The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “After many years a cruel conqueror began to unite the tribes. Lucius Morel. He demanded loyalty. The black-robed ones who were his shadow demanded loyalty. And our fathers would not give it.”

  Divad looked up, his eyes burning. “The King would come back. They believed it. We believe it. They would not betray him a second time by pledging fealty to the conqueror who ruled by dark powers and sorcery. We resolved to throw ourselves on the King’s mercy and judgment. He may slay us when he returns. It is his right, and we will bend our knee to it.

  “Our fathers led the people underground. Here we were hidden from Morel and his evil. Here we determined to wait and to offer our services to the King once more. When he returned, we would go forth ahead of him. We would turn the world back to him.”

  Divad looked up to the low ceiling of the chamber, where blue firelight flickered on the carved sky. “Our people struggled below ground. Many died of sun-sickness. Others were driven mad by the darkness. In those days of hardship the Holy Priesthood was formed to care for the weak—and above all, to keep our people in remembrance of the King. So that is the faith we hold, Sunworlder. We wait for the return of the King, hoping that he will look on the fidelity we have shown him these five hundred years and forget that we once betrayed him.”

  “Tell me,” Professor Huss said. “Do your people still hope to return to the Sunworld and make the Empire ready for his return?”

  For the first time since he had begun his story, Divad averted his eyes. “That is for the Majesty to decide,” he said. “For me, I think as my predecessors have thought. The world above is enslaved to the darkness that worked in Lucius Morel and surely works in his descendants. To go above would only mean death for us and would not offer help for others.”

  Huss looked troubled. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “But I fear the King will leave us in darkness as long as we are content to stay there.”

  “What do you know of the matter?” Divad asked earnestly. “Tell me, teacher from the world above: have you the faith of the King in the Sunworld also?”

  “Some have,” Huss said. “Some have. I suppose we have come underground for many of the same reasons you did.” The professor smiled wryly. “The ancient war has begun again, Divad. My eyes looked on the first battle between the King and the Blackness to be fought in centuries. Hardly a season ago, a force of rebels, led by the very man who is now speaking with your King, attacked the Empire’s men in the city directly over our heads. We would have lost the battle, but Golden Riders joined us—only to disappear after the battle. Truth to be told, I still sometimes wonder if I really saw what I did.”

  Divad looked around the table. “And these?” he asked. “Were they also there?”

  “I was,” Maggie answered.

  “And I,” Pat said.

  “This happened above our very heads,” Divad said. “And we knew nothing of it.”

  Maggie smiled at the tone of loss in Divad’s voice, suddenly wanting very much to comfort him. “If you’ll allow me,” she said, “I can sing you the story of it.”

  Professor Huss opened his mouth to answer, but Divad beat him to it. “Do so, please,” he said.

  Maggie closed her eyes and felt the song welling up deep within. She let the words and melody pour forth, as she had done before. She felt, as always before, that she was not singing the song so much as the song was singing her. She sang the story of the Battle of Pravik as it had sung itself in her dreams every night since: the story of farmers and townspeople who stood against powers of darkness, the story of Nicolas and Jerome, of the Ploughman and his lady, of the mystery that was Virginia.

  In and through the song a theme wove itself: awakening. In her spirit as she sang, Maggie felt the darkness around her like a weight, like a heavy sleep. Her song called to the sleeping world to raise its head and come to life again.

  When she finished singing, Rehtse and Annan had turned away; Hazrit, the other woman priest, was lost in tears. Divad himself seemed lost in a deep reverie.

  The soft voice of Haras broke the spell. “Hail, Harutek,” he said.

  Maggie turned to witness the entrance of the Sixteenth Son of the Majesty.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  Lover-Song

  Harutek smiled broadly and spread out his hands. “The Majesty has sent me to announce peace between our people,” he said. “Your leader has found favour in his eyes. The guests of the Darkworld Kingdom are to join in the celebrations of this year-night, as a sign of our goodwill.”

