The Fall (33 page)
Alarm burst from Sharana. “High one—”
He raised a hand. “I did not require the chatelaine’s life from her, but she no longer holds the position.”
“She will hate Monrali all the more.”
“She has been made well aware the lapse was hers, and hers alone. Any further incidents of a similar nature, and I will banish her.”
“A harsh judgment,” Farric murmured.
“The circumstances under which the beloved of Monralar walked into the dark would not have occurred had Scholar Lyva extended proper hospitality. To behave as she did in deep winter compounds the matter. You know how Sharana’s death would have affected the Monral. Are you also aware of the pain which accompanies a return from the dark?”
Sharana shuddered.
“The offense is a serious one,” he finished, “whether or not she knew Sharana’s status as a beloved of the ruling caste. I will not have my province’s honor questioned.” He turned his attention back to Sharana. “You have spoken with your Monral’s heir. Do you choose to travel to the Circle with Suralia, with Monralar, or alone?”
“I will go alone,” she said, in a quiet voice.
“Very well. Farric?”
“Do you require me to attend as your ambassador?”
“No.”
“Then I will return to Monralar and make my apologies to my Father for failing in such a straightforward mission.”
Sharana drew a sharp breath.
“He has no real choice.” The Sural’s voice cut. He waved an open hand toward the darkened window, and laerta music filled the air. “But now, more pleasant topics. What do you think of Corvestal?”
* * *
In the night, beyond both hope and despair, she dreamed.
Laura hovered above the stronghold. She dove, and swooped, and laughed for sheer joy. She could see
everything
, every light, every
person
, in the city, in the stronghold, in the countryside, every one of them connected by a glowing thread to someone in the stronghold.
The Paran.
One light shone brighter than his—Rose, sleeping in her mother’s arms, impossibly bright. She and Marianne connected to a place far away, the only lights not tied to the Paran. Still, they lay easy, their radiance blending with Parania’s even though not a part of it. Allies. She could see the alliances.
She rocketed upward to hover at the edge of space, high above Parania. Tolar revolved against the black, each light clear, every city glowing with the radiance of the people living there. A fairy network of light and radiance extended across the planet, hearts sleeping and waking, dreaming and resting and working.
Over the oceans, an even brighter net glowed.
A connection went from her to the Paran and out to the rest of the province. If she wanted, she could lift all those connected lights and wrap them around herself like starry gauze. She could see how to do it.
No.
Startled, Laura dove toward the non-voice at the speed of thought, through the planet and out the other side. Another province lay buried in ice and snow that gleamed in the sunlight, its people awake but sleepy, groggy with winter. The light they connected to in their own stronghold shone bright, so very bright. And… another light shone, even brighter than little Rose. She knew that light. Someone she recognized. Who?
Come
.
The summons came from the heart of the mountain behind the stronghold. She flew toward it, and found the bright light to be an ageless blonde woman in a cave of ice.
The woman stood smiling, pleased, so pleased. Her eyes, the color of the ocean on a cloudy day, sparkled. “Daughter of Earth, it gives me joy to greet you once more,” she said, in words Laura didn’t understand, but did.
She tried to respond, but nothing came.
“Do not try to speak, child. It is enough that you are here. Come closer. Let me see you.”
She approached until she hovered a few steps away. She looked down at herself and found nothing to see.
“Your heart and mind are torn in half by your injury.”
If she only knew
, Laura thought into the silence.
The woman extended a hand. Fingers touched Laura’s face. “You are more than you believe yourself to be, child. Let him love you. The same heart lies at the base of the woman you are now and the woman you once were. My Paran will realize this. And so will you.”
Her heart contracted, throbbing.
“You fear being known and not loved, but you are loved and not known. Allow those who love you to know you. You will find they still love you.”
If she had a lip to bite, she would have bitten it.
“Your heart did not change, and it is your heart which entangled him. He will come to realize that once more. Give him time.”
If only it were that simple.
The woman chuckled. “Go now, child, before you exhaust yourself. Return when you are stronger. Until then, you may look at whatever you like, but do not touch. Even I touch seldom, other than to bind my rulers to their people or to heal. The heart is easily harmed. Do you understand?”
Her non-self nodded.
“Good. Go now.”
Without transition, she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling in the dimness. The stronghold slept around her, except for a few winter-groggy guards, and two aides in the entrance room. One walked into her sleeping chamber.
“Artist?” she said. “Do you need assistance?”
“I—have I been here all night?” Laura asked.
She could hear a smile in the aide’s voice. “Yes, artist, you have been asleep here all night, until I sensed you wake.”
“My gratitude,” she murmured.
“Call out if you need assistance.” The woman went back to her companion. A soft murmur of voices started.
The dream had been so vivid. It hung in her mind like a memory, without fading.
Let him love you
.
She could sense the Paran, see him, feel him, knew where he lay sleeping. She could get up and walk to him without making a wrong turn, if she wanted. The echo of his heart thrummed in her own chest. But would he ever want
her
instead of that other Laura?
Her eyes filled. Mama had told her, from her earliest memory, that she would not be allowed to marry whomever she wanted, and she might have to settle for being loved by someone she didn’t. It wasn’t so bad, Mama said, if he was good to you, and Papa would make sure her husband treated her well.
The sand castle on the beach flitted past her mind’s eye. She’d loved the Paran then.
Look at whatever you like, but do not touch.
She was so close to him now.
The Paran slept, dreaming. She looked at him, across the stronghold, and… looked closer. A vivid emotional image projected from his dream into his senses. A woman who seemed like her, but who was warm, wise, patient, calm, all the things she wasn’t. His vision of the woman she’d been.
That isn’t me.
She rolled into a ball and sobbed, soaking the sheets with her tears. Her fingers snarled in them as she pressed the wadded-up blankets under her chin, