Ash and Silver (40 page)

“Is there a hilltop that looks out over the sea and five spits of land? White rocks like bones along fingers, grass, a few pines. She's been there every time I've spoken with her.”

Her face opened up a little. “The place of the beacon, the boundary of our little fragment. We can walk forever along those spits, but never touch the sea. She and Benedik would often meet there.”

She proffered her hand—not cold as I expected, but warm and grimy, hardened with work and smelling like herbs and clean earth. “For my people and the Wanderers, Lucian de Remeni, I thank you.”

•   •   •

T
he echo of Signé's low voice followed me down the stair. It had made the syllables of that name sound very different from when others spoke it, as if it referred to yet a different version of me. What must it have been like to live all your days confined to a dead city—a necropolis of a sort? To see friends and a brother go mad or die or starve until desperate enough to become trees?

There was no time to go back and ask her all the things I'd like to know. Surely an hour had elapsed already. I'd not thought it would be so difficult to get the Cicerons to decide.

When I encountered the mass of people stopped in the cellar passage, they parted the way and let me through. Though they were subdued . . . anxious . . . a hundred seemed a great deal more when crowded into the narrow halls. Could I possibly hold so many through the void? Likely I should have tried it with a few before this. But I worried about Kyr sensing the magic—and the crossing took a great deal out of me. I hadn't slept since the fitful night under old Dorye. Even with Fix's rubies in reserve, I dared not overreach. What would happen if my magic failed halfway across the Severing void?

“Here's what we're going to do,” I said, shaking off the nebulous terror these people already feared. “I need my hands to work the magic of the portal. So I'm going to have my sister hold on to me from behind. And someone must hold on to her, and another and another, as if we were dancing a galliard with the longest chain ever attempted. The chain must not
break. Children must be held close between adults who hold each to the next adult, as well as to the child. I'll try to enfold each of you with magic, but I'm only a sorcerer, not the Goddess Mother who can embrace all her children at once. When you step through the door, you'll feel as if you're falling, but you're not. Hold on to each other with all your mind and strength. Think of each other, what he likes, how she looks in her new earrings, who makes the best bread, who's lucky at dice. This is your clan . . . your family . . . and for this moment, my family as well . . . and if we hold thought of each other, as well as the body in front of us, we'll stay together.”

I peered over the crowd in search of the slight-bodied surgeon. He was off to one side, not wholly one of them. “Surgeon Bek, would you proceed down the line to make sure of our seamless joining? And, if you would . . . it would be helpful to have someone I know even a little at the end of the line. And no, that will not be you,
Doma
Remeni.”

Juli shut her mouth quickly, as laughter rippled through those close enough to hear. The Cicerons started shifting themselves into line, hushing children, calling friends to join them. A few retreated into the passages. I'd best count on the second group being larger.

“I can do that,” said Bek, easing through the anxious mob. “There's little use for barber surgeons in Xancheira. Most of the men are too young to need shaving. The dead are not available to be studied. And the living are too preoccupied with dying.
Doma
Remeni's conversation”—he bowed in Juli's direction—“has been the Sky Lord's own benefice. If ever you need someone to stand beside you in the gracious young lady's service, I am your man.”

I should have taken my sister aside and offered a warning, but I was quickly absorbed in reinforcing my instructions. When we were as ready as we could possibly be, I moved to the portal, snugged my sister's arms around my waist, and sent a rope of magic down the column behind me, through nervous mothers and men who had never been afraid until facing magic and the void, all the way to the deep-eyed ruffian who enjoyed studying corpses and had once found sensual ecstasy in pain.

A stone harbor . . . mist, rain at the edge of the bay . . . the demesne of a lonely man who lives parallel lives . . . the scent of salt wind, bluster and tide rush muted by stone walls . . . brothers waiting . . . my family, both there and here behind me . . .

I let the power build well beyond what I'd done with Siever. Only when my skin felt thin as woven spidersilk, my every nerve aflame with lightning did I press the latch and push open the door. “Hold on!”

Oh, blessed Deunor . . . Luka!

