“Yes?”
“If we were to win, and I took my father’s throne, one day I would have to send my son off to do something I could not do—something dangerous and glorious. That is the way of kings and their sons. And I would never sleep again, waiting to hear that he had been killed.” He sighed. “That is what I hate about ruling and royalty, Simon. It is living, breathing people with whom a prince plays the games of statecraft. I sent you and Binabik and the others into danger—you, who were little more than a child. No, I know you are now a young man—who knighted you, after all?—but that does not ease my remorse. With Aedon’s mercy, you survived my attention—but other companions of yours did not.”
Simon hesitated a moment before speaking. “But being a woman does not save anyone from being caught by war, Prince Josua. Think of Miriamele. Think of your wife, Lady Vorzheva.”
Josua nodded slowly. “I fear you are right. And now there will be more fighting, more war—and more helpless ones will die.” After a moment’s thought he looked up, startled. “Elysia, Mother of God, this is wonderful medicine for someone suffering from nightmares!” He grinned shamefacedly. “Binabik will kick me for this—taking his ward out and talking to him of death and misery.” He put his arm around Simon’s shoulder for a brief instant, then rose to his feet. “I will take you back to your tent. The wind is getting fierce.”
As the prince bent to retrieve the lamp, Simon watched his spare features and felt a painful kind of love for Josua, a love mixed with pity, and wondered if all knights felt this way about their lords. Would Simon’s own father Eahlferend have been stern but kind like Josua if he had lived? Would he and Simon have talked together about such things?
Most important of all, Simon thought as they pushed through the waving grass, would Eahlferend have been proud of his son?
They saw Qantaqa’s gleaming eyes before they could make out Binabik, a small dark figure standing beside the tent door.
“Ah, good,” the troll said. “I was, I must confess, full of worrying when I found you gone, Simon.”
“It is my fault, Binabik. We were talking.” Josua turned to Simon. “I leave you in able hands. Sleep well, young knight.” He smiled and took his leave.
“Now,” said Binabik sternly, “it is back to your bed that you should go.” He directed Simon through the door, then followed him inside. Simon suppressed a groan as he lay down. Was this to be a night when everyone in New Gadrinsett would wish to talk with him?
His groan became actual as Qantaqa, following them into the tent, stepped on his stomach.
“Qantaqa! Hinik aia!” Binabik swatted at the wolf. She growled and backed out of the door flap. “Now, time for sleeping.”
“You’re not my mother,” Simon muttered. How could he ever do anything about his idea with Binabik hanging about? “Are you going to sleep now, too?”
“I cannot.” Binabik took an extra cloak and threw that over Simon as well. “I am on watch with Sludig this night. I will return to the tent with quietness when it is finished.” He crouched at Simon’s side. “Are you wishing to talk for a while? Was Josua telling you about the armed men who are coming here?”
“He told me.” Simon feigned a yawn. “I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow. I am sleepy, now that you mention it.”
“You have had a day of great difficulty. The Dream Road was treacherous, as Geloë was warning.”
Simon’s desire to get on with his plans was blunted for a moment by curiosity. “What was that, Binabik—that thing on the Dream Road. Like a storm, with sparks in it? Did you see it, too?”
“Geloë is not knowing, and neither am I. Some disturbance, she called it. A storm is a good word, because I am thinking it was something like bad weather on the Road of Dreams. But what was causing it is something for guessing about, only. And even the guessing is not good for nighttime and the dark.” He stood up. “Sleep well, friend Simon.”
“Good night, Binabik.” He listened as the troll made his way outside and whistled for Qantaqa, then he lay quietly for a long time after, counting ten score heartbeats before he slid out from beneath the sheltering cloaks and went searching for Jiriki’s mirror.
