The Stone of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  He brooded over his fate and that of the captive women, of whom he had seen little since the ship first set out; he worried, too, about his friends in Maurainia. What explanation, if any, had been offered them for his sudden disappearance? Would the Patriarch say that Damion and the others must have fled, resisting arrest? He would have to explain the disappearance of his “converts,” too, in a way that avoided embarrassment. One thing was certain: Kaithan Athariel would never believe the charges made against his friend. Witchcraft! He could almost hear Kaith’s contemptuous laughter. But Kaithan could do nothing, and neither could anyone else. The abbot and prior were probably in prison by now, and Ana’s followers routed out and punished. They’ll never know what really happened to me or the women, he thought. Perhaps they all think we’re dead. And before long we may well be.

  He searched for ways to distract himself from these hideous thoughts. The Mohara man Jomar was also on the ship, though Damion saw very little of him. Jomar kept apart from the other men whenever possible. Perhaps their Zimbouran prejudice would not let them accept him as one of them, or perhaps Jomar himself did not care for their company. While the Zimbouran soldiers and seamen passed the time with dice games or wrestling matches, the Mohara man held aloof, taking long drafts from a tin flask he kept in a pocket. He had found a dark corner behind some ration barrels, not far from the stabling area, for these drinking bouts: the area was ill-lit, redolent of moldy straw and dung, and most of the other men avoided it. After what felt like an age without speaking to another living soul, Damion finally risked stealing over to the spot and engaging the Mohara man in furtive, whispered conversation. The priest had no doubt about the contents of the flask: after several drinks Jomar became less reserved and his tongue loosened. No doubt he had been raiding one of the rum kegs. Sometimes in his inebriated state he forgot to lower his voice, and spoke in his full booming baritone, much to the priest’s alarm. But the Zimbourans never came to investigate—they were accustomed, no doubt, to Jomar’s little bouts. By approaching him when he was in these tipsily expansive moods, Damion was able to piece the man’s past together, like assembling the fragments of an old mosaic. The completed picture was not a pleasant one. Jomar, after repeatedly refusing to divulge his age, finally revealed that he did not know it. His father was a high-ranking Zimbouran who had risked an illicit liaison with a Mohara woman. Angry Valdur-clerics, on learning of the miscegenation, had raided the house when Jomar was still unborn, arrested his father, and dispatched the unlucky mother and her infant to a labor camp. Damion had heard fearful rumors of these places, of the squalor and brutality that took place in them.

  “How did you get out of it?” he asked.

  Jomar’s eyes grew deep with memory. “When I was big enough I was sent out with a work party, building a road in the desert for King Zedekara. Hot as blazes by day, cold at night as . . . as a Zimbouran’s heart.” He glanced around, evidently hoping this had been overheard, but either none of the Zimbourans was within earshot or they did not understand Maurish. “We had no tents or anything to sleep in at night,” he continued. “We had to lie on the ground, in groups for safety, with a fire for protection if we were lucky. Wild animals used to come right up to our camps after dark. Now and then a lion or leopard would drag someone off. We’d hear screams in the night, maybe find some blood on the sand next day.

  “One night a lion attacked my camp, grabbed a man lying right next to me. I ran at the brute—all I had was this big rock-pick for digging. I must have been out of my mind. Next thing I knew the lion was lying dead at my feet, with the pick in its skull.”

  “You killed a lion with a pick?” repeated Damion. He believed the story: there was something in Jomar’s terse unadorned narrative that gave the ring of truth. “That’s . . . amazing.”

  “It was stupid,” corrected the Mohara man, turning morose. He took a swig from his flask. “The Zimbourans heard all about it, and before I knew what was happening I was sent back to the city—to the Royal Arena. They called me the Mulatto, and they made me fight lions and Shurkanese saber-tooths. Gladiators, too. I was a challenge—they threw everything they had at me, hoping to kill me. They couldn’t. The Mulatto won every time.” Jomar gave a fierce grin.

  Damion smiled too. “Ah! I thought you were holding back when you fought with me, back there in Maurainia. But tell me, how did you get out of the arena?”

  “One of their generals bought me—thought he’d put my strength to some use.”

  He had seen action in the uprising against King Zedekara, he said. He had been happy to oppose the forces of that hated monarch, fighting so well that, had it not been for his skin color, he would have been rewarded after Khalazar’s triumph. Instead they had used him as a spy in foreign countries—first Shurkana, then the Archipelagoes and Maurainia. It was a role he detested, and had undertaken only in the hope that he might somehow manage to escape while in one of these foreign lands. But as a highly valued slave he was kept under close guard. His partner in many of these missions was the man called Medalar Hyron, whose real name was Zefron Shezzek.

  “He’s a brute,” Jomar growled. “Rotten to the core. They say his mother was a Maurainian woman who was snatched off a ship by pirates and sold to a Zimbouran noble. Half-breeds aren’t accepted in Zimboura, so he’s spent his entire life trying to claw his way up through the ranks. He managed to convince Khalazar’s generals that he’d make a good spy since he doesn’t look Zimbouran. They agreed, and they’ve kept him busy ever since.”

