Lady of Drith

by Chad Huskins

  Then, Drea opened her eyes. She had it! In myself, there are three of me.

  “Syllable!” she shouted. “The answer is a syllable!”

  When she looked at the hourglass, she saw the last grains fall an instant later. She heard soft laughter, and when she looked up, the Host was pushing his seat back from the table and rising to his feet. He walked around the table and approached her, his robe hissing as it skirted the stone floor.

  He stood in front of her, gazing deeply into her eyes. His own eyes were empty pits, distorted by the physics of the dreamworld.

  The low howling of ancient and dead souls continued in her ears, coming from the walls, the ceiling, the air itself.

  After staring at her for a moment, the Host stepped to one side, and revealed a set of three cups sitting upside-down on the table. Drea had not seen him arrange them that way, she had not even seen those cups on the table before now.

  “Magicians and conjurers have always favored placing their audiences’ options beneath cups,” he said, favoring each cup with the touch of his fingertip. “I’ve always thought it was very showy—but now I see why they do it. It breeds suspense before the selection is made.”

  Drea said nothing.

  The Host stepped away from the table, and all at once, she felt a release. She could move again.

  “I present to you three cups. Beneath each cup an option. As I promised, you may pick one cup for every riddle you answered right, so that means only one. You will be granted whichever Item of Power you select.”

  Drea turned slowly, facing him. For a moment she thought about running for the door, but then she might be killed. For if he was a trickster kamei, he may be insulted. The same if he was a fell-sorcerer.

  Best to play along, she thought. Even if it is a dream.

  Drea approached the table, and, with a quivering hand, she turned over the cup and found a small slip of paper. She picked it up. On it was written the words,

  The Hand in the Darkness

  “Ah,” the Host said. “An interesting selection.”

  “What does this mean?” she whispered.

  “When the time comes, an agent of mine will approach you with the Hand in the Darkness,” he said. “And when that happens, you will have a choice to make. You may use its power, but only if you charge it with your own stygian stones—I can’t provide you with everything.”

  He chuckled.

  “Also, as the name implies, it only works in the dark. You’ll just have to make arrangements for when the moment arrives.”

  “What moment?”

  “The moment you kill Phaedos Syphen,” the Host said. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  Drea watched as the words disappeared from the paper. A moment later, the paper fell to crumbs in her hand. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “You will,” said the Host, smiling that casually playful smile of his. “Trust me, Daughter of Two Houses. You will. And you will find that, while you have your father’s eyes and your mother’s cheekbones, you now have your enemy’s mind.”

  “My enemy’s mind?”

  “The lure of change has pulled you in. The lure of control. A potential has awakened in you, with each page of the book read.”

  “The book. You mean The Way?”

  “It infected you with the idea that control can be gained. Not just bequeathed or inherited, but gained. And you’ve found your own mind is made for seshqii. For meddling,” the Host chuckled. “And that kind of realization is intoxicating.”

  That final word, intoxicating, followed her into the waking world.

  When Drea woke up, she did so with a start. Thryis was cuddled up beside her and the fire had all but died out. She lay there in the dark cottage, listening to the sparrows in the eaves and wondering if she wasn’t losing her mind.

  She drifted off to sleep again, convinced it had all been a dream, and hoping for more pleasant ones.

  : The Wa y:

  Does Daedron know about his uncle? thought Drea upon waking the next morning and dressing herself for her lessons with Osween. She had mostly forgotten about her dream encounter with the Host and his strange riddles, and her mind had returned to the puzzle of Lord Syphen. Does Taja Osween know about him? She says she’s raised generations of Syphenus, so surely she would’ve noticed if the patriarch of House Syphen was an immortal who never aged.

  But how was it that nobody else in the city knew? How could the senators that served with Lord Syphen not know? Perhaps they did know, and just feared speaking their suspicions aloud?

