Fleeing Peace

  No one else paid the slightest attention.

  Dhana rejoined them a short while later, her clothes and hair wet as she smiled skyward.

  The group rounded a grass-covered rocky outcropping and ducked past a tree with low-hanging branches and droopy foliage. The girls scarcely disturbed the leaves with the unconsciousness of long habit, leading the way into a cave—which turned out to have a tunnel winding downward.

  Liere followed, looking about in awe. It smelled of loam, wood, baking bread, and a faint trace of summer herbs. They emerged into a round room that was as snug and homey as a cottage, with brightly braided rugs on the hard dirt floor, a bookcase, and various types of artwork—obviously made by the girls—affixed to the walls. Chalks and paints were scattered around at one end. Roots and hard-packed soil formed the ceiling; magic protected the place. Fresh air ruffled slowly down from a hollow tree. A gleam of light reflecting down.

  “Welcome to the Junky,” CJ said, hands on her hips.

  Liere brought her gaze down from the hollow tree to see that all the girls were watching her in expectation. This was their home, a home they had made themselves.

  “This place is wonderful,” she breathed, not hiding the harrow of envy in her bones. She had never imagined that such a place could exist, but finding it did made her realize she’d wished for something just like it, her entire life. Not just the place, but the people—and above all, that sense of belonging.

  The girls grinned in pride. Liere wondered what her life would have been like if she had been able to live here.

  But she hadn’t. And speculation was as worthless as emotion.

  “C’mon, Sherry,” Seshemerria said. “Let’s fix something good.”

  “I’ll help you clean up,” Devon said. “I remember where everything goes.”

  “No, no, don’t touch the paints,” Faline cried. “Me and Gwen are right in the middle of an important masterpiece!”

  “Okay,” Devon said, snatching her fingers back.

  Faline grinned at her. “Help me give Sartora a proper tour.”

  “A p-p-p-r-r-ropah too-ah,” Irene drawled, nose in the air.

  “A Prrrrr—” Faline buzzed the ‘R’ sound like a bumblebee. “rrrropah! Tooo-ah! Now, here is the famed mural, depicting the usurper Queen Glotulae—we call her Fobo—and her snail of a son, PJ. She named him Jonnicake—can you imagine? You don’t have to look at it while you’re eating.”

  “Before she got kicked out for cutting down a whole forest, she had over five hundred dresses, each fussier than the last!” Sherry added.

  “We used to have lots of problems with her, when Clair first took over, because she thought a girl would be easy to squelch. But she’s gone back up north, to take over court for Brother Dear,” Gwen said in a warbling, nasal whine that startled Liere.

  The girls snickered, then Gwen went on normally, “So we need a new masterpiece, or we’ll add stuff to that. We haven’t decided. Now, up that way is Clair’s room. That’s the only high room—she likes to hear the rain on the ceiling. Mostly she stays up on the cloud top. On account of duty. Now, down this way are our rooms . . .”

  Liere loved them all. Each room expressed the personality of its occupant, a contrast to the utterly plain one she and Marga had shared, with its bare walls and two battered pieces of furniture. Their father had forbidden his children any personal clutter—deeming anything but necessary clothing to be clutter, especially for girls.

  Looking at CJ’s room, with its forest-green rug and bedspread, the pictures on the walls, and the bookcase full of colorfully bound papers once again evoked a sense of longing in Liere that she struggled to squash down.

  “Food’s on!” Sherry’s voice echoed down the tunnels from above.

  “I’ll help set it out,” Devon called. “I know where the dishes are.”

  Several of the girls stampeded up the tunnel. Liere followed more slowly, her envy turning to regret when she noticed the Mearsiean girls dodge, hop, or side-step around Devon, who kept trying to do thing for them, to pick up things or organize them.

  Devon said, “I can take that for you!” as she grabbed a bowl of grated cheese from Sherry. When she whirled around, she nearly collided with CJ, who froze, her straight black brows constricting for a moment. Then CJ stepped aside, and sat as Devon set down the bowl, then rearranged the food into a circle, smiling contentedly as she fussed.

