The White Road of the Moon

by Rachel Neumeier

  And the farmer’s wife let them take bowls of stew and thick slabs of bread out to the barn, where she and Jaift had heaved bales of hay and straw around to make a fair approximation of a table and benches; and with blankets to throw over the loose straw later, it would actually be quite comfortable, in Meridy’s opinion. Which didn’t stop Diöllin from turning her nose up at the arrangement, but honestly, it was perfectly pleasant. The stew was good, too, filled with chunks of mutton and turnips.

  Meridy missed Iëhiy begging for tidbits, but at least she was beginning to trust that the dog went where he wished and would always be able to find his way back to her. She hoped she was right about him going with poor Herren. She broke a slice of bread in half, dipped a piece in her stew, and ate it. Then she said, “I have a new game we can all play. It’s called Let’s Figure Out What’s Going On.”

  “What, just like that?” Jaift said doubtfully. “We still don’t really know much….”

  Niniol raised his hand in disagreement. He was leaning against the wall near the door of the hay barn, quite automatically keeping an eye out for trouble. The farm seemed perfectly peaceful, but Jaift had already commented matter-of-factly that they should shove bales of hay against the door at night, which was something Meridy wouldn’t have thought of.

  “We know a good deal, I think,” Niniol murmured now, his voiceless utterance decisive for all it could not precisely be heard. “We know plenty to go on with. We know Tai-Enchar is trying to achieve something and needs His little Highness for it; and we know Inmanuàr is trying to stop him and also needs the young prince for that purpose. And we know the princess-regent made a bad bargain with a sorceress. Your Highness, no one noticed the change?”

  “It happened this spring,” the princess answered immediately. She was perched on another hay bale. She had been looking faintly resentful at the lack of velvet cushions and servants, though since she was quick instead of living, she could hardly complain about the prickle of the straw. But now she seemed to forget her disdain of hay barns and farmers, the expression on her translucent face becoming troubled. “But no, no one realized, not even my father. Not even me, then. I mean…for years, my mother had been…unpredictable. She would be cheerful one day and then the next…”

  “Morose?” suggested Jaift, with ready sympathy.

  “Cruel,” Diöllin said, quietly, looking away. Then she took a deep breath and faced them again. “I know that sounds terrible. But she would fall into these moods. It’s not so bad, really. Or it wasn’t. You’d leave her alone and the mood would pass off. Except this spring, it came on her worse than usual, and then it didn’t lift. I thought…”

  “Yes?” Meridy prodded her, impatient.

  “Well, she’s not young anymore. Not truly young. But she’s not old, either. I thought maybe she was pregnant. Because that’s when her moods started. When she was carrying Herren. She wanted a son so much, and prayed so hard, and the pregnancy was so difficult….But after Herren was born, it was like she was herself again. So this spring, I thought she might simply be pregnant again. But if she was, she must have lost the babe early, because nothing ever showed. And this time the mood didn’t pass off.” She looked at Meridy, trying for haughty, but behind the hauteur, Meridy could see how wretched she truly was. “A sorceress, you said? My mother made a…a bargain? Who is—was—this Aseraiëth?”

  “A servant or ally of the witch-king’s. And I suppose she must have,” Meridy said. Saying so was surprisingly difficult in the face of Diöllin’s distress. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to,” she added lamely.

  “But why would the…mood…come and go for so long?” Jaift wondered. “Instead, I mean…of the princess just changing and staying changed?”

  Meridy had to shake her head. “Maybe that was the bargain—that Aseraiëth herself could come and go?” she guessed. Or part of the bargain, because they already knew another part had involved giving up her own daughter to the sorceress. Maybe Princess Tiamanaith hadn’t realized that, though. Maybe she’d thought Aseraiëth only demanded that she share her own body. That wasn’t as bad as giving up her daughter on purpose. Meridy imagined the sorceress stepping into and out of Tiamanaith as though into and out of a living mask. For years. Of Tiamanaith sometimes being herself and sometimes being pushed aside to make room for Aseraiëth.

  Had she even known what was happening? Maybe to her, she just seemed to look aside for a moment and then back, to find time had stuttered and her children were treating her differently, warily. That would be…horrible enough, surely, even in the times when she was herself. “I’m sure she must have realized long ago she’d made a terrible bargain,” Meridy said out loud.

