Sartor

  Atan bit into her biscuit. Crunchy on the outside, soft and warm in the middle, it was a miracle of tastiness in these surroundings. So much unspoken ability—and promise—and potential strife—all symbolized here in this little brown piece of food.

  When she looked up, Merewen was there, her wide sky-colored eyes alert, her head canted in mute question.

  “You have news?” Atan asked. The words “of Savar” stayed unspoken because Merewen did not seem happy. She hadn’t gone along to meet Lilah, but had run off in the other direction.

  “Last night I went seeking,” Merewen said in her soft voice. “And I found something new that I think is important. In some of the little villages, and even some towns, I saw lights. Hin and Sin told me that the villages are always dark, and when you go near them, you find yourself drawn into dreams. But I didn’t feel that at the small villages I spied from the forest’s edge. Only the large town. And I went quickly away.”

  “Then the magic must be stronger where there are more people,” Atan said. “I guess that would make sense: it must have taken greater magic to bind the enchantment in villages, towns, and cities.”

  “Yes, but there’s another thing I saw, and that by accident.” Merewen frowned. “I don’t know if everyone can see it, for it isn’t quite like seeing this way.” She bent, picked up a leaf, and held it up so that sunlight glowed round its edges. “Some things I see—this way.” She touched her forehead, her eyes closed. “And this.” She touched her heart. “I don’t know that I can explain how, or why.”

  “It’s all right,” Atan said. “Explain it as you can.”

  “Over those villages, the ones with lights at night, there was also a kind of glow, but I felt it more than I saw it. It felt like here, when we cross the bridge.” Again, she touched her forehead.

  “Magic,” Atan breathed. “I wonder—I wonder if that is where we will begin to find allies.”

  Merewen nodded. “The lights in the houses mean the people are no longer dreaming, doesn’t it? I didn’t leave the forest’s edge, or talk to anyone. I was too afraid.”

  “I think we need to find out,” Atan said. Her heart thumped again. “Before Norsunder does.”

  o0o

  Some days’ journey upriver to the northwest Rel was still sitting on the steps of the great palace, lost in memory-dream. He sat there peacefully until a sudden clap on his shoulder smashed through the dreams.

  “Wake up. Wake up,” a male voice commanded.

  Rel fought his way to consciousness. It was not a quick fight. It took the space of several breaths, while his body protested any sudden movements. His joints twinged and his neck zinged him with a pang as he twisted his head to see who’d struck him.

  A man ran lightly down the steps, visible only from the back: medium height, light of build, long brown hair tied back, dark clothes.

  “Hey.” Rel was surprised to discover how much effort that took.

  The man paused and glanced back, blue eyes wary and curious.

  “What?” Rel asked. His mouth was dry, his tongue awkward. All he could manage was that one word.

  Before he could frame another, the man pointed. “Go south,” he said, in accented Sartoran. “Norsunder is going to find out this kingdom is waking up, and the Landis princess is going to need allies.” Without waiting for an answer, the man leaped down the steps and strode away.

  Landis—Rel knew that name. Every child in the world had at least heard that name. But history taught that they had all died.

  Rel forced himself to his feet, and that act broke the last of the magic hold. He started moving, at first feeling like he was trying to run in water. He walked into a spacious street and saw others still sitting here and there, staring into space.

  Magic. Bad magic. Rel kept walking in hopes of finding the man who’d wakened him, for his mind filled with questions, but after a time he gave up. Thirst and hunger clamored much too fiercely, and his knees trembled. He stopped at a fountain to drink, and then sat down on the rim to stare in bemusement at the water shooting up, falling into the pool, and draining away somewhere. Surely that fountain had not run for over a hundred years.

  He shook his head, then dug in his pack for something to eat.

  o0o

  Darian Irad hastened his way through Eidervaen, trying to rouse every single person he encountered. Many dropped back into the weird torpor from which he briefly brought them. Others got up and moved about, looking lost and disoriented.