  Devon looked up with a smile. She had no idea that she was in the way.

  Everyone sat cross-legged on the rug, wherever they wanted—again, so different from Liere’s home, where each had had a chair and no one sat or was served until their father had filled his plate, and if there was not enough of a good thing by the time the dish reached Liere and Marga, too bad. They could make it up with vegetables.

  “There’s plenty,” Seshemerria said. “Eat up!”

  The girls were a happy jumble. No one had precedence, not even CJ. Clair came in halfway during the meal, with Rel, and everyone just wiggled aside to make room. Rel sat in their midst, towering over them but looking perfectly at home—even when CJ teased him with insults, which she did half a dozen times. Rel just sat there stolid as a rock, ignoring them.

  “Hey, Sartora,” Diana said suddenly, her dark eyes friendly but curious. “Tell us about your adventures. Where did you go? What did you see?”

  “I saw the Great North Forest, and Roth Drael,” Liere said. “And some of Everon, and Wnelder Vee—” She had a sudden vision of Loss Harthadaun, and cut herself short.

  They all saw the pain in her face.

  “You don’t have to tell the bad stuff,” Sherry said quickly, her merry face sober for once. “Only the good things. Did you meet any interesting people?”

  “Well, there was Senrid—”

  “Eeeuw!”

  “Ugh!”

  “Yeccch!”

  “NOT Boneribs Montredaun-An,” CJ said grimly. “If so, how did you manage to get rid of him before he got rid of you?”

  Liere shook her head. “He got caught by Siamis’s people. Trying to decoy them from me.”

  “Huh?”

  “What?”

  “This is Senrid,” CJ said, her eyes narrowed, her tone sardonic—much like Senrid’s, in fact. “Montredaun-An. From that supreme grundge-pile, Marloven Hess. There can’t be two of ‘em. Kitty and Leander said he got slammed as a prisoner by the elevens.”

  “He escaped,” Liere said.

  Devon added, “He really helped us.”

  CJ scowled and Clair said, “I’m glad to hear that.”

  CJ said, “Glad a stinker escaped who tried to have Faline shot just because she helped someone escape that Land of the Stenches?”

  “But he didn’t want to kill me,” Faline said. “You know that, CJ. His uncle made him do it, but he said he liked my jokes too much!”

  “UGH!”

  “He’s insane!”

  “Anyway,” CJ cut in loudly, and when the others quieted, she continued, “I just like my villains to stay villainous. Then you know you’re right when you get in a good hate.” She sent a glare Rel’s way.

  “Yes,” Irene said airily, waving her hands in emphasis. “When they’ve done something rotten, then go oops, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, are you supposed to forget their rottenness and make them your best friend?”

  “Puddlenose and Christoph like Senrid,” Clair put in. “He didn’t do anything awful to them when they traveled together that time.”

  “And we were pretty mean to Senrid when we all got stuck on that crazy water world,” Faline said. “I say, fair’s square. Unless he does anything rotten again.”

  “Meet anyone else?” Gwen asked. “Famous people? Siamis doesn’t count. He’s a famous poople.”

  Most of the girls laughed. CJ held her nose, and Faline began offering rhymes for poople, but shut up when Liere said, “Not famous people, but we did stay, many times, with morvende. And dawn-singers.”

  “Oh . . .” S
eshemerria let out a sigh of pure pleasure. “What was it like?”

  Liere hesitated, grateful when Devon began to describe them, using more detail than Liere would have. The most powerful impressions—the harmonies that dena Yeresbeth gave her access to—were impossible to put into words.

  After the meal was over, the girls dispersed to various pursuits. They had not been in their home for a year, and each wanted to do little things to resettle, as Devon ran hither and yon offering to dust, to carry, and reminding people where things had been when she was here last, in case they wanted everything back as it was.

  Liere’s feelings veered between longing and envy and fascination, until she realized she was giving in to the weakness of emotion again, and so she sat down, shut her eyes, and began to meditate on all her mistakes.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “Winn. That snappish monster of yours is harassing the mares again.”

