The Lens of the World Trilogy

by MacAvoy, R. A. ;

  It reminded me so much of Sabia, Arlin’s mare that was killed, that I almost forgot to glance upward at the rider upon it.

  He was in size harmonious with his horse, and that was all I could tell. He wore no buttons and I caught no glint of blade. Then he rode into a band of torchlight and happened by pure chance to look in my direction.

  There was my self, my wet and weary identity, encountered once on a mountain pass during an earthquake and then dismissed by all save the Naiish as hallucination. He wore civilian riding garb, very restrained and of very rich substance. His shirt was white, though flickering red in my eyes, and his hacking jacket some darker color. Upon the white of his breast hung a long, thin pendant. Or perhaps a dagger on a cord.

  As he met my eyes, his face went from taut worry to wonder, perhaps to fear. I don’t know what my face did.

  “Reingish! Reingish!” shouted the crowd in my ears.

  He pointed at me, and uneasily I saw that he wore on his third finger a ring of familiar shape.

  I thought perhaps he would order me arrested. It occurred to me that he might order me slain on the spot. Perhaps he only wanted to speak to me. I certainly wanted to speak to him. But as we gaped at each other and his horse danced beneath him, the broken fortress in front of us answered his horn call, and a dozen men ran out to meet the party, crying a dozen messages at once.

  His attention was pulled forward, and at the same moment I was pressed back by the shifting of the crowd. I saw the heads of a few horses, and once another plumed helmet, but they were moving on at a good trot and there was no more of Minsanaur Reingish to be seen.

  That night, the ground rumbled three times.

  The next morning, after a night of much work and little rest, Arlin and I bathed and I exchanged my Rezhmian clothing for the breeches, shirt, and coat of Velonya. It was not a frock coat I put on, for I don’t own a frock coat, nor gentlemen’s clothing of any variety or nation. Arlin dressed herself in the same blacks she had worn into the town, for having been cleaned at the inn only a day ago (only one day, yet a great age for the City) they were her tidiest.

  I didn’t like the thought of entering the broken fortress on horseback, for there is something of state and panoply on even the humblest horse. Daffodil certainly was the humblest horse, however, and I did not see how we could leave him behind and still expect to find him when we came back. If we came back. Besides, Arlin could not be expected to walk far with the bruise on her leg.

  By the smell, there were parts of the inner city still burning, but by and large it showed us a more businesslike face today. There were teams of men shoring up brick walls with beams: some of the beams having been sacrificed from other structures flattened the day before. There was furniture scattered all over the pavement, some of it very neatly placed, and there were people using it, as though indoors had become outdoors.

  I remember a family of two children and a toddler, scarcely more than a baby, who were gathered around a table in the street, while Mother heated their breakfast over a bonfire of wreckage. The youngest, who could barely walk, was waddling in circles around this poor encampment, as though possession by his feet could make the pavement into a home. As he looked up at me on the horse and our glance met, another of the innumerable shocks hit, raising dust all around us. His infant face did not move, but tears began to ooze out of his eyes, like water from the cracks in a thawing rock.

  We did not know where we were going; we thought we would ride until we came to something that looked like officialdom, or we found the opposite gate of the City. If it stood. We were in no hurry.

  Officialdom is hard to recognize in a state of catastrophe. In catastrophe it partakes of the dignity of an ordinary building. The most impressive building we came upon turned out to be a church, with its domes collapsed and the golden triangle lying dented and propped against the pink stone wall. It was while I was surveying this damage I first heard my own name in my ear. Or almost my name: it was the words my name was made from, pronounced as the original.

  Na Zhur’ett: King of the Dead.

  It was an old woman in baggy dress and trousers. She had a sack around her neck, perhaps for the carrying of amulets, or small change. She said my name again, loudly.

  “Do I know you, Mother?” I asked her, leaning from my horse so she would not have to speak so loudly. But she was not speaking to me, but of me. She looked beyond me, and pointed with her finger. She was chanting: “Na zhur’ett, na zhur’ett.”

  “Someone has spilled the beans,” said Arlin, very uneasily. While I still stared, another woman came up, young and comely, and I thought intelligent-looking as well, until she also started uttering my name like some creaking hearth bellows.

  “Why are you doing that?” I asked them, as reasonably as I knew how. My horse started to shy away from them. He was a creature of great good sense. In the next moment the two bagpipes were joined by a man who by face and feature had as much Velonyan blood in him as I, and all three were spouting together. We moved forward briskly, but the chant followed as people raised their heads from work that should have been more important than this nonsense.

  “I’m beginning to feel jealous. What’s wrong with the name Arlin?” my lady asked, although by her face she was more purely uneasy than envious.

  Despite the rubble-strewn street and the crowd of pedestrians, we kicked our horses into a good trot. This did nothing to alleviate the problem, as any behavior smacking of arrogance inflamed these people’s unaccountable admiration.

  “That is how I heard them calling after the minsanaur last night,” Arlin said. I answered, “There are many fewer of them, but still… This won’t make an impression of humble sincerity, will it?”

