The Shining City (4 page)

She was dressed, as usual, in a plain black gown, very like the apprentice‟s robe Olwynne wore, only Maya‟s was covered with a long white apron. Her greying hair was pinned back under a plain white cap. One side of her face was badly scarred, while the prominent knuckles of the webbed hand holding the door were red and swollen with hard work. She looked old and tired and sad.

“Maya, I‟m glad ye‟re awake,” Isabeau said. “I need to speak with ye. May I come in?”

Maya raised an eyebrow.

“I wish to examine your nyx-hair ribbon,” Isabeau said bluntly.

With an eloquent gesture, Maya lifted one hand towards the black ribbon bound about her throat.

“I do no‟ wish to do it standing in the corridor,” Isabeau said impatiently. “Why will ye no‟ let me in?”

Maya shrugged and stood back, allowing Isabeau and Olwynne to step into her room.

“Perhaps because she wishes to retain some illusion o‟ privacy,” a lilting, musical voice said very sweetly.

Bronwen was sitting on the edge of the dressing table, swinging one foot. She was dressed in a short-sleeved linen gown that exactly matched the soft blue of her eyes. She had dispensed with the usual collar of lace, the neckline cut square to show off her white throat and breast. It was not just her flawless skin that Bronwen was revealing. Long fins curved from elbow to wrist, and gills fluttered gently just under her jaw on either side of her neck. Her skin gleamed with subtle silvery scales, as silky as a snake‟s throat, and her nose was long and highly arched, with flexible nostrils that could clamp tightly shut or flare wide in temper.

Her hair was secured back from her brow with a comb of silver-edged seashells and hung to her knees like a glossy black curtain. One white lock of hair sprang from her brow and wound its way down to the end, startling against the blackness. She was like a column of ice, so cool and sharp was her beauty, and so adamantine her composure.

“Bronwen!” Isabeau exclaimed. “What are ye doing here?”

“Visiting my mother. Or is that no‟ allowed?”

“At the crack o‟ dawn?”

“My mother works from sunup to midnight and is rarely allowed any breaks. When else am I to see her?”

“Oh, Bronwen, dinna exaggerate! She is no‟ a slave! She has plenty o‟ free time, like anyone else who works in the service o‟ the Coven.”

“A few hours a week. I happen to wish to see my mother more often than that, and preferably when she is no‟ exhausted by her work.”

“Bronwen, ye ken ye can see your mother whenever ye want,” Isabeau said in exasperation. “I would‟ve thought midday a far more civilized time to come calling. Maya has a lunch break, just like anyone else does, and ye could have gone into the gardens and eaten together.”

“Och, aye, the gardens at lunchtime. Very private, with five hundred squalling brats running around.”

“I‟m sure ye o‟ all people would know where to find a quiet corner,” Olwynne said.

Isabeau glanced at her with a slight frown, and she subsided. Bronwen shot Olwynne a sharp-edged look, then smiled, as if deciding to accept the remark as a compliment.

“Maya, I need to look at your ribbon,” Isabeau said, turning to Bronwen‟s mother, who had been standing silently by the wall, her hands folded together, her face impassive.

“Why?” Bronwen cried at once. “What has my poor mother done to warrant this . . . this intrusion?”

“Oh, Bronny, pipe down,” Isabeau said. “I just need to make sure all is well. There‟s no need for these histrionics. It‟ll only take a moment.”

Maya inclined her head, allowing her hands to fall down beside her body. Isabeau led her to sit in the only chair, flame uncurling from the wick of every candle in the room. Even the candlelight failed to alleviate all the shadows in the gloomy little room. With an impatient gesture, Isabeau conjured a ball of light to hang above the mute woman‟s head, casting a strong steady light upon her. Maya kept her face lowered as Isabeau carefully felt right around the black braid of ribbon bound about her throat. Isabeau was frowning, and Olwynne felt a sudden rise in tension. She glanced at Bronwen, who grimaced at her and stretched out one elegant hand to examine her nails.

Isabeau stood back. “Maya, did aught untoward happen last night?”

