by Carol Berg
The child buried his face in the woman’s breast. Of course any child was fearful of new circumstances and unfamiliar faces. I seated myself in an armchair a few steps away from the two,
thinking that perhaps he would be less shy if I were not so tall. Taking an apple and a knife from the table, I cut off a thin wedge and offered it to the boy. “I’m pleased you’ve come to live with me, Evan. I’ve been waiting a very long time for us to be together.” A very long time. I looked into the past to review the course of our separation and was appalled at what I could remember of it—a legacy of rampant ignorance and fear, injustice and cruelty. I recalled an image of this woman staring down at a crippled man who had been dreadfully mutilated and other humans hacked into bloody refuse, and her face as she blamed me for the carnage—
The boy snatched the piece of apple from my hand.
“Say thank you to”—the woman looked over at me—“what should he call you? He still thinks of Gordain as his da.”
Gordain. A human man, not even rekkonarre. “You will speak no more of Gordain to my son. I would not have him mourn a human. In a Madonai house, the male parent is addressed as ‘Fyothe.’ The closest human word would be ‘Papa.’ ”
The woman nodded, burying any retort, as well as the questions that came so clearly to her tongue. She would not even know the term Madonai. “Evan, say, ‘Thank you, Papa.’ ”
The boy squirmed and murmured something like, then buried his face again while beginning to nibble at the bit of apple. I cut off another wedge. “I will not tolerate your teaching him to fear me.” I made sure my tone was nothing that would frighten the boy.
“Seyonne”—the woman lowered her voice, glancing sidewise at the doorway to the adjoining room—“we need to talk privately.”
“With regard to ... ?”
She examined my face carefully, perplexed and hesitant, all her bravado fallen away. “Give me a sign, Seyonne,” she whispered, pleading in a most pitifully human way. “We thought—The Prince was sure—After what you said about promises and faith—”
The servant returned and began to bank the fire for the night. The woman glanced at the servant’s back and spoke in a normal tone again, though her face had not lost the probing worry. “Your somber manner surprises me. Prince Aleksander says you are prone to telling bad jokes at awkward times such as these.”
I could not understand her strange manner. “I find little humor in anything human, Mistress Elinor. My experiences in your world belie any inclination toward it.” The servant left again. I jumped up from my chair, unable to sit still. The woman’s comments unsettled me, as if a spark had shot from a too close fire and stung my forehead between my eyes. I hated the sensation. “And do not presume. As I’ve told you before, I am not the man this human prince knows; I have discarded that part of my existence. You are a servant, remaining here by my forbearance, and I would advise you to remember it. You should address me as Master Valdis.”
A certain brightness deserted the woman’s face, as when the last vestige of the sun’s disk slips below the horizon, leaving the actual daylight little changed, but its quality irrevocably altered. She began to rock the boy slowly, laying her cheek on his dark head as his heavy eyelids sagged. “Valdis,” she said. “The name of the Ezzarian god. I thought you disdained the role of god.”
“Ezzarians have no concept of what or whom they speak.”
“Then tell me, Master Valdis, why is it so important that Evan should be moved here now, and so quickly? We’ve tended him well, kept him from harm, loved him as is a child’s right. The war has moved farther from our settlement, and so there is no immediate threat to his safety. You’ve had little time to spend with him in the past, and if you continue your participation in the Aveddi’s war, that will likely not change. What do you think is going to happen in the human world that you no longer trust us to protect the boy?”
I tossed the knife and the remains of the apple onto the table. “I wish my son safe. I don’t remember exactly why I felt it necessary to move so quickly.”
“You don’t remember?” Her head popped upright. “Four days ago you threatened to kill two hundred people if I didn’t get him here immediately!”
“But that was before.”
“Before what?”
