Chapter 7 The Iron House of Ursala
Athlaz was more nervous than before a philosophy examination, more excited than before battle. He went to the window grating again and confirmed that the boats had docked. Yes, he could just make them out in the dusk, though they showed no lights for fear of attracting Fijat Killers. Inwardly, he cursed his upright decision to take his regular turn in the vigil room at the top of the sidroig. Everyone else would be greeting her, while he and a few others kept the necessary watch, alert for unwanted visitors from the Vulture’s Forest.
He heard footsteps on the suspended platforms and stairways below him and, looking down through the iron grid that formed the floor of the room, saw his sister ascending through the midst of the sidroig, passing lamp after lamp. He thought she looked absurdly pretty and mature in her formal blue gown and braided hair style, worn for this special occasion. At least she ran like a twelve year old.
Before long she was beside him, huffing and puffing, but not too spent to chatter. “Oh, Athee, I’ve seen her! She came off the boat with Uncle Demetrius, but she didn’t say anything. Everyone said she was too tired from traveling constantly—straight through from Ruin, they say. And she’s so young! You wouldn’t believe it. Athee, I’m going to get to stay in her tent tonight as one of the ladies in waiting, and not even Mama will do that. Do you know she isn’t even really pretty? And inhumanly tall. What else do you want to know? I’m so sorry you can’t be down there. Why didn’t you make one of the guard take your place?”
“Because it wouldn’t be fair, Ruthee.”
“Well, who cares about fair when you’re the Master’s son and there’s an Empress in the house? What shall I tell you about her?”
“Nothing, really. Maybe I’ll see her in the morning.”
“I’ll see her all night. It isn’t fair. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you slip down and take a look at her before she goes up to her tent? I’ll stay here and watch. It’s all right, you know nothing’s going to happen.”
“Papa will see me.”
“No he won’t. He’s distracted with all the luggage and directing of traffic. Just try to hunch down so you don’t tower over everybody. Go on, hurry!” She pushed him.
“Thanks, Ruthee.”
Athlaz kissed her on the top of the head, turned, and raced down toward the lower levels. He pounded along on narrow catwalks and down one suspended stairway after another. When he reached the second story, however, he paused, standing about twenty feet above the ground floor, his hand on a pipe-rail. He looked down through the open grid floor at a large reception area near the front gate, now full of crowds of Ursalans milling around.
And there she was. High backed wooden benches were located inside the gate for the repose of travelers, and many men were sitting on them, only one woman. She was actually quite close beneath him, and so well illumined by the many oil lamps on stands that he could read her features. Curiously, no one seemed to be paying any attention to her, nor she to anyone. His father Arrez was conferring with prominent men, while others attended to a great deal of baggage which was being transferred up a wall-stair to the levels above. He could see the lamps of some of the carriers far above him within the iron house’s dome, as they slowly ascended in the airy, wall-less interior. It was a moment of reorganization and the Empress was left to herself.
Feeling almost like a burglar, Athlaz slipped down the last stairway to the ground floor, and very close now. She was indeed young, he saw with disappointment, no older than himself. Wrapped in a cloak against the cool evening, she sat straight and impassive, her hands in her lap. He read strength of character in her face, and inner resolve. Maybe her youth did not matter, he thought. It might take some years for her to fulfill the prophecies, anyway, bringing peace and glory to the Fold.
As he watched, the Empress slumped against the bench, closed her eyes, and yawned a large yawn. And that was all it took. In that moment, Athlaz’ heart was lost. She was revealed as human; a breathing, living girl with a heart that beat and soft hair on her shoulders. Even as he thought this, and without considering, he strode nearer. She looked up and, realizing that he had seen the yawn, belatedly lifted a hand to her mouth. Then Athlaz too was embarrassed and, somehow managing to become interested in a conversation nearby, he sidled away. Still, he kept catching glimpses of her over other people’s heads. It made him ridiculously happy that she was not moving about, that he could look at her as often as he dared. He cared nothing now for the prophecies about Simone. What she would do was not of the slightest interest to him, only who she was.
Like a castle? Indeed not! At the door of her roomy tent Simone looked out at the interior of the iron house and mentally scolded whoever had translated ‘sidroig’ as ‘castle’ in her Gellene dictionary. No, it was more like a birdcage. The morning sun flooded in through immense, grated windows, making criss-crosses on the tent walls. Looking down to the ground far below her, she was confirmed in her impression of the previous night that all the floor levels were made of iron gratings, as were the stairs and the few interior walls. As for the exterior walls, they were solid enough, made of massive stones that met in a dome above (so that the sidroig was almost igloo shaped). But their gridiron windows were so large that, though all was firmly enclosed, one had the feeling of being outdoors.
