Shadowheart s-4 Page 3

  I will be such a rock. Only give me a chance, sweet Zoria, and I will be a rock for my people.

  Qinnitan had only been awake a few confused moments when a glimpse of something manlike crawling on the beach drove her up the hills and into the forest. The thick morning fog hid the thing's full shape, but the look of it frightened her badly: either it was Vo, crippled by the poison, or something demonic, an affir out of old nursery tales lurching crablike along the gray northern sands. Qinnitan had no urge to find out which.

  She made her way up the hillside, trying to stay on grass to protect her feet but often having to clamber through the thick, scratchy shrubs that covered the slope like blotches on the face of a beggar. After a sizable part of an hour had passed, and she had put the beach far behind her, Qinnitan began to feel the sharp jab of hunger, a pain she welcomed because it came from a problem she might be able to do something about. The larger matter seemed hopeless: she was lost in an unfamiliar land, and even if she had truly escaped her captor and what she had seen on the beach had been only the last wisps of a dream, Qinnitan knew that there was little chance she would survive in the wilds for a tennight without help.

  She stopped to rest near the top of the hill, in the middle of a stand of trees with slender white trunks shaded by delicate leaves. Each stand grew a decorous distance from its fellows so that the hilltop glen seemed a gathering of stout Zoaz-priests saluting the dawn. At first she was merely impressed by the number of trees and the profusion of light-shot greenery, so different from the shaded gardens of the Seclusion, but after climbing higher, she reached a place where the trees began to thin and Qinnitan saw the full extent of the woods and the white-capped mountains beyond. She fell to her knees.

  It was one thing to see the forests of the Eion coastline from the rail of a ship, their unending dull green spread along the coast like a rumpled blanket, but quite another to be in one and to think about crossing it. Qinnitan was a child of the desert, of streets where, despite the autarch's thousand sweepers, the sand still blew, and of gardens where water was abundant precisely because it was expensive and rare. Here, Nature squandered its blessings without discrimination, as if to say, "The way you and your people live is small and sad. See here, how for my own amusement I shower my riches on mere beasts and savages!"

  For a long time she could only kneel, shivering, overwhelmed by the frightful vastness and strangeness of this alien world.

  She did not find food that day or the next. She tried chewing on the grass that sprouted between the trees; it was bitter and did not ease the gnawing ache in her stomach, but at least it did not poison her. She heard birds, saw squirrels leaping through the upper branches, and once even saw a deer poised on a rise before her as if hoping to be noticed, but Qinnitan knew nothing of hunting or trapping. Neither had she seen a single residence or any sign of human habitation. While she was a prisoner her only thought had been to get off the boat, to free herself from Daikonas Vo so he could not give her to Sulepis, since she had decided long ago that it would be better to die than to fall into the autarch's hands again. But now that she was free and still alive, she wanted to stay alive but did not know how to do it.

  What was this place that Vo had called Brenland? She could not understand how such a place could even exist, endless forest crisscrossed with fern-lined streams, green hills that looked out over more green hills, silent but for the rasping calls of hawks. If such a place existed in Xis, people would come by the thousands to enjoy this abundance of greenery and shade-it would be a byword for luxury, comfort, and beauty! But this wilderness was empty of people, lonely as the cries of its winged hunters.

  Qinnitan knew from something Vo had said that Brenland stood east and south of the place they had been headed, which meant there must be some kind of settlements to the west of her, perhaps even cities. She tried to use the sun as a guide but had trouble finding it sometimes, and when she found it again she often seemed to have lost as much ground as she had earlier gained. She could drink almost whenever she wanted from clean, cold pools, which did much to keep her from despair, but her hunger was growing every hour. When the discomfort became too much, or when her legs would not carry her any farther, she piled leafy branches on herself and did her best to sleep.