  Having looked close at the family records, Drea realized that a Syphen patriarch had mysteriously “died” or “gone missing” every twenty to forty years, and then a couple of years after that, a new patriarch would suddenly emerge, seemingly having come from out of nowhere, or from some obscured “distant relatives” far outside of Drith.

  So, every so often, Lord Syphen—or whatever his real name is—fakes his death, or simply goes missing, leaving his affairs to be run by whoever’s left in his House. He probably leaves everything in his will, handing it over to whatever false name he has lined up for his next new identity. He changes his facial hair a little, waits for others who knew him before to die, and then returns to Drith claiming to be someone else, and chalks up his facial similarities to the previous House patriarch as family likeness.

  Of course, Drea had no way to prove this, but she knew it in her gut. In her heart. In the marrow of her bones.

  While she got dressed, Drea heard Thryis moaning by the fire, which had dwindled to almost noting. She woke her softly, and whispered, “Thryis luv, I’ve got to go.”

  “Go? Where?” said Thryis, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

  “I’ve got to go about my daily routine, so no one thinks anything suspicious.”

  “What should I do here all day while you’re gone?”

  Drea had already thought up a plan for that. “I’m going to tell the slaves not to come out to clean or bother my cottage. I’ll tell them that I’ve got artwork for Taja Osween strewn all over the place, and that I don’t want them to touch it. Still, you should hide beneath the bed until nightfall, just in case a slave does happen by.”

  She gave Thryis a kiss, and headed for the door.

  “I love you, Drea girl,” Thryis said.

  “And I love you, Thryis, my light.” With that, she shut the door and left. Drea did not have to search hard for a slave, for they were out in force this morning, moving about quickly to clean up the mess left over from the fellstorm.

  Not only had the storm passed and the skies cleared, but the sun was shining brightly with hardly a cloud to be seen, and the air was so warm that much of the snow was already melting. Such was the strangeness of a fellstorm, once it was gone it took almost all its offspring with it.

  But the high winds had blown shutters open and tore tiles off of the rooftops. Patio furniture had been overturned or else flung across the lawn. The slaves were no slouches in correcting all of it.

  Drea found Fengin and two other slaves gathering up roof tiles. She beckoned to him. “Fengin? Could I ask you not to bother my cottage at all today? I’ve got artwork and things spread all over, and I don’t want it touched or bothered.”

  “Of course, Sia. And I’ll be sure to pass it along. None shall disturb your quarters.”

  “Thank you, Fengin,” she said, and then turned and headed for the gazebo, where Osween would be awaiting her.

  Do any of the slaves know about Lord Syphen, she wondered. Does Vaedris know? Do any of them know? If not, have they ever suspected? Have they never looked into their genealogies and considered that their uncle may not be their uncle at all, but a centuries-old immortal with a grudge against my family that’s older than the statues in the Forum?

  The notion frightened her more than she cared to admit. But other thoughts plagued her, too. For instance, Drea couldn’t be sure whether or not Lady Blackveil had been killed, or captured, or simply injured by
Saephis Syphen.

  And thinking of Saephis, Drea realized that it was just as likely that her youngest new-sister was dead. If it’s one thing Drea had learned in her one meeting with Lady Blackveil, it was that the Lady wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in an enemy’s head.

  No, she thought. Saephis is probably not dead or wounded, or else I wouldn’t see all these slaves going about their business as usual. Indeed, there were no somber looks about the slaves, no evidence that they were in mourning for a member of their House.

  But Drea received her first clue of Saephis’s fate when she attended her harp lessons with Ustus and Osween. While she played, Drea noticed that her governess appeared distracted. It was halfway through her recital when Ustus gave Drea another glowing review, when she knew something was wrong. Osween seemed not to have heard Ustus’s praise, and when finally she looked at Drea, she said, “That’s enough for today.”

  Osween stood up quickly and left.

  Ustus turned and looked at Drea. “Your performance was lovely, my girl. You’re coming right along. Most gifted! Most gifted!”

  “Thank you,” Drea said. “Ustus, what’s going on?”

