Sartor

  After everyone got a drink of water, which was good but lip-numbingly cold, they pressed up into a group to rest. The smallest ones dropped immediately into slumber.

  Lilah fought yawn after yawn. Her eyes burned, her stomach gnawed with hunger, and her limbs ached from all that walking, but her mind reeled with memories: Kessler forcing her to ride, the dust, the terrible atmosphere at that fortress.

  Atan let out a sigh, so soft it was a trickle of breath just audible above the rush of the waterfall.

  Lilah scooted nearer. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Atan murmured. “That is, nothing besides the obvious. I know what to do now.”

  “Which is?” Hinder asked, scooting up on the other side. He was barely visible except as a moon-touched silhouette.

  “If Norsunder comes chasing us—and they are almost bound to—then I am going to have to separate off. I have to make my way straight for Eidervaen.”

  “And so? The rest of the group?” Hinder asked. “What, a decoy?”

  Atan said, “Here is how I perceive the situation. Norsunder knows that a Landis lives, so they’ve surely guessed I’ll go as fast as I can for the old tower, to break the rest of their spells. But they won’t know the road I’m taking. So if the patrollers lead them hither and yon, it might cause them to spread their search very thin. The little ones can be taken to a village. Why would they worry about the actions of a bunch of kids?”

  “Target practice,” Lilah muttered, but beneath her breath. And, in case she’d been heard, she said, “I’ll volunteer for decoy duty.” She forced a grin. “I already did it by accident once. They don’t know for sure that I’m not Atan.”

  Hinder saw Atan’s wince and knew how much she hated Lilah’s gallant offer, how badly she still felt. He said, “Why don’t we figure it out come morning? Right now everyone should sleep while we’ve got the chance.”

  “Yes. Let us do that.” Atan sighed.

  Lilah thought she hid her own relief, but Atan saw her face ease as she curled up against a thick, spongy plant that felt like moss and smelled like some sort of herb. Once again she felt that sickening sense of responsibility, that her lightest word could, and would, launch others so high of heart into action that might end their lives.

  The scent, not unpleasant, tickled Lilah’s nose. She was warm in her sturdy clothes and would have slept, but for the tall outline still discernible against the stone, her head bowed.

  “Atan?” she breathed.

  “Sorry. Do sleep, if you can.”

  “Something’s wrong.”

  “No... no. Not that. At least, beyond the obvious.”

  “Please tell. If you worry, then I worry.”

  “I apologize, Lilah.” Atan’s cold fingers pressed Lilah’s. “I can’t sleep because I see my duty so clearly, but I don’t know if I can do it. Is it because I spent my childhood with a mage who insisted on telling me his mistakes? I have always thought, if Tsauderei thinks he’s inadequate for the fight against Norsunder, what does that make me?”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “Because he says we have to learn from our mistakes, not just mourn over them. He says he always assumed that Detlev would be a brainless minion, mindlessly acting out his masters’ will, but every single encounter Tsauderei lost, and so he was forced to conclude that Detlev did not give up will, or cognizance, or initiative when he surrendered. Only honor and morals. He said to me, oh, so many times, You can be certain that he never suffers remorse after mistakes, and we must be forced to learn at least not to permit our own contrition to paralyze us.”

  Lilah tried to understand, but meaning cascaded past her like the waterfall, eluding her just as water eluded any attempt to force it into shape. Peitar talked like that sometimes.

  “... and so I have spent my entire life thinking, If this happens, then that must happen. Action, reaction, consequence. That lesson of Tsauderei’s has shaped me into what I am now, I think, more than anything else. So I see my duty. I just have to be able to find the right path from action to reaction to imagined consequence. I have to figure out what Norsunder will do—and stay ahead. And not let remorse defeat me before they do, if I make a mistake. But can I? Bear it, I mean.”

  “You will.”

  Both girls jumped, then recognized the drowsy voice: Hinder.

  “You will,” he said. “Make it to Eidervaen, I mean. Though I won’t tell anyone else, because—well, just because. But you see, Sin and I know where we are.”