  Divad stood, and the others at the table hastened to do the same. “This year-night is a sacred time in the Darkworld,” he explained. “With your presence, we will make this year one to be remembered always, should our people remain underground yet another five centuries.”

  “Let us hope you do not have to remember it that long,” Huss answered. “We are honoured, son of the Majesty.”

  “Well then,” said Harutek. “The preparations for the night are nearly finished. Will you see that our guests are properly tended to until the celebrations begin, Divad?”

  “Of course,” the priest answered.

  Divad turned to his fellow priests and uttered a few commands in a strange language. The professor leaned forward at the sound of the words, and Maggie felt a deep excitement. Not since the reign of Lucius Morel had more than one language been spoken in the Seventh World—but here, deep under the ground, another race had lived out five hundred years beyond the reach of the Empire.

  In obedience to Divad’s instructions, Hazrit and Rehtse came forward and led Pat and Maggie out of the chamber. From the corner of her eye, Maggie saw Darne, Asa, and Professor Huss leave the chamber with the male priests.

  Rehtse and Hazrit led Pat and Maggie down innumerable long corridors and through many carved chambers. They were empty—it seemed to Maggie that they had once been designed to house many priests, but so few held that office now. They descended a flight of stairs and came out in a high-walled room where lanterns glowed blue on the walls while water splashed down a splendid waterfall and collected in a sparkling pool surrounded by smooth grey boulders.

  “The water is quite warm,” Hazrit said. “There is soap here,” as she reached into a crevice near the waterfall, “and these robes are for drying. Please, take as long as you need. The celebration will not begin for another hour at least. We have clean clothing if you wish it, though you may find your own garments more comfortable.”

  Maggie smiled at the dubious way in which Hazrit said this. “We would be grateful for a clean change of clothes,” she answered. “I feel as though I’ve been wearing these since the Battle of Pravik.”

  Hazrit smiled and left the high-walled chamber, followed by Rehtse. Pat laughed out loud when the priestesses were gone.

  “Did you see the way she looked at our clothes?” she asked.

  “She’s probably not used to seeing a woman in trousers,” Maggie said, looking at Pat.

  Pat grinned and ran her hand through her short dark hair. “Nor one with such short hair… but what am I saying? These people have less hair than I have ever seen.”

  “No wonder,” Maggie said, lifting the edge of one of the robes Hazrit had indicated. “I think their clothes are made of it.”

  “What?” Pat exclaimed. “Of human hair?”

  “What else?” Maggie asked. “They can’t grow anything here, or hunt anything besides fish.”

  Pat joined Maggie in examining the closely-woven robe. “You’re right,” she said.

  Maggie smiled. “I knew I was.”

  Pat pulled one of her trouser legs up and stuck her toes under the waterfall. “And Hazrit was right,” she said. “This water is warm.”

  “I haven’t been warm since we moved underground,” Maggie said.

  “Mmm,” Pat said. “This is going to feel heavenly. Oh, bless those long-haired priests. They know how to make a guest feel welcome.”

  Hazrit returned twenty minutes later with lon
g dresses made of woven brown hair, adorned with rich golden highlights. She and Rehtse helped Pat and Maggie dress, surrounding their waists with thick gold braid and covering their arms with sleeves of the same colour. The clothing was rich, not like that of the common people, and both young women were conscious of the honour with which they were treated. Rehtse did Maggie’s hair up, handling the auburn locks carefully.

  “Your hair is beautiful,” she said as she worked. Hazrit smiled her agreement as she combed Pat’s hair with a comb made of shell. The older priestess hesitated a moment, then said, “Your song was beautiful also. You have a gift.”

  “That is more true than you know,” Maggie said. “I never sang before last fall, when the songs began to come to me. They are a gift—from the King, I believe.”

  Hazrit rested her hands at the back of Pat’s neck. “Yes,” she said. “When you sang I felt that he was here, and our long waiting was over.”

  “I’ve been told that waiting is the hardest thing in the world,” Maggie said with a smile. “And I believe it, after one season spent so doing. And you have been waiting your whole lives!”

