Fleeing Peace

  The Commander said, “Is that not evidence that the brat you’re seeking is this Mearsiean girl with the white hair? How else would she know where we’re going? If you’ll look at—” He reached for the reports.

  “I did. The brat I was looking for is not Mearsiean,” Siamis cut in. “I established that before I left. All it shows is that this girl—or more likely her mysterious aunt—has got a good spy system that you are too slow to catch.”

  “There’s no one in this building but us,” the Commander said. “We got rid of the servants.” His voice sharpened.

  “Then the walls do the listening,” Siamis retorted, without any anger at all. “You will cease to entertain them.” He said something softly, then snapped his fingers, and the Commander vanished. “He can propound his theories to Detlev, who might find them interesting. In the meantime, you will listen to what I have to say.”

  This to the second in command, who’d overseen all the forays. This man tried to look alert—and to hide his fear. Promotion so suddenly could be just as dangerous for the new commander as for the old.

  “My ‘brat’ turned up in Imar. Speaking of which, where is Davernak? I sent orders for him to transfer the child here.”

  “Arrived last night,” said the new commander, and he nodded to the guard at the door. “Alone.”

  Siamis said gently, “Alone?”

  Ben couldn’t hear any threat in that word, or see any threat in the fair-haired man standing below, but his legs drew in protectively around his body. The new commander rubbed his jaw, as though already worried that he could vanish like his predecessor, and snapped his fingers at the door guard. “Find him.”

  Siamis said, “My plans require a settled, obedient populace, not a kingdom-wide monument to dead heroes. You will cease the petty reprisals. You will also cease baiting the Chwahir, though if they try any more territorial expansions you’re free to play with them to your heart’s content. I will shortly have a word with Kwenz Sonscarna. That should suffice.”

  The new commander signified that he understood with a curt gesture. He edged a step away; Ben didn’t blame him. He could feel the mental force of Siamis’s irritation from his spot on the ceiling.

  “You will confine your searches to locating Murial Sherwood, or even better, her spy network. The evidence so far is clear that she can outthink all of you.” He gave the reports a dismissive flick with his fingers.

  Movement at the door brought the door guards escorting a newcomer.

  “Davernak,” Siamis said. “Where is Liere Fer Eider?”

  The room felt colder than the wintry air outside. All the Norsundrians gave one another shifty looks, some fingering weapons. Alone, Siamis stood at ease.

  Davernak licked his lips. It seemed to take him a moment or two to find his voice. The silence stretched out at torturous length, before he said, “She vanished. Angelar and I personally conducted searches house to house through South End, and afterward issued her description to everyone, with instructions to report her presence,” Davernak said.

  Siamis shut his eyes, then opened them. “I do not hear her,” he said. “You underestimated her, Davernak.”

  The Norsundrians shifted. Ben could see that found that observation, and the verb ‘hear,’ more disturbing than mere threats.

  Siamis went on, “And the citizenry? Did they cooperate?”

  “No problem—except in over-exertion,” Davernak said. “They obediently report every single brat with braids any color that could remotely be termed brown. It takes time, checking their identities.”

  “That is the nature of the magic keeping them quiet and content, so do nothing when they bring the wrong child. I don’t want to risk anyone startled out of the enchantment, which is only a superficial layer at this point. Worrying about reprisals if they are wrong might be enough for some.”

  The Norsundrians tried not to show their uneasiness. Most of them thoroughly hated magic—there was no way to fight against it. At least, when wielded by these Old Sartorans.

  Siamis continued, “My precocious little friend is hiding. Just as well, as I do not have the time right now for tutoring. But if she does re-emerge, I want the populace to turn her in—and you are to let me know right away.” He smiled at Davernak, who stepped back involuntarily. “You have yet to inform me what you were doing when this desperate criminal made her daring escape,” he said. “You will have time to tell me when I have leisure. You will have far more time than you might wish. My mood might change if you produce this child. Soon.”

  He made a gesture, and vanished.

  As Ben scuttled to the window-crack, he heard the new commander say to Davernak, “‘Soon’—that means before Detlev finds her first.”

