The Flight from Kar (The Emperor's Library

by Frederick Kirchhoff

  You should not despair, she told him. It is good to love, and it is also good to share what you feel. You have told us a wonderful story. The male Rand nodded in agreement. These were both her words and his, Jon realized.

  Then the woman came forward, and she and the man both put their hands on Jon’s chest. Only then did he realize how short they were. Their heads only came up to his shoulders. But their touch was gentle and warm. A soothing heat moved from their fingers through his body. It gave him great happiness.

  Thank you, he told them, for the first time using the internal voice the Rand were using.

  The woman nodded.

  Then they removed their hands, turned, and moved away together.

  You’re not leaving?

  It’s time for you to go back to your friends.

  “My arrowhead. Please return my arrowhead,” he blurted out, returning involuntarily to human speech.

  But it was broken. It didn’t work correctly. We’ve given you a new one.

  It was evident that the man wasn’t following this conversation. He put his hand on the woman. Then Jon could hear his words through her.

  I will keep it safely for you, Jon. I want to see if it can be repaired. Trust me. We’re your friends.

  I know you are my friends.

  Jon took the undamaged arrowhead the man had given him between his fingers and held it up in front of him.

  “But this is yours, “he told him.

  Not any more. I have given it to you. I will have a new one made for myself.

  Wear it for us, the woman told him. And in time it will teach you to see the world through our eyes and make you strong.

  Then she and the man turned away again and walked across the sand toward the mountains. Jon followed them with his eyes until their figures disappeared among the trees. Why hadn’t he asked them about the ruins? In his excitement, he’d forgotten the question.

  ▲

  Wearing the new arrowhead, the intimations of feeling Jon had previously experienced were now sharply defined. He wasn’t sure he liked the change, for the torrent of information was overwhelming. When you knew that much about another person, how were you supposed to act? Yet, surely the Rand must have solved this problem. In time, he’d learn, too.

  The next morning, Jon led them over the pass, with Zoë at his side. When they reached the spot where he and John had first caught sight of the sea, he suppressed an impulse to pause, increasing his pace determinedly. Would Zoë notice? No, she had something else on her mind.

  “Wait!” Zoë called out. “Let’s allow the others to catch up. I want to absorb the view. You don’t always get a chance to see terrain from this vantage, and it gives you a better idea of the geography. I see the islands you told us about, but there are three, not two. And the s-shaped river. What a good place to build a port—although it would need better inland access than this pass.

  “You came here with John once, ” she added, making it almost but not quite a question.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s something I should tell you. I don’t know how you’ll take it, but I’ve wanted to say it for a long time.”

  Jon was silent. He couldn’t tell what Zoë was going to say, but he knew she feared giving him pain.

  “It has to do with my brother. John cared very much about you—from the first. Did you know that? He told me the story of meeting you over and over again, and I knew he hoped you’d come to the forest. That’s why I was in the woods the morning I found you. He’d asked me to keep an eye out. He wasn’t sure you’d be coming, yet he wanted it more than anything. Not that he said so directly, but I could tell. When you’re close to a person the way I was to John you know what they’re feeling, even when they try to hide it.

  “Later I saw that the two of you had become friends but I wasn’t sure you knew how much he loved you. He loved you, you know. I was certain of that, and so was Mother. We never talked about it, but it was a fact we understood. And we wanted him to be happy. Both of us wanted that.”

  A week ago, Jon wouldn’t have known how to respond, but his encounter with the Rand had made it easier to speak about his feelings. It now seemed absurd to conceal anything from Zoë. And he knew what she wanted to hear him say.

  “I know he loved me, Zoë. And I loved him with all my heart. It was . . . everything.”

  Zoë took his hand and held it tightly.

  “My brother was a wonderful man,” she said slowly.

  “Yes, he was a very wonderful man.”

  “And I think he would be proud of us—of what we’re doing for the Emperor. Don’t you agree?”

  But had he been right in thinking he could no longer conceal this thoughts from Zoë. Jon was certain John would have been more critical of the Emperor than Zoë appeared to be.

  “I’m sure he’d be proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

  Zoë hesitated.

  “I think he’d also be proud of you, Jon, because you hold his memory in such honor—because you still love him. I know you still love him. I can tell it from watching you—the way you go off by yourself so much. Just yesterday, when you told me you wanted to be alone—I was sure it was because the last time you’d been there you’d been with John and you wanted to remember that time. You’ll always be loyal to him, won’t you?”

  The question caught him off guard. Why was she asking this? It was one thing to confess his love for John—hadn’t the Rand told him that it was a good love?—but what she was saying now sounded like the demand for a promise. He knew he’d always be loyal to John, but asking him to put it into words seemed wrong. But Zoë didn’t see that. Wasn’t loyalty her favorite word? And she expected Jon to be like her—not out of selfishness but because it was all she knew. Still, he’d stolen her brother, and now there was no way to refuse her request.

  “Yes, I will always be loyal to John.”

  “The odd thing is, you’re beginning to look like him. Did you know that?”

  “I knew there was a basic resemblance. But I look a little like you, too, Zoë.”