Indeed, the sidroig was not made to keep weather out, but rather to exclude the Vulture’s creatures. She had already seen, when she had entered, how the grates on door and window, which guarded against rodroms, were seconded by sheets of metallic netting, which allowed no smallest point of entrance for the Fijat Killers. As for the weather, it might enter as it pleased, even—she supposed—in the form of snow in winter. The Ursalans spent cool nights in snug tents pitched on the gratings. When these tents were struck, it had been explained to her, the only possible hiding place for an intruder was eliminated. If something evil were to penetrate the interior, it could be seen from every point within and properly dealt with.
Most of the tents were already on their way down for the day. Simone watched with interest as the Forest people moved about at such work. A few others were cooking some sort of breakfast in huge cauldrons two levels below her. Three levels up, some sturdy men were rolling full barrels into a storage area near the wall. A barrel thumped against the stone and the sound echoed to her. Beyond the huge windows were still, wooded slopes and, on the southwest, the river. Not bad, she decided. In fact, it looked the best human society she had yet seen. But she felt a pang in her heart when she remembered Ruin village. When would she ever go back?
She turned to the tent’s interior. “Snag, I want to see the outside of the sidroig before breakfast. You and Snart will want to be with me, I know. Roper can come too if you’re worried about his breaking his pledge not to run off. Misar Mald?”
“Thank you, Simone,” answered the Fijat from a swaying basket hanging from a tent pole, “but I believe I should go have a few more words with Master Arrez. Other human leaders will be arriving here this morning, and we need to plan their reception. You’d do well to skip breakfast entirely, by the way. Arrez insists on a luncheon feast of Roman proportions, and I haven’t been able to talk him out of it.”
Snag and Snart stayed close to Simone as they descended to the ground floor. They had been stung, she knew, at being separated from her the evening before, but Master Arrez had insisted that no Sarr be allowed in the sidroig unless first disarmed and closely questioned. While that had been taking place, he had settled Simone in her splendid tent with half a dozen ladies in waiting. Lovely ladies. Nice ladies. But so awe-struck and over-attentive that Simone had been unable to relax with them for a minute.
Simone had sent one of them to Arrez with a message instructing him to send along her Sarrs promptly and dismiss the ladies. Arrez, unsure of the protocol of the matter, had delayed for half an hour. His brother Demee, the local expert on Sarrs, had pointed ou
t that they could not continue to slight Sarrs without offending the Looper community. Then Mald, who was present with the human leaders, had tactfully reminded Arrez that Simone heavily outranked him. So Arrez had reluctantly made the switch, saying—as Mald told Simone later—that it was not to be charged to him if harm came to the legendary Empress.
Simone now thought it a handy thing to be a Legend from Another World. In the comfortable tent, with her Sarr friends restored to her, she had gotten her first good night’s sleep in the Fold. Indeed, she would have been happy if not for gnawing worries about Clay and her mother. Now as she descended through the sidroig, she tried to shake it off by observing the stares of the Ursalans, who seemed as shocked by her choice of companions as they were respectful toward her person.
As they approached the eastern gate of the iron house, they found that the metallic netting had been removed with the coming of daylight and the gates opened. Beyond was a cleared space of short grass, and beyond that a descent into an ornamental garden. Here were winding paths meant for pleasure, dotted with benches and statues, and graced by the sound of running water.
Snag laid a cautioning paw on Simone’s arm. “Empress, terrain like this holds too many hiding places. Let Snart and I go ahead of you and scout.” He turned to Roper. “Stay here, and give us a yowl if anything unusual happens.” The Ulrigs glided forward and disappeared among the bushes and trees.
Simone followed for a few steps, aware that Roper was hanging behind her. When she turned and found him actually slipping backward, he stopped and they looked one another in the eye. The Looper wagged his tail and grinned, as if to say, ‘What did you expect?’ Simone was going to say something, but she thought better of it. Roper would not change. She looked down at the ground and took a few deep breaths of the scented air. When she looked up again, he was gone. Peacefully alone for the first time in this strange place, she turned again to the garden.
