Daughter of Ancients

Chapter 9

The full moon had moved across a quarter of the sky by the time D'Sanya and I arrived at our picnic supper high in the foothills beyond the hospice. The world was so quiet as we walked up the light-washed path, I might have believed no soul existed but the two of us. The path leveled out and in twenty steps more we emerged from the scattered trees and rocks into a grassy meadow. In the center of the meadow, looking like a patch of snow left lingering into summer, sat a low table covered with a white cloth and carefully placed silver spoons and crystal wine goblets. Whoever had set out the plates of roast fowl, the bowls of cherries and plums, the hot, cinnamon-dusted pastries, and the chilled wine was nowhere in evidence.

D'Sanya took off her sandals and looped them over one of her silver-ringed fingers as we walked through the springy grass and took our places on cushions set on either side of the table. Candles in silver holders sat in the center of the table, but we didn't light them. The moon bathed the meadow in light.

"Did I not promise a prize worth the winning?" D'Sanya was laughing at me as I marveled at the perfection of each delicacy I loaded on my plate. "What use to be a princess of the Dar'Nethi if one cannot bring something more to the table than meat and bread? Since I've used my talents for one useful thing tonight, I'm now entitled to use them for something frivolous."

The useful thing she'd done had been to heal my lame horse, who now grazed peacefully far below us at the lower end of the moonlit path. We had ridden from the stableyard across the valley to find the stone marker that would indicate our path into the hills. Impatient, I refused to follow the track the long way around and took off across the grass, racing to beat D'Sanya to the path. Halfway across the valley floor, my horse reaped the worst consequence of nighttime riding. His shoulders and head dipped suddenly. As he stumbled to a halt with an ear-shattering shriek, I felt, more than heard, the ominous dry-wood snap of a slender bone. I leaped from the saddle and rolled quickly out of the way, cursing all rabbits, gophers, and blind, stupid riders.

D'Sanya had circled back while I tried to comfort the wild-eyed beast who struggled to his feet, tossing his head and snorting painfully as he tried to put weight on his right foreleg. Paulo would yell at me unmercifully— and deservedly—for ruining a fine mount for an evening's pleasure.

"Are you injured?" asked D'Sanya.

I reached for the quivering beast's neck but he shied and tossed his head. "Unbruised. But Nacre . . . I'm afraid I've done for him."

"Take care of it quickly, then, before the poor creature goes mad."

Take care of it? What was she thinking? That I'd slit the poor beast's throat, then wash my hands for dinner? "Not yet. If I could get a Horsemaster up here to see to him, we might be able to save him for breeding. He's a fine runner."

"Well, of course, I don't mean kill him! How can you let him suffer so? Surely you can take care of a horse's hurts."

My face blazed, and my insides churned. In ordinary times, I used my sorcerer's power not one day in thirty. That way, I was never required to grow my power beyond whatever happened to germinate in me on its own, just by the fact that I was born my father's son. The ways the Lords increased their power were grotesque and cruel, and I refused to use them any more. The ways of the Dar'Nethi were maddeningly slow and impossible to master; my feeble attempts to use them did little but cause an unhealthy craving in my blood. As I'd expended everything I had when I entered my father's body and tested him that morning, I had not a scrap of power left. No ordinary Dar'Nethi would live that way. Gathering power from the experiences of their lives was as compelling to them as breathing.

Well, she was going to find out sooner or later that I was no ordinary Dar'Nethi—not when it came to sorcery. "No, I can't."

"You can't? You mean you won't." She slipped from her horse, glaring at me. But when I failed to respond, her expression of indignant accusation softened into puzzlement. "No, you're saying that you don't have the power; and you don't summon it. Ever?"

"Not since Zhev'Na."

"Of course." She expelled a quick breath of sympathy. "Here, let me take care of the poor beast. Hold him still."

I grabbed the trailing reins, caught hold of the bridle, and held Nacre's head, trying to remember the things Paulo had told me could soothe a pain-maddened horse. But my efforts were unnecessary. D'Sanya touched Nacre between his eyes and whispered a few words, instantly quieting the animal. She had adorned every one of her fingers with a silver band, some plain, some intricately worked, and they glittered and shone in the moonlight as she ran her fingers over Nacre's leg from shoulder to hoof. The depth and intensity of her enchantment almost knocked me off my feet. Though it was over in an instant, I felt as if I'd been sucked up into the heart of a whirlwind and then set down again in the hospice pasture with all my joints put together in the wrong order.