  Lilah thought, Huh?

  But Atan’s long sigh of relief made two things clear. One, she knew what Hinder meant, and two, that it allayed her fears enough to enable her to close her eyes, and she sank immediately into sleep.

  Lilah drifted into troubled dreams soon after.

  FOUR

  Dejain drew a deep breath.

  “This changes everything,” she said.

  She busied herself with the cup of fresh coffee that she had not wanted, just so she could think.

  The cold had intensified, and though she was now settled deep within the fortress in Lesca’s warm rooms, her bones felt brittle as winter ice, making thought difficult.

  She’d always been careful where her own existence was concerned. When her first non-aging spells had been so disastrously destroyed, the tracer had sent her straight to Norsunder. But Detlev had found her and had re-engendered the spells, restoring her youth, before she could attempt recovery on her own.

  His magic was exponentially stronger than hers. Detlev was very seldom overt. It was enough that they both knew she owed her life to him, and he could just as easily take it away without exerting himself.

  She sighed. At least he was at a distance, involved in something or other that kept him occupied except for brief and rare visits. She sipped the coffee—disgusting stuff—and frowned at her hostess. “You are certain you heard the word ‘Landis.’”

  Lesca lay back on her cushions, her smile lazy. “If you wish to believe that I misheard, feel free.”

  “Of course not,” Dejain said. “My question is a measure of my surprise, not at all indicative of disbelief.”

  She could not afford to make an enemy of Lesca, who knew just about everything going on in the fortress. Lesca might be lazy and love comfort above all things, but she had a quick mind. Dejain did not know what her background was. Obviously she’d been trained as kitchen-steward for huge establishments. Maybe even royal palaces. But she liked it here at the Norsunder base. Being a cook, she was invisible to those who had no interest in anyone of so low a position, and that meant she overheard an astonishing number of conversations. She also knew how to find out about the few she didn’t overhear.

  Lesca smiled and helped herself to fresh fruit, transferred all the way from the northern hemisphere. “Zydes was quite distinct. Kessler, find that Landis girl, wherever you have to go. Take anyone you want. But don’t fail.” Lesca tossed a rind into the bowl. “Kessler brought back a red-haired urchin, therefore the urchin is this Landis girl. And then she vanished, leaving Zydes in a pretty panic. Not that the sight is all that pretty.”

  She laughed, and Dejain smiled, appreciating the image of Zydes in a sweat. “A Landis is alive,” she repeated. The astounding news was overlaid by early childhood memory; how the world seemed to have lost its meaning when the news came that Sartor had succumbed to the enemy. And nothing had happened. The sky did not fall. Birds pecked at seeds. Traders came and dangled ribbons before the girls of the village. The seasons changed, and changed again, with blithe indifference to human tragedy. The so-called great and powerful mages of Bereth Ferian did not descend like a singing of angels and do away with the enemy—in fact, they were soon defeated themselves.

  She’d been a child, and the lesson that life had taught her that only power was true, in that those who had it made ‘truth’.

  So began a lifelong quest for power.

  She said, “Then Detlev’s spells were not destroyed by Zydes. My only q
uestion is, why hasn’t Detlev been here before? Surely he had some sort of ward set up to warn him. He’d have to, for spells that powerful.”

  “Who knows, with him?” Lesca said, shrugging her round, plump shoulders. “Maybe he has been. He’s sneaky, that one. You don’t know he’s there unless he wants you to.” She affected a shudder, then languorously threw back her lemon-colored braid.

  A Landis, alive. A girl, not a boy.

  She tried to recall what that brat had looked like, but her focus had been on Irad, and all she remembered was a type found all over this portion of the continent: ruddy hair and complexion, with foxy features, sturdy build. Not even remotely resembling the Landises whose portraits she’d seen when she was young. Of course, distinctive features did not show up in every single family member, even in the Landises, but really, Kessler had more of that distinctive shape of the eyes than that brat had—and the Sonscarnas and Landises had only had a single marriage alliance that she was aware of, generations ago.