  And that sums up life in Bereth Ferian, Meral Winzhec thought, turning his attention from the glowering young stable hand to Faris Apajhe’s stricken expression: continual wind-change from the tragic to the absurd.

  To the stable hand he said, “Those mares were flirting. Soot’s too old to be a rake.”

  The stable hand sighed rather loudly, and, on finding that he was totally ignored, retreated to grumble at his subordinates, who had to listen.

  Faris surreptitiously wiped her eyes, and Winn shifted his stance to shield her from the rest of the camp. Not that many glanced their way. All were too busy cleaning out the old hideout they’d all thought would be forever abandoned, except in the stories with which they’d thought to bore their children during the peaceful years to come.

  “Problems?” she asked, straightening up.

  “Naw. Just old Soot socializing.”

  Faris gave a wan smile. “Well, we could use more colts from old Soot, especially if things are going to continue to get worse.”

  Winn sighed. “Come into my tent—we just got it set up—and tell me what happened.”

  Faris looked around at the steel-gray sky, already bright though it was not yet four in the morning. “If Norsunder had to come back in force, at least it wasn’t in the middle of winter.”

  “Of course.” Winn laughed. “They may be evil, but they’re not stupid.”

  He meant it as a joke, but Faris’s round face lost its humor as quick as a slap. She turned her somber gaze his way, and he felt the goad of guilt. Time to shift perspective again. His own view of himself and his life so far required a large dose of humor, but he knew that others misconstrued, and thought he wasn’t serious about what mattered.

  The season was very early spring, the time dawn, but here in the northern reaches of human civilization what the denizens considered balmy weather was a wintry further south: footsteps crackled on the frost and breath misted, falling before it vanished.

  Winn looked around at the pearly light on new tree buds, the pale green of new grasses just poking through the mud, and smiled inwardly before he ducked through the heavy flap of his tent. So maybe Bereth Ferian as a polity was outdated and indefensible: this was still his favorite place in the world.

  Faris plopped down on one of the pillows and wiped her eyes again.

  “Shall I get something hot to drink from the cook tent?” Winn offered.

  Faris shook her head. “Had some hot cider on the ride down from the city.”

  “Bad news, I take it?” Winn asked, dropped on the pillow opposite. From outside came the hoof beats and yells of arrivals: probably a patrol.

  “Yes. No. Oh, I don’t think I can make sense,” Faris said fingering the end of her long honey-colored braid. Her high forehead puckered, making her look like the small child Winn had first met back in the bad old days.

  “Try.” He smiled.

  Faris looked at that smile, and her emotions veered. Winn was a familiar sight, someone she’d known since she was little, coming in and out (usually at night) with her brothers, during the nasty days when the Norsundrian Dzydes held Bereth Ferian. Of late her view of Winn had changed, for she didn’t just see the smiling, reassuring fellow who had made her friends and family feel safe, she saw a handsome young man. Very handsome—long curling dark hair, dashing smile, the easy grace of one who is spectacularly good at riding, shooting, and sword work.

  Oh, she knew what her changed view meant. She just didn’t know how to express it. Or even if her admiration would be welcome. He was exactly as kind to her as he’d been since she was four years old.

  She made a mental effort and shoved away personal matters. “Evend is going to die,” she said, roughly, to get the words past her lips. “You can see it in his eyes. Hear it in his voice. Oalthoreh knows it—all the mages know it. And there is nothing whatsoever that we can do.”

  Winn sat back. “Of course there’s something we can do. There’s plenty to be done!”

  Faris shook her head slowly. “Oh, I don’t mean fighting back when we find their scouting parties, or the mages warding against the little rifts the Norsundrians are trying to make. Of course we shall continue to do those things. Must do them.”

  “But?”

  “I don’t understand it, really,” Faris said, raising unhappy eyes. “But Evend feels that his world, everything he worked for, is past. And there has to be something to what he says, because Oalthoreh agrees. She says all the right encouraging things to him, but she’s got that same look of defeat, of grief, in her face.”

