Nellyn swept up the glass with the ash brush and pan. Aldron watched him with narrowed eyes. When he was finished, Nellyn sat back down on the stool.
“You’re a strange one,” Aldron said.
Nellyn smiled. “Lanara thinks so too. Though not as much as she used to, maybe.” He studied Aldron carefully: shaking limbs, cold-puckered flesh, eyelids drooping and swollen. “Let me help you upstairs.”
“Alea!” Aldron shouted as Nellyn half carried him in the door to the sleeping chamber—but the room was still and empty. A room like the one Nellyn shared with Lanara, except that the bed had a different headboard and was pushed against a wall. When he tried to guide Aldron to the bed, the man wrenched himself upright and stood with his arms outstretched.
“No, no—not on the bed. The bed is fine for waking pleasures—but sleep, no. We Alilan sleep on the ground.” He dropped to his knees on a blanket that lay on the floor. Nellyn knelt beside him, took his weight as he slipped onto his back.
“I’ll make a fire,” Nellyn said. He heard Aldron mumble a response—and then his voice and words changed, and Nellyn sat back on his heels.
Fire, fire, flames on stone, flames born orange and white and blue, born of twins, Alnila fire and Alneth wood, fire and wood, burn with me, burn
Nellyn held up an arm against the blaze. Aldron’s voice rose and rose until Nellyn was deaf with the pain of it. If he cried out, he did not hear himself. He scrabbled toward the door and opened it as Aldron began to wail. The noise followed Nellyn into the corridor, where he stood and leaned against the wall. He panted and waited for the wailing to stop—which it did, very slowly.
Lanara did not stir as he slipped under the blanket beside her. Wake up, he thought, draping his right arm over her hip. I need you to wake up. She lay still, breathing deeply—and although he soon matched his breath to hers, he did not sleep.
“Let’s see if they’re in their room.” Lanara took two long steps toward Aldron and Alea’s door.
Nellyn ran forward and caught her hand as she raised it. “Perhaps they’re tired. Or not there.”
She wondered why he had moved so quickly, and why his eyes were so wide. “It’s nearly noon,” she said, frowning and smiling at the same time. “And if they’re not there, it won’t matter if we knock.” She knocked. She heard silence—but the kind of silence that falls suddenly between people who do not want to be heard. She knocked again and called their names. Just as she was about to knock one more time, the door swung open.
Alea was wearing a cloak, holding a full sack in one hand. She was very pale. “Are you leaving?” Lanara asked, and Alea glanced back into the room Lanara could not see.
“Yes. Soon—when Aldron is . . . ready.”
“You were going to leave without telling us?” Lanara said. “Why, when we’ve enjoyed each other’s company so much? Are you returning to your people?”
Alea shrank back. She was looking at Nellyn now. “No,” she said, more breath than word—and then a voice that did not quite sound like Aldron’s said, “Let them in, Alea—she won’t leave until she’s seen us both.”
He was lying in bed, propped up on pillows, one blanket tucked around his waist and another wrapped around his shoulders. Lanara saw his chest, bare and heaving with shallow, inaudible breaths. She looked at his face and took a step backward.
“What’s wrong?” she said, the words too loud for the room.
Aldron looked as if he were trying to smile. “Nellyn didn’t tell you about my night of excess?” He glanced at Nellyn. “I seem to recall that he swept up some broken glass and carried me up the stairs. Though I might be mistaken.”
His voice sounds wrong, Lanara thought. Squeezed thinner. “You’re not suffering only from drink,” she said, and Aldron rolled his eyes.
“Twins protect me—I’ve never met such a keen-witted woman. Of course it’s not just the drink. Didn’t Nellyn at least tell you about—”
“Stop!” Alea cried, as Nellyn said, “No.” Lanara stared at each of them in turn.
“You didn’t,” Aldron said in his splintered voice, and Nellyn shook his head. “Well, then, I owe you thanks for your discretion as well as for your company last night.”
“Someone,” Lanara said slowly, each word bitten short, “tell me what’s going on. Now.”
Alea sat down on the bed. Aldron lifted a hand and traced gentle circles on her back. She was still wearing her cloak, still holding the bag.