As she picked her way along a curved path, she mentally summed up her experiences of the last week. Interesting Disaster seemed the best description. She had lost everything, yet in such a fascinating manner. No one offered the slightest hope of her getting back to Indiana, and at any rate, she could not decently go back without Clay. So here she would stay, in a land where no one seemed to care anything about her as a person, only as a female Messiah come to rescue them out of their continent-wide mess.
She paused and touched some yarrow with her long fingers. No, it was not actually true that no one cared. Aldee had cared, had cared like a mother. Mald showed signs of caring. Master Arrez’s brother Demee talked to her through no filter of awe or hypocrisy, talked to her as if to a favored niece. Even that big, young fellow in the hall last night had looked at her as if she were a person and not as the others did, not as the Legend from Another World.
But one and all, they wanted her to go to the Council somewhere southward and get involved in head-achy politics. Even Raspberry had wanted her to do it. Even—He. She remembered the summer stars over the plain.
“Go away,” she suggested aloud. “No, I don’t mean that. But don’t crowd me, all right? What can You have to do with me, anyway? Just—just give me a little time, a little breathing space.” She took a few more steps and paused by a flowering crab. “If You’re such great stuff, why aren’t You taking care of the Fold Yourself?”
She was distracted by movement high up at the top of the Iron House, and turned in time to see a very large, white bird fly down and disappear among the trees of the garden. It appeared to land just ahead on her path. Curious, she crossed over the arch of a foot bridge and came in sight of a large fountain. A great statue of a man with a sword rose from the center, and all around it were stone bowls, gurgling full, with water falling from one to the next, and with lily pads on their surfaces.
On the edge of one of these bowls, gleaming white against the gray and green, stood the beautiful thing. Thing she had to call it, for it was like no bird she had ever seen. It had wings, magnificent wings with plumes, but its head and body were like nothing so much as a white weasel; that is, if a weasel had an elegant plume all down the back of an elongated neck. Its hind feet were not weasel’s feet but the talons of a hawk. It was simply the most delightful thing Simone had ever seen, spotlessly white, gracefully formed, and with midnight blue eyes.
At present it appeared to be looking at itself in the water’s surface. As Simone held her breath and slipped closer, it seemed to glance at her but made no move to fly or run. She was relieved and thought to herself that, since it had not stirred, it must be a pet of some sort, belonging to the house. It really was looking at its own reflection in one of the stone bowls.
“You’re not vain, are you?” she whispered with a smirk.
“No, I’m not,” it replied without looking up.
Simone backed off a step. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you could, uh, that you could hear me.”
“No offense taken,” it said in a reedy voice, and finally it looked up. “If you were a Lusetta, wouldn’t you look at yourself?”
“Yes, I would,” Simone answered truthfully. “As often as possible.”
“Just so. A Lusetta can spend an hour admiring its own reflection and consider the time well spent, having admired itself as a beautiful object and not as self. It’s comparable to an hour with a fine statue. It is elevating to contemplate beautiful things. I might add that I’m enjoying while I can, for I don’t expect to have much opportunity in the months ahead.”
The Lusetta seemed satisfied with having provided this explanation, and the conversation expired. As it returned to its reflection, Simone had time both to further admire the creature and to ponder on how different its temperament seemed to be from her well loved Loopers.
“So you’re the Empress,” it said at last. “They’re talking about you up in the iron house, all the local leaders. I’ve been with them. I flew in early this morning with my good friend Misu, both of us message carriers for the Council. My name is Angfetu, which I hope you won’t forget.”
“Simone.”
“Yes, I know.” Angfetu walked nearer along the rim of the bowl and looked up into her face. “And I know what my answer is to you.”
The little Sarr seemed so serious that Simone decided not to point out that she had posed no question. She nodded for him to go on.
“I don’t want to dramatize such a mission,” said Angfetu. “It’s not certain death. Worse than the danger, perhaps, is the hopelessness: to search a continent for one fair haired boy. I might be years at it. Nevertheless, I’ll go. I’m not needed here at the moment, for Misu can carry any message from the humans back to the Palace of Reflections. Now, if I do find him, you, of course, will have both a message and a token?”
Simone considered. “Just tell him I’m well,” she said, “and bring back news about him. Give him this.” She took off her wristwatch and held it out.
