Izzy took a deep breath. “Ah, Prince Sahir, of Tavor, was directed b—that is, received directions from a seeress to go to the Hospice at St. Weel, else some great disaster might bef—that is, happen. In my case, the prognostication came from the seeresses. I am to solve the Great Enigma or our posterity may b—that is, ah, is endangered.” He fell silent, wiping his face with his pocket handkerchief.
The emperor gave him a sympathetic look, nodding. “You’ve been prince of Palmia for some time now.”
“I have,” Izzy responded.
“Nice old castle you have there. Palmody, isn’t that the name of the town? Old town. Must go way, way, way back.”
“Oh, it does, your Majesty. Way, way, way…in the past.”
“Of course, your people don’t believe anything went that far back, do they?”
Izzy took a deep breath. “No. No, they don’t…accept any past that’s very distant.”
“I, on the other hand,” mused the emperor, “and certain other people as well, do believe in a distant past.”
“Do you, indeed?” said Izzy in his politest voice. “That’s very interesting.”
“We believe many things are left over from distant times,” the emperor continued. “Ourselves, for example. Certain other creatures. Even some buildings. This one, for instance. I would say this building is at least a thousand years old.”
“Amazing,” murmured Izzy, wiping his face once more.
“And the building I occupy when I am at home…well, it’s older yet. All of two thousand years. And what do you suppose exists beneath it?”
“Be—that is, under your castle, Your Majesty?”
“Exactly. What do you suppose?”
“A…cathedral?”
“What would that be?”
“I’ve heard…that some kind of religious build—that is, structures underlie current structures.”
The emperor examined him narrowly. “Come, come, Prince Izakar. Our interests are not opposed. Isn’t there something else that could underlie an old fortification?”
“Perhaps,” Izzy said desperately, “Perhaps a…repository for, ah…manuscripts?”
“Why don’t you say it? A library. A place for keeping books.”
“The words have bahs in them, Your Effulgence.”
“And so?”
“Your secretary told me….”
“Zarl?” Faros laughed, his humped shoulders shaking. “Up to his tricks again, is he. I despair.” The emperor stretched his lips into a toothy grin and shook his head. “He does that. It amuses him. I should have known. Here I am, trying to find out what’s going on, and here are you, busy spelling conversation to yourself. Now what is it that may lie beneath my old castle, Prince Izakar? That also, perhaps, lies beneath the castle in Palmody?”
Izzy took a deep breath and blurted, “A library, sir. A very ancient library. From times long gone.”
“Ahhhh.” The emperor sat back in his chair, his head thrown back, his fingers gripping the arms. “So there is at least one other.”
“I thought mine was the only one,” whispered Izzy.
“As I did mine, when I came to the throne,” replied the emperor. “As did my father and grandfather before me. My researchers have told me there must be others.”
“I had no idea,” murmured Izzy.
“Well, you should have had,” grumped the emperor. “Here I am, trying to unify the world so that it won’t go down the chutes again. I’ve been quite open about my motivation. Obviously, if I’m trying to prevent something that’s happened before, I must have had knowledge of what it was that happened before. Hah?”
“I take Your Effulgence’s point.” Izzy nodded, wondering why it had escaped him until now.
“So does Fasal Grun. Good lad, Fasal Grun.” He stared out the window for a long moment before continuing. “There’s a prince with you, from Tavor. Do you trust him?
“He’s been very generous during our travels, but I don’t know enough about him to say one way or the other. My inclination would be to trust his companion, Nassif, more than I would him.”
“She’s ponjic, as you are. That would be your inclination.”
“She?” Izzy gargled.
“She,” said the emperor. “Dressed up like a boy, but then, that’s for convenience sake, no doubt. I’ve heard the prince has an attendant with him, a big one?”
“Soaz? A mercenary, sir. A hireling. I would attest to his loyalty to the sultan of Tavor, but I know nothing about his sense of ethics.”
“How about the countess? I’ve met her. She’s always struck me as a practical person.”
“I would say pragmatic, sir. She was very helpful on the way here.”
“What about the armakfatid?”
“An enigma, Your Majesty.”
“And the onchiki?”
“Well, Your Majesty, so long as something didn’t come along to distract them, I’m sure they’d be quite trustworthy. If they remembered.”
“My observations as well. Distractable. Charming, nonetheless. Like children.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I’ll leave it to you. Confide in whichever of them you choose, if you must. Otherwise, keep it to yourself.” He gloomed out the window at the sun, sparkling on the sea, restlessly combing his hair with his long fingernails. A silent time went by.
Izzy shifted. “Keep what to myself, Your Majesty?”
“Ah? Oh. Yes. Well, my problem is that everything’s falling apart.”
“Everything?”
“Well, some things. Unexpected things. This business with Fasahd! He’s always been belligerent, but he’s also been loyal, up until recently. Now what do I hear? Cannibalism, that’s what! You’re not the first to tell me that! Fasahd isn’t bright, but he’s certainly not hungry! He didn’t think this up by himself. Someone has put him up to it. Then there’s the trees. Why on earth should the trees be upset? We’ve gotten along famously for hundreds of years!