  Winn thought of the tough gray-haired mage, and tried to envision her expressing grief. He couldn’t do it. He suspected she felt it, but her usual expression was stone blankness. The fact that Faris had seen it made him uneasy.

  “It seems to come back to the fact that there truly are Old Sartorans alive today, but they are Norsundrians.”

  “How about Lilith the Guardian?”

  “She is so seldom on this world. That’s what Evend says. And she’s the only one we’ve ever seen on our side. How many more like Siamis are hiding in Norsunder, beyond time?”

  “Ah.”

  “And then there’s the apparent fact that the only person who is capable of fighting this terrible enchantment we’ve been hearing about is a child. With these same abilities that the Old Sartorans really seem to have had.”

  “I thought those so-called abilities were just the hyperbole of history,” Winn said. “Well, that’s what my pa taught me, and he knew if anyone did.”

  Faris spared a thought for Winn’s father, dead before she was aware of him as anything but a tall, gray-haired memory. But the respect with which the mages talked about him made her nod soberly.

  “Evend says that we might have been reading the old taerans wrong. We have so little left from those days! He says that maybe they didn’t talk about all those things because everyone was used to it, just as we don’t write now about each breath we draw.”

  “Unless we came close to drowning.”

  “Oh, don’t joke,” Faris whispered.

  “Your pardon.” Winn made a gesture of peace. “It’s not so much a joke as an observation. Clumsy! Go on.”

  Faris made a face. “Well, here’s what’s so, well, upsetting. Evend says that maybe these old abilities are coming back. Remember the white-haired girl who helped free us?”

  “Oh yes. Clair Sherwood.” Winn smiled when he remembered Puddlenose Sherwood, the odd white-haired queen’s cousin. Puddlenose was very much like Winn, and they’d become instant friends.

  “Evend thinks maybe she has those abilities, too. So you know what it all really means?”

  “No. What?”

  “It means that Evend and his generation are not just seeing their world end, it’s us, too. We’re young, and yet we seem to be just a bit too old to have these mysterious abilities—or to be able to fight against Old Sartorans on their own ground.”

  Winn snorted a laugh. “Oh, is that all? Listen, Faris. Evend is still grieving over Dzydes having defeated him by magic.”

&nbs
p; “Yes, so says Oalthoreh.”

  “Bereth Ferian had been safe and peaceful for generations. So of course he’s going to take the blame, even though the blame wasn’t his.”

  Faris nodded unhappily.

  “We all know that Bereth Ferian isn’t a kingdom any more. It never really was. Just a federation for one purpose: guarding against the Venn, who’ve been quiet for centuries. So our peaceful existence was to blame, not an individual. You’re good at guarding only if you have something to constantly guard against.”

  “But that fight was magical first,” Faris said. “Then military. And we still lost.”

  “No, we defeated the enemy.”

  “An outsider did,” Faris said.

  Winn shrugged, conceding the point.

  “That weighs on Evend. Here’s another thing. As you point out, we’re no longer any kind of kingdom. We’re a center for learning,” Faris said, leaning forward.

  “Right. And that’s a problem?”

  “It is if our knowledge has suddenly become outdated.”

  Winn waved a hand. “These Old Sartorans, they still have to eat, and breathe, right? Still put on their riding trousers one leg at a time, just like us. Human beings, no matter how old. There’s plenty we can do to fight against ordinary human beings.”

  Faris looked a little more hopeful. “This all is true. I think. I hope.”

  Winn laughed. “So we go on fighting against the making of those rift things, as hard as we can, with everything we can. And if the kid with the mysterious abilities does turn up, well, we’ll put her to work too. See if we don’t smash Siamis right when he least expects it.”

  Faris clasped her hands together. “Oh, I hope you’re right.”

  Winn looked down at her fondly, wishing he could kiss away the lingering grief in her sweet face. But this was not an appropriate time to be flirting with his oldest friends’ inexperienced young sister, so he gave her a friendly smack on the shoulder. “Then let’s get busy rousting out the old maps and getting the old patrols back into the routine, eh?”