The Briar King

Prologue

In the month of Etramen, in the year twenty-two fifteen of Everon, two girls crouched in the darkest tangles of a sacred garden in the city of the dead, praying not to be seen.

Anne, who at eight was the eldest, peered cautiously through the thickly woven branches and creepers enclosing them.

“Is it really a Scaos?” Austra, a year younger, asked.

“Hush!” Anne whispered. “Yes, it’s a Scaos, and a monstrous one, so keep low or he’ll see your hair. It’s too yellow.”

“Yours is too red,” Austra replied. “Fastia says it’s rust because you don’t use your head enough.”

“Figs for Fastia. Keep quiet, and go that way.”

“It’s darker that way.”

“I know. But we can’t let him see us. He’ll kill us, but not fast. He’ll eat us a bit at a time. But he’s too big to follow us back in there.”

“He could use an ax, or a sword, and cut the branches.”

“No,” Anne said. “Don’t you know anything? This is a horz, not just any old garden. That’s why everything is so wild here. No one is allowed to cut it, not even him. If he cuts it, Saint Fessa and Saint Selfan will curse him.”

“Won’t they curse us for hiding here?”

“We aren’t cutting anything,” Anne said reasonably. “We’re just hiding. Anyhow, if the Scaos catches us, we’ll be worse than cursed, won’t we? We’ll be dead.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“I just saw him move!” Anne squeaked. “He’s right over there! For the saints and love of your life, go!”

Austra moaned and lurched forward, pushing through twining roots of ancient oaks, through vines of thorn, primrose, and wild grape so ancient they were thicker than Anne’s legs. The smell was earth and leaves and a faint, sweet corruption. Grayish green light was all that the layers of leaves and boughs allowed them of the sun’s bright lamp. Out there, in the broad, lead-paved streets of the city of ghosts, it was noon. Here, it was twilight.

They came into a small space where nothing grew, though vegetation arched over it, like a little room built by the Phay, and there crouched together for a moment.

“He’s still after us,” Anne panted. “Do you hear?”

“Yes. What shall we do?”

“We’ll—”

She never got to finish. Something cracked with a sound like a dish breaking, and then they were sliding into the open mouth of the earth. They landed with a thump on a hard stone surface.

For several moments, Anne lay on her back, blinking up at the dim light above, spitting dust from her mouth. Austra was just breathing fast, making funny little noises.

“Are you well?” Anne asked the other girl.

Austra nodded. “Uh-huh. But what happened? Where are we?” Then her eyes went huge. “We’re buried! The dead have taken us!”

“No!” Anne said, her own terror receding. “No, look, we’ve just fallen into an older tomb. Very old, because the horz has been here for four hundred years, and this is under it.” She pointed to the light falling down the same dirt slope they had come down. “The ground must have been thin there. But see, we can go back out.”

“Let’s go, then,” Austra said. “Quickly.”

Anne tossed her red locks. “Let’s look around first. I’ll bet no one has been here for a thousand years.”

“I don’t think it’s a tomb,” Austra said. “Tombs look just like houses. This doesn’t.”

Austra was right, it didn’t. They had fallen at the edge of a big, round room. Seven huge stones set like pillars held up an even bigger flat rock like a roof, and smaller stones had been fitted around to keep the dirt out.

“Maybe this is what houses looked like a thousand years ago,” Anne suggested.

“Maybe it’s a Scaosen tomb!” Austra exclaimed. “Maybe it’s his tomb.”

“They didn’t have tombs,” Anne said. “They thought they were immortal. Come on, I want to see that.”

“What is it?”

Anne stood and made her way to a box of stone, longer than it was tall or wide.

“I think it’s a sarcophagus,” she said. “It’s not all ornamented like the ones we use now, but it’s the same shape.”

“You mean there’s a dead person in there.”

“Uh-huh.” She brushed her hand across the lid and felt incisions in the stone. “There’s something written here.”

“What?”

“It’s just letters. V, I, D, A. It doesn’t make a word.”

“Maybe it’s another language.”

“Or an abbreviation. V—” She stopped, transfixed by a sudden thought.

“Austra. Virgenya Dare! V-I for Virgenya and D-A for Dare.”

“That can’t be right,” Austra said.

“No,” Anne whispered. “It must be. Look how old this tomb is. Virgenya Dare was the first of my family born in the world. This has to be her.”

“I thought your family had ruled Crotheny for only a hundred years,” Austra said.

“It’s true,” Anne replied. “But she could have come here, during the time of the first kingdoms. No one knows where she went, after the wars, or where she was buried. This is her. I know it, somehow. It must be. Help me get the lid off, so I can see her.”

