Nasera fought the very immature urge to stomp out, slamming the door behind him.
“Pardon my intrusion,” he said, his tone measured, and with a nod he backed out of the door, closing it softly behind him. Then he tore down the hall and out of the palace onto the plaza. When I’m Empir…I should have known…a Zanlot is a Zanlot, and the only Zanlot who ever put up with an Ilazer was Elor’s mother. And who knows how much was love and how much was ambition.
He stopped midway between the palace and the Keep. He straightened his tunic and straightened his back and proceeded forward proudly. When I’m Empir, I’ll never give any holder power over me. Ever. And as the end of his relationship with Elor Zanlot settled into place, he returned home, to the Keep. One day it will be mine, and I’ll make Elor sorry he did that.
A week after Akdor Ba’s sentencing, Lisen sat on a stool in Rinli’s room watching her stuff the few items she was taking back with her to Thristas into her satchel. This morning, with Council concluded, she and Korin would head back to the desert, leaving Lisen to pine for their company for the next five months, the longest time the three had been separated since the war.
“What is it, Mother? I know you’ve been trying to say something to me for days.”
Lisen, who had been sitting in what on Earth would be considered a very unladylike pose—legs spread wide, elbows on her knees, fiddling with her fingers—looked up at her daughter and smiled. When had this Rinli emerged? Before or after Akdor’s sentencing? Whenever it was, Lisen hadn’t noticed until the moment Rinli had forgiven the Ba brother. And ever since, she’d struggled to find a way to reach out to this young woman she’d never seen before.
“It’s raining, you know” was all Lisen could manage.
“It wasn’t raining yesterday or the day before.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Lisen breathed deeply, for courage. “After the sentencing. What happened between you and Akdor? Why did you…forgive him?”
“I don’t know. He was hurting inside, and I felt it. And he really was sorry, not because you’d caught him. He was done with that. But because he knew he shouldn’t have done it in the first place. I wanted to ease the hurt, and it seemed to me that if someone—anyone really—forgave him, it might help.”
Lisen felt another “wow” welling up from inside but squelched it because it would only confuse Rinli to hear a strange Earth word. “So…you read him?”
“I guess. I don’t know.”
“Have you been able to read other people’s feelings before?”
“If I have, I didn’t notice. But his emotions were strong, overwhelming even. I couldn’t ignore them.”
Lisen nodded, words failing. So much to say and no time to say it in. She should have brought this up days ago.
“I’m ready,” Rinli announced, hefting her satchel and looking around the room.
And that quickly, the subject was closed. With a slap to her thighs, Lisen rose from the stool, and the two of them left the room behind. They found Korin in the hall, his cloak tied over his shoulders.
“I like a good ride in the rain,” he announced, and Lisen wondered if he were serious. “Nas! Sen! Departure time!”
Sen hopped out into the hall, dressed casually in her nightshift.
“Where’s your cloak?” Lisen asked. “Have you seen what it’s doing out there?”
“It’s raining. I know. A little water never hurt anyone. And where’s your cloak, Mother?”
Lisen had intended to run out to the stable with her spouse and child, send them off, then run back in because ‘water never hurt anyone.’ How could she ask more of Insenlo?
“Where’s Nas?” Rinli asked, looking around.
“I doubt he’s coming,” Korin replied
“He’s still fuming over Elor,” Insenlo explained, and Lisen raised an eyebrow to her spouse.
“You two go ahead,” Korin said. “We’ll meet you there.”
The royal daughters gamboled to the stairs, their chattering voices rising up behind them as they descended.
“What is going on with Nas?” Lisen asked as she and Korin ambled their way, arm in arm, from second floor to first. “I don’t recall seeing him anywhere but at dinner for the past few days.”
“It pays to listen to the guards,” Korin replied. “They gossip, when they don’t think anyone is listening.”
“And?”
“It seems that a few days before Council adjourned, our son arrived without announcement to visit Elor—who happened to be with Holder Dors at the time—and Elor invited Nas to leave.”
