line of text. She read it and shook her head in wonder. Here were clear instructions as to how she could meet this being who had written her. Meet him or her tonight.
Galas looked up, wondering if she would catch sight of a trail of light across the skies. She looked at the paper in her hand. Of course I will speak with you.
She restrained an urge to leap from the bench and race inside. Who could she tell? Her heart was thudding and she was suddenly lightheaded. She buried her face in her hands for a moment. She breathed faint rain-scent from the paper she still held.
Galas commanded herself to become calm. She turned her attention back to the pool. All along its edge now waited handsome and graceful courtiers, fair and clothed in dewdrops and ivy. The garden's plants were cultivated just so they would appear this way for a few moments on this night. Ever since she was a girl, she had marveled at the human ingenuity that could create such art, and in the past the sight had served to strengthen her resolve to cultivate her land as though it too were a garden.
The shadow
y figures all faced towards the rising moon, and the pool appeared like a flow of glass between them, a mirrored way down which Diadem's reflection moved to meet her.
This contemplation was uplifting, but sad this time. She imagined the faces of her real courtiers on these ephemeral shapes, and fancied herself the reflection of the moon. All brief, a mere shadow play soon to be ended by the blades and guns of the insolent general waiting outside. One shadow overtaking another.
Fear surged in her, and she closed her eyes. Stop, she told herself. I am not the reflection. "I am Diadem herself. All things take their light from me." Even the general who comes to kill me.
She looked down at the paper, and laughed a little giddily.
Then she stood to go inside.
§
The room where she chose to wait was really an old air shaft constructed to cool the Hart Manor, which was the center of the palace. Originally several other floors had openings onto the shaft, but some paranoid ancestor had walled them off. Galas had discovered the place as a girl, but it had gained new, symbolic significance for her after the desals placed her on the throne.
She came here sometimes to pace the three-by-three meter square floor, or scrawl insults on the walls, or scream at the clouds framed by tan brickwork far overhead. She had torn her clothes here, and wept, and done all manner of unmentionable things. Now she lay on her back, and stared at the stars.
Her visitor should be approaching the walls now. Its instructions had been simple: let down a rope at the centerpoint of the southern battlement, and be ready to pull. She had wanted to meet it there herself, and even now her hands pressed against the cool stone underneath her, eager to push her to her feet. But whatever happened she must not blunder out like a gauche ingenue. If this was a Wind coming to see her, she must meet it as an equal. She would wait.
But she wasn't dressed for this! With a groan she stood and left the shaft. One of her maids curtsied outside. Galas waved at her. "Our black gown. The velvet one. Be prompt!" The girl curtsied again and raced away.
Galas entered the shaft again and closed the stout door she'd had made for it. "Why now?" she said.
She kicked the door with her heel. "I'm almost dead! A day, two days." Crossing her arms, she walked around the room. "Bastards! You strung me up, after putting me here in the first place!"
Well, it's not like I haven't done everything in my power to disobey the Winds, she reminded herself.
She'd been wracked with tension for weeks now; so had everyone here. Her courtiers and servants were true Iapysians, and had no idea how to discharge such emotions. Galas showed them by example: she laughed, she cried, she paced and shouted, and whenever it came time to make a decision, she was cool and acted correctly.
But it was all too late. Lavin had come to kill her—of all people, why him? She had loved him! They might have been married, had not an entire maze of watchful courtiers and ancient protocols stood between them. She wondered, not for the first time, if this was his way of finally possessing her. She grimaced at the irony.
"Come on, come on." She hurried back to the door. Ah, here came the maids, bearing gown and jewel box.
"Come in here." They hesitated; no one but her ever entered this place. She was sure all manner of legends had grown up about it. "Come! There's nothing will bite you here."
The three women crowded in with her. "Dress me!" She held her arms out. They fell to their task, but their eyes kept moving, trying to make sense of what they saw. Galas sometimes spent whole nights in this place. She often emerged with new ideas or solid decisions in hand. The queen knew, from faint scratches around the hinges of the door, that at least one person had given in to curiosity and broken in. She imagined they had reacted much as these women to discover there was nothing here—no secret stairway, no magic books, not even a chair or a candle. Only a little dirt in the corners, and the sky for a ceiling.
They had wondered about Galas her whole life. Let them wonder a little more.
"Has the guest suite been prepared?" she asked.
"Yes, your majesty."
"How are the supplies holding out?"
"Well enough, they say."
"Reward the soldiers who bring our guest over the walls. Give them each a double ration. Also convey our thanks."
"Yes, your majesty. ...Ma'am?"
"Yes, what is it? Bring me a mirror."
"Who is this person? A spy of some sort?"