  “Hm?”

  “Taja seemed put off by something, and she left in a hurry.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes, well, I guess you haven’t heard the news about Saephis.”

  Drea’s heart froze. “What news?”

  “It seems she’s taken on some affliction or other. It happened in the night, some disturbance that befell her. She’s in hospice care right now.”

  “But what’s wrong with her?”

  “The healers don’t know what it is,” Ustus said, lowering his voice. “But I hear the forecast isn’t good. Lord Syphen has brought in the Priestesses of Sora to pray over her, and he’s had the augurs asking the gods all day what it is he can do to help her.”

  “Gods above,” Drea said.

  “Yes. I suggest you say a prayer for her.”

  “I’ll sacrifice a hen tonight on her behalf,” Drea lied.

  “Be sure that you do the same for poor Lord Dustrang,” Ustus said. “For he was found dead in the night, bound and shot.”

  Drea had been considering how she would react when she heard this news, and had decided that the best course of action was to fall back on the advice of The Way, specifically the First and Third Precepts—distill the Glamour, and have your lies prepared.

  She feigned astonishment, putting her hand over her mouth. “What an evil night!” she said. “That a fellstorm should plague us, and that two good people have been stricken so!”

  “Yes,” Ustus sighed. He clapped his knees and stood. “But the gods are fickle, and sometimes vengeful. Let none of us forget that.” As he walked away, he called over his shoulder, “Your technique was better today. You sounded like you had more…determination.”

  Drea sat there a moment longer, feeling a bit disjointed at having her lessons terminated so abruptly. Eventually, she stood and went to attend her weaving with her new-sisters.

  Saephis and Blackveil, Lord Hiss and the everlasting Lord Syphen—she tried to think no more of these things, but they followed her all the way to the clothroom, where she found herself alone. No Vaedris, no Daedoris.

  What can this mean? she thought. Are they at the hospice with Saephis?

  She sat at her usual seat, took up both her epinetron and weaving board, and got to work.

  While Drea weaved, her mind taunted her with the possibilities of what might have happened. She imagined Lady Blackveil lying dead in the street, and she imagined Saephis torturing her and getting her to confess Drea’s involvement with Lord Dustrang’s death.

  The house sounded empty without the chattering of the Syphen sisters. Every so often, a slave would go skittering through the room, running off on some errand or other. They hardly looked at Drea.

  The silence gave her fears room to breathe and grow. The day felt surreal, almost like it felt the day Fedarus died, or her parents before that. This terrible new knowledge she had of the Hidden Door and of the Syphenus put her in an unusual bind.

  It was in the middle of her weaving and worrying that Drea heard a noise that made her jump. She turned around quickly and saw that a door had been flung open, and in came Fengin and another slave girl, both running over to.

  “Sia!” Fengin said, looking most worrisome. He and the slave girl came to Drea’s chair and knelt in front of her. “Dear Sia, I come with urgent news. Distressing news.”

  “What is it, Fengin?” she said, putting her weaving board to one side.

  “Kulisa here has just come from the Hospice of Sora,” he said, indicating the girl next to him. “She was there attending Lord Syphen, who hasn’t left his niece’s side since she became afflicted.”

  Drea looked at the slave girl. Kulisa looked familiar, and it took Drea a moment to realize that she was the same slave girl that Lord Syphen had slapped the night of Lord Dustrang’s visit, the one that dropped the wine and that Drea had consoled.

  “What has happened?” Drea asked.

  “Kulisa says that Saephis is awake, and that she’s saying strange things. She’s running a fever, and talking out of her mind. She has said many strange things, Sia, such as mentioning Lady Blackveil,” said Fengin, making the sign of Black Four with his fingers. “And she has mentioned something about you, something about vehl whispering to her! Demons telling her that they saw you in last night’s blizzard!”

  Drea felt fear choking her heart. She looked at the girl. “And you left Lord Syphen’s side and came all the way here to tell me this?” she asked. “Why?”