He found it in the saddlebags Binabik had saved from Homefinder. The White Arrow was there, too, as was a heavy drawstring sack that momentarily puzzled him. He hefted it, then struggled with the knotted cord that held it shut. Memory came back to him suddenly: Aditu had given it to him at their parting, saying it was something sent from Amerasu to Josua. Curious, Simon wondered for a moment if he should take it with him and open it in a more private place, but he felt time pressing. Binabik might come back sooner than expected; it would be better to be berated for being absent than to be stopped before he had a chance to try out his idea. He reluctantly pushed the sack back into the saddlebag. Later, he promised himself. Then he would give it to the prince, as he had promised.
Stopping only to root out the small pouch containing his flints, he slipped out of the tent and into the cold night.
Scant moonlight leaked through the clouds, but it was enough for him to find his way across the hilltop. A few shadowy figures were moving through the tent city on one sort of errand or another, but none challenged him, and soon he had passed out of New Gadrinsett and into the central ruins of Sesuad’ra.
The Observatory was deserted. Simon crept through the deep-shadowed interior until he found the remains of the fire Geloë had made. The ashes were still warm. He added a few pieces of kindling that lay beside the embers, then sprinkled it with a handful of sawdust from his pouch. He struck at the blunt edge of his iron with his flint until he finally managed to catch a spark. It died before he could breathe it into full life, so he laboriously repeated the procedure, cursing quietly. At last he managed to start a small fire burning.
The carved rim of Jiriki’s mirror seemed warm to his touch, but the reflecting surface, when he held it near his cheek, was as cold as a sheet of ice. He breathed on it as he had breathed on the hard-won spark, then held it up before his face.
His scar had lost some of its angry flame; it was now a red and white line curving down his cheek from his eye to his jaw. It gave him, he thought, a certain soldierly look—the appearance of one who had fought for what was right and honorable. The snow-white streak running through his hair also seemed to add a touch of maturity. His beard, which he could not resist fluffing with his fingers while he stared, made him look, if not like a knight, at least like a young man rather than a boy. He wondered what Miriamele would think if she could see him now.
Maybe I’ll find out soon.
He tilted the mirror a little, so that the firelight illumined only half his face, leaving the remainder in red-tinged shadow. He thought carefully about what Geloë had said about the Observatory, how it had once been a place where the Sithi saw and spoke to each other over great distances. He tried to pull its antiquity and silence around him like a cape. He had found Miriamele once before in the mirror, without trying: why not now, in this potent place?
As he stared at his own halved reflection, the quality of the firelight seemed to change. The flicker became a gentle wavering, then slowed to a methodical pulse of scarlet light. The face in the mirror dissolved into smoky gray, and as he felt himself falling forward into it, he had time for a brief, triumphant thought.
And nobody wanted to teach me magic!
The frame of the mirror had vanished and the grayness was all around him. After his journeyings earlier in the day, he was undaunted: this was old and familiar territory. But even as he told himself this, another thought suddenly came to him. He had always had a guide before, and other travelers with him. This time there would be no Leleth to share his troubles, and no Geloë or Binabik to help him if he should go too far. A thin frost of fear descended, but Simon fought it back. He had used the mirror to call Jiriki once, had he not? There had been no one to help him then. Still, a small part of him guessed that calling for help might be a little less difficult than exploring t
he Road of Dreams by himself.
But Geloë had said that time was running short, that soon the Dream Road would be impassible. This might be his last chance to reach Miriamele, his last chance to save her and guide her back. If Binabik and the others found out, it would certainly be his last chance. He must go forward. Besides, Miriamele would be so astonished, so pleased and surprised. …
The gray void seemed thicker this time. If he swam, it was in gelid, muddy waters. How did one find his way here, without landmarks or signs? Simon formed the image of Miriamele in his mind, the same that he had held at sunset, dream-traveling with the others. This time, though, the picture would not hold together. Surely that was not what Miriamele’s eyes looked like? And her hair, even when she had dyed it for disguise, was never that shade of sorrel brown? He fought with the recalcitrant vision, but the features of the lost princess would not come right. He was even having trouble remembering what they should look like. Simon felt as though he tried to build a stained glass window with colored water: the shapes ran and merged together, heedless of his efforts.