The Lusetta took it in its small, white paw, showing no curiosity about the strange ‘bracelet.’ “From the Lady of Lucilla to the Unknown Emperor,” it said formally. “Well done. I’ll leave directly from here, then. Explain to Misu for me, won’t you?”
At this, Angfetu spread his wings and flew, sailing low over the small garden trees. Simone watched him out of sight. Snag and Snart, who apparently had been observing the meeting, now approached.
“Stuck up little twit,” was Snart’s comment. “What’s more worthless than a Lusetta?”
“Worthless?” Simone raised an eyebrow.
“Worthless in war, worthless in counsel,” Snart said, summing matters neatly.
“Keep your opinions to yourself,” Snag told him.
“Opinions,” Simone put in, “that you share, Captain Snag?”
“Since you put the question directly, Empress—yes. I’m afraid you’ve wasted a bracelet.”
The Ulrigs could not understand Simone’s la
ughter, and she was in no position to explain that a wristwatch is the only truly worthless thing in a world without clocks.
Snag looked around. “Where is Roper?”
“Gone. He ran away.”
“Go hunt for him, Snart,” Snag ordered, “but not very hard. It would be vexing to bring back an annoying little flea once well rid of him.”
Snart loped off slowly in the wrong direction.
“Let’s go back to the sigroid,” Simone said to Snag. “Master Arrez may want to see me by now, and I just remembered that the Empress has been assigned to deliver a message to the Lusetta Misu.”
“If Zeeba does lead her Dragons against the unguarded coast of Meschor, the East will fall. But the war will not be over. Zeeba will press on against the Tirasites, Saldar, and the Silent Cities. The whole continent is ready to erupt into bloodshed, human against Sarr, Sarr against Sarr, and human against human. In the end it will be a war of extermination on all sides.”
Master Arrez looked around slowly at his listeners: the colorfully robed human leaders, the single Lusetta perched on the back of a chair, and the two Ulrigs flanking Simone. They all were met on a level near the top of the iron house. A glance down showed him levels beneath levels until his eye reached the ground far below. He collected his thoughts.
“The question is, how far can Zeeba be allowed to go before the fire is too great to be put out? If an Empress is introduced into a continent already wrecked by war and devastation, won’t it probably be too late? I say, throw on the water while the flame is small. Well, we have a small flame in southern Eschor where the Dragon Fighters are just holding their own. That’s why I recommend that we speed the Empress on her way. The sooner she reaches the Council, the sooner a plan can be made to present her to the world.”
A scratchy voice emanated from the table top near his elbow. “I agree, Arrez. Boats should leave Ursala today. Really, you should already have selected her honor guard and set things in motion. This feast you’ve ordered up is unnecessary.”
Arrez winced. He always found Fijats unnerving, and this Mald was particularly irritating. Mald had a habit of verbally trumping anything Arrez said.
“The feast will not be lengthy,” Arrez answered with a forced smile. “Be patient, Misar, and enjoy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t take away from you what may be your one chance to properly host an Empress,” said Mald. “I just hope you don’t mind if I slip down and begin seeing to practical affairs.”
“Of course, just as you please,” Arrez said with a mixture of pique and relief. “Though we’ll miss your presence here.”
Mald departed, and the rest were led to a sumptuous pavilion that had been raised on the same floor level of the sidroig. Within were three square tables, and on three sides of each table were triple couches: places for twenty-seven guests, including the Lusetta Misu who was provided with a special perch at the head of her couch. Simone was led to the place of honor at the main table, where she imitated the others in reclining on her left elbow. The servants brought in the courses and served from each table’s open side.
Simone was pleased to find that it was proper to eat with one’s hands. Servants supplied finger bowls and towels from time to time. The food was exotic and delicious. Snag and Snart had been snubbed in the seating arrangements, but preferred to stand guard anyway. Master Arrez was on Simone’s left, occupying the center place on the triple couch. Stiff and remote, he proved a dismal conversationalist.
Since no Sarrs were at her table, she tried conversing with the massive young fellow who had caught her yawning the previous evening. He was, she learned, Arrez’s son Athlaz; and nothing more was forthcoming. Arrez supplied that Athlaz had won renown as a slayer of rodroms. Simone tried to follow up on this, but the boy was tongue-tied. Finally, she turned to a balding little man who had brought to the table a stringed instrument. Perhaps she addressed him because he seemed so out of place, a mouth stuffer and giggler among the sophisticated nobles.
