by Rick Shelley
Silvas. Maria turned her thoughts toward him, a little more directly. She could sense him sitting in the long parlor, his attention focused on Carillia. She did not try to speak to him, did not try to read his thoughts. I can if I want to, she knew, but she did not want to yet—not without significant need.
"No doubt we'll each cherish whatever privacy we can hold," she whispered.
Maria forced her mind as blank as she could. She took long, deep breaths, focusing fully on that exercise. It served to pass time, but did not bring her closer to sleep. Nor did it bring great revelations. Then, finally, it was time to open some of the new gates within her mind.
"I have to know what's there. I've been avoiding this for hours."
Maria stretched out on the bed, made herself comfortable, and closed her eyes. She directed her attention within. At first, it was like standing in the doorway of a darkened room and calling out, "Hello, is anybody there?" As the thought came to her, Maria gave it direction and force.
"Hello, is anybody there?"
She held her breath and waited. A low humming sound rose, not strong enough to annoy, more like a blanket to comfort her. The darkness abated in one direction. Maria felt herself "walking" toward that lighter area, though she had no sense of her body actually moving. After a time, she saw a hint of form that gradually resolved into clear outlines and became visible as Carillia.
"You're doing much better than I dared to hope," Carillia's image said. Maria had no fancy that this was really Carillia. She was dead, beyond any resurrection. But had something of her survived even that death?
"I didn't want to rush in," Maria said within her mind.
Carillia nodded. "That is wise. The beginning could be troublesome, even dangerous, otherwise. But you will do well. I see that in you."
"There is one question I must ask," Maria said. "Was this gift truly meant for me to share, or did you intend it solely for Silvas?"
Carillia's face smiled. "I am here to help you, am I not?" As soon as Maria nodded, Carillia vanished, and Maria was alone in her mind again.
But the darkness was no longer complete. Maria had no feeling of being alone in a vast emptiness. There was shadowy form, and there was content. Maira merely had to direct her attention to remove the shadows. She wandered paths that always managed to head precisely in the direction she wanted to travel. She looked. She sampled. On occasion, she took her attention back to her resting body. The room remained quiet. Candles burned low. Silvas had not returned.
It will be a long while yet before he comes out of that room, Maria assured herself, as confidently as if Silvas himself had told her that. In a way, he had.
Exploring.
Maria's thoughts turned toward Mecq, and she saw it. She saw her young brother, half brother, crying in his sleep. His sobbing seemed to be the only sound in the castle. "Be strong," Maria whispered, as much for her own comfort as for her brother's. Maria saw herself stroking his hair and forehead, and the crying became muted, then ended.
Another thought brought Carillia's name to mind again. A sequence of images flashed by, events from Carillia's life: a banquet in a hall that dwarfed the Glade; sitting on the grass by a stream, Carillia's first meeting with Silvas; even older memories, Carillia as a young child looking up at her parents—though Maria looked at them as she might have looked at her own parents. She saw something more in Carillia's father, a familiarity that seemed different, more recent, but when she could put no clearer tag to the thought, she dismissed it from her mind.
What strange wonders does this world hold? Maria wondered, and the tour that came was kaleidoscopic. She saw the pyramids of Egypt and the vast oceans of moving sand that stretched westward from them for incredible distances. She saw oceans of ice and snow in the far north, and giant floating mountains of ice in the sea.
And more, scenes passing so quickly that there was no time to fix them all in her conscious mind.
Eventually, Maria came back from her wandering one time to find that the last of the candles had finally burned out—but that the darkness in the bedroom did not limit her vision. The night was far advanced. She stretched her senses until she could see sentries walking their posts on the curtain wall. She heard other guards and servants snoring in their sleep in the many nooks and crannies of the castle that were home to the people of the Seven Towers. She could still tune her awareness to the presence of Silvas in the long parlor, though she continued to tread softly around that awareness.
There is as much that is new for him as for me, she reminded herself. He lost Carillia and gained two unknowns—Carillia's gift, and me.
Maria took a deep breath, and it was almost as if she were settling herself anew within her body after a long trip away. She stretched, rolled a little to one side and then to the other, then sat up and swung her legs off of the bed. She stood and stretched again, reveling in the sensuous feel of muscle pulling against muscle—aware of the workings of her body with an intimacy she had never suspected possible. There was so much knowledge to be tapped now.
And she felt a restless need to roam.
—|—
Dawn found Maria on the battlements of the keep, the highest point within the walls of the Glade. She was there when the special birds of the Seven Towers came out to celebrate their Matins. The birds swooped around her head, fearless, welcoming their new mistress. Maria watched in delight as the birds cavorted, and she tried to echo their song. The birds cooperated by repeating phrases she got wrong, correcting her until her rendition was a passable copy of their original. Then they went soaring off to circle over each of the other towers in turn.
Maria kept her face toward the rising sun as much as possible, luxuriating in the warmth. She closed her eyes and leaned against the parapet. The stone was cool, but warming quickly.
A long day full of terror and surprise, and a long night without sleep. I feel exceptionally well for that, she thought. Silvas still sits below. I wonder what he's thinking about now.
