Irza began to understand why morvende had so honored a place in history.
She’d seen nothing but a hole when Hinder had gotten them away from those Norsundrians. And though she’d looked back, she’d only seen the light source suddenly cut off, and then she’d heard the roar of falling rock.
But now they were in, and she hoped that that meant they would become the Chosen. Or at least Atan would—and if she did, why not those of noble blood? It was not necessary for the descendants of the trades to be Chosen to know the accesses, for they would never become leaders, surely.
The kids were invited to sit on woven rugs set on the stone near a black pool that was the first uninviting thing she’d seen. There seemed to be no equivalent of a high table, a place where nobles took precedence. Irza waited, without being obvious, to see where the others sat. Where would be the center?
Atan hadn’t yet sat. She was talking to the old man with the braided hair.
“I’m tired, Irza.” Julian tugged fretfully on the hem of Irza’s tunic.
“Go, then.” Irza shook the child’s fingers free, and sighed with relief when Julian flung herself down beside Arlas, who was yawning as she slumped on the blanket next to Sana.
Irza noticed a couple of the others looking her way, so she sat down with care, trying to move with grace and dignity as befitting Ianth House.
Good smells assailed her nostrils. Morvende moved among the children, carrying bowls of something steaming. Servants? She glanced at the old one still talking with Atan.
Irza only nodded and smiled her thanks to the two adults that brought her a steaming bowl of golden tea and a plate of some kind of cut fruit and some crunchy cakes, but the girl morvende who came last with a jug, looking to refill the tea dishes, she put out a hand to stop.
“Is that your king?” she asked, indicating the old morvende with Atan.
“We do not have kings,” the girl said. Her accent was pretty, reminding Irza of Hinder and Sin when they first arrived at the dell. “He is...” She tipped her head. “It translates only as ‘Grandfather.’ But this—Grandfather or Grandmother—is how we call our oldest and wisest.”
Irza nodded her thanks and then said, as casually as she could, “I suppose you’ll need to make a new access? I’m afraid we ruined the one we came in. But you know, everyone here would be willing to dig and help restore it, or to make another.”
“It is kind,” the girl said. “We give thanks for generous offer.” She moved away, stooping to refill cups of everyone who needed more, never asking their status, or giving anyone deference or precedence.
Irza sighed inwardly. She’d have to wait, and meanwhile, did the morvende have cleaning frames or would they get to bathe?
The bath was offered after everyone had eaten. They were led to a chamber lower down that steamed at one end and had a waterfall at the other. Around a corner was another one, almost its twin. The boys got one, the girls the other.
Atan soon floated gratefully in bubbling water, which churned and fizzed around her like gentle fingers brushing over her skin. Not only the grime of their terrible journey washed away, but the aches in her body as well.
Happy shouts echoed up the rock walls into the dark shadows above. There were no straight angles in these caverns. The rock was not uniform gray, but a rich variety of subtle colors, compressed into sedimentary lines. It all was testament to the violent tectonics of the past, possibly going back to the world’s birth.
At last, the others heaved themselves out, looking tired and heavy-limbed as they dressed again in clothes that had been made magically clean. A delightful surprise was the quick zap of warm dry air when they stepped between a pair of old stones, and then soft-voiced, smiling adults offered the children places to rest.
Most accepted and were led away toward a honeycomb of small caves up the side of one vast cavern shelf.
“Oh!” That was Sana, sounding as if she had suddenly stepped in ice. No. Her tone was one of surprise, shock even, but nonetheless pleasure.
And then Atan realized what she’d been hearing: singing. Faint, almost too faint to discern above the soughing of wind over stone, the sound was so beautiful that at first she was not even certain it was voices. Bells, she thought, drawn toward the song. They sound like silver bells.
