Protector of Thristas: A Lisen of Solsta Novel

by D. Hart St. Martin

  Sitting cross-legged in the farthest corner of the candle-lit chamber of rock, Rinli combed her fingers through her hair. She unbraided and re-braided it after every meal they brought her. She could have left it alone, but what else did she have to do? The ritual of tending to her long dark hair placed her in a state of ultimate thoughtfulness, able to consider her predicament. And she truly needed to make sense of where she was and why.

  Other than the arrival of food and the removal of her plate a little while later, she made her own schedule. She had no sense of time. She slept when she felt like it, woke up when her eyes opened, eliminated in the small depression in the far corner of her cell whenever required and spent the rest of the time contemplating every mistake she’d ever made in her life, especially the truly stupid one that had precipitated her incarceration in a cell she couldn’t really even move about in.

  Madlen and Hozia did all they could to make the situation bearable. They’d been here a sleep cycle ago, and Madlen had gently reminded her what day it was. One day later now, and she was beginning the fourth week of her imprisonment.

  As she braided, she remembered how she would hide in the library upstairs in the Keep. It was generally a safe place for her to be alone, but the difference between alone there and here was she had nothing to read. Oh, how she’d love to hide in that library right now, surrounded by scrolls and all the documents her mother and Uncle Nalin had gathered together from everywhere in the Keep. And her mother had assured her that more documents were likely hidden in places they hadn’t found yet. A treasure trove for a young woman who loved learning about how things had come to be what they were in Garla. The Thristans didn’t keep records in writing; they told stories which Rinli thought should be recorded in writing for somebody’s posterity.

  She could hear the mumbling of the guards outside, but the little hole that allowed access to her little hole blocked anything meaningful in the listening. They didn’t talk a lot, but when they did, it usually meant something or someone was about to make their way into her space. Too soon for Madlen and Hozia, she thought. A meal perhaps? Hadn’t it only been a couple of hours since she’d last eaten? She quickly finished her braid and tied it with the thong and then waited. If something were coming, it would come soon.

  She heard the shuffling of someone crawling into the hole from the other side, and soon Elder Hozia emerged, a smile spread across her face. Why?

  “Your father is here and has a message for you.”

  “Tell me,” Rinli replied.

  “He says, ‘I have fulfilled my promise,’” Hozia said solemnly. “And now that he’s back, your trial will move forward. You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’ll be here to see you soon.” Hozia smiled at her and then left, and Rinli was alone again. But not nearly so alone as she’d been but a moment ago. Her father’s words had told her all she needed to know. Her mother was nearby as well, and they had a plan.

  Lisen paced back and forth, unable to sleep, unable to settle—fired, hammered, then honed sharp in preparation for the battle to come. She wanted to strike, now, and she wished that she hadn’t let Korin talk her out of sending Kopol out to find her some gryl.

  “My Liege, please,” the commander said from where she lay in her bedroll. “You should rest. Korin can’t possibly get back before tomorrow.”

  “He’s near. I feel him.”

  In the dark, Lisen felt Kopol shrug and then settle back to sleep. Her senses flew on the wind and sparkled like the stars. She was ready; where was her spouse?

  A rustling at the mouth of the cave alerted her, and she put her hand on her knife.

  “It’s me,” she heard Korin say, and she released her hold on the knife. She went to him and placed her hand over his heart, a gesture which he returned. “Why no fire?” he asked.

  “I thought it might be seen. I didn’t want to announce our presence.”

  “Good.”

  She waited. She waited for him to begin telling her everything, but he hesitated.

  “Rinli. How is she?”

  Korin sighed, and she wanted to hit him. Just tell me.

  “She’s well. I can tell you what I know as we ride back to Terses.”

  “No. You’re exhausted. You say the desert isn’t so hot this time of year. We can go in the morning.”

  “But…”

  “No. Sleep. I’ll worry for both of us.” She led him to a blanket she’d laid out for him. “And I won’t be riding. If you show up with two horses but not a second rider, it will look suspicious. It will take longer, but it will be safer if I walk and cloak myself as I do.”