  Once or twice, when she had reached a high place out from beneath the trees she thought she saw a dark shape behind her, following her trail. If it was not the murderer Vo, it was likely nothing much better, a bear or wolf or forest demon. Each time she saw something that might be that shape slipping along behind her like a lost shadow, her heart felt cold, but each time she hurried on, determined that whatever else might happen, she would never be a prisoner again.

  Two days passed, then three, then four. Each night it grew harder to ignore the griping pain in her stomach long enough to get to sleep, and harder to get up and go forward in the morning when yet another night had brought her no dreams of Barrick Eddon. For all she knew Barrick was dead now, or worse. When she most needed him, he had left her alone.

  In the Seclusion, Qinnitan had fallen in love with one of Baz'u Jev's poems, called "Lost Upon the Mountain," and as the hours and days of Qinnitan's ordeal passed, she recited it to herself over and over again like a magic spell, though it merely gave words to her sadness and added to her growing certainty that she would die here in this unknown waste. "Morning has gone. Midday has gone. The shadows are in the folds of the deep valleys And I have lost my path. "The wind is trying to tell me something But I cannot understand the words How does the sun Find his way back through the darkness? "Somewhere I hear the call of a mountain goat. Somewhere I hear the shepherd's cry. But though I turn and turn I cannot find the direction home. How does the moon find his house in blinding day? "And yet all come home All come home again All come home and find the fires Lit for their homecoming. And wine waiting in the cup. "I ask you who find me Only to remember, please remember, That once I had breath, and on that breath Was this song."

  Keeping something familiar and sweet in her mind when the strangeness was crowding in brought her only a small amount of relief, but in this wild, empty country, that felt like a great deal to be grateful for.

  Despite her year of leisured luxury in the Seclusion, Qinnitan had become considerably tougher long before she staggered out of the water and onto the shore of this strange place. She had worked hard in Hierosol, harder even than when she had been an acolyte in the Hive, and Vo had kept her since in painful and uncomfortable conditions, feeding her only enough to keep her middling healthy; she had also slipped part of her own food to the boy Pigeon while they were still together. So Qinnitan was no hothouse flower, no orchid in the autarch's greenhouse, like the woman Baz'u Jev described in one poem, "A fragrance of ineffable sweetness, but the first brisk wind will carry it away, never to be tasted again…" But now she was coming to the end of her strength. The fifth day-she thought it was the fifth, but she was no longer certain-and then the likely sixth passed in a smear of dappled forest light, of needles and leaves sliding wetly underfoot, of first one stream to cross and then another, like shining stripes on the back of some giant beast…

  Qinnitan fell down at last and could not get up. The shadows of the late afternoon had turned the forest into a single dark place, a great tomb filled with columns to hold the crushing weight of the world and the sky. Her head seemed full of voices, chanting wordlessly, but she thought perhaps it was only the shadows of the trees falling on her, heavy as drumbeats.

  She tried to remember the prayers the Hive Sisters had taught her but she doubted Nushash could even hear her in this place so far from the sun and the red desert: a few words came to her, fragile as sand-sculptures, then quickly fell apart again.

  Please, she prayed, please do not let me die alone. The noise in her head grew deeper, greater, like the rush of a tremendous wind. Please help me find a way to Barrick… to the red-haired boy who was kind to me. Oh, gods and goddesses, please help me! I am so deep in the forest that I can't thin
k anymore! Please help me! Where am I? Where is he? Please help us…!

  For long moments after Qinnitan awoke, she did not even realize that rain was falling on her, though she was shivering hard. Then, before she could do more than rise to a crouch, a nightmare shape lurched out from between two trees and into the clearing before her. He was bent double and walked with a shambling, crablike gait. His hair sprang wildly over his head and he had the beginnings of a shaggy beard to match, but what sent a cold knife of fear deep into her gut was the mask of blood that all but covered his dirt-smeared face-blood from dozens of cuts, blood that had streamed in gouts from his nose and dried there, blood at the corners of his mouth and smeared in his whiskers. And when he opened his mouth to grin at her, there was even blood between his teeth.