"You were there when you came of age," she said, stroking the now-healthy horse's nose, patting his neck, and fondling his ears, soothing his lingering agitation. "I've heard it said that those who came of age in Zhev'Na have difficulty developing power and never find their true talent, but I thought that was only those who were slaves. Crippled as they were . . ."

"I don't know about others. For me, it's impossible."

"Heaven's lights, how do you bear it?"

I was thankful she didn't wait for an answer, or ask for more specific details, like the nature of my true talent or whether I even had one. Better for her to assume I could do nothing. To reveal my true talent was to reveal my identity, for the only Soul Weaver known to the Dar'Nethi was the corrupted son of Prince D'Natheil who was supposed to be safely dead.

She spoke no more of sorcery as we tethered the horses in a grassy glade and walked up the path. Perhaps she thought it would bother me to consider the immensity of her own gifts when I professed to have none. I could think of no subtle way to ask her if she had always possessed such power or if it was somehow grown larger since her awakening, so I just listened to her chatter, which took up again where it had left off.

All through our supper D'Sanya talked of one thing and another: of her two older brothers, the quiet, serious D'Leon who had succeeded D'Arnath and then fallen in battle with the Zhid after only five years, and the wild, mischievous D'Alleyn who had completed the Gates to his father's Bridge between the worlds. "You can't imagine how it is to read of my brothers in manuscripts so ancient they would crumble were it not for the Archivists' enchantments, when it seems only a few years since they filled my bedchamber with birds on my sixteenth birthday. To hear that D'Leon died so young and so valiantly and that D'Alleyn, the wicked tease, ruled with wisdom for fifty years. I do miss them so."

Then she went on to talk of the hospice, and her plans to build a second one in the Vale of Maroth far to the south. "Na'Cyd has three Builders working already. I'll need to visit the site soon to see how they progress. They argue a great deal over the design, and I speak to one and think the matter settled, then another one sends me a letter telling me the faults of the first, and the third sends a message threatening to abandon the project if I can't persuade the other two that arches should be sealed by a Word Winder to ensure their strength. All I want is for the building to be completed so I can help more people. Enough have applied to me in the past few weeks that I could fill the place already."

"I know exactly what you mean," I said. "The one who conceives the shape of the building gets insulted when the one who must lay the bricks says you can't lay bricks in such a shape. The builder is incensed when the artist says a better builder could find a way. I've had to lock them in a room—" I stopped abruptly when I realized what I was doing . . . talking about the Bounded, which she must not know of.

When my father had taken me out of Zhev'Na through the Breach, I had submerged myself in the chaotic matter of the rift between the worlds to escape the pain of separating from the Lords. Somehow, my act had imposed shape and coherence where there had been none before. My strange little kingdom would not exist had I not been a Soul Weaver linked to the Lords of Zhev'Na, had I not been desperate enough to do anything to separate myself from them. And my subjects—the Singlars—had given me just such problems as D'Sanya's as we rebuilt their tower cities after the war with the Lords.

"Go on. Tell me more of your builders and bricklayers," she said, leaning across the table, lips parted, eyes shining. "You've said so little of your life. Nothing of what you do in ordinary times."

I shoved aside thoughts of the Bounded and the Singlars. "Nimrolan Vale is so remote that, in the years of the war, we had to make sure we could defend ourselves if the war came to us. For centuries we crowded together in horrid, cramped towns, everyone on top of one another. So we're trying to replace what we have with more scattered dwellings, less fortified, open to our woodlands, the way things once were. I've been helping. …"

Concentrating on the story that Ven'Dar and I had contrived should the question of my profession ever come up, I evidently said something that convinced D'Sanya I had led a building project such as hers, which of course I had.

I tried to change the subject—I hated lying to her— but she would not let it go. "You must come with me when next I go to Maroth," she said, clapping her hands in delight so that her ten rings glittered. "Na'Cyd has no skill at negotiating. He only makes them argue the more. You can settle their disputes and get the new hospice built for me."