  “Sometimes I do not know which is worse,” Hazrit said. “The agony of the wait, or the dullness that comes when that agony subsides.”

  “At least when we feel the pain of waiting,” Rehtse added, “we know that we are alive, and that we really do believe. Your song made my heart ache, and I thank you for it.” Rehtse laid down her combs and looked at Maggie, smiling. The young priestess held out her hands. “You are beautiful,” she said. “Come now. The Majesty and his sons wait, and the patience of the Darkworld rulers is the stuff ballads are made of.”

  Maggie took Rehtse’s hands and stood, while Hazrit linked her arm with Pat’s. Together they left the waterfall chamber and followed a dizzying maze of tunnels until they came out in the long cave before the throne room of the Majesty. The cave had been transformed. When Maggie had last walked through it, it was empty except for the guards who stood between the lanterns on the walls. Now long tables lined it, loaded with whole fish, flat loaves of bread as big as dinner plates, and pots of a steaming green vegetable. The clear brew which burned and revived so effectively was also abundant, along with three or four other drinks.

  On the platform that led to the throne room doors, a long table had been set. There, in all his glory, sat the Majesty. He was dressed all in white, with glittering adornments of white, pink, and purple fish scales. The Ploughman sat between Harutek and the Majesty, and Divad was already seated on the king’s other hand with Professor Huss beside him. Darne and Asa sat alongside the seventeen sons of the Majesty. Each of these wore one lock of hair, like their father and Harutek. The other priests—Haras, Annan, and Nahtan—were also at the table. Ytac and his men, wearing fish-scale armour and long capes, guarded the table with their arms folded across their chests.

  Rehtse and Hazrit led Maggie and Pat to their places. They found themselves sitting at nearly opposite ends of the table. Maggie sat between Rehtse and Darne, who kept moving his hands—from his lap to his sides to the table and back again—as though he wasn’t sure where to put them. Maggie laid a reassuring hand on his arm.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered.

  “Relax,” Maggie answered.

  On Darne’s other hand, a young prince, who could not have been older than nineteen, was talking energetically with Asa. Their voices were low, and Maggie strained to hear them, but could not catch more than a word here and there.

  Rehtse saw her watching them and said, “Caasi, Seventeenth Son of the Majesty, is a young man of strong passion.”

  “And our Asa is… strange,” Maggie said. “He has been with us since early winter, but we know little about him.”

  “They seem to enjoy each other’s company,” Rehtse said.

  Just then Caasi turned his head and looked at the young women. Rehtse blushed and turned her eyes down. Maggie bowed her head to the young prince. He nodded back and resumed his conversation with Asa.

  The hall filled until there was not an inch of space left at the tables, its sides lined with people who stood against the walls. Beyond the open hall door, many others gathered in the cavern. The excitement of the gathering was palpable, although the clamour seemed somehow hushed: subdued by the walls and roof of rock. When the hall was full, the Majesty stood. His sons raised their hands together and clapped three times. The sound echoed in the hall, and the crowd fell silent.

  “Welcome, my people,” the Majesty said. “This night we celebrate with greater than usual joy, for seated with us is the leader of the Sunworlders who have encroached on our territory.”

  A ripple of whispers ran through the hall, and the Majesty held up his hand to silence them. “We have met and spoken together,” he said, “and we have found these Sunworlders to be men of honour. We have their promise that no harm will result from their coming.”

  There was a cheer, and the Majesty added, “Nor do they plan to stay.” The cheers seemed even louder this time, and Maggie looked down the table at Pat, who raised an eyebrow and choked back a laugh.

  “Now, my people,” said the Majesty. “Now we celebrate the Night of the Warm Waters. Good feasting!” The Majesty raised his cup, and all in the hall did the same, thundering out the words: “Good feasting!”

  “Good loving!” proclaimed the Majesty, and the hall echoed him. “Good loving!”

  Then the seventeen sons of the Majesty stood to their feet, and all together they shouted, “Good hunting!”