“All this distresses me, so I go to the Seeresses of Sworp, who are normally very reliable, and they tell me of dark influences, dire happenings, inimical forces. And you show up, bearing prophecies and predictions. Now I ask you! What inimical force? Eh? I’m the emperor. Who else is there?”
“Nothing untoward happening?”
“Nothing dark! Nothing dire! All these predictions, and nothing evident! How can all this tragedy be gathering without showing some sign? I have my agents out, here, there, busy as wasps on a jelly-muffin, gathering. All they hear are rumors. The destroyer is coming. The terminator has been put into action.”
“What the trees call the ‘walker on fire feet’?”
“I suppose. Now how do you know the trees call it that?”
“Someone mentioned it,” mumbled Izzy, grasping for something to change the subject. “You think those…people at St. Weel could be involved?”
“Ah? It occurs to you too, does it? Process of elimination! Consider everyone else, and who’s left? Hah? Those at St. Weel.”
“Is Your Majesty considering conquering St. Weel?”
“No. Why would I? What’s to conquer? It’s a tiny little place, set high up on a cliff overlooking the sea. If those there are responsible for this disorder, I could blockade the place! Let no one in, no one out. That would stop the influence. But I’m not sure, don’t you see? Maybe it’s them, and maybe it’s someone else.”
“Your Mightiness wants me to find out which?”
“Exactly. Find out which.”
“And Your Mightiness would rather not go yourself.”
“Can’t,” brooded the emperor. “Simply can’t. Whoever, whatever is prying and plotting, they’d like nothing better than for me to be off somewhere, out of touch, unable to control what’s going on. No. You go. You and the Countess Elianne and the rest of you. Find out, and send me word.”
“Your Mightiness…”
“Yes. What?”
“If…if I needed to use some method of which You
r Mightiness would ordinarily disapprove. That is, those at St. Weel are reputed to be wizards….”
“Magic? You want my permission to use magic?”
“I am merely seeking a sense of Your Greatness’s wishes.”
The emperor turned away, his great humped shoulders shaking. In a moment, Izzy realized he was laughing.
“By all means,” the emperor said. “Use what you like. Just don’t tell anyone I said so.”
In the rose garden, the conversation that had taken place between Izzy and the emperor was quoted almost verbatim (so Izzy insisted) to me and the countess. We sat near an ornamental wall over which one could look over the city of Gulp to the surrounding hills or the sea. Before telling us anything, Izzy swore us to secrecy, and it was only after taking a really disgustingly terrible oath that the countess and I learned about libraries. And history. And cycles. And the fact that things in our world were much more complicated than either of us had ever known—or cared to know.
It was clear to me why Izzy had chosen the countess to hear this story. She was a very practical person who had studied the theory of government. She was, at least, able to follow what he was saying and make some sense of it. Why he had chosen me as a confidante, I had no idea. Perhaps it was merely that we were both ponjic. Though I eschew bigotry, similar racial backgrounds do count for something. I learned later he had found out I am female, and females have always been the confidantes of adventurers. It is called pillow talk—even when no pillows are involved—and it is very ancient.
“So the emperor will help us get to St. Weel?” asked the countess, cutting to the heart of the matter.
“He’ll send imperial troops with us,” Izzy confirmed. “There’s a road from here, not a good one, but one that goes the whole way. He’ll furnish wagons. We don’t have to walk.”
“And he postulates some inimical force?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
“He does. And he has no more idea than we do who or what it might be. He has spies everywhere. Rumor is rampant and proof of anything disastrous is totally lacking.”
“I simply can’t imagine,” the countess said, her brow wrinkled. “Fasahd is evil because he’s envious, because he has a personality disorder. At least, that’s what Blanche calls it. I’ve assumed it was just him, that he was the problem, so to speak, but you say the emperor believes it’s someone or something else who’s using Fasahd.” She rotated her head upon her neck, as though working out kinks, or perhaps to make her brain work better. Her wig came a bit awry, and she straightened it, unconscious of what she was doing.
“I can’t come up with a why! I am a member of the Council of Governments. Every few years we meet to discuss improving the lot of our people. I’ve met all the rulers, or their envoys, from Isfoin and Tavor, from Wycos and Palmia and the shore counties. By and large, all the peoples of the world—at least, as much of the world as I know about—are reasonably well housed and fed. We have sent a committee to investigate the Onchik-Dau for failure to maintain the crofts of the onchiki, but even there the evidence of misfeasance is slight. The Onchik-Dau have been heaving themselves around on the shores of the Crawling Sea, bellowing at one another for who knows how long, and we’re not going to change them now! There have been no sicknesses for some time, none of those plagues we hear of in ancient tales. Festivals are frequent and well attended. Taxes are low. Recompense is fair, and benefits for the orphaned or aged are adequate, due much, if I do say so myself, to my influence with the other rulers.
“During our next few sessions, I have hope that the various nations will see fit to offer benefits to those wanderers who contribute so much to our enjoyment: the players, the traveling musicians, the peddlers, the craftsmen, but even now, their lot is not a bad one. Conspiracy springs from disaffection, so I have been taught, and I simply cannot think of a disaffected class whose needs are not being addressed!”