The woman was a morass of impertinent questions, but I knew that daily life would be easier if we remained on reasonable, if proper, terms. So I answered her. “Before my change. Before I became wholly Madonai.” Explaining would have been easier, of course, if I had known the information she wanted. But, as with so many pieces of my discarded existence, the logic behind my actions was hazy. “I believed quite urgently that my son should be here with me, but I don’t recall the entire chain of reasoning that led up to that belief. I was still human then. Human ‘reasoning’ is inextricably entangled with human emotions, and such convoluted paths are difficult to recapture now that my body that generated and supported those emotions has changed so radically.”
“Your body has changed ... not human ...” Her bewildered expression was but another annoying question.
“I am now Madonai, as are my father and Kasparian, although they were born and I was gifted ... transformed. The rekkonarre—you and the rest of your race—are the product of human and Madonai mating twelve hundred years ago, a grievous mistake that has corrupted the world. In me, my father has remedied that mistake. Do you see now?”
“I’m beginning to understand. And now you are ... changed ... in this way, you remember only facts from the past—events, decisions, names—not how you felt about them or why.”
“Whatever else was involved in my decision, I will likely remember it later. Not that it matters. My son’s proper place is with me, not in some human war camp at risk of slavery or mutilation, or cruel, wasteful, useless death—these damnable human plagues. He will be raised as Madonai, and when the time comes, I will give him the gift that my father has given me.”
The woman pressed her lips together, stroked the child’s hair, and shifted him onto her shoulder. Her gaze did not leave my face.
Now that her questions were mercifully silenced, I took my leave. “The child sleeps. I’ll see him in the morning.” I felt her eyes still fixed on me as I walked out of the door.
Disliking the murky confusions the woman raised, I returned to the ramparts, shaped my wings, and leaped into the air. Unfortunately, battling the storm wind and the annoying limits of the cursed wall did not silence the fool woman’s question. Why had I brought the boy here so soon and so fast?
Indeed I had told her one part of the answer. My soul revolted at the thought that my son might someday wear scars like those on my face and my side. And the boy was rekkonarre, thus would need to spend time in both worlds. But not yet, so why was his presence so urgent?
A second part of the answer was surely that bringing Evan here would convince my father of my intent to complete my change. And so it had done. But a fortress prison housing a mad Madonai and his two companions was not a rational choice for raising a child. Until I could break the wall and decide what to do about my father, having the boy here held its own dangers.
Which meant there was a third part to the answer, and that one, to my head-bursting frustration, I could not remember. And so I twisted and dived in the wind over the mountain, letting the storm batter my body and monopolize my attention.
When morning came, cold and overcast, I bathed, dressed, and resisted the urge to make my way immediately to my son’s chamber. He was still half human. He would be sleeping or breakfasting. I needed to go dream traveling, and so I met Kasparian in the library, the room I had chosen for my own study. But no sooner had the sullen Madonai sat down at the worktable and begun his enchantment, than I pushed his hand away and dismissed him. “We’ll do this tomorrow,” I said. “I need to reconsider my objectives in this war.”
Before a quarter of an hour had passed, I was watching from a tower window as the woman and Evan walked out into the
winter garden, bundled in cloaks and scarves. The child ran from pond to statue to frozen fountain, laughing and teasing, climbing and hiding and running. The woman was always there to pull him away from the frozen ponds, to brush the snow from his clothes before it could melt, to help him down when he had climbed too high, to laugh with him when he bumped a tree trunk and showered the two of them with snow. Soon they wandered deeper into the garden, where I could no longer see them. Before I could decide whether to go out and join them, I heard a terrified wailing.
I sped through the castle, shaping my wings and taking to the air the moment I was out of doors, following the sound to its source. The woman stood on a snow-covered knoll, clutching the sobbing Evan. Though I saw no blood, no hurt on the boy, no evidence of broken limbs, the woman’s cheeks were also streaked with tears. Only when I touched earth beside them did I grasp what distressed them. Down a short incline the man Blaise lay on a flat section of the lawn, faceup, his limbs bound and stretched between four stakes. His garments were stiff with ice, his hair and brows frosted, and he was shivering violently. The rope of light still circled his neck, preventing him from speaking.
