Sartor (24 page)

Lilah tried to understand, but meaning cascaded past her
like the waterfall, eluding her just as water eluded any attempt to force it
into shape. Peitar talked like that sometimes.

“... and so I have spent my entire life thinking,
If
this happens, then that must happen
. Action, reaction, consequence. That
lesson of Tsauderei’s has shaped me into what I am now, I think, more
than anything else. So I see my duty. I just have to be able to find the right
path from action to reaction to imagined consequence. I have to figure out what
Norsunder will do—and stay ahead. And not let remorse defeat me before
they do, if I make a mistake. But can I? Bear it, I mean.”

“You will.”

Both girls jumped, then recognized the drowsy voice: Hinder.

“You will,” he said. “Make it to Eidervaen,
I mean. Though I won’t tell anyone else, because—well, just
because. But you see, Sin and I know where we are.”

Lilah thought,
Huh?

But Atan’s long sigh of relief made two things clear. One,
she knew what Hinder meant, and two, that it allayed her fears enough to enable
her to close her eyes, and she sank immediately into sleep.

Lilah drifted into troubled dreams soon after.

Dejain drew a deep breath.

“This changes everything,” she said.

She busied herself with the cup of fresh coffee that she had
not wanted, just so she could think.

The cold had intensified, and though she was now settled
deep within the fortress in Lesca’s warm rooms, her bones felt brittle as
winter ice, making thought difficult.

She’d always been careful where her own existence was
concerned. When her first non-aging spells had been so disastrously destroyed,
the tracer had sent her straight to Norsunder. But Detlev had found her and had
re-engendered the spells, restoring her youth, before she could attempt
recovery on her own.

His magic was exponentially stronger than hers. Detlev was
very seldom overt. It was enough that they both knew she owed her life to him,
and he could just as easily take it away without exerting himself.

She sighed. At least he was at a distance, involved in
something or other that kept him occupied except for brief and rare visits. She
sipped the coffee—disgusting stuff—and frowned at her hostess. “You
are certain you heard the word ‘Landis.’”

Lesca lay back on her cushions, her smile lazy. “If
you wish to believe that I misheard, feel free.”

“Of course not,” Dejain said. “My question
is a measure of my surprise, not at all indicative of disbelief.”

She could not afford to make an enemy of Lesca, who knew
just about everything going on in the fortress. Lesca might be lazy and love
comfort above all things, but she had a quick mind. Dejain did not know what
her background was. Obviously she’d been trained as kitchen-steward for
huge establishments. Maybe even royal palaces. But she liked it here at the
Norsunder base. Being a cook, she was invisible to those who had no interest in
anyone of so low a position, and that meant she overheard an astonishing number
of conversations. She also knew how to find out about the few she didn’t
overhear.

Lesca smiled and helped herself to fresh fruit, transferred
all the way from the northern hemisphere. “Zydes was quite distinct.
Kessler,
find that Landis girl, wherever you have to go. Take anyone you want. But don’t
fail
.” Lesca tossed a rind into the bowl. “Kessler brought back
a red-haired urchin, therefore the urchin is this Landis girl. And then she
vanished, leaving Zydes in a pretty panic. Not that the sight is all that
pretty.”

She laughed, and Dejain smiled, appreciating the image of Zydes
in a sweat. “A Landis is alive,” she repeated. The astounding news
was overlaid by early childhood memory; how the world seemed to have lost its
meaning when the news came that Sartor had succumbed to the enemy. And nothing
had happened. The sky did not fall. Birds pecked at seeds. Traders came and
dangled ribbons before the girls of the village. The seasons changed, and
changed again, with blithe indifference to human tragedy. The so-called great
and powerful mages of Bereth Ferian did not descend like a singing of angels
and do away with the enemy—in fact, they were soon defeated themselves.

She’d been a child, and the lesson that life had
taught her that only power was true, in that those who had it made ‘truth’.

So began a lifelong quest for power.

She said, “Then Detlev’s spells were not destroyed
by Zydes. My only question is, why hasn’t Detlev been here before? Surely
he had some sort of ward set up to warn him. He’d have to, for spells
that powerful.”

