The Black Queen (Book 6) (46 page)

Alex had a sense that history was repeating itself. Only this time, his father was the Roca, he and Matt were the sons who would eventually lead the Isle, and the man named Coulter was the one who had to be destroyed. Alex just didn’t know how to tell his brother that. Matt would think he was lying, think that he was trying to get Matt away from that school where they were taking over his mind.

Maybe if Alex went there, armed with some of the Secrets from the Vault, maybe then Matt would see the people he was associating with for what they really were.

“Are ye all right?” his mother asked.

Alex realized he was still crouching. He got up, and found some bread on the counter. His brother must have brought it. For a moment, Alex felt a pang. Matt had to have felt very alone the last few days. Even now, he had to feel alone.

But he wouldn’t realize how much he needed his family if Alex came running after him.

“Alex?” his mother asked.

“I’m fine,” he said. He turned, smiling, even though he hadn’t felt like smiling for days. He looked at her, saw that she was clearer than she had been. Her face was puffy and her eyes red.

“I was wondering,” he said. “Maybe we should have some kind of service for Dad.”

“Twould need a Rocaanist, an Aud maybe or a Danite,” his mother said.

“What about Denl?”

“Perhaps.” His mother leaned her chin on the palm of her hand.

“It would be a good way to get Matt to come home again.”

“Maybe.” His mother was frowning slightly. “But I dinna think yer da would want it. He dinna die the normal way. His body may be gone, but he’s of the Roca, ye know. Part of him, the important part, may still be in the mountain.”

“I know,” Alex said gently. He had already thought of that. Why hadn’t he told Matt that? Matt didn’t know as much about Rocaanism as Alex did. Maybe Matt would find the same kind of comfort in that thought as Alex had.

“N ye know how powerful words are,” his mother said. “If ye have a service, ye may call that part of him away from where he should be. It may na be good for any of us.”

Alex sighed. She could be right. “Or maybe,” he said, “it’s precisely what Father needs.”

She shook her head. “Tis na the way of the Rocaanists ta do a service with na body. N I willna let you or Matt go in that cave. Ye may na come out agin. I dinna like the way ye spend yer time in the Vault.”

“I have to learn,” Alex said.

“There’re other ways,” his mother said. “There’re others who know the religion.”

“But the Words are there,” Alex said. “And that’s where I’ll find my answers.”

His mother sighed. “The Words. They dinna help yer da.”

“Sure they did,” Alex said. “They helped him save us all.”

Her lower lip trembled. “N at what cost?”

Alex was silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “All of that happened before I was born. Maybe the cost wasn’t as great as you think, Mother. Maybe if he hadn’t done it, Matt and I wouldn’t have had a father at all. Maybe none of us would be here. There are warnings of that in the Words, discussion of the great power that lies hidden in the caves all over the world. Maybe the Fey would have found that, and destroyed us.”

“Maybe,” she said. But she sounded like she didn’t believe him. “Tis na either-or in this world, Alex. Best ye learn that now. Sometimes, tis a bit a this and a bit a that, and none of it what ye want.”

“We’re talking about Matt again, aren’t we?” Alex said.

“N you too,” his mother said. “What ye both share is na good. Ye share an ability to see the world in only two ways: yer way n the wrong way. Tis na good, especially now, when ye dinna agree. Yer brother is hurt—”

“And so am I,” Alex said. “I lost my father too.”

“But ye got to see him. Matt dinna.”

“So you apologize,” Alex said. “You were there too.”

His mother stood, very slowly, as if it took all her strength. Then she wiped a hand across her face, turned away from him, and disappeared down the hall.

He knew where she was going. She was going back to bed. He knew better than to challenge her like that. She was only pushing him to do something she felt she wasn’t strong enough to do herself.

But the rift between him and Matt went deeper than this last meeting with their father. It went to the very core of who they were. Matt had been going to the Fey for years, and he wouldn’t accept that they were evil. Alex knew they were, and now that he had learned why his brother had been slowly changing, he knew that their ways were making his brother evil too.

Alex would try to save Matt, but only when he was ready. Only when he discovered, through the Words and through meditation, the best thing to do.

Matt would have to wait until then. It would all have to wait. Because the last thing Alex wanted to do was to make anything worse.

TWENTY-SIX

THE FORTRESS WAS HUGE and, as the Dzaanies said, empty. Gift stood outside the two-story wooden doors and stared at the walls. They went so far up he had to crane his neck to see the top. The front of the fortress served as a second wall, another barrier to the interior, just like the city and its wall served as a barrier. This place was so highly fortified that nothing could get inside without someone seeing or preventing it.

The men who bore the palanquin watched Gift as if they were uncertain what to do next. Xihu had already told them to go, but apparently they were to take no instructions from anyone except the Black Heir.

He turned to them and thanked them in his awful Ghitlan, his mind still on the fortifications he saw. The men picked up the palanquin and headed back down the hillside. They moved easily, as this were nothing to them and perhaps it wasn’t, but the ride had tired Gift even more, and he hadn’t been carrying anything at all.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Xihu asked. She sounded awed. She was looking up as well. Just behind the front of the fortress, the towers of the main building were visible, disappearing into low clouds.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gift said. “This thing was costly to build. Look at those doors. There’s no wood like that here.”

“It’s esada wood,” Xihu said.

Gift looked at her. “There are Shaman here, then?”

She shook her head. “It must be very old. See how it has grayed on the edges? We have wood in Protectors Village that is centuries old and doesn’t have that grayness.”

A half dozen Fey Domestics had come out side entrances. They stood at attention, watching Gift and Xihu. Gift got the sense there were no pure Ghitlans up here, only Fey and those of mixed heritage. He wondered if his sister even knew this place existed—and how many other fortresses and palaces there were across all three continents that were being kept empty like this, just waiting for members of his family to arrive.