But she still refused to intrude to find out.
It's enough that I know I can touch him at need, she decided. There was sufficient for her to think about without delving into Silvas's mind. The night had been too full of discoveries for easy assimilation. The wonder of it still held her in deep fascination.
How can any mind touch one part in a hundred of it?
She looked over the parapet, down into the courtyard. Much of the bailey was still in shadow. The area Silvas had scratched off for Carillia's shrine was in full sunlight, though. He gave her the dawn, Maria thought. That seemed appropriate. Her smile was like the morning sun—warm, comforting, grace unscarred by power or age.
"I hope I can stay like that," Maria whispered. The sentry was all of the way on the other side of the keep, too far away to hear her.
Maria blinked several times, then started down the stairs. The morning meal would be ready in the great hall. Even if Silvas was not there to preside, Maria would be. The people of the Seven Towers needed to see that they had someone to serve, someone to follow.
—|—
Maria's arrival in the great hall seemed to come as a major surprise to most of the people gathered there. There had been a noisy babble that Maria could hear long before she entered, a babble with morning overtones of a grumpy but good-natured sort. Most of the noise evaporated as soon as she entered the great hall. People turned to stare. Maria stopped for a moment and smiled.
"Please, go on as you were." She felt self-conscious at the note of little-girl-pleading that crept into her voice. "I don't want to disturb anything."
Most of the people returned to their bowls and mugs. Conversations were resumed, but the talk was not as free as before. Maria went to the head table. Koshka was just beginning to prepare a place for her.
"Am I breaking precedent by taking breakfast here?" she asked in an anxious whisper.
"I wouldn't go so far as that, my lady, but rare enough it is for the lord and lady to breakfast in the great ha
ll," Koshka said.
"I thought it might be important this day, with Silvas still in there." Maria merely glanced toward the door at the side of the great hall, but she was certain that Koshka would understand.
He nodded. "Aye, belike it is. We've gone through a fearsome battle, and our lord sits there alone, grieving for all of us.
"Did he come out at all during the night?" Maria asked.
"Not as anyone knows, my lady. There's been a man posted to fetch anything he might want, but he's not opened the door or called out once." Koshka shrugged, a peculiarly jerky gesture the way his body performed it. "Though, true it is, he has ways in and out of the Seven Towers that we cannot know or see."
True, but I don't think he has used any of those ways, Maria thought. She was certain that she would have known had Silvas traveled that way.
Koshka brought food and a light, fruity drink, something Maria had never tasted before.
"This is wonderful," she said after her first sip. "What is it?"
Koshka grinned. "The pure juice of a fruit that comes from the same far country as silk, my lady. The fruit is called orange."
"I've never heard of it."
"As like not. My lord has a special connection to Cathay."
Maria needed no further clue. Silvas obtained the fruit through magic. "There are a lot of special connections," she said.
"That there are, my lady," Koshka admitted with a bobbing nod. "We eat better than kings or popes here."
"And earn such keep most regularly." Maria's compliment obviously pleased Koshka.
—|—
The morning was full enough to keep Maria from brooding on Silvas's continued isolation. Shortly after breakfast, a woman who appeared to be in late middle age came into the small sitting room and introduced herself as Eila.
"I were the lady Carillia's maid since Harry Secund were king," Eila said. "I couldn't come to you yester eve, my lady. I were grievin' too sore for her."
More than sixty years! Maria marveled, doing the quick arithmetic. Eila is much older than she appears.
"I understand, Eila." Maria's voice was so gentle that it surprised even her. "She was very special to all who knew her, even as slightly as I did."
"Koshka tells me yer'll be needin' clothes, my lady," Eila said. "I'll see to't, quick as fingers may."
"Thank you, Eila. Thank you very much."
Eila made her marks of Maria's sizes and asked about her color preferences, then went off "to get the lasses started." Eila had scarcely gone before Koshka came in. He wanted to talk about the management of the household. Carillia had left all such details to him.
"I wouldn't dream of changing anything, certainly not when I know nothing of this place and its special circumstances," Maria said. "Unless Silvas tells you otherwise, I'm certain we'll continue as before."
Koshka insisted on at least going over accounts with her, making sure that Maria knew just how extensive the establishment was, how complicated its needs. Then he fetched in a lunch tray for her and left. Maria ate idly for a time, then started roaming about the keep again. She finally found her way out to the mews, past mid-afternoon. Bosc was washing out Bay's stable. The horse was trotting easily around the courtyard, exercising, until he saw Maria.
"Has he come out yet?" Bay asked, stopping a few feet from her.
"Not for an instant," Maria said.
Bay snorted. "It's as I said, we'll have to drag him out by force."
"No. He'll emerge on his own when it's time. He has a lot to think about just now."
"No more than you, and likely much less," Bay insisted. "His world has touched upon the corridors of great power from the beginning, as yours has not. Yet you've not shut yourself away from all the world."
"I didn't know Carillia as long or as well, either," Maria said.
"What bothers him is that he found he knew her not at all, despite their centuries together. None of us did."