“That had to hurt. Not that I mind.”
Korin shrugged. “Hard lesson though.”
Lisen nodded as they stepped into the Great Hall. They made their way through and into the private dining room and out the door on that side of the Keep. The walk from the portico was prettier but provided more exposure to the rain. They reached the stable, wet but not soaked through. There they found Rin and Insenlo, waiting. The horses stood ready for the long ride back to the desert, where storms like this hardly ever hit, but if and when they did, they were catastrophic.
“Well, this is it,” Korin announced, as he always did. A ritual carried out twice a year for the last fifteen, but this time far more than a month-and-a-half would pass before their reunion.
Rinli buckled her satchel behind Lipta’s saddle, then stepped to her mother. “Thank you,” she said in Lisen’s ear as she wrapped her arms around her. Lisen returned the embrace.
“For what?”
“For trusting me. And maybe, just maybe,” she added with a whisper, “when I get back we can talk about the thing.”
“The thing, yes,” Lisen replied, knowing “the thing” was the push. “In the meantime, try to avoid thinking too hard about what you want people to do. And don’t order people around. That can have the same effect.”
Rinli pulled back to look at her mother, smiled, then nodded. “I’ll be careful.” And with one last quick hug, she turned, gave a pat on the head to Insenlo, who was saying farewell to their father, and mounted her horse. Korin caught Lisen looking at him, and he smiled. Every smile from him was like a gift from the Creators. She wished she had a camera to capture that smile. She could get some sculptor to carve a statue of him, but it wouldn’t portray the warmth—not in cold stone. And painting here in Garla hadn’t yet reached an era of realism. So she captured the moment in her mind, labeled it “special memory” and moved on.
“Safe journey,” she said softly, and he nodded, then threw himself up on his horse. He slapped Rinli’s horse on the buttock as he rode past her, not so hard that it would make the mare move, but when Rinli kicked Lipta, the horse stepped out behind Korin and his mount. Through the stable door and into the rain they rode. Insenlo came and stood beside her mother, arm around Lisen’s waist and leaning into her side. She didn’t fit under Lisen’s arm the way she used to, and Lisen realized the girl was growing.
They stood there, watching the two figures on horseback walking out into the park through the rain. They watched until the rain veiled the riders’ passage, and Lisen wiped a tear from her cheek. The farewells were always hard, but this was the hardest of all, and somehow Lisen knew the difficulty this time had little to do with the extended length of the separation. Something lay in wait on the horizon, but she didn’t know what it was. She could hear it breathing, feel it rising up slowly, but she couldn’t define it. So how could she ever expect to combat it?
“Mother?”
She looked down at her other daughter. “Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course.”
“Then maybe we should get back to the Keep.”
“Yes. Yes.” And grabbing Insenlo’s hand, Lisen ran with her through the rain and into the family dining hall. A servant was standing there in the midst of some sort of tidying task, reminding Lisen that life went on. Despite tragedies and minor inconveniences, life never stopped. And she, too, would continue unti
l she could continue no more. So she dedicated herself to the tidying of her own life, and with Insenlo beside her, she headed back up the stairs. Time to face another day and ignore the damn horizon until it could no longer be ignored.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HERE LIES THE SOOTH
My dear Lisen,
Once again I take stylus in hand to make a very personal request, one that you may find difficult to fulfill, but it would mean more to me than I can say if you did.
My aunt is dying. She wrote me to tell me she has maybe a week left, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. She asked me to prevail upon you to come to her and guide her through famar.
I know that as an unvowed necropath, you are under no obligation to respond to her request, but she said she believes that you and she have some old wounds to heal. And, hence, she asks.
Yours in spirit,
Bala
Lisen stood on the prow listening to the slap of the sea’s waves against the hull of her barge as it pulled into the dock on the Isle of Solsta and stared at Bala’s letter. What was she supposed to do? Say no? She might not have taken the vows of a necropath, but her gifts had first manifested as an ability to reach out to the dying and guide them through their passage, and she couldn’t imagine saying no to anyone in need. Besides, with Korin and Rinli gone and the next Council session still months away, she had very little to occupy her time in Avaret. Why not return to Solsta?
