Moving Water

by Kelso, Sylvia

  Her eyes narrowed. “Hast paid no heed at all? To aught he looked? Aught he said? When even her jimping popinjay of a maid could say, T’is a case with her?”

  “With her, yes! But he—” I tried to rally. “I thought he—admired her, yes, I thought—”

  She gave a veritable horse’s snort. “And when he said, I’ve plans for her, hast never wondered, What?”

  “I—uh. . . .”

  She snapped her fingers under my nose. “Then soften tha granite head and wonder now! For I tell thee plain, it’s been in his mind since the day he clapped eyes on her. And if tha or thine tries to botch it for him, after all this. . . .”

  I gulped and tried not to hold my head on. And then tried in earnest cowardice to think no further. Not to say, He has what he wanted. But at what cost to us?

  And is it a prize that can be kept?

  I opened my mouth. Fengthira gave me one quelling glower. “Come tha. We’ve eavesdropped enough.”

  * * * * *

  We sat on the fern-walk’s lowest step. The earth rumbled, the lava hissed, withered ferns above us rustled in the gloom. I tried to think, then tried not to think. Fengthira sat quiet, whistling softly through her teeth. But at last she glanced upward, and a small frown rucked her brows.

  “I doubt,” she remarked, “he’s as little care for time now as if he’d twisted Los Velandryxe himself. But. . . .” Then she rose quickly as scraps of conversation floated down.

  “. . . use your arts, then. Act without hands. Perfect if you have no hands to act.”

  “If you think, you coal-eyed femaere, that I’ll totter down there with you under my arm and Los Velandryxe Thira bobbing like a kite in front of me, you’re a bigger fool than you think I am.”

  “Impossible . . . ?” A splutter. A scuffle. “Oh, mind the step!”

  “I am minding it. I’m quite capable of doing that—and this. . . .”

  “No, you aren’t, give me that—now see what you’ve done!”

  “Much better. You had it half down already, ramping at me up there—”

  “You wretch, I’ll look like a, a, haymaker’s wench—”

  “Are you still worrying about your looks . . . ?”

  Silence, sudden, absolute. Dwindling to a sense of motion, and an abrupt change of tone.

  “I still don’t see how you can. . . .”

  “Because I’m a fool. You told me that. Fengthira told me, your blighted soothseer told me. Once to fall for you, twice to suffer you, thrice for coming back. It’s only the thought of that eternally sanctified bedpost that got me through.”

  “Assharral—”

  She broke off short. For an instant the flaw crossed his voice as well.

  “We’ll deal with Assharral. In its time.”

  “Fengthira—”

  “Fengthira what?”

  “Fengthira won’t like it. . . .”

  “Fengthira’ll do as I say.” Fengthira’s eyes lit in a vivid laugh. “Stop that or you’ll never see a bedpost. I’ll pull your clothes off on these steps.”

  “But when I get old, what on earth am I going to do?”

  “Pour out my tonic and unearth my sticks. . . .”

  They reached the top of the stair. For an instant I thought the smoke had wholly gone. His arm was round her waist, one of hers round him, her other arm cradled the Well. The light hung upon them, transfiguring their faces, making them figures of legend who walk in immortal sunlight, where laughter needs no cause but springs like water from a brimming wellhead, the overflow of bliss.

  Fengthira watched them descend, an echo of that light in her own eyes. I realized, in wonder, it was Moriana at whom she looked.

  Moriana looked back. Her hair had come right down in a sable haystack, her face was indubitably grimed with lava smuts. But her bones were the bones of a Morheage, and the glow waking in her eyes was cold as night in space.

  “There’s naught so vexing,” Fengthira observed, “as to hear tha’st done better than tha deserts.” Her lids crinkled. “Wilt need to keep him on the bit. Else I doubt he’ll give away Assharral when the fit takes him, tha shirt as well as his.”

  Beryx said indignantly, “ ’Thira!” But Moriana twitched and gave one cut-off gasp.

  “You don’t . . . you don’t mind. . . .”

  Fengthira snorted at her, but not as she had at me. “Dost think he’d pay attention if I did?”

  Moriana’s brows snapped down. Tried to stay there, and slid up. The laughter rose behind them, a sudden involuntary runnel pure as the music of Los Morryan: surprise, relief, delight.