  He never halted long. This wasn’t his kingdom, nor was it his war. His single-minded focus, his hatred of Norsunder, and the unconscious mental resistance he’d built up to the pervasive atmosphere of defeat and despair in the Norsunder base, kept the weakening magic from taking hold of him.

  And so he kept going, hoping that a leader would emerge from the groggy, bewildered people he found. He kept going straight north, without knowing that the strange magic of Shendoral had transferred him several days’ journey to the very northwestern edge of the forest, a few days’ journey from the capital.

  He rode along the Ilder river, encountering dwellings wherein people sat as they’d been magic-bound for over a century, the pots and pans in their kitchens dry with ancient dust, yet meager supplies from that last war-ravaged harvest still stored in larders, cellars, and cupboards. Two days he traveled, finding loose horses ready for a fast gallop, and untouched haystacks, and the occasional smoke-blackened ruins of war from which the fires had long since cooled. In some places the old war was strangely immediate, in others, long past.

  Once he stopped to share a supper with people who had apparently just woken on their own, and who, still perplexed and dream-mazed, had fixed a meal, and were slowly rediscovering their attachment to the material world. The questions they asked him were straightforward, but few of them could he answer.

  At the end of this strange meal Darian picked up an apple that had been laid in the cellar just before his grandfather’s birth, during a war that that grandfather had grown up hearing about, and whose ferocity had shaped the Irad line through the three succeeding generations.

  He rode across Sartor, waking up every person he encountered, until he reached the border at last and thence into a new life.

  o0o

  Lilah woke up loving the forest foliage overhead, and the sounds of kids talking and singing. By the end of that day, she’d joined the bigger kids in circle swinging, which meant going over the bar. The thrill of motion, almost of terror, made her scream with laughter.

  I could stay here forever, she exulted at the end of the first night. And when she woke again in the morning to the same leaves.

  The third day, she began to pay attention to the regular patterns of the kids, specifically the training the older ones put themselves through every morning.

  “Here’s how you string a bow.” Hinder showed Lilah the oiled snapvine string, then demonstrated how to hook it to the other end of the bow. “You draw your arrow back... like this.” He made it look easy.

  Lilah blew her breath out. It was all very well to say that she’d asked for adventure, but what about all the people who woke up to the smell of their house burning, when the revolution happened? And what about Norsunder’s victims who hadn’t tried to help a princess? A victim was a victim.

  Lilah was determined to never be a victim again. She gritted her teeth, yanked the arrow back—and let go.

  The arrow shot backward.

  “Whoop!”

  “Ulp!”

  She whirled around, horrified as a bunch of kids scrambled out of the way. Chuff! Her arrow flumped ignominiously on the grass.

  “Never mind,” Hinder said over his shoulder as he ran to retrieve the arrow. “Your pull wasn’t hard enough to do much besides give someone a good poke. And when we started, we were just as bad.” He was back, and took the bow from her hands. “Watch. Carefully.”

  This time Hinder explained everything he was doing with his hands and arms. Lilah, standing back, noti
ced that his entire body moved. It looked as if he drew his strength from his wide-planted feet as he drew an arrow, aimed, adjusting for the rising western breeze, and then let fly. Zoing! The arrow smacked dead center into the target he and his friends had made from straw and some old cloth, painted with circles.

  Lilah tried a couple more times, and on the last one actually managed to send an arrow in the general direction of the target, though it fell far short and quite a bit to the right.

  By then, several others had gathered around, and they all complimented her with friendly and generous cheers.

  “Better than I,” Brick declared. “Why, when I first began to shoot, everyone ran to hide in front of the target, figuring that was the only safe place!”

  Lilah laughed with the rest, pretending it was funny. She didn’t want them to see how useless she felt. She still had her thief tools, but sometimes there weren’t any locks to pick, or villains to send off to sleep with Lure flowers—if the flowers had any potency left. Hinder and Sana and Sin and Mendaen and all these others looked so, so effortless with their excellent shots.

  Lilah said, “I want to watch. Then I’ll take a turn.” She moved to the side as the others commenced practice.

  Atan appeared next to her. “Lilah, are you all right? Do you need more rest?” she asked.