Maria blinked quickly, twice. "You sound almost bitter at that," she said, amazed.
"Perhaps. That knowledge might have changed much." Bay turned his head to one side and then the other, then shook it in a violent gesture. "But perhaps nothing at all would have changed." Then he walked off toward his stall. Bosc had finished his work there.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Unseen Lord of the White Brotherhood and orthodox Roman Christians looked down as blood welled out of the crushed human heart under his foot. Silvas looked from the foot up at Mikel's face.
"It grieves me that you have so dim a view of my future," Silvas said calmly. "I might have expected more from our next meeting, had I troubled to anticipate it at all."
"I mean you no evil myself, but Carillia's gift has condemned you," Mikel said, meeting Silvas's gaze. "I will not make light of your plight."
"Why?" Silvas decided that he wanted a chair, and one appeared behind him—a minor application of power. He sat, trying to suppress any relief at the smooth working of the magic. Mikel procured a chair for himself and sat before he answered. When his foot moved, there was no trace of the crushed heart, or of all of the blood it had spilled.
"Which why?" the elder god asked in return.
Silvas shrugged. "Shall we start with, 'Why has Carillia's gift condemned me?' It seems as good a place as any."
"I suppose," Mikel conceded. "But perhaps it would be best if we started with the 'why' of my visit."
Silvas nodded. "As you will."
"Tomorrow morning, you should bring Carillia's body home to us, to the Citadel of the gods in the Shining City. That is where she belongs."
"I had intended to raise a chapel over her tomb within the Seven Towers," Silvas said. Perhaps she does belong in the land of the gods with her brothers and sisters, he thought while he talked. Perhaps the reminder of how she died will temper their combativeness. "But I see that you might be right," he continued with hardly a pause. "Yes, we will take her home tomorrow."
"We?" Mikel arched an eyebrow in a most theatrical display.
"Surely you don't expect me to travel alone in such circumstances," Silvas said quietly.
"As you will." There seemed to be a touch of a sneer in Mikel's voice as he threw the words back at Silvas. "We will be expecting you."
"Now, those other why's?" Silvas prompted.
"The battle just ended hasn't brought all of our disagreements to an end, my siblings and I. At the moment, things may be quiet among us. We all need time to gather our thoughts and assess next moves. But few, if any, would welcome a new antagonist to the lists. You cannot expect the warmest of welcomes in the Citadel. Some might think to save themselves later bother by eliminating you now, before you have learned to use your gift."
"I gave you good and loyal service, Mikel, for many centuries, culminating in the recent battle that eliminated your most dangerous foes." Silvas allowed no breach of inner tranquillity to show on his face or in his voice. "One might reasonably expect some measure of loyalty in return."
"You were a good and loyal servant," Mikel allowed. "As I said, I bear you no special ill will. But one hardly accepts servants who stray above their station into one's bosom. One doesn't seat them above the salt merely because they think they belong there."
"You did bring warning, and that is something," Silvas conceded. "And when you think of gifts, remember the gift you gave me before the final battle for Mecq."
For an instant, that seemed to put Mikel at a loss. His thoughts had not run in that direction before, and he needed an instant to recall what Silvas was speaking of.
"Your gift was almost as great as Carillia's," Silvas said, his voice fading almost to imagination. "You gave me your knowledge. You gave me your names. You gave me power." There was indeed power in the final word, enough to make Mikel jerk his head back in reflex.
The two immortals stared at each other in silence for a stretch out of time. Then Silvas smiled and nodded. "I might not prove a willing lamb for the slaughter, Mikel. I might take the butchers with me.
"
Mikel showed no response. He simply removed himself with a scant nod of his head. The forest clearing vanished as well. Silvas blinked twice, absently, and found himself back in the long parlor with Carillia. Satin and Velvet were still in their places at either end of the bier. There were no candles or torches burning in the room. Light showed through the windows.
"Two days and nights have passed since we brought you back to the Glade, my love," Silvas said, knowing precisely how much time had passed. He gazed with love at the face of his lost Carillia. "The world turns. Your brothers and sisters still hate." Silvas sighed. "Now I find that I won't even have you here to comfort me in the eternity to come. I must take you home to the world you abandoned, to the glorious Citadel in the Shining City." He shook his head. "What pompousness."
Silvas stood and stretched mightily. He stood over Carillia and looked down at her face. It was no more serene in death than it had been customarily in life. Save for the lack of any movement at all, there was no sign that life had indeed left her face forever.
"I would that I could spend all of the hours between now and then here with you, my love. But there are arrangements to make for your final journey, precautions to take for those you leave behind. It seems I can no longer rely on your brother Mikel for help. I have climbed above my station." Silvas closed his eyes and marveled at his lack of surprise, or bitterness.
A new thought came to him. Mikel spoke of the way I received Carillia's gift, that I had little future. Has he no knowledge that Maria shares that gift?
Silvas opened his eyes and looked at Carillia again. "Did your final gift go beyond what your brother can even imagine?" Silvas could not decide if that were possible, or if it might be one small advantage that he and Maria might hold over Mikel and the others.
