A Parliament of Owls

by Beth Hilgartner

  The Scholar King leaned against the stone window ledge, listening absently to the noises in the room behind him. None of his concern showed in his clean, regular features—not even as a shadow in the depths of his beer-colored eyes; but he was troubled, and a little unsure. It was, he reflected wryly, the first time in a long while he had felt young and callow. Like a rank thorn hedge, Cithanekh's prickly reserve in matters personal deterred solicitude; but Cithanekh was visibly fraying. Someone had to raise the issue before the man was worn to tatters.

  When the last of the other Councilors was gone and the doors were shut, the Emperor came back to the table. He sat opposite Cithanekh, studying him with unnerving intensity.

  "Send for him," the Scholar King said at last, gently.

  "For whom, Majesty?" Cithanekh replied with freezing tonelessness.

  The Emperor raised his eyebrows. After a moment he said, "Don't you want him to come home?"

  Something anguished and desperate leapt in the young lord's expression, but what came out was bitterness: a choked, mirthless laugh. "Home? Who could possibly call this snake pit home?"

  "I rather think that Owl would call the place by your side home, no matter what country you were in. Send for him."

  "No. He's happy in Kalledann. Hasn't he suffered enough?"

  The Emperor sighed. "Arre arrived with the dawn tide; did you know? She said her brother Torres is well, that Spring is late in Kalledann, and that she can't imagine Owl looking worse if he were being systematically starved and tortured." Cithanekh made mute protest, but Khethyran ground on remorselessly. "She tried to convince him to come back to Court with her, but he refused. He said he didn't think you wanted him back, and that he'd be damned if he'd appear like the ghost of an old scandal to trade on your pity."

  As the Emperor spoke, Cithanekh shut his eyes in pain; but when he opened them to answer, his face was blank as a mask. "I don't want him back. He's better off in Kalledann. He needs to make his home there."

  "I tried to tell Arre, once, that she would be better off if she could forget me, that I had no business putting her in danger—especially as we could never marry. Do you know what she said? She said there were some things worth dying for, and that one must be allowed to decide for herself which they were."

  "Arre isn't blind," he said in a clipped, congested voice.

  "Owl is hardly helpless. Cithanekh, for the love of the wise gods, will you send for him?"

  "Is that an order, Majesty?" The cool, uninflected question sent alarms jangling along the Emperor's nerves.

  "Will you obey an order or defy it?" he countered quietly.

  "I won't send for him. I can't. Don't you see? Kheth, I dare not. His life would be in danger from the instant he sets foot on Bharaghlafi soil. And if he's killed, because I called him home, it will be my fault. And it would destroy me."

  "I do see, Cithanekh; believe me," the Scholar King insisted, in a soft, passionate voice. "But don't you understand? If, in despair and loneliness, Owl starves himself to death, or leaps from a cliff, or slits his wrists, will that not also be your fault? And would it not also destroy you? Cithanekh, I need you both—whole-hearted and well; I cannot afford to squander allies—not ever, but especially not now."

  "But he's happy there; his letters are—"

  The Scholar King swore in two dead languages. "Cithanekh, don't be obtuse! Do you tell Owl in your letters how unhappy you are? How little you're sleeping, and the last time you had a decent meal? If I were a gambling man, I'd wager you tell him amusing Court anecdotes, the milder sort of gossip, and good news about his friends. And I'd win, wouldn't I?"

  "Yes, but—"

  Khethyran smoothed away his irritation and went on evenly, "And Owl doubtless thinks that you don't miss him, that in your mind, he is slipping inexorably from dear friend to old acquaintance, that you would be, in fact, better off without a blind Seer and former slave, clinging to your sleeve."

  Cithanekh covered his face with both hands. After a moment, he pushed his fingers into his hair. The mask was gone; he looked vulnerable and uncertain. "He's been gone six years, studying to master his power. What if he's different?"

  "Of course he'll be different. You're different yourself. People grow and change—but an acorn grows into an oak, not a hawthorn. Trust Owl to be more himself, not less."

  Cithanekh's mouth quirked in a wry smile. "I thought your scholarship encompassed history, literature and politics; where did you ever learn so much about the ways of the heart?"

  The Scholar King smiled back. "I love you both; it gives me a certain insight. Will you send for him, now?"