“Who knows, with him?” Lesca said, shrugging her
round, plump shoulders. “Maybe he has been. He’s sneaky, that one. You
don’t know he’s there unless he wants you to.” She affected a
shudder, then languorously threw back her lemon-colored braid.

A Landis, alive. A girl, not a boy.

She tried to recall what that brat had looked like, but her focus
had been on Irad, and all she remembered was a type found all over this portion
of the continent: ruddy hair and complexion, with foxy features, sturdy build. Not
even remotely resembling the Landises whose portraits she’d seen when she
was young. Of course, distinctive features did not show up in every single
family member, even in the Landises, but really, Kessler had more of that
distinctive shape of the eyes than that brat had—and the Sonscarnas and
Landises had only had a single marriage alliance that she was aware of,
generations ago.

Obviously, the first requirement now was to get hold of the
old field reports, and review exactly who had done what, or seen what, at the
very end of the Sartor war. But the thought of going into Norsunder, where there
was no time, or space, not by any definition that had meaning—and where
the Host of Lords could, and did, amuse themselves with rifling one’s
mind and memories at any time—made her flinch.

Maybe she could send someone.

Magic-warning flickered behind her eyes. Wend! He was
signaling her for transfer.

She smiled. She’d fixed the transfer spell so he
couldn’t activate it at his end, which meant that this time she would
definitely be the first to hear whatever news he had.

Lesca watched her in growing amusement. Really, she rather
liked Dejain. Ambitious, of course—all the mages and rankers were. But
she showed no interest in flirtation with anyone at all, and she hadn’t
displayed any of those lamentable tastes for torture and protracted death that
made some of the other would-be commanders so tiresome. She also shared
information, which Zydes never had.

She watched the small, pretty face, saw the inward look. Magic
contact, of course. Probably Wend. He was currently running tame for her. Did
she even know how badly he wanted revenge against Detlev? No, for the
humiliation of Wend’s very public demotion after he and the horrible
Vatiora lost that tangle with the Venn had taken place up north, and Dejain
seemed to confine her interests to the southern hemisphere.

“Thank you for the coffee,” Dejain said, rising
to shake out her skirts.

Lesca watched the small hands, dainty movements, the
swinging blonde curls against the straight, slender back. Dejain’s vanity
was so very inward, so self-absorbed, that Lesca found her endlessly
entertaining.

As Dejain disappeared up the corridor, Lesca laid an inward
bet she was bracing for another trip to the tower, where she so trustingly
thought she was not overheard, and prepared for a night of rich diversion. All
the signs were in place. Wend was plotting, Zydes was plotting, Dejain was
plotting, and Kessler prowled around looking crazier than ever... not as crazy
as Vatiora, who might appear at any time.

Now
that
was a frightening thought.

Lesca decided it was time to find a safe vantage from which
to watch the confrontation she knew was nigh, as soon as Detlev appeared.

o0o

“They’re searching,” Sin said, sliding
down the rock next to her cousin.

“How many?” Atan asked.

“Riding in twos, that much I saw. But the fog is
getting heavy.”

No one needed to voice the next thought: how many were
waiting somewhere just out of sight?

Atan asked, “Thick fog?”

Sin shook her head. “No. Fingers and drifts. But
getting worse. I couldn’t see the farther hills.”

Atan said, “Maybe we should talk about our diversion
plan.”

Hinder and Sin worked their way round the clumps of damp,
filthy kids in the grotto where they had been forced to spend the day. Cold,
dank air made it thoroughly unpleasant, but that was better than being
discovered. The fog intensified the damp chill, but they dared not start a
fire.

Sin and Mendaen had posted watchers in the shrubs all night.
It had been Kevri, one of Brick’s friends, who’d seen the
Norsundrian searchers at dawn, riding hard through the woods. She’d
scrambled back down to the slowly waking group, and Atan bade them all stay put
until the searchers were safely gone.

That had not happened all day; they’d continued to
trade off watches.

Mendaen approached, his dark hair lank and damp, and his
face blotchy from the damp cold.