  “Maker and Destroyer, Lisen. Don’t be ridiculous. We can make your horse look like a pack horse.”

  “You’re riding back from who knows where. You’ve arrived, left and then arrived again in only a couple of days. Isn’t that enough suspicion?”

  “I left the horse outside far enough away from the entrance that I doubt anyone saw it. I didn’t venture out of my chamber. Nobody but Hozia saw me, and I let her tell Rinli I was back. So I think a public arrival with an extra horse won’t conjure up any talk.”

  “How will you explain your departure three weeks ago?”

  “Part truth, part fabrication. I rode to Avaret to get your help, and you refused. They’ll find that easy to believe. So now I’m back for good, with all my belongings.”

  “I think that’s the perfect plan,” Kopol spoke up. “Now, Korin, get some sleep so I can get some sleep, too.”

  “It’s tempting,” Korin replied.

  “Then sleep,” Lisen said, leaning in to feast briefly on the comfort of his warm and musky scent.

  He finally relented and dropped to the floor of the cave. He lay down and pulled the blanket up over him. Lisen sat down beside him, her mind and all its magic soaring, and stroked his head as he slowly drifted off. He mumbled a few words she couldn’t understand, and in the end, his breathing settled into the slow rhythm of slumber. Lisen sent her thoughts flying to Rinli, trying to find her but failing. Soon, Daughter. I am coming.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE GREY ONE

  Korin pulled his horse to a halt, watched as the horse he supposedly led by a rein pulled up on its own beside him and shook his head before he spoke. “We’re safe here.”

  The haze lifted from his mind, and as Lisen came back into focus on the other horse, he wondered how anybody could avoid knowing they’d experienced the push. Of course, she’d warned him in advance that the only way for her to maintain her cloaking from the sight of those who might be watching was to push indiscriminately. Which had meant his inclusion. She’d asked his permission to do this, and if his entire world hadn’t lain quivering at his feet in potential destruction, he might have declined. But getting Lisen into the mesa and to Rinli unseen was the only hope of saving his poor, threatened world.

  Lisen threw her right leg over her horse’s hind quarters and slid off the horse she’d ridden bareback for the crossing. “My legs are wobbly,” she commented and looked up at the mesa rising above them.

  Korin dismounted and stepped over to her. “I can’t believe you carried that off,” he said.

  “I feel like I’ve been holding my breath since yesterday morning.”

  “The only way I could tell you were with me,” Korin said as he started to shift the packs around on her horse, “was when you talked. That was eerie.”

  “Well, we’re nowhere near out of the woods yet.”

  He adjusted the packs. From a distance he’d figured no one would be able to see the space obviously left apparently empty where Lisen had sat. But now Lisen would walk the last few steps, and his pack horse had to look like a packed horse up close.

  “All right,” he said as he finished, “so you go in with me, start up the tunnel while I’m unloading the horses and meet me at my chamber.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “And Hozia? Is she with us?”


  “I told you. Last night.”

  Lisen shook her head. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Before I fell asleep.”

  “You mumbled something, but…”

  Korin shook his head. “I’m sorry. Hozia is prepared to take you to see Rin.”

  Lisen sighed. “Good.”

  “So, shall we?”

  She nodded, and Korin sensed the impediment she placed in his mind as she disappeared from his sight. The feeling itself wasn’t unpleasant, but the thought of what it stole from him left him feeling anxious, out of control.

  He led both horses into the stable, then felt just the barest whoosh of air as Lisen moved past him and up the tunnel.

  “Korin, you’re back,” the stable hand greeted him. This one was new, and Korin didn’t know her name.

  “For good this time.” He and Lisen had agreed that it would be best for their purposes if he gave them reason to believe he’d deserted Avaret when she’d refused to help with Rinli.

  “It’s a hard journey, back and forth, the way you do.”

  “Not anymore. There’s nothing left there for me.” He began pulling his belongings from the horse.

