“She tells us we’re welcome anytime,” the bird reported to Isiq.
“Happy,” he replied, meaning that for the bird’s sake, he was.
“No,” said the bird, “I don’t believe she’s very happy. She talks frequently of war. She waves a hand over the city and says we should expect to see it burn. Don’t misunderstand: she’s not raving; in fact she’s quite presentable-attractive even, when she combs her hair. And she has a pretty name, too: Suthinia.”
Isiq held the name in his mouth: Suthinia. It glimmered ever so slightly, in the darkness where his mind could not go.
“I’d started to doubt she was a witch at all,” the bird continued, “but not after what the dog told me last night. He’d been to see her the day before: I was with my dumb darling, telling stories, weaving twigs. Do you know what he saw that woman do, Isiq? Put her hand through a wall! Right through! Not her fist, not with violence. She simply reached through the solid brick wall beside her mantelpiece and brought out a vial of smoke.”
Isiq raised an eyebrow. “Smoke.”
“Very good, Isiq! Smoke it was: a pale blue smoke that shone with a faint light, and swirled like liquid in the glass. A moment later she brought out another, and this smoke was red. The dog asked her what they might be. ‘Dream-essence,’ she said. ‘The purest nectar of intelligence, formed in the soul before a dream begins. When the dream breaks it leaves us forever, and empties into that dark flood called the River of Shadows. But if you extract it at that precise moment, before the dream, you have a connection to the dreamer’s mind. You can look into the smoke and see his dream, on that night or any other. And should you have the skill you can give him new dreams, specific dreams, the dreams you choose. There are few in Alifros with that skill, but I am one.’
“ ‘Whose dream-essence do you have there?’ the dog asked, starting to be frightened of her again.
“ ‘My children’s,’ said the woman. ‘Long years ago, I took it. I did not harm them in the taking, but I harmed them in other ways.’ She was somber and quiet for a moment, then held up a vial in each hand. ‘These are the only possessions I care for in all the world. I live in fear of their loss, and have never dared to give my children dreams, lest I make the existence of these vials known to our enemies. They can sniff out magic, even better than you can sniff out a meal. But I cannot wait any longer.’
“She asked the dog to lie in the courtyard and bark if anyone drew near. He did so, and heard her whispering within. At one point his curiosity overpowered him, though, so he put his paws up on the windowsill and gazed into the room. The woman was holding the red vial against her cheek. She caressed it, moved it to the other cheek, then closed her eyes and breathed on the glass. Then she set it on the table and knelt as if to pray.
“The dog saw nothing else at first. Then the smoke seemed to pass right through the vial, just as the woman’s hand had passed through the wall. It formed a cloud over the table, and within it the dog saw a boy in a coffin-alive, you understand, and battling to escape. The dog was so appalled that he turned away, and lay shivering in the bright sun of the courtyard, until the woman came and told him he could go.”
The next morning the King swept into the chamber, with gifts of walnuts and macaroons.
“Your Highness,” said Isiq. At the sound of Isiq’s voice the King put down the gifts and seized his arms.
“Splendid, man, splendid! Try something else!”
Isiq smiled, squirmed, cleared his throat.
“Come on, nothing long-winded. What would you like for breakfast?”
“Your woman.”
“Eh?”
Isiq’s mouth worked, and he made a beckoning gesture with both hands. After a moment the King’s face relaxed into a smile. He had become quite good at interpreting the admiral.
“Bring her here, to meet you? What a funny idea. She’d do you a world of good, too, with her gentle ways. But you know it can’t happen, Admiral. I’ve explained all that to you.”
Isiq tilted his head. There was a question in his eyes.
“Oh, I trust her,” said the King. “More than I reasonably should. I’d put a dagger in her hands and sleep like a babe, with her beside me, if you care to know. Yes, I’d even trust her with the secret of you. But why burden her? She’s had a hard life already. This is her refuge, now, just as it’s yours. When both of you have healed a little more, then we’ll see.”
