So it was a long, tiring slog, though beautiful. But I was in no mood for beauty, because the density of the forest meant I would not see any enemies until they were on me. Shelter was also difficult to find. I spent a couple of miserable nights with all my clothes on and my firebird tapestry banner round me as I crouched under mossy rock outcroppings never quite large enough to be a sheltering cave.
I was on the watch for the sign my father had told me about so many years ago—three bluebells in a row, carved into stone. I’d always thought this symbol would be clear, like some kind of natural road map. As I climbed ever higher, examining every rocky scree, cliff, palisade and what have you, I began to wonder if weather and age would have defaced the carvings. That is, if they weren’t overgrown by shrubs, trees or even moss.
But I kept going.
We all kept going, everyone converging on the mountain at pretty much the same time, though from different angles. Canardan’s force found the tracks of the women—mistook them for warriors—and sped up their pace. Jehan knew a wood scavenger who knew where the lower cavern passages were. He and his riders made sure they left no signs behind. Randart’s scouts, under threat of punishment, scarcely ate or slept until they discovered my tracks. Remember I said few live there? Randart didn’t know magic, but he was far from ignorant about history. Didn’t take long for him to figure that Ivory Mountain had to be my destination.
I was unaware of him on my trail until the last morning, when I woke from a miserable sleep to a misty-blue dawn so cold I could see my breath. Time to do my martial arts stretches and warm up a bit. But I forgot my morning routine when sounds echoed up the narrow valley below me.
I scrambled up, inched out onto a promontory and peered over a tumble of moss-covered stones. Down below on the trail snaked a long trail of armed men, some riding, some leading horses. They were blurred by a long grayish drift of mist, but the brown uniforms were frighteningly visible.
At their head, his dark hair and stony profile clear between dissipating wreaths of fog, was War Commander Randart.
Hunger, everything fled my mind. As Mom would say, It’s time to beat feet.
***
The Duke and Duchess of Frazhan rode out with Lord and Lady Kender to meet the women.
They met on a high bridge built over a cascading fall down the side of a mountain. The road had brought them within sight of Ivory Mountain, on the other side of the river valley. It was a beautiful sight with its white crown of snow even in summer, the highest peak shrouded in cloud.
Journey’s end.
Atanial straightened up as the ducal pair rode toward them. The duke and duchess were both quite old, white-haired, hard to read as aristocrats typically were. Lord Kender was a tall, lean, handsome man, but Atanial’s attention was focused solely on his wife.
Lady Starveas Kender was short and round, with an intelligent dark gaze framed by wispy silver hair. Like the ducal pair, she and her husband wore Colendi-style linen over robes, paneled up the sides, with ornamental long sleeves dagged back at an angle. Hers was pale mauve over violet; the duchess and her duke wore white over gray. Lord Kender was the most brightly dressed, his over-robe a rich green with stylized golden rye beards along the hem.
The duke’s voice was thin and reedy as he introduced them all.
“Your highness,” Lady Starveas said then, somehow making her bow graceful, though she sat on the back of a horse. It was clear that she intended to be the spokesperson.
Atanial copied the bow as best she could, hoping she wouldn’t fall out of the saddle. Her hips twinged; the flare of a hot flash burned through her chest, tingling outward to the backs of her hands. Her face broke out with moisture. “My lady.”
“We have heard word of your mission. We wish to hear the truth from your lips.”
Atanial cleared her dry throat and straightened up, resisting the impulse to wipe her sleeve over her hot face. She gave what by now had become a speech, a pattern of words she could utter without thinking, as she watched for reactions.
The four betrayed little during the speech, but at the end Lady Starveas said, “Thank you. For once rumor was not far wrong, then.”
Atanial ached, itched, felt damp from the aftermath of the hot flash. She longed for a bath and for an end to this endurance test. But the cause was right. Whatever happened.
