Simon, confused by what had happened, did not respond.
“That I could not tell you—not with certainty. She is the oldest thinking creature in all of Osten Ard, Seoman, and she is far more than twice as old as the next most ancient. Be assured, her ways are strange and subtle beyond even the understanding of anyone except perhaps First Grandmother. But if I had to guess, I would say this: she longs for Unbeing.”
“What does that mean?” Simon was beginning to wonder if he was truly sober after all, for the world was slowly spinning and he wanted to lie down and sleep.
“If she wished death,” Aditu said, “then that would be oblivion just for herself. She is tired of living, Seoman, but she is eldest. Never forget that. As long as songs have been sung in Osten Ard, and longer, Utuk’ku has lived. She alone of any living thing saw the lost home that birthed our kind. I do not think she can bear to think of others living when she is gone. She cannot destroy everything, much as she might desire to, but perhaps she hopes to help create the greatest cataclysm possible—that is, to assure that as many living folk accompany her into oblivion as she can drag with her.”
Simon stopped, horrified. “That’s terrible!” he said with feeling.
Aditu shrugged, a sinuous gesture. She had a lovely neck. “Utuk’ku is terrible. She is mad, Seoman, although it is a madness as tightly woven and intricate as the finest juya’ha ever spun. She was perhaps the cleverest of all the Gardenborn.”
The moon had freed itself from a bank of clouds; it hung overhead like a harvester’s scythe. Simon wanted to go to sleep—his head felt very heavy—but at the same time he was loath to give up this chance. It was so rare to find one of the Sithi in a mood to answer questions, and even better, to answer them directly, without the usual Sithi vagueness.
“Why did the Norns go into the north?”
Aditu bent and picked a sprig of some curling vine, white-flowered and dark-leaved. She knotted it in her hair so that it hung against her cheek. “The two families, Zida’ya and Hikeda’ya, had a disagreement. It concerned mortals. Utuk’ku’s folk felt your kind to be animals—worse than animals, actually, since we of the Garden do not kill any creature if we can avoid doing so. The Dawn Children did not agree with the Cloud Children. There were other things, too.” She lifted her head to the moon. “Then Nenais’u and Drukhi died. That was the day the shadow fell, and it has never been lifted.”
No sooner had he congratulated himself on catching Aditu in a forthright mood than she had begun to grow obscure. … Still, Simon did not linger over her unsatisfying explanation. He did not really want any more names to learn—he was already overwhelmed with all the things she had told him tonight; in any case, he had another purpose in asking. “And when the two families parted,” he said eagerly, “it was here, wasn’t it? All the Sithi came to the Fire Garden with torches. And then in Leavetaking House they stood around some thing built of glowing fire and made their bargain.”
Aditu lowered her eyes from the sliver of moon, fixing him with her cat-bright stare. “Who told you this tale?”
“I saw it!” He was almost sure by the look on her face that he had been right. “I saw it when I had my vigil. The night I became a knight.” He laughed at his own words. Fatigue was making him feel silly. “My knight night.”
“Saw it?” Aditu folded her hand around his wrist. “Tell me, Seoman. We will walk a little while longer.”
He described his dream-vision for her—then, for good measure, he told her of what had happened later when he used Jiriki’s mirror.
“What happened when you brought the Scale here shows that there is still potency in Rhao iye-Sama’an,” she said slowly. “But my brother was right to warn you off the Dream Road. It is very dangerous now—otherwise I would take the glass and try to find Jiriki myself, tonight, and tell him of what you told me.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. Her hair drifted like smoke. “Because of the thing you saw during your vigil. That is fearful. For you to see something from the Elder Days, without a Witness …” She made another of her strange finger gestures, this one tangled and complex as a basket of wriggling fish. “Either you have things in you that Amerasu did not see—but I cannot believe that First Grandmother, even in her preoccupation, would fail so abjectly—or there is something happening beyond anything we suspected. That worries me greatly. For the Earth-Drake’s Eye to show a vision of the past that way, unbidden …” She sighed. Simon stared. She looked worried—something he would not have believed possible.