  Her gaze was friendly and steady, but the shape of her eyes was a nasty reminder of Kessler’s flat stare. Lilah had avoided Atan the past couple of days, but she knew it wasn’t fair. Atan was a friend, and she couldn’t help sharing an ancestor with that horrible Kessler Sonscarna.

  So she said, “I’m all right.”

  Atan looked away, then back again, her shoulders tight, her chin jutting. “Lilah, I’m so sorry I didn’t come after you.”

  “He would have killed you. Or me, once he found out I wasn’t you.”

  Atan shook her head. “I still feel...” Another, harder head shake. “They said I had an obligation to stay. I felt I had an obligation to you.”

  Lilah’s skin prickled. She hated seeing Atan look so unhappy. “I think this is what my brother talked about, how horrid you feel when you’re king and have two choices that are completely opposite.”

  “Peitar talked about that? What did he say?”

  “He told me what Tsauderei said. Didn’t Tsauderei tell you?”

  Atan’s lips twitched, almost a smile. “Is it the ‘delegate’ talk?”

  “That was it! You delegate whichever choice you can, and do the other one. Well, when I got out with my uncle’s help, then Tsauderei came. And Merewen and Hinder were looking for me. I mean, I know you didn’t send my uncle, but in a way the others were kind of delegated. Weren’t they?”

  Atan rubbed her fingers up her sleeve two or three times, then said, “If you don’t feel I failed you, then I’ll accept that.”

  “You didn’t,” Lilah said. “I never thought you were supposed to chase that evil stinker Kessler. It would only have got us both into trouble.”

  Atan smiled, at least her mouth did, but her forehead was still puckered with concern. She lifted a hand toward the others. “So you want to learn the bow?”

  Lilah sighed. “I figure it’ll only be ten years before I can actually touch the target. Did they teach you anything while I was gone?”

  “Sin showed me a little,” Atan said. “But like you, I need practice.”

  Everyone paired off to work with swords or knives, some with both. Lilah and Atan didn’t join. They sat on the scattering of boulders bordering the clearing and watched the tall, black-haired Mendaen, who was by far the best.

  “He told me that his family were palace guards,” Atan said to Lilah. “He’s been trying to teach them defense, but a couple of the others insist on only learning the art of dueling.”

  “Courtiers,” Lilah guessed, and Atan brought her chin down in a slow nod.

  Lilah knew what that meant: snobs. There were maybe forty kids here overall. Everybody dressed in ragged old clothes. But even so, there were still snobs. It’s like we can’t get away from it, even in Sartor, Lilah thought.

  It was easy enough to pick out the ristos. Several kids had somehow managed to find, or bring with them, big, heavy sabers, fancy light rapiers of the sort that nobles used to wear every day at court the generation or so before, one or two curved cavalry swords, used only by the biggest, and they used them with two hands. The only thing that these weapons had in common was their old-fashioned in design.

  The ristos stayed to themselves, in their midst a vaguely familiar girl with blonde braids. Lilah remembered her from the night before, asking Atan in a precise, insistent voice, Did someone say that she wasn’t born a princess? Of course, it’s merely Sarendan...

  ‘Merely.’ Lilah’s stomach surged with disgust.

  Atan lowered her voice. “Lilah, you can go home if you like. I think I can work a transfer from here.”

  Lilah thought, She doesn’t want me because I managed to get myself captured. And here she’d just arrived, to find the most amazing hideout ever. No adults, just kids, and it looked like they had fun all the time! “If you don’t need me, I’ll go back. I don’t want to cause any more trouble,” she forced herself to say.

  Atan frowned, made uneasy by the way Lilah looked down, and mumbled instead of her usual brisk, happy speech. What did it mean? “Lilah, I asked only because you’ve already been through a lot on my behalf. Please be plain. I’m having so much trouble understanding...” She swooped her hand through the air. “The differences between what is said and what is meant.”

  Lilah whooshed her breath out. “I hoped it was just that, and not because I was fathead enough to get caught. I promise I won’t cause any trouble, I’ll be careful—”

  “As if we’re all experienced warriors?” Atan countered, relieved. “Lilah, you’re not to blame for anything. Nobody thinks it. I believe I can claim that much, at least.”

