Dragonfly

by Sylvia Kelso

  Then the stare changed, and I knew whence Therkon had inherited his philosopher.

  “It’s true.” She almost whispered, but not in fear. “You are two.” Suddenly I felt what Two had felt, an echo, a resonance. It had not been mere chance, a guess or a blood-gift. Once she had known, had handled, had been sib to qherrique for herself.

  Two said, “You were Jhuir priestess.”

  I could almost hear Therkon’s, Owww. I flinched and tried to grab control. Two ignored me. So did the Empress.

  Quite simply, she answered, “Yes.”

  Two put my hand out. I had to reach up quite a way, and I could almost hear the entire audience hiss in consternation, but my fingers brushed her cheek. Two said, “One day, perhaps, again.”

  For an instant she was her son, a philosopher promised knowledge’s ultimate gift. For another she was as Two remembered the Amberlight Heads, with that gift reft away. And then, she was the empress.

  Straightening to full height, those eyes gripping me like a vice. Just not managing to suppress the urgency, the need, and to ask with a vestige of composure, “Is that a, an oracle?”

  What in the Mother’s name, I raged at Two, are you thinking? We have no certainty, we have no right to make promises like that! So she was Jhuir priestess and handled the clan statuette—you did this to Therkon! Are you crazy, to torment her as well?

  Two said to the Empress, “It is ‘perhaps’.”

  She had in truth been a priestess. She unlocked the riddle in a breath. It was not disappointment that flared in that narrow dramatic face: it was hope, struck as from flint into a sudden smile.

  “Oh,” she said, and it became admiration. “Perhaps the truth. Perhaps one day. Perhaps an oracle. Yes?”

  Two answered gravely, “Perhaps.”

  She caught her breath on a laugh. Then, slowly, she drew back. But it is, I tell Two now, purely imagination that she seemed to grow taller as she moved. As if we had released not merely flesh and blood, but the spirit within her. Now, like a woken eagle, she was readying to fly.

  Then she drew the wings in, smiled at me rather than Two, and said with the warmth of a pleased hostess, “Tomorrow, you will come with Therkon, to the council? To hear what news we have, and tell us what you think. But for now, you would rather go with your watcher, yes? And sup, and quietly to bed?”

  * * * *

  The sun was out next morning, with a wind brisk enough for both to reach our court. As a gust rattled the breakfast-room tapestries, Azo squinted out the inner door, whose opening had so discomposed the servants, up past the sentry on the roofline to where broken streams of cloud skated across a teary blue sky.

  “Easterly,” she said.

  So the snap was over. Wishing earnestly for something fit to wear at what would doubtless be a full imperial council, I said, “Then we needn’t take our cloaks?”

  Azo gave me an eye-corner. A shaken head.

  “But it’s going to be fine—!”

  “And it can turn like That!” Verrith snapped her fingers. Her look at Azo added the rest. Assassins or ambushes can defeat the wariest troublecrew. Without armour, the last hope of protection was the thick, oiled goat’s-wool of an Iskardan wet-weather cloak.

  “He said, we’d never go outside the palace—”

  Azo gave me one look.

  “Well, at least we could walk round inside. Two’s never seen the half of it.”

  “Council,” answered Verrith flatly. “Going there, you’ll see enough.”

  Meanwhile, they decided, Azo and I would use the courtyard for first workout. We had circled twice on the damp flags, gingerly aware of tall bystanding earthen pots of iris and hyacinth, when Azo suddenly signaled, Break.

  Verrith had vanished to the outer door. Azo’s hand dived inside her shirt. I had no time to exclaim, Really, a light-gun, in the Imperial palace? The knock had become a messenger, already striding through the breakfast room.

  Therkon himself, in narrow black Dhasdeini trousers and a shirt whose cuffs flashed pristine white against the indigo of a silk-wool coat. Official’s parade dress, I reckoned. A thillian clip flared in that matching swathe of hair as he gave a beckoning nod to Verrith, and they both stepped out to us.

  “Lady Chaeris.” The inclined head was normal, but all his other body language signaled haste. Or, as his eyes caught a new burst of sunshine, some kind of excitement as well.