“Maybe it was the dragon’s blood,” Simon offered. He raised his hand to indicate his scar and shock of white hair. “Jiriki said I was marked somehow.”
“Perhaps.” Aditu did not seem convinced. Simon felt slightly insulted. So she didn’t think he was special enough, did she?
They walked on until they had crossed back over the ruptured tiles of the Fire Garden and were approaching the tent city. Most of the merrymakers had gone to their beds; only a few fires still burned. Beside them, a few shadowy shapes still talked and laughed and sang.
“Go and rest, Seoman,” Aditu said. “You are staggering.”
He wanted to argue, but knew that what she said was true. “Where will you sleep?”
Her serious expression changed to one of genuine amusement. “Sleep? No, Snowlock, I will walk tonight. I have much to think about. In any case, I have not seen the moon on Sesuad’ra’s broken stones for almost a century.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Sleep well. In the morning we will go to Josua.” She turned and walked away, silent as dew. Within moments she was only a slender shadow disappearing across the grassy hilltop.
Simon rubbed at his face with both hands. There was so much to think about. What a night this had been! He yawned and headed toward the tents of New Gadrinsett.
“A strange thing has happened, Josua.”
Geloë stood in the door of his tent, unusually hesitant.
“Come in, please.” The prince turned to Vorzheva, who was sitting up in bed beneath a mound of blankets. “Or perhaps you would prefer we go elsewhere?” he asked his wife.
Vorzheva shook her head. “I do not feel well today, but if I must lie here this morning, at least there will be some people to keep me company.”
“But perhaps Valada Geloë’s news will distress you,” the prince said worriedly. He looked to the wise woman. “Can she hear it?”
Geloë’s smile was sardonic. “A woman with a baby inside her is not like someone who is dying of old age, Prince Josua. Women are strong—bearing a child is hard work. Besides, this news should not frighten anyone … even you.” She softened her expression to let him know she was joking.
Josua nodded. “I deserved that, I suppose.” His own answering smile was wan. “What strange thing has happened? Please, come in.”
Geloë shrugged off her dripping cloak and dropped it just inside the doorway. A light rain had begun to fall soon after dawn, and had been pattering on the tent roof for the better part of an hour. Geloë ran her hand through her wet, cropped hair, then seated herself on one of the stools Freosel had built for the prince’s residence. “I have just received a message.”
“From whom?”
“I do not know. It came to me with one of Dinivan’s birds, but the writing is not his hand.” She reached into her jacket and pulled forth a bundle of damp feathers, which softly cheeped; its black eye gleamed through the gap between her fingers. “Here is what it bore.” She held up a small curl of oilcloth. With some difficulty, she managed to pull a twist of parchment from the cloth and open it without unduly discommoding the bird.
“Prince Josua.”
she read,
“Certain signs tell me that it may be propitious for you to begin thinking about Nabban. Certain mouths have whispered in my ear that you might find more support there then you suspect. The kingfishers have been taking too much of the boatmen’s catch. A messenger will arrive within a fortnight, bearing words that wil
l speak more clearly than this brief message can. Do nothing until that one has arrived, for your own fortune’s sake.”
Geloë looked up as she finished reading, her yellow eyes wary. “It is signed only with the ancient Nabbanai rune for ‘Friend.’ Someone who is either a Scrollbearer or of equivalent learning wrote this. Perhaps someone who would wish us to believe that a Scrollbearer wrote it.”
Josua gave Vorzheva’s hand a gentle squeeze before he stood up. “May I see it?” Geloë gave him the note, which he scrutinized for a moment before handing it back. “I do not recognize the hand, either.” He took a few steps toward the tent’s far wall, then turned and paced back toward the door. “The writer is obviously suggesting that there is unrest in Nabban, that the Benidrivine House is not as loved as it once was—not surprising with Benigaris in the saddle and Nessalanta pulling the reins. But what could this person want of me? You say it came to you with Dinivan’s bird?”