“Anne! No!”

“Come on, Austra. She’s my ancestor. She won’t mind.” Anne strained at the lid, but it wouldn’t move. When she finally cajoled the reluctant Austra into helping her, it still didn’t move at first; but as the two girls strained, the heavy stone lid shifted a fingersbreadth.

“That’s it! It’s moving!”

But try as they might, they couldn’t budge it more.

Anne tried to look into the crack. She saw nothing, but the smell was funny. Not bad, just strange, like the old place under a bed that hasn’t been cleaned for a very long time.

“Lady Virgenya?” she whispered into the box, hearing her voice hum around inside. “My name is Anne. My father is William, the king of Crotheny. I’m pleased to meet you.”

No answer came, but Anne was sure the spirit had heard. After all, sleeping for this long, she was probably slow to wake. “I’ll bring candles to burn for you,” Anne promised. “And gifts.”

“Please, let’s go,” Austra pleaded.

“Yes, very well,” Anne agreed. “Mother or Fastia will miss us pretty soon, anyway.”

“Are we still hiding from the Scaos?”

“No, I’m tired of that game,” Anne replied. “This is better. This is real. And it’s our secret. I don’t want anyone else to find it. So we have to go, now, before they look this far. Fastia might be small enough to squeeze through.”

“Why does it have to be secret?”

“It just does. Come on.”

They managed to scramble back up through the hole and the tangled vegetation, until at last they emerged near the crumbly stone wall of the horz. Fastia was standing there, her back to them, long brown hair flowing down her green gown. She turned as she heard them approach.

“Where have you—” She broke off and vented an outraged laugh. “Ah! Just look at you two. Filthy! What in the name of the saints have you been into?”

“Sorry!” Anne said. “We were just pretending a Scaos was after us.”

“You’ll wish it was only a Scaos when Mother sees you. Anne, these are our revered ancestors all around us. We’re supposed to honor Aunt Fiene, to put her body in the after-house. It’s a very solemn business, and you’re supposed to be there, not playing games in the horz.”

“We were bored,” Anne said. “Aunt Fiene wouldn’t care.”

“It’s not Aunt Fiene you have to worry about—it’s Mother and Father.” She brushed at the grime staining Anne’s white gown. “There’s no way to get you clean, either,” Fastia replied, “not before Mother sees.”

“You used to play here,” Anne said. “You told me so.”

“Maybe I did,” her older sister replied, “but I’m fifteen now and about to be married. I’m not allowed to play anymore. And I’m not allowed to let you play, either, at least not right now. I was supposed to watch you. Now you’ve gotten me in trouble.”

“We’re sorry, Fastia.”

Her older sister smiled and pushed back her dark hair, so like their mother’s, so unlike Anne’s strawberry mop. “It’s all right, little sister. This time I’ll take the blame. But when I’m married, I’ll be governing you younger children, so you’d better get used to paying attention to me. Practice. Try minding me at least half the time, please? You, too, Austra.”

“Yes, Archgreffess,” Austra mumbled, curtseying.

“Thank you, Fastia,” Anne added. For an instant, Anne almost told her older sister what they had found. But she didn’t. Fastia had become strange lately. Not as much fun, more serious. More grown-up. Anne loved her, but she wasn’t sure she could trust her anymore.

That night, after the scolding, when the candles went dark and she and Austra lay on their broad feather bed, Anne pinched Austra’s arm. Not hard enough to hurt, but almost.

“Ow!” Austra complained. “Why did you do that?”

“If you ever tell what we found today,” Anne warned, “I’ll pinch you harder!”

“I said I wouldn’t tell.”

“Swear it. Swear it by your mother and father.”

Austra was quiet for a moment. “They’re dead,” she whispered.

“All the better. The dead are better at hearing promises than the living, my father always says.”

“Don’t make me,” Austra pleaded. She sounded sad, almost as if she was going to start crying.

“Never mind,” Anne said. “I’m sorry. I’ll think of something else for you to swear by tomorrow. All right?”

“All right,” Austra said.

“Good night, Austra. May the Black Mary stay away.”

“Good night,” Austra replied. And soon her breathing indicated she was asleep.

But Anne couldn’t sleep. Her head filled with stories, heroic tales of the great war with the Scaosen, demons, and of Virgenya Dare. And she thought of that dark crack in the coffin, the faint sigh she was sure she had heard. She nursed her secret, her prize, and finally, smiling, drifted into dreams of darkling fields and brooding forests.