Lady of the Trillium

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Mikayla nodded. Kimbri said softly, “It seems quite likely that her natural faculties would return before her magical ones. Try not to worry about it.” She continued on into Haramis’s room. When she saw the Archimage sitting upright, she said, “It is good indeed to see you looking so much better, Lady.” As she started to examine Haramis Mikayla took the opportunity to slip out of the room to tell Uzun the good news.

  She ran down the stairs to the study and found the huge harp apparently dozing. They had never decided whether Uzun really slept or not, but since Haramis had been ill, Uzun had seemed to be asleep on several occasions when Mikayla tried to talk to him.

  “Wake up, Uzun,” she cried. “The Archimage is awake, and she asked at once for you.”

  If it was possible for a wooden harp to look self-satisfied, she would have sworn that Uzun looked smug. “You say she has asked for me? I might have guessed that would be her first act when she wakened,” he said. “Can you take me to her?”

  “No.” Mikayla sighed. “Haramis doesn’t think we can get you up all those stairs. And even if she doesn’t remember what happened to you last time we dragged you up to her room, I do! But I can run messages back and forth for you.”

  “I suppose that will have to do.” Uzun sighed.

  “Unless you have an ambition to become a pile of kindling wood, it will indeed have to do,” Mikayla said firmly.

  23

  Somehow it did not greatly surprise Mikayla that Haramis suddenly forgot her previous opposition to giving Uzun a new body.

  The first hint of this change of heart came the next week, when Kimbri came to check on the Archimage again. “How are you feeling today, Lady?” she asked respectfully.

  “Not well,” said Haramis. She sounded tired, and very old. “Certainly not well enough to teach Mikayla all the things she must learn before she becomes Archimage. At least, not at this moment, but I feel she should not wait any longer to learn them.” She leaned back and closed her eyes; or rather, Mikayla thought, let them fall shut. After a while she said, without opening her eyes, “I think what you should learn first, Mikayla, is to keep in touch with the whole of this realm with your Sight, through what I have already taught you of the use of the scrying bowl. Go then, and fetch it.”

  Mikayla went and fetched the silver bowl, filling it to the rim with pure water as she had been taught. She did not feel that this would be a good time to remind Haramis that she had taught Mikayla to scry the entire realm some years ago. She strongly suspected that Haramis didn’t remember how long Mikayla had been living in her Tower. I suppose it’s a good sign that she remembers me at all, Mikayla thought, and I certainly don’t want to upset her. After all, Kimbri said that she should be kept calm—and that’s difficult at the best of times.

  When she returned, Haramis asked her, “What would you like most to see in this Kingdom?”

  Mikayla stopped to consider that for a moment. It was the first time Haramis had ever consulted her about her preferences. What should it be, then? The Skriteks? Definitely not. The city ruins toward which she and Fiolon had been seeking on that first day when they had met with the Archimage? After a moment she said cautiously, “I would like to see how my cousin Fiolon fares.”

  Rather weakly, Haramis moved her right hand. “Look, then, into the water.”

  Mikayla looked into the bowl, remembering the instructions of the Archimage on other occasions. She did remember how to use the bowl, even though she always used the sphere around her neck when she was scrying for herself. After a moment the reflections of the windows in Haramis’s room swirled on the surface of the bowl and formed into a tiny picture of Fiolon, cloaked and booted for riding, on a gray fronial. Behind him, a smaller fronial trotted, heavily piled with luggage.

  Mikayla recognized his surroundings; he was nearby and headed to this Tower. Why is he coming here? she wondered. Haramis sends him away every time she sees him.

  Haramis said sharply, “Well, child, what do you see?”

  Mikayla bit her lip. She’s obviously not well if she looks at me and sees a child, she thought, and telling her that Fiolon is coming here may anger her. But she’s bound to find out he’s here when he arrives—the servants won’t lie to her, not about this. “Fiolon is coming here, Lady,” she said, “with two fronials. He’s within half a league of the chasm at the edge of the plaza.”

