"Perhaps the magic doesn't work for Tir? "Alec offered, still pondering his own strange dream.
When Thero emerged at last from the tent, however, he knew he was going to have to reevaluate his theory. The young wizard looked too dark under the eyes to have rested well.
"Bad dreams?" asked Seregil.
Thero gazed out over the pool, looking rather perplexed. "I dreamed of drowning here, with the moon shining in my eyes so brightly it hurt, even through the water. And all the while I could hear someone singing 'home, home, home.' "
"You're a wizard," Amali said, overhearing. "Your magic came from Aurenen, so perhaps you are home, in a sense."
"Thank you, lady," Thero said. "That is a more positive interpretation than I was able to come to. It felt very much like a dream of death to me."
"And yet does not water also signify birth among your people?" she asked, strolling away.
Below the Vhada'nakori, the trail grew steeper and the Skalans had to ride most of the morning blindfolded. Chewing doggedly on
a slice of ginger, Alec clung on with thighs and hands; at times it felt as if the horse were about to walk out from under him.
After a few miles of this torture, he swallowed his pride and let an Akhendi named Tael mount in front of him and take the reins. Judging by the muttered epithets he heard on all sides, he wasn't the only one to give in. Even with this help, however, his back and thighs were soon aching again as he clung on behind his guide.
Luckily, his torment was short-lived. Reaching a level patch of ground, the column halted and the hated blindfolds were removed.
Alec blinked, then let out a whistle.
Far below, a rolling green vista dotted with scattered lakes and netted with rivers stretched toward lowlands on the southern horizon.
"So green it hurts your eyes," Thero murmured.
They came down into the foothills through groves of flowering trees so dense it seemed as if they were riding through clouds. Beyond this, a packed-earth road led through the thick forests of Akhendi fai'thast.
Alec's fingertips ached for the pull of a bowstring. Sunlight slanted through the towering trees, illuminating little glades where herds of deer grazed. Flocks of game birds called kutka darted across the trail like startled chickens.
"Doesn't anyone hunt here?" he asked Tael.
The Akhendi shrugged. "Aura is bountiful to those who take only what they need."
The trail met a broader road that led through small, scattered villages. People gathered by the road, staring and waving at the Skalans and calling out to Amali, who was clearly well loved. Men, women, and children alike wore various versions of the familiar tunic and trousers, which some had augmented with colorful openwork shawls or sashes fashioned like fisherman's nets, but elaborate as lace.
"I can't tell the men from the women," said Minal.
"I assure you, rider, those who need to can tell the difference!" Nyal told him, eliciting a round of laughter from his companions.
The dwellings here were similar in design to those at Gedre, but built of wood instead of stone. Many had open-sided sheds nearby, where their owners plied their trades. From what Alec could make
out from the road, woodworking was a common occupation in this part of the country.
Many of the byways that branched off from the main road looked disused and overgrown, he noticed. In the larger villages, many houses stood empty.
Riding up beside Riagil and Amali, he asked, "My lady, this was a trade road once, wasn't it? "
"Yes, one of the busiest. Our marketplaces saw goods from every corner of Aurenen, the Three Lands, and beyond. Our inns were always filled with traders. But now those same traders go downriver to Bry'kha, or overland to Viresse. Many of our people have moved closer to the routes, even gone to other fai'thasts."
She shook her head sadly. "The village I grew up in stands empty now. It is a shameful thing for any 'faie to be forced against her will to leave the place her family lived in for generations out of mind, to walk away from the house of her ancestors. It has brought our clan ill luck.
"It is even more difficult for my husband, both as our khirnari and as one who has lived so long and remembers what the Akhendi once were. I assure you, he will do all in his power to support your lady's mission, as will I."
Alec bowed, wondering again what she and Nyal had been doing together on that dark trail in the mountains.
Anxious as she was to see Sarikali, Beka found herself wishing they could stay longer in Akhendi. This country reminded her of the rolling forests she'd roamed as a girl, and of the peaceful life she'd taken for granted.