  “Pity. Here, let me help you.”

  “I’m nearly done,” Korin replied as he unbuckled the last of them and lifted it off to drop it beside the others on the floor. He arranged them in some semblance of balance and hefted them, then headed up the tunnel. When he reached his quarters, he found Madlen standing, blocking the door.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “She wouldn’t come,” he replied. “It wasn’t safe.” He hated lying to her most of all. She’d placed all her hopes in him, but he couldn’t let on that Lisen was here. Consciously, she’d never betray Rinli in any way, but a statement, inappropriate for the circumstances, at just the wrong moment might give it all away. “Could you let Elder Hozia know I’m back?” He suspected Madlen had blocked Lisen’s entrance into his chamber and that she was out here waiting to get in, vulnerable.

  He felt even worse about shutting Madlen out when he saw the tears welling up in her eyes. “All right.” She turned—whirled really, with her robe swirling around her—and headed up the tunnel. He entered his chamber and waited. A breath of wind and the curtain seemed to close by itself. His mind hardened back up, released from the softening pressure of the push, and Lisen stood before him.

  “I wanted to hug her, poor thing,” she said.

  “I think she’s worse off than Rin,” Korin replied.

  Lisen pulled her hood up over her grey cloak. “I’ll huddle here in the corner until Hozia comes.”

  Korin stared at her back, how she’d hunched over and almost blended into the rock. She’s the grey one, he realized and stifled a gasp. “The Grey One shall guide the child, allowing it to grow and mature and teaching it the ways of power,” the prophecy said. And then comes the lying “as though dead” and heeding the “Maker’s call.” Korin grew sick at the thought of this prophecy manifesting in its fullness. It meant that Rinli would die, and he set no faith in anyone’s magic, even Mantar’s magic, in bringing her back. He’d set Rinli up as Mantar’s Child because it was a convenient way in which to keep her alive once The People learned who her mother was. But would it now just turn around and take her away? No one believed in the damn prophecy anymore anyway.

  “Korin?”

  Hozia’s voice, outside the curtain. A closed curtain in the mesa was sacrosanct, and even an Elder would not pass through without an invitation.

  “Yes, enter,” Korin replied.

  The curtain shifted slightly to admit the Elder, and she checked it was fully closed before she turned to look at Korin. “Madlen said you needed to see me?”

  Korin sensed Lisen rising to his left.

  “Yes, Elder,” she said. Hozia’s eyes widened, and Korin suspected she saw what he’d seen—the grey one. “I wish to see my daughter. I must have a day of uninterrupted time with her. Is that possible?”

  “The Defenders have orders to allow no one to spend more than a few minutes with her.”

  “No one, save you, knows I’m here. Do you know how that is? I cloaked myself in a push of invisibility. All I need is for you, or someone, to get me in there—unseen, of course—and I will handle the rest. Do you understand?”

  “Trust me, Hozia,” Korin added. “We crossed the desert from the Rim, and I never saw her, not once.”

  “Impressive,” Hozia said. “But you should know that now that Korin has returned, the Elders’ Council will call for Rinli’s trial in the next day or so.”

  “Give me whatever time you can before that. Please.”

  Korin hadn’t heard Lisen plead for anything since their return from Thristas while he was still her guardian and she, the secret Heir to Garla.

  “I will need a few moments. I will return.” And Hozia slipped through the curtain and was gone.

  Lisen sighed. “You really trust her?”

  “There is no one I trust more than her save you,” Korin replied.

  Lisen nodded. “All right then, we wait.”

  The waiting was unbearable. Lisen, settled into her huddle in the corner, leaned against Korin who’d sat down beside her right after Hozia had left. She’d thanked him for the comfort, and they’d said nothing since. All the time on the road, all the time waiting in the cave on the Rim, the day and night of riding across the desert, and she remained bereft of a plan for Rinli. Their time together would be limited, and Lisen didn’t want to waste a minute. But her usually clear mind had clouded over with immediacy and panic, and she couldn’t harness one damn thought at all.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she whispered, and Korin leaned in and brushed his lips across her cheek.