  “Do you? I guess so.”

  They had begun slowly walking forward, but now both turned and looked back down the slope. Klei and Marekko were standing at the spot where John had first shown Jon the ocean—the spot where Jon himself had refused to stop. Jon felt a rush of anger—what right had they to be there?—but he forced himself to stay calm. Who was he to say what anyone else should do?

  ▲

  Late the next afternoon, they reached the Forest House. Peter was gone, but toward evening the old man appeared, climbing the path with a quick step. He immediately saw that David was not with them and asked Zoë about her brother. He was relieved to learn that David had last been seen alive.

  “They brought me word about Karl,” he told her. “Like John, he died a good death—but there have been so many of them. I fear our time is over.”

  “Is Mother still at Bent Lake?”

  “Yes. And Ethel as well—although she comes back occasionally to check on me.”

  “I’ll go there tomorrow and speak to them.”

  “Not by the River Road. I just came from there. For the past ten days—until the day before yesterday—there’s been no one abroad. For months men and women have been traveling south, some a few at a time, but others in larger parties, like those from Bridgetown. But then the road grew empty, and I had a good idea what that meant. Two days ago an army of the Chosen appeared riding south. I followed and watched them establish a camp near the pass into Bent Lake. Those tattooed bastards were with them, too. I’ve never seen so many men in one place—not even when I visited the Imperial City. It made no sense to me. Why would they send so large a force here?”

  Jon had been listening intently.

  “They’ve sent a large army,” he said, “because they’ve come to obliterate the last patch of resistance to their rule. If the two valleys are theirs, no organized force will be able to oppose them.”

  “But what
force is there in the two valleys? Granted, the women will be a fierce adversary, but there’s no army in the Valley of Bent Lake.”

  “What about the fugitives you saw on the road?”

  “There were many of them—but they included old people and children, and they were fleeing war, not seeking it.”

  “Did you speak to any of them?”

  “No, I merely observed them from the forest.”

  “How many do you think there were?”

  “It’s hard to say. I wasn’t there all the time, of course—I had work to do here. But they must have numbered over five hundred, and maybe more—perhaps as many as a thousand—even two thousand. Some of the groups were quite large. I should have asked Ethel when she was here. She urged me to come back with her—that was the purpose of her most recent visit. But it didn’t seem right to leave. ‘The Emperor gave us this land,’ I told her, ‘and I don’t intend to desert my post.’”

  The Emperor, who’d been standing aside, now walked up to Peter and took his hand.

  “No emperor has had a more loyal subject than you,” he said.

  Peter looked around at the others.

  “Grandfather,” Zoë explained to him. “The man before you is the Emperor.”

  Peter withdrew his hand quickly and knelt before him.

  “Am I so terrifying that you can’t look me in the eye?” the Emperor asked him.

  “Not terrifying, Your Highness—more like a dream.”

  “I’m no dream, my friend, but a man no different from yourself.”

  “But Zoë said you were the Emperor?”

  “Indeed I am—difficult as that is to believe. Some days I have trouble believing it myself. But please stand up. This isn’t the place for ceremony. The question now is what are we going to do next?”

  “I think my grandfather’s news has already answered that question,” Zoë replied. “If the Chosen are encamped at the pass, then our only route to Bent Lake lies through the Valley of Women. Moreover, the sooner we get there the better.”

  “In that case,” the Emperor said, “we should set out tomorrow.”

  He turned to Peter.

  “And you, my friend, I want you to be with us. In times like these no one should be alone.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  How long since he’d last seen the Valley of Women? Two years and a summer—not long, measured in months, but the gap between past and present made Jon feel that his earlier life might just as well have taken place on another planet. Gazing down at the valley from the lookout, the Hall of the Mothers and the surrounding buildings, once the center of his universe, now resembled a miniature village in a box. How could he have taken it all so seriously? The boys’ annual progress to the higher cabins, formerly a law of nature, now seemed a quaint local custom. He was a new person, but the valley remained the same. Yet, even as he studied the familiar landscape, he was struck by one difference. Children were playing near the village, but the fields were empty. The able-bodied women must have left to defend their neighbors. Not out of love, he was certain, but because it was the best way to defend themselves.

  It was late in the day, but light enough for them to descend the cleft in the White Wall. Both Klei and Peter had climbed it, too—Peter in both directions—but Jon, it appeared, was expected to lead the way.

  “Follow me,” he said. “It may look frightening—I was terrified the first time—but it’s easier than you think. Just take your time. And be sure to keep the person below you at least two body-lengths away, and, above all, don’t rush it. The only real danger is trying to go too fast.”

  Most of the party were scared stiff. But, whatever he felt himself—and the fact was, he’d never descended the White Wall before—Jon would have to show confidence.

  “See, it’s not difficult,” he said, as he swung himself over the ledge. “It looks steep, but it’s actually slanted. All you have to do is lower yourself slowly from one foothold to the next. And the footholds are clear. Men have been climbing this cliff for centuries.”