“We have been granted time to consider.” Lady Starveas indicated the four of them with a graceful gesture. “For you must know that my family lands were taken by those who call themselves Locan Jorans now.”
Atanial dipped her head in the half nod, half bow she’d seen the aristocrats use to one another.
The duchess pulled from her inner sleeve a golden case. She held it up.
Atanial recognized it as a communications case, which sent messages instantaneously by magic. She swallowed tightly. Here it comes. The only surprise was that they had made it so long without discovery.
Lady Starveas had also retrieved her own case. “We waited only to hear the words from you. We have written letters to certain friends and will send them, with your permission.”
Now Atanial was surprised. She managed the half bow again, because she had no idea what to say. A trickle of sweat ran down her temple and into her ear. Ugh.
Lady Starveas smiled a little. “I cannot speak for everyone. There are some who will shut their eyes to violence in order to regain what they think was once theirs. My family…” She looked away at Ivory Mountain, crowned with snow. “We have morvende in our family. We know that land is land, it stays when we are gone. Our sense of permanence is imposed on land, it is not granted by any but other humans.”
Lord Kender stirred, and the lady sent him a fast look. Atanial wondered just how much fraught emotion lay behind those subtle reactions that she could so easily have missed.
A fly buzzed by her mount’s ear, causing the animal to twitch and bob. Atanial leaned forward to shoo the fly away and stroked the horse’s bony neck ridge. As she did, she surreptitiously wiped the side of her face on her shoulder.
“There is the matter of holding what we’d regain by violence,” Lady Starveas went on, as if Atanial had spoken.
Atanial wondered if the lady was not talking to her at all.
“Some might look forward to years of fighting. I do not. I would rather regain at least some of our holdings by negotiation. I say all this because I believe if your husband, Prince Mathias Zhavalieshin, was to return, perhaps that negotiation would occur. Many of those over in Locan Jora who sit now in our old homes and work our land were loyal to the Zhavalieshins, who once came from that area. But the king is now Canardan Merindar.”
The duchess spoke for the first time. Her voice was thin and light as a bird’s. “We welcome you to the castle. We extend this invitation to you all. We’ve been preparing.”
Lady Starveas gave one of those slow, stylish nods in her direction, then turned to Atanial. It was very clear they’d planned things out. “But when you move on, we will not be going with you. Honor requires us to keep the oaths we made to Canardan, for he has not broken his oaths to us. Though, now speaking only for myself, my heart yearns for the return of Prince Math.”
The duke and duchess made the low bow of accord.
Atanial lifted her voice so the women crowded behind could hear. “I thank you on behalf of everyone here. We ask no more than that.”
They crossed the bridge and wound their way to the old castle whose towers were just visible beyond the lacy veil of the cascade.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ivory Mountain got its name from a white stone with peculiar properties, a stone that resembled frozen ice with melted silver mixed in, or so it’s been described. Those peculiar properties caused it to be nearly destroyed a few thousand years back or so. The morvende moved from the geliath (which is kind of like a cavern city a couple thousand years old), leaving it empty except for occasional retreats over the succession of centuries following.
That s
hows about how old the place was.
I galloped up the trail, branches whapping my face and the moisture-laden leaves dousing me with stinging-cold water. I was terrified that Randart and his gang would get me before I could find the accessway, and my fear communicated to the mare, who moved her fastest.
Up and up, the mare’s head low to the trail, leaving me to watch the rocks at both sides lest I miss the triple-flower carving, which I was afraid had worn away.
I was wondering what to do if I reached the snowy mountain summit when at last my eyes were drawn to the symbol, weird as that sounds. I found out later, if you’re taught the access signals, part of the magic is that image and reality will find a way to match. I mean, we’re talking old, old magic.
In grateful relief I flung myself off the mare, who was sweating from the steady climb despite the bitter air, and fell to my knees, shaky fingers scrabbling at the smooth stone between a holly bush and a climbing of ivy that had mysteriously never grown over that portion of the stone.
