The Diviner (58 page)

The breath was rasping in his throat. The edges of his vision were turning black, black as the ink staining his fingers, he couldn't find the little knife he'd intended to use to prick up drops of his blood and so he used the sharp point of the pen—dug it into his thumb—squinted to see that crimson dripped thick onto the last talishann the one that meant life—

He thought he heard Solanna's voice, through the screen of willow branches he could no longer see, and tried to call out to her that it was all right, everything would be perfect from now on, they would have years and years together, that she was right and he would grow old and there would be lines on his face.

His lips would not move. His head would not turn. He felt a great wrenching pain, heard a shrieking as of a furious storm, and knew nothing more.

She sat with the green book on her knees and the portrait of her husband smooth and beautiful atop it. Nissim had told her what most of the talishann meant. She had looked up the others in the book. She had taken all day to do it. With the battle raging over the hill, a battle for which she cared not at all, she had nothing else to do.

Which of the Tza'ab had betrayed the Sheyqa, which had stayed loyal to the Empress, and which had decided to fight on the side of their new land, she did not know. Which Joharrans and Cazdeyyans and Qayshi and Shagarrans and all the confused clutter of soldiers had fought with or against or for each other, she did not know. She was certain nobody else knew, either. Those who survived would tell whatever tale would allow their continued survival. They would go home and brag about their courage, their cleverness. Someone would end up taking the credit. It didn't matter. They would all go on fighting each other until someone emerged who was strong enough to make them stop.

Qamar had thought to do that. She had read it in the first few pages of the book.

“Solanna? I've found the boy.”

Miqelo's voice made her glance around. It was growing dark now. She had been staring at her husband's face for many hours. Perhaps the battle was over. Probably it was. She didn't care. “And?”

“He was coming here anyway. Qamar promised him the inks.”

“Did he.” She looked down at the case that she had repacked, all the bottles with their carved stone stoppers nestled neatly together, the extra loose papers folded atop them. “Take them. He can have them.”

“Perhaps you might want to talk to him. He's a Grijalva, after all.”

“Yes, you already said. It may be that he and I shall meet one day. But not this day, Miqelo. I've changed my mind. Not this day.”

She returned her gaze to her husband's beautiful face as Miqelo came inside the green canopy of willow leaves and picked up the inks, took them away to give to the young Grijalva who had all unknowing helped Qamar do this incredible, insane thing. Not the thing he had intended, of course. But it had happened all the same.

“Did you think you could stop a war?” she asked the portrait. “Did you truly think that? Did you think that if you showed them what was possible—” Her gaze flickered to the talishann so finely drawn, so thick around the borders of the page.
Life. Youth. Health. Strength
. A dozen more, repeated again and again, signs that originated with the Shagara in his desert homeland and variations discovered by the Shagara in their mountain fortress. The scents of the paper and the inks were still discernable, some of them still pungent. Many of them he had learned from his fellow Haddiyat. Some of them . . . some of them he had learned from her.

“Did you think,” she resumed softly, “to show them the power of this land? And that they could not hope to conquer it, but only to become in time a part of it? That, Acuyib and Claydann and their great game aside, it is the Mother who gives, and the Son who defends?”

She saw her hand tremble slightly as a fingertip traced one of the talishann. There was the faintest tinge of dark crimson to the ink, telling her that this had been the last, the one drawn with his blood.
Life
.

Eiha, he lived. Just not in the way he'd intended.

A perfect likeness, his inks on his paper, though drawn by a hand not his own; sealed with Shagara symbols and Shagara blood.
Youth. Health. Time. Strength. Safety. Permanence. Life
. Woods and herbs and flowers and water had intensified the meanings of the talishann, amplified the potency of his blood. The magic had done what he had insisted it do, in the only way it could.

Just not in the way he'd intended.

Opening the book, she used a knife to slit the inside back cover. She wasted another moment looking at the portrait, then slid a protective sheet of paper across it and carefully slid both pages between the leather and the wooden backing. She would glue it closed later. It would be safe enough for now.

He would be safe enough. For now.

