Sartor (28 page)

At last, the others heaved themselves out, looking tired and
heavy-limbed as they dressed again in clothes that had been made magically
clean. A delightful surprise was the quick zap of warm dry air when they
stepped between a pair of old stones, and then soft-voiced, smiling adults
offered the children places to rest.

Most accepted and were led away toward a honeycomb of small
caves up the side of one vast cavern shelf.

“Oh!” That was Sana, sounding as if she had
suddenly stepped in ice. No. Her tone was one of surprise, shock even, but nonetheless
pleasure.

And then Atan realized what she’d been hearing: singing.
Faint, almost too faint to discern above the soughing of wind over stone, the
sound was so beautiful that at first she was not even certain it was voices.
Bells
,
she thought, drawn toward the song.
They sound like silver bells.

Then she saw the singers, high in another cavern, facing the
other direction. Walls bounced the sound back, blending the voices. Triplets in
one chord, then another, echoed from stone to stone, forming a new and more
subtle counterpoint, while the melodic line bound it all together in threads of
gold—no—of rainbow—no, that wasn’t right either—

Atan closed her eyes, trying to comprehend the beauty, but
it sounded and felt, so high... deep... vast, as the melody chased up and up,
shifting in chords from somber to joyful. The glory exalted her, so intense
that she was not aware of the tears cooling on her cheeks or the ache in her
chest from sobs, until the echoes began to fade as singers fell silent one by
one, until only a single voice remained. Then that one, too, sang a high note
that dwindled into the hush of the wind.

Sana stumbled forward, weeping. Atan started up in concern,
then fell back when she saw that it was elation, not sadness, that moved Sana. Atan
sank back on her pile of rugs and pillows.

Most of the kids had fallen into slumber. Irza sat in the
center, Julian asleep between her and an equally somnolent Arlas.

“They said it was a lullaby,” Irza said, her
face calm, her voice pleasant. “But it was much too beautiful for that.”

Atan did not understand Irza. Lilah had been able to help a
little when she explained that Irza had courtly manners. Atan had read about
courtly manners and how they were supposed to hide real feelings.

“It was,” Atan said.

Irza’s eyes narrowed. “Well, everyone seems to
be falling asleep, and the little ones certainly need their rest. They are very
tired.”

Remorse sent a pang through Atan when she glanced at Julian.
“I—I keep forgetting. I don’t know anything about small
children,” she said contritely.

“Well, I do,” Irza said, smiling with confidence.
Then she yawned. “I’m tired, so if nothing else is going on...”
She lay down and arranged herself neatly.

Atan watched the way she settled herself, almost as if she
performed a dance. It was much more than the arrogant expectation that one
would always be watched, the center of interest or attention. This was living
art, using grace to underscore leadership, more of that symbolic transference.

Atan knew she would have to compromise with the courtly
attitudes toward life.

But not right now, she thought tiredly, and lay down near
Lilah.

She was too tired to notice that Merewen was missing.

o0o

Atan woke to the sounds of others sitting up, stretching,
yawning, and talking as they looked about in sleepy pleasure or wonder. It was
so good to be safe and out of the cold, and to know they would not have to walk
hungry all through the day.

Julian was happy. She loved the warm cave, the food, and the
kind people. She waved at Atan, who smiled back. It was a smile just for her,
Julian knew. Not a smile for others to see or a smile put on like clothes, to
vanish again when others turned their faces elsewhere, because Atan’s
smile was still there when the old man with the white hair touched her shoulder
and she turned his way.

“If you have rested,” Lonender said to Atan. “Perhaps
we might meet to exchange views on matters concerning both morvende and
sunsiders.”

“Yes, let’s,” Atan agreed.

Lonender led the way to a little chamber above a waterfall.

Lilah saw Atan led away, and wondered if she ought to offer
to go along. Those grownups obviously didn’t want to talk to her, or she
would have been included. And though Atan had relied on her to help understand
the other kids, morvende were far outside of Lilah’s experience. She
doubted whether she’d comprehend them any better than her friend.

Hinder appeared, grinning. “Want to look around?”

“Would I!” Lilah exclaimed.

