The Hidden Icon (13 page)

The Rogue’s Ear, what is it?

Gannet hadn’t gone far, but still he answered me in kind. First there were images of a narrow riding path, and darker impressions of a tunnel with more branches than I had hairs on my head. He withheld a picture of the valley at the tunnel’s end, the wealth of green and running waters that no doubt awaited within. I had the distinct impression he did not want to spoil the pleasure of viewing that first myself, with my own eyes. I drew nearer to him, almost without meaning to, and this time I did speak.

“Have we rogues to fear, then?” I asked, attempting to make light of what I knew was an extremely tense situation. Gannet didn’t grimace, but he might as well have done.

“Rogues will be the least of our worries.”

“Ignore him,” Morainn said, surprising us both in her approach and more with her dark grin. “He’s only saying that because he’s never had his pocket picked.” Gannet would never rebuke her in front of everyone, but I could tell he wanted to and might even have risked a hard look if Triss hadn’t called Morainn’s attention away again. She bid her rest and eat, and crooned something about combing scent into her hair. Normally I would’ve though it a stupid gesture, but we all stank of the flames that had consumed the barge.

Though the night was a mild one, I knew that colder ones were coming, and wondered at the fires that were springing to life around us. They were meant to protect us against something other than the elements, but reminded me too much of the fires we had fled. I felt now more than I ever had that the Ambarians had as much to fear from me as the Cascari had, that they were fools not to do as the Cascari had done and drive me before them with fire and spear. But they sheltered me, their treasured prisoner, despite the fact that each time I had lost control, my concern for those around me had vanished. Morainn had been on that ship with me, and I wouldn’t have cared if she drowned until it was too late.

The greater threat for me was that I cared if she drowned at all. Six weeks ago I would have been glad of her death if it meant my freedom. Now, I had the distinct impression she was as much a prisoner as I was, for all the shape of her chains were different.

Gannet’s gentle touch on my mind interrupted my thoughts, expressing a desire to speak with me. The little intimacy I had with him was another strange and guilty comfort, though I didn’t know whether his actions were courtesy or protocol. I supposed that I would know when we reached Ambar and there were others, though the idea of being so vulnerable to so many was not one I was willing too much to imagine.

“There’s still time to teach you,” he announced softly, answering my unspoken fears. Perhaps I was not growing as disciplined as he claimed. I didn’t answer, but there wasn’t any lesson of his that I would refuse. I knew that soon enough there wouldn’t be time.

“Perhaps you could teach me something practical?”

My tone was light as I unpacked a bedroll from Circa’s saddle, testing its thickness against the chill. Though several fires were burning strong already, I wasn’t sure I would be welcomed to sleep next to any of them. It was my hope that the soldiers who would no doubt be set to guard me while I slept would build a fire of their own.

“Like breathing underwater?”

He knew, and my surprise brought an image of one of the sirens unbidden to the surface of my mind. Gannet’s expression changed as surely as if he had experienced my near drowning himself, and he closed the little distance between us so that when he spoke next, it was as though he were making conversation with the pack he began urgently to remove from Circa’s saddle.

“Did you tell anyone?”

His hiss blended perfectly with the smooth sound of leather strap sliding over saddle, and I shook my head, quickly attempting to appear as occupied as he. We faced Circa together, arms and shoulders brushing as we methodically removed saddle, bridle, and the single, achingly light pack.

“When would I have had time to do that? We were just chased out of Cascar.” I paused, hoping my eagerness wasn’t as plain as it felt to me. “Did you know about them?”

“Some stories are only stories,
Han’dra
Eiren,” he said abruptly, as dull as though he remarked upon the sheen of Circa’s coat. I could feel the turbulence in his touch and his mind, and while I had expected an unfavorable reaction from him when he learned of my rescue, this wasn’t what I’d expected.

“Then you’d rather I were dead?”

“We can’t talk about this right now. Tonight. Stay quiet and stay with Morainn.”