She knew full well that Eloise didn’t need her as a necropath. She might be dying, but it was a ploy to get her here to Solsta for the first time since she’d left as a silly girl of seventeen after learning of a legacy she didn’t want and Eloise’s part in her “handling.”
She’d been handled. Her first ten years here at Solsta. The next seven on Earth. Then back to Solsta where she discovered she wasn’t an Earth human; she was something quite other. The night following her return, Empir Flandari had arrived, another soul set up by Eloise to make magic happen. But before Lisen had learned Flandari was her mother, an assassin—pushed by a rogue hired by her brother—had murdered the Empir. Leading Lisen into her first experience as a necropath. And Rinli thought she’d been manipulated.
As the crew made fast the lines to the dock, Lisen folded Bala’s letter up and placed it in the small purse she would carry with her. It was late in the day—though not as late as her mother had arrived that fateful night—and late in the year. Dark. It would get dark early. So she would make her way up the switchback road to the haven with care.
Commander Kopol, who had joined her guards on the voyage, had argued that some of the guards should go with her. After all, the last Empir who had visited this haven had ended up dead. She had accepted Kopol’s offer to accompany her but had insisted it would be the two of them alone making their way to the haven. This was a mission best met without the pressure of others waiting right outside the door for her to finish quickly. A passing, especially one with a woman whom she had banished from her presence the night she’d challenged and killed her own brother, required a certain finesse and should not be rushed.
She stared up at the great spire of rock. She couldn’t see the haven from here, but her memories of this place had never faded. She stepped over to Pharaoh, saddled and ready, and nodded to the commander already up on her horse waiting to go. Pharaoh had tolerated the day-long voyage well, and he snorted at the air, knowing, somehow, that a fierce and joyous challenge lay before him. She hitched up the brown robe she’d chosen for its similarity to a novice’s robe and mounted her favored steed, realizing as she did so that riding in on a great, black, pampered stallion would negate the essence of humility she’d sought with the robe. Silently she laughed. There was never an escape from it; she was and always would be the Empir.
“My Liege,” Kopol said, grabbing Pharaoh’s reins, “I must caution you once more that it is unsafe for you to have only one guard as an escort. There could be an assassin up there.”
“True,” Lisen replied, “but not likely at the end of an unscheduled journey.”
“A spy could have alerted the villain.”
“Who got here sooner than we?” She shook her head. “Besides, I have unseen weapons. Commander, I appreciate your concern, but I do not share it. Perhaps I should. But keep in mind that my mother’s assassination was the act of someone she brought with her, someone trusted. If only one of you is with me, then I am safer than my mother for it.”
“Aye, my Liege.”
“Let’s go.” She urged Pharaoh onto the docking platform and into the clearing. At the other end was the lower end of the path up to Solsta. She’d known every hill, every gully, every rock of this island once, but things change over time—water and wind forever remodeling the landscape. She pulled to a halt and looked back on the barge and the guards. “Passings take time,” she said to them all. “Do not even think of sending anyone to check on me for a day. And if and when you come, you will find your commander in the dining hall. Do not disturb the hermits. Understood?”
“Aye, my Liege,” a captain said, and pulling the hood of her robe up, she whirled Pharaoh around and urged him into a slow trot. She didn’t want the trip up to take so long they were in the dark before they reached the top.
Kopol’s gelding lacked Pharaoh’s muscle bulk, but he was strong enough to keep up most of the way, and when Lisen heard the gelding’s breathing start to heave a bit, she reined Pharaoh into a walk. They reached the receiving yard at the base of the haven proper just as the light waned and blinked out to nothing, like a candle losing its flame, and several hermits ran out to them, one with a torch to guide their way.
