Protector of Thristas: A Lisen of Solsta Novel

by D. Hart St. Martin

  She stood still and let the wind bring her the warm, moist smells of the plain. She could hear the horses jangling their tack behind her, wondering impatiently why they weren’t moving, but her parents left her alone. She couldn’t even hear them whispering to each other. Their quiet patience and restraint gave her a sense of their respect for this moment and her place in it, and she closed her eyes.

  Another whiff of wind, another space in time. The field before her filled with Thristan and Garlan warriors on foot and on horseback. The clashing of swords rang in her ears, and a smell she couldn’t identify at first filled her nose. Warm. Salty. Metallic. Blood, she realized. And sweat. She paused. And fear.

  Then, the sudden silence of awe at the emergence of a presence on the field. Attention shifting. A great black horse. Pharaoh, she realized. And a younger version of her mother—really young, nearly her own age—astride the black stallion. Her mother’s eyes black, blinded by the gryl, the drug enhancing her mother’s powers. Her voice ringing out. Rinli couldn’t make out the words, but she knew their meaning. This was the moment her mother had acknowledged Rinli’s existence and proclaimed her the fulfillment of the prophecy. And with that declaration, Empir Ariannas had sealed the truce, the Treaty of the One-Day War soon to follow.

  All those soldiers who didn’t die.

  Rinli shook her head, releasing herself from the vision. Her father stood beside her, her mother not far behind. They’d left the horses to nuzzle through the grass and had come to her.

  “You saw,” her mother said softly, a hint of wonder in her voice.

  “Yes.” Rinli’s voice was hoarse, which surprised her. “How?” she asked as she continued to watch the barely perceptible movement of wind through the grass and the hovering of flying insects.

  “Only you can answer that.”

  Rinli heard the rigid control in her mother’s voice, and she grieved for the loss of the trust she thought they’d found during this visit to Thristas. For one brief moment in time, Rinli had believed her mother loved her, but that moment had died before they’d headed back over the Pass.

  “We wanted you to see this place,” her father added.

  “You must have heard its name in a thousand different conversations.” Rinli heard what she hadn’t expected even a moment before—kindness in her mother’s voice. “We thought you should experience it for yourself as you approach your investiture.”

  “Well, I have. Can we go now?” Her skin tingled, and it felt like the hair stood up all over her body.

  “Of course,” her father said. She heard her parents turn as one and tromp back to their horses through the tall grass, but she hesitated. Here, two armies had clashed. Here, people of two opposing cultures had assumed one would leave the winner; the other, the loser. Here, an Empir had offered a peace that no one had expected. And here, a destiny had been chosen for her. These thoughts stole her breath away. It had always simply been a part of her existence, and yet, now she understood. Here, in the eyes of many, a miracle had come to be.

  “Rin!” her father called out to her, and she turned and ran back to where both of her parents were already mounted. She gained her horse again and followed as they rode across the plain, briefly acknowledging where the Garlan camp had stood at its west end, and then they passed through the forest on the way towards the Rukat River. The three riders kept silent until they stopped that night, and even then, they shared little more verbally than the etiquette of dinner.

  Rinli suspected they’d made the detour through Bellin Plain for more than just an opportunity for her to see history, but whatever it was, it had failed to reach its goal. And then a surprising thought. Or maybe I didn’t notice.

  “Rinli.”

  Voice breaks through sleep. Eyes open. Before her not the lush green of a Garlan meadow but the iron grey of rocks and the hard browns of desert.

  “The parentsss ssshowed you the plain today, the plain of your dessstiny.”

  She looks around. A dream. Or vision. Mantar is near.

  “Now I will show you the ssstory.”

  “My father taught me the story.” But speech is powerless, insubstantial. Here is here and now is now, and nothing she says is going to change that.

  A disembodied arm sweeps in front of her sight, encompassing a desert that shouts “Empty! Uninviting!”

  In a cave people cower. And while she can see them, they cannot see her, and she has no sense of sound at all. But the voices—the voices in her mind—they are the story.