  “I hope you’ve been comfortable? The beds,” a demure look, “were not too soft? The food? Very good. My lady, there is news. From the Seaward forts. At the Delta mouth. The wind’s brought in flotsam. Something, this time, the Sea-watch cannot fathom. An urgent signal, this morning. Direct to me.”

  “Something?” Two had nearly rushed me off on the spot. “From the Archipelago?” He was nodding sharply. “Wreckage? No, more than wreckage, people?”

  “Survivors. The signal says nothing else. Either it’s beyond their guess, or—”

  Or it was not beyond their guess, and they knew it was too sensitive to risk. Even in the heartlands of Dhasdein.

  “Oh . . . They can’t bring it here?”

  “Unsafe to move.”

  Wreckage could be moved. Whole people could be moved. But if the flotsam was a survivor, or a survivor’s knowledge, or simply that survivor’s state—Two’s calculations flared white across my eyes and already the rest seemed a long since given.

  “You have to go out there?” Another knife-quick nod. “Now, this morning? And you want me to come too?”

  With a visible effort he checked his own haste. Turned his head to Verrith, then Azo.

  “S’hurre,” he said carefully. Troublecrew are not Crafters in the full sense, but the respect’s intent was clear. “S’hurre, I know we said, Not outside the palace. And this is only the first day in Riversend. But, if we did go—could you ward the lady Chaeris?”

  Azo’s look was more than clear. Ward her? Nobody can guarantee safety anywhere, and you ask us to do so in a strange city, on some sort of excursion into the very mouth of peril, the verge of the open sea? Her neck muscles flexed for the head-shake and Two overrode us both.

  “We must go. New word, from the Archipelago, an eye-witness—We MUST!”

  Without intent both my hands flew out and by equal reflex Therkon and Azo jumped away from me. But as I half stumbled forward Verrith bellowed, “Chaeris!”

  The voice of troublecrew. My teachers in their trade. The women who had taught me not merely how to master Two, but the tenets of Amberlight.

  “I’m sorry,” I panted. I had to wring my hands together, whatever the risk. “Sorry—sorry—but, Verrith—we have to go!”

  The silence fell like rock with nothing in it but my breath. Therkon was standing rigid as Azo. Verrith came close up to me, eyes fixed on my face.

  “Do you know this,” she said, “Chaeris?”

  Her eyes gripped mine, coffee-brown slitted Amberlight eyes, darker than the fuzz of hairs along her grizzled Crafter’s plait. Be sure, those eyes said. We will go, if you say so. Risk us all. But you are hazarding far more than our three lives, if you say, Yes.

  I swallowed what felt like half my heart: but the answer was there. Not Two’s panic now. Not reason and logic either. Inexplicable, undeniable, it came to me as oracles had come to the Heads of Amberlight, from somewhere between qherrique and my own heart.

  I said, “Yes.”

  * * * *

  Deoren was even unhappier than Azo. He and Therkon had a full-scale set-to right in our doorway, Deoren arguing in an ever more frantic undertone about the council, the weather, the risk, the uncertainty, the double uncertainty—the glance he flung past the desperately wooden-faced sentry told me he meant, The chance your so-precious tool is meant to turn on you—Therkon growing more and more hatchet-like, until that last protest cleared the blade.

 
“You,” the sentry jumped a foot in the air, “send to the guard-room for an escort. You,” to Deoren’s shoulder-man, “inform Lord Erren that the council is postponed. You,” right in Deoren’s face, “take whoever you want down the slips and ready that Nikonian.”

  He wheeled on us three mesmerized spectators. “My lady Chaeris, allow me to trust in your troublecrew. We will inform the Empress. And then,” it was pure hatchet, “we will go.”

  Deoren actually threw his hands in the air. Therkon stormed off down the passageway with Azo scouring to reach the lead and me and Verrith bobbing in his wake.

  I daresay news could travel the palace even faster than Therkon walked, for when we coursed up to yet another filigreed bronze door, the two Imperials on guard lowered their pikes in salute, and the door opened as readily as before. But this time, it opened on the Empress.