  “Those must be the fronials and the baggage I left with his parents on the day I called the lammergeiers to rescue you from the Skriteks,” Haramis said promptly. “No doubt Fiolon is bound here, returning them to me.”

  Mikayla stared at her openmouthed, then forced herself to close her mouth. Obviously Haramis was once again not living in the present, but at least now Mikayla was getting some idea of when Haramis thought she was. At least she’s not angry that Fiolon is coming here. And she said “his parents”—perhaps she thinks he’s one of my brothers.

  “Look in the top drawer of the table by my bedside, Mikayla,” Haramis instructed her. “It contains the little silver blowpipe I use to summon the bridge. By the time you reach the bottom of the Tower, he will be here, so go at once.”

  Mikayla didn’t think he would be here quite that soon, but she was glad enough to obey the Archimage—and to get out of the room. She took up the little pipe, and hurried down the long stairs to the entrance that let her out on the edge of the plaza on the south side of the Tower. She was glad to see that the solar cell was clear; she suspected that Orogastus’s “magic mirror” might be needed very soon. Fiolon would not be coming here without a very good reason.

  As she stood on the plaza waiting for Fiolon’s arrival, she had plenty of time to consider the state of Haramis’s mind. Sometimes, she knew from the Healer, old people who suffered this illness lost much of their memory, or could not use their powers of speech or reason. This would be likely to make Haramis very angry—if she even realized what was happening at all.

  Mikayla quailed to think of Haramis’s situation. She had obviously lost at least part of her reason and did not seem to know it. She still thought Mikayla was an untrained child; the Lord of the Air alone knew what she thought of Fiolon.…

  The whole land was without its mother and guide. Well, after a fashion …

  Mikayla stood on the plaza, thinking unhappy thoughts until Fiolon came into sight. She blew a note on the pipe, as she had seen Haramis do the first time she had sent Fiolon away, so many years ago—years, apparently, that Haramis did not remember.

  The bridge extended itself smoothly over the great chasm, almost at the precise moment Fiolon and his fronials drew up before it. Mikayla found it hard to wait while Fiolon and his fronials crossed the bridge, but as soon as he was there, she ran forward to hug him, practically dragging him off his fronial in the process.

  “Oh, Fiolon, I’m so glad to see you. It seemed too good to be true when I saw you were on your way here!”

  “You knew?” Fiolon said, hugging her back and continuing to hold her. “That explains why you were here to meet me. Are you ready to be Archimage yet? I can tell that something is seriously wrong with Haramis, is it not?”

  “Yes,” Mikayla said, “you’re right. You will find her very much changed, I fear, and not for the better. She has been very ill, and for a few days we feared she would die.”

  Fiolon sighed. “Another brainstorm?” he asked. Mikayla nodded. “And you aren’t anywhere near ready to take her place, I suppose. That would explain the mess.”

  Although this was what Mikayla had herself been thinking for some time, she was not flattered that this should have been Fiolon’s first thought. She said rather snappishly, “I know perfectly well that I’m not ready; Haramis has been saying nothing else for the last few days and so has Uzun. Anyone would think I was only six years old. Why don’t you go up and see her, and then you can all agree on how hopeless I am!”

  She stomped off into the stables to press the button that retracted the bridge and to tell the groom to take care of the fronials, but
when she turned, she found Fiolon right on her heels.

  “I’m sorry, Mika,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “It must be wretched for you, having her like this.”

  “Just wait until you see her,” Mikayla said with a certain grim satisfaction.

  “And I didn’t mean that you couldn’t take over as Archimage,” Fiolon continued. “In fact, I think you should.”

  Mikayla stared at him in horror. “But that could kill her!”

  “Perhaps she would rather die than continue what this is doing to the land,” Fiolon said gently. “The damage is spilling over into Var. I feel it; that is why I came here.”

  “I knew you must have a very good reason for coming,” Mikayla said, “knowing the way Haramis sends you away every time she sees you. But she may not exactly remember who you are at the moment—she seems to think you’re one of my brothers.”

