The Hidden Icon (Book of Icons)

by Jillian Kuhlmann

  “I call you Han’dra Eiren, but that is not your true name. You are an icon, as I am. You chose a cruel tale, but what is cruel is your ignorance. It is your tale. You are Theba.”

  Behind my fluttering eyelids the moon flared and broke into pieces so many they could double the sands we skirted. Though I was standing still next to Gannet, I imagined my body breaking up in the same fashion. That he should tell me with her ugliness so near to me in story, as I so recently championed the son she scorned, I could not believe it. Not of him, and not of me.

  I opened my eyes.

  “How do you know?”

  Though Gannet had not allowed me entrance into his mind, I was for the moment laid open as though I were a set table, a living feast. He knew these words were but a fraction of the tumult I felt.

  “I knew as soon as I saw you brought into the city. Dresha Morainn has no cause to doubt me. I recognize my own kind.”

  His kind. If they were like him, how could they be anything like me?

  “And if I tell you that I am not Theba?” It was a question he expected and, even as I asked it, I searched myself for truth. Did the reading of dreams and hearts make me a creature of vanity and destruction? By what measure was I this icon and not another, if any at all?

  “It doesn’t matter what you say. Believe or disbelieve, choose action or inaction, the world will change around you. You are Theba.”

  It was no easier to hear his proclamation a second time than it was the first. Even knowing now what Gannet had kept from me brought me no closer to understanding why, or what was expected of me. I turned away from him, but there was nowhere that I could go. I felt as though I were unraveling. I had been so sure that what I had done to protect my family was right, but Theba had no understanding of what was right or wrong. She was a monster.

  Gannet seemed to sense my distress, for he removed himself a pace or two, returning to the opening of my little chamber. I was not ready to let him go, though. Not yet.

  “Why did you wait to tell me?”

  I could not imagine that he had needed to confirm my identity if I was to claim it. There had been something between he and Morainn on the terrace, a strangeness I had felt and had been feeling since our departure. Things would continue to be strange; this secret had changed nothing.

  For a moment Gannet seemed uncertain, as though his reasons were not part of the telling.

  “I wanted you to know before we reached Re’Kether,” he admitted finally, catching my eyes. “You gave me more than reason enough to tell you tonight, with your story.”

  “What is Re’Kether?”

  “An ancient place. We will pass through its heart, where the ruins have… memories. Theba walked there once.”

  I was chilled by his words, and by the numb look on his face as he spoke. It was too much, all of this at once, and I fought the urge to slump against my bed in exhaustion and fear. Theba had walked there once, he claimed. But what he didn’t say, he thought: she would walk there again. In me.

  Curiosity was easier then, than the horrors that fought to overwhelm me. Though my voice was far from steady, it signaled that the last question would be mine, and his a willing answer.

  “If I’m Theba, what does that make you?”

  His face could betray far less than it had, it seemed, turning stony, almost inward. To what cold place did he go when he looked like that? Gannet’s answer came quick and quiet, his retreat after just the same.

  “That is not my secret to give, Han’dra Eiren.”

  Chapter 6

  It was eight days more before we reached the first ruined village. I only knew it was a village by the foundations half buried in the sand, bricked in a pattern that revealed hearth and pit stones, the cellar lain in the east to cool during the hottest hours of the day. As the road we took narrowed between the growing density of ruins, we were forced to slow down. I could walk beside the barge in the sun, and sweat and breathe freely and feel human again. But I wasn’t free, not with a trio of guards near me at all times. And I wasn’t human, if I chose to believe what Gannet had told me.

  Even though I didn’t believe him, I had begun to question every impulse, every thought, wondering if the things that I felt and wanted and willed weren’t actually mine. Gannet had said that for his kind, there was no distinction between icon and deity. Eiren was Theba. Theba was me. But I couldn’t accept it.

  “There’s nothing in your heart that isn’t hers,” Gannet insisted after one particularly heated argument.