She closed the book, locked it, and slipped the small golden key into her pocket. Rising, she held the book to her breast with one hand and took up the dead lamp in the other. Nothing was left behind as she emerged from the willow tree and went to find Miqelo, to tell him she was ready to leave.

He waited for her beside their horses. In the darkness campfires sparked here and there on the hillsides. There was no moon.

“You still haven't said where Qamar went,” he reminded her. “Or when he'll come back.”

She held the book tighter.
He never left
, was the truthful answer. What she said was, “In his own time, I suppose. Come, Miqelo, I want to be far away from here by morning.”

B
asically, you see, it's very strange sometimes, the way books get written.

Even now I recall perfectly receiving a fax at the Athens Gate Hotel in Athens, Greece. The gist of it was that my agent wanted to know if I'd be interested in doing a book with two of his other clients, Jennifer Roberson and Alis Rasmussen. So, the three of us being friends anyway, we agreed and in January of 1994 met at Jennifer's house in Phoenix, Arizona. (You may imagine the profundity of Alis' joy at sitting outside in shorts and a t-shirt, soaking up winter sunshine; her home was in Pennsylvania back then.) As we worked (and we did work, honest!), we sparked ideas off each other in ways that had never happened to any of us before and had ourselves a fine, creative, splendid time, and a lot of fun.

Not to put too fine a point on it, though, once we were off on the 1996 book tour, we were all flummoxed by the insinuations (and more than insinuations sometimes) that three women couldn't possibly work together on a book without multiple catfights. Drastic drops in ambient room temperature followed these interview questions—I can remember the first time it happened, when I sort of sat there with my jaw flapping open, Alis' eyes widened to approximately the size of teacups, and Jennifer's posture became that of a soldier on parade. (Some people “get their backs up” as the saying goes; Jennifer's spine becomes a ramrod.) How and what we answered, I've forgotten. Essentially, the implication was that nobody thought three women could work together on a project, especially one of this size and scope, without behaving like peevish children rather than professionals who admire and respect each other's work. Is it cantankerous of me to wonder if that sort of question would be asked of three male writers who wrote a book together?

Looking back, there is one shocking thing about that book. As presented in that original fax, the concept of
The Golden Key
was “about 50,000 words each.” Clearly, this was ridiculous; the thing ended up being 337,000 words long. And I accounted for about 105,000 of them. Now, many people are skeptical that mine could be the shortest section, but I am occasionally capable of restraint. Kind of.

It's documented in the faxes we exchanged even before the Phoenix meeting (yes, faxes; not emails), that prior to working out the ideas and plotlines, we were determined that the book would give the readers the experience they expected from our solo novels. Should a reader come to
The Golden Key
as a Rawn, Roberson, or Elliott fan (or, most desirably, of course, a fan of all three!), we wanted to provide the feel of our individual work while ensuring that the story flowed as seamlessly as possible from section to section. Surely this sort of thing is impossible without knowing, understanding, and liking each other and each other's work?

Many years have gone by, but I've finally finished
The Diviner
. Yattering on about what happened betweentimes is fairly pointless; all I can do is apologize for taking so long. It had its start with questions we all had about where the Grijalva gift came from. Right before
The Golden Key
was published, I was traveling in Morocco, a land so amazingly beautiful that I wanted to use it as a backdrop. I add that whereas the best of Tza'ab Rih originates in Morocco, the politics, history, and religion of the former are the products of my imagination. Simply put, it ain't real—but my job is to make it feel real. Having received a Bachelor's in History from Scripps College, I worry sometimes that the distinguished professors who tried to make of me a scholar would cringe at the use to which I've put my education. Apologies to them, too.

Special thanks to Darcey (for linguistic advice which I then skewed to my own purposes—this is the difference between a Scholar and a Novelist). So too I need to thank Gordon Crabbe; Russ Galen; Laurie Rawn; B.J. Doty and Primus St. John; Rodney, James, and Jeane Relleve Caveness, Ph.D.; Teresa Taylor; Lee and Barbara Johnson; Jay and Sonia Busby.