“There’s very little to explain,” Alea said as Lanara pulled a stool out of a corner and sat down. “Aldron was drunk last night, and Nellyn saw one of his Tellings. A very strong one.”
“It was real.” They all looked at Nellyn, who was still standing by the door. “The fire did not just seem real: it was. Not like the leaves, before. I felt the heat, and I heard the flames.”
“Yes,” Alea said quickly, “it might have seemed real to you, but it was just a Telling. Just words. Aldron’s power is very great. Much greater than mine.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Aldron said, “there was that sandstorm you Told when you were fourteen. . . .” She turned and glared at him. He glared back until she smiled. She leaned back a bit against his hand.
“But look at you,” Lanara said to Aldron. “Why are you so frail? You seemed fine after you Told those leaves.”
“Because he hasn’t Told anything complex in a long time,” Alea said, as Aldron opened his mouth to answer. “Not since we left our caravans. The leaves were image only; the flames were image and sound and sensation. Complicated Tellings exact a price. It was a shock to his body last night, feeling this power again.”
Lanara frowned. “So why haven’t you Told in so long? And please,” she added, not looking at Alea, “answer me yourself, this time.”
Aldron shrugged. “As she said, I was drunk. And I was drunk because I had just been reminded of the people I left and why I left them.”
“And why was that?” Lanara said.
Aldron laughed, then coughed. “I’m weakened indeed, to offer you such an opening. The Alilan didn’t agree with the things I Told. Or how I Told them. You’ll have to be content with that.”
“Ah,” Lanara said. She looked at Nellyn. “So you saw him Tell this alarmingly realistic fire and you didn’t tell me about it.” She heard the anger in her voice, felt it like a sandfly’s sting and the heat that comes after.
“No,” he said. “I did not know how to explain it with my own words. I did not want to speak until I knew how to.”
He was so calm, standing as he had the first time she had spoken to him, his feet as solid on these floorboards as they had been on the sand. She said, “You didn’t want to . . . how could you not tell me? You tried to stop me from knocking. They would have gone, and you wouldn’t have—”
The fountain sings. Water darkens the stone—water falling from the mouths of carved fish and whorls of shell. A lacemoth hovers, and the sunlight draws rainbows from its four wings. Wind scatters the water; wind hot and dry and rough with sand.
Lanara closed her eyes. When she opened them the fountain was gone—but she still felt water on her cheeks and the backs of her hands. She breathed away the scent of the desert, though she longed to hold it. Father, she thought, and nearly saw him.
“Well, then,” Aldron whispered. He was lying flat now, with his head turned on the pillow.
Lanara cleared her throat. “You’ve never seen my city. How did you do that?”
“You told us about the fountains,” he said. Alea moved, settled his head on her lap. “So I Told one.”
“Why?” Lanara was very cold. She drew her hands up beneath the green-edged cuffs of her tunic sleeves. “Why, when you were already so weak?”
“Because you were angry.”
Nellyn watched Alea’s eyes after Aldron Told the fountain. When Lanara spoke afterward, Alea tucked her head down against her lef
t shoulder. Aldron reached up a hand to her, and she held it to her cheek.
“Where were you going?” Nellyn asked. His own questions still surprised him. They all looked at him. He thought, They forgot I was here. Again. “Today,” he added when no one spoke. “You were leaving. Where were you planning to go?”
Alea said, “We weren’t sure. Just . . . away.”
“Well,” Lanara said in her brisk, decision-making voice, “he’s obviously too ill to walk anywhere. And we have a wagon.” Aldron raised an eyebrow very slightly, and Alea sat even more motionlessly. Lanara turned to Nellyn and tilted her head in a question that wasn’t really a question. He nodded as he so often did, answering yes because she was so strong and certain—but also, this time, because Alea was beginning to smile.
Lanara turned back to the two Alilan, said, “So, have you ever seen the ocean?”
