Moving Water

by Kelso, Sylvia

  “Thank you,” I said at large, trying to convey all I felt: for the help and for the courage that offered it.

  Callissa said nothing till Sivar, eyes whitened at the clay shards and dead coals and thillians, began to edge away, muttering, “Get ’nother brazier, sir?” Then she reeled off a list of provisions long as my arm. Looked at the head on my knee, said, “Water, too,” and followed Sivar.

  When Beryx came round he lay a good while before, eyes still closed, he whispered, “Sorry . . . Alkir.”

  “Sorry?” I tried not to explode. “You?”

  “My fault.” The lashes lay on his ashy cheek, long and black, as if too heavy to lift. “Had to go and fight her. Act. Blighted fool. And you had . . . worst of it.”

  “Not by much.” I had carefully ignored the full import of that defeat. “If I could have fought for myself. . . .”

  “Don’t be—idiot. The Well. Nothing you could do.”

  Callissa brought the water-bottle in and began, somewhat brusquely, to lave his galled right wrist. Then a thillian made her notice the debris. Her eyes widened. As if we were the twins’ age she demanded, “What on earth have you two been doing?”

  “The Lady,” I retorted. “Not us.”

  She dropped the bottle. I pointed to his hand. “That should have been mine.”

  “But,” she stammered. “Why? Why you . . . ?”

  “Hostage,” Beryx whispered. “Should see point . . . Fylghjos. Stayed in the Guard. Why?”

  I saw. “You’d do better,” I said grimly, “if I’d stayed on her side.”

  The rudiments of a grin emerged. “Get stupider . . . with age, Fylghjos.” At which Callissa, rallying, exploded, “Well, I don’t see! What is this? What do you mean?”

  He opened his eyes. “Would you rather,” he said weakly, “burn your own hand, ma’am—or let it happen to the boys?”

  She shrank. Then she whispered, “But you. . . .”

  His face grew mulish. “Nobody shall suffer . . . in my place.”

  “Did it occur to you,” I asked in some indignation, “that I might feel the same?”

  His eyes flew wide. “Oh, Four!” And at that Callissa boiled right over.

  “Stop being so stupid and heroic and honorable and talk sense, the pair of you! If somebody had to, it’s better that—I mean—at least—” As she foundered, his eyes opened on a quite impish glint.

  “Quite right, ma’am. Better me than him. No family . . . for a start.”

  She turned so red it could have burnt. Her eyes flinched away. After a moment she began, “I didn’t mean to—I shouldn’t have—” And decidedly but gently he cut her short.

  “Then call it a debt from the fever. And leave it at that.”

  * * * * *

  He refused the soporific of yeldtar juice, declaring, “This stuff’s the best pain-killer of the lot.” Recalling he had been burnt before, I added that to the Lady’s conduct sheet. But even with Axynbrarve he could not fend entirely for himself. The nursing watch re-enlisted, Sivar endured tirades on his barbering, Zyr became an expert bandage-man. I tried to act a Captain of the Guard, and felt the sword poised over us all. But nothing happened, at least in Zyphryr Coryan. About Ker Morrya, it was no longer possible to tell.

  Not until I found myself ascending its marble steps.

  Panic burst clear through the trance. Never considering it was mere thought, I yelled as ignominiously as any school-brat. Beryx, help me! Stop her! Get me out of this!

  And was answered, to my total disbelief.

 

  I knew my feet’s direction, and I was right. Los Morryan bubbled mirthfully, uncaring. Never had I loathed beauty before. The Lady Moriana stood beyond its spray. In black again, printed with huge ember-red lythian leaves whose long broad dagger blades clashed across my sight.

  No doubt I cowered like the veriest worm. The memory of their handling in the vault was still painfully clear.

  She laughed. My spine froze. She came forward, rustling over the flags.

  “A big brave sword-swinging soldier.” She flicked a fingernail across my cheek. “Don’t swallow your tongue, Captain. I’ve brought you here to talk.”

  My will was released. I leapt back. She laughed again, a cascade of ice. “Do the Phaxians know you’re as brave as this?”

  That stiffened my spine on its own account. Almost gobbling with fury I said, with the rudest inflection I could manage, “So talk.”

  She strolled beyond the fountain. Round again. Her eyes touched mine and slid away. Gaining bravado, I rasped, “What do you want?”

  She dabbled her fingers in the cascade. “How is your bear?”

  “Better,” I said through my teeth.

  “And does he hate me now?”

  “You should know better.” With bitter irony, I used his own words.

  “More fool he, you think.”

  I did not have to speak. Her lids lifted, swarms of golden motes adrift in night. “Because of himself, or because of his Math?”

  “Eh?” I was past manners, and glad of it.

  “Because,” she said impatiently, “he’s not allowed to hate me, or because he can’t?”

  “Anyone,” I ripped back, “who didn’t hate you now could only be someone crazy enough to follow Math.”

  Her fingers stilled in the silver froth. “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.” I merely saw a weakness, and was vengeful enough to charge at it.

  After a moment, sounding oddly reduced, she said, “You don’t believe in Math?”

  I opened my mouth. Thought of his burnt hand, the coal throwers, the fever, Klyra, Thephor.