  “Because, Sia,” Kulisa said, her eyes gazing at the ground, “your name is being mentioned by Lord Syphen in whispers. He has Rain Guards watching over Saephis right now, and I heard him whisper to one of them to bring you to him. He wants to question you.”

  This was most distressing. If Lord Syphen had begun to suspect Drea of conspiracy, her life and her frozen assets might not be enough to entice him to let her live.

  “Sia,” Kulisa implored. “You must leave. Now! They’re coming for you. I took a fast horse and cut through back alleys to get to you first, but surely the guards must be close.”

  It puzzled Drea that the slave girl was here at all, and giving her this warning. “Why would you alert me to this?”

  “Because Sia Drea has a soft heart, and I would not have her be hurt. She’s the only friend the slaves have.”

  Drea stood up slowly. “I wonder what you mean by such a statement,” she said. “I’ve hardly been any help to any slave in House Syphen—”

  “Not just in House Syphen, Sia,” Kulisa said. “Everywhere. Every slave in every House! Your name is Kalder, and everyone knows you honor your father. I’ve heard your sisters say so. They do not trust you completely. They said you’ve said things that are sympathetic to Imperator Fedarus, and that you’ve expressed philosophical support of the Five-Year Law to Daedron at the Forum.”

  “And how would they know that?”

  “Daedron’s sisters overheard you two talking, and I heard Vaedris and the others whispering about you. We know. The slaves know about you.”

  Drea recalled what Lady Blackveil had said about being a slave herself. Slaves hear everything.

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard about my feelings on any issues, but—”

  “Kalder does not bend,” Kulisa said. She looked up at Drea, her eyes watering. “Kalder does not bend, and everyone knows this!”

  Drea shook her head, not understanding any of this. Suddenly, she recalled the slave girl from last night, the one from House Devarok. Drea had thought her insane, but the woman seemed to believe that Drea was some kind of living embodiment of the Kalderus initiative to free all slaves.

  And I lied to her, telling her that I told Hyra I would like to see all the slaves of Drith freed.

  And after they had left Lady Blackveil alone to fight Saephis, Drea and Thryis had come across that strange graffiti on
the wall, the one that read Kalder does not bend.

  “When you say ‘everyone knows’ that Kalder does not bend, what do you mean?” Drea said.

  “Slaves talk,” Fengin whispered, looking around the clothroom to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “Slaves are always waiting for the next rebellion, Sia. It’s true. And though we know you cannot manumit us, Kulisa and I would not like to see harm come to someone who sympathizes with the slave caste.”

  Drea looked between the two slaves, judging the truth in their eyes, the sincerity, the verisimilitude.

  The hope.

  Drea’s mind was now racing at what all Saephis could know, and what she might’ve already told her uncle and her sisters. She thought about what her father would do, and felt the Kalderus anger rising in her as she sensed she was being cornered. They’ll know soon enough that I met with Blackveil, they’ll Divine it. So what do I do? Do I go to Daedron and ask for his help? How do I know I can fully trust him?

  Drea then tried to think what her mother would do, but her mother was too much a pacifist.

  Then, for the first time in her life, Drea wondered if maybe the problem was that she was thinking like a Kalder. Perhaps it’s time, she thought slowly, piecing it together, that I think like a Syphen.

  Drea recalled The Way’s Seventeenth Precept: Play a fool to catch a fool. Always appear dumber than the person you mean to control.

  She turned at once to Kulisa, and said, “If you are loyal to my family’s legacy, then go to my cottage. There you will find a silly girl hiding under my bed, and she has a certain pistol with her. Tell her I need it. If she asks how she can be sure that you were sent by me, remind her of the kiss we shared the night after my mother’s funeral. Bring the pistol in a lady’s bag and meet me on the steps in the front yard.”

  “At once,” said Kulisa, standing and rushing off.

  “Fengin, dress in your finest clothes and prepare a horse for each of us. You will be my male escort through town.”