“What would you like to see?”

“Oh, anything.” She frowned. “But what
about Norsunder, and breaking the spells?”

Hinder’s face changed to a kind of rueful grimace. “The
grownups aren’t going to let any of us sunside. Those Norsundrians are
all over the hills, and just this morning—it’s morning now, as it
happens—the report came back that they have Eidervaen ringed. Nobody can
get in or out.”

Lilah whistled. “What are we going to do?”

“Well, there are ways.” He made a vague gesture,
then shrugged, and Lilah figured that there were some morvende secrets
involved, ones that Hinder wasn’t allowed to talk about. “Anyway,
those plans are being made. In the meantime, we’re supposed to rest and
have fun. So?”

“I suppose you’ll laugh at me if I ask about the
wonderful jewel caves? I can’t help what people write in records, you
know.”

Hinder laughed, but it wasn’t mean, or even gloating. “Oh,
they’re real.”

“They are?”

He laughed silently and nodded, his cobwebby hair drifting
into his eyes.

“But I take it something nasty will happen if you try
to steal the jewels or something?”

Hinder snickered again.

Lilah pretended to fume. She knew he wasn’t being a
show-off, but she really did hate being ignorant. “Well, how am I
supposed to know these things? The legends and songs all talk about them.”

Hinder fought down the laughter. “Not your fault. Just—I
know about the jewel caves. Seen ’em once. There are, I forget, six or
seven of them in various places over the world. People do try to get to
’em and steal. And get a big surprise.”

“Nasty magic traps! I knew it.”

Hinder shook his head, and Lilah watched his silky hair
drift. She longed to touch it, but knew better than to ask. “Not traps,”
he said. “It’s just—well, I suppose I can take you. But first
let’s get some of the others. Sana won’t come. Nobody’s
getting her away from those singers. But Pouldi, and Brick, and Vanya, and a
couple of the others I know would like to see the really, really old caverns,
with the old paintings from before the Fall, and dive off the big warm
waterfall—that’s where we like swimming best—”

Lilah rubbed her hands. “What are we waiting for?”

The morvende formed a comfortable circle. Atan noticed that
everyone could see everyone else but there was no sense of hierarchy, no person
made focus of all eyes... or the target of all eyes.

The morvende sat cross-legged on their cushions, their pale
fabrics lying in soft folds over their limbs, hands loose in laps or on knees.
They talked easily, passing small cups of freshly steeped leaf back and forth,
and Atan felt the invisible fist somewhere inside her chest unlock its grip,
one finger at a time.

She was not in danger. She was not on trial.

As if he sensed that she was ready, Lonender said, quite
kindly, “How do we know you are who you claim to be?”

Atan had expected this question. In fact, she had thought
about it long into nights when she tried to imagine what her first days in
Sartor would be like—if she wasn’t first struck down by Norsunder.

She had expected the question from the orphans of Shendoral,
but they had taken her appearance as proof enough, maybe because they were young,
too, or maybe because Savar had told them of her after his single meeting with
Tsauderei. Maybe it was because of her looks, though those couldn’t be
trusted as proof of birth.

She said, “I can’t prove it. In truth, I cannot
prove it even to myself, for I have no memories beyond growing up with Gehlei
protecting me and Tsauderei teaching me. It was they who told me who I was, and
told me the stories of what happened. It is they you must rightly question for
the truth of my identity. Not I.”

Sin’s mother exchanged looks with two other women, her
eyes so pale it was difficult to determine their color, their expression cool
and watchful. “We have taught our young ones your sunsider manners. Shall
we have them bow to you?”

Atan said, frowning, “Is that your own custom?”

The woman rippled her fingers, then flicked them away, a
gesture of negation.

“Then no bowing here. The customs of my realm can wait
on my success in restoring my kingdom. At that time—Tsauderei counseled
me I should—I will comply with the old forms. At first, anyway.” Atan’s
hands locked together.

Lonender said, “If they do not accept your authority?”