I clung to that distant cry, even as I held our destination steady in my center and sent every scrap of my will up and down that line of magic:
hands tighter . . . who is behind you? . . . don't be afraid . . . trust me . . . who do you love? . . . who annoys you? . . . who sings best of home? of love? of sorrow?

“O
h,
ancieno,
you did it! Every person's crossed—a hundred and three of us. Bek, too.”

Hearing trumped speech. Seeing, too. I flailed in the dark, glimpsing only streaks of light, but it was only the boathouse doors were closed. Torchlight seeped in through the seams. And the rhythmic thumps were not my heart splitting into fifty pieces, but an unsecured boat knocking gently on the pilings. Otherwise, it was deadly quiet.

I sat straight up. “Goddess Mother, where are they?”

“I just told them we needed to hush if we're not supposed to be here. See?”

A pearly light splayed from the warm, breathing solidity at my side, and I saw them lined up around the stone walls and stacked boats of Fix's boathouse. A hundred shabby bundles of human life, sitting, standing, tall, short, male, female, child, elder. Some were dripping. A few were sitting on the boats. But all two hundred dark eyes stared straight at me, and every one of those eyes dropped as soon as I met it.

“All right, then,” I said, as the rest of my body came into focus. My feet dangled over the water, a dinghy banging gently against my boots. “Looks like I'm the last one to arrive.”

I couldn't stop grinning. I'd aimed the crossing magic exactly here.

Hercule squeezed past the others, stopping not far away when he couldn't go farther without climbing in a boat. He bowed awkwardly and did not look up. Nor did he speak.

“Headman, is everyone all right?”

“Yes,
domé
. May I speak?”

Ah, yes. The rules. The law. Somehow in Xancheira things had been different, but now we were back in the world they knew. In Palinur he could have been whipped for speaking to me. For looking at me.

“For now, I am not
Domé
Remeni,” I said. “I'm a soldier called Greenshank. You may speak to me any time you have something to say.”

“What should we do?”

“Stay quiet, as my sister warned. Sit, if you wish. Rest. There might be water casks or packets of dry stores in these boats. You could send the children out to find them and share around—a game, but quietly, please, while I find out if we're ready for the next part of your journey. And tell them . . . everyone did well.”

He wagged his head like a great dog. “We did
nothing
,
domé
. You carried us in your hand through the end of all things.”

He whispered to those nearest him, and the word rippled through the others. A girl ventured into the boats first and squealed when she found a bag of currants. She clapped a hand over her mouth as a hundred people shushed her.

I scrambled to my feet, wobbling slightly. Juli grabbed one arm; Surgeon Bek the other.

“Might have overdone the magic a bit,” I said. “There were just so many of them.”

“Luka, do you have any idea—?” A whisper did not dim my sister's intensity in the slightest. “No, you couldn't, could you? Oh, Luka, if Capatronn could have felt what you just did. When you'd come home from Palinur, he'd often come and sit with me in the dark while you practiced your drawing in the studio. I would ask when I could make magic so beautiful as yours, for I was sure I would build a temple someday or a city to match the halls of divine Idrium. But he told me that I wouldn't match you ever. That none of us would. He and I would weep together, not so much for sorrow—though always a bit—but for the sheer beauty of it. And that was in no measure close to what you did this crossing.”

“Some of it's sheer chance,” I said. “And I've worked hard at magic these two years. But I think when we bring Signé and her people back here, we'll see such magic as we can only imagine. Siever's first raw attempt reminded me why we name the gift divine. But first . . . we go.”

The boats should be waiting somewhere outside the boathouse. We hadn't wanted the rowers to see a hundred people appear out of nowhere. But I dared not open the doors, lest observers in the fortress notice. Which meant I needed to swim under the boathouse walls to meet Conall.

Leaving boots and jaque with Juli, I slipped into the water. A dive
between the pilings, and I soon poked my head above the slopping wavelets. My spirits plummeted. The fog was thick as a tyro's head at dawn. I had to use the bulk of the massed enchantments shielding the fortress, the landward beacons, and the motion of the water to orient myself. It was nothing I'd not done a hundred times, but sweet Goddess, what were we to do about the crossing?