  The People have come over the Rim into their exile. This cave above the desert provides little protection from the dry and the dust and the desperation. They’ve begun sending raiding parties back into Garla to find water and food for there is too little here for them to survive. They’ve already lost many to dehydration and starvation. But The People must survive and cannot allow themselves to lose more.

  Time passes. Now at the entry to Mesa Terses, but none of the minds surrounding her think of it as that. Not yet.

  No stable. Tunnel rough-hewn, not smooth, not like today.

  This is the beginning, Rinli realizes. Many have died, but hope lies here.

  They’ve found lakes—lakes!—hidden within rocky caverns. Rare rain preserved by natural vents from above. Tunnels and caves suitable for living! And desert-dwelling animals. So many more than they encountered in the caves on the Rim.

  “One day The People will ssspeak of thessse timesss when they tell the tale. ‘The Dessstroyer,’ they will sssay, ‘sssent usss away punishing usss for our willfulnessss and our pride. We left behind our homesss, our familiesss, all that had once meant life to usss and followed the Maker to a new life.’ But that isss not what happened and you know it.”

  “Yes,” Rinli replies. “My father told me.” And she remembers his words. “A long time ago, an Empir named Osificant exiled hundreds, maybe thousands, of her citizens after they questioned her right to force people into her service, and she punished them.”

  The dream continues. The People find crops they can grow in the shadows of the mesas and crops suitable for the mesas’ crowns. But they know they barely exist in the minds of Garlans, and they weary of the ignorance of their westward neighbors.

  “They ssstill hunger for their former life even though generationsss later never lived it. And they look on Garla the enemy, Garla the Dessstroyer who deprived them.”

  Rinli sighs.

  She loves the desert and wonders. Does her adoration arise from the freedom with which she straddles the two worlds?

  Or perhaps, she thinks, simply being Mantar’s Child shields me.

  Rinli awakened with a start. Dark in the meadow. Her panicked breathing overwhelming the sound of her parents’ slumber-slowed breaths a few feet away. Her father had told her the story many times, but not like this. She hadn’t known, but now…now she did. And wished to the Destroyer she didn’t.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SIBLINGS AND COUSINS

  With his essentials packed and having dressed for the two-day ride, Nalin Corday made his way down the main stairs of the Tuane castle in Seffa, cane in his right hand, his left lightly resting on the banister for balance. He relied on a carefully constructed wooden device strapped to his amputated lower right leg to allow for proper walking. Lisen called it a “prosthesis,” but as far as he was concerned, she could call it anything she wanted to. She had helped design it, after all. Culled from her memories of the world she called “urth” where the sooth, Hermit Eloise, had hidden her for seven years, the foot itself had been difficult to shape, but a slightly rounded-at-the-edges block of wood allowed for a nearly normal gait.

  He smiled as he reached the bottom of the stairs, switched his cane to his left hand and strode with only the barest hint of a limp from the grand entry to the family dining hall. He entered to find Bala and their daughter, Linell, already seated and eating. He sat down at his place just inside the door and leaned his cane up against the table next to him.

  �
�Father,” the thirteen-year-out Linell acknowledged.

  “Nal, why do you have to get to Avaret a week before the Empir is due back from Thristas?” His spouse, Bala Tuane, the holder of Minol, trained her deep-brown eyes on him with the look that would exact an answer no matter the cost. How he loved her.

  “I promised I’d organize everything that’s come in while she’s been gone.”

  “Is that going to take an entire week?”

  Nalin looked up as a servant set a plate of boiled sausage and potatoes down in front of him. He waited until the servant had left the room again, then spoke. “I’m expecting to find the petitions from the Ba twins. They hadn’t arrived before Lisen left.”

  “So those two boys are going to fight it out,” Bala said.

  Nalin shrugged. “It’s inevitable. They’ve competed with each other over everything. Then their mother dies intestate.” He fiddled with his food. He wanted to get on the road, and breakfast was a formality he would have happily foregone. However, the chance to spend a few last moments with his family had drawn him to share this meal with them.

  “How old was she?” Linell asked.

  Nalin smiled at his look-alike daughter, she who bore his blond hair, blue eyes and softly chiseled features. Both Linell and Alabar, her younger brother, were bright, eager children who would do well when they inherited their titles—Linell, his holding of Felane, and Alabar, Bala’s Minol. Linell’s question sounded simple enough, but Nalin suspected more questions would follow.