Atan sighed. “I have thought about that, too. I don’t
have an answer, beyond the conviction that each day will bring its questions. Challenges.
Decisions. But I won’t have any throne or name, or anything else that has
to be secured by violence, that much I know. Either they have me by their own choice.”
She swallowed. “Or not.”

o0o

“Here we are.” Hinder pointed the way to a
tunnel from which faint light emerged, just enough to touch his white hair with
warm highlights, and strike tiny reflective gleams in the strata of the tunnel
walls. The two were alone after all, for the other morvende kids preferred
swimming and fun.

Lilah stopped, wailing in disappointment, “This is
it
?
The famous caves, and we ran all the way up that long, long, LONG trail
just—” She remembered she was a guest and shut her mouth.

Until she realized Hinder was laughing. She groaned.

“Come on,” he said. “Not much farther.”
He started running again, and Lilah, sweaty in her sturdy black clothes that were
made for bitter winter weather—toiled after him, despite the sweat
running down her sides and making her neck itchy and hot.

The upward slant of the tunnel was sharp for only another
turn, and then leveled out, widening gradually. The light was also stronger,
enough to cast faint shadows that picked out the roughness of the stone walls. Here
no one had smoothed the walls with clay or paint or anything else. Perhaps
nature had made this tunnel, or perhaps not, but morvende hands had not
finished the job as they had everywhere else.

“Here we are,” Hinder said, breathless.

Lilah slowed, also panting. The air wasn’t heated, it
was... it was...
strange.

They rounded a last corner, and she entered a chamber filled
with light, so bright and clear her eyes teared. She sucked in a long,
shuddering breath. Hinder stood in the center, hugging his thin, strong arms to
himself and gazing upward with a happy smile.

Lilah blinked away her tears and stared. Jewels, indeed! That
was her first impression. The walls, the ceiling, even the floor, were all
jewels, though the floor had somehow flattened itself, so they were not
stepping on the sharp facets that covered the rest of the cave.

She saw jewels of every color, and each with light inside
it. There were blues so deep and so pure it almost hurt to look at them, more
cerulean than a mountain lake on midsummer’s day, their centers glowing
with a fiery cobalt more celestial than the twilight sky. Then there were the
yellows, from the palest shade of cream just turning to butter to a complex
peachy gold, and thence to the deep, bright yellow that would shame the
daffodils of spring by comparison. The reds varied from crimson, vermillion, and
deep rose to the palest blush of pink.

Then those shades began to mix.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh.”

Hinder chuckled.

Lilah spun around. The light was so strange, so
pure
,
like the air, it felt hot and cold at once, and as she stood there breathing,
she thought she heard, so faint she could not be sure, the endless rise and
fall of sweet voices singing. But there were no words, it was a hum, the sound
of the stars, if the stars were singing.

“Oh.”

“You see,” Hinder said. “Go ahead. Try to
take one.”

Lilah put her hands behind her back and shook her head, and
for a moment the dreamy singing faded, and she was closed inside her own head,
which felt hot and confined and stuffy. “No. I daren’t.”

“It’s all right. You won’t turn into a
mushroom or anything.”

“They look like they are... on fire.”

“Hah! No, they don’t burn. At least, not in the
way ordinary fire does, but your intentions are not to harm. And they know it.”

Lilah walked slowly to one of the walls and reached with
tentative fingers to touch what appeared to be a great emerald, its heart
glowing the deep, dark green of ancient woodland. The stone was smooth, like a
stone should be, not hot or cold, but she felt her bones and teeth vibrate just
slightly, and realized what she was feeling was magic.
Power
.

She dropped her hand and turned away. “Are they, well,
alive
?”

Hinder shrugged. “First you’d have to say what
that is.”

o0o

“You must know that if you do emerge sunside,”
Lonender said, “and you are successful in removing the binding spells,
that your tasks will have just begun, that there is no triumph in the sense of
safety and comfort afterward.”

Atan nodded, her throat still tight. “I know. Tsauderei
has never let a day go by without reminding me of that. Ever since I was very
small.” She drew in a deep breath. “I know I will be a target for
Norsunder, just as my parents were. As my ancestors were. So I learn, and I
trust my allies. Perhaps, together we can prevail against Norsunder, because I
know I can’t alone.”