Even as he struggled, the grayness around him began to change. The difference was not immediately obvious, but if Simon had been in his body—which he suddenly wished he were—the hair on the back of his neck would have risen and goosebumps would have carbuncled his skin. Something shared the void with him, something much vaster than he was. He felt the outward wash of its power, but unlike the dream-storm that had caught at him before, this thing was no mindless force: it exuded intelligence and evil patience. He felt its remorseless scrutiny as a swimmer in the open sea might sense a great-finned thing pass beneath him in the black depths.
Simon’s solitude suddenly seemed a kind of dreadful nakedness. He struggled, desperate to make contact with something that might pull him away from this shelterless void. He felt himself dwindling with fear, guttering like a candleflame—he did not know how to get away! How could he leave this place? He tried to startle himself out of the dream, to come awake, but as in childhood nightmares, there was no breaking the spell. He had entered this dream without sleeping, so how could he wake from it?
The blurry image that was not Miriamele remained. He tried to force himself toward it, to pull away from whatever great, slow thing was stalking him.
Help me! he screamed silently, and felt a glimmer of recognition somewhere on the horizon of his thoughts. He reached for it, grasping at it like a castaway at a spar. This new presence became a little stronger, but even as it grew in strength, the thing that shared the void with him extended a fraction more of its own power, just enough to keep him from escaping. He sensed a malicious alien humor that delighted in his hopeless struggle, but he also sensed that the thing was tiring of the diversion and would soon end the game. A kind of deadening force reached out and surrounded him, a coldness of the soul that froze his efforts even as he reached out one more time toward the faint presence. He touched her then, across a dreadful span of dream, and clung.
Miriamele? he thought, praying that it was so, terrified to let loose of the tenuous contact. Whoever she was, she seemed finally to realize that he was there, but the thing that had him did not falter now. A black shadow moved over and through him, smothering light and thought. …
Seoman!? Another presence was with him suddenly—not the hesitant feminine one, not the dark, deadly other. Come to me, Seoman! it called. Come!
A warmth touched him. The chill grasp of the other squeezed more tightly for a moment, then let go—not overpowered, he sensed from its retreating thought, but bored and unwilling to trouble with such small matters, as a cat might lose interest in a mouse that had run under a stone. The gray came back, still featureless and directionless, then began to swirl like breeze-twisted clouds. A face formed before him—thin-boned, with eyes like liquid gold.
“Jiriki!”
“Seoman,” the other said. His face was worried. “Are you in danger? Do you need help?”
“I am safe now, I think.” Indeed, the lurking presence seemed gone completely. “What was that horrible thing?”
“I do not know for sure what had you, but if it was not of Nakkiga, there is more evil in the world than even we suspected.” Despite the strange disconnectedness of dream-vision, Simon could see the Sitha studying him carefully. “Do you mean to say you did not call me for a reason?”
“I didn’t mean to call you at all.” Simon replied, a little shamed now that the worst was over. “I was trying to find Miriamele—the king’s daughter. I told you about her.”
“By yourself, on the Road of Dreams?” With the anger, there was a kind of chilly amusement. “Idiot manchild! If I had not been resting, and thus near to the place you are—near in thought, I mean—then only the Grove knows what would have become of you.” After a moment, the feeling of his presence warmed. “Still, I am glad you are well.”
“I’m happy to see you, too.” And he was. Simon had not realized how much he missed Jiriki’s calm voice. “We are at the Stone of Farewell—Sesuad’ra. Elias is sending troops. Can you help us?”
The Sitha’s angular face turned grim. “I cannot come to you any time soon, Seoman. You must keep yourself safe. My father Shima’onari is dying.”
“I’m … I’m sorry.”
“He slew the hound Niku’a, greatest beast ever whelped in the kennels of Nakkiga, but he took his death-wound in the doing of it. It is another knot in the overlong skein—another blood-debt to Utuk’ku and …” he hesitated, “the other. Still, the Houses are gathering. When my father at last is taken to the Grove, the Zida’ya will ride to war again.” After his earlier flash of anger the Sitha had returned to his customary implacability, but Simon thought he could detect an underlying feeling of tension, of excitment.