  “My mother made a bargain,” Diöllin said slowly. She rubbed her forehead as though that might help her grasp this horrifying idea. “My mother made a bargain with a long-dead sorceress, an ally of the witch-king. Nine years ago. To save my brother. And the sorceress did save Herren. But now this Aseraiëth has…possessed my mother. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Jaift said gently, “It seems she did. It seems very likely that when your mother was carrying Herren, when she prayed for a living son, someone answered her prayer. But it wasn’t the God.”

  Diöllin was shaking her head, but not in denial. She said weakly, “She wouldn’t have, it’s impossible, she couldn’t have done…anything like that.” But it was clear she knew her mother had done something very much like that.

  “She was desperate,” Jaift said, even more gently. “Imagine how she must have felt as the baby she carried gradually stilled. You must have known women to whom such terrible things happened. My aunt miscarried four babies; she’s never had one live. A mother can be truly desperate.” She added to Meridy, “But I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to bargain with a sorceress to bring a living child to term, not once it stilled in the womb. I mean, sorcery can be powerful, I guess, but only the God can actually bring the quick dead back to true life!”

  “Well, none of us know what Tai-Enchar might be able to do,” Meridy pointed out. He had been truly a king of witches and sorcerers, and no one knew what he might have done had he lived. Or what he might be able to do even now that he was dead. Meridy didn’t have to say so. It was obvious, though if Tai-Enchar could reach between the realms of the living and the dead…it was an appalling idea.

  Though what had happened to Princess Tiamanaith was almost as bad. Praying to deliver a living child, and having a wicked sorceress answer your prayer…ugh. Pieces slotted together in Meridy’s mind like lines from half-remembered poetry. She said, “I expect Tai-Enchar wanted to do to Inmanuàr what Aseraiëth has done to Princess Tiamanaith. Except I doubt he wants to share. He needs a living boy, not a ghost. And he hasn’t ever been able to restore Inmanuàr to life, not in all this time. Carad Mereth stopped him, I bet. Then here was Princess Tiamanaith carrying a son of the High King’s line, willing to make any bargain if she could only have him live. So if the witch-king couldn’t have the High King’s heir, he would make another heir, a little boy he could take into his own realm so he could do anything he wanted with him.” She could imagine it, after all. It was horrible, but she could imagine it.

  Jaift looked ill. Then she lifted her chin and said firmly, “We can’t let him take Herren, that’s all. And, listen, even if Princess Tiamanaith made a bargain with the sorceress, I’m sure she regrets it and is sorry. But Aseraiëth can’t simply be Tai-Enchar’s ally now, either. Because she snatched Herren from Tai-Enchar’s servants the minute his attention was drawn away. If she already gave everything for her son and now the witch-king wants Herren…I think they must be enemies now, not allies.”

  This made sense. Meridy started to nod, but Niniol leaned forward, tapped one insubstantial hand firmly on the table they’d made of hay bales, and warned them all, “Never depend on your opponent to do anything you wish.”

  Meridy blushed, because she could see how they had started to do just that. She so much wanted Jaift
to be right.

  “But still, they might be enemies now,” protested Jaift. Jumping to her feet, she started to pace. “Or even if they’re not, as long as they want different things, they could be set against each other. If we get Herren away from Tiamanaith, both Aseraiëth and Tai-Enchar will want him back—we know that much, don’t we? Maybe we can set it up so they’re both distracted long enough for us to—” She had sounded confident, but now she broke off, turning to face the rest of them, looking suddenly uncertain.

  “What?” demanded Meridy. “Don’t stop there!”

  Jaift opened her hands. “I was only thinking…if Tai-Enchar was distracted, if he thought we were going to give Herren back to his mother instead of him, if he was focused on that, then maybe someone might find a way to slip past his attention and into his realm and find this Carad Mereth of yours and free him, and then he can…do something, I hope, or at least explain things to the rest of us. I mean, if Diöllin can find Herren, surely Inmanuàr can find Carad Mereth. You can summon Inmanuàr, since you’re his anchor, even if you’re not his first or strongest anchor. Can’t you?”

  For a long moment, Meridy just stared at her friend.