  She wore plain, or at least pure white robes, with half a fore-arm’s wealth of gold, and gold beads knotted in her hair. Doubtless workaday gear, for an empress. The startled look and outthrust hands were another matter.

  “Therkon—!” And then, as the officials behind her made themselves distant. “What is it now?”

  He bowed briefly over her hand. He explained, even faster than before. “I have no idea what’s there,” he added. “Or for how long.” The change in her eyes said she understood: how long a desperately injured man might live. “I’ll take the new patrol-ship. She’s in trial so she’ll be ready, she’s fitted for marines. The weather’s fair. I can be out before tide-turn. Back before dark.”

  He was straightening, voice and body together declaring, I’m going now. For a chink of a second her face was that of a mother, of all too-anxious kin left behind. Then she sealed it up.

  “Take the Nikonian, yes. You have authority for the dock? You can catch the ebb? The council can wait. But, Therkon: use your own guards. Not marines.”

  “It will hardly need—” She gave him a look. “Majesty. As you command.”

  He bent for her hand. As he moved she looked past him and saw us.

  “Therkon!” Her hand jerked back, he jerked upright. “What is this? You can’t think—”

  “Majesty, a most crucial choice. The lady Chaeris may see, know, recognize something we do not. We can’t take the chance of—”

  “We cannot take this chance! Tellurith’s girl? Not a day in Riversend, Tellurith’s girl, and you, on the self-same ship?”

  Shock stabbed me like a veritable knife. Of course she was right. No matter that I was Tellurith’s daughter, and for some reason precious in myself. I was also the new hope of Dhasdein’s, of the River’s defense.

  And Therkon was its other half. And the cost, the chance of some unexpected but successful assault, attack, ambush taking us both . . .

  The world wobbled and returned in a thunderclap from a tide of whirling white. Two said, “Empress, we must go.”

  At my back I felt even Azo twitch.

  “This information, from this source, at this time, cannot be lost.” Now it was even, steady, the voice of completed deduction. Of an oracle. “Any other dangers dwindle in comparison. To miss this chance may be fatal. To your enterprise. To Dhasdein. To the River as a whole.”

  The Empress did suppress a gasp.

  “You asked our help. We pledged to give it. In whatever way we can.”

  Her lips opened. A lesser woman would have burst out with the predictable protests and equivocations and demands for some other alternative. Dhasdein’s empress only closed her lips again. And presently, quite steadily, asked, “This is your best advice?”

  “Empress, yes.”

  She looked at me then as a Ruand, testing the tool she had to hand. Trying with all her might to gauge its truth. To guess if its capacity would equal the test.

  Then her hands sank and she drew herself up.

  “Take the guards,” she told Therkon. “Take weapons.” The slight emphasis told me she meant Therkon to do so himself. “Take—”

  She stopped. Already, she had remembered the tide. Even listing precautions would be delay.

  “Chaeris.” She stepped clean through the guards and put her hands, again, either side my face. “My—lady. Fare well. Fare very well. We accept your help. We wish you, as soon—as soon as may be—” The emphasis was more than admonition, “safely back.”

  I had time to touch her hands with my own, and stammer something, before she turned to Therkon, almost at my side.

  “Prince.” He kissed both her hands this time. “Go with our good will. Our . . .” The words tailed off. As he bent before her she slipped a hand lightly over the curve of his hair, infinitely light and quick, infinite tenderness. The rest was just audible. “Dhe see you blessed.”

  A Dhasdeini would invoke the River-lord. But Dhe is the old upRiver goddess, the Mother of Verrain and Quetzistan. Kin to our own Mother, in Iskarda.

  “Manya,” he answered, almost under his breath. I know now it means Birth-mother, in Quetzistani. He bent his head to her. The smile, brilliant, heart-breaking, said all the rest.

  I am so grateful, now, that he could leave her that.

  * * * *

  The Nikonian was berthed across River, in what they called the Army quarter. We tramped down between Dhasdeini trouble-crew and a whole file of Imperial guards, to board an Imperial runabout, for want of a better word, and Two near twisted my head off trying to watch the hire-gigs and fast-sculling messenger shallops, the big municipal galley ferries, the familiar freighters in ballast or load. And sharp in the bright, gusty morning, the forest of naked masts and slapping white pennons above the naval stores and building slips.