  "Ah, yes," said Daikonas Vo as calmly as if they had met in the marketplace. "Here you are."

  The messenger from Syan had the look of a man who had nearly killed several horses reaching them; his cloak and breeches were more travel stains than cloth.

  "Forgive me, your Royal Highness," he said, kneeling before Eneas. "I have left an exhausted mount in every post between here and Tessis but his lordship the marquis wanted you to have this as quickly as was possible."

  Eneas reached out for the oilskin pouch, pulled out the letter, and looked briefly but closely at the seal. "My quartermaster will see you are given a meal and a place to sleep," he told the young courier. Standing there, Eneas opened the folded letter to read it while Briony waited as politely as she could. She guessed the marquis must be Erasmias Jino, a man Prince Eneas trusted despite his profession as spymaster. Briony herself had not particularly liked Jino to begin with, but unlike most of the folk in King Enander's court, he seemed to have done more good for her than bad.

  "You should read this too," he said when he had finished. His face was grim; Briony felt her throat tighten.

  "My father… is he… is there anything…?"

  "Nothing to say he is not well," Eneas quickly assured her. "Your pardon, my lady-I did not mean to frighten you. There is no direct mention of your father at all. But I do not like the other things Jino has to tell me."

  Briony took the letter from him. A frowning moment passed before she could make anything of the Marquis of Athnia's hand-he had the ornate Tessian style, all filigree and curlicue, so that his words were almost more ornament than information-but after a moment she began to get the feel of it. Also, ornate hand or not, she had to admit that after the customary greetings and salutations Jino did not waste time on needless fripperies.

  "Highness, I have done all that you asked me to do," she read out,

  "In other matters, though, things are not so satisfactory. Many at court do not even acknowledge that we are at war despite the events to the south and the attack on Hierosol. This will change when it is their own lands being snapped up by the autarch, of course, but by then it will be too late for many of them, if not for all of us."

  "But it is of the autarch himself I wish to speak, because I am in receipt of many strange pieces of news about him and can make nothing in the way of a larger picture from them. I beg your Highness to set your greater tactical understanding to this task, where my poor wits have failed."

  "Isn't the marquis rather full of himself?" asked Briony. "Even when he's trying to be unctuous, he can't quite do it."

  "He's a good man, Princess." Eneas sounded offended. "He is my right arm at the court-a place I avoid when I can, and where I desperately need men I can trust."

  "Certainly, I didn't mean…" She turned back to the letter.

  "Numerous strange reports have come from Hierosol, and not just from the refugees that clutter our cities along the southern border. Equally surprising rumors are coming from the garrison commanders and even some of the nobles, survivors of the old gentry, who are mostly now in hiding or out of Hierosol. Their stories often conflict, and in many cases are filled with unsupported speculation, but one thing almost all seem to agree on: the autarch is no longer in Hierosol. Neither is he back in his capital of Xis-travelers in the south agree that one of his lackeys, a man named Muziren Chah, still holds the viceregal throne. So the question becomes, where is the autarch?

  "Some of the speculation is that he became ill and rushed back to Xis in secret, in order not to give comfort to his enemies or diminish the bravery of his troops. Other tales suggest more sinister reasons-that he has been assassinated by rivals or his heir, a sickly creature called Prusus, and that the new ruler is keeping it secret until he can take Xis back from the dead autarch's caretaker.

  I have also heard from other sources (although none of them witnesses) that the autarch and a small army of Xixians attacked King Hesper of Jellon and killed him and many of his subjects, then sailed away again. I have even heard a rumor that he is kidnapping children all across Eion to make some sacrifice to his heathen gods, asking Nushassos and the rest to give him total victory over the north, but I think the source of that one must be the breath of war and fear of the unknown instead of anything based on true events.