“Yes. And that is what most worries me.” Geloë was about to say more when there was an apologetic cough from the doorway. Father Strangyeard stood there, the wisp of red hair atop his head plastered to his skull by rainwater.
“Your pardon, Prince Josua.” He saw Vorzheva and colored. “Lady Vorzheva. Goodness. I hope you can forgive my … my intrusion.”
“Come in, Strangyeard.” The prince beckoned as though to summon a skittish cat. Behind him, Vorzheva smiled to show she did not mind.
“I asked him to come, Josua,” said Geloë. “Since it was Dinivan’s bird—well, you can understand, I think.”
“Of course.” He waved the archivist to one of the vacant stools. “Now, tell me about the birds. I remember what you told me about Dinivan himself—although I can still scarcely credit that the lector’s secretary would be part of such a company.”
Geloë looked a little impatient. “The League of the Scroll is a thing that many would be proud to be part of, and Dinivan’s master would never have been troubled by anything that he did on its behalf.” Her eyelids lowered as some new thought came to her. “But the lector is dead, if the rumors that have come to us here are true. Some say that worshipers of the Storm King murdered him.”
“I have heard of these Fire Dancers, yes,” Josua said. “Those of New Gadrinsett who fled here from the south can talk of little else.”
“But the troubling thing is that since this rumored event, I have heard nothing from Dinivan,” Geloë continued. “So who would have his birds, if not him? And if he survived the attack on the lector—I am told there was a great fire in the Sancellan Aedonitis—then why would he not write himself?”
“Perhaps he was burned or injured,” Strangyeard said diffidently. “He might have had someone else write on his behalf.”
“True,” Geloë mused, “but then I think he would have used his name, unless he is somehow so frightened of discovery that he cannot even send a message by bird that bears his rune.”
“So if it is not Dinivan,” said Josua, “then we must accept that this could be a trick. The very ones who were responsible for the lector’s death may have sent this.”
Vorzheva raised herself a little higher in the bed. “It could be not either of those things. Someone who found Dinivan’s birds could send it for their own reasons.”
Geloë nodded slowly. “True. But it would have to be someone who knew who Dinivan’s friends were, and where they might be: this message has your husband’s name at the top of it, as though whoever sent it knew it would come straight to him.”
Josua was pacing again. “I have thought about Nabban,” he muttered. “So many times. The north is a wasteland—I doubt Isorn and the others will find more than a token force at best. The people have been scattered by war and weather. But if we could somehow drive Benigaris out of Nabban …” He stopped and stared up at the tent ceiling, frowning. “We could raise an army, then, and ships. … We would have a real chance to thwart my brother.” His frown deepened. “But who can know whether this is real or not? I do not like to have someone pull at my strings like this.” He slapped his hand against his leg. “Aedon! Why can nothing be simple?”
Geloë shifted on her stool. The wise woman’s voice was surprisingly sympathetic. “Because nothing is simple, Prince Josua.”
“Whatever it is,” Vorzheva pointed out, “whether it is a true thing or a lie, it says that a messenger will be sent. Then we will learn more.”
“Perhaps,” Josua said. “If it is not just a ploy to keep us hesitant, to make us delay.”
“But that does not seem likely, if you will pardon my saying so,” Strangyeard piped up. “Which of our enemies is so powerless that they would stoop that low …?” He trailed off, looking at Josua’s hard, distracted face. “I mean …”
“I think that makes sense, Strangyeard,” Geloë agreed. “It is a weak play, and I think Elias and his … ally … are beyond such things.”
“Then you should not hurry to have your Raed, Josua.” There was something like triumph in Vorzheva’s voice. “It would not make sense to have plans until you know if this is true or not. You must wait for this messenger. At least a little while.”
The prince turned to her; a look passed between them, and although the others did not know what the silence between husband and wife meant, they waited. At last Josua nodded stiffly.
“I suppose that is true,” he said. “The note says a fortnight. I will wait that long before calling the Raed.”
Vorzheva smiled in satisfaction.