  “The dread goddess doesn’t have a heart.”

  His look had been cold, unknowable.

  “Then neither do you.”

  There was more he wasn’t telling me, like who he was, and what he and his sister wanted with Theba. But like his first secret, these were guarded as closely as his masked features. I turned a grim eye on the outlying buildings that grew more numerous and nearer together until they were clearly recognizable as the little sprawl that tumbled naturally outside of a city. The soldiers whose job it was to clear a path for the barge grew anxious, as though some gloom hung over them, as well. They gathered gingerly, almost with fear, those stones that threatened our path. As I peered down what I could only imagine as alleys and wasteways, scrubbed by sand and the hard glare of the sun over many hundreds of years, I felt a darkness touch me, too. Had it spilled over from the soldiers, or as we approached the decadent center of these ruins did I simply begin to feel it as well? I did not need to know what they knew about this place. Shadows sprang from where there were no stones to cast them, and when I looked again they were gone.

  At twilight Gannet descended from the barge in search of me.

  “We won’t be able to navigate a safe course by night,” he explained, and as he spoke the barge slowed.

  “We’ll have to stay?” We had moved sluggish as candle fat rolling down a taper in the ruins, and though I wanted to be away, I was as drawn to the ruins as I was inexplicably repulsed by them.

  Gannet’s eyes were hooded in the growing dark and the thin shadows created by his mask.

  “Just one night. You’ll need to remain with Dresha Morainn. Re’Kether breeds foul dreams by night and I won’t leave you alone.”

  Though he had shared with me far stranger things, I sensed that Gannet spoke from his own discomfort, and that he valued solitude as highly as I did. I had the feeling, too, that he would consider a bad dream here a far greater threat to me than the scorpion had been.

  I followed him aboard the barge without being beckoned, but goaded him with my words.

  “Are they foul because they’re true?” For all the ugliness I felt in this place, I knew there were secrets I would fare better knowing than not knowing. Gannet didn’t even look at me before speaking again.

  “Why are you interested in the truth now? You’ve denied it at every offering.”

  I scowled, rubbing dry hands together between sleeves that were growing tattered from being worried between my fingers. Would I dream of Theba if I slept, rending the world, her spittle a lava flow down shattering mountains, her voice like a thunderclap? That was not truth, only madness.

  In the front of the barge, Morainn reclined among cushions and oil lamps, numbered more than they had been on evening visits I had made before.

  “I am sure Gannet doesn’t need to tell you that I hate this place,” Morainn said, lips quirked almost in a smile. She had been far more candid with me of late. I wondered if perhaps Gannet had spoken with her, if there were greater secrets between brother and sister than they kept even from everyone else. I knew she knew who he believed me to be, though I did not see how that could be cause for friendly overtures.

  When her servants offered us food and wine, I accepted my share with a polite nod, hungry from my walk. Triss was in wild spirits over the evening we were to spend in Re’Kether, though not enough that she was distracted from her duties.

  “I won’t shut but one eye,” she insisted, piling pillows stuffed with light,
breathable fibers upon Morainn’s couch, too many, almost, for her to lay back without being toppled by their volume. Triss moved on to pour tea for the assembly, myself and Gannet included. I watched him carefully for some indication that Triss was overreacting, but he gave away nothing. Even if there was something truly to fear in the growing dark, I didn’t think he would seek his cues from such an empty-headed woman.

  Imke remained silent, and I studied her, curious. Triss could not be anything but what her little rituals and services made her, but I was sure for Imke there was something more. She had a hand in every mundane chore and vain request just as Triss did, but her carriage and her little knife suggested to me that there was more to her duties than shaking out the bedding and serving meals.

  “We will be gone from here in another day and you will tell stories of it for weeks and tire me brainless with them,” Morainn sighed, ignoring her tea in favor of rising and pulling aside the curtains Imke had only a moment ago closed. Morainn’s willfulness seemed born in part from her station, and she reminded me of my sisters at moments like this one, petulant because she could be. Still, I sensed that Morainn was not entirely happy with her lot, however many others might’ve traded her for it. She was as much a mystery as her brother.