It’s been so long since we wrote to each other. I’ve half expected a letter from you in every town we’ve stopped in, but there’s never been one. At first this made me angry—though I should probably write “angrier,” since I’d been angry ever since you wouldn’t say goodbye to me. Since before then, actually, when Nellyn was sick and you and I had that awful conversation. But now that so much time’s gone by, I’m just lonely; that’s what’s left of my anger. I miss you. I miss your letters. So even if you don’t respond, I’m writing to you now. This letter will feel like a ribbon between us—a long ribbon made of words that stretches from my writing stick to your hands. This will make me happy, for now (but do write—please).
Maybe you’ve been curious; maybe you’ve been reading my letters to your mother. If you have, you’ll know that I haven’t written any in a long time. We’ve been travelling east through empty countryside for the past many months, and I wouldn’t have been able to send a letter even if I’d written one. But now we’re close to our destination: today we met a man on the coastal road who told us that three more days of travel will bring us to Fane. It’s been a fascinating journey, and I must admit that I feel some regret knowing it’s almost over. I’ll describe it a bit, as much for myself as for you. (Your mother the Queen will receive a more formal letter from me, of course, concerning this portion of our travels.)
After we met the two Alilan on the Gelalhad Plain (your mother should have the letters from this period), we passed through several other towns and then came to the city of Dorloy. The local elders greeted us warmly. They do your mother’s work well and seem eager to have visitors from Luhr. After Dorloy our path became much lonelier. We camped in marshland with no company except noisy, long-legged birds (exactly like the ones we named in the first Throne Chamber!), who apparently don’t mind the cold. The marsh gave way to a long stretch of rocky outcrops, shelves and gorges where a river flowed, far below. We lay on the rock as snow fell and watched the stars turning and blazing above us.
It was here, among the river canyons, that we discovered that the Alilan woman was carrying a child. Nellyn noticed first; he mentioned to me that she looked different. I remember he said, “She seems pale and flushed at once.” She and Aldron admitted that they were to have a baby in the early summer. Nellyn and I have enjoyed watching her belly grow beneath her skirts and cloaks. She was ill for about a month—she lay curled on her side in the wagon and ate nothing; will I ever be able to bring myself to do this?—but is much better now. She says she can feel the child moving within her, and sometimes Aldron puts his hand on her and smiles.
I’ve learned no more of them during our travels together than I did while we were in the town on the plain. They left their people because the Alilan did not approve of Aldron’s Tellings; this is all they’ve said to me. I sometimes wonder whether he hurt someone, though I’m not sure why I wonder this. He’s Told for us a few times—just gentle, quiet things, but I can feel something much more powerful beneath them. And he looks so haunted (which, of course, I find compelling—no, don’t laugh at me!). Perhaps the reason for their exile is one that would shame them to admit, for the Alilan are, apparently, a people who value honour and strength as Queensfolk do.
We approached the Eastern Sea from the north, since I wanted to avoid the Sarhenna River. “I cannot,” Nellyn said when I asked him if he would mind passing by his old town again. These were his only words, but I saw the grief in his eyes. (I must admit that this intensity of feeling surprised me. I thought that he’d been missing his village less as time went on.)
The ocean awed all of us. It was midday when we came to the wide flat road that runs along the coastal cliffs. All we could see was icy water and sky, nearly the same silver. I thought of my desert home and of the fountains we Luhrans worship, and I almost wept because this sea was so vast.
As the road led us close to the edge of the cliff, we saw an amazing thing. Below us, drifting near the cliff’s base, was what looked like a range of jewelled mountains—but mountains that moved. They were transparent but also colourful—pink, blue, green, which we saw clearly when the sun came out and struck them—and they spun slowly, though we could feel no wind. They’re made of ice, Ladhra—they’re mountains of ice that dance! And they also sing, as we heard when we lingered to watch them. There were delicate high notes and rumbling low ones, and when two mountains touched one another these notes soared. Now, close to Fane, their numbers have increased. How I wish you were beside me to see and hear these wonderful things! You must ask your mother to let you come here very soon.
We turned south on the road and almost immediately met other travelers: fruit sellers and basket makers and families making their way to Fane, even in this deep cold, to seek a different life. And Queensfolk—how excited I was when the first rode past! She reined in her horse to talk to me (it was she who told me the name of the frozen mountains: icemounts). She is from the Pedharhan Woods and is working as a boatwright in Fane and other coastal towns.