  With a quelling stare Beryx ordered, “You be quiet.” Quite unquelled, she looked up at him through her lashes, gold fireflies alive in velvet black. He looked down. The light was woven in his own eyes, and now it had a softness, the play of sunshine through the tenderest new-sprung leaves. . . .

  “When hast time,” Fengthira said resignedly, “for aught but love-taps and bedposts, couldst lend ear to this?”

  Beryx tore his eyes free. “Oh,” he said in some confusion. “Oh, yes. . . .”

  His glance found Moriana, who said promptly, “You’ll drop it, octopus.” She came forward, the Well in both her hands. Her fingers, her eyes were steady. As if passing over a borrowed needle. As if it had never meant anything to her at all.

  “I think,” she said, “you should look after this.”

  Fengthira did not offer to touch it. “Hast rushed tha fence,” she retorted. “There’s work for it here.”

  Moriana looked blank. Beryx reached normality in a bound, then astonishment.

  “You don’t mean—but ’Thira, can you? I thought—”

  “Wreve-lethar,” Fengthira said flatly, “acts on Pharaon Lethar. Since when was that just headsful of air?”

  Beryx’s jaw dropped. Moriana looked from one to the other. Half an hour ago, I thought, she would have died before demanding so frankly, “Will somebody explain?”

  Fengthira jerked her chin out at Zyphryr Coryan. “Hast a mountain out there falling to pieces and a city melting, and Los Velandryxe under tha hand. Dost know a better time to change the world?”

  Moriana’s eyes went to Beryx. He pulled his jaw up. “She means—” He stopped and swallowed. “ ’Thira, you did mean, stop the—eruption. Didn’t you?”

  Fengthira sighed and rolled her eyes. “Twenty minutes lovebirding and hast lost all tha wits. Nay, I meant walk on water to Eakring Ithyrx. What else would do?”

  “Stop the. . . .” Moriana gaped in turn, lovely even in shock. “You could—it can—I didn’t—”

  She stopped again. Collecting herself. Gathering herself. To what an effort I realized when she looked back at Fengthira and said, clearly, with deliberation, “I beg your pardon. I didn’t know . . . I never learnt . . . what the Well can do.”

  I heard Beryx take in his breath and a stab of jealousy recalled when he had responded, with half that joy, that radiance, to a sign of Math in me.

  She read his eyes. Her cheeks mantled with a light, lovely blush. She said, “It would be a—good start.”

  He gave her a lovelier smile. Praise, pride, joy. Then his brows knit. “But ’Thira. . . . Even Wreve-lethar can’t—reverse time.”

  “Why dost want to reverse it, zany? Well enough if tha canst mend it now.”

  “Then,” said Moriana with decision, “that’s that.” And once again she offered Fengthira the Well.

  Fengthira merely clicked her tongue and jerked up her chin.

  Beryx lost his fuddled air and started backing. “No,” he said. “No, ’Thira. The Four forbid. Not me.”

  “Wilt stop going sideways like a balky colt and use tha head? Needst strength for Los Velandryxe. Tha wast ever more sledge than needle, and t’is sledge that’s needed here.”

  “ ’Thira, no! I don’t have the judgment! The Velandryxe! The—”

  “Needst no judgment. There’s but one thing to do. As for Velandryxe—art such a clown, needst not take care for V
elandryxe. T’is Velandryxe will look out for thee.”

  “ ’Thira, I’m just not strong enough! I’ve fought it and I know!”

  Fengthira’s eyes narrowed. There was a long pause. She frowned. Her eyes turned blank, and revived.

  “Cause enough to try it,” she muttered. “No cause to shy, that t’was never tried before.” She gave Moriana one stabbing glance.

  “Tha, girl. Hast the nerve to help him—and the wish—and the will?”

  Moriana caught her breath. Glanced from Beryx to Fengthira and back.

  “No,” said Fengthira. “Tha folk. Tha fault. And tha mate.”

  Moriana set her teeth, an odd expression on that lovely face. She said, “I’ll try.”

  “Not try,” Fengthira rejoined grimly. “Si’sta, I’ve no way to tell if Wreve-lethar works with double harness. But tha’lt not be playing this time. Knowst what the Well can do if tha only ‘tries.’ And this will be its proper purpose. Canst not try. Tha must.”

  Their eyes met, and held. Then mischief, the image of Beryx’s, woke in those black depths.