I had no intention of staying in Avonar so long or becoming involved in her projects. Yet it was not a night for arguing. Again D'Sanya was dressed all in white, a loose filmy gown that fell to her ankles. Still barefoot, she wore a slender band of diamonds about one ankle. One side of her pale hair was held back with a diamond clip, while the other curled about her face and brushed at her long, slender neck. Her diamonds might have been stars for all I knew, just as her flesh might have been shaped of moonlight as she held out a glass of wine the color of rubies. At that moment I could have refused her nothing.

"Drink to our pact," she said. "Together we shall recapture the years that were taken from us, and learn again the delights of living free."

I touched my glass to hers. "J'edai en j'sameil ," I said in the ancient tongue of the Dar'Nethi, D'Sanya's tongue. It was a traditional Dar'Nethi feasting wish I had learned from my mother, but I was not thinking of my mother as I said it.

"To life and beauty!" Her delight, as she echoed my words, showered on me like sunbeams. "Oh, friend, is it not a magnificent night? The skies of Avonar are marvelously familiar, far more than the people or the cities or even the land itself, which are all as strangers to me. My brothers and I would often sneak out of the palace at night. We loved packing up food and wine and creeping through the city and out into the countryside to have a moonlight adventure. Or we would climb the terrifying stair to the top of Skygazer's Needle—ancient even in our day—and pretend we were looking through the moonstones that revealed the secret movements of all worlds. The city was much smaller then, of course, and unguarded, for the walls were not built until I was older, just after I turned fourteen." Her voice faltered as her chatter led her to this less comfortable place.

"What happened?" I said, pouncing as if I'd seen the first breach in an enemy's wall. "Tell me, Lady. I want to know you."

"Ah, no. You first," she said softly, holding me with her eyes and a smile that had turned wistful. "A secret for a secret. It is part of our game. You agreed."

I nodded, my mind racing ahead, shaping my story for simplicity . . . and safety … as near truth as I could make it. "It was an old acquaintance of my parents," I began. "He was turned, and in his enmity chose to torment my parents by turning me. He carried me away to Zhev'Na, gave me a house and weapons and horses and slaves, and treated me as a man instead of a child. He twisted truth into such knots that he made me believe I belonged in Zhev'Na, that I was the cause of all the wickedness I had witnessed in my life, that I had no choices left to me. And then he began my training . .."

I lay back on the white cushions and fixed my eyes, not on the moon, but on the cold darkness behind it, and I told her of my days in the desert where I learned how to flay a man, and what sound it made when taking a prisoner's eyes, where I listened to the music of Dar'-Nethi screams and the death rattle of empty-eyed warriors, where I studied the manifold aspects of death and suffering and excelled at my lessons. As trailing wisps of cloud drifted past the stars, I told her of my sword training, where young Dar'Nethi slaves and Zhid warriors were brought in for me to perfect the techniques of slaughter.

I kept thinking, Fool, you've told enough. Now stop . But I couldn't stop. She would understand my tale as no one I had ever met possibly could. I drank another glass of wine, and the story poured out of me, of how I learned to gather power from hatred and vileness as the Zhid would do, and that to interest myself in my servants or my soldiers or my tutors was to sign their death warrant, so that I came to be what the Zhid had planned for me to be—unfeeling and alone. I told her the part I had never been able to tell my parents or Paulo—of how it felt to watch my soul die, like a paper that when thrown in the fire chars and curls and withers into ash.

She said nothing as I spoke. Though the food grew heavy in my stomach, I forced myself to remember the horror I had left in my wake, renewing my loathing and revulsion for the life I had tried so hard to put behind me. And even then the things I told her were not all. Not the worst things. I didn't mention the spinning brass ring—the oculus, the instrument that enabled me to channel the horrors of two worlds into my empty soul to grow the power I craved—or the jewels in my ear that gave the Lords constant access to my mind, so that my training was at the hands of the masters themselves. And I did not reveal that I had at last become one of them, profoundly evil, and holding a universe of wickedness in my scarred hands.

But I told her a great deal, ending my story by telling her that my father had risked his life in Zhev'Na to steal me away again and how he had healed what he could of my injuries and convinced me that, no matter what I had done or believed as a child, I was not destined to be a monster. I could still choose my own path in the world.

When I was done, feeling exhausted, empty, and far calmer than I had expected, I sat up and poured more wine. D'Sanya sat with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped about them, staring down at the grass. I filled her glass and offered it to her, wondering if revulsion at my tale would bring the evening to an abrupt end. But all she said was, "Poor, poor child. What evil can compare to corrupting a child?" Then she fell quiet again.