  Obviously, the first requirement now was to get hold of the old field reports, and review exactly who had done what, or seen what, at the very end of the Sartor war. But the thought of going into Norsunder, where there was no time, or space, not by any definition that had meaning—and where the Host of Lords could, and did, amuse themselves with rifling one’s mind and memories at any time—made her flinch.

  Maybe she could send someone.

  Magic-warning flickered behind her eyes. Wend! He was signaling her for transfer.

  She smiled. She’d fixed the transfer spell so he couldn’t activate it at his end, which meant that this time she would definitely be the first to hear whatever news he had.

  Lesca watched her in growing amusement. Really, she rather liked Dejain. Ambitious, of course—all the mages and rankers were. But she showed no interest in flirtation with anyone at all, and she hadn’t displayed any of those lamentable tastes for torture and protracted death that made some of the other would-be commanders so tiresome. She also shared information, which Zydes never had.

  She watched the small, pretty face, saw the inward look. Magic contact, of course. Probably Wend. He was currently running tame for her. Did she even know how badly he wanted revenge against Detlev? No, for the humiliation of Wend’s very public demotion after he and the horrible Vatiora lost that tangle with the Venn had taken place up north, and Dejain seemed to confine her interests to the southern hemisphere.

  “Thank you for the coffee,” Dejain said, rising to shake out her skirts.

  Lesca watched the small hands, dainty movements, the swinging blonde curls against the straight, slender back. Dejain’s vanity was so very inward, so self-absorbed, that Lesca found her endlessly entertaining.

  As Dejain disappeared up the corridor, Lesca laid an inward bet she was bracing for another trip to the tower, where she so trustingly thought she was not overheard, and prepared for a night of rich diversion. All the signs were in place. Wend was plotting, Zydes was plotting, Dejain was plotting, and Kessler prowled around looking crazier than ever... not as crazy as Vatiora, who might appear at any time.

  Now that was a frightening thought.

  Lesca decided it was time to find a safe vantage from which to watch the confrontation she knew was nigh, as soon as Detlev appeared.

  o0o

  “They’re searching,” Sin said, sliding down the rock next to her cousin.

  “How many?” Atan asked.

  “Riding in twos, that much I saw. But the fog is getting heavy.”

  No one needed to voice the next thought: how many were waiting somewhere just out of sight?

  Atan asked, “Thick fog?”

  Sin shook her head. “No. Fingers and drifts. But getting worse. I couldn’t see the farther hills.”

  Atan said, “Maybe we should talk about our diversion plan.”

  Hinder and Sin worked their way round the clumps of damp, filthy kids in the grotto where they had been forced to spend the day. Cold, dank air made it thoroughly unpleasant, but that was better than being discovered. The fog intensified the damp chill, but they dared not start a fire.

  Sin and Mendaen had posted watchers in the shrubs all night. It had been Kevri, one of Brick’s friends, who’d seen the Norsundrian searchers at dawn, riding hard through the woods. She’d scrambled back down to the slowly waking group, and Atan bade them all stay put until the searchers were safely gone.

  That had not happened all day; they’d continued to trade off watches.

  Mendaen approached, his dark hair lank and damp, and his face blotchy from the damp cold.

  “If they haven’t gone, it means they’ve got a perimeter,” he said. “An accurate one.”

  “That being?” Atan asked.

  “They’ll put a... a line, or a limit, at one end where we were first seen, and for the other end where we’re likeliest to be headed. Make a circle. Search methodically within it.”

  “And the other end is going to be Eidervaen,” Atan guessed.

  No one argued.

  As the day wore on, the fear changed to restlessness in some, boredom in others. Lilah watched Arlas take from her clothing a tight scroll of hoarded paper, and a silver-point drawing crayon, and sketch her sister sitting on a rock in her dirty gown and tangled hair, while Julian slept.

  Mendaen worried, checking his weapons and peering upward toward the sky. From above, the grotto was all but invisible, but eventually some Norsundrian was going to press past the shrubs that hid the old quake crack that formed their hideaway, and he feared they’d be bottled between enemy searchers.