Then she saw the singers, high in another cavern, facing the other direction. Walls bounced the sound back, blending the voices. Triplets in one chord, then another, echoed from stone to stone, forming a new and more subtle counterpoint, while the melodic line bound it all together in threads of gold—no—of rainbow—no, that wasn’t right either—
Atan closed her eyes, trying to comprehend the beauty, but it sounded and felt, so high... deep... vast, as the melody chased up and up, shifting in chords from somber to joyful. The glory exalted her, so intense that she was not aware of the tears cooling on her cheeks or the ache in her chest from sobs, until the echoes began to fade as singers fell silent one by one, until only a single voice remained. Then that one, too, sang a high note that dwindled into the hush of the wind.
Sana stumbled forward, weeping. Atan started up in concern, then fell back when she saw that it was elation, not sadness, that moved Sana. Atan sank back on her pile of rugs and pillows.
Most of the kids had fallen into slumber. Irza sat in the center, Julian asleep between her and an equally somnolent Arlas.
“They said it was a lullaby,” Irza said, her face calm, her voice pleasant. “But it was much too beautiful for that.”
Atan did not understand Irza. Lilah had been able to help a little when she explained that Irza had courtly manners. Atan had read about courtly manners and how they were supposed to hide real feelings.
“It was,” Atan said.
Irza’s eyes narrowed. “Well, everyone seems to be falling asleep, and the little ones certainly need their rest. They are very tired.”
Remorse sent a pang through Atan when she glanced at Julian. “I—I keep forgetting. I don’t know anything about small children,” she said contritely.
“Well, I do,” Irza said, smiling with confidence. Then she yawned. “I’m tired, so if nothing else is going on...” She lay down and arranged herself neatly.
Atan watched the way she settled herself, almost as if she performed a dance. It was much more than the arrogant expectation that one would always be watched, the center of interest or attention. This was living art, using grace to underscore leadership, more of that symbolic transference.
Atan knew she would have to compromise with the courtly attitudes toward life.
But not right now, she thought tiredly, and lay down near Lilah.
She was too tired to notice that Merewen was missing.
o0o
Atan woke to the sounds of others sitting up, stretching, yawning, and talking as they looked about in sleepy pleasure or wonder. It was so good to be safe and out of the cold, and to know they would not have to walk hungry all through the day.
Julian was happy. She loved the warm cave, the food, and the kind people. She waved at Atan, who smiled back. It was a smile just for her, Julian knew. Not a smile for others to see or a smile put on like clothes, to vanish again when others turned their faces elsewhere, because Atan’s smile was still there when the old man with the white hair touched her shoulder and she turned his way.
“If you have rested,” Lonender said to Atan. “Perhaps we might meet to exchange views on matters concerning both morvende and sunsiders.”
“Yes, let’s,” Atan agreed.
Lonender led the way to a little chamber above a waterfall.
Lilah saw Atan led away, and wondered if she ought to offer to go along. Those grownups obviously didn’t want to talk to her, or she would have been included. And though Atan had relied on her to help understand the other kids, morvende were far outside of Lilah’s experience. She doubted whether she’d comprehend them any better than her friend.
Hinder appeared, grinning. “Want to look around?”<
br />
“Would I!” Lilah exclaimed.
“What would you like to see?”
“Oh, anything.” She frowned. “But what about Norsunder, and breaking the spells?”
Hinder’s face changed to a kind of rueful grimace. “The grownups aren’t going to let any of us sunside. Those Norsundrians are all over the hills, and just this morning—it’s morning now, as it happens—the report came back that they have Eidervaen ringed. Nobody can get in or out.”
Lilah whistled. “What are we going to do?”
“Well, there are ways.” He made a vague gesture, then shrugged, and Lilah figured that there were some morvende secrets involved, ones that Hinder wasn’t allowed to talk about. “Anyway, those plans are being made. In the meantime, we’re supposed to rest and have fun. So?”
“I suppose you’ll laugh at me if I ask about the wonderful jewel caves? I can’t help what people write in records, you know.”
Hinder laughed, but it wasn’t mean, or even gloating. “Oh, they’re real.”
“They are?”