  “If it’s a Must,” she remarked demurely, “then it must be right—mustn’t it?”

  Fengthira snorted. “He’s corrupted thee already. Stint vexing me, then, and do what tha must.”

  Moriana glanced at Beryx, who took a deep breath. “Where better?” he said. He put an arm round her, and with her still carrying the Well they retreated up the stairs.

  Fengthira said absently, “Stand, then,” recollected I was not a horse, and amended with irony, “No, sit.”

  * * * * *

  We sat. This time she did not share her farsight, if she used it. When I glanced round she was hunched up, elbows on knees, chin on fists, tension in every line.

  My heart speeded up. I rehearsed the risk, the effort, the Well’s power. Moriana’s rawness in the arts, the possible miscarriages, that daunting “must.” I made my peace several times over with death. The air did not quake. There were no thunderbolts. I found myself breathing fast. Fengthira said, “Calm thaself. T’will be a good time yet.”

  I tried to relax, then wondered with fresh alarm if marauders had found our little party at the gate. She replied curtly, “No.” I dismantled a fern-frond. She enquired acidly, “How didst last a sentry-watch?” I dropped the pieces and tried to comport myself like a soldier. She observed, “Lookst like a squatter pigeon when tha swellst up like that.” I wished with some warmth that neither she nor I had ever been born. She said, “Canst not reverse time.” Then with a quick chuckle she gripped my shoulder and said, “Ah, lad, I’m sorry to plague thee. Si’sta, I’m in a pother myself.”

  That steadied me, as was no doubt intended. I said rather awkwardly, “I know now what you meant.”

  Aedryx need never ask a gloss. She just nodded and said, “My father called Math and love and mercy a triad to thwart Vorn’s spite. But t’will be better if tha canst give t’others a lead. I doubt they’re so old in Math they’ll let her walk out smelling of roses and say, ‘I’ll make amends.’ They’re more like to lock on the bit. And the filly’s cost him enough.”

  Thinking of the dead mare, recalling she put horses above men, I reflected that she practiced what she preached. She chuckled. “T’is never easy. Sooner plait ropes in water than follow Ma—”

  Her words blew away. The world blew away. Earth, air, my body, all but vision was gone. Instead I beheld Los Velandryxe Thira, poised against a ground of impenetrable black.

  But instead of a crystal dewdrop it was a solid orb of crusted green and blue and black and white, the blue of compressed oceans, the green in masses whose shape I had seen on maps, overlaid by ragged whorls of white with black laid like shadows beneath. What told me it was Los Velandryxe Thira was the four hands strained about its girth: a tapering white hand clinched by a strong-knuckled hand whose ancient shield calluses were blurred in scar tissue’s seamy, hairless brown, a crippled claw forced tight by an elegant long-nailed hand with the eclipsed-moon signet on its thumb.

  At least, I think it was on the thumb. I still wonder, sometimes, if that thumb was there, or if I saw, face whittled by earth’s shadow, the real moon itself. The hands’ distortion told me what they held was heavier than mountains, that it was spinning as it hurtled with vertiginous momentum through empty space, so for one awful moment I feared that clutch would break. . . .

  And then I felt—Everything is the only word for it. I felt everything bump: check: lift like a wheel to a road rut, gather and run, everything from the spin of that inlaid bubble to the course of my own blood.

  My stomach swam, my ear channels staggered, my heart found itself out of step and skipped to catch up, my eyes . . . when it was gone, they wanted that image back. But I was seated in the smoke on a stone step in Ker Morrya, with Fengthira gesturing me to quiet.

  Scratch of fern fronds, the pound of my heart. Blood’s sough in my ears. Her husk of a whisper. “When couldst last hear that?”

  My heart stopped altogether. She rose and walked swiftly out to the loggia beyond the steps.

  Smoke blinded us, heat stifled us. A red-hot sword lay down Zyphryr Coryan’s flank. I heard clamor from the city. I heard Fengthira say, more softly yet, “Imsar Math.” Then I knew what I could no longer hear.

  The thunder in the earth had stopped.

  She turned from the smoke wall. “Art a lucky man.” She sounded stern, infinitely remote. “Hast seen what none other will, past or future time. Tha Stiriand blood perhaps.”

  She answered my other questions swiftly as they were thought. “No, tha dost not see the fire running backward into Haz’s belly or the smoke gone in an eye-blink or Zyphryr Coryan ten years ahead. He’s a good lad, and wiser than he knows. Next best to hold tha hand is knowing when to stop.”