  Dhasdein army docks had foiled even old Amberlight’s intelligencers. Two nearly went berserk as the runabout skated up a regular street of a canal between pillared galley stables, into a stone-lined basin redolent of pitch and tar and steam-heated wood. I was still swiveling left and right in almost tearful haste as we moored.

  Deoren had sent his minions, if he defied orders for himself. The basin’s Ruand was on the wharf in person. And the Nikonian was ready to launch.

  On the slip she seemed ungainly as a beached duck, baring the ample pitch-blackened draught below what, afloat, would be a low, sleek, carvel-built side. But her topsides were varnished bright, her bows bore in red and white the lucky seeing eye, and below the elegant breast of her plumed figurehead thrust a small but saw-toothed ram. Afloat, bobbing, dancing on the restless water, she looked, after the fives, like some bright little fighting cock.

  Two almost had me off the gang-plank trying to see the oar arrangements: she was double-banked, a type we had never met before. But the oarsmen were already thundering to their places, the Imperial guards had halved, with more than acrid protest, and ten filled the marines’ places forward, behind the leather fighting screens. Therkon and I and our troublecrew had been herded onto the stern deck, where the captain was bawling a spate of over-anxious commands. Deoren’s vehement efforts to get Therkon into an officer’s cloak were cut short as the flute struck up, the prow came round, and she headed for the basin gate.

  Two and I were still trying frantically to record every possible detail as her head swung downRiver, and I was looking back to Riversend.

  Nearest lay the great spread of the River itself, sparking blue in the sun, traced in countless foaming tracks of white. Brown or blue or scarlet hulls spattered it, sails bulging white or blue or brown, the striding legs of oar banks one, two, five, ten, fifteen-strong. And the scent, heady as the wind, of deep water, tidal water, tar and cordage and ships.

  Behind that the city’s variegated battlement stretched from eye to eye’s edge, blending back into a huge mosaic of towers, spires, front upon serried building-front, wharves, quays, vistas down receding streets. Mightier, you would swear, than any threat could fell.

  The Imperial quarter’s sea-wall had dwindled
to a distant dark, where strollers beaded like upright ants, when at last Two or I sighed, and shifted hands on the stern rail, and reclaimed the nearer world.

  The Nikonian had set her sail, as two-bankers can do running. It is the virtue of their design. The immaculate white square boomed and bulged to the wind’s thumps, the serpent and thunderbolt a reverse shadow on its breast. The bow was ducking and slashing into what had become a moderate swell, and up forrard, I thought, the guards would already be getting wet.

  Beside me the captain was holding forth to Therkon, all anxiety gone. “See that, y’Highness? Never a one of y’cumbersome old fives’d do that. Wind’s round flat nor’east and she’s lying to it near as a gull!”

  Therkon answered something civilly enthused. He had given in to Deoren and wrapped the big scarlet cloak round him, and the bite of wind under my hood told me he had been wise. Already, I realized, we were almost out of shore-sight. All round us spread corrugating, brightly glinting muddily-blue water, restive as a half-mastered horse.

  At my other side I felt rather than saw Azo cock her head, was aware, like her, of clouds streaming across the bitterly pure blue sky. The look on her face made me edge closer, and under cover of another seamanly rapture, mutter, “What is it?”

  For a moment I thought she would not reply. But when I silently insisted, she answered me troublecrew style, from a mouth-corner.

  “Wind’s working nor’east.”

  “He said so.” After the downRiver trip, a ship no longer felt

  peculiar. But the Nikonian was no five, and this was no steady River current. We were bouncing like a veritable fighting cock, and the acres of water made me uneasy too. “It seems to be all right?”

  Her lips tightened. Then she suddenly shrugged. “He’s Dhasdeini. It’s his water. Should know what he’s doing.” But her gaze went back, as if unable to leave it, to the eye of the wind, and a little chill slid down the back of my own neck.

  North-east, in old Amberlight water-lore, is the bad luck quarter. The wind that blows athwart the River current, and given force enough, can drive any ship, as onto a lee shore, onto an unwelcoming bank.