  "Thus, I do not know what to advise you, Highness. I find it hard to believe that the autarch would leave his siege of Hierosol except to return to Xis-monarchs too long gone from their homes sometimes begin to fear what they have left behind. But almost all the tales agree that he has left, and almost as many say that no sign of him has been seen in his own kingdom. At the same time, the Xixians' attempt to break the last resistance in Hierosol has not flagged. If that devil Sulepis has lost interest in conquering that great old city, I can see no sign of it.

  "I have little else to tell you, except that your father's health is unimproved. The great pains still come upon him without warning, and his mood suffers because of it. The physicians attend him, and I have sent for…"

  "That's enough," said Eneas suddenly. "The rest is only meant for me-small matters of my household. Jino and a few others keep an eye on things for me when I am away from home."

  "Your father is ill…?"

  Eneas shook his head, a little too hard. "A distress of the stomach. My uncle has sent a famous Kracian physician to treat him, the best of his kind. My father will be well soon."

  Briony suddenly felt she understood some of what was going on, or at least the cause of Eneas' brittle mood.

  "You are worried, dear Eneas," she said. "No, don't say anything. Of course you are. Worse, you fear that something might happen to your father while you are away." She wanted to say, "And you fear that Lady Ananka and her supporters at court may try to take control of the throne in your absence," but she knew he would feel obligated to disagree. Sometimes, Eneas' sense of honor forced him through a tiring series of responses that he and everyone else knew were not his true feelings, but simply what he felt as obligations. Instead, Briony continued with, "And you are caught between your oath to me and your loyalty and worry for your father and your country."

  He glanced up at her, startled. Lord Helkis and some of the other nobles in the great tent were beginning to look distinctly uncomfortable. Eneas sent them away, keeping only the young pages as defense of Briony's modesty.

  "You presume much when you presume to know my mind, Princess," he said when they were more or less alone.

  "I'm sorry, Highness, but I believe what I say is true."

  He gave her a stern look. "Still, even if so-and I do not concede it-it is not to be talked about in front of all and sundry."

  "What-you mean Miron? Lord Helkis? He is your best friend and a relative. As are all your other captains friends and relations. Don't you think they have thought the same thing? Don't you think they have wondered why you are riding north into unknown dangers and someone else's war when you have the danger of the autarch at your own country's southern doorstep and a royal father who is in poor health?"

  "It is nothing. My father eats rich food every night. That woman encourages it." For a moment something of his true feelings about Ananka showed on his face, his jaw tight and his teeth clenc
hed. "But that is not the issue here. Even if what you said were true, I have sworn to accompany you home. That is not something that can be undone…"

  For a moment Briony's admiration for him soured into something else-frustration, perhaps even anger. Why were men so caught up with their honor, their solemn word, their promises? Half the time the promises were never asked of them in the first place! And yet the wars that were fought over such things, the hearts broken and the lands ruined…!

  "Very well." She held up her hand. "Then know this, Eneas. I hereby release you from your promise, if I ever truly held you. I do not think I did. You offered me a great favor from the kindness of your heart. Now I release you from it. You must do as your heart thinks best… but do not let a single promise, uttered in haste and in a kind attempt to atone for the rest of your family's bad treatment of me, force you to do something you think is foolish. If your family needs you-if your country needs you-go. I of all people will understand."

  Again she seemed to have caught him by surprise, as if he had not thought her capable of thinking and acting this way. For long moments he could only stare at her as though seeing something new and strange.

  "You are… a brave woman, Briony Eddon. And in truth I do feel a pull to go home, as any son would-as any heir would. But things are not so simple. Give me this evening to think. Tomorrow morning we will speak again, you and I."

  She thanked him and went out. Their parting was oddly formal, but for the moment Briony would have had it no other way.

  She did not sleep well. Lisiya's bird-skull amulet clutched in her hand did not bring her dreams of the demigoddess or any other immortal, only a series of escapes from and near-captures by shadowy things she could not quite see, things that muttered in angry voices as they followed her through tangled woods and over marshy ground where she had to fight to stay upright. When she woke, she was as tired as if she had spent the entire night doing what she had dreamed.