  “Yes,” said Davernak, who forced a laugh, then mopped his sweaty face.

  Ben reached the window, got out, and changed to his condor form. He dove down again, whizzing through the snowy air to the great dark-stone castle wherein resided Kwenz of the Chwahir.

  He paused long enough to change to his crow form before arrowing through the upper reaches of the castle.

  He glided down the cold, slow-moving air currents to the throne room, knowing that Kwenz seldom left there. Ben saw Jilo, Kwenz’ skinny, slouch-shouldered apprentice and heir, lurking in the shadowy alcove beyond the throne. Though CJ scorned any such idea, Ben’s own private opinion was that the heir saw a lot more than anyone thought he did, and Ben took care to come to roost out of Jilo’s line of sight, high above the glow of the red torches.

  All he could see was the top of Kwenz’ dull white hair, and Siamis’ own hair, wheat-colored in the torchlight.

  “ . . . but I am not interested in your plans,” Siamis was saying. “Regard yourself as an ally if you wish, but you’ll not expand here. This region is mine. I may also have use for your army further south, in areas long divided by factional warfare. Until I have time to visit every fool who sets up as a leader I may have to have the areas contained and held by military force. That means until we get the rifts established, I will need extra forces. Detlev won’t release his.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s waiting to see me fail.” Siamis seemed to find this idea amusing. “Any questions?”

  Kwenz shook his head.

  “Carry on,” Siamis said, and vanished.

  Ben waited.

  Kwenz wheezed for a few moments, gnarled fingers stroking his long tangled beard, and then he said to Jilo, “I must consult with my brother.”

  Ben felt apprehension zing through him—and he saw a corresponding reaction in Jilo, far below. Shnit, powerful sorcerer-king of the Land of the Chwahir, lying far to the east, loathed Jilo. He also scorned his brother in his little kingdom, for his lack of success in annihilating the Mearsieans.

  Jilo’s voice echoed against the barren stone, “Want me here?”

  “Listen.” Kwenz’s wheeze dropped a note or two, sounding wry. “Stay unobtrusive.”

  “Of course,” Jilo said. It was impossible to tell from his flat voice what he thought—or if he had any feelings at all.

  Kwenz performed a spell.

  Moments later Shnit appeared, tall, old, black-robed, his voice harsh and angry. “What is it?”

  “Brother,” Kwenz said. “I just received a visit from this young Siamis.”

  Shnit interrupted. “He’s one of these soul-rotted Old Ones.” And he added an epithet of little grace.

  “I don’t like the look of him,” Kwenz muttered querulously. “Looks like an ally of the lighters. Silver sword.”

  “Affectation.” Shnit cursed again, more violently. Then, “What did he say?”

  Kwenz gave an accurate report.

  At the end Shnit cursed a third time, adding, “Arrogant fool. One pleasant thought: he won’t last. That other one, Detlev, will crush him.”

  “Detlev.” Kwenz pronounced the name with intense loathing.

  Shnit said, “This fool Siamis hasn’t dared to face me in Narad yet. I suggest
you withdraw to the homeland with me. We’ll wait it out. No one commands my army but me!”

  Ben didn’t wait for the end of what was beginning to sound like one of Shnit’s rants. He glided round a corner and zapped straight for the outside, then west to Murial’s house deep in the southwest portion of the forest.

  o0o

  For a woman who did not like the company of human beings, Murial Sherwood was managing. Her small cottage was full of kids, and had been for weeks, broken only when her niece, Clair, led spy trips or rescue forays into the rest of the country.

  It helped that the little house had open windows and doors, through which Murial’s animal friends could pass freely. These windows, magic-warded against the cold, gave the inmates the illusion of space. It also helped that—with one exception—the most restless of the kids volunteered the most frequently, and were gone the longest.