  Cithanekh shook his head. "No. But I'll go to Kalledann; and if he wants to come back with me, I'll bring him home.

  ***

  The salt-tanged wind hissed in the grasses. Owl lay on his back, feeling the sun's gentle touch against his face; the grasses whispered secrets in some eldritch tongue, while the sea breeze carried the faint echoes of the busy harbor's noise from the base of the headlands. He breathed the air as though tasting freedom and sighed.

  He shouldn't feel like a prisoner. The instructors and students at the Kellande School were kind. They did their best to make him comfortable, to keep him safe—blind though he was. Everyone had made him welcome; if he was restless, dissatisfied, it was his own fault. In six years, he had learned much—much—about his Gift and the skills needed to master it. He had learned to speak, think, and even to dream in the Kalledanni tongue; but it wasn't home. He was a foreigner, a sojourner, an exile; and as he lay in the grass with the mild spring sunshine soft on him, he wished with his whole heart that he were elsewhere.

  "But where?" he whispered. Mercilessly, his memory supplied his last conversation with Arre. She had been packed to return to Bharaghlaf, to her royal lover, and she had pleaded with Owl to come with her.

  "It's your home, Owl, as much as anywhere. Why are you being so stubborn? Are you waiting for an invitation?" She had stopped then, as though she could read something reflected in his sightless eyes. And she had added, in a very different tone, "You can't be in doubt of your welcome."

  "Oh, come, Arre," he'd said in a cool, bitter voice. "You aren't really fool enough to imagine that the nobility of Bharaghlaf owes me a welcome? They would spit in my lowborn face."

  "I'm not talking about the nobles; I'm talking about Cithanekh. You can't think he wouldn't be glad to see you."

  "He'd act glad, I'm sure. He has superlative manners; and for some reason, he seems to think he owes me something. But he doesn't really want me back. It's clear from his letters."

  "You wrong him. He's not so shallow. Why don't you at least come for a visit, to see if you can't straighten things out with him?"

  "No." His refusal had been flat. He had felt shaming tears very close, and so had added in the scalding bitterness which he used as a shield, "I'll be damned, Arre, before I'll appear on his threshold like the ghost of an antique scandal, to trade on his pity. I would rather die than feel I'd tricked some kindness from him by reminding him of deeds long done, or ancient dangers shared."

  Even knowing he didn't like it, she had gripped his shoulders and shaken him gently. "Owl." Her tone was freighted with feelings she could not find words to express.

  Then Torres, the Master of the Kellande School, had interrupted. "Arre? If you plan to make the tide, you must be going."

  She had hugged Owl suddenly, unbalancing him; and he had had to hold hard to her until he steadied himself. "I don't like to leave you like this," she had said.

  His lips had quirked in an odd, rueful smile. "Don't worry about me. I'm a tough little Slum-rat—remember?"

  Remember? Remember? The word, and its sarcastic inflection, rang in his mind as he lay in the grass. Arre had not answered him; he had listened to her and Torres's receding footsteps until they were out of earshot. Now, he wished he had at least said goodbye.

  The wind sighed; he echoed it. So many regrets. Perhaps he should have unburdened him
self to Arre; the wise gods knew he couldn't talk to Torres. For all that the man was Arre's twin, Owl had never met anyone as infuriatingly single-minded: Gifts, Great Talents, and Magic, and never the faintest acknowledgment of burdens, uncertainty, or goals beyond the mastery of power. For Arre's entire visit, Owl had walked wary of her, afraid she might see beyond the mask he wore to the hurting child within. But now, he missed her. He wished he had dared to cry on her shoulder. She would have understood.

  An image flashed across his inner vision: Cithanekh. He closed his eyes as if he could shut out the picture—and the pain. He missed him so much; and here, his malicious Gift offered him a mocking glimpse of Cithanekh, looking as miserable and lost as Owl felt. The Seer flung an arm across his face as though to ward off a blow; but undeterred, Cithanekh burned in his inner sight, a thin figure against the sky, the wind lifting his hair as he looked down at something with pain and longing in his face. Owl tried to rein in his Gift; he strove to send the image back to the swamp of need and pain which had spawned it; but the vision wouldn't go. Owl's lips twisted in a bitter smile. Even after all the schooling, his prophetic Gift was no trained hound to come—and go—at his command. His visions stalked him, attacking in unguarded moments; and only the skill and practice which the Kellande School had given him allowed him to emerge sane and reasonably whole.