Simon’s hopes rose. “Will you join with Josua? Will you fight with us?”
Jiriki frowned. “I cannot say, Seoman—and I would not make false promises. If I have my way, we will, and one last time the Zida’ya and Sudhoda’ya will fight together. But there are many who will speak when I speak, and many will have their own ideas. We have danced the year’s end many hundreds of times since all the Houses were together for a war-council. Look!”
Jiriki’s face shimmered and faded, and for a moment Simon could see a cloudy scene, a vast circle of silver-leaved trees that stretched tall as towers. Gathered at their feet was a great host of Sithi, hundreds of immortals clad in armor of wildly different forms and colors, armor that glinted and shimmered in the columns of sunlight that spilled down through the treetops.
“Look. The members of all the Houses are joined at Jao é-Tinukai’i. Cheka’iso Amber-Locks is here, as is Zinjadu, Lore-Mistress of lost Kementari, and Yizashi Grayspear. Even Kuroyi the tall horseman has come, who has not joined with the House of Year-Dancing since Shi’iki and Senditu’s day. The exiles have returned, and we will fight as one people, as we have not done since Asu’a fell. In this, anyway, Amerasu’s death and my father’s sacrifice will not be in vain.”
The vision of the armored host faded, then Jiriki faced Simon once more. “But I have only a little power to guide this gathering of forces,” he said, “and we Zida’ya have many obligations. I cannot promise we will come, Seoman, but I will do my best to uphold my own duties to you. If your need is great, call me. You know I will do what I can.”
“I know, Jiriki.” There seemed many other things that he should tell him, but Simon’s mind was in a whirl. “I hope we see each other soon.”
At last, Jiriki smiled. “As I said once before, manchild, a very unmagical wisdom tells me we shall meet again. Be brave.”
“I will.”
The Sitha’s face grew serious. “Now go, please. As you have found, the Witnesses and the Dream Road are no longer reliable—in fact, they are dangerous. I also doubt that words spoken here are safe from listening ears. That the Houses are gathering is no secret, but what the Zida’ya will do is. Avoid these realms, Seoman.”
“But I need to find Miriame
le,” Simon said stubbornly.
“You will only find trouble, I fear. Leave it alone. Besides, perhaps she is hiding from things that might not find her unless, without meaning to, you lead them to her.”
Simon thought guiltily of Amerasu, but realized Jiriki had not intended to remind him of that, but only to caution him. “If you say so,” he acceded. So it had all been for nothing.
“Good.” The Sitha narrowed his eyes, and Simon felt his presence begin to fade. A sudden thought came.
“But I don’t know how to get back!”
“I will help you. Farewell for now, my Hikka Staja.”
Jiriki’s features blurred and evaporated, leaving only shimmering gray. As even that emptiness began to fade, Simon felt again a faint touch, the feminine presence to which he had reached out in his moment of fear. Had she been with them all along? Was she a spy, as Jiriki had warned about? Or was it indeed Miriamele, separated from him somehow, but nonetheless feeling that he was near? Who was it?
As he came back to himself, shivering in the cold beneath the Observatory’s broken dome, he wondered if he would ever know.
6
The Sea-Grave
Miriamele had paced back and forth across the small cabin so many times that she could almost feel the plank flooring wearing away beneath her slippered feet.
She had nerved herself to an exquisite pitch, ready to slit the earl’s throat as he lay sleeping. But now, at Gan Itai’s direction, she had hidden the pilfered dagger and was waiting—but she did not know for what. She was trembling, and no longer just with anger and frustration: the gnawing fear, which she had been able to suppress with the thought that all would be over quickly, had returned. How long could it be until Aspitis noticed the theft of his knife? And would he have even a moment’s doubt before he fixed the blame in the obvious place? This time, he would come to her wary and prepared; then, instead of the bindings of shame and society, she would go to her impending wedding in chains as real as Cadrach’s.