They stopped for the night in one of the larger villages, and their arrival created quite a stir, if a quiet one at first. A few at a time, villagers gathered to greet Amali and gawk at the Tirfaie visitors. Before long, the Skalans were surrounded by a silent, staring throng.
"We're as much creatures of legend here as the 'faie are in the northlands," Beka told her riders. "Come on. Give them a smile!"
A small girl was the first to approach. Pulling free of her mother's hand, she marched up to Sergeant Braknil and stared with unabashed curiosity at his grizzled beard. The old veteran returned the stare with amusement, then presented his chin for closer inspection. The girl dug her fingers into it and burst out giggling. At this, other
children came forward, touching beards, clothing, and weapon hilts with delighted wonder. The adults followed, and anyone who spoke both languages soon had their hands full translating questions back and forth.
Beka's hair and freckles were the focus of especially intent curiosity. Pulling her braid loose, she shook out her hair and sat grinning as children and. adults gently lifted the strands to see the coppery play of sunlight through them. Looking up, she saw Nyal watching her over the heads of the others, his leaf-and-water eyes tilted up at the corners with silent amusement. He winked and she looked quickly away as her cheeks went warm. Turning, she found herself face-to-face with the little girl who'd walked so boldly up to Braknil, who was now accompanied by a young man about Alec's age.
The child pointed to Beka and said something about "making."
Beka shook her head, showing that she didn't understand.
The young man held out his hand, showing her a bundle of colorful leather thongs. He covered them with his other hand, rubbed his palms together, then presented her with an intricately braided bracelet with loose strands at each end for tying.
"Chypta," she said, delighted. She'd watched Seregil do this sort of sleight of hand most of her life.
He gestured that he was not finished. Taking it back from her, he held it by one end and pulled it slowly through the fingers of his other hand. When he was done, a small wooden frog dangled from the middle of the weave.
The little girl tied it around Beka's left wrist, then touched a hand to her scabbard and the bruise on her forehead, talking excitedly.
"It's a charm to help wounds heal," explained Seregil, who'd wandered over with Alec. "She says she's never seen a woman soldier before, but she can tell you are very brave and so probably get hurt a lot. She's not old enough to make charms herself yet, so her cousin here obliged, but the gift was her idea."
"Chypta!" Beka said again, touched by the gift. "Hold on a minute, I want to give her something, too. Damn, what have I got with me?"
Rummaging in her pouch, she found a sack of fancy gaming stones she'd bought in Mycena, jasper lozenges inlaid with silver. "For you," she said in Aurenfaie, placing one in the child's hand.
The little girl clasped the piece in her fist and gave Beka a kiss on the cheek.
"And thank you." Beka looked up at the cousin, doubtful that he'd be impressed by such a reward.
He leaned down and touched a finger to his cheek. Beka took the hint and gave him a kiss. Laughing, he led the little girl away.
"Did you see that performance?" Beka asked Seregil, admiring the bracelet. "It reminds me of tricks you used to do for us after
supper."
"What you just saw was magic, not sleight of hand. So is the charm, though not a very powerful sort. The Akhendi are known for their skill with charm making and weaving."
"I thought it was just a trinket! I should have made her a better gift."
Seregil grinned. "You saw her face. She'll be showing that bakshi stone to her great-grandchildren, a gift from a sword-carrying Tirfaie woman with hair the color of—let's see, what would the proper poetic simile be? Ah, yes, bloody copper!"
Beka grimaced comically. "I hope she comes up with something better than that."
Just then a young woman touched Alec on the sleeve and performed a similar trick, producing a bracelet with three red beads worked into it. He thanked her, asked some questions, then laughed and pointed to Seregil.
"What was that all about?" asked Beka.
"It's a love charm," Seregil explained. "He told her that he doesn't really need one of those."
The girl gave some teasing answer, arching a brow coyly in Seregil's direction, then passed the bracelet through her hand again. The beads disappeared, replaced by a dangling wooden bird carved from pale wood.