He clapped Isiq on the shoulder. “You’re talking. That’s exquisite progress, and quite enough for today.”
Isiq’s expression was thoughtful, as though he might venture to disagree. Oshiram looked encouraged by the alertness in the face before him.
“It’s a real pleasure, watching you heal,” he said. “By the Tree, I think I shall bring her to see you after all. I’ll tell her your story this evening. We must tell someone about you, mustn’t we, if you’re ever to resume a normal life?
“I do hope you take to her, Isiq. She’s the best thing to happen to me in years. I was beginning to think my reign was cursed, you know. After your brave Thasha’s death and the collapse of the Peace, some of the other lords of the Crownless Lands turned their backs, called me Arqual’s fool. Then came the death of Pacu Lapadolma, those furious letters from the Mzithrin Kings, that Gods-awful plague of rats. I should have gone mad without my darling girl. Watching her dance, one can believe that beauty still has a place in Alifros.”
Isiq nodded, smiling to please the King. “B-beauty,” he made himself say.
“Ha!” laughed Oshiram. “Carry on, Isiq. Perhaps in a day or two we shall be watching her dance together-or just listening to her sing. Did I mention that she sings?”
An enraptured look came over the King’s face. He raised his eyebrows, the corners of his lips, and was suddenly womanish, crooning in soft falsetto: Look for me by starlight, lover, seek me in that glade. I’ll bring you all the treasures of the world our love has made He broke off. Isiq was lurching backward, mouth wide open, flailing. Before the King could reach him the big man fell hard upon the chest of drawers, knocking it back against the mirror, which jumped from its peg and shattered on Isiq’s bald head.
“Rin’s eyes, Admiral!” The King experienced a rare kind of panic: Isiq was bleeding, the doctor was elsewhere, he could not shout for aid. He went down on his knees and plucked sickles of glass from the admiral’s clothes. No danger, no danger, only scratches on that bedknob cranium of his. “What in Pitfire happened to you?” he demanded. “Oh, keep still, shut your mouth before you get glass in it.”
Isiq thought his mind would burst. The song was hers. She had sung it to him countless times, early in the mornings, in the garden cottage, bringing him his cigar-aboard the Chathrand, in bed, with Thasha in the outer stateroom practicing her wedding vows. Oshiram had even managed a fair imitation of her voice.
The King was scolding, but Isiq could barely hear. Time slowed to a crawl. There were shards of mirror in his hands and lap. In every sliver, a memory, bright and perfect. There was his daughter, murdered in her bridal dress. There were the four men bearing her body to the Chathrand. And Sandor Ott. And the Nilstone, throbbing.
“Don’t handle them, you daft old-”
And here in this largest shard, so cruelly, cleverly shaped (the King tried to remove it; the admiral fiercely gripped his hand) was that unequaled beauty, his Syrarys, with her arms around a lover-not Isiq, of course, and not the spymaster, nor even this good, deluded King. Mesmerizing, this clarity, after so much blindness. And yet Isiq was certain. No one else could have made his consort so dangerous. The one in her arms was the one who had always been there, invisibly. The one who’d slain Thasha, and cheated death. The one whose hands moved all the strings “Arunis.”
The King froze. “What did you just say?”
Isiq’s gaze had wandered for months; now it focused sharp as daggers on the King. “You’re in danger, Oshiram,” he whispered.
“A complete sentence!” cried the bird suddenly from the window, forgetting himself entirely.
The King whirled, gaping; the bird was already gone. “What is happening here, Isiq? Have you been feigning this illness? Where did that bird come from? And why in Rin’s name did you mention the sorcerer?”
Isiq stared up at him: glass in his eyebrows, rivulets of blood on his cheeks. “We must trust each other, Majesty,” he whispered, “and somehow we must be cleverer than they. By the Night Gods, I remember it all.”
From the new journal of G. Starling Fiffengurt, Quartermaster
Thursday, 26 Ilbrin 941
