Fairest

  No one could help. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I owed zhamM an explanation, and the gnomes needed to know I was an outlaw.

  “What took you to Ontio Castle in the first place?”

  “The royal wedding.” I told him everything—about the ceremony, the composing game with Ijori, meeting Ivi, the centaurs.

  He listened quietly, now and then sipping the bitter ostumo.

  I wept over King Oscaro. zhamM gave me his handkerchief, which was embroidered with green thread. Then he took another handkerchief from another pocket and shed a tear, too. He rang for a servant, and when one came, he told her to bring a pitcher of water.

  The water arrived, and I continued my tale. zhamM kept my glass full. When I told about illusing for Ivi, he asked me to demonstrate.

  I illused Uju’s voice coming from the air above one of the chairs. The voice sang lines from a traveling song.

  “The hills rise and fall,

  worn up and down by foreign feet.

  Signs of home abound:

  the sky, the weeds …”

  “Superb!” zhamM said. “How is it done?”

  I explained. “No one else can do it,” I added. “Perhaps my birth family would be able to.”

  “The innkeepers are not your true parents?”

  I thought everyone who visited the Featherbed knew. “They’re my true parents, but not my birth parents.”

  “I see. Now let me try this illusing.” He tried and failed and tried again. He said, “I have it now,” and failed again. He tried twice more, and then his voice came from somewhere over the low table. “Marvelous, to be exact,” it said. He clapped his hands.

  How could he illuse, when Mother and Sir Uellu, the best singers I knew, had failed?

  “Thank you for showing me, Maid azacH.” This came from the ceiling.

  He couldn’t imitate other voices or sounds, but he could illuse.

  “Please continue with your tale,” he illused from near the door.

  I suspected he might never again speak without illusing.

  I went on. He looked shocked when I told of Ivi’s threats against me. But he laughed over my beauty-spell calamity and asked to see my marble toe.

  After I assured him that it didn’t hurt, he said he wouldn’t mind a glow-iron toe.

  I continued my tale. I mentioned my friendship with Ijori and said that he’d kissed me, but I told it in as offhand a manner as I could.

  I broke down again when I reached my final night at the castle. I had to wait before I could relate Sir Uellu’s accusations against me and Ivi’s lies.

  “Then they tied my hands and gagged me. widyeH zhamM, it’s terrible for a singer to be gagged.” I finished the tale, feeling tired enough for another night’s sleep.

  He was silent, his hands folded in his lap, his head bent. Such a sympathetic silence it was. It took in my grief and misery and didn’t try to put a bright face on what had happened.

  After a few minutes he reached into the bowl of pebbles on the table next to him and selected a largish stone about the size of his thumb. He came to my chair and showed it to me. “What do you see?”

  “A rock?”

  “What color is it?”

  “Dull black.”

  He put his free hand on mine. “Now what color is it?”

  “Oh!” It wasn’t black at all. It was another dark color, but not a color I knew. I had no words to describe its hue, but I felt it, an intensity behind my eyes that was almost pain.

  He let my hand go, and the rock became dull black again. He returned it to the bowl and sat back down. “That rock was htun. Most humans can’t see htun, even if I hold their hands. Maid azacH, I doubt you have a single drop of ogre blood in you. However, my dear cousin, I am certain that one of your ancestors was a gnome.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I, PART GNOME?

  “These are my reasons,” zhamM said. “Your hair has htun highlights, which no other human hair has. It used to be all htun before you drank that dreadful potion. I must say, you were foolhardy when you did so.”

  “But—”

  He held up a hand. “You were foolhardy.” He smiled at me. “.byjadh heemyeh odh ubaech achoedzaY Foolishness may have golden offspring. I hope yours does.”

  I did too.

  “There are more reasons than your hair to think you are part gnome. Before drinking the potion, you were wider than most humans. You were taller as well, which we cannot take credit for. However, we can take credit for your thinking it’s cozy here.

  “What’s more, you discovered how to penetrate our rock curtain when you arrived. To be exact, no human has ever done so before. And I can illuse, although I am no singer.”

  “But … but Sir Uellu said I wormed my way into people’s affections as an ogre would. He said I looked like an ogre, too.”

  “Yes. I’m very put out with him.” He hesitated. “Maid azacH, are you sorry to be part gnome?”

  “No!” Although gnomes were ugly by human standards, their ugliness was far less repugnant than an ogre’s—not repugnant at all, really. It was the difference, perhaps, between the looks of a cockroach and a grasshopper.

  Besides, the gnomes who’d stayed at the Featherbed had always been kind. Mother and Father had liked them, too. “I’m not sorry—if I really am part gnome.”

  “You are. It has happened before. My aunt’s husband had some human in him.”

  Now was the time to ask. “widyeH zhamM, may I stay here?”

  “Cousin, did you think we would toss you out?”

  I wept again. For the second time in my life I was being accepted into a fold.

  zhamM cleared his throat. “Perhaps you can teach us to make ostumo as it should be made.”

  I laughed through my tears. “I’ll be glad to.”

