Transformation (21 page)
Authors: Carol Berg
“More than an hour since.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I know nothing else.”
“Maybe the Emperor forbade him to go,” he mumbled to another warrior who stood in the doorway, dressed in thick clothing suitable for a midnight ride into the mountains.
“I’d like to think it,” said the other. “Chasing into the Jybbar in the middle of the night ... it’s not how I’d choose to spend my dakrah feast.”
“I’d surely not do it for my likai,” said Sovari, and the two of them laughed as they walked out. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could laugh on that night.
I let my pen fall on the sheet of gibberish in front of me, put my head in my hands, and tried to figure out what in the name of the stars I was to do. I had been trained from the age of five to see beyond the evidence of my eyes, to hear nuances unnoticeable to ordinary ears, to taste and feel and smell the slightest variations in the textures of the world so that I could oppose the works of demons. Yet these skills were honed to work with melydda, power I could no longer use.
Another hour passed. One by one the candles winked out. As the night winds howled, blowing rain and sleet against the windows and whining behind the draperies, a servant came in and built up the flagging fire. I stayed quiet in the dark, and she never saw me. Periodically Sovari would open the door, peer into the room at the untouched pile of riding clothes, and mutter a curse before slamming the door shut again. The world might have ended beyond the gilded panels of Aleksander’s door.
I needed to leave. At some time soon, the Chamberlain’s men were going to start looking for me, and the consequences of being “out of control” for so long would be severe. I was numb with dread, and I craved the safety of darkness and solitude and ignorance. One more hour. Then I would go.
I must have fallen asleep, for when I heard the door close softly, the fire was no more than glowing coals and my hand lay numb under the weight of my head. I held still and silent in the dark. Listening.
From the floor between the blue couch and the pulsing red coals of the hearth came a low growling. A mournful, animal sound. Aleksander had a pack of hunting dogs—sleek Kuzeh hounds that could outrace the fleetest fell-deer—but he didn’t like them in his apartments. Perhaps someone had let one of them up from the kennels.
But on second hearing the quiet moan of anguish was very human. I crept across the room, my bare feet silent on the carpet, and peered down at the source of the noise. Curled up on the floor just next to the hearth was the Prince. Water pooled on the hearth tiles beneath his sodden black finery, and he was shivering violently.
I dropped to my knees at his side. “Your Highness, are you injured?”
He recoiled at my touch. “Who’s there?” His voice was hoarse and wrenchingly tight.
“Seyonne, my lord. I was waiting to speak with you. Should I send for Giezek?”
“No ... gods, no.”
I grabbed blankets from his bed to throw over him, then stirred the coals and fed the fire to bring it back to life. Next I found brandy and a cup, and helped Aleksander sit up to drink it. There were dark smears on his face and on the shaking hands that gripped the wine cup. While he sipped and huddled close to the fire, I warmed a basin of water and found a clean towel.
“May I help you clean yourself, Your Highness?”
He was puzzled until I gestured toward his hands. The wine cup clattered to the hearth, and the dark liquid pooled on the tiles, then crept gleefully along the mortared crevices, hissing as it dribbled into the coals. “It was only a dream,” whispered Aleksander. “A nightmare. I drank no wine or spirits. ...” When he dipped his hands into the basin, red blood swirled into the clear water, and he jerked them out again as if they were scalded. “Madness.”
“Are you injured, my lord? There’s more blood on your face.”
“It’s not possible.” He pushed the basin away, then snatched the damp towel and scrubbed wildly at his face before throwing the towel in the fire.
I took the basin away and emptied it. When I returned to the Prince, he was no longer shivering, but only staring at the fire with clenched hands pressed to his mouth. The orange flames left his skin sallow.
“Your Highness, is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. Go away.”
“If I may speak, my lord, there are things I must tell you about the Khelid. I suspect that my news might bear on whatever disturbs you so.”
“Nothing has happened to me. I got drunk and walked about outside. That’s all. Nothing more. Cut a finger ... or something. ...”
He offered no explanation of why no cut was visible or how he’d gotten drunk without drinking anything. I tried again. “What I was trying to tell you earlier was that this Khelid Kastavan also bears a rai-kirah—a very dangerous one. Far more dangerous than Korelyi’s demon. My lord, I suspect all the Khelid in the palace are possessed by demons. I’ve never seen the like ... so many at once, working together as they are. I cannot imagine the danger ... and I know a great deal about demons.”
“You look in their eyes, and you can see who bears demons and who does not. Is that the way of it?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then, tell me what you see here.” He jabbed a finger at his own eye. “Tell me that I am taken by a rai-kirah, then perhaps things will make sense.”
I did as he asked. It was certainly possible, though rare, for a demon to reveal itself voluntarily. But the feadnach still burned within him, which meant no demon ruled there. He was not untouched, however. A veil of enchantment shadowed his bright center—exactly what I should have been able to guard him against.
“So it’s true, is it?” He leaned back on the cushions heaped by the hearth and poured himself another cup of brandy from the flask I had left there. “I see it in your face. I’m one of them, too.”
“No.” Sluggish with fear and despair, it was very hard to make the shift back from the distance of my true seeing, so I had no sense left for caution in choosing words. “No, my lord, there is no demon in you—none you were not born with.”
To my astonishment, after only a moment’s pause, Aleksander burst into laughter—hearty, healthy, hopeless merriment. “I have never known anyone like you, Seyonne,” he said, raising his cup in mock salute. “You mourn the universe while ignoring a knife pointed at your eye. Come, slave, tell me what you really think of me.”
His laughter nagged and nipped at my spirits like an annoying pup, and before another moment passed, I was laughing with him. For ten minutes we wallowed in the silken cushions and chortled like drunken drovers. I had not laughed in a century. It cured nothing, reduced the magnitude of the dilemma not a whit, yet I took strength from it.