  Then her eyes lit up. She laughed like a girl and flicked a finger across my nose. “Content thee, Granite-eyes. They’ve done it. Mountain’s back to sleep.” And she ran lightly, swifter than any maiden, through the loggia and up the steps.

  * * * * *

  I did not follow. I waited till they came, trooping down together, easy now, slandering each other and fighting the battle over like all soldiers, their clothes patched white with sweat, Beryx and Moriana arm in arm, the Well tucked negligently in Fengthira’s elbow crook. Three aedryx with the shine of joy and magic and victory on them, remote from mortal men.

  Then Fengthira tapped my elbow, asking, “Wilt wait the smoke out to be sure?” Beryx demanded with urgency, “For the Four’s sake help me with these women, Fylghjos,” and Moriana, that soft new sheen in her eyes brightening to a kindly mischief, murmured, “What did you do with the last surcoat, Alkir?”

  I had just wit to retort, “Protected imperial bloodstock, ma’am.” Before their laughter drew me into the fellowship.

  As we entered the loggia, Beryx looked eagerly out into the smoke. Then he broke step, pausing, drawing in a long, long breath. “Now,” he said, and I knew he was invoking that promise made to Rema, for the dawn she would not see. “Now we can start.”

  * * * * *

  I followed them through the murk, half soaring willy-nilly on the updraft of that happiness, half crying in curdled hate and desperation, You can forgive her. Fengthira has. But how can we forgive all that she has done?

  And then, in mouth-drying fear, How can you start, until you get past us?

  We came down the last steps. Onto the threshold. Under Ker Morrya’s gate. What plan, if any, Beryx had made, I have no idea. My own brain was dry. I saw the faces turn, the bodies jump, the action beginning, inevitable as the shift of a phalanx-front.

  Evis and Sivar had sprung forward in relief. Zyr shouted, “Ha-ha—” and the Axairan triumph yell died in his throat. Before my eyes their faces turned to sword-blades, sharp and pitiless, all leveled on Moriana in our midst.

  She had pulled from Beryx’s arm, chin up and backbone stiffening, the softness gone. He tried to catch at her and she almost pushed him off. Her head went
back as I had seen it on the parapet of Los Morryan. But though her eyes were huge and somber as Ker Morrya’s smoke pall, the mockery, the cruel amusement had disappeared.

  Before she could speak Beryx flung words out with bare desperate haste. “We stopped the fire—the mountain’s back asleep!”

  It barely distracted them. Evis gave a brush of the hand. Wenver and Amver had let the boys go. They were all beginning to close in.

  “I said we did it!” He had some authority back. As their eyes involuntarily came round he caught her hand and held it despite her jerk. “I couldn’t have done it, without her.”

  He stared around them, joy lost, all-too-helpless fear becoming something else. But this time Moriana spoke.

  “I have renounced the Well,” she said.

  It came flatly as an ultimatum. She would not sue mercy, excuse herself, let alone offer apologies to such a reception. But, I realized, she was trying to unbend. Doing a Morheage’s best to announce amends.

  The stealthy, all but involuntary advance had stopped. Ost stared, Uster blinked, a moment’s comprehension showed in Karis’ eyes. The boys had crept forward, riveted as the rest. Quick, I besought some unknown god, let me weight the scalepan. Give me something to say.

  I hesitated an instant too long. It was Zyr whose eyes slitted. Zyr whose voice, lowered to a gravel-slide, broke out, “The Well. And what about the rest? Our folk? The army? Assharral?”

  “Zyr, stop!” Beryx shouted in pure panic this time. “I told you—don’t let it make you Ammath!”

  Evis half-checked. Zyr’s eyes rolled, the glare of the berserker before he loses all control. And some great shove sent me leaping to stand braced like a shoulderman at Moriana’s rather than Beryx’s back.

  “Wait,” I cried in turn. “Wait, stop—think!”

  I had no weapon. I knew no weapon would help us now. I could only try to make my eyes say it. You’ve followed him this far. Will you destroy him in his first taste of happiness? Will you pervert yourselves and smash all hope of a future to avenge what, however cruelly, is already gone?

  If nothing else, I could not add ignominiously, if you destroy me along with my lord, don’t do it in front of my sons.