  “Why is he being sent up north then? There surely can’t be much spying to do there.”

  Jomar shrugged. “Don’t know. But Shezzek’s a little too good at what he does. Khalazar likes to keep his more dangerous servants far from home, and out of his rivals’ hands.” A little silence fell; then Jomar looked at Damion again. “I knew you were in that trash heap in the alley, back on Jana. You couldn’t have gone anywhere else in that short a time. I could have told the Zimbourans where you were.”

  Damion looked at him, startled. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I never help them more than I have to. When General Mazur bought me, he said he would kill one Mohara slave for every time I disobeyed him, or if I ran away. I believed he would do it. That threat held me for years. My own people thought I was a traitor, a collaborator: if I rode by a slave camp they would spit at me, and there was no way I could explain it to them. I found little ways of defying the Zims—but they had to be secret ways.”

  Damion nodded in sudden understanding. “When you realized Lorelyn would be killed, you had to choose one life over another.”

  Jomar took a long swig from his flask, and made no reply. Damion reflected with rising anger that it likely had amused the Zimbourans to see Jomar reviled as a traitor when in truth he was saving Mohara lives. How wounding it must have been, and how it would have twisted the man’s mind over the years. If only fate had let him remain in Maurainia, and not doomed him to this hopeless voyage. Damion’s concerns for himself faded, thrust aside by the poignant shade of a Jomar that might have been.

  DURING THIS TIME the three women were locked away in one of the lower stern cabins, a windowless prison of a room. There were two bunk beds with thin dirty mattresses, and a third mattress flung down on the floor. An oil lamp dangled from the ceiling on a chain. Beyond the sloping walls they could hear the roar and thud of the waves, and through the locked door came the bellowing of Zimbouran voices. Three times a day the door was unlocked, and they were allowed into the main part of the lower deck, where they were given the same rations as the sailors and slaves: ship’s biscuit soaked in a pail to make it soft enough to eat, sometimes with salt fish or leathery preserved meat. A small water barrel in one corner of their cabin supplied their only drink. It was replenished at times, but not as often as any of them would have liked, and they were often maddened by thirst.

  Some clothing was provided for them, loose, rough robes of the sort Zimbouran men wore, as two of them had only t
he dresses they were wearing when they were caught. These were not particularly clean. Lorelyn shared the other contents of her satchel, which she had managed to keep with her. A bucket of seawater was occasionally provided to them for washing.

  It did not help that much of Lorelyn’s and Ana’s story was fantastical, the stuff of faerie tales. Lorelyn’s talk of hearing other people’s voices in her head was quite incredible, and Ana’s calm acceptance of that claim even more disturbing. Indeed, the old woman claimed to possess a similar power. “I see all that I need to see,” she explained, gesturing to her filmy eyes. “Light—and darkness. The rest I am content to perceive with my inner eye.” Ailia felt sometimes that she was shut in a madhouse, sometimes that she herself was going mad.

  “They . . . kidnapped me,” she said out loud, as if trying to convince herself that all of this was actually happening. It was so like something from one of her own stories or daydreams that even now it seemed unreal. “They took me because they thought I was a witch—” She broke off and drew up her feet as a rat scuttled across the floorboards.

  Ana turned to her with a kindly expression. “I know it’s all very tiresome for you,” she said, addressing both girls. “And for poor Damion too. I am truly sorry about what happened. But for my part, I can’t complain. I wanted to go north, and I couldn’t find any sea captain willing to go there. Now here I am, well on my way—it’s positively providential.” She broke off a piece of ship’s biscuit and held it out to the rat, which took it tamely from her fingers and darted away again.

  “Ana—” Ailia protested.

  “The conditions aren’t all one could wish for, it’s true,” the elderly woman added, “but I can hardly complain, as I’m getting free passage—”

  “But Ana—you’re a prisoner. We’re all prisoners!” Ailia almost screamed.

  “For the time being. We’ll part company with our disagreeable hosts when we arrive at our destination.”

  Ailia relapsed into a despairing silence. She wondered what story the Patriarch had told her family. They would never believe she had participated in witchcraft! But even if they didn’t believe the tale, what could they do? They didn’t even know where the Zimbourans had taken her. She shifted about, trying to get comfortable. Her legs were growing stiff. She tried to stand up, but the rocking motion of the ship defeated her, and she lay back again groaning. Go away, don’t be real, she urged the wooden walls. But they stubbornly persisted. “None of this is happening, I must be dreaming it all.”

  “Ailia, it’s been days—weeks. You can’t have been dreaming all that time,” pointed out Lorelyn with ruthless logic.

  “Perhaps I’ve got a fever and I’m delirious,” Ailia suggested hopefully. “I’m not really here, but safe in bed in the sanatorium having fever-dreams—Ow!” she yelped as Lorelyn leaned over and pinched her arm. “What did you do that for?”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Of course it hurt!”

  “Well, then you’re not dreaming.” Lorelyn turned back to Ana. “So you think you were somehow meant to end up on this ship? But what about the rest of us? Why am I here, and what has it all got to do with me? I wish you would tell me what this is all about.”