  Jaift said apologetically, “I know, it would probably be too dangerous—” and at the same time Diöllin exclaimed, “No one is going to use my brother as bait!”

  “No,” Meridy said to them both. “No, hush, Diöllin, of course no one’s going to risk Herren! But going on without any kind of a plan is dangerous, too. Isn’t it better to have some idea in mind than nothing at all? All we have is guesses, but I bet Carad Mereth knows about everything, if only we could find him.” She hesitated and then added, “Besides that, in Cora Talen, when the witch-king’s servitor had me, Carad Mereth rescued me. If I’d been quicker, if I’d gotten away, he wouldn’t have had to. If Tai-Enchar has him now, it’s my fault.” She looked at Jaift. “Your plan needs to be built up a little, but it’s a good plan.”

  Jaift gave her a small nod, looking faintly surprised.

  “It’s mad!” Diöllin protested.

  “It’s a plan, and we didn’t have one before,” Meridy insisted. “Listen, Diöllin, the first thing is still to find Herren and get him away and safe—that hasn’t changed. I’m sure we won’t need to stake him out as bait, though, so don’t fuss! We just— Look, both Tai-Enchar and your mother have to think we’re about to let the other one have him. Then they ought to focus on that, even if your brother’s hidden somewhere safe.” She hesitated. “Honestly, it’s probably not safe for anybody except Herren,” she added at last. “Because we’ll tuck him away somewhere, but if I’m the one who’s going to try to slip by Tai-Enchar and find Carad Mereth, someone will have to keep the witch-king’s attention fixed elsewhere.”

  Looking from one of them to the next, she found that Jaift was nodding, and Diöllin was shaking her head, but not actually arguing. Niniol was gazing at Meridy with a small, intense frown. But it wasn’t disapproval or condescension or anything like that. It was something else. Oh. Oh, it was respect. Blushing, Meridy looked away.

  “Well,” Niniol murmured, his tone impressively dry. “It is indeed a mad idea, so it’s got that going for it: no one would ever expect it. Most travelers use games to pass the time, but I’m sure this notion of yours will give us all something to think about till we reach Cora Diorr.”

  Meridy was sure it would.

  Cora Diorr was very different from Cora Talen, different again from Riam, and despite its ring of surrounding mountains, nothing at all like Tikiy.

  Tikiy, tucked into the foothills of the Southern Wall, was always overwhelmed by the mountains rearing up to the sky. Generally the people of Tikiy set their doors facing to the north so that they would not have the Wall’s immensity before their eyes the moment they stepped from their cottages. Aunt Tarana had scarcely even looked south, and she wasn’t the only one in Tikiy who kept her attention turned resolutely away from the Wall.

  In Tikiy, in the depths of the winter, the moon rose and set behind the Wall, so it was never visible even on fine, crystalline nights filled with stars. For that reason, it was said to be unlucky to die in winter, for how could a ghost find the way to the White Road of the Moon when the moon never rose? So people hung extra strands of prayer bells from the eaves of their cottages. They set flat white stones into the earth before their front steps to invite the God into their homes, and they lit white candles beside the sickbed whenever anyone grew ill. As far as Meridy had ever been able to tell, some of the dead went straight to the God while others lingered, and she had never noticed that bells or stones or candles or the season made the least difference. But those were the customs in the shadow of the Wall.

  The country around Riam had been different. There, ordinary mountains lay to the west—nothing like the Wall, but low, rolling hills, heavily forested because the ground there was too rocky to bother farming. Jaift said that her father said that except for lumber and coal and furs and the occasional fire horse foal captured by a daring trapper, everything of interest came and went from Riam to the east and the north.

  Then, as they’d seen as they traveled north from Riam, the northbound traveler left the mountains behind and all the country flattened and opened up until the sky stretched out forever above endless farmlands. Meridy had been wide-eyed to see the vast rolling pastures around Cora Talen, and Jaift had been fascinated at the size of the early melons in the fields and the heavy crops of apples in the orchards they passed.

  Cora Diorr was not like anything Meridy had yet seen.