  How did he know that? Yet he had no doubt about the truth of his words. And, as he lowered his body step by step, he found the climb remarkably familiar. It made no sense, but, while he knew it was his first time down, he felt as if he’d done it all his life. Had John been wrong about climbing up being easier than climbing down? Or was Jon simply more agile than he’d been two years ago?

  When he reached the ledge where he’d rested after the first stage of the climb, a cloud of fear hit him from below. He could not see them, but he knew that a group of women were waiting for them in the shadows. How many? Four? No, six. But, whatever their intentions, he’d have to face them. Beginning the final descent, the twang of a bow said it was exactly like the first time—they were trying to kill him.

  “Stop” he called down. “We’re friends.”

  Once more an arrow struck the cliff, this time only inches from his right hand.

  “Stop shooting. I’m your son—I was born in this valley.”

  “So were they all,” came a woman’s voice—full of hatred. “The Bearded Men are all our children. We give them birth and they reward us with savagery.”

  “I’m no Bearded Man. Look at me,” he shouted down.

  Jon thrust himself out as far from the rock face as he could, hoping the women would be able to see his face without taking advantage of the gesture to shoot him.

  “I recognize you,” the woman said. “You’re the one who tried to kill the other boy and was sentenced to die. It’s time you received the punishment you deserve.”

  “He deserves no punishment,” Zoë called out in a ringing voice. She had worked her way to a position immediately above Jon.

  Jon could hear the women talking among themselves, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Finally their leader spoke.

  “You, there, above the murderer—what’s your name?”

  “Zoë.”

  Again they conferred among themselves before speaking again.

  “Zoë, come down here. We want to talk to you. But the rest must stay on the mountain. If anyone tries to come further, we’ll kill them. We missed our first shots, but that was because the man was too high. If he or anyone else but Zoë tries to enter the valley, we’ll shoot at close range, and we have more than enough arrows for the lot of you.”

  “How can I come down unless Jon comes down first?” Zoë asked. “He’s blocking the passage.”

  “Is there no way around him?”

  “There’s no way around him.”

  Once more the women discussed their response before making a reply. At least one thing hadn’t changed in the Valley of Women—it took consultation for them to acknowledge the obvious.

  “Then he may come down, too. He and you, but no one else.”

  And so Jon and Zoë made their way to the bottom of the White Wall, while the women watched suspiciously. When Jon emerged from the cleft, two young women with drawn bows directed him to where the other four women were standing. Two, like the bow-women, were young, while the other two, one of whom looked familiar, were older. It was they, not the younger women, who were hostile to him—particularly the one who’d done the talking. And now he recognized her. She was the woman who’d taken him to Mother Lyla. Mary? Margaret? She had a name that began with an m. Marge—that was it.

  A moment later, Zoë reached the ground and walked over to join him.

  “If the boy is no criminal,” Marge asked her, “then why is he leading a band of warriors into our valley? When the Mothers told us we’d have to watch the White Wall, I thought it a needless precaution, but I should have known better. The Mothers are always right. I was a fool to doubt their wisdom.”

  “The men and women behind me on the mountain—yes, there are women as well as men—they’re not your enemies,” Zoë told her. “They serve the Emperor.”

  Zoë suspected if she told these women that the Emperor was among them, they’d laugh in her face—wouldn’t s
he have done that herself under the circumstances?

  “It’s not for us to judge the truth of what you’re saying. Our charge was to shoot any men we saw coming down this cliff. The Mothers said nothing about shooting women—that’s why we let you pass—and also I think I’ve heard your name before, Zoë. A woman dressed like you told us she had a daughter named Zoë. Are you that woman’s child?”

  “Yes. Her name is Helen and I am her daughter. Where is my mother now?”

  “She’s not in our valley, but she may be at Bent Lake, where most who can carry weapons are assembled.”

  “If you know who I am,” Zoë told her, “surely you’ll believe what I tell you about the men and women above us on the mountain—and about Jon over there.”

  “As I told you, it’s not for me to judge. I’ll have to take you and the man to speak to the Mothers. They’ll know what to do with you.”

  “But the men and women above us can’t remain hanging onto the side of the cliff.”

  “They’ll have no choice—unless they want us to kill them. You stay here with Naxa and Phillipa,” Marge instructed the other older woman. “Three bow-women will be enough to keep the strangers at bay. Letsy and Filene will come down to the village with me. I’ll need at least two guards to make sure the murderer doesn’t escape.”

  “I’m not a murderer,” Jon pointed out. “No one died.”

  But Piers was dead, he reminded himself, and, by a quirk of fate, he’d had something to do with it. However it had been Zoë, not Jon, who had taken his life.

  “But you tried to kill him. That’s what counts. And I think you’ll find that the Mothers haven’t forgotten the sentence they handed down.”

  Zoë looked at Jon and shook her head. Why was he arguing with this creature? The important thing was to get to the Mothers as soon as possible. Surely they’d listen to reason. And once they realized that the Emperor was here, Jon would be safe.

  Letsy and Filene bound Jon’s hands together behind his back, but left Zoë unfettered. As they started to lead them along the edge of the White Wall, Jon spoke out.