"That's more like it," Alec said. "This one warns if someone's having evil thoughts about me."
"Perhaps I should get one of those before I face the Iia'sidra again," Seregil murmured.
"What's this?" Beka asked, noticing what appeared to be a polished cherry pit hanging from a beaded thread in Seregil's hair.
"It's supposed to keep lies from my dreams."
Alec exchanged an odd look with his friend, and Beka felt a twinge of envy. There were secrets between these two she knew she'd never share, just as there were between Seregil and her father. Not for the first time, she wished regretfully that Nysander had lived long enough to induct her as a Watcher, too.
Meanwhile, her riders had gotten into the spirit of things. With
Nyal's help, gifts and questions were still being exchanged and everyone was sporting a charm or two. Nikides was flirting with several women at once, and Braknil was playing grandfather to a circle of children, shaking his beard and pulling coppers from their ears.
"It won't all be this easy, will it?" Beka said, watching one of the village elders present Klia with a necklace.
Seregil sighed. "No, it won't."
10
The Heart of the Jewel
Lady Amali seems to have taken quite a liking to Klia," Alec observed, watching the two women laughing over some shared exchange as they set out again the next morning.
"I've noticed that," Seregil replied quietly. He glanced around quickly, no doubt making certain that Nyal was safely out of earshot. "They're of an age to be friends. She's much younger than her husband. She's his third wife, according to our Ra'basi friend."
"So you find him useful after all?"
"I find everyone useful," Seregil said with a sly grin. "That doesn't mean I trust them. I haven't seen him sneak off with her again, though. Have you?"
"No, and I've been watching. She's civil to him, but they seldom speak."
"We'll have to keep an eye on them in Sarikali, see if they seek each other out. The young wife of an aging husband, and Nyal such a handsome, entertaining fellow—it could be interesting."
Reaching a broad, swift river, they followed it south through ever deepening forest for the rest of the day. Villages grew scarcer, and game more plentiful—and at times peculiar.
Herds of black deer no bigger than dogs were common in marshy bends of the river, where they grazed on mallow shoots and water lilies torn from the mud.
There were bears as well, the first Alec had seen since leaving his mountain homeland. But these were brown rather than black, and bore the white crescent of Aura across their breasts. Strangest and most pleasing of all, however, were the little grey tree-dwellers called pories. The first of them appeared just after midday, but soon they seemed to be everywhere, common as squirrels.
About the size of a newborn child, the pories had flat, catlike faces large, mobile ears, and long, black-ringed tails that gyrated wildly behind them as they leapt among the branches with clever, grasping paws.
A few miles later, the pories disappeared as abruptly as they'd come. Midafternoon shadows were weaving themselves beneath the trees when the travelers reached a wide fork in the river. As if sundered by the parting of the waters, the forest opened up to either side, affording a clear view across a broad, rolling valley beyond.
"Welcome to Sarikali," Seregil said, and something in his voice made Alec turn to look at him.
A blend of fierce pride and reverence seemed to transform the man for an instant, making the Skalan coat he wore look as ill suited as mummer's garb.
Alec saw the same expression mirrored in other Aurenfaie faces, as if their very souls shone in their eyes. Exile or not, Seregil was among his own. Ever the wanderer, Alec envied him a little.
"Welcome, my friends!" cried Riagil. "Welcome to Sarikali!"
"I thought there was a city," Beka said, shading her eyes.
Alec did the same, wondering if some magic like that guarding the high passes in the mountains was at work. There were no signs of habitation that he could see within the embrace of the two rivers.
Seregil grinned. "What's the matter, don't you see it?"
A broad stone bridge arched across the narrower of the two branches, allowing riders to cross four abreast.