I don’t even know what I did, but the entire face of the rock shimmered, and there before me was a narrow fissure reaching up about nine feet, scarcely five feet wide. Dark as it was inside, I figured moss and some spiders would be preferable to a close, personal interview with Randart—backed by about a hundred buff guys wearing lots of shiny, pointy things, and probably in bad moods from missing their morning coffee.
The mare sniffed, snorted, then followed me willingly enough. Right after her tail passed the edge of the shadow cast by the sun down the rock face, the shimmer abruptly vanished, leaving us in darkness.
I stood next to the horse, who sniffed some more and turned her head, shifting her weight from hoof to hoof. Thunk, thud. I rubbed my eyes, wondering what the heck to do next.
When I opened my eyes, my vision had adjusted. A faint glow emanated from the stone in a series of purple blossoms painted impossibly long ago. The glowing signals led down a tunnel.
I stayed on foot, not sure how high the ceiling was, leading the mare by the reins. The stone floor seemed firm and not slimy. Good sign, I told myself.
We wound slightly to the left, always downhill, judging from the pressure on my toes.
Abruptly we entered a round cavern lit by a glowglobe of a kind I had never seen. Most have steady, soft light, faintly bluish, though I understand the light comes from gathered sunlight, stored by magical means. I would swear this globe was spread spectrum, for the light was soft but remarkably clear, picking out glittering bits from the rock all around, showing carvings of vines twining up overhead, and the remains of a painted sky with stars. On the soft dirt of the ground were blue flakes, showing where paint had fallen over the centuries.
Below the glowglobe’s niche was a trough with running water. I could hear it rushing down from somewhere above. The horse and I were thirsty.
I cupped my hands and dipped them. The water hurt, it was so cold, but it was clear and tasted good. The horse shouldered me aside and got a good long drink.
When we were done, I looked around. Several tunnels led off in various directions. I felt the faint ruffling of an air current from somewhere and almost instinctively turned in that direction.
Why not? Before I’d spent a couple days climbing the side of this mountain I’d thought it would be easy, like entering a big building. There’s your directory, you get into the elevator, and whoosh, there’s your suite. The vast size of this place was daunting. I kept trying to remember everything my father had told me when I was taught the magic, but all I could bring up was a vague sense of glowglobes, light, gleaming painted stars that looked real to my young eyes—and the spell.
So I followed the air current, which was cool and smelled fresh. I figured there had to be a hot spring somewhere down in the honeycomb of caverns, and the air was funneled upward. Anyway, I was grateful that I could see, that the tunnels were clean, no slime, no webs.
When I reached the right place, there was no warning. No trumpets, no sinister barriers or portents, no mysterious guardians. Nothing but the two of us emerging from the tunnel into a chamber with a pair of entrances opposite one another.
But I remembered it.
Here the painted ceiling was not flaking off. It glimmered pale blue in the brilliant light given off by hundreds of tiny glowglobes no bigger than a pea, the effect like the twinkling lights some people put in trees, back on Earth. The blue intensified in gradations up the dome of the ceiling, becoming a deep, cobalt glow directly overhead, the constellation depicted there glittering like a real sky.
My throat squeezed up when I recalled standing there once before, a scared little kid transfixed with wonder. I’d thought the top of the mountain had opened, leaving me staring straight up at the night sky.
But I knew it was day, and I was deep inside a mountain—and that an enemy was hard on my trail.
I had a job to do.
I dropped the reins. The mare watched me, the glowglobes pinpoints in her patient eyes. I dug through my bag and pulled out the little seashell wrapped in its homespun.
I opened the cloth and held out the shell, which began to glisten. There was enough magic—or the right magic—for the spell I’d been taught so long ago.
I stepped into the middle of the room, rubbed my damp palms down my grubby clothes, drew in a couple of chi breaths and began the spell.