  He cleared his throat again. “To be exact, you can do more than that for us.”

  I wiped my eyes. “Yes?”

  “We would love to hear you sing. I have spoken of your voice ever since I first heard it. But also, I know of no human songs about us, so … would you compose a few?”

  I wrote a letter to Mother and Father, telling all. zhamM gave it to a messenger and also dispatched two gnome armorers to Ontio Castle. While displaying their newest swords and shields, the armorers would see how news of my death had been received and whether Ivi retained her former power.

  “You may stay here as long as you like, Maid azacH,” zhamM said. “But it’s best to know where matters stand.”

  I wanted to ask the armorers to take note of Ijori—if he seemed to mourn me or if he seemed untroubled. But then I remembered I didn’t care.

  I wrote a series of songs about living with the gnomes. The song making saved me from despondency and anguish. I couldn’t think of Ivi or Ijori without rage or pain. Writing songs was better.

  My first song was about zhamM and what he meant to me. I sang it at a dinner in the Banquet Hall. I was hardly nervous. Compared with my feelings the first time I sang at the castle, I was as calm as a tree. zhamM had promised that everyone would love my singing, and I believed him.

  As I sang, I discovered how gnomes blush—the tip of zhamM’s bulbous nose turned violet.

  “widyeH zhamM, the green gentleman,

  to be exact, came many times

  to our inn. He said my hair

  was htun, and htun, he said,

  was beautiful. I was ugly,

  he said I was. I knew I was.

  He called all humans ugly, to be

  exact. I was uglier

  than the rest, but he thought not.

  The green gentleman thought not.

  “If I leave here ever,

  if I come back never,

  I will know that there is htun,

  and it is beautiful.

  Beautiful, to be exact.

  “widyeH zhamM, the green gentleman,

  to be exact, saw I’d come,

  danger on my shoulder. He didn’t

>   call me cousin then. Pebbles here

  are worth coaches home. Footstools

  are worth castles. Castles, to be exact.

  Today, the green gentleman called

  me cousin. I can’t see

  htun without his hand. But

  he called me cousin. Cousin,

  to be exact.

  “If I leave here ever,

  if I come back never,

  I will know that there is zhamM

  and he is priceless. Priceless,

  to be exact.”

  My next song described the magnificence of Gnome Caverns. At the entrance to the Banquet Hall, for example, a milky rock tower rose, perhaps fifteen times my height. In clusters around the chamber were delicate rock straws that extended, thinner than my pinkie, from floor to ceiling.

  The only aspect of the Banquet Hall I omitted from my song was the food. I yearned for more variety than what is dug up from the ground. After a week I would have given my golden plate for a leg of chicken, a scone, a bowl of fruit. zhamM knew, I think, and others might have, too. Often I’d pick at my food and remind myself I had to eat to stay alive.

  The greatest marvel in Gnome Caverns was the gnomes. They accepted my presence as though I had lived among them forever. They told me over and again—in pantomime, since few spoke Ayorthaian—how glad they were to have a human visitor. They stayed in our world sometimes, but we never stayed in theirs.

  They loved my voice and my songs, which zhamM translated. They swayed, just as we did, when they liked something. And they liked everything!

  Two weeks after I came, a gnome asked me to sing for her daughter, who was to begin her apprenticeship as a jeweler. There was to be a ceremony. Both of them would be honored if I sang, and the mother would pay me. Would a small diamond be enough?

  A diamond! There were no coins here. The currency was gems. I’d never been paid for a song before. I would have refused the jewel, but zhamM told me to accept. Then he educated me about gnome apprenticeships so I could write the song.

  The ceremony took place in the market cavern. The maid chanted something to her new master and bowed from her waist. The maid’s mother gave the master a scroll. I was told it was time to sing. Everyone smiled.

  This was my song:

  “Today we celebrate.”

  They began to sway.

  “Today you end

  and you begin. The old

  is still sweeter

  than the new. You

  notice everything.

  Your shoe has a scuff.

  Your master hunches over.

  Your fingers don’t do

  as they’re told. But

  already you can pick

  a stone. You’ve

  loved the bead bowl

  since you were six.

  Remember?

  Remember, and

  don’t forget

  the moments

  of your beginning.

  Name your tools.

  Name your bench.

  Name your lantern.

  “Let us sing!

  Let us sway!

  Let us eat and drink!

  What a jeweler you’ll be!

  We’ll buy your wares!

  We’ll be lucky to know you!

  We’re lucky to know you now.”

  At the end they raised their hands, as we do. Then the maid’s father passed out tumblers of mineral water, the gnomes’ favorite drink, as ostumo was ours. We all drank, and the proceedings ended.

  The mother paid me. The diamond was smaller than the ones in the pebble bowl in my bed cavern. But it was mine. I’d never thought I’d own a diamond.

  As zhamM and I left the market cavern, a candle vendor wanted to sell me candles. An old woman wanted to sell me tree-root confections, awful shriveled stuff. They knew I had a diamond to spend.

  When we reached zhamM’s parlor, I asked him to look into the future once more for me. I was wondering if I ever might go home.