“He will not die,” I said. “His punishment lasts only until midnight. He will be very cold, but perhaps he will remember to obey my commands.” Snow drifted from the heavy clouds.
Pressing the sobbing child to her shoulder, the woman walked slowly down the slope until she stood only a few paces from the prisoner. “How can you do this? Blaise is your friend. He helped save you from despair. He has loved and cared for your child—”
“—and I have saved Blaise from madness and preserved his life countless times. But does that give him leave to violate my home? Does appreciation for past deeds oblige me to allow him opportunity to steal my child away?” Why was reason so alien to human thought?
“Seyonne is truly dead, then,” she said, shifting her gaze from the shivering man to me. “This change that has transformed your body has also destroyed your heart.”
“Indeed,” I said, looking down at the man and feeling nothing. “I believe that was the point.”
The weather worsened all through that day. I had Kasparian watch to ensure the man did not die or lose a limb to frostbite, and at midnight I went myself to set him free. What pain he suffered was likely the result of restored circulation and cramping muscles. But the discomfort was evidently considerable, as his eyes glistened with tears as he watched me unbind him. Unfortunate, but necessary. I gave him my hand, and he stumbled to standing.
“Tell your fellows,” I said.
He nodded, pressed his bony hands to the black wall, and vanished.
Evidently the incident served warning enough to still the woman’s combative nature. Her font of questions dried up, and her attempts at familiarity ceased. Only her unrelenting observation was left to irritate me. Unfortunately, the child was bothered enough by the memory of Blaise’s punishment that he would neither leave his room, nor engage with anyone but Elinor. In order to confront this distancing before it festered into fear and to ensure the woman did not encourage it, I spent most of Evan’s waking hours with the two of them, delaying yet again my return to the human war.
For a day after Blaise’s release, the boy would pursue no activity, no matter that I had a set of gaming pieces made for him, and some magical toys: a small wooden horse that galloped about his chambers, and a palm-sized sailing ship that flew upon the air. I had the woman stay back while I gave him his food, but he would not eat. By evening I deserted their company, exasperated. But after a glass of wine and an hour’s running, I regained my perspective. Gods’ teeth, the boy was not yet three years old and had witnessed a close acquaintance in considerable discomfort. He was not afraid of me, only of the harm that had come to his friend. I climbed the stairs again, thinking to bid him good night. A quiet voice came from the room, and I paused in the doorway to watch and listen.
“... He would carry his boy on his shoulders in the bright mornings, and they would walk through the green forests, and over the green hills, and into the fields.” The woman was sitting on the edge of the small bed, and the child was curled up in his blankets listening. “And there the man would dig in the soil and teach the boy of plants and roots and growing things, of worms and mice and ... what else?”
“Rabbits!” said the child.
“Rabbits, indeed. And as they worked the soil and planted seeds, the man would tell his boy stories of rabbits and their life in their burrows—”
“What tale is this you tell?” I blurted out, feeling a sudden pain like a knife’s point behind my eyes.
The woman tucked the blanket around the child, not taking her eyes from the small, worried face. Her answer was spoken in the soothing rhythm of the storyteller. “It is the story of Evan’s family, of his grandfather, I believe. But perhaps I am incorrect about that. I learned it from my brother, who learned it from ... one who knew it well. It has been Evan’s favorite since he was a babe, the only tale sure to quiet him when he’s upset.”
I could not stay. I was near blinded by the pain in my head, and it was all I could do to keep my voice steady. “Tomorrow. I’ll come again tomorrow.”
Once back in my own chambers, the pain receded quickly. After all, I was Madonai.
The morrow was little different. The woman watching. Evan skittish. Myself playing the fool to gain the favor of a child. Ludicrous. On the next day I returned to my studies in the library. My father taught me enchantments to control the movements of water. Much more satisfactory. I looked in on the boy in the evening, and he bowed quite properly when I entered his room. I returned his small courtesy, and then sat with him while he ate a reasonable portion of broth and bread. I sailed his wooden ships on the air, but he did not try to play with them. None of the three of us said much of anything. When the woman began preparing the boy for bed, I bade him a good night and left.