The Master’s bard Abram proved to be the sort of nervous chatterer she had hoped for, so she spent a relieved ten minutes learning about the nevel, his instrument, which was rather like a guitar. (Simone had a guitar at home and could play a few chords.) This led to talk about songs, so that Simone was on the verge of actually enjoying herself until Arrez politely interrupted. The Empress, he said, must hear Abram perform between courses.
Abram stood, took up his nevel readily, and then hesitated, looking confused and unhappy.
“Nothing seems to suit the occasion,” he explained sheepishly to Arrez. “I mean, with such a guest and at such a time in history!”
“Don’t freeze up,” said Arrez. “Just give us something merry. ‘The Foresters’ Dance,’ for instance.”
“Something about Lila,” Abram said to himself. “Only a song about Lila could be even remotely appropriate.”
“No, no,” said Arrez. “Give us the Dance, or ‘The Looper on the Log.’
But Abram began to play and sing a ballad.
They have the tale in the western vales
Where the Silent Cities groan,
And the word they keep where slave girls weep
By temples wrought in stone.
Ten thousand crowns lie on the ground
And no one stirs or sings,
But stately queens weave funeral wreaths
In the Land of Unknown Kings.
But they hide their tears on the Maigathal.
The Interpreter sits his throne,
Meting death for grief. So with feigned relief
Each soul despairs alone.
Every head is shorn, every garment torn
By the surging Sea of Storms
Where her father dims the royal rooms
And all of Eschor mourns.
But Howdan laughs and approves his craft
As she meets the shaft and falls,
And the witches cry triumph to the sky
In Purgos’ cursed black halls.
Oh, that earth would fail and the heavens pale
And the rivers cease to flow,
For high and clear on the Mistaleer
There are blood drops on the snow.
Suddenly Abram’s fingers stopped on the strings as if paralyzed. His lips were trembling.
“What’s the matter?” said Arrez, who was losing his temper. “If you’re bound to sing something gloomy, at least finish it. The next verse goes: ‘At Icarus Pass the best and last of Quintus’ line was slain.’”
“But she wasn’t slain,” Abram said in the ghost of a voice.
“I know, I know. But when that song was written the truth had not yet come out. The Ulrigs keep their secrets well.” Arrez glanced at Snag. “What of it? You can’t make a proper ballad out of someone who merely almost died.”
Abram did not appear to be listening. He resumed slowly, as if composing in his head, if he was not in fact inspired.
But not unto death. Her pulse and breath
Are rising still, though slow;
And a people afar have welcomed her
To a place more safe and low.
She was not lost. The torch was tossed
To the Old World, fleetingly.
Lila lives on when her children come
To Meschor by the sea.
He finished and continued to stand motionless for some time, even after the feasters favored him with some mild applause. Finally, he looked around him, laughed self-consciously, and sat down on his couch. But a graveness returned to his face at once.
Simone wondered if she was the only one who had been affected by his song. She had almost jumped out of her skin at the line: Lila lives on when her children come. Yet everyone around her was unmoved, talking and eating calmly, while she felt as if someone had set fire to her soul. Not someone. She well knew Who.
While she labored to keep from leaping on the table, Arrez began to choose
her honor guard for the trip south. Demetrius would go, on the strength of his near kinship to Arrez and his many friendships with Sarrs. Several other nobles were named and a few ladies-in-waiting. When Arrez turned to his son, it came out that they had already had a long discussion and that Athlaz had won permission to go.
Arrez then said to Simone, “Of course, Empress, your Ulrig guards shall go with you, and Misar Mald. But you have powerful enemies, and a long and perhaps dangerous road ahead of you. I would give you any protection I can. Do you want more swords? You may have the pick of all my soldiers and my high born folk. Whom shall I give to you?”
Simone turned a wild eye around the room. “Give me,” she said, “him! The Bard Abram!”
There followed the sound of a nevel hitting the floor and two strings breaking.
“Of course, if you wish, Empress,” said Arrez, “but—”
“And Loopers! Send for Loopers from their nearest village downriver—I think it’s called Bibaseel. Lots of them, twenty or thirty.”
“But Empress Simone—”
“Just do it. Misu? You see that it’s done.” The Lusetta nodded. Simone leaped up. “I’m needed down south at once. I’m sorry, nobles of Skoteine, but I’ll have to leave your splendid feast.”
Every human face at three tables wore a look of shock. That is, except for Athlaz, who was grinning broadly.