"A messenger," she said brusquely. Satisfied with her appearance, she gathered her skirts and swept from the chamber. They followed, casting final glances about the shaft.
Out of a sense of devilment, Galas decided to leave the door open—the first time ever. She hid a smile as she paced toward the audience hall.
As a girl she had made up stories about the figures painted on the audience hall's ceiling. Later she learned the struggling, extravagantly posed men and women were all allegories for historical events. By then it was too late; she knew the woman directly above the throne as the Smitten Dancer, not as an idealized Queen Delina. The two men wrestling on the clouds near the west window were the Secret Lovers to her, not King Andalus overthrowing the False Regent. Every time she entered this room she glanced up and smiled at her pantheon, and she knew that those observing her assumed she was drawing strength from her family's history, and knowing that made her smile again.
She composed herself on the throne and waited. When had she had a visitor who had not closely studied the history of Iapysia? If this stranger was truly from the heavens, would he know whom the frescoes represented? Or would he be in the same state of innocence as she when she wrote her own mythology on them?
Or would he know all histories, the way that the desals had? She scowled, and sat up straighter.
The doorman straightened. He looked tired and confused, having been ousted out of bed for this one moment. "Your majesty..." He read the card he had been given with obvious puzzlement. "The lord Maut, and lady Megan."
§
Maut? Megan stopped in her tracks. "What name is this?" she hissed at him.
"My name," Armiger said simply. "One of them, anyway." He smiled and strode into the vast, lamp-lit chamber as if he owned it.
§
Galas restrained an urge to stand. Now that he stood before her, she had no idea what she'd been expecting. This was no monster, nor by appearances a god.
He seemed mature, perhaps in his early forties, his hair long and braided down his right shoulder, his face finely carved with a high brow and straight nose, and a strong mouth. He was a little taller than she, and was dressed in dusty travelling clothes, with soft riding boots on his feet, an empty scabbard belted at his waist. As he paused four meters below the throne, she saw the light traceries of character around his eyes and mouth, indications of both humor and weariness.
Behind him, like a shadow, stood a peasant woman. Her face shone with a mixture of timidity and defiance. As Maut bowed, she curtsied deeply, but when she raised her eyes she looked Galas in the eye. There was no hostility there, nor respect; only, it seemed, unselfconscious curiosity. Galas liked her immediately.
Galas held up the folded letter. "Do you know what this says?" she asked the man.
He bowed again. "I do," he said. His voice was rich and deep, quite compelling. He gave a quick smile. "May I humbly beseech Queen Galas, wife of this world, to grant an audience to a traveller? For I have not rested on green earth since before the ancient stones of your palace were laid, nor have I spoken to a kindred soul since before your language, oh Queen, was born."
Galas saw the woman Megan start and stare at Maut as he spoke. Interesting.
"What are you?" she asked. "And—maybe more germaine—why do you speak of me as a kindred soul?"
Maut shrugged. "As to what I am—you have no words for it. I am not a man, despite appearances—"
"What proof do you have of that?"
For a moment he looked angry at her interruption. Then he appeared to consid
er what she had said. "My moth was unconvincing?"
"There are people who make a life's work of tricking others, Maut. Your moth was highly convincing—but just because something is convincing, that does not make it true. It is merely convincing."
He waved a hand dismissively. "It cost me energy to perform that minor miracle. I have very little to spare, and no time to recover any I lose now."
Galas leaned back. She felt betrayed, and suddenly cynical. "So you have no more tricks? Is that what you're saying?"
"I am not a trick pony!"
"And I am not a fool!"
They glared at one another. Then Galas noticed that the woman Megan was covering a smile with her hand.
Galas forced a grim smile of her own. "You know our situation. This is not the time for frippery, or lies. Is it so strange that I demand proof?"
Grudgingly, he shook his head. "Forgive me, Queen Galas. I am much reduced from my former station, and that makes me tactless and short-tempered."
"But unafraid," she said. "You are not afraid of me."
"He is not afraid of anything," said Maut's companion. Her tone was not boasting—in fact it was perhaps a little apologetic. Or resigned.
Maut shrugged again. "It seems we've gotten off to a bad start. I am very weary—too weary for miracles. But I am what I say I am."
"But, you have not said what that is!"
He frowned. "There is an ancient word in your language. It is not much used today. The word is god. I am—or was, a god. I wish to be so again, and so I have come to you because, of all the humans on Ventus, you are the only one who has caught a glimpse of the inner workings of the world. You may have the knowledge I need to become what I once was."
"Intriguing," said Galas. It was still unbelievable, on the face of it. But... her fingers caressed the letter in her lap. She had seen what she had seen.
Ventus Page 22