On the next day I went traveling in dreams and found the human war quiet. Forces were mustering in northern Azhakstan, near Capharna, the Empire’s summer capital in the mountains. Capturing Capharna was a logical step for the Prince to take, but a massive one, requiring considerable preparation. Disappointing. I had been hoping for a fight.
For the remainder of that day and through the next, I could find no occupation to settle me. Was I already going mad from my confinement? The air felt brittle, the shivering world on the verge of crumbling. I could neither sleep nor concentrate on studies or enchantments or exercise. My father’s concerned inquiries were constant irritation. “Is it not enough that you made me?” I snapped. “Must you think and feel for me, too?” I screamed at the woman to stop staring at me or I would strangle her, and then cursed myself for losing my temper at a nursemaid. What was I waiting for?
On the afternoon of the fifth day from Blaise’s departure, I learned the answer. As I paced an inner courtyard, Kasparian brought the news that a human man was waiting in the garden, demanding to speak with me. As if the key had been fitted into its proper lock, all the jarring edges within me settled into place. The red fire of sunset shot through the lowering clouds like a crack in the sky as I took wing and settled upon the ramparts of my fortress. Of course he would come. The wheels of inevitability had turned, shifting us all into position.
“My lord,” I said. “What can I do for you this evening?”
He looked up, the amber of his eyes visible even from my high perch, his red hair taking fire with the dying sunlight. “I’ve come to keep my promise, Seyonne. Shall I come up there to kill you, or do we finish it down here?”
CHAPTER 43
“Tell me who you are.” He leaned against a barren ash tree in the snowy garden, appearing as easy as a shengar settled under a tarbush in desert noonday. I was not deceived. His hand rested on his sword hilt.
“Can you not use your vaunted skill to judge me, Prince?” I had flown down from the tower, unshaping my wings once I stood on the steps that overlooked the garden. I did not wear a weapon as yet
. My visitor hardly frightened me. His vest and breeches of thick, padded leather and the boots that reached to his thigh spoke of serious caution on his part; he hated such protective garb. I knew a great deal about this man.
He shook his head. “For this matter I cannot trust instinct. Nor even Blaise’s word. Not when it is Seyonne’s life in the balance.”
I laughed and swept a broad bow. “I thank you for your caution, my lord. But I can put your mind at ease. I have Seyonne’s knowledge, memory, and form, but his body is now Madonai, not human, and I am no longer subject to his emotional confusion. The part of him that served you”—I touched my left cheek—“that scrubbed your floors of vomit, wrote your letters, and guarded your back, is no more.” I drew my cloak about my shoulders. Without the wings I felt the cold. “Tell me, what is Seyonne’s crime that you, who purport to be his friend, would slay me? Has he mislaid your crown or failed to wipe your feet? Perhaps he has shed too little blood for you that you thirst for his.” What kind of fool is so beguiled by strength and charm and leadership—truly Aleksander had those in abundance—that he translates them into the kind of bondage I had served? How stupid I had been to think this prince could bring reason and order to the human world. “Why are you here?” I said.
Kasparian appeared at my side, my sword belt laid across his arms.
The Prince did not move, but I felt the subtle shift in readiness ripple through him. “I made Seyonne a promise, and I never break faith with a friend. Do you not remember?”
From the time I had run to Zhagad to warn Aleksander of assassins, my thinking had been clouded. I owned all of “Seyonne‘s” memories, just as I remembered my thousand years in Kir’ Vagonoth and the pitiful smatterings of my life before the split that sent me there, yet I could not remember half of my dealings with Aleksander for the murk of human sympathies that surrounded them. But enough was clear. “I recall a number of promises. A promise to disembowel me if I failed to deliver a message to your guard captain. A promise to slaughter every Ezzarian should I attempt to return to my home. And once, I think, you swore to cut off my hand if I did not drop my eyes from your face. I’ll not drop my eyes, Prince.”