  The exception was Kyale Marlonen, who in one day managed to make it clear that she disliked cold, dirt, chases, and Norsundrians worse than she disliked small rude houses with no servants. She did not know how to clean or cook, and had no plans to learn. To keep the peace, the Mearsiean girls quietly worked around her. Kyale considered it only right. It was their country, after all, and she was the guest. It did bother her a little to see CJ dunking and drying dishes or sweeping, but the other girls were not princesses, so it was only right for them to serve.

  Clair had not only her gang, but other stranded guests as well.

  The most restless was Dtheldevor, pirate’s daughter and privateer, temporarily stuck shipless in Mearsies Heili. Clair found her endlessly interesting. Dtheldevor had been a kid for a long time. She was loud, mannerless, almost illiterate, her language full of boisterous curses, but she was loyal to her friends, she was generous in her own peculiar way, and most of all she was both fun and funny. Tall and strong for a fourteen-year-old girl, and adept with rapier and knife after years of adventure, she was also perfectly happy to help with chores. After all, chores were a part of shipboard life. She was just very loud and noisy, and her language frequently had Kitty sniffing in disapproval.

  It was as well that Murial had a sense of humor.

  She also had a sense of purpose.

  Though she was by choice a recluse, she knew a great deal more about outside events than most, though as yet she’d said little to her guests. For now she was content to get to know the niece she’d only been aware of from a distance. She’d left her family in order to follow her own vision, making her home in the old, wild, almost impenetrable moss fir and cedar forestland along the northeastern flank of the most forbidding of the Arusian Mountains. Now, after more than twenty years of isolation, she had with her not only almost all of the next generation, but a previous, in Mearsieanne Sherwood, who had lived an enchanted life as Detlev’s prisoner in Wnelder Vee during its century of enchantment.

  Poor Mearsieanne needed peace and healing more than any of them, for it was no pleasant thing to wake up from a century-long nightmare and find your world drastically changed. Murial and Mearsieanne spent a great deal of time walking along ancient animal paths and talking, where no one could hear them.

  o0o

  Lina Mellay arrived with the word of Siamis’s prospective visit ahead of a blizzard that confined the gang to the little cottage.

  So they were all there when Ben arrived later that night.

  He flew in, changed his form, then stepped inside the front door.

  The warm glow of fire on the hearth, the smells of cinnamon and spice-baked bread, were welcoming, but friendship was still so new that what Ben noticed was how the kids looked up, and then smiled. At him.

  The Mearsiean girls were playing the game of Cards’n’Shards with Kitty. With them were Christoph and Clair’s cousin Puddlenose—a tall, genial fifteen-year-old who made Ben glad at least he’d been given a name, and not a collection of mean insults. Probably Puddlenose had had a real name once, but he’d been stolen from his parents too young to know it, and he’d spent his early years among the Chwahir, where Shnit—who’d either killed or driven off his own family—thought it would be fun to twist a Mearsiean into sending against his own people.

  “Hey, Ben,” Puddlenose called, waving a hand. “Wanna join in next round?”

  “Sure.”

  Now that he’d recovered himself, Clair asked, “News?”

  Ben reported everything that he’d heard and seen.

  The group listened in silence, then tall, quiet Seshe emerged from the kitchen and handed Ben some hot chocolate and a fresh-baked bun.

  “Where can Shnit hide?” CJ asked, her blue eyes narrowed, mouth pruned with disgust. CJ’s thoughts were always clear on her expressive face. “I can’t see Shnit and Kwenz sitting knee-to-knee in a cottage like this one, picking spiders out of each other’s beards!”

  The girls snickered.

  “Picking out old meals, you mean,” Faline asked, tossing back a bright, frizzy red braid.

  Sherry blinked, her light blue eyes contemplative as she happily pursued the topic to the most ridiculous possible conclusion. “What would Shnit consider a good meal? Frog-slime pie? Creamed cactus?”

  “Treebark soup!” Faline said promptly.

  “Yam-cherry-bean cake!” Sherry shot back.

  This exchange, Ben knew from long experience, would go on forever—especially if the other girls jumped in, and from the intent looks on Irene’s and Dhana’s faces, they were trying to think up better nasty combinations.

  “Anyway,” Ben tried.