  “What do you see?” I asked, trying not to sound as desperately curious as I felt. Morainn cut her eyes to me, narrow but soft.

  “I don’t see anything. The moon hides her face, and offers no light tonight.”

  Triss brightened.

  “They say the moon is always new here! There’s never any light to see by.”

  “My father’s brother captained an infiltration force that came through and back through Re’Kether twelves times in all,” Imke offered in support, not caring how her words would sound to me, the infiltrated. “There was never any moonlight to guide or comfort them.”

  Triss did not seem to take much notice of Imke’s words, but Morainn and Gannet attended to them, as did I. Morainn closed the curtain, but not completely. The shred of inky black that remained visible shivered and I shivered, too. Did something wait there for us, for me? Gannet looked at me sharply, and the look I gave him in that bold moment urged him to give me reason to stave my curiosity, or suffer it forever.

  When we settled to a meal, our bodies were tense, our mouths opening more in half-formed fears than they were to talk or eat. We had hardly eaten a thing when Antares interrupted us, appearing at the curtained threshold with a curt incline of his head.

  “Those who have not bedded down for the night patrol the perimeter, Dresha,” he reported. “Even those who presume to sleep will be on their guard.”

  Morainn nodded, and she seemed about to invite him to sit and share our meal when our tenuous company was interrupted by a howling I could not describe. It sounded like neither man nor beast, and no sooner had we upset our rice and tea onto laps and sitting cushions Antares swept out, spear at the ready. Gannet was on his feet, as well, and I felt a startling openness in his mind, as though he were searching for something. There was fear there, but also a bold curiosity that feared nothing, not even for his own life.

  And this, this frightened me.

  The howl came again, sharp like the call before a murderous lunge. I backed away from the table, shaken, wary. Morainn did not cower, but looked from window to window, to the doorway for the return of Antares or worse. I felt the urge to break from them, all of them, when they had so much to occupy them that was not caging this particular bird. I knew in an instant that this howling was not a call for me, but for them, to distract them so I might escape.

  The soles of my feet felt as though they were moving already, twitching and burning to go. As the howl rang out again and everyone remained distracted, I took the few, quiet steps backward that remained between me and the wide, curtained window, brushed the silk aside, and leapt to the sandy road below.

  Fires had guttered low without their keepers, but there was light enough to see by. I wove quickly through abandoned kindling and packs tumbled over in their owner’s haste to assess the threat, rations heated and growing cold. I ran into the ruins. I didn’t feel the dread and darkness I had sensed before, growing more sure with every passing moment that what I had felt had been colored by the weakness of the company I had been forced to keep. Re’Kether would shelter me where they could not.

  Though I passed out of the firelight, I could not mistake the low, crumbling foundations, the shattered artifices that littered sand-strewn paths. No doubt these had once been paved, the jeweled feet of some ancient people wearing memory into stone. I could almost see their fine sandals and trailing robes tracing patterns in the sand, characters I was sure I could recognize were they not shadow and distant history. My heart hammered at the thought and for a moment I was seized with the terror of losing myself in the darkness, that the howling was nothing more than a siren song. The fear passed as quickly as it had come, replaced with a renewed desire to escape. I had been in chains, and soon here I would be free.

  By touch alone I was sure I traveled nearer the city proper, and with every absent stroke of my hand in the air I felt for the high wall I had seen as the caravan approached. Gannet had said the wall kept as much in as it did out, but like hands cupped with water, it was not as solid as it looked.

  I felt something pass across my cheek, like a stray hair, but not mine. I faltered again, breath catching in my throat. Gannet had not wanted me to be alone in my chamber, and now I stood alone in the ruins. The caravan lights were distant, and I could hear nothing, not even the howling, not any more. Had they captured the creature, or had it followed my lone scent into the ruins? I shivered, and my hands brushed against the stone of the perimeter wall. What beast dared to hunt in so ancient and empty a place? What had it to feed on but spirits? I had more to fear from the folk of the caravan than here.

