The boy skipped a little as though he were a much younger child. ‘They must have their parents when they are born. The woman who has birthed the child, she picks them, Lady. It is a very great honour to be asked. No one parents more than two children at once for being a parent takes much time and attention. So they say. Of course, I am mostly grown,’ he interjected with a worried glance. ‘It will not take much time for you.’
As indeed it could not. The ceremony of parenting was brief, and Leona’s gift to her son was one which would please him in time. She begged Systrys, if there was time, to find out all that was known about Leona’s people, and Hazliah’s and make this knowledge into a book for Bombaroba. ‘If we survive, he will find it interesting. If we do not, he will know that I intended it and cared that he know of his parent and her people.’
But it seemed there would not be time for this work. On the day on which Bombaroba and some thousands others were made citizens of Orena, the Gahlians upon the cliffs finished the monstrous structure they had been building which had been hidden behind scaffoldings and screens. It bulked huge upon the cliffs, only a short way from the ramparts and towers yet separated from them by an intervening ridge of stone. The devices in the towers could see it easily, could see the individual black-robed Gahlians staggering away under heavy burdens of wood and rope, see the clot of red-robed ones gathered on a high platform to one side.
Two of these, especially, caught Leona’s eye. They stood to one side, speaking together, and the listening devices picked up the tone and rhythm of their speech. Leona could not see beneath the hoods, but something in the way they moved seemed horribly familiar to her. She had heard those voices before. She had seen those creatures before. She struggled for a moment, then relaxed, letting her mind tell her what it was she already knew.
‘The cold-voiced one who came to the room in Byssa,’ she murmured to herself. ‘That one, the pursuer. And the other – I have seen that one more recently, seen as she sneered at our need in the Council of the Hill: Sybil, traitor singer. These two, here, together.’
Beneath the Crown her mind felt chill.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE TWO CITIES
Day 15, Month of Sowing
‘What day is it?’ Medlo had lost track of time during the long ride to Tharliezalor. He had felt as though he deamed of travelling with creatures who could not exist. He had listened to a naiad singing, accompanying her on the jangle, he had discussed the virtues of moss with an elderly being made of twigs and leaves; he had strolled between two unicorns, his arms across their backs while his horse followed patiendy. Days had passed in these encounters, and nights had gone under strange shadows moving between their fire and the stars. Time had vanished in this place where no men lived. ‘What day?’
‘It is the month of sowing,’ said Terascouros. ‘The fifteenth day.’
‘And still no serim,’ said Medlo. His voice was plaintive, almost accusing. ‘You said you would sing us safe from serim.’
‘She may still.’ Jaer sat upon the tall black horse and looked at the city spread beneath them on the shores of a windy bay. ‘Thus far we have walked among creatures who have screened us, hidden us. Had the serim been searching for us, they could not have found us. But now…’
‘Won’t the creatures come with us to the city?’
Jaer shook her head. An interior voice spoke to her hissingly, a serpent’s voice. ‘Alone. You must go alone. You must achieve great things, find the Gate for the memory of Ephraim, Nathan…’ Under that voice her multitudes quailed and were silent. She shook her head again and said, ‘They won’t go down there.’ As she said it, she knew it was not true. They would go – but not unless she called them.
‘But you will go down there? It will take years to explore.’
‘It is no larger than Tchent,’ said Terascouros, looking curiously at Jaer. Around them the assortment of odd creatures waited, patient and calm. Why had they come? She did not know, but she did not doubt that they came because Jaer was here – Jaer who paid them little attention, who turned away from diem, who seemed annoyed at their presence. Could it be that Jaer desired to be found by – serim? By something else? By whatever laired at the heart of Tharliezalor, below them by the sea? Not for the first time she wondered what had driven Jaer to Tharliezalor. An oath, perhaps, but that was too simple.
Below them the city spread along the shores of the bay and on both sides of the wide river as well as upon the islands of the river, each part connected to the others with shining roads and bridges. On a low hill across the flood, a domed building stood. Jaer’s eyes were fixed upon it. Terascouros asked, ‘There?’
Jaer dismounted but still clung to the saddle, shaking a little. ‘Yes, I must go there,’ she said. ‘Quickly. It is there the puzzle ends, Teras. There that all the mazy lines bend in and knit together. I can feel it, like an itch that must be scratched, but my body fights me with cramps in my stomach. Shivering. My body wants something else.’
‘What else?’ asked Medlo.
‘I don’t