  Atan sat up straighter, trying to ease her aching back. Hinder and Sin had finished their circuit. The group scrunched close to one another. Atan looked at the expectant faces—tired, grubby, but alert—and said, “Here’s a plan. I will continue on alone, except perhaps for one or two others, for I am the one drawing danger to you. If the group spreads out, wandering about and pretending to be lost, or caught in the magic, so the Norsundrians have to stop and question everyone, then you have a better chance of escaping notice. If you never mention Shendoral or me, then you should be all right, I hope. And I will go north to Eidervaen.”

  “Who are the one or two others you would honor with such a trust?” Irza asked.

  Lilah looked around, and noticed both Hinder and Sin with bent heads.

  “I would leave that to volunteers,” Atan stated. “But those volunteers would have to understand that the worst danger is where I go.”

  “Then we all shall volunteer.”

  All heads swung Irza’s way.

  She didn’t speak loudly, but her whisper was all the more forceful.

  Silence from the group.

  “But it’s better if I go alone,” Atan said.

  Irza bowed, but her face was blanched with anger, her fingers shaking. “I know you wish to preserve us from danger, your majesty,” she said.

  Lilah grimaced into her knees. The tone in that your majesty would feel like a slap across the face. She didn’t even have to look at Atan to know she felt the sting; Lilah sensed it in the way Atan’s body tensed into stillness.

  “But in denying us the right to face danger with you, and defend you, you also deny us honor.”

  There’s That Word. Now that it’s out, nobody is going to make any sense anymore. Lilah sighed. She’d learned that much over the summer, when adults had slammed one another with accusations about honor with exactly as much heat and passion as a duel with swords. The wounds couldn’t be seen, but obviously they sure could be felt.

  Yes, Atan looked as if she’d been stabbed. Hinder was red with anger.

  Lilah muttered as loudly as she dared, “Nonsense!”

  Foosh! She fancied she could feel the wind as all heads snapped to face her.

  Lilah struggled to sit up. Her cheeks and neck prickled with the heat of embarrassment, but she wasn’t going to back down now.

  “It’s a perfectly good plan. Diversion is something military people
do. I learned that much when Sarendan had civil war last summer. Nobody loses honor.”

  “She is right.” Heads snapped again.

  That was Sin, who almost never spoke above a soft murmur—and rarely when more than one person could hear her. But she too had red cheeks and narrowed eyes. “There is no honor lost in leading the enemy away from the monarch.” When had all the morvende gathered with her? Suddenly all five of them were there, ranging in sizes, but all with wild white hair and taloned fingers. And Rip was with them, his round face unwontedly sober.

  “I will not put my own safety above that of the only Landis in the world,” Irza stated, her head high. “My parents swore when they first took the Yostavos coronet that they would spend their lives defending their lands and the royal family. I can do no less.”

  “That’s right,” Arlas stated, arms crossed.

  “It’s true of my family as well,” young Vian Ryadas proclaimed, his snub nose elevated.

  Murmurs came from the others—and not just the aristocrats.

  “We can’t divert if no one will go,” Pouldi said, scratching his ears.

  “Maybe we can divert as a group.” That came from Yoread, one of the quiet ones.

  Everyone started talking, their eyes wide, their fingers stiff and shoulders tense as they all struggled to keep their emotions to whispers.

  Atan listened in dismay, burdened by that constant awareness that every decision she made shaped their future interactions, just as everything she did would be remembered, and told and retold. If they lived.

  She lifted a hand, and the whispering ceased.

  “Then how about this? We divert as a group.”

  Irza conceded with a regal nod, like one would do in court. Lilah watched Hinder send her a long, stony glance, but Irza didn’t notice. She was busy whispering to her sister.

  Lilah turned toward Atan in time to catch a quick, private grimace Hinder’s way that caused Hinder to grin just as quickly.

  “We’ll manage,” the morvende said softly.

  What? Lilah thought. Once again the ground had shifted. No, it was more like the world had shifted. She’d missed an important cue and didn’t dare ask, because if Atan was not being obvious, then that meant she didn’t want to call attention to whatever-it-was.