  The scuff of footsteps shattered the painful image, leaving Owl to his more usual, listening darkness. He had come up on the headlands to be alone; few people came here besides the occasional shepherd. This didn't sound like a shepherd's step. There was no accompanying thud of his crook, and not a hint of dogs, nor for that matter, sheep. Owl stifled irritation. Torres must have sent someone up to make sure he didn't wander over the cliffs.

  "Perhaps Torres should build me a pen in the yard," Owl said in his lightly accented Kalledanni, "since he's so afraid I'll lose myself."

  "Cyfrar?" Owl. His name: in Bharaghlafi, without the usual Kalledanni inflection. Owl froze in shock. "Bhaghlari. Khen yzhakh af frenykhar." Gods. You're so thin.

  Owl sat up, his head tilting toward the voice. "Cithanekh." His voice was tight with the effort of holding feelings in. "Why have you come? Has Arre been meddling?" It came out sounding sourer than he meant it to.

  "Arre?" Cithanekh sounded blank; then he went on wryly, "Well, a bit, I suppose. She suggested that you might not actually be as carefree as your letters sounded."

  "And you came to see for yourself?" Owl put in. "I don't need your pity."

  Cithanekh didn't answer for a moment, then Owl heard rustling movement as the young lord sat down beside him. "I cannot imagine you needing pity, Owl," he said finally, his voice little above a whisper. "Even seeing you so thin, it isn't pity I feel."

  "No?" The cool bite in his tone was savage. "What, then? Shock? Chagrin? Guilt?"

  "No. Gods." Cithanekh's voice caught, like tearing cloth; then he steadied himself. "I've missed you so much. I used to comfort myself, sometimes, by imagining this meeting, picturing how your smile would spread over your face. I never guessed you were so angry with me. Owl, I never meant to hurt you, only to keep you safe."

  Carefully, the blind Seer put out a hand and touched the other's face. His cheeks were wet. "Tears," he said gently. "You're weeping. Cithanekh, I'm not worth your tears."

  Cithanekh put his arm around Owl's shoulders and hugged him fiercely. "You are worth my heart's blood, Owl," he whispered.

  Owl returned the embrace, pressing his face against Cithanekh's chest. He swore softly in Kalledanni. Cithanekh's arms tightened protectively as the Seer began to cry. They sat like that for several minutes, as Owl's breathing steadied and the slow tears stopped running down Cithanekh's cheeks.

  "Why did you come, if not because of Arre?" Owl asked at last, the words rather muffled. When Cithanekh didn't answer immediately, he freed one of his hands and touched his friend's face to read his expression. When his fingers found the smile, Cithanekh spoke.

  "You're usually quicker, Owl. Can't you guess?"

  "I want to hear you say it."

  Cithanekh caught Owl's questing hand and pressed a kiss into the palm. "Will you come home with me? Back to Bharaghlaf?"

  Owl answered with the smile Cithanekh had imagined; it spread over his face like sunlight. "Won't the other nobles talk?"

  "If they only talk, we'll be lucky," Cithanekh said, suddenly serious. "They'll probably try to poison you. Owl, Court is a terrible place, and the courtiers are self-serving and vicious. I have no safety to offer, no right to ask you into danger; but will you come, anyway?"

  "Don't you understand? Cithanekh, for you I would go to the mouth of Hell and beyond. Khethyran's Court will seem tame by comparison."

  Chapter Two—The Woman with the Red Hair

  Five days later, Owl and Cithanekh arrived in Yrkhaffe, the King's City, in the Empire of Bharaghlaf. The waterfront was crowded and noisy; though he carried in one hand the cane which helped him to maneuver, Owl was grateful for Cithanekh's steady arm and skilled guidance through the busy throng. The scents and noises tugged at his memory: the odor of the fishmonger's stall; the smell of fried bread cakes; the cries of vendors; the curses of longshoremen; people speaking the rapid cant and patter of the Slums, instead of the stilted Court pleasantries. Owl was rather taken aback by the power with which it called to mind his friends and his past.