A few long strokes and I hauled myself onto the dock in the vicinity of Fix's cottage.

“Early.” A good thing the hand gripped my wrist, else the invisible Conall's soft greeting might have toppled me right back into the water. “But we're ready.”

“But this demon fog—”

“. . . thins out amazingly just this side of the Spinner.”

It took me several headshakings to comprehend. “Fix's distraction.”

It was astounding. Magical fogs were as common as paralytic leashes in sorcerous combat. Their problem, of course, was that the wielder could see no better than anyone else. And they were always easily distinguishable. Magical fogs were dry, still, uniform in density, more like carded wool than natural fog. But this was wet and heavy, smelling of wet wood and saltmarsh. Drifting pockets and veils taunted the eye. The fog would ensure the Cicerons couldn't describe the fortress to anyone, and the enchantment was so delicately applied that the magic was indistinguishable from the common wards, locks, and training spells of the fortress. Masterful.

“We'll bring the boats to the water door one at a time,” said Conall. “Are your people ready?”

“They've done well. But I doubt any can swim or have ever seen a boat. I told them the rowers won't speak to them.”

“We'll have a care. Our oarsmen think they're a wandering band of Cicerons enlisted to serve our training needs and that we'll give them each a copper for their trouble. The tides are good. Weather's good. Should be three hours in with the hefty load, three back as usual. The second return will be the rough. You'll be here waiting with our second load, yes?”

“Close enough.” He bared his teeth and vanished into the fog. I'd never thought of Conall's exceptional knightly skills as including conspiracy.

Back into the water and back to the boathouse. Restless murmurs were quickly hushed when I climbed out. Hercule was waiting with Juli and Bek.

“Pass this word to everyone,” I said. “Crossing to the mainland should take three hours. I won't be with you, as I'll be fetching the rest of your
people. Better for all if you puke outside the boat. Everyone does at first. The rowers believe you've been hired to give them a rough night. And please, please, Hercule, once you're landed, your people must not speak of Signé or her people or the ruined city or this place or me to anyone. I wish I knew how to erase these things from your minds, just to avoid laying this charge on you, but even a single mention—”

“Wanderers know how to keep secrets, Soldier Greenshank.” Hercule pulled off one of his earrings and held it in his upraised palm. With a whisper of magic no stronger than a shift of the air from an opening door, the earring sparked and jingled. He passed his other hand over and the earring was vanished in a cloud of gray smoke. “'Tisn't quite what you do, but such tricks would see us dead in Navronne. Those of us here have managed not to be dead.”

“Thank you for your trust,” I said, near speechless. He was right about the danger of what he'd shown me. Though perhaps not in the future . . .

“Our
Naema
told us the coroner's pureblood was the one we'd been waiting for since we took up wandering,” said the old man. “Whatever you asked of us, she said we were to do our best. And so we will.”

Naema
—not just
grandmother
, but a title bestowed upon the Goddess Mother or the human women who wore her mantle here on earth.

“She's the one who died opening the way to Sanctuary,” I said, awed that I had met such a woman, wishing I could remember her. The title was never bestowed lightly, and even purebloods respected it. “I am so sorry.”

“She wasn't. She'd waited her whole life for it. And from what the city folk told us, it should have been just what we sought. Maybe someday we'll make a fine song about the whole thing, and folk will puzzle over it.” He raised his hand to belay any warning. “But no time soon.”

“One more thing,” I said. “Your guide on the mainland is my good friend and not at all like those of her kind in Signé's city. . . .”

He passed that startling news along to his people, too.

At Conall's signal, we doused Juli's magelight and drew open the water door just enough to accommodate one boat at a time. Bek and I handed the Cicerons into the boat; I nodded to Dunlin and Heron, but did not break the rule of silence Conall had laid on them. Conall's own boat was the last. I motioned Juli to take a seat just behind the knight.

She didn't move. “Bek and I thought we'd go back with you. Show the others that all's well.”

“No,” I said. “I'll take the surgeon. But not you.” Too many things
could go wrong. “Please,
serena
, I cannot— Would you consider sitting with Lord Siever? The man who looks after him is occupied in all this.”