Maya looked up at her and shrugged. She lifted the little slate that hung from her belt and rapidly wrote, “Heard nyx fly over” with a piece of chalk she carried in her apron pocket.

“The sound woke ye?”

Maya put one hand behind her ear, then folded both hands and rested her head upon them, closing her eyes.

“But then ye went back to sleep?”

Maya nodded.

“Naught else?”

Maya shook her head.

“Very well. Thank ye. I‟m sorry to have intruded upon your privacy.” Isabeau cast a smiling glance at Bronwen, who gave another expressive grimace and jumped to her feet.

“Let me show ye out,” she said sweetly.

“Och, thanks, but I think we can find our way,” Isabeau answered. “Come on, Olwynne, ye‟ll be

late to breakfast if ye do no‟ hurry. See ye soon,” she said to both Maya and Bronwen with a nod and a little smile, and led the way out of the narrow, cheerless room, the witch-light winking out behind her.

The corridor was empty now, all the other servants gone to their work. Olwynne was able to ask,

“So the ribbon is intact?”

“The ribbon is very much intact, and I felt a tingle o‟ magic, as I should,” Isabeau said slowly.

“So everything‟s all right? No need to fear?”

“I‟m no‟ sure,” Isabeau answered. “Things did no‟ feel right. It was a powerful spell Ceit Anna wrought for us, and nyx magic is strange and unknowable, I had always thought. Yet . . . the magic I felt seemed simple enough—spells o‟ binding and silence. And though there was magic enough that my fingertips still tingle, somehow . . .”

“What?”

The Keybearer shrugged. “I dinna ken. It is a very long time since I last touched the ribbon. I do no‟ remember how it should feel.”

“As long as it‟s still intact, and the magic holds,” Olwynne said.

“Aye,” Isabeau agreed, her frown deepening. “So long as the magic holds.”

B
uilt on a narrow tongue of land between two turbulent waterfalls, Lucescere had been named the Shining City for good reason. Where the two rivers met and fell over the edge of the cliff, a great haze of spray was flung up and, on a fine day, irradiated with sunlight so a double rainbow arched over the city. Tall towers topped with gilded domes and spires soared into the air behind high walls of warm sandstone. A bridge with many great arches spanned the river, which was lined on either bank with tall pillars of golden-leaved trees that rustled continually. Beyond the bridge, the sparkling waters seemed to simply dissolve into arching prisms of light.

That warm spring evening, with the sun balancing delicately on the peak of the distant mountains and flooding the whole landscape with vivid glowing color, Lucescere seemed like a city out of a faery tale. Rhiannon sat very still on the stallion‟s back, staring, her arms wound tight around Lewen‟s waist, her breath caught in her throat.

Her companions were exclaiming aloud with wonder and amazement, but Rhiannon could not utter a sound. She had never seen anything so beautiful.

“The river falls over the cliff just beyond the bridge,” Lewen said, twisting in the saddle so he could see her face. “The waterfall is even bigger than the one we passed at Ravenscraig. It falls more than two hundred feet down into the valley. Ye‟re lucky it is such a bonny day, for ye can see the rainbows the falls are famous for. It makes the city look quite magical, doesn‟t it?”

Rhiannon nodded. Everywhere she looked were towers and domes and pointed roofs and

minarets, all gleaming with gold or flying with flags or glittering with glass. Up until now, the biggest town Rhiannon had ever seen was Linlithgorn in Ravenshaw, and that had had no

building taller than three stories and no more than a few hundred houses. Many of the towers in Lucescere soared seven stories high, and there were far too many of them to count. Rhiannon could not begin to imagine how many people lived there.

Lewen clicked his tongue, and his big grey stallion, Argent, began to make his way down the hill. Rhiannon settled back with a sigh. Even after all these weeks on the road, it irked her to have to ride pillion behind Lewen. If only she could ride her winged mare, Blackthorn! They could have soared above the city, seeing it as only an eagle could, instead of trudging their way along the dusty road.