  “I believe in justice,” I said.

  “And your bear only hopes for it.”

  Beryx might have matched her. I could not. I said sullenly, “If you know, why ask?”

  Her eyes came up, steady, straight. “You’d like to see me dead.”

  No doubt mine replied. She smiled, a small, bitter smile. “Were you ever as loyal to me?”

  I could not, dared not reply. Restlessly, she moved away.

  “What did he say—afterwards?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  She whirled, her eyes shot an ebony flash, fear melted my bones. “Don’t,” she breathed, “tempt me, Alkir.”

  “He said,” I mastered my voice, “that he was a blighted fool.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “That it served him right.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “Nothing about me?”

  I answered with satisfaction, “No.”

  Again I had an elusive sense of dashed hopes. She was toying with a perridel spray. Gold dust puffed, powdering her hair. She said abruptly, “Why did he tell me about the Well?”

  “Because,” I answered wearily, “to lie is Ammath.”

  The blossom stilled. She was looking down, a hint of dreariness in the turn of her lips. Truculently, I said, “And why did Klyra have to lose her head for opening her mouth?”

  Her eyes came up. Endless, depthless stellar black. “You,” she whispered, “have said more than enough. Walk.”

  I fought. That is, my mind kicked and squirmed like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck. My feet continued to advance inexorably toward the parapet and the empty air beneath. Mentally I also screamed with rage and terror more ignobly than before, but I suppose it was an improvement that I could scream at all.

  The compulsion broke. A clockwork toy reversed, I ran back almost to the wall, choked a yell, spun for pointless flight—but the Lady Moriana had forgotten me. She was up on the seat, on the back of the seat, skirts clutched high, naked terror in a white naked face. A darre, a full-grown coffin-snake, six satiny pinkish-brown feet of reflexes faster than light and venom that kills within five minutes of the bite, was reared up, its coffin-shaped head weaving as they do when roused, in striking distance of her feet.

 
; Even then I might have helped her. Protective urges in a man, a soldier, any human faced by a serpent, are ingrained deep. But as I wavered Beryx’s voice said in a rush,

  I ran clean down to the vault, stampeded for the only sure sanctuary. As I burst in, he let out a huge breath and sank back, sweat dripping everywhere, against the wall.

  When he could speak, I ventured, “The Lady . . . the snake. . . .”

  “Illusion.” He was still breathing hard. “You’d—say. Pellathir. A high art. Had to get you out—somehow.”

  But he did not seem relieved. His face was taut, almost bleak. An awful intimation burst on me.

  “Don’t,” he said after a minute, more easily. “I couldn’t have put words in your mouth. If she called you there instead of coming here, it was her choice. She had to take the consequence.”

  “Consequence! Oh, if I’d thought—remembered—only shut my cursed, useless mouth!”

  He said with affection, “Clot.” I groaned. “So you offended her. So she might have come round if you’d said something else. So I jumped right in on your tracks. Come on, Alkir.” I could hear the general, met with disaster, tying a knot, carrying on. “I’ve blundered worse myself.”

  But when I looked back from the arch he was staring into the fire with that same braced, bleak expression. A general facing a blunder that will cost more than a battle, more than a campaign, more than an entire war.

  * * * * *

  As I lay beside Callissa’s softly breathing back, that face looked at me from the dark. Don’t worry, he had said. Shielding me from catastrophe, refusing to allot the blame I deserved, when Assharral, his life, the very world lay in the scales where I had cast the fatal speck. I writhed. Tomorrow, I vowed, I leave. Quit the captaincy, pack the family, tell him he’ll do better without me, it’s justified desertion. Leave Zyphryr Coryan, pull out.

  As always, the crystallized decision brought relief. Turning over, I went slowly if not easily to sleep.

  And woke with a plunge that made Callissa squeak, his voice in my ear as it had been in Lisdrinos, but this time with a grim, controlled urgency that bit like a lash.

 

  Chapter VII

  He caught me half off the bed.

  I clapped a summary hand over Callissa’s mouth. The orders came in a steady spate.

  The gardener, I recalled with dislike, lived out.

  Leaving a disrupted household under the helliens I tore into the streets. The moon was low. It was third watch, civilian small hours, the wagons had come in, the revelers gone home, the peep-o’-day workers were not up. At the Treasury gate I recoiled from a shadow, and Evis confronted me across our naked swords.

  “Can’t explain,” I hissed. “Guard this gate. Anyone doesn’t give the password Tingan, chop them. But quiet!”

  Words on the boil, I fled down familiar steps. The sight of Beryx stopped them in my throat.

  He was on his feet, facing into the wall. Coiled, immobile, the stillness of a wound-down catapult. The air pulsed, the vault seemed to be contracting round me, drawn by the suction of some gigantic mouth. I almost looked to see wind beat the gown about that tall, blade-thin shape.

  Tighter and tighter grew the clench. I could not draw, let alone catch my breath. Then his body whipped, lash and recoil. With a blinding green-white flash, a horrendous screech and a shower of sparks, he stumbled backward and all four plated, riveted, deep-set fetter rings tore bodily from the stone.

  he commanded as I reached him.