One of the Domestics came toward him. She was heavy-set which was unusual among the Fey—at least in Gift’s experience—and her upswept eyes were surrounded by laugh lines. Her generous mouth was upturned naturally, even though he got the sense she was trying to look somber. She wore traditional Fey Domestic’s robes, but they were trimmed with fur along the cuffs and collar. In her fur-lined belt, she had a small clear glass stick tied in place by blue ribbons.

She put her hands together and was about to bow when she remembered that such a greeting was not customary among the Fey. So they did entertain Ghitlan dignitaries up here as well. Somehow that made him feel better.

“Sir,” she said, using the customary greeting when she hadn’t been granted permission to use his given name. “We have rooms for you and your companion. We’ve also put together a dinner for you. It is not as elaborate as we would have liked, but it is what we could do at the last moment.”

Gift smiled and inclined his head toward her. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

“I am Jalung, Head of the Household on Black Mountain.”

The name startled him. He hadn’t expected the fortress to have a name associated with his family. He expected its designation to be Ghitlan in origin, just like Jalung’s name.

“I am Gift,” he said, granting her the permission she needed to talk to him as a near-equal. He had met his first Head of Household on his trip to the Eccrasian Mountains, and after one social gaffe, he was told that Heads of Households were some of the most important people among Domestics who did not travel with a military group. But no one was completely equal to the Black Family, and no matter how he tried to change that, it would never happen. “And my companion is Xihu.”

“You are welcome here,” Jalung said to Xihu. “If there are lapses you see, please tell us so that we can improve the Mountain.”

Xihu’s smile was gracious. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“Let me take you through the Mountain,” Jalung said, “and then to your rooms.”

“Actually,” Gift said, “the tour can wait. I would like to rest in my room first. I would also like to meet with a guide, so if you could send for one from Dzaan, I would appreciate it.”

“A guide awaits you,” Jalung said. “Would you like to see her after your rest? She was instructed to wait until morning.”

Gift smiled. Much as he wanted to get some rest, he also wanted to make sure the guide was what they needed. “I’ll see her first.”

Jalung clapped her hands together. From those same side doors, some Ghitlan boys appeared. So Gift had been wrong. There were full Ghitlans here, but they were the servants of the Fey. Despite the early evening chill, the boys wore nothing but short pants. Their feet were bare.

The boys bowed, their muscled backs glistening with sweat. They had been working on something difficult inside, something that took a great deal of effort.

“The
slivans
will take your belongings,” Jalung said. She clapped her hands again, and one boy took Gift’s pack while another took Xihu’s.

Gift asked under his breath, “
Slivan?
”

“Leased servants,” Xihu answered as softly, “usually given in repayment of a debt. In this case probably the parents’.”

Gift shuddered. The boy who took his pack led his group back inside. The boy with Xihu’s pack led a different group through the other door. Gift had the odd sense that they would continue the procession all the way to the rooms.

“Follow me,” Jalung said, as if nothing unusual were happening. Which, to her, nothing was.

She untied her glass stick, and rapped it once against the door. A blue spark flew off the door, stopped in front of Gift as if it were inspecting him, and then rose slowly into the air. The air smelled faintly of sulfur.

Jalung was watching this. “The Mountain recognizes you,” she said with approval.

Gift knew better than to question the magick, but it still made him uneasy. He had never been here. He didn’t know how he could be recognized.

The doors swung open revealing a large, well lit hall.

“Please take Xihu’s arm, or she will not be allowed to enter with you,” Jalung said.

Gift did as he was instructed. Xihu looked slightly amused. They walked inside. Gift half expected the door to close tightly behind him, but it did not.

The hall smelled faintly of sandalwood. Banners hung from the ceiling in the Ghitlan tradition, but the words on these banners were Fey.
Protect
and
Serve
altered with each other, surrounding a large banner in the middle that held the same symbol as the one he had seen above the Black Throne: two hearts pierced by a single sword.

“It does belong to your family,” Xihu said softly. “The banners bear your crest.”

“My family’s crest is two swords crossed over a single heart,” Gift said.

“No,” Xihu said. “Not the crest of your Islander family. The crest of the Black Family.”

He squinted at it as if the multicolored silk appliqué would explain the puzzlement he felt. What was the likelihood of two families, living halfway across the world from each other, having similar crests? Inverted crests, in some way. On Blue Isle, two swords cross in front of a heart, protecting it. Here, a single sword pierces two hearts, harming them. Was that the intended symbolism? Or did it mean that the swords drew them together?

“You’ve never seen the crest before?” Xihu asked.

“I saw it once,” Gift said, “near the Throne. I didn’t know it was my family’s crest.”

Xihu smiled. “You’ll see it all over Ghitlus. I doubt it’s as prevalent anywhere else. Your family seemed to lose the need for something as obvious as a crest.”

Gift nodded. He stared at it for a moment longer, wondering why it made him so uneasy, and then he let Jalung lead him forward. As she did, he glanced on either side of him. The mud-brick walls separated into several corridors leading to rooms. The corridor on the building’s exterior had arrow slits, which surprised him. Arrows were not the weapon of choice for the Fey.

Jalung saw his glance. “The Ghitlan are and always were a warrior people. It took the Fey a long time to conquer this place. It still bears the scars.”

Gift nodded in acknowledgment of her words. The history of this place was phenomenal. He had trouble seeing the conquerors of the half the world as a nomadic tribe descending on a small city, attempting to take it over. He was so used to the way the Fey simply conquered whatever they faced that the idea of a loss in battle—at least on Vion—seemed strange to him.