He laughed silently and nodded, his cobwebby hair drifting into his eyes.
“But I take it something nasty will happen if you try to steal the jewels or something?”
Hinder snickered again.
Lilah pretended to fume. She knew he wasn’t being a show-off, but she really did hate being ignorant. “Well, how am I supposed to know these things? The legends and songs all talk about them.”
Hinder fought down the laughter. “Not your fault. Just—I know about the jewel caves. Seen ’em once. There are, I forget, six or seven of them in various places over the world. People do try to get to ’em and steal. And get a big surprise.”
“Nasty magic traps! I knew it.”
Hinder shook his head, and Lilah watched his silky hair drift. She longed to touch it, but knew better than to ask. “Not traps,” he said. “It’s just—well, I suppose I can take you. But first let’s get some of the others. Sana won’t come. Nobody’s getting her away from those singers. But Pouldi, and Brick, and Vanya, and a couple of the others I know would like to see the really, really old caverns, with the old paintings from before the Fall, and dive off the big warm waterfall—that’s where we like swimming best—”
Lilah rubbed her hands. “What are we waiting for?”
SEVEN
The morvende formed a comfortable circle. Atan noticed that everyone could see everyone else but there was no sense of hierarchy, no person made focus of all eyes... or the target of all eyes.
The morvende sat cross-legged on their cushions, their pale fabrics lying in soft folds over their limbs, hands loose in laps or on knees. They talked easily, passing small cups of freshly steeped leaf back and forth, and Atan felt the invisible fist somewhere inside her chest unlock its grip, one finger at a time.
She was not in danger. She was not on trial.
As if he sensed that she was ready, Lonender said, quite kindly, “How do we know you are who you claim to be?”
Atan had expected this question. In fact, she had thought about it long into nights when she tried to imagine what her first days in Sartor would be like—if she wasn’t first struck down by Norsunder.
She had expected the question from the orphans of Shendoral, but they had taken her appearance as proof enough, maybe because they were young, too, or maybe because Savar had told them of her after his single meeting with Tsauderei. Maybe it was because of her looks, though those couldn’t be trusted as proof of birth.
She said, “I can’t prove it. In truth, I cannot prove it even to myself, for I have no memories beyond growing up with Gehlei protecting me and Tsauderei teaching me. It was they who told me who I was, and told me the stories of what happened. It is they you must rightly question for the truth of my identity. Not I.”
Sin’s mother exchanged looks with two other women, her eyes so pale it was difficult to determine their color, their expression cool and watchful. “We have taught our young ones your sunsider manners. Shall we have them bow to you?”
Atan said, frowning, “Is that your own custom?”
The woman rippled her fingers, then flicked them away, a gesture of negation.
“Then no bowing here. The customs of my realm can wait on my success in restoring my kingdom. At that time—Tsauderei counseled me I should—I will comply with the old forms. At first, anyway.” Atan’s hands locked together.
Lonender said, “If they do not accept your authority?”
Atan sighed. “I have thought about that, too. I don’t have an answer, beyond the conviction that each day will bring its questions. Challenges. Decisions. But I won’t have any throne or name, or anything else that has to be secured by violence, that much I know. Either they have me by their own choice.” She swallowed. “Or not.”
o0o
“Here we are.” Hinder pointed the way to a tunnel from which faint light emerged, just enough to touch his white hair with warm highlights, and strike tiny reflective gleams in the strata of the tunnel walls. The two were alone after all, for the other morvende kids preferred swimming and fun.
Lilah stopped, wailing in disappointment, “This is it? The famous caves, and we ran all the way up that long, long, LONG trail just—” She remembered she was a guest and shut her mouth.
Until she realized Hinder was laughing. She groaned.
“Come on,” he said. “Not much farther.” He started running again, and Lilah, sweaty in her sturdy black clothes that were made for bitter winter weather—toiled after him, despite the sweat running down her sides and making her neck itchy and hot.