“If they haven’t gone, it means they’ve
got a perimeter,” he said. “An accurate one.”

“That being?” Atan asked.

“They’ll put a... a line, or a limit, at one end
where we were first seen, and for the other end where we’re likeliest to
be headed. Make a circle. Search methodically within it.”

“And the other end is going to be Eidervaen,” Atan
guessed.

No one argued.

As the day wore on, the fear changed to restlessness in
some, boredom in others. Lilah watched Arlas take from her clothing a tight scroll
of hoarded paper, and a silver-point drawing crayon, and sketch her sister
sitting on a rock in her dirty gown and tangled hair, while Julian slept.

Mendaen worried, checking his weapons and peering upward
toward the sky. From above, the grotto was all but invisible, but eventually
some Norsundrian was going to press past the shrubs that hid the old quake
crack that formed their hideaway, and he feared they’d be bottled between
enemy searchers.

Atan sat up straighter, trying to ease her aching back. Hinder
and Sin had finished their circuit. The group scrunched close to one another. Atan
looked at the expectant faces—tired, grubby, but alert—and said, “Here’s
a plan. I will continue on alone, except perhaps for one or two others, for I
am the one drawing danger to you. If the group spreads out, wandering about and
pretending to be lost, or caught in the magic, so the Norsundrians have to stop
and question everyone, then you have a better chance of escaping notice. If you
never mention Shendoral or me, then you should be all right, I hope. And I will
go north to Eidervaen.”

“Who are the one or two others you would honor with
such a trust?” Irza asked.

Lilah looked around, and noticed both Hinder and Sin with
bent heads.

“I would leave that to volunteers,” Atan stated.
“But those volunteers would have to understand that the worst danger is
where I go.”

“Then we all shall volunteer.”

All heads swung Irza’s way.

She didn’t speak loudly, but her whisper was all the
more forceful.

Silence from the group.

“But it’s better if I go alone,” Atan
said.

Irza bowed, but her face was blanched with anger, her
fingers shaking. “I know you wish to preserve us from danger, your
majesty,” she said.

Lilah grimaced into her knees. The tone in that
your majesty
would feel like a slap across the face. She didn’t even have to look at Atan
to know she felt the sting; Lilah sensed it in the way Atan’s body tensed
into stillness.

“But in denying us the right to face danger with you,
and defend you, you also deny us honor.”

There’s That Word. Now that it’s out, nobody
is going to make any sense anymore.
Lilah sighed. She’d learned that
much over the summer, when adults had slammed one another with accusations
about honor with exactly as much heat and passion as a duel with swords. The wounds
couldn’t be seen, but obviously they sure could be felt.

Yes, Atan looked as if she’d been stabbed. Hinder was
red with anger.

Lilah muttered as loudly as she dared, “Nonsense!”

Foosh!
She fancied she could feel the wind as all
heads snapped to face her.

Lilah struggled to sit up. Her cheeks and neck prickled with
the heat of embarrassment, but she wasn’t going to back down now.

“It’s a perfectly good plan. Diversion is
something military people do. I learned that much when Sarendan had civil war
last summer. Nobody loses honor.”

“She is right.” Heads snapped again.

That was Sin, who almost never spoke above a soft murmur—and
rarely when more than one person could hear her. But she too had red cheeks and
narrowed eyes. “There is no honor lost in leading the enemy away from the
monarch.” When had all the morvende gathered with her? Suddenly all five
of them were there, ranging in sizes, but all with wild white hair and taloned
fingers. And Rip was with them, his round face unwontedly sober.

“I will not put my own safety above that of the only
Landis in the world,” Irza stated, her head high. “My parents swore
when they first took the Yostavos coronet that they would spend their lives
defending their lands and the royal family. I can do no less.”

“That’s right,” Arlas stated, arms
crossed.

“It’s true of my family as well,” young
Vian Ryadas proclaimed, his snub nose elevated.

Murmurs came from the others—and not just the
aristocrats.

“We can’t divert if no one will go,”
Pouldi said, scratching his ears.

“Maybe we can divert as a group.” That came from
Yoread, one of the quiet ones.