  He straightened a book on his low table, then rang for a servant. It was time for his afternoon ostumo. I had spent hours in the gnomes’ kitchen, going over the process of making ostumo, and the gnomish chefs could now produce a drinkable brew.

  He picked up a book, then set it down. “I have already looked ahead again for you. Maid azacH … when I foretold for you at the Featherbed, I saw you here, but I didn’t see beyond. Here you are, and we have gone beyond.”

  He was frightening me.

  “There may be a beyond that follows what I saw this time.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw you lying on the ground.”

  Dead?

  “Several figures milled about. Remorse and gloating came from one of them. Remorse and gloating, both at once, to be exact.”

  “Was I dead?”

  “I don’t know. You didn’t stir.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I ASKED ZHAMM if the people surrounding me were gnomes.

  “They must have been. You were somewhere in Gnome Caverns. I saw glow iron again.”

  “Was I much older than I am now?” Perhaps he’d seen years into the future.

  “I couldn’t tell. It could be tomorrow or ten years hence.”

  “Must it happen?”

  “No. You could come to a crossroad and choose a different direction. Or the figure gloating over you might.”

  “But the likelihood is that it will come to pass, yes?”

  zhamM nodded. “Yes, to be exact.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Be cautious. When you have a decision to make, consider carefully. Violence is rare here, but a gnome is an implacable enemy.”

  If I departed Gnome Caverns and never returned, I’d be safe from zhamM’s prediction. I thought it over in bed that night and decided to remain at least until the armorers returned from Ontio Castle. Their news would help me choose how to proceed.

  The next day the messenger arrived from the Featherbed with a letter from Mother and Father. I took it to my bed cavern to read. When I opened it, I found a note from Ijori tucked inside.

  Ijori! At the Featherbed? My heart skipped, then beat too fast.

  I read his first.

  Dear heart,

  I write in fear that you will never read my words, that evil—more evil—has befallen you and you are beyond the reach of my love.

  I have given this note to your good parents in case you come here—although you mustn’t stay with them. If you do, you will certainly be discovered.

  In the queen’s apartments after the Sing I was too angry for clear thought. But in the night that followed, I grew certain that you told the truth. I know the queen. It is far more likely that she threatened you than that you connived for position and power. Indeed, it is more likely for the sun to turn blue than for you to be a schemer. Please forgive my mistrust. If you don’t, I’ll never forgive myself.

  However, I still wish you’d confided in me. We would have found a way out together.

  I hope the change in your appearance was not forced on you, too. Paradoxically, I also hope you didn’t choose it. I never thought you ugly. I should have told you long ago. No one has eyes like yours. Or an aroma like yours. I loved the size of you from the first.

  I am searching for you. I sing of you as I search. You are my love. I hope someday to be yours once again.

  Your penitent

  Ijori

  I forgave him. Of course I forgave him. He needn’t repent.

  Now that I was beautiful, I didn’t want to believe he’d never thought me ugly. But perhaps it was true. He was extraordinary.

  I wondered if we’d ever be together again. I was likely to die here, but at least he wouldn’t think I was already dead. If he was away searching for me, he wouldn’t hear Uju’s tale of my death.

  I opened Mother and Father’s letter. Mother wrote that guards had come. They had searched the inn while the guests stood outside in a rainstorm. Afterward the guards had qu
estioned everyone.

  They wanted to know if we’d seen any ogreish tendencies in you. We said absolutely not. Father sang five verses of your virtues. Yarry and Ollo and I trotted out all our old songs to you and yours to us, whether those guards wanted to hear them or not.

  I started to cry.

  The letter went on: “We were told that land won’t come to us after all, but that Ayortha will pay for the new roof and the new wing.”

  As Ijori had promised, the crown had been generous.

  At first we doubted who would stay in the new wing or under the new roof. Half our guests decamped immediately after the guards did. But then the prince and his dog came, and the half who stayed were thrilled. The prince saved us, I’m sure. Father is fashioning a wooden sign with the date of His Highness’s visit. Prince Ijori seems to think as little of the lies about you as we do. We think he is a fine young man, with a fine ear for true notes and false.

  Father wishes to add a few words. I am, as always, Your Loving Mother.

  He wrote,

  Daughter, we didn’t need your note—or a prince’s visit—to tell us you’d done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our love and our trust wherever you wander. Father.

  I wept harder.

  zhamM, out of his endless goodness, sent the messenger back into the world to find Ijori. “But be cautious in your inquiries,” he instructed. “We don’t want Maid azacH linked with gnomes. When you find Prince Ijori, tell him his love is well, but tell him not to come.” He turned to me. “It isn’t safe until we’re certain the court believes you dead.”

  I was eager to write a reply to Ijori, assuring him of love and forgiveness.

  “Write it,” zhamM said. “Say what you want him to know. But it mustn’t be sent. It might fall into the wrong hands. To be exact, it might cause my prediction to come true.”

  I did write the note, a song.

  When you pet Oochoo,

  my dearest,

  you pause, your palm so close

  the air shivers. And then