The upward slant of the tunnel was sharp for only another turn, and then leveled out, widening gradually. The light was also stronger, enough to cast faint shadows that picked out the roughness of the stone walls. Here no one had smoothed the walls with clay or paint or anything else. Perhaps nature had made this tunnel, or perhaps not, but morvende hands had not finished the job as they had everywhere else.
“Here we are,” Hinder said, breathless.
Lilah slowed, also panting. The air wasn’t heated, it was... it was... strange.
They rounded a last corner, and she entered a chamber filled with light, so bright and clear her eyes teared. She sucked in a long, shuddering breath. Hinder stood in the center, hugging his thin, strong arms to himself and gazing upward with a happy smile.
Lilah blinked away her tears and stared. Jewels, indeed! That was her first impression. The walls, the ceiling, even the floor, were all jewels, though the floor had somehow flattened itself, so they were not stepping on the sharp facets that covered the rest of the cave.
She saw jewels of every color, and each with light inside it. There were blues so deep and so pure it almost hurt to look at them, more cerulean than a mountain lake on midsummer’s day, their centers glowing with a fiery cobalt more celestial than the twilight sky. Then there were the yellows, from the palest shade of cream just turning to butter to a complex peachy gold, and thence to the deep, bright yellow that would shame the daffodils of spring by comparison. The reds varied from crimson, vermillion, and deep rose to the palest blush of pink.
Then those shades began to mix.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh.”
Hinder chuckled.
Lilah spun around. The light was so strange, so pure, like the air, it felt hot and cold at once, and as she stood there breathing, she thought she heard, so faint she could not be sure, the endless rise and fall of sweet voices singing. But there were no words, it was a hum, the sound of the stars, if the stars were singing.
“Oh.”
“You see,” Hinder said. “Go ahead. Try to take one.”
Lilah put her hands behind her back and shook her head, and for a moment the dreamy singing faded, and she was closed inside her own head, which felt hot and confined and stuffy. “No. I daren’t.”
“It’s all right. You won’t turn into a mushroom or anything.”
“They look like they are..
. on fire.”
“Hah! No, they don’t burn. At least, not in the way ordinary fire does, but your intentions are not to harm. And they know it.”
Lilah walked slowly to one of the walls and reached with tentative fingers to touch what appeared to be a great emerald, its heart glowing the deep, dark green of ancient woodland. The stone was smooth, like a stone should be, not hot or cold, but she felt her bones and teeth vibrate just slightly, and realized what she was feeling was magic. Power.
She dropped her hand and turned away. “Are they, well, alive?”
Hinder shrugged. “First you’d have to say what that is.”
o0o
“You must know that if you do emerge sunside,” Lonender said, “and you are successful in removing the binding spells, that your tasks will have just begun, that there is no triumph in the sense of safety and comfort afterward.”
Atan nodded, her throat still tight. “I know. Tsauderei has never let a day go by without reminding me of that. Ever since I was very small.” She drew in a deep breath. “I know I will be a target for Norsunder, just as my parents were. As my ancestors were. So I learn, and I trust my allies. Perhaps, together we can prevail against Norsunder, because I know I can’t alone.”
“Then we will cease issuing dire warnings,” an older woman spoke from the other side of the circle.
Morvende shifted position, some exchanging slight signs with their hands, and here and there a soft whisper.
Lonender said, in the Old Sartoran, “Tsauderei is known to us. His name was good.”
Atan knew how to translate that: worthy of trust, reliable for truth. “His name is still good,” she said. “To that I can attest.”
“You are young,” the old woman spoke again. “But not without wisdom. What do you know about Norsunder?”
“Little enough,” Atan replied. “Again, what I have read in records and what Tsauderei has told me, as well as what Hinder reported to you of our recent encounters. Is there something you can add, so that I might be aware?”
Lonender said, “We have in truth been in hiding this century past, except for the few who desire the sun. The news they bring back matches what you already know, that Norsunder holds some of Sartor’s ancient allies, and that others pay tribute either directly or indirectly.”