He deposited a satchel of necessities into my arms, a reserve of rations and water following. It seemed he’d recovered more than the book from the burning barge. I couldn’t carry these and all the rest without concentrating, and my anger dissolved into embarrassment as I moved awkwardly toward the fire. I wasn’t surprised to find Morainn enthroned already on not one but several bedrolls, piled on top of each other.

“Triss will never forgive you for all of the clothes that have burned up. But she’s taken to the foolish Cascari and is afraid of you, so she may prattle less when you’re around. I must keep you close to lessen my own suffering,” Morainn said plainly, teasing Triss, but more than a little bit serious. I wasn’t sure if I was meant to laugh or not, but true to Morainn’s words, Triss remained quiet, shooting me furtive looks. If Morainn and Gannet hoped to keep Theba a secret, they would do better to sedate me until we reached Ambar.

As though we had reached some agreement hours before on the shore or cast our hands together in blood, Morainn patted a square of bedroll beside her. I knew I could not refuse her, and I found I didn’t want to.

“Then we’ve lost everything?” I asked quietly, eyeing the guard settling down on only hard earth to sleep, the few packs that I hoped would contain rations enough to see us through to Ambar. Why did I care about the backs and bellies of murderers? But I did, if only to counter the terrible feelings Theba conjured in me when she took control. When I let her her take control.

“Not everything,” Morainn replied. As though to punctuate her statement, she produced an assortment of Cascari delicacies: fruits elegantly cut and set into other fruits, sweet rice wrapped in tender leaves, crumbling spice bread. I did not feel guilty accepting her offer, for these things would not have traveled well: already the flesh of the fruit browned, the leaves wilted.

“Triss, go and get us some fresh water.” Morainn’s command interrupted Triss’ hungry gaze at the fruit that remained, and for all I did not care much for the girl, I knew I owed it to her to save her one. I’d nearly drowned her, as well as myself. But as soon as she had departed, Morainn looked at me as though the water had merely been a diversion. We had a limited amount of privacy, sitting so close and talking low, and Morainn intended to take advantage of it.

“I want you to know,” she began, casting her eyes as earnestly to the fire as she had at first to my face. “Gannet and others like him believe you to be Theba. I believe it, too, but I don’t think it makes you any less than who you have been. Icons live many lives. I’ve met two Dsimahs,” Morainn continued, mentioning another, gentler goddess, “and they were completely different. The first died an old woman before she could fulfill whatever purpose it was she returned for.”

She paused, as though there was something she wanted to say, but wasn’t sure how to, or if it should be said. Morainn being Moriann, she forged ahead.

“For most people, there will be no distinction between you and Theba. But what happened out there… you can’t be blamed for Theba’s violence any more than you can be faulted for telling Eiren’s stories. You’re a force of nature, and a victim of it, too.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I was grateful for the haze of heat that obscured our faces. Her confession deserved something more from me than gratitude, though, and I found I wanted to talk with her as I had not wanted to with Gannet. He insisted that to be Theba meant I couldn’t be anything else. With Morainn there was still room to be me.

“I don’t understand how she has lain quiet in me all of this time.” My voice was as hushed as hers had been. In stories Theba was a brutal and jealous force, but she wasn’t easy to understand. She could be hurt and was most famously betrayed, but unlike her human counterparts, unlike
me
, she could feel no empathy, and preferred to wound many times over more deeply than she had ever been.

“I don’t know how, either. Icons are always taken from their families at young ages and raised to know who and what they are. In Ambar, everyone knows what is expected of them,” she mused grimly, and her expression darkened. “It’s not just the icons, either.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant, but even as I opened my mouth Triss returned with water. Imke was behind her and Morainn engaged them both as though our exchange had exhausted her. I allowed their idle conversation to continue without my input, searching instead the shadows beyond the fire’s light for Gannet. I felt readier to speak with him, now that I had spoken with Morainn. Now that I had unwittingly begun to tell my secret, the rest felt like a wall of sand, ready to crumble at any moment. I waited, sucking the sticky grains of rice from my fingers and, despite the urgency of my heart, felt my eyes grow heavy with exhaustion. Even the stony ground beneath my too-thin bedroll seemed welcoming, but I wouldn’t relinquish the world, not yet.