  “Yes, I suppose I should. I did not want to frighten you, but it is certainly time you knew. You are the focus of all this, the nexus,” said Ana. “In a way, we are all here because of you. The man Jomar was told by both of his masters to find you; Damion tried to take you from Mandrake; Ailia went into the ruin to find and comfort you. And I, too, went to look for you when I heard that you were gone. For despite the note you left, I thought Mandrake might well have something to do with your disappearance. You—or the Fates—have brought us all together for some common destiny.”

  “My Purpose,” the girl breathed.

  “I told you about the Tryna Lia,” Ana began.

  “Yes, but I still don’t understand. I thought she wasn’t supposed to be a real person,” Lorelyn persisted.

  “In western tradition she became a symbol, the personification of the Faith,” Ana explained. “But the original Elei lore spoke of her as a real, living being. The coming of the Tryna Lia was foretold by the queen of Trynisia more than two thousand years ago. The Elei believed that a time of great evil and suffering would come, when the world would fall under the rule of a wicked tyrant. But they also believed that another great leader would be born, a woman who would bear the title of Tryna Lia—Princess of the Stars. She would be born human, but her true nature would be divine. According to Elei beliefs, you see, the gods vowed never again to intervene directly in the lives of mortals unless they were explicitly asked to do so by the mortals themselves. And they were not to take corporeal form anymore unless they became incarnate—born into human form, assuming not only flesh but the vulnerable nature that goes with it. So the Elei looked for their divine Princess to be born as one of them.”

  “And you think she’s me,” said Lorelyn. “Who were my parents then? I would have to be the daughter of a king, wouldn’t I, to be a princess?”

  “Not necessarily. The word is merely the feminine form of ‘prince,’ which can mean any high-ranking ruler.”

  Ailia looked hard at Lorelyn, frowning. She didn’t believe for a moment all this nonsense about her classmate being . . . that person. She’s just an ordinary person—like me, like anybody else! She recalled her glimpse of Princess Paisia riding in majesty through the streets in her carriage. Now that was true royalty. Princess Lorelyn? Impossible! And as for her being divine . . . It was all too ridiculous. But the Zimbourans, it appeared, believed otherwise.

  “I have strange dreams sometimes,” said Lorelyn slowly, “or at least I think they are dreams. I see pictures in my head just as I’m falling asleep: places I’ve never been to, faces of people I’ve never met.”

  “A white palace, perhaps, with many towers?” Ana prompted. “And a woman with long golden hair?”

  Lorelyn started, a look of wonder on her face. “How did you know about that?” she asked in a low voice. “I’ve had that dream for years, but I never told anyone.”

  “Because I have had the same visions, many a time. And so have the other Nemerei. Lorelyn, that woman may have been your mother.”

  “Mother . . .” Lorelyn spoke the word softly. “When I was very young I thought I could just remember . . . arms that held me, and a gentle voice. But the face was never there, I couldn’t find it—I didn’t think of it being the golden-haired lady in my dream. I didn’t think she was real. If she is my mother, then what became of her?”

  “That I do not know.”

  “Was she an Elei? Am I?” demanded Lorelyn.

  “I believe so. You have a look of the Elei, certainly: like them you’re uncommonly tall, and then there are your special abilities.”

  “Ailia told me the Elei died out ages ago.”

  “They did,” put in Ailia from her corner.

  Ana smiled. “Perhaps not.”

  Ailia stared at her, and at the long-limbed, fair-haired girl. A living Elei! Could it be? No—more nonsense! But something deep within her quickened at the thought.

  “If I am this leader of theirs, what exactly is it I’m supposed to do?” pursued Lorelyn.

  “The task of the Tryna Lia is to unite Earth and Heaven: that is, institute a new era of peace and justice to make the earthly realm more like the heavenly one. But to do this she must first conquer the Dark Prince.”

  “And who is he?”

  “Ah, if only we knew that, we might rest more easily! We would be able to trace his movements then, and not always wonder from what quarter the attack will come. The Dark Prince is our enemy’s champion, a mighty warlord who will rise up in obedience to the commands of the Fiend. The Nemerei say this man will lose his soul and become only an empty vessel for the Fiend’s dark will, and so our ancient enemy will escape the bottomless Pit to which he was imprisoned long ago. But the Zimbourans say the Prince will be Valdur incarnate. King Khalazar beli
eves this, and that he is the one foretold; and your life has been spared for that reason. The prophecy of the scroll clearly states that the Prince and the Tryna Lia will battle over the Star Stone, but also that she will come to it first. Remember, the king is a very superstitious man, and takes the prophecies quite literally. Though he fears and hates you, he has not attempted to murder you because he also believes a doom cannot be denied. You must go to Trynisia, for so it is written: you must take up the Stone, and only then can he seize it from you. He cannot slay you unless the Stone is present, nor can he take the Stone unless you find it first. I know it seems odd, but in Zimboura even the gods are believed to be bound by fate. And let us be thankful for those beliefs, because so far they have kept you alive.”

  “But only for now. He’ll kill me later,” said Lorelyn. Her voice was flat and toneless, but her blue eyes were wide as they looked into Ana’s.