  Puddlenose cut in with the ease of old habit. “Oh, Shnit and Kwenz’ll go back to Chwahirsland and hole up in the Sonscarna fortress up in the western mountains.” He held his nose. “And if you think his place in Narad is bad, you should see that one.”

  “Disgusting?” Irene asked, obviously hoping to hear the worst.

  “Nasty is a compliment,” Puddlenose said forebodingly.

  Murial spoke up. “We can assume at least for now that the Chwahir are little threat, Ben, is that it?”

  Ben nodded.

  Murial’s brows contracted as she brushed back a wisp of her graying dark hair, escaped from its accustomed long braid. “More serious is this news about the Norsundrians.”

  “Well, but didn’t Ben just say that Siamis creep is riding south?” CJ asked.

  “Enchanting people,” Clair said, her arms crossed tightly. “Which there is nothing we can do to prevent.”

  CJ sighed, short and sharp.

  Murial said, “It can’t be helped—yet. At least we know that it does not hurt. It’s something like being lost in a dream. And we knew he would be back eventually.”

  “I hate the thought of him going around my country,” Clair muttered, looking down at the bare wooden floorboards. “He’s probably doing it right at this moment.”

  No one spoke for a time.

  Then CJ said firmly, “Well, if he put a new splat-face in charge, and said he can’t attack people, maybe the worst is over.”

  “Here, perhaps,” Murial said. “You must remember what Siamis said. He has plans. Do you think that those plans will be good for anyone but him?”

  Mearsieanne said, in a low, angry voice, “He and Detlev ought to be killed.”

  “Especially Siamis,” Kyale Marlonen spoke up, from the only armchair in the room. Her pretty silvery eyes were narrow with anger. “Conquering whole kingdoms just by talking to people. That is so creepy!”

  “He’s using a combination of mind control and magic,” Murial said.

  “How is that possible?” CJ burst out. “I remember when I was stuck in that horrible Marloven Hess, and all that about disgusting Tdanerend and his trying to find spells to control Senrid’s mind. There weren’t any such spells.”

  “It’s not so much magic as innate abilities, with magic extending those,” Murial said. At the shock on all the surrounding faces, she decided it was time to share the burden of knowledge at last. “Siamis, like Detlev, is a leftover from Old Sarto
r.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Stunned silence greeted this news.

  Finally Faline said, her usual ebullience momentarily subdued, “Eeeeuw.”

  “I thought people in those days were all good,” Sherry whispered. “They went around spouting poetry and being. . .” She flapped her fingers skyward. “You know. Heroic and high-minded and advanced.”

  “Our ancestors were not some kind of miracle-civilization,” Leander Tlennen-Hess spoke up from the window seat, where he’d been studying one of Murial’s magic books. “Remember, they got blasted in The Fall. Where do you think Norsundrians came from in the first place?”

  “Norsunder isn’t any more unified than our ancestors were,” Murial said. “You must remember that they share a common goal—the acquisition of power—but that’s at one another’s expense as well as ours.”

  Leander looked sardonic. “Senrid heard that Norsunder doesn’t promote people on merit,” he said.

  Murial pressed her fingers together. “Their loyalties are, unless magic-enforced, entirely for the sake of expedience.”

  “They fight each other, that much I remember,” Mearsieanne said.

  “They like to fight, or they wouldn’t be there.” Leander leaned on the back of Kyale’s chair, his green gaze steady. “Makes sense they prey on one another as well as on us.”

  “Just like Marlovens,” Kyale muttered, with a sour glance upward at her brother.

  Leander shook his head, and moved away. Kitty sighed, crossing her arms.

  “To return to the subject of Siamis,” Murial said. “The reports coming back to me make it clear he is not just enchanting the world, kingdom by kingdom, but he’s also seeking anyone who has the beginnings of what used to be called dena Yeresbeth.”

  “What’s dena Yeresbeth?” Kyale asked, twirling some of her long silvery hair around a finger. She was angry with her brother now. In her mind, Leander was taking Senrid’s part against her, and how dare he?