  Maggie lifted her own voice in the refrain, smiling as the enthusiasm of the response drowned her out. The seventeen princes each took up a loaf of flat bread and broke it, and the gathering fell to the feast.

  Despite the meal they had just eaten with the priests, the Ploughman’s people had little trouble putting away fish, bread, and steaming green vegetables with the hungriest of the princes. Darne especially seemed to drink vats of the cold, clear drink, and he lost much of his shyness and discomfort as the meal went on, punctuated by shouts of laughter throughout the hall. Servants carried baskets full of fish and bread to the great cavern beyond the hall, rolling caskets full of drink to the crowd. The noise outside the hall was greater, if possible, than it was within.

  Maggie had just decided that she could not eat another bite when a high-pitched sound subdued the noise in the room. A small troupe of musicians emerged from a door into the hall, playing an eerie tune on flutes of bone. They danced as they entered, their feet moving faster as the music picked up pace. As the flutes reached a climax, the hall erupted with a shout. The people clapped and stomped their feet as the music played.

  The song ended on a long, haunting note, and the musicians bowed to a hall that had fallen completely silent for the first time that night. Now Divad and his priests, Hazrit and Rehtse among them, stood and descended the steps of the platform. They were joined on the floor by other men and women in uniform—not priests, but ready to fulfill some special role.

  The flutes began to play once again, a slow song that promised hope, with notes of tragedy woven throughout. As the music played, a score of young women stood from the tables where they had feasted and approached the priests and their helpers in the center of the room. They knelt before them, and Divad and his companions poured a golden substance from small vials onto the heads of the kneelers. Then the priests and their fellows knelt also, whispering in the young women’s ears. The music shifted tone slightly, and the priests stood and stretched out their hands to a table of young men.

  The young men stood and went to the priests. A slight stir arose from the head table, and one of the Majesty’s seventeen sons joined the group on the floor. The priests took each young man by the hand and led him to a woman, laying the youths’ hands on the waiting heads. In response to song, the priests lifted their hands and spoke in the strange language Maggie had heard Divad use. The young men touched their knees to the floor and then rose, pulling their new brides up with t
hem. The faces of the young couples glowed with joy, and one of the flute players let out a whoop. The flutes flung the hall into a dance, and the newly joined men and women danced to the thin piping with smiles and blushes and obvious delight.

  The dance continued for some time, while the onlookers shouted their approval and downed more of the clear drink. At last Divad, who had regained the platform, raised his hands for silence. The flute players ended their song and bowed respectfully, and the rest of the hall followed their example. The brides returned to the tables while the men stood to their feet. For the time, Maggie realized that every man in the hall held a two-pronged spear.

  “This is the time of the Warm Water,” Divad said. “Tonight we are blessed with fish and good hunting. May the Seven-Starred King go with you. May he protect you and fill your hands with bounty. Go and drink of the waters of strength; return, and drink of the waters of love.”

  The priests bowed their heads low when Divad finished. The hunters—or fishers, for it was certainly fish they went to slaughter—left the hall quietly, respectfully. Shouts greeted them in the cavern and echoed strangely in the hall, as though they came from far away.

  Maggie watched the last of the men leave. She turned to say something to Rehtse when Pat grabbed her hand. “Come on!” she said. “You’re not going to miss this, are you?”

  The rest of the night passed in a blur. They followed the hunters out of the hall to a place where long ladders stretched up the sides of the cavern. These they climbed until their hands and feet were nearly numb, and at last they came out in the open night air.

  Maggie didn’t quite believe it at first. Surely they had not stepped outside! The lights of a single bridge in the nearly-abandoned city of Pravik, reflecting on the black water, told her that it was true. They had left the underground. She gulped the air with tears in her eyes, hardly noticing the astringent smell or the taste of smoke in the air. The air was cold, but it was the gentle cold of spring and not the bitter freeze of winter. The Darkworld hunters dived into the river again and again, staying under the water far longer than seemed possible, and returned with fish—huge, gasping fish that were loaded into baskets and sent back through the tunnels to the great cavern to be smoked and salted or cooked and eaten right there.