  Relief flooded through Lilah. “Well, count me in.”

  “Thank you.” Atan drew in a breath. “The truth is, I need your perspective terribly. Though I’ve read so much about irony and hidden meanings, I don’t know how to hear it. And I don’t know how to... to see meanings not expressed in words.” She sighed. “When you talk, your actions fit your tone. When Peitar talked, it was the same. And with Tsauderei—if he wanted me to know what he was thinking. With Merewen it mostly fits, but I don’t think she’s trying to hide anything. It’s more that her Loi side is difficult to understand. With Hinder and Sin Mendaen, Brick and Hannla and Sana, everything fits together. But some—”

  Lilah watched the blonde girl, who stood with her head erect, her wrists straight as she whipped the rapier through the air to clash against her opponent’s blade. “I think I know what you mean.”

  Clang-g-g! At the other end of the clearing, two Poisoners began a mock battle with a battered wooden practice sword against a cauldron ladle, chins so elevated the two almost tipped backward, their movements prissy. Atan looked puzzled, but Lilah understood the mimicry at once.

  Rip stuck out a foot. The one with the ladle stumbled and fell with a splat, which caused a wrestling match. Lilah sent a quick look at the ristos. They were paying Rip and the Poisoners no heed.

  Lilah snickered, and Atan was glad to see her laughing. As Lilah watched the Poisoners clowning, Atan let her gaze wander until it was caught by a tight group talking earnestly on the other side of the clearing, who flicked looks her way. She decided to find out why.

  Lilah didn’t notice her going. She watched the Poisoners until Hinder sauntered up, wringing one hand. He hopped up on Lilah’s rock to sit next to her, wiggling his bare toes. Lilah bent to look more closely at his toe talons.

  Hinder said, “No, I don’t know why we morvende have talons. I guess for digging.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask such a nosy question,” Lilah said, though she felt foolish, because she certainly had been thinking it.

  Hinder grinned. “Really? Well then, you’re the
first. Soon’s I came sunside and found my way here, they all asked us. The little ones right away, the older ones in roundabout ways. Said they’d heard of morvende, but never seen any of us.”

  “Probably everybody’s heard of morvende.” Lilah shook her head. “It’s just that we weren’t sure you really existed anymore, over in Sarendan. That Norsunder had managed to get all of you, along with Sartor, and Everon, and all the great kingdoms of the old stories.”

  “Well, not many of our kind have been in those old geliaths that far east, not for centuries and centuries,” Hinder said. “Norsundrians have found some geliaths. And...” He made a swiping gesture, his talons ripping through the air. “Nobody comes out alive.”

  “Ugh. So ‘geliath,’ is that what morvende call their caves?”

  “More like cave... cities. I always wanted to hear about the sun and about weather, and life on the surface, and so I came up once I was past eight. And got caught here.”

  Lilah had heard stories about the morvende—how they taught Sartorans their style of music thousands of years ago, how they were half-human. How they lived in fantastic caverns full of rare, singing jewels. She was too embarrassed to ask directly, so she said, “I guess morvende can just leave?”

  He shrugged. “Of course. Why not? A few of us like going sunside, that much I remember. Many go right back home.” He shrugged again. “Wherever they come from, people tend to stick to what they’re used to, mostly. That’s what my grandmother told Sin and me, before she taught us the accesses.”

  “Those accesses,” she said. “Are they obvious?”

  Hinder grinned. “No. And we don’t show ’em, not without permission. We agree to that, which is why they don’t let us out until we’re at least eight. See, it takes only one Norsundrian to find out, and then—” Another ripple through the air, then he flicked one talon against the black sleeve of her tunic. “Do you want to get rid of those duds?”

  Lilah glanced down in vague surprise, and remembered her Norsundrian scout’s uniform. She looked up. “I hated it at first, but then I got used to it. It’s comfortable and warm. Do I have to? My gown is lost, and it was a mess anyway.”