“I think I should face my fears, as
Han’dra
Eiren does.”

Morainn’s voice demanded my notice, and I realized that not only was she talking about me, she was looking at me also, and her handmaids, too. I blanched in surprise at the attention.

“What fears can
Han’dra
Eiren have?” Imke did not need to allude to what had happened to make her meaning any clearer. I didn’t like being the center of any conversation, let alone this one.

“Perhaps she can tell us,” Morainn said softly, but with an air of command, eyes traveling from the inscrutable faces of her servants to mine. I didn’t have the impression that Morainn was testing me, but was instead sounding the depths of the others circled around the fire. This was a move deft enough to mark her as Gannet’s sister, and I found myself smirking despite my anxiety.

He was listening, too. I could sense him now, like a shadow more treacherous than any cast by the fire, a potent darkness. He was waiting, and I knew I wouldn’t have what I needed until they had theirs.

As a girl I might have said that I feared the tribes of dawn and dusk, savage ghosts who stalked those hours for children who were out of bed when they shouldn’t have been. Only a few years ago my nightmares would have been populated by Ambarian soldiers. Now an ancient tale came to me, one whose meaning couldn’t be lost on anyone truly listening.

“There are crimes that no mortal punishment can atone for, and of one such crime was Herat guilty. Half as many years as she had been alive had she been imprisoned for the murder of her mother and father. Though she suffered greatly, she felt no regret, no remorse. This grieved her jailors but grieved most Adah, the immortal lord of justice.”

Even as I said his name, I wondered if the Ambarians knew him as an icon. Imke’s attention seemed to weigh no more or less upon me for all she had asked for this, though I was pleased to see that Morainn had relaxed even as I began the dark tale.

“Adah knew that he couldn’t make Herat repent, not when she valued so little what she had taken. He knew he must cause her to want and to treasure, and then take from her what she would never know she had been given. But no matter how Adah tried to challenge Herat he couldn’t succeed in making her repent until he sought the counsel of Theba.

“Theba knew well the hearts of mortals, how fickle and weak they could be, how subject to flattery and covetousness; those hearts especially that were corrupted in some way, as Herat’s was. Because of this, Theba urged Adah to take the guise of a mortal and pose as one of Herat’s jailors. He would be kind to her, he would make her love him, and then he would leave her. It would be easy with a mortal, Theba insisted. This Adah did and readily, for he liked so well the plan’s fruition that he was blind to the possibility of failure. But because Theba would not be satisfied without some sport, she wagered that Adah should have only a year and a day to make Herat love him, and if he could not, she would kill Herat.

“When Adah came to Herat and allowed her small pleasures, when he protected her and improved the conditions of the cramped and pest-ridden cell she had inhabited, she grew to trust, and later to love. It was easy, as Theba had said it would be, and when Herat and Adah had shared days and sleepless nights enough, the god chose to bring the murderess to her true punishment at last.

“Were there no other souls for the god to judge in that time?” Imke’s peevish interruption was not an uncommon one. I recalled my brother Jurnus’ exclamation, similarly timed, when first my mother had told us this tale. Unlike Jurnus, however, I expected Imke already knew the answer to her question.

But Morainn didn’t give me the opportunity to silence her handmaid.

“Adah was no more immune to the thrill of vengeance than the goddess whose counsel he sought, nor the mortal woman he judged. Go on, Eiren.”

No one would dare to contradict Morainn, and I could have no higher command at present. I continued.

“When Adah begged Herat to escape with him and laid out for her how it should be done, she seized upon his mouth with her own as readily as she did this chance for a new life. It was done in the night, with Adah’s intervention to clear the way and dull the senses of the other jailors. Theba took the shape of a jailer outside of the prison, and when she advanced upon the pair as she and Adah had plotted, Herat froze, her instincts dull from neglect. Adah, however, was ready, and he fell upon Theba’s blade even as he sunk his own into a critical organ so that Theba seemed to lay dead and Adah dying. If Herat attempted to escape even as her lover lay dying Theba would have her life, and if she stayed, Adah his justice.