“It might be something quite outside our usual sphere,” commented Izzy. “Some magical or demonic force? Some invasion or subversion by foreign powers?”
The countess shook her head, as puzzled as I. “Foreign from where? Across the great ocean? No one crosses the great ocean! The transmontaine countries? Think how sparsely populated that area; think how rarely we see anyone from the transmontaine.”
We are not to speak of this to the others?” I asked.
Izzy shook his head. “Countess Elianne may speak of it to her secretary, if her discretion is trusted. I would not tell anyone else among our party. At least, not yet.”
“And why did you choose me to confide in?” the countess asked.
“Your attitude toward Fasahd,” he murmured. “We have seen clearly that you are not allied with him. And as for you, Nassif, I chose you because I like you, though you misled me.” He frowned at me sadly, shaking his head, and I knew he had at last penetrated my disguise. As I have said, Izzy is bright, but about some things he is impervious to the evidence of his senses.
He went on, “I have no reason to mistrust your Prince, but I have no reason to trust him, either. I would not confide in him yet.”
I nodded in agreement. I was not sure that I trusted the Prince myself. From one day to the next, I was not sure what he was up to.
22
Incidents Leading to Liaisons
Dora came home from work to find Jared standing just outside her door, one white-knuckled hand clutching the door latch as though he had tried to get in and had forgotten to let go. He turned to stare at her, a strange, baffled look, as if he had expected someone else.
“What are you doing here, Jared?”
“I wanted to see where you’re living,” he said. His voice was distant, totally impersonal. “Momma gave me your address. It’s very difficult to locate places now, Dora. It was very hard to find this place. I had to use the city maps and count the streets. All the street signs are overgrown.” The words came in a tense monotone, each word of equal import and stretched to the breaking point.
“I’m sorry you went to all that trouble.” She noticed that her voice did not quaver, though she felt it should. Jared was the last person she wanted on her doorstep, and she had no intention of letting him into her house. “You might as well let go of the door. I’m not going to invite you in.”
He merely stared with eyes that were sunken more deeply than she remembered. The lids were ringed with dark skin, almost like bruises. He had lost weight and looked haggard. Or hag ridden.
“I want you to come back to my place, Dora. I don’t like living at the boardinghouse. Having ten people around. It’s too…unsettling.”
She moved uneasily, wondering whether she ought not to leave, pressing her arm against her holster to reassure herself that she was, after all, able to defend herself. “Move back into your house, Jared. It’s still there. Ask your mother to find you a housekeeper.”
“I don’t like it there alone. I have to go in, to see to my…tools, but I hate all that…greenery. And I can’t get rid of it.” There was something plaintively demanding in his tone, like a whiny child. “If you come back, you can get rid of it.”
“What on earth makes you think that?” she cried incredulously. “Even if I could do it, I wouldn’t!”
“It tried to kill me,” he said, explaining it to her in that same strained monotone, his head cocked, peering at her as though searching for something unobvious but known to be present. “I know that. And you didn’t let it. So, you could make it…go away.”
There was a question here. He was asking her something, trying to hint at something, with a threat implicit in his posture, in his tone.
She shook her head, frightened by the intensity of his expression. “Listen to what I’m telling you, Jared. I can’t make it go away, I don’t even want to make it go away. I like the stuff. I think it’s great. If you don’t want to be surrounded by greenery, move into town. There are apartment houses, hotels, lots of places the trees have left alone.”
“I have to stay there where my
work is,” he said, stepping forward with frightening speed to fasten a hand into her hair, twisting, pulling, then dropping the hand onto her shoulder like a clamp, his thumb pressing deeply above her collarbone, his fingers making holes in her back. “And you have to help me with my work!”
“Let go of me, Jared.”
He glared, his face inches from her own. “I won’t. I have to stay there, in my place. All my equipment is there. And you can make the stuff go away. It didn’t come until you were there.”
Shuddering, she spoke between clenched teeth. “I had been there two years before it came, it came everywhere, and I had nothing to do with it. Move your tools, for God’s sake!”
“No. That’s where they belong. It’s my place. It’s where I mean to have them….”
He dragged her back toward her doorway, reaching for the latch with his free hand, fingering it as though there were a combination, a special touch that would open it and let him drag her inside.
She stooped suddenly, coming away from his clamping hand and stepping back, putting distance between them. She put up a hand, rubbing at the place on her scalp where he had pulled her hair. It was tender. The air had become very still, with that dangerous hush she had learned to listen for.
“I’ll make you come back,” he said, craning his neck forward, showing his teeth. “It would be easier for you to just do it now, but I will use you to get rid of all this, all this stuff growing.”
He made a gesture, an awkward motion, but so studied as to appear hieratic in its intention, then repeated it exactly, his eyes fixed burningly on her own. The air simmered and left her lungs in a rush. She felt dizzy, her eyes fogged, she tried to breathe and couldn’t. The world began to darken.
Above Jared’s head the leaflets on the weed turned in his direction, and several tendrils dropped suddenly across his face, scraping his eyelids, making him blink and push them away.
She gulped for air, suddenly released. The tendrils were still there, fringing his face, and he batted at them, like a man fighting bees.