Rhiannon looked back at the forest behind them. She could see Blackthorn, cantering along through the trees, her long black wings folded along her sides. It was a great comfort to Rhiannon, knowing her flying horse followed her still. Blackthorn could easily have disappeared back into the mountains. She was not constrained by chains, like Rhiannon was, nor even by a bridle and rein. Only love and loyalty kept her trotting along behind the caravans, for, as Rhiannon had discovered, these were bonds as strong as any manacle, in their way.

The thought made her stomach clench with anxiety and fear. Soon they would ride into the Shining City, and Rhiannon would at last discover her fate. She had been accused of murdering one of the Rìgh‟s most trusted lieutenants and, if found guilty, would most likely be hanged for her crime. Lewen was sure this would not happen, assuring her the Rìgh could never execute one so young and fair. Rhiannon did not trust his judgment, however, for Lewen was her lover as well as her captor, and she thought his passion for her must surely cloud his reasoning.

It had certainly clouded hers, she thought sourly. Lewen had made her give her word of honor that she would not try to escape, and foolishly Rhiannon had promised. Despite her word, the Rìgh‟s courier Iven had insisted she and Lewen be chained together, and so a short length of clanking iron chain fettered them, giving them neither the freedom to be apart nor the freedom to truly grow closer together.

Six weeks they had been chained together, night and day, unable to eat or sleep or scratch or squat without the other one witness to the act. At times the chain had made their lovemaking more intense, even inflaming their desire. At other times the enforced intimacy had been unbearable.

Rhiannon returned her gaze to the Shining City. Somewhere within those glowing walls lived the Rìgh, Lachlan the Winged, who ruled all of Eileanan and the Far Islands and had the power of life and death over her. Would she be executed for murder and treason, or would she be pardoned? If the order of execution was stayed, as Lewen promised it would be, what other punishment would be devised for her? Rhiannon had learned enough about the man she had killed to know that he had been greatly loved by the Rìgh. Surely he would demand retribution?

Rhiannon had heard tales of a man being branded with a T for “traitor” and condemned to wander as an outcast, begging for food and mercy. Others had been condemned to work in the mines, deprived of sunlight and fresh air. This seemed a terrible punishment to Rhiannon, who had grown up with only the sky as her roof and the moss as her mattress. She prayed mutely to whatever god might exist that she would escape such a sentence.

They reached the Bridge of Sorrows in the early evening, when only the very tallest towers were still gilded with light. Everything else was sunk into violet dusk, the river glimmering softly under the shadowy arches. The bridge was crowded with people hurrying in and out, for the gates would be shut at sunset, at the sound of the vesper bell.

Nina drew her gaudily painted caravan up on the side of the road before the bridge, her husband, Iven, coming to a halt beside her. Although they were dressed in the bright, shabby clothes of jongleurs, both were more than they seemed. Iven had once been one of the Rìgh‟s own elite force of soldiers, the Blue Guards, until he had married. Now he was a courier and emissary for the MacCuinn, gathering and disseminating news as he drove around the countryside, and singing the songs and telling the tales the Rìgh wanted to be told. Nina was a sorceress and journeywitch in service to the Coven of Witches. As well as teaching the lore of the witches as she traveled the roads of Eileanan, it was her task to find children of magical talent and bring them back to the Theurgia, to be taught the ways of the witches. She had six young apprentices traveling with her this time, three boys and three girls, ranging in age from sixteen to eighteen.

“Well, here we are, my bairns, at Lucescere at last,” she said to them, as they all drew their weary horses close around her. “I just want to warn ye to keep close to the caravans once we are inside. Lucescere is no‟ the place to get lost in. It‟s a veritable maze o‟ streets and alleys, and it is hard to keep one‟s bearings, for the buildings are so tall ye canna see out once ye are in. So keep close, and keep a sharp eye out. Though the town watch do their best to keep things in order, there are many thieves and cutthroats here, as there are in any big city.”

The apprentices murmured their understanding.

“Rhiannon, I do no‟ ken what to do with your mare. We canna let her just follow us into Lucescere. She‟ll be spooked, for sure, by all the noise and smells. I‟m sorry, but I‟m afraid she shall have to be bridled and put on a lead rein. Can ye call her for us?”