She tilted her head and squinted at me as if I were a half-wit. “They're frightened,” she said. “Hercule won't be there. No one there really knows you. They might imagine that you don't mind losing a few of them as long as your kinswoman is safe.”

I wanted to tell her that the thought of losing her was unbearable, and not simply for what she might share of our past. The tale of our grandsire had meant more to me in what it spoke about
her
than for grand sentiments from a dead man I would never remember. But she was right.

“Besides, I think Siever would rather me help you,
ancieno
. Because the sooner this is done, the sooner you can turn your mind to
his
friends. And I
choose
to go.” Her mouth was set in a way that even a man without memory could interpret.

Bowing to the inevitable, I rapped on Conall's boat and gave it a shove. The loaded skiff melted into the fog.

“What do we do?” said Bek, looking about as if a doorway would appear out of nothing.

“First we've got to get the two of you to the crypt unnoticed. . . .”

I drew the water door shut and pointed to the slopping wavelets. “Jump in. Tonight you are going to be two sorry novice warriors.”

They goggled for a moment, then did as I said. Fortunately there were plenty of bags around the boathouse that I could use to cover their heads—as was often done for tyros fool enough to lose their masks in a dunking. Juli already wore men's clothing, but I found a rag of canvas in one of the boats to wrap around her. We were entering a fortress that had seen no women for near two hundred years. Even the stones might notice.

Soggy and bedraggled, they trudged through the fog-shrouded halls, my hands on their shoulders to guide their steps. We encountered only a few people along the way; none who were interested. To my sorrow, an alert sentry was posted at my cell door in the barracks passage. I'd had dreams of snatching the remainder of my leek pie. Though likely congealed by now, it could have soothed the worrisome gnawing in my belly. I had to settle for two water flasks from the boathouse filled at the barracks laver.

When we arrived at the crypt, I gave Juli and Bek a drink and time to breathe without wet bags over their heads. Bek examined the dry bones, mumbling regrets that we had no recent corpses. It set Juli laughing, which bothered me. A surgeon's studies might be useful, but Bek was a man who
sought pleasure in his own pain. Did he enjoy thinking of the pain of those he studied?

Juli started up with questions about the fortress and how I'd come to be here and what had caused me to lose my memory. When I said it wasn't the time, she offered to tell me of our hours together before I sent her with the Cicerons. I stopped her.

“Once we're back here we'll talk,” I said. “I need to know everything you can tell me of that time. But to make the crossing, I need a clear head. Thinking about missing memories is like bashing my skull with a hammer.”

“So do we dance our galliard as before?” said Bek. “I'll save my fascinating history for when we get back as well.” I could see why Bastien valued him.

“Just as before.”

After draining what was left of each water flask, I heaved a breath, then nodded to Juli. Her arms went around my waist.

Hands on handle and hinge. Thread a lifeline through my two companions. I drew up images of the ruined citadel and our purpose, of the bronze door in the bowels of the citadel and the symbol of healing. But when I focused on Signé's scarred face, instead I felt her capable hand stretched toward me . . . cold, not warm, and when she spoke the name that had once been mine, it was not appreciation, but urgency that flowed into my bones.
Lucian de Remeni . . . hurry . . .

I poured magic into the door, pushed it open, and the three of us fell.

•   •   •

A
basket of stunted parsnips and withered greens was the only casualty of our arrival in the citadel atrium. Evidently landing on one's feet was a matter of concentration as well as luck, and Juli stumbled after me. Bek had made some effort not to step on Juli and tumbled into the basket. Once the thumps of bouncing parsnips ended, no sound broke the damp and earthy silence but the trickle of water in the troughs above our heads. A lamp hung from a hook over the sorting tables.

Where was everyone? I'd thought they'd be waiting.

The urgency I'd felt at the portal hadn't left me. Without the press of people to intrude, simmering bitterness and an outsized rage too familiar of late seeped like autumn smoke through the citadel's every crack and crevice. Its source was outside the great entry doors . . . farther . . . perhaps beyond the outer wall.