The steel helmets of Urgazhi Turma shone like chased silver in the slanting afternoon light, and steel and chain mail glinted beneath their embroidered tabards. Riding at their head, Klia was resplendent in wine-dark velvet and heavy jeweled ornaments. Polished rubies glowed in the large golden brooches that pinned her riding
mantle at the shoulders and in the golden girdle of her gown. She also wore all the Aurenfaie gift jewelry she'd received, even the humble warding charms. Though she'd put aside armor for the occasion, her sword hung at her side in a burnished scabbard worked with gold.
Once across the river, Riagil led them toward a dark, rambling hillock several miles off. There was something odd about the shape of it, thought Alec. As they drew nearer, it looked stranger still.
"That's Sarikali, isn't it?" he said, pointing ahead. "But it's a ruins."
"Not exactly," said Seregil.
The city's dark tiered buildings and thick towers appeared to draw themselves out of the ground. Masses of ivy and creepers growing thickly up the stonework reinforced the illusion that the place had not been built by hands but erupted from the earth. Like a great stone in the river of time, Sarakali stood steadfast and immutable.
The closer Seregil came to Sarikali, the more the long years in Skala seemed to fade away. The one dark memory he had of the city, ugly as it was, could not efface the joy he'd always associated with this place.
Most of his visits had been in festival times, when the clans gathered to populate its streets and chambers. Banners and strings of kites festooned the streets of every tupa, the section of the city each clan traditionally used when visiting. In the open-air marketplaces one could find goods from every corner of Aurenen and beyond. Outside the city, colorful pavilions would sprinkle the level ground like great summer flowers; bright flags and painted poles marked out racetracks and archery lists. The air would be filled with magic and music and the smells of exotic foods to be tracked down and sampled.
Today the only signs of habitation were a few flocks of sheep and cattle grazing on the plain.
"You'd think the Iia'sidra would come out to meet the princess," Thero remarked disapprovingly in Skalan.
"I was just thinking the same." Alec eyed the place dubiously.
"That would give status," said Seregil. "They retain it by having her come to them. It's all part of the game."
Their Aurenfaie escort dropped back when they reached the city's edge, and Urgazhi Turma formed up into two mounted ranks, flanking Klia.
Turning to Riagil and Amali, Klia bowed in the saddle. "Thank you both fo
r your hospitality and guidance."
Amali nudged her mount forward and clasped hands with Klia. "I wish you success. The blessings of Aura be with you!"
She and Riagil rode off, disappearing from sight with their respective riders among the dark buildings.
"Well, then," Klia said, squaring her shoulders. "It's up to us to make an entrance, my friends. Let's show them the queen's best. Seregil, you're my guide from here."
No curtain walls shielded the city; it had no gates, no guards. Instead, open ways paved with springy turf cut into the jumbled mass of the place like rambling fissures weathered through a mountain by a thousand years of rain. Its street were empty, the arched windows of it towers blank as dead eyes.
"I didn't expect it to be so empty," Alec whispered as they continued along a broad, winding concourse.
"It's different when the clans gather for the festivals," Seregil told him. "By the Light, I'd forgotten how beautiful it is!"
Beautiful? Alec thought. Eerie was more like it, and a little oppressive.
Evidently he was not the only one to feel it. Behind him, he could hear the Urgazhi plying Nyal with questions, and the steady murmur of the interpreter's replies.
Smooth walls of dark green stone etched with bands of complex designs rose on all sides. There were no recognizable figures; no carved animals, gods, or people. Instead, the intricate patterns seemed to fold and knot themselves into greater interconnected patterns that drew the eye to a single central point or away along lines of rhythmically repeated shapes and symbols.
The turf gave beneath their horses' hooves, sending up the scent of crushed herbs and deadening the sound of their passing. The deeper they rode into the city, the more muted sounds became, underscoring the strangeness of the place. The wind brought the occasional distant crowing of a cock or the sound of voices, but just as quickly whipped them away.
Alec gradually became aware of an unsettling sensation creeping
over him, a sort of tingling on his skin and the hint of a headache between his eyes.
"I've come over all strange," said Beka, feeling it, too.
"It's magic," Thero said in an awed voice. "It feels like it's seeping from the very ground!"