“Once I know Hermit Eloise’s condition,” Lisen instructed Kopol before the hermits reached them, “I’ll let you know. In the meantime, have them remove all the tack from the horses and stable them.”
“Aye, my Liege.”
A young hermit grabbed Pharaoh’s reins, and Lisen dismounted.
“I’m here to see Hermit Eloise on behalf of her niece. Does she still live?”
“Hermit Eloise?” the young hermit replied. “Aye, but her time is close.”
“She’s in the infirmary, I assume?”
“Aye.”
Lisen stepped around Pharaoh and the young hermit to head up the stairs leading into the haven.
“You’ll need someone to take you.”
“She’s Empir Ariannas,” she heard Kopol tell the hermit, “once known as Lisen of Solsta. She knows the way.”
Lisen pulled her hood down and turned back to the hermit.
“Oh, forgive me, my Liege.”
“You’ve never seen me. How could you expect to know me?”
“Well…” The hermit hesitated. “We were warned you might come.”
“Of course you were,” Lisen said, then muttered under her breath, “Damn sooth.”
As Lisen marched through the door that led to the hallway that paralleled the sanctuary, she started pulling off her gloves which she then looped over her belt. As she made her way up the stairs to the infirmary, she couldn’t avoid the rising spectre of her last memories of this place—following Eloise, her head reeling from her first encounter with Opseth’s push lingering in the assassin’s mind. More encounters would follow over the next months, and eventually she and Eloise would silence the rogue, but the intensity of it had astounded her. She’d kept demanding that Eloise tell her more. Eloise, being Eloise, never had.
She followed the hallway that divided the sanctuary from the residence area all the way to the back of the building, and there, she ascended the rock steps that cut into the mountain’s spine, looking upward, ever upward. Lisen had loved this stairway as a child; now, it reminded her of the complex tunnels and chambers in Mesa Terses.
She reached the door to the infirmary, the first door to her right on the second level of the residence, and she made to knock but hesitated. Her stomach twisted, and her hands opened to force the inevitable away. She’d been here before, many times. Once
in the reality of her mother’s death, and then, over the years, in nightmares, where she’d repeatedly been forced to watch her mother die while she stood by unable to save her. Now she was here again, and this time it was Eloise, the slippery sooth. But she was here, and by now the entire haven knew she was. She took a deep breath, brought her hand up again and this time rapped lightly.
“Enter.” She recognized the voice, found it hard to believe her ears. Titus. She lifted the latch and opened the door.
Inside a simpler scene than she remembered from her mother’s passing greeted her. Just Eloise on a cot with Titus the healer in a chair beside her. The dying hermit opened her eyes and targeted her gaze directly on Lisen. Still lucid, Lisen thought.
“The Empir arrives,” Eloise croaked out in a voice weak yet founded on a mental firmness that Lisen couldn’t help but admire.
“And what have we here?” Lisen said. “The woman who stole my life from me and the man who held my memories when she did so.”
Titus rose, slightly bent over, hands in the opposite sleeves of his robe, the whole of his being proclaiming humility.
“My Liege.”
“Not here, Titus. Here I am simply Lisen.”
“She’s been waiting for you. I don’t know how she’s held out this long.”
“I can speak for myself,” Eloise said, the words cracking apart from inside.
“I leave her to you,” Titus said, conceding to the power swirling around him. “May One Be, my…Your Grace.”
“One Is,” Lisen replied, ignoring his clumsy shift from “my Liege” to the reverent reference applied to a necropath about to perform her function, all while Lisen’s eyes never wavered from the figure in the bed. Titus left the room, latching the door behind him. “So,” Lisen said to Eloise now that they were alone, “are you really dying?”
“Yes,” Eloise replied with a follow-up cough, sounding appropriately death defying.
Lisen lifted her robe up and pulled it off. Underneath she wore a bright orange tunic—her way of bringing Korin with her. “Pardon me. The robe is confining,” she explained, then sat down on the chair that Titus had left to her. Eloise’s hair had gone completely white, much like Elsba’s years ago.
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