  “I shall not disillusion her, then,” Fiolon said, “and I promise not to tell her that I’m Archimage of Var—she’d probably have a fit. I assume you never told her.”

  “Of course not,” Mikayla said. “Uzun knows, but he won’t tell her.”

  “All right, then,” Fiolon said. “Let’s go see how bad it is.” He patted her gently on the back and gestured for her to proceed.

  The young people toiled up the stairs and into the room of the old woman. “Here is Fiolon come to see you, Lady Haramis,” Mikayla said formally.

  “Come in, child,” Haramis said, weakly extending her right hand toward Fiolon.

  It’s the same as it was last time, Mikayla suddenly realized. She can use her right side, but not her left. I wonder why that is.

  Fiolon bent over Haramis’s hand and kissed the back of it in a courtly fashion. “Lady,” he replied.

  He’s certainly developing polished court manners, Mikayla thought resentfully. Of course, he gets to spend time at court; I’m the one who’s spending her entire life trapped in the mountains.

  She stood in the doorway and glowered while Fiolon made vague social conversation, suitable for an elderly lady who couldn’t be expected to know much, if anything, about what was going on in the world. It would have been ridiculous if it hadn’t been so pathetic, Mikayla thought as she listened to Fiolon assure the Archimage that his parents were in excellent health. Obviously Haramis had only the vaguest idea of who he was, or she would have remembered that his mother had died in childbirth and that no one had ever known who his father was. Well, maybe his father is in excellent health; there’s certainly no proof to the contrary.

  Haramis tired quickly. Telling Mikayla to have the housekeeper make up a room for her brother, she dismissed them both.

  Mikayla, who had already asked Enya to have a room prepared for Fiolon, dragged him off to her room for a private conference. The two of them dropped into the chairs on either side of the small table next to the fireplace and looked at each other in dismay. Then Mikayla groaned, dropping her head onto her forearms on the table. “She’s really not all here.” She sighed.

  “You’re right about that, I’m afraid,” Fiolon agreed. “When did I become your brother?”

  “No doubt when Haramis decided that’s what she wanted you to be.” Mikayla straightened up, scowling. “Some days I really hate her. She decides what she wants reality to be, and then she expects everyone to agree with her. And everyone does! If she said the sky were green, Uzun and all the servants would assure her that it had never been any other color.

  “She keeps telling long repetitive stories of her girlhood. The first three or four times they were sort of interesting, but after the twentieth, no!”

  “She forgets what she’s said?” Fiolon asked.

  Mikayla nodded. “She’s like that first music box we had back at the Citadel when we were children, remember? It played the same tune every time you put it on the same side. With her you get the exact same speech at intervals. I haven’t figured out yet just what corresponds to the sides on the music box, but it does seem to be an analogous phenomenon. Once I hear the first few words, I can tell you the rest of the speech, word for word, inflection for inflection—and I’m so sick of it I could scream!

  “Remember the tower at the Citadel where we used to play? We could spend hours there and nobody would bother us. Here, if I’m out of her sight for half an hour, she sends Enya to find me. She doesn’t want me to have any time to myself, she doesn’t want me to be where she doesn’t know where I am, she doesn’t even want me to be able to think for myself … it really bothers me.

  “It’s as if she’s trying to wipe out my personality and replace it with her own—almost as if she were trying to possess me, as if she’s trying to spread her soul over two bodies, hers and mine, without any regard for what happens to my soul.” She shuddered and looked anxiously at him. “I do have a soul of my own, don’t I, Fio?”

  “Of course you do,” Fiolon assured her. “You’re probably just upset because she’s ill. Have you been getting enough sleep? And have you been eating, or is the household so upset that you’re not getting proper meals again?”

  “I take some fruit or something if I’m hungry,” Mikayla said. “As for sleep, I almost wish I weren’t—I get nightmares and then I wake up and I’m trapped here!”

  “You’re not exactly trapped here,” Fiolon pointed out. “You never promised to stay.”

  Mikayla looked at him incredulously. “Of course I’m trapped here—I have been for years. I didn’t choose to be Archimage—she kidnapped me from my home, brought me here, and has been ‘teaching’ me for years, without ever once asking what I wanted.”