  Slashing up blankets I wadded the chains, draped them round him, helped him up, wrapped my cloak over all. We labored upstairs. Across the squeaky marble floors. As sweet fresh air welcomed us into silvered black immensity I heard him draw a long, long breath.

  A knot of shadow hovered at the gate. I could hear the grin.

  The familiar, groggy, bewildered voices dispersed. Eons later, hooves sounded shatteringly in the street.

  Sivar jittered at the bridle while I helped Beryx up. Settling astride with the automatic ease of a cavalryman, he whispered, “Drop the reins on its neck. I can manage now.”

  More eons later horses fidgeted by our wall. A breath of challenge came. Hissing, “Tingan,” I slid to earth, Beryx after me, whispering, “A spare uniform, Fylghjos? I’d better look the part.”

  In black moontree cloak and surcoat he vaguely did so. Some outmoded caution made me pull the door to behind us. He had lumbered on into the faded hellien shadow, whence I heard his clear, calm, decisive whisper.

  “I can’t explain now, but we all have to leave. Callissa, you can ride? Sivar’ll give you a horse. Yes, Rema, you and Zepha too. You can double up behind Krem and Zyr. Zam, you go with your father. Zem—will you come with me?” Zem’s ardent whisper, “ ’Course!” and he was propelling Callissa gently but irresistibly down the path.

  Off at last, through still-empty streets, my lungs aching with suspense. he said,

  At the corner, feeling a zany, I told myself, This one.

  Something like the Lady’s command closed on my mind. I found I had reined in, heard the others copy me.

  he observed. Then came the just audible, endless, feathery whistle of an indrawn breath.

  Heartbeats ticked by. A horse shifted, tossed its bit. Zam was pushed, a small scared puppy, against my heart. The night rang with that seashell murmur of quiet deep enough to hear the blood in your own ears. Beryx breathed out, on and on.

 

  Fuddled, I reached for a rein. Hooves clopped into motion, loud as a charge. We rounded the corner, here was the empty breadth of the gate square, glow of the guardroom brazier, two surcoated figures, colorless in the moonlight, leaning negligently on the leaves of the open gate.

  Evis gasped. I snarled voicelessly, “Shut up!” I could fairly hear the horror of the rest.

  Our horses paced forward. One sentinel was propped with folded arms, one grasped a grounded spear. Their breasts moved, their eyes, black hollows in the pallid moonlight, gazed at us. Through us. My mind reeled. I thought, We are invisible. The Arts.

  Horse noise unrolled under the arch. We were on the harbor road. Oblivious, unaware, behind us Zyphryr Coryan slept. An eygnor was in song, deluded by the moon. The road dipped. Beside me Beryx released another superhuman breath and leant forward on the withers of his horse. “Keep,” he said faintly, “going.”

  In a minute or two his breathing eased.

  Beyond Rastyr he swung us north, but not onto the great highway of Stirian Ven. Instead we took to the forest, committing ourselves to that hidden voice which chuckled, “I probably know Assharral better than any of you. Do you think I slept down there?”

  Single file, eyes strained for a bob of the blur ahead that would signal a low bough, we serpentined through forest depths that should have been in uproar with the thump of startled lydwyr, lydyrs
’ fff! and rattle in the undergrowth, birds roused to squawk and clatter broken leaves. None of it happened. As at the gates of Zyphryr Coryan we seemed invisible, a dream traversing a dream.

  The moon died. Selionur, whitest of stars, blazed down on us as he raced in his brief winter course at the Hunter’s heel. The dew settled, the enchantment of all night journeys lapped us round. Valinhynga topped the horizon, a glittering aerial Well, the sky shallowed, the air assumed that piercing purity which heralds dawn; before a thick shadow copse Beryx said, “We’d best breathe the horses and sort ourselves out.”

  * * * * *

  After the dismount’s confusion settled I found Callissa pressed to my left side. I put an arm about her and recoiled from a furry third breast, only to realize it was the cat. Zem’s arm circled my right leg, Evis cleared his throat beyond, Sivar wheezed at my back. Further on, Rema was muttering the prelude to one of her formidable complaints.

  Before me an invisible Beryx said mischievously, “This is what the military manuals call a strategic withdrawal. In other words, get the devil out of it while you can.” Fatigue lay close under the levity. “And if anyone still doesn’t know, the devil is a lady this time.”

  Evis spoke up with the apologetic firmness which meant he would not be denied. “Sir, I can understand you might need to make a—a strategic withdrawal. But what am I doing here?”

  “You’re here for the same reason as the rest. Because you mean something to Alkir or me, and I’ve just played a trick the Lady will repay in blood, or worse. I’m glad you brought that cat, ma’am. I wouldn’t like to think of an animal flayed or roasted alive just because it belonged to the family of a man who gave me help.”

  There was a chorus of gasps.

  “Oh, yes. Have you never heard of reprisals? If any of you had stayed in Zyphryr Coryan, you would have died. Tomorrow, or the next day—or the one after, if you were really unfortunate.” This time nobody gasped. “Now I’m out of reach, she’d mangle anyone even vaguely connected with me.” His voice grew somber. “She probably will.”