"Now it's your turn," I said. "You can't leave me out here alone … so exposed. That's not a fair game."

She lifted her glass and gazed into it, then took a sip and set it down, never looking at me once.

"I was fourteen when the event you call the Catastrophe occurred. I've told Prince Ven'Dar, and the Preceptors, and the Archivists of what it was like to see two-thirds of the world go up in flames, the forests reduced to ash, the cities and villages ruined, rivers left dry in a matter of. days, whole kingdoms vanished in a few weeks, thousands upon thousands of people dead or driven mad or transformed into these soulless Zhid. I was young and living in Avonar, so I survived it, and I had no doubt that my father the king would put it all back to rights. But I saw my father weep as he sifted the ashes of the twelve kingdoms of Gondai through his fingers. By the time of my sixteenth birthday, he and his dear cousin J'Ettanne were at work on their plan to restore the world before all Dar'Nethi power was lost forever.

"I rarely saw my father after he began work on the Bridge, or my brothers who toiled beside him. He sent me away from Avonar to our house in Kirith Vale. My mother had died of illness when I was five, and everyone I knew was either dead or at work on the defenses of Avonar, so I was left alone with the bodyguards my father had commanded to protect me. I chafed at being banished, and though I had not yet come into my talent, my father's power lived in me. I tried every way I knew how to convince my father to allow me to help with the Bridge. 'Too dangerous,' he said. 'Too risky. Too near the Breach.' He said he could not concentrate on his work if he thought I might fall prey to the madness that lurked in the Breach, and that at least one of his heirs must stay safe. As for my brothers . . . well, they were older, and it was necessary that the people see young men labor alongside their king."

She laughed ruefully and lay down on her side, propping her head on her elbow. "Almost three years had passed since the Catastrophe. I told no one when I felt the stirrings of true talent at seventeen, and unbeknownst to anyone, I took a man named L'Clavor as mentor. I decided to develop my talents so quickly and to such a level that I would prove how wrong Papa was to leave me behind. I worked every hour of every day to master everything L'Clavor could teach me. One day in late spring he summoned me to his home for my lessons, saying that he could teach me advanced techniques only in his own workshop.

"My bodyguards would not allow me to go, so I sneaked out on my own and rode to L'Clavor's village. Naive child that I was, I didn't notice how deserted were the lanes of the village. No one in the fields. No one in the shops. I was intent upon my own wishes. Foolish, proud, blind girl. Only when L'Clavor opened his door and I saw his eyes did I know how foolish I'd been. He was Zhid.

"I tried to run. I had protective wards with me . . . things L'Clavor and I had made. But they were not enough. Fifty Zhid were waiting to take me before the Lords . . . the Three. Perhaps you saw them while you were in Zhev'Na. Unnatural, monstrous beings they became, with faces half of flesh and half of beaten gold, and gemstones for eyes."

She paused for a long time, and I didn't know whether it would be better to keep silent or to encourage her to say more. But without anything from me, she took a deep breath and gave me a quick smile. "Though they were not yet masked when I first met them, I could feel them probing my heart, laying bare my soul, searching for any weapon to destroy all that I loved. I could tell them nothing of the Bridge or its construction or even where it was that my father and brothers labored; it made matters no easier to know my father had been right to keep it from me.

"Once their initial questioning was done, I was left alone—a bargaining token. I was installed in a windowless room, comfortable and safe. They would return me uncorrupted, unsullied, in exchange for my father's sworn word to stop work on the Bridge and to destroy whatever was completed of it. I knew he wouldn't do it. I cried myself to sleep every night, for my father believed that the Bridge was the only hope for our world or for the other . . . that strange, mundane place that lies on the other side of the Breach. He would never sacrifice so many for one foolish daughter, no matter how bitterly he grieved for her.

"I suppose I was fortunate that they had not yet learned the skills with which you were molded. Or perhaps because I was a girl, they were less sure of what to do with me. Perhaps they, too, held out the hope that my father would miraculously change character and relent, for it was an entire year that I lived alone and untouched in their citadel. Servants waited on me, and brought me materials for writing and drawing and for sewing my own clothing. I wrote long letters that were never sent, and drew endless pictures to remind myself of my true life. I was not prevented from wielding power, though it did me little good. I wasn't strong enough to combat the Three together. Only mind-speaking was forbidden, and they monitored me closely to make sure I obeyed.