Magic potential rushed inward through me, a feeling akin to channeling a lightning strike. I shut my eyes and concentrated on the shaping words…and finished.
Light snapped on my palms and the shell vanished.
A current of air rushed round the chamber, and the horse tossed her head and stamped as a tall man with wild gray hair appeared. His thin body was clad in a long tunic down to his knees and baggy riding trousers. He had bare feet.
My astonished eyes flicked back to his face, that hawk-nosed, kindly face I’d remembered in dreams and in waking, and then it blurred as hot tears welled up.
“Dad!”
His arms opened, and I hurled myself into them.
When Randart realized he was going to have to deal with a magic mountain, he used one of two transfer tokens the king had insisted that Zhavic make. They were instant summons, pulling either Magister Zhavic or Magister Perran willy nilly from wherever they were.
Randart had possessed these two tokens for years. He’d never thought he’d want a mage, but the time had come. The one he chose was Magister Perran, who had been guarding the old tower in case anyone tried a World Gate transfer. It was far too late for that.
Magister Perran arrived abruptly. Before he recovered from the transfer dizziness, Randart pointed at him and three of his men seized the mage, who was older, stocky and not exactly in fighting shape. They searched him thoroughly, taking away his magic case, paper, a writing chalk, several transfer tokens and the book he’d had in his hand.
In silence they handed these things to Randart, who tossed the book off the trailside cliff without a second glance and put the rest of the items in the pouch at his belt. He glared down at the mage, ignoring his faint cry of dismay. “Atanial’s girl is farther up the trail here on Ivory Mountain. You will get us inside, without any trickery, or I will cut you down myself before you can gabble one of your spells.” He drew his sword from the saddle sheath and kept it gripped in his hand.
Perran shook his head once, and began walking.
Randart glanced back and motioned to two of his very best trackers. They came forward and saluted. “String your bows. Be ready to shoot the girl on first sight. Do not wait for an order. Do it. The one who drops her—and anyone she’s with—will get land and a title to match.”
They saluted again, the fervency of their emotions expressed in the gesture. The white-lipped rage in their commander’s face made it unsafe speak.
So this is how they wound their way up the mountain, Magister Perran walking, the trackers at either side, the others riding. The mage desperately looking for some way in. He had not been taught the acc
essway, and if you haven’t been taught, it’s going to be difficult to find. He knew that much, if nothing else about morvende geliaths.
As they climbed higher, woman and horse tracks fresh before them, his anxiety changed to despair and he wondered if he should jump off the mountain. One glance at Randart’s angry face made it clear he was going to get no sympathy or understanding. If the tracks kept going, and all they found was a horse without a rider, Perran knew he would be murdered.
When they reached the place of the carvings, the tracks seemed to lead directly into a wall. How to get in? Magister Perran began searching for any kind of illusion, magical lock, whatever he could find.
Randart shifted impatiently, reminded yet again how much he loathed and distrusted magic and mages. The warriors watched the mage rustling desperately through the holly bushes that grew with profusion all along the cliff face. Perran’s hands were soon pricked with scarlet, and his robe tangled constantly on the sharp-edged leaves. But he kept at it until Randart snapped, “Either you find a way in or die right now.”
Perran turned around, flinging his bleeding hands out. “Then kill me,” he cried. “Because you won’t believe anything I say—”
A shimmer at the edge of everyone’s vision caused Randart to start violently. The mage stumbled back. The trackers raised their crossbows.
The leaves rustled, and a small boy emerged, seemingly from the stone. He was no more than nine or ten, with brown hair and a considering hazel gaze. He wore ordinary riding clothes.
Randart stared in amazement, as a whisper hissed back down the line: this was the boy who had won at the games.
My father staggered, laughing breathlessly into my filthy hair. “Careful! I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit on the weak side until I learn to live in my body again.”
I gave him a gentle squeeze then let him go, knuckling my eyes. “What? Where were you?” I looked up into his face. He had aged along with the rest of us.