  Now instead of pointing at me, the people were pointing at a door in a wall. Both door and wall had been inlaid with shell and with turquoise. Though half the work had been knocked out, it still made a pretty picture. The road ended before that wall, in a scatter of fallen trees in pots, and having arrived there, it seemed necessary we should get off our horses. Arlin would not take my help.

  I stood before that door for a while, trying to collect myself in the belly of the wolf, while Arlin spread her attention slowly through the crowd, saying, “You shut up,” and “Quiet, idiot” in meaningful tones. Her hand was on her sword and her words were finally effective.

  The door opened. Behind it was that old man with bandaged hands: the Emperor of the City, Nation, and Territories of Rezhmia. He was not alone, on the other side of that door, but he was the one in front. The soldiers, gentles, and nurses that herded behind him had wide, staring eyes, like horses’ eyes.

  His vision adjusted to the sunlight, and then he spent a good while gazing at me.

  He said “Our family has an invincible tendency toward shortness.”

  I stared back. Though I heard Arlin snigger behind me, it took me a long time to understand what he meant by these words. He himself was small, but I had expected that in a very old man, and not made any connection with my own lack of size. “Then the Sanaur of Rezhmia believes me?”

  I spoke very quietly and no louder did he answer, “I believe that you are my kinsman. Come in, you and your friend who killed the murderer of my nephew.”

  Solicitous hands took our horses. I hated this, because the horse to me was all possibility of escape. Also, I had not until this moment realized how attached I had become to homely Daffodil, whose great barrel had certainly put an elegant new bend into each of my legs. Arlin was even slower to relinquish the reins, and she took some time right in front of the ’naur to point out the small tear in the skin of the black mare’s cannon.

  I remember that incident with unusual clarity, and perhaps because of that, I also remember the roofed court into which we were brought.

  The roof consisted of a network of lathes making an arch, and running over these lathes, tiles of clay that overlapped without touching, making an enclosure of light without sun’s heat, and air without wind. I fo
und it marvelous that most of the shingles were still intact, and that the walls here showed no damage at all.

  Up until that unsettled autumn, Powl, I had not studied the composition of the earth, except as it might relate to the composition of glass. It took disaster to awaken my curiosity, but since then I have come to see that during an earthquake, it is the substance of the ground as much as the structure of the building that determines whether it shall stand. It might have been the stony anchor beneath that courtyard, which showed itself in humps and points above the level of the ground, that protected it. (Some of these sandstone prominences, carved into tables and chairs for enjoyment, gave the courtyard a sweetly gnomish air.)

  I have concluded that structures on stone tend to live, while the same structures on good earth fail. Yet—and this is a large yet—the growl and the terror itself are passed through stone, and in a region of fat earth a quake either will not occur or will not spread far.

  The ’Naur Mynauzet must have noticed my preoccupation with his outdoor furnishings. He stopped his progress toward the inner door and waved me to one of the sandstone seats. The herd came to a disorganized stop.

  The chair had been polished and lacquered, presumably so not to leave pink stains on good clothing. I stood beside it, for I was not about to sit down in front of the emperor of all Rezhmia. I noticed that Arlin did not even approach the table, but stood at dark attention against a wall. She had been relieved of all her blades. For her, that must have been worse than having the horse taken.

  “You will sit,” said the emperor, in a voice that had no expectation of being disobeyed, and I did obey him. The seat was cold. He lowered himself down at the little table across from me, having to elbow back two nurses and a general who thought he ought to have help in the matter. He looked once over his shoulder, this father of a large family, and everybody scuttled to the far end of the court and stood as Arlin was standing.

  “Nazhuret, nephew of my nephew Nazhuret, you will tell me how you happened to be here,” he said, and I began by saying that I had come on a personal errand of the King of Velonya, for his ear only.

  “No, you misunderstand me, young man.” His eyes were sharp and of a greenish-blue color. He did not appear to need glasses. “Tell me how you happen to be here, or happen to be.”

  I was prepared for this, but that preparation did not make it less difficult. My own history is a story that was presented to me long after it could do anything to me but cause pain. As concisely as I knew how (I am not by nature succinct), I told him how my father, in the shadow of his arrest for treason, had given me to his brother to hide, and how Dickon had hidden me in the open: at the Sordaling military school. How the two people who knew my past (and that did not include me) died without revealing it. How I grew somewhat and learned some things and was at last discovered in the strangest manner by Powl Inpres, Earl of Daraln, who recognized me and who took me in hand.

  As I related these facts, they sounded like someone else’s story. They sounded like a lie.

  I then told him how his niece and nephew had been poisoned by Duke Leoue, who then was granted my own father’s patent. I expected this information would make the emperor very angry, but I had forgotten how many of those close to the throne of Rezhmia die of odd accidents or bad stomachs. What he said was “I’m sorry, boy. On behalf of our whole family I apologize.”

  I was astonished to incoherence.