"Every seven day I was required to appear before the Three. They would examine me to make sure I'd had no secret communication with my father. And then they would tell me stories of him, every time a different one: he was dead, he. was captive, Avonar had fallen, the Vales had burned, I was forgotten, I was named a traitor, I was named Zhid. . . . But I was not a child. I was D'Arnath's daughter and carried the strength and power of his blood. I refused to believe their lies.

"After a year of this, something changed. Perhaps my father convinced them he wouldn't bargain for me. Perhaps he tried to rescue me and failed; I liked to think it was that. Perhaps the Lords could no longer withhold their hatred. But there came a night when I was taken from my room and thrown into a filthy pen with the other Dar'Nethi prisoners. My hair was cut off, and I was given rags to wear. I was commanded to clean the quarters of the Zhid warriors, forbidden to speak, controlled with the lash…. Well, you know all those things.

"But unlike the other prisoners, once every moon's turning I was taken before the Three and offered release. They gave me three choices. I could lure my father into a trap. Or I could yield control of my mind to the Lords, and they would let me 'escape' so I could spy on him. Or I could renounce my father publicly and . . . consort . . . with one of the Lords to birth a rival to him. All these things I refused, and they could not force me without breaking my mind. Nothing could have persuaded me to betray the hope of the world."

Another deep breath and she sat up again, straightening her back and fixing her eyes on nothing that I could see. "So they devised another use for me." Now there was steel in her voice. "I was to test the loyalty of the Zhid officers. I must offer myself to whatever officer they put in my way, begging for my freedom in exchange for whatever he would want of me. If the officer agreed, they would slay him—sometimes right away, but more often after he had taken his part of our bargain. The Lords said they would tolerate no more refusals. They would slay five Dar'Nethi prisoners each time I disobeyed. And I would have to watch them do it.

"For month after month they forced me to do this . . . and other vile things . . . many other things like it. I could not sacrifice the lives of our people for anything less than the safety of Avonar. It was horrid and cruel. But I couldn't refuse. You can see that. You understand."

As the moon settled behind the notched mountains to the west, she waited for my answer.

"There was no honor to be had in Zhev'Na." My father had said those words to me a thousand times over.

D'Sanya nodded. "No. No honor. Always I chose the lesser evil. I told myself that for two long years. I would not turn. I would not betray my father or my brothers, and if they were driven to sacrifice me to save Dar'Nethi lives, I could do no less than they. Always the lesser evil . . . and pray that Papa would come to rescue me."

"But then it ended. What happened?"

Even with the steel foundation, her voice was shaking. Her gaze had lost focus again, telling me that she was reliving her horror just as I had. "I was taken before the Lords once again, to their throne room where the floor was like black ice and the roof was like the midnight sky. They were masked now, and their jeweled eyes gleamed hard and cold. They said they were finished with me. I was too 'expensive,' and as my father would be stubborn, he must be taught a lesson. I assumed I was to die and was glad of it. They told me terrible things, all their lies over again. Then they laughed until it violated my soul to hear it, and the world went dark . . . until I found myself wandering in the desert half a year ago."

"You remember nothing in between?"

"Nothing. No. Nothing."

She was lying. Perhaps it was only that I was so conscious of my own omissions that I could recognize it so easily. Every word she had spoken was truth—until the end. Not all of the truth, but at least no lies. But when she claimed to remember nothing between her last visit with the Lords and her release, the very timbre of her voice cried falsehood. I couldn't blame her.

We sat for a long time, letting the cooling breeze brush away the horrors we had spoken and replace them with the cries of night birds, the rustling of the trees that bounded our meadow, and the quiet ripple of a brook that traveled mindlessly from the meadow down the steep hillside. Then, with no more words, I rose and gave her my arm, and we abandoned the remnants of our feast and walked slowly down the path. Somewhere along the way my arm found its way about her waist, and somewhere along the way her head found its resting place on my shoulder, and we kept our darkest secrets, yet drew some kind of comfort from what truth we had shared. Even after we collected the horses, we chose to walk, parting at last in the stable yard. Only then did she speak. Softly. Lantern light brightening her eyes as if the moon had fallen into a mountain lake. "You'll come again tomorrow?"

I nodded. "But tomorrow, I choose the games."