  “Yes,” Fiolon agreed, “she brought you here without your consent—but that was years ago. You could have gone home anytime you chose ever since you learned to talk to the lammergeiers—and before that, if you were willing to take a fronial through all the snow. By now, being here is your choice, even if you haven’t made it consciously. Think about it, and choose. What are you going to do?”

  “Oh, I have a choice,” Mikayla said sarcastically. “For the Lords’ sakes, Fio, don’t you start this. You’re supposed to be my friend—I really need a friend, and you’re the closest thing I’ve got to one. Don’t you take her side, too, please don’t. I can’t stand it; I just can’t live like this. This isn’t what I wanted.”

  “What did you want?” Fiolon asked quietly.

  “I don’t know anymore,” Mikayla sobbed. “I get so confused here. But it can’t have been this or I wouldn’t be so miserable.” She tried to think clearly about it. “I wanted what everybody wants, I guess: a nice husband—preferably you—a few children, a comfortable home someplace, a garden, friends.…”

  “You have Uzun,” Fiolon pointed out.

  “I’d prefer friends who are a little more ambulatory.” Mikayla sighed. “I mean Uzun’s very nice, but you have to be really fond of music to appreciate him as he ought to be appreciated.… You were always my best friend, and you know as well as I do that the first thing Haramis wanted when she got us here was to send you away. She wants me to be alone and totally dependent on her, and it’s not fair!”

  “But, Mika, you can summon a lammergeier, can’t you? Even at night, Red-Eye would fly across two mountain peaks at your first call.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Then it’s not that you don’t have any choice,” Fio pointed out. “You can summon a lammergeier, fly to anyplace you want, and never come back. So if you’re still here after all this time, I’d say you have made a choice. I’m really sorry that you’re unhappy, but you must have some reason for staying here.”

  Mikayla frowned. “This is going to sound crazy, but I think the land wants me.”

  “It doesn’t sound crazy at all,” Fiolon said promptly. “I think it does, too.”

  Mikayla looked slightly sick. “Since she took ill this time, I keep thinking that I hear it crying—the land, or the winds, or something. I really feel awful, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do abou
t it. I don’t have the land sense—not the way you do. The problem is that I don’t think Haramis has it either.”

  Fio shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not something that you can tell about someone else.” He touched his fingertips to the spot on his tunic where his sphere was. “If you had it, of course, I could tell, but with her, I can’t.”

  Mikayla’s fingers went to the lump at her chest, carefully hidden under at least two layers of clothes at all times, the sphere that was twin to Fiolon’s. She always wore it next to her skin; it was the one thing she had kept from the time before her life with Haramis, the singing spheres that she and Fiolon had found on their last trip into the Mire. “Are we linked that strongly?” she asked. “I keep thinking that I can feel your presence, and hear your voice in the chiming noise it makes, but I thought it must be my imagination.”

  Fiolon smiled at her. “Mika, the one thing you never did have much of was imagination.” He shook his sphere gently, making it ring. Mikayla felt hers vibrate with it. “It is said that scrying is notoriously unreliable, especially for humans, but using this as a link, we can scry each other very clearly. I’ve been following your lessons for years, even some of those chants at the Temple of Meret.”

  Mikayla groaned, remembering a lot of those lessons. “And you do them a lot better than I do, too. When you landed in Var and got the land sense, you could cope with it. I spent two days sick in bed just from being linked with you.”

  “I think you’d do a lot better if you’d relax and stop fighting the whole situation.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I wonder if there’s anything in the library about the effects of having both an Archimage and a trained successor.”

  “Trained?” Mikayla said. “Me? Everybody agrees that I’m not trained yet.”

  “But you’ve had more training than I had when I became Archimage of Var,” Fiolon pointed out.

  “You’re right,” Mikayla said. “Do you suppose that means that I wasn’t supposed to be trained in the first place? Could that be why Haramis keeps getting brainstorms—because there are two of us?”