I rubbed my hand over my short hair trying to return some wit to my head. “We cannot laugh this away, my lord. I wish we could. There is no demon in you, but they have managed to bind you with an enchantment—a very nasty thing. It happened at the performance tonight, I would guess. The magic they worked was very powerful.”
He lay back and gazed thoughtfully on the golden wine cup as it gleamed in the firelight. “I should kill all of you. Khelid and Ezzarians. Perhaps I will. All of this is words and mirrors and distractions. Theater props. None of it real.” He wasn’t going to tell me what had happened to him. He felt stronger, too, and believed he could resist it, whatever it was, just as he had resisted the sleeplessness.
“If you can control whatever they’ve done to you, you are stronger than any sorcerer.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Then, you should send me away, my lord. The farther, the better, for I am the one who is mad. But if whatever didn’t happen should happen again, I might be of some help.” I pressed my forehead to the floor, and started toward the door. “Shall I take a message to Captain Sovari?”
“Sovari!” He sat up straight. “Athos’ balls, what time is it?”
“Somewhere in second watch,” I said.
“Damn. Tell him to wake me at dawn, and we’ll be off. Tell him ... tell him I decided we needed to ride in daylight.”
“As you command, my lord.”
I left him poking at the fire, and crept past the attendants sleeping outside his door. After delivering his message to the Derzhi captain, who had been snoring under a horse blanket in the stables, I slipped up the back stair to the attic room and collapsed onto my pallet. Tired as I was, I could not sleep.
The Lord of Demons . . . here, working such magic ... the war to end the world.
As I lay in the dark stale air, listening to the harrowing moans of slave dreams, my thoughts wandered into the dusty corridors of Ezzarian prophecy. The Scroll of Eddaus foretold a lost battle—a prophecy that many of my countrymen believed had been fulfilled with the Derzhi conquest. That writing was the same that spoke of the Gai Kyallet ... and foretold a second battle, which, if lost, would leave the world in the thrall of demons. My people had been confidant that, however terrible our first defeat, this second and final battle was far in the future. All we had to do was make sure that some of us survived, to grow strong again. But what if we had been wrong? I threw my arms over my head and added my groans to those of my sleeping brethren. I could not bear to think.
The Lord of Demons . . . here, working such magic ... the war to end the world.
As I lay in the dark stale air, listening to the harrowing moans of slave dreams, my thoughts wandered into the dusty corridors of Ezzarian prophecy. The Scroll of Eddaus foretold a lost battle—a prophecy that many of my countrymen believed had been fulfilled with the Derzhi conquest. That writing was the same that spoke of the Gai Kyallet ... and foretold a second battle, which, if lost, would leave the world in the thrall of demons. My people had been confidant that, however terrible our first defeat, this second and final battle was far in the future. All we had to do was make sure that some of us survived, to grow strong again. But what if we had been wrong? I threw my arms over my head and added my groans to those of my sleeping brethren. I could not bear to think.
The Prince did not leave at dawn. He was nowhere to be found when Sovari came to wake him, so I heard. I heard a number of the rumors that flitted through the palace that day. After administering five lashes and a solid beating with his padded truncheon and putting me on half rations for a month for my evening’s disappearance, Boresh set me to scrubbing floor tiles. I guessed that the expanse of floor in the Summer Palace could have paved all the kingdom of Manganar. But even through the haze of hunger and pain and too little sleep, I heard the talk as I worked.
The Prince is ill. The Prince regrets his impulse to search for Lord Dmitri. After all, he detests the old man. Has threatened to poison him. Has cursed him and tried to keep him away from Capharna. There’s ill luck hanging over this dakrah: the Marshal Dmitri missing, the bandit raids at Erum. Beasts have come down from the mountains and been seen in the city. A tavern keeper was mauled in the last night.
Sometime just after midday, I moved my aching knees to yet another square of cold slate in the gallery that separated the residential wing from the administrative wing of the palace. As I gritted my teeth and dipped my raw hand into the water pail yet again, two men hurried past. One of them was Aleksander, fastening the high collar on a green tunic as he walked. “... do not need to explain myself to anyone,” he said. “Now, I’m late. ...”
Aleksander hurried on, while his companion stopped and put his hands on his hips in exasperation. It was Sovari.
“May I be of service, Captain?” I said, pausing for a moment to ease my burning shoulders.
In one glance he took in my identity and the bloody tunic stuck to my back. “We’ve both felt the brunt of this night’s doings it seems,” he said.
“I’ve had better mornings,” I said.
“He changed his mind. We’re not to go after the Marshal, after staying up half the night to be ready. He’s sent another party into the Jybbar. I’ve been put on report for upsetting the household. I may have lashes of my own coming.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. I only brought the message I was told.”
“We all do as we’re told, but some days it doesn’t seem to matter.”
I saw no more of Aleksander that day. I worked until two hours past midnight before finishing. Neither mind nor body could function any longer, and I was glad for it. Not even the growling in my belly would keep me awake. But as I stumbled up the attic stair ready to ease my weary bones and torn flesh onto the pallet, a hand gripped my arm and a whisper burst upon my ear. “Come with me, Ezzarian.”
“I’ve done everything required, Master Boresh,” I mumbled. “If you have more floors to be cleaned—”
“Quiet.” The hand dragged me away from the barracks-room door and the snoring guard, and down another back stair. Who was it? Boresh had no need for secrecy. As we turned at a landing, a sliver of moonlight penetrated a grimy window and fell on a broad, flat Manganar face encircled by wiry, gray-streaked hair.
“Master Durgan!”
“I said to close your mouth. Just come.”
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