So now we’re three days away, and while I’m sorry that this long journey is coming to an end, I’m also excited to begin my life in the second most glorious of Queen Galha’s cities. Nellyn is eager to see the signal tower and learn with me how to tend it (the letters that your mother gave me before we left Luhr—from the current tower keeper—have been very helpful). I think Alea and Aldron will stay with us for a time. Maybe they’ll decide to settle near us; they’ll need a true home once their baby’s born.
I know that I’ll be able to send this soon; that I’ll soon share stories with Queensfolk who’ve also met your mother, and perhaps you; that Nellyn and I will soon have a place that’s ours. A second life is beginning for us now—and I want to share my excitement with you as I always have. “You have such trouble expressing your emotions, Nara”—I can hear you saying this, can almost imagine you rolling your eyes at me. Allow me my giddiness, will you? I’m happy. And the only thing that would make me happier would be to unfold a piece of parchment and see your writing upon it. . . .
“Look!” Aldron cried. He tugged the horse to a stop and stood up at the front of the wagon. Lanara was already on her feet beside him. They had drawn back the canvas that covered the wagon’s interior, since there had been no snow in days, and the sky was clear and blue. Nellyn helped Alea up onto the inside bench and held her arm as they too looked down at the sloping road and where it led.
At first Alea saw only colours: lines and splashes and swathes that had no form because there were so many of them. She blinked and peered, and gradually saw shapes she knew. The blinding gold was pointed roofs sheathed in metal; the red scattered among the gold was roofs lined with tile. Scarlet, blue, green, and yellow were the houses themselves, tiny and vivid as distant flowers. A river snaked among the houses, and its ice-churned surface was silver in the sunlight. The river’s blur ended at the sea. Its water was enclosed here, drawn smaller on either side by arms of cliff. A harbour, Alea thought. Another word—like “ocean”—that she had heard and used, until now, without having seen its reality. Icemounts ringed the outsid
e of the harbour, sealing it; within was a forest of naked trees. As she thought, Ships, her baby jabbed her, very high, nearly at her ribs. She poked the place herself, with three fingers; she felt something hard and pointed that lingered a moment, then drew away. Well, dearest, here we are—thank the Twins. A bed will be wonderful after this wagon that has no walls except flimsy cloth ones, and no paint, and no iron stove to truly warm us. . . .
“Seen enough?” Nellyn asked, and Alea smiled at him. He lifted a hand to help her down—but as she reached for it, the wind shifted and she heard a sound. A low, steady booming, faint but suddenly audible.
“No,” Lanara said, and they all looked at her. She was open-mouthed, pale in the sunlight that turned everything else to colour and shining. “No!” she said again, the word a wreath of steam on the air. Nellyn walked along the bench until he could touch her back. She twisted round and dug her fingers into his shoulders.
“A Queensbell,” she said. “I’ve heard one twice: after Galha’s mother died and after a group of Queensfolk was killed by rebels in the north. It rings only to tell of danger and death in the Queensrealm. Nellyn. . . .” She turned back to the town below them.
“Maybe it’s a different bell,” Aldron said. “Warning a ship away from rocks, or—”
“No. That kind’s higher, more like music. I know what this one is.”
Another sound swelled behind them—a sound so familiar that Alea wrenched herself around on the bench, thinking for a moment that she would see someone she knew. Even as she looked she felt foolish and lost—for it was three Queensfolk galloping, bent low over their horses’ necks. Lanara shouted after them, but her voice disappeared beneath the pounding of hoofs. The ice that filmed the road was cracked and scattered by their passing.
“Hurry,” Lanara said as the riders dwindled on the road. “I must know what’s happened. Hurry.”
Aldron flicked the reins and the wagon lurched forward. Alea burrowed a numb hand beneath her two cloaks and three blouses and pressed it against the taut skin of her belly. Where are you, little one? Let me feel you—please—but she felt nothing except the jolting of the wagon, and the wind that rang with grief.
The Silences of Home Page 16
