...
Varthlokkur was playing with the children when the unexpected burst. Smyrena lay on his lap, wriggling and giggling, trying to catch a glowing butterfly that kept sneaking past her chubby-fingered grasp to perch for a moment on her pug button nose. Ekaterina and Scalza cheerful y blasted each other in a tag game involving harmless bal s of light. And Ethrian…
Ethrian was looking outward tonight. He remained silent, did not interact, did not respond to direct address, but was connected and alert.
Varthlokkur was pleased to see even that much progress.
Nepanthe was thril ed beyond description.
She was downstairs cobbling together refreshments, no doubt including something that had been an especial favorite of Ethrian’s as a child.
The boy did not move much, and then only slowly, mainly just turning his head. He was intrigued by everything, as though seeing it al for the first time. And he was, real y, for the first time with any curiosity. His cousins, his sister, the Winterstorm, it al stirred mild expressions of wonder.
The baby was just as intrigued by her brother—when she was not preoccupied with her butterfly.
Nepanthe arrived accompanied by burdened servants. “I decided to bring a whole meal since we didn’t have a proper supper.”
“Good thinking,” Varthlokkur said. “Considering the energy those two goblins are burning off.”
Nepanthe started to ask if he had found a way to communicate with Mist but he was not listening.
Ethrian had stiffened. As Varthlokkur turned his way the boy stunned everyone. He pointed at the Winterstorm, said,
“Grandfather.”
“Nepanthe, take the baby. Now!”
The Winterstorm was stirring but what had triggered Ethrian was not obvious there. That was clear only in a mercury pan seldom used but eye-catchingly alive right now. It had been spel ed to trigger only under a few unlikely circumstances.
One would be the sorcerer Magden Norath coming within a mile of the Star Rider’s winged horse.
A thousand hours, spanning the years since the Great Eastern Wars, had gone into the mathematics needed to build the spel suite that tripped the alarm. The task had proven intractable til Varthlokkur decided to try tracing the winged horse instead of the Star Rider himself.
After Nepanthe took Smyrena, Varthlokkur told her,
“Darling, clear everyone out. The children first.” Which meant something big and possibly dangerously bad was happening. Vaguely, Varthlokkur was aware of Nepanthe fussing over Ethrian as she drove everyone out of the chamber.
In moments the wizard was assessing the situation in al-Habor.
Oh, what an opportunity delivered by Chance! A nudge here, another there, hardly powerful enough to disturb an ant’s slumber, and the world changed forever. His part would remain forever unknown to any but he.
Once the nudges had been dealt he settled to observe.
He wished he had the Unborn close enough to do more.
It might be worth revealing himself if he could get the winged horse while the Star Rider was preoccupied.
With any luck he might even have stripped the Star Rider of his principal source of power, the Windmjirnerhorn.
“Let’s not get greedy,” he muttered, on finding himself searching for the horse using Norath’s only surviving deathcat.
It had been a long day before the alarm. Exhaustion took hold. Sweet as harming Old Meddler would be, disaster was certain if he lost control because he was too tired to concentrate. Released, the deathcat would be after Haroun in a heartbeat.
He drove the beast to the Sheyik’s compound, over the adobe wal , into the house proper, then released it.
There was a chance it might get the Star Rider.
Varthlokkur let himself col apse, pleased with his day.
...
Life had turned simple. Yasmid was getting plenty of sleep. Too much, she feared sometimes. Was she hiding from her obligations by clinging to her bed? Stil , there was little to do but arbitrate personal disputes.
There were no foreign threats. Megelin was back in Al Rhemish, licking his wounds and blaming his failures on everyone but himself. Eventual y, he would hatch some new abomination.
The fields of the Faithful promised the richest bounty in years. Flocks and herds were particularly fecund. Mares would foal at a wondrous rate. And because the Faithful need not live off the land, game would make a comeback, too. She had ordered hunts restricted to taking predators.
There would be more game when the future turned evil again. It would. It always did.
No one was more optimistic than she. Her advisers wanted to work everyone like they were under siege, building new granaries and creating new fields that could be used to raise more grain.
Good soil was not plentiful. It had to be created. But water was in bountiful supply. Snow melt came down from the Jebal. A score of springs, al reliable, lay within a day’s walk. Al had been cleansed of poisons put in over the years. Al had been sanctified anew.
Water that did not get used or did not evaporate eventual y found its way to the salt pans. Yasmid thought it sinful that any water got that far—though twice, now, she had had to thank God that it did.
She was half awake, fantasizing ways to bring more water to the desert, when a servant announced, “Habibul ah wishes to see you, Mistress.”
She felt irritated, then recal ed that she had sent for the man. “Al right. Let him in.”
Social circumstance had compel ed Yasmid to create a pseudoaudience in a mess room where she could pretend she was not a woman and it was not necessary to maintain eunuchs, slave women, and cloth screens to conceal her from male visitors. She loathed that kind of formality. She had evaded it most of her life. But success had its price.
Since Megelin’s defeat the older imams had grown loud demanding observation of fundamental rules. People listened because they saw no more need to be flexible.
If peace persisted those old men would keep isolating her til she lost contact with the world.
She asked herself, “What would Haroun do?” Haroun would bury them. There were not many of them, they were just loud.
Habibul ah joined her. He did not speak. He stil limped because of a wound taken in the battle with Megelin.
She let that be. “Do you have anything to report?”
“You have something in mind?”
“What progress is my father making?”
“There is progress. You’d see it if you’d visit. But it isn’t as dramatic as Elwas hoped.”
“His time is flying away.”
“I’d say that he’s shown true progress.”
“Real y?”
“Truly. But I’m not sure that the swami can finish up. Your father would have to do his part.”
“He isn’t trying?”
“Not much.”
Yasmid sighed. “We’l give them more time. Merim. Come here. You’re dancing like a child with a desperate need to pee. What is it?”
“Elwas al-Souki is in the kitchen. He begs the chance to bring you news. There is a man with him who needs a bath badly.”
“Leave the smel y man there. Bring Elwas. Habibul ah, stand as my witness.” She could not become comfortable with al-Souki. It was not a sexual tension thing, either. It was a creepiness thing. There was something wrong about that man, though no one else could see it.