“I agree, Prince Josua,” said Geloë. “But there is still much that we do not …”
She stopped as Simon appeared in the doorway. When he did not immediately enter, Josua beckoned to him impatiently. “Come in, Simon, come in. We are discussing a strange message, and what may be an even stranger messenger.”
Simon started. “Messenger?”
“A letter was sent to us, perhaps from Nabban. Come in. Do you need something?”
The tall youth swallowed. “Perhaps now is not the best time.”
“I can assure you,” Josua said dryly, “there is nothing that you could ask me that would not seem simple when set beside the quandaries I have already discovered today.”
Simon still seemed hesitant. “Well …” he said, then stepped inside. Someone followed him in.
“Blessed Elysia, Mother of our Ransomer,” Strangyeard said in a curiously choked voice.
“No. My mother named me Aditu,” replied Simon’s companion. For all her fluency, her Westerling was strangely accented; it was hard to tell whether she meant mockery or not.
She was slender as a lance, with hungry golden eyes and a great spilling froth of snowy white hair tied with a gray band. Her clothes were white, too, so that she seemed almost to glow in the shadowed tent, as though a little piece of the winter sun had rolled through the doorway.
“Aditu is my friend Jiriki’s sister. She’s a Sitha,” Simon added unnecessarily.
“By the Tree,” Josua said. “By the Holy Tree.”
Aditu laughed, a fluid, musical noise. “Are these things you all say magical charms to chase me away? If so, they do not seem to be working.”
The witch woman stood. Her weathered face worked through an unreadable mixture of emotions. “Welcome, Dawn Child,” she said slowly. “I am Geloë.”
Aditu smiled, but gently. “I know who you are. First Grandmother spoke of you.”
Geloë lifted her hand as if to touch this apparition. “Amerasu was dear to me, although I never met her face-to-face. When Simon told me what had happened …” Astonishingly, tears formed and trembled on her lashes. “She will be missed, your First Grandmother.”
Aditu inclined her head for a moment. “She is missed. All the world mourns her.”
Josua stepped forward. “Forgive me my discourtesy, Aditu,” he said, pronouncing the name carefully. “I am Josua. Besides Valada Geloë, these others are my wife, the lady Vorzheva, and Father Strangyeard.” He ran his hand across his eyes. “Can we offer you someth
ing to eat or drink?”
Aditu bowed. “Thank you, but I drank from your spring just before dawn, and I am not hungry. I have a message from my mother, Likimeya, Lady of the House of Year-Dancing, which you may be interested to hear.”
“Of course.” Josua could not seem to help staring at her. Behind him, Vorzheva was also staring at the newcomer, although her expression was different than the prince’s. “Of course,” he repeated. “Sit down, please.”
The Sitha sank to the floor in a single movement, light as thistledown. “Are you certain this is a good time, Prince Josua?” Her tuneful voice contained a hint of amusement. “You do not look well.”
“It has been a strange morning,” the prince replied.
“So they have already ridden to Hernystir?” Josua spoke carefully. “This is unexpected news indeed.”
“You do not seem pleased,” Aditu commented.
“We had hoped for Sithi aid—although we certainly did not expect it, or even think that it was deserved.” He grimaced. “I know you have no cause to love my father, and so no reason to love me or my people. But I am glad to hear that the Hernystiri will hear the Sithi’s horns. I have wished I could do more for Lluth’s folk.”
Aditu stretched her arms high over her head, a gesture that seemed oddly childlike, out of place with the gravity of the discussion. “As have we. But we have long exiled ourselves from the doings of all mortals, even the Hernystiri. We might have remained that way, even at the expense of honor,” she said with casual frankness, “but events forced us to admit that Hernystir’s war was ours, too.” She turned her luminous eyes on the prince. “As is yours, of course. And that is why, when Hernystir is free, the Zida’ya will ride to Naglimund.”
“As you said.” Josua looked around the circle, as though to confirm that the others had heard the same thing as he. “But you did not say why.”
“Many reasons. Because it is too close to our forest, and our lands. Because the Hikeda’ya must not have any foothold south of Nakkiga. And other worries I am not at leave to explain.”