  Mountains surrounded Cora Diorr, all the way around, a single ring of mountains in a nearly perfect circle. They were not tall, but they seemed to rise up high enough in the midst of all that flat country. People said Prince Tirnamuon, the first prince of Cora Tal after the shattering of the Kingdom, had raised up those encircling mountains with the remnants of the magic that had been used to create the Southern Wall. Now that she saw Cora Diorr for herself, Meridy believed it.

  Cora Diorr, the prince’s city, seemed huge to her. Maybe that was because from above, where the road ran across the saddle between two of the encircling mountains, the travelers could see the entire city spread out before them. But she thought the city also seemed so vast and intimidating because it was so…Grand was the only word that seemed to fit.

  From the first moment it had been laid out, Cora Diorr had plainly been intended to reflect Prince Tirnamuon’s ambition. Far from growing up and out in haphazard fashion, the city had been laid out in a series of concentric circles, each circle pierced by long, straight streets paved with white stone. From above, it was obvious that none of the straight avenues wandered into blind alleys or curved around obstacles; they ran through Cora Diorr like the spokes of a wagon wheel.

  Meridy had never imagined such a city. She knew that the prince’s city was sometimes called the City of Spires and sometimes the City of Circles, but she had not come close to picturing what the city might actually look like.

  Cora Diorr truly was a city of spires. That was Meridy’s first impression, though actually there weren’t so many—fifteen tall, slender towers, that was her first count. Then, as the road turned and descended and the view shifted, she saw some had at first been hidden behind others; there were actually nineteen.

  The towers stood in the center of the city, lancing upward from amid the low sprawl of lesser buildings. Each tower was shining white, but with a cinnabar-red roof rising to a sharp point. The towers seemed too narrow for their height, but there they stood, shining white and red in the sunlight. Meridy couldn’t decide if she loved them or hated them, but they were unquestionably stunning.

  The tallest spire stood in the center of the city. It was surrounded first by a ring of seven towers and then by another ring of eleven, with all the towers in each ring linked one to the next by the graceful arches of porticos and bridges. Beneath the towers stretched out gardens filled with flowering trees and fountains. A narrow white wall gracefully
looped around all the towers of the outer circle, setting the spires apart from the city proper. Each of the straight white streets ran from the edge of the city to the wall, ending at a gate. Just to set the spires off a bit more, the rest of the city had been built of gray or yellowish stone. The other streets, the ordinary ones, seemed to be paved with plain gray cobbles, and the houses and shops roofed with gray slate or maroon tile. Only the circular avenues and the arrow-straight streets that ran through them were paved with white stone; only the towers were white and red.

  “Our prince’s palace,” said the carter in whose wagon they were all riding. “Nothing in Cora Talen to match it, is there? Nor in Riam, I’ll be bound.” He sounded smugly pleased about this, as though he’d personally designed the city and set all nineteen of those towers in place with his own hands. He clucked to his mules, drawing the animals to a slower pace as the road crested the highest point to let his passengers look their fill before they took the long downhill slope to the city.

  The carter was a decent man overall, though Meridy could have done without his opinion, expressed often and forcefully during the five days they’d been traveling with him, that Cora Diorr was the finest city in all the principalities—the handsomest and cleanest, the most elegantly designed and most secure, the wealthiest and most prosperous, the most broad-minded and tolerant, and just generally a favorite of the God in every possible way. It did get tiresome, although Diöllin preened a bit.

  On the other hand, seen from above like this, with its wide white avenues and its white towers gleaming, everything the carter said suddenly seemed as though it might be true.

  The carter had only recently carried a load of fancy glass to Cora Talen and sent it on its way to Surem, picking up bales of fine wool in place of the glass, and now he was heading back to Cora Diorr.

  They’d been glad to meet him, because by then they’d traveled a day’s slow journey from Cora Talen and needed another ride from the farm where they’d spent their first night on the road. Plus, the carter’s mules were young and strode out with a will, so his lightly loaded wagon was quite a bit faster than a farmer’s wagon. Besides, the carter was a friendly, vain, self-satisfied man who didn’t blink at Meridy’s black eyes, or look about uneasily as though he might see ghosts nearby, or trace the God’s sign over his heart when he thought she wasn’t looking, in case she should plan the theft of the soul from his living body. He was, if anything, proud of Cora Diorr’s reputation for witches.