  “You’ll know when you need to. You always do.”

  She nodded and felt her stomach knot up to the point where she might never be able to eat again. Korin’s confidence was eternal and a blessing, but for the first time since ancient memory, she feared it might be misplaced.

  “Korin?”

  Hozia’s soft voice broke through Lisen’s frightened reverie, and Korin rose from her side.

  “Enter.”

  Lisen rose once she heard the curtain pulled closed. “Well?” she asked.

  “I can take you right now,” Hozia replied. “I will have to stay a few minutes because I asked to be the one to explain to Rinli that with her father’s return, the trial will begin tomorrow. It took everything I had to convince the Elders to put it off a night. So whatever you’re going to do, you’ve got a little over a day and a night to do it.”

  “Thank you,” Lisen said, feeling breath return to her lungs and blood begin pumping through her body again.

  “This invisibility,” Hozia said. “Will I be able to see you?”

  “No. The only way I can sustain it is to push in all directions.”

  “Then take my hand and walk briskly.”

  Lisen looked to Korin. “Go,” he said.

  “See if you can get permission to see her while I’m there.” Lisen could hear the pleading again in her voice.

  Korin nodded. “Yes, of course I will.”

  “Now,” Hozia said, impatience weighting her tone. “The Defenders at her cell will be waiting for me.”

  “Of course. Give me a second to prepare.” Lisen reached her hand out to hold Hozia’s, closed her eyes and emptied Korin’s chamber, the tunnels, the entire mesa of her presence. I’m not here. There is nothing to see.

  “Interesting feeling,” Hozia said. “I can’t see you, but I feel your hand in mine. So this is hermit magic.”

  “Extreme hermit magic,” Lisen replied, and Hozia didn’t flinch at the sound of a disembodied voice.

  “Let’s go.” The Elder led Lisen out into the tunnels, up and around, up a little more, then down, and down, and around again, until Lisen felt dizzy with confusion, but she set the puzzle of her whereabouts aside to keep her lack of presence in place. Eventually they came to t
he end of a tunnel where two individuals in dark robes—one male, one female—stood unmoving before them.

  “Elder,” one of them said, and Lisen realized that the Elders had chosen these guards because they exhibited an ability to block some thought-changing intrusions into their minds.

  Thank the Creators I’m stronger, she thought as she realized they saw nothing where she stood.

  “As the prisoner’s advocate, I am here to inform her of the time and day of her trial.”

  The two guards parted to reveal a hole large enough for one person at a time to pass through. Hozia moved the hand holding Lisen’s hand ever so slightly, and Lisen took that as an indication that she was to pass through first.

  “Thank you,” Hozia said as Lisen crawled through the hole. “You and your comrades have truly taken great care in your treatment of your prisoner. Please pass my gratitude on to them.”

  “Of course, Elder,” Lisen heard a gruff voice reply. She’d tumbled into the tiny chamber and could see Rinli puzzling over the sounds she couldn’t identify, but Lisen didn’t dare reveal herself until Hozia had entered as well. She heard Hozia scrambling through, and once she had righted herself inside the chamber, Lisen relaxed her hold on the minds of others. Rinli’s expression brightened, and she smiled and nearly spoke.

  “Quiet, girl,” Hozia ordered.

  “Yes, Elder,” Rinli said, still beaming at her mother.

  Hozia continued. “I’ve come to tell you that your father has returned.” Rinli nodded enthusiastically at that. “And that your trial is scheduled for tomorrow night. You will have more than a full sleep cycle to prepare.”

  “I understand,” Rinli replied.

  Lisen took Hozia’s hands in her own. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  “They can hear little more than mumbling outside,” Hozia explained quietly, “and that, only when spoken in a normal voice.”

  “Yes,” Lisen said.

  “Prepare yourself well, Rinli child of Korin,” Hozia said in farewell, then crawled into the hole and worked her way back out, leaving Lisen alone with her daughter.