  “Elak Ba was forty-eight, a bit young.”

  “But you and Mother have wills already, and you’re much younger than that.”

  Not much, Nalin thought. Creators, I’m already thirty-seven.

  “No one knows why the late Holder Ba never made her wishes known,” Bala explained to her daughter. “It certainly would have made things easier.”

  “We don’t even know for sure which twin emerged first,” Nalin added.

  “There must have been a healer present,” Linell said.

  “Dead,” Nalin stated bluntly. “At least, that’s all we’ve been able to determine.” He forced a bite of potatoes down.

  “But with two parents, one for each twin…” Linell allowed her question to dwindle to nothing.

  “Save for the twins themselves,” Nalin explained, “there’s no one left who was present at the time.”

  “Your father and the Empir have been preparing for this since news of Elak’s passing arrived in Avaret.”

  “Yes. It seemed best since it was easy enough to anticipate a row between the boys.” He looked around. “Speaking of boys, where’s Alabar?”

  “Here, Father.” The eleven-year-out plopped himself into his chair to Nalin’s left. If Nalin had had any reason to doubt Bala—which he absolutely didn’t—he would have wondered about this seemingly feral child. Rich brown hair and brown eyes that looked black in candlelight, Alabar’s dark coloring upon his emergence from Bala’s pouch had startled everyone. He was all Tuane in attitude though, ready to risk life and limb for the sake of fun, much like his late aunt, but he also possessed his father’s love of details.

  “Just in time for me to say good-bye,” Nalin announced, took a last bite of sausage, stood up, grabbed his cane and turned to head back down the hall.

  As Linell offered a “Ride well, Father” to his retreating back, he heard the sound of Bala’s footsteps catching up to him. He stopped at the castle’s main door just beyond the bottom step of the stairway. Bala reached him and placed her hand on his chest.

  “It’s been barely a week since you returned from Casille.”

  “I know,” he replied, caressing one of her blond braids. “And now I’m heading off again in the opposite direction. After Rinli’s investiture, I promise.” He took the hand she’d placed over his heart, and with his fine-boned hand covering hers, he turned it onto her own chest. Then he leaned in and kissed her. The smell of her—her own fresh scent mixed with the herbs she was always blending for healing purposes—still drove him mad, and it took all the effort within him to pull back. “I have to go,” he said softly, turned away and stepped out into the spring-morning sunshine. If he’d been leaving her behind for anyone other than Lisen, he doubted he could have walked out the door. His love for Bala filled every corner of his life. And yet, his duties to his Empir allowed him a sense of spiritual peace that nothing else could provide.

  “A month,” Bala uttered softly. “My cycle. During Council. Are we going to…?”

  “We agreed, didn’t we?” He smiled at her. “I won’t be that unavailable.” Thoughts of a third child had lured them for some time, but only now had they decided to make it happen.

  She smiled back and leaned against the doorjamb, crossing her arms over her chest. “Good.”

  Benir, Nalin’s personal servant, awaited him, already mounted on his own horse, and a Tuane stable hand held the reins of Nalin’s roan. Over the years, Dekar the saddle maker had refined the saddle she’d created for Nalin after the amputation of his right lower leg so that now it functioned efficiently. Nalin could mount with little or no assistance and could ride for at least a couple of days without discomfort. This allowed him to ride the two days between Avaret and Seffa without depending on a carriage.

  After he’d unstrapped and removed his wooden leg and slipped it and his cane into their loops in the saddle, the stable hand gave him a leg up. He secured his left foot into its stirrup and his right leg into the false boot attached to the saddle. Then he turned to Benir.

  “Shall we go?”

  “Wait!”

  Nalin turned back to look at the door and saw Linell running out to him. She carried a piece of simple cloth tied up to make a sack.

  “What is it?” he asked as she reached him.

  “Cook wanted you to have these. Some cheese, an apple and dry bread for lunch.”

  Nalin reached down, brushed the cheek of this child of his pouch with his hand, then grabbed the cloth. “Tell Cook that Benir and I thank him.”