  Taking another step forward, I opened both hands out in front of me as though I were reaching for a prayer statue. My mother’s idols were nearly always depicted in this way, all but one, who offered neither salvation nor steady confession. I did not want to think of her, not now, but her hard face had been behind my eyes since Gannet had given me her name: Theba.

  The howling began again, or so it seemed at first. What I heard now was more like a chorus, individual pitches picked out of the dark. What could have been the wail of an infant, an old man, a nursing mother, all were strained together in a cry of centuries dormant misery suddenly and violently roused. With each footstep the voices in the choir grew more numerous, but I could not stop myself, kept moving, feeling, reaching into the dark. Tears sprang to my eyes but across my lips stole something like an expression of glee, a celebration of their pain. It wasn’t mine.

  I gasped and stumbled backwards over a broken cobble. Strange energy shot from my skin like cracks of lighting, and for a moment the square where I stood was illuminated and the smell of something burning, like hair, filled my nose. I saw nothing in the brief light, and nothing moved in the darkness that dropped heavy as hands clapped over my eyes. The cries were silenced and suddenly I heard movement, like many pairs of feet moving swiftly towards me.

  “Eiren!”

  I heard Gannet’s voice and then recognized his form, outlined in my mind as though in a reverse silhouette: he was bright where all else was dark. He was open to me; I could sense his urgency and his need to find me, his fear that he might not. The cries and howling had stopped, and I heard nothing but the huff of his breath and my own, and I was aware of how far I had come, how dark it was. I scrambled to my feet in an instant, and he didn’t hesitate, taking my hands and racing the both of us from that place.

  Chapter 7

  Only the threat of being stranded in Re’Kether with a broken wheel or a lame beast kept the caravan from moving the instant Gannet had secured me aboard the barge. Delirious, bones chattering with fear, I couldn’t focus, didn’t recognize Morainn’s face hovering over mine. I had moved a sandaled foot in time with each of his booted o
nes, but now I stalled, my senses still not wholly mine.

  “What happened?” Morainn hissed, looking between Gannet and I. “Was she taken?”

  “She was tempted,” Gannet said, removing one of his hands from my shoulders to gesture that I have a seat. I felt as weak as I had during childhood fevers, but it was my spirit that was shaken, not my body. I sat down despite not wanting to.

  “If she tries to run again I recommend we restrain her, Dresha.”

  This was from Imke, who received sharp looks from Gannet and Morainn both for saying so. Words sprang to my lips: that I would run if I wished to, that I would go home to Re’Kether… but Re’Kether was not my home.

  “Triss, food and drink,” Morainn ordered, the light colors of her skirts distracting as she settled beside me. My sisters had worn such things. I had, too, when we had been meant to rule. But not now. I picked at the stitches in the hem of my tunic, loose folds hanging unbelted, stray threads like the hair’s light touches I had felt in the ruins. Gannet had come for me, but I had not been alone.

  “Eiren, will you eat?” Gannet’s eyes were the least guarded I had seen them, shades of the worry I had felt in him still visible in their depths. They were all sitting around me now as though it were I who held court here and not them, Gannet and Imke joining Morainn, Triss perching on a cushion only after she had brought warm tea and bread.

  I lifted a cup, and it was filled for me.

  “What happened?”

  The answers I wanted were not the same as those Morainn sought. She wanted to know how I had come to leave the caravan and why. I wanted to know what I had met in the ruins, and how I had driven it off.

  “There are unhappy spirits in Re’Kether, among other things.” Gannet’s tone was factual, as if we were discussing the weather or were bent together over a map, plotting an obvious course. “Re’Kether is in ruin because of Theba’s wrath, the dead buried without the comforts of visits from their descendents, without offerings. We shouldn’t have come this way.”