  Over the noise of the open-air market, Cithanekh said, "I'm looking for a chair—I just haven't seen one, yet."

  "Could we walk?" Owl asked quickly. "I'd rather, if it isn't too dangerous."

  "If you'd like. I thought it all might be overwhelming; the Kellande School is such a quiet place."

  Owl smiled wickedly. "It isn't always that quiet. I think we shocked them to silence."

  "Oh," Cithanekh said. "You've made me blush," he added as he realized Owl couldn't see his flushed face.

  "Good. I meant to." The satisfaction on Owl's face vanished suddenly as he stopped short in the street, his hand tightening on Cithanekh's arm.

  "What is it?" Cithanekh asked, alarmed. "Owl?"

  They were standing near the center of a little cluster of slavers' stalls. Most of the human merchandise lolled in the scant shade of brightly colored awnings under the dealers' shrewd eyes.

  "The woman," Owl said quietly to Cithanekh. "With the red hair. Buy her."

  Cithanekh caught his breath. No matter how often he spoke of Owl's prophetic Gift, the reality of it always caught him off guard. "The woman..." He scanned the merchandise; there were lots of women, but none with red hair. Then he saw her. She was all but naked, skeletal, with ugly, crusted welts marring her back and shoulders; her wrists, cuffed together, were attached to a hook in a tall post, holding her slumped body uncomfortably upright. "She's been badly treated."

  "Yes, tortured. I want to buy her. Do you have money?"

  "Some. She doesn't look as if she'd be too expensive. Owl, are you sure—?"

  "Yes; trust me." Then he turned, unerringly, toward the approaching slave dealer. "The woman—red haired. How much?"

  "The young master has an eye for a bargain. Thirty Nobles."

  Owl laughed. "The 'young master' is blind, but not stupid. I'll take her off your hands for three."

  Cithanekh saw the woman's head lift, while wide, startled eyes took in Owl. An instant later, when the slaver turned toward her, she was slumped again, apparently lost in misery and indifference.

  Cithanekh listened to the bargaining. Owl's acerbic wit scoured holes in the slaver's fulsome manner. They concluded the deal at a price far smaller than the slaver's opening request. When the bargaining was done, the man fetched the woman, unhooking her cuffed wrists from the post and dragging her roughly to Owl's feet.

  "Loose her," Owl instructed, but the slaver refused.

  "I will give you the key to her wrist bindings," he said, "but I will not free her for you. She can be violent."

  "Starved and beaten, and you are still afraid of her?" Owl asked qui
etly. "I paid you too much."

  "Fetch something to wrap her in, please," Cithanekh put in, "and find us a chair. Then, we will take her away."

  The slaver produced a tattered sheet. By the time Cithanekh had wrapped her decently, the man had also summoned a sedan chair for them. Cithanekh lifted her and settled her carefully in the chair. She wasn't very heavy. Then, he helped Owl in. Just as he was about to get in himself, the slaver put a small key into his hand and bowed farewell.

  "To the palace," Cithanekh told the bearers, and the chair lurched off.

  After a moment's silence, Owl said, "Not even a question?"

  "You said to trust you: I do. You'll explain when you're ready."

  "If you are always this obedient, I shall turn into a tyrant."

  Owl heard the smile in Cithanekh's voice. "I'll risk it. She's watching you," he added in a different tone.

  Owl nodded, tilting his head like a listening bird. "Will you tell us about yourself? Do you speak Bharaghlafi?"

  When she made no reply, Owl probed his Gift, seeking to unearth some deeper insight. She was important—he had seen it, seen her in Ghytteve livery, padding silently at his side—but his fragmented visions had given him no sense of how she fit into the larger whole. Frustrated, knowing it was likely futile—for he had never been able to master the knack of reading the surface thoughts of those without any mind gifts—he reached gently with his mind, trying to coax some insight from her which would help him to put her at ease. To his surprise, he brushed against her mind—a brief, jolting contact like bumping something too hot to touch—and he realized the woman had her own mind gifts and wards.

  "Forgive me," he said meekly. "I have no right to pry."

  Cithanekh saw a ripple of puzzlement in her eyes before her face became again as unrevealing as the surface of a pool. Beside him, Owl sighed.

  "I don't know how to reassure her. I can't even tell if she understands."