  Linell smiled at him, her blue eyes bright in the sunshine. She would make a good Holder of Felane. If everything with Thristas holds. The fulcrum centered directly on Rinli, a fact which everyone involved knew well. But they also knew that the balance could be undone by any small act anywhere along the line. Our entire future rests on one fifteen-year-out’s shoulders.

  He kicked his horse into a trot and heard Benir’s horse pull in behind him. Time to put the government of Garla back into action.

  “I hate my sister.”

  It was a declaration Elor Zanlot had heard many times before from his cousin. Two years Elor’s junior, Nasera Ilazer had latched on to Elor, clinging for life. Elor remembered this beginning when he was about five years out, and Nasera, three, and Nas had never let go. Now, here they sat in the Zanlot quarters in the old palace—a place Elor was not yet allowed to inhabit officially—and Elor listened with feigned attentiveness to the thirteen-year-out complain, once again, about his elder sibling.

  Elor himself felt no love for his sister-cousin. Rinli, with her long, wavy black hair, light green eyes, fair skin, and petulant mouth, knocked the breath out of a room when she entered. Elor couldn’t compete with that. Nasera, on the other hand, resembled Elor’s father, at least from what Elor had been told. With his dark auburn hair and brown eyes, he startled Elor sometimes. It was as though Elor could glimpse his father in the boy before his father had begun charming his mother. Elor knew he himself resembled his father as well, but with his mother’s eyes—blue and purposeful.

  The orphaned Elor felt his mother’s spirit in these rooms where she’d stayed as she awaited his emergence. He wished he could move back in time and warn her to go home, go home before it happened. Which “it”? he wondered. Any of a number of “its” flitted about in his mind, but perhaps the most unwelcome “it” of all was the arrival of an unnamed Thristan rebel at her doorstep the day his aunt, the Empir, was abducted. If his mother had avoided giving
in to her greed for one moment, she would still be alive with him today.

  They were very careful, his aunt and her Will. They never spoke in anything resembling glowing terms regarding either of his parents, but they also avoided mentioning the details of the intertwining of four lives—his father’s, his mother’s, the Empir’s, and Holder Corday’s. Elor had secretly searched out the answers to his questions, sneaking up to the third-floor library in the Keep when he believed no one knew and finding the records of the circumstances surrounding his aunt’s ascension and the documentation detailing the events leading to his mother’s death. He’d been eight when he’d read about his father’s murder at the hands of Ariannas and his mother’s execution ordered by Corday, but he’d sealed his mind and his lips and said nothing. He could wait, and while waiting, he would plan the fates of his aunt and Nalin Corday.

  “Did you hear me?” Nasera asked.

  “Yes, yes, you hate your sister,” Elor replied. “You always hate your sister, but what is it this time?” Nas would inherit the title of Empir, so everyone said. It wouldn’t be Rinli because she was destined for some sort of prophetic fate as the leader of a newly independent Thristas. And as far as Elor was concerned, Nas and Rin could split up the Emperi lands—Garla and Thristas—because vengeance and not ambition ruled his plans.

  “Mother is all consumed with this investiture of hers.”

  “When are they due back?”

  “What?” Nasera asked.

  “Ah, sorry. I moved too quickly. I was just wondering when your parents and sister are due back in Avaret.”

  “About a week.”

  “Now,” Elor said, “your mother is all consumed with the investiture?”

  “Yes. As though it will matter in the end. Because here’s what I think.” The boy leaned in towards Elor, the desk protecting Elor from an excess of closeness with his cousin. “I think,” Nasera whispered, in an effort, Elor assumed, to keep his younger sister from hearing. Little “Sen,” as everyone called the ten-year-out Insenlo, was forever everywhere and nowhere at once; today she sat in the corner of this room so unobtrusively that Elor had completely forgotten about her until this moment. But what could she possibly understand of the intricacies of adult thinking? For that matter, what does Nas understand? “I think,” Nasera went on, drawing Elor back to him, “the minute my sister is invested as Protector of Thristas, the Thristans will kill my mother and my father, maybe even my sister, along with anyone else in the attending royal party.”