  “Had I any idea of your existence, let alone the neglect and abuse you suffered, grandchild”—and here I had to remind myself that among the Rezhmian people all close relatives of two generations younger are called “grandchild”—“I would have entered the country in force to make them return you. I would have had you returned though it meant war again.”

  My tongue outran my tact. “Then, Sanaur of Rezhmia, I’m very glad you did not know of my existence. To have caused war between my mother’s people and my father’s…”

  The emperor smiled, and seeing that smile I remembered that he was an emperor. I imagine that he never forgot it. “Yet, Nazhuret, we were in a very good condition to promote a war against Velonya at that time. Or at this one, for that matter.”

  So quickly had we arrived at the meat of my visit. “Yes, ’Naur, but why—now, I mean? Do you think you can conquer the North completely? No, you know you can’t. I know the King of Velonya, and I have a strong confidence that this war you have prepared can only end in great losses for unimportant gains. Only a strong provocation should cause a nation to declare war in such circumstances, and I cannot see that there was any…”

  “… reason to begin a political argument so early in our acquaintance,” the emperor finished for me. Smiling like an emperor, and like a grandfather.

  I am not used to grandfathers. I let him silence me.

  “I have a thousand things to do,” he said. “And at least that many people to grieve for, now. But I will see you again, soon, and you can represent the other side of your family for me then.”

  The old man rose, and I rose with him. It occurred to me, only for a moment, that among the various forms of politeness I had learned there was none that would cover an emperor whom one could not acknowledge who was also a grandfather who could not be depended upon to acknowledge one’s self. Only for a moment did this complexity concern me. I watched the man depart and I did nothing at all but look at him.

  After him went the mass of followers, leaving only Arlin and myself, with a few maids trying to gawk inconspicuously from the far side of the courtyard.

  And one other, whom I believe was not there until the last few moments. Standing in the center of the room, still dressed in his canvas work clothes and glorious necklace, was the man who had given me the ring. As my mind recognized him, my hand was in my pocket. He stepped forward quietly amid the tinkle of the fountains, only to find Arlin at his side, not exactly blocking his way but making herself known. His eyes showed honest surprise as he looked at her. They were much of a height—about three inches taller than I, and their faces were alike as well. Two Velonyans of old blood: one golden and one black. The black one stood like a fighter, and the golden one like one who works leaning against a bench, but they were built much alike despite that. Perhaps the fair one had a shade more shoulder.

  “So,” he said, speaking past Arlin and to me, “that is why you asked ‘who’ and not ‘what.’”

  I tried to let my face answer nothing, which is difficult for me. Arlin, meanwhile, knew nothing about this man, for the events of the night had driven him out of my mind and I hadn’t told her. Even of the ring, she was ignorant, but she is very good at letting her own face exhibit knowledge she does not possess. She met his gaze with a look of calm competence and secrets unrevealed.

  He, in his turn, was staring like a man in front of a monkey, or a monkey at a man. He walked all around her, scratching his chin with his callused hand. At last he stood before her again and spoke very quietly to her, in Velonyie. “You’re not a eunuch at all,” he said, and if I had not been able to guess at his words, I would not have heard.

  Arlin has a marvelous possession of herself. Without withdrawing from him one inch, she replied, “I did not say I was. Are you?”

  He nodded to her but looked at me, and then at the cluster of maids, who now were pretending to clear out rubbish from the fountains. He crooked one finger, for in Rezhmia that gesture is not considered uncouth. “Please come with me,” he said and, turning on his heel, he went into the building.

  We had the choice of following him, or staying alone in the courtyard. Perhaps this fellow Dowln was sent by the ’naur to take care of our needs. Or perhaps not. He had a flavor of conspiracies about him, but I guess so did we, and Dowln also had a flavor of the solitary that argued against his being anyone’s cat’s paw.

  He had recognized the unspoken lie of Arlin, and that was dangerous to us, but he also seemed content to let it lie unspoken (Forgive me the pun, Powl. I would rewrite, but it is the end of a long page). I r
emembered the gray wolf that Arlin saw and kept silent about, and the red trey that I saw and did not mention, on a snowy night many years before, and it occurred to me that the man who holds my secret also holds me. One can be held in pleasant ways and in unpleasant ways, and if I followed Dowln, I would find out. Arlin had already decided and was walking after the man. I followed.

  After all, he had given me a nice present.

  I do not remember the ways to his residence at all. If I had seen great damage, I probably would have. I do remember it was for a considerable distance that we followed Dowln, and through more than one kitchen. People greeted him with familiar respect, and they stared at us, though once or twice I heard my name pronounced (not in greeting) behind my back.

  There was a guard before the door of his quarters, which made it feel like a prison, but the face of the man warmed so at the sight of the eunuch that the atmosphere changed. Upon the door was the pattern of interlocked knots, in gold inlay, that echoed the gold around his neck.

  As we passed through the door, Dowln asked the guard if his wife’s arm had been set, and the guard answered that it had, and thanked the lord for the bottle of pills.

  Within were quarters spacious and spare and comfortable, according to my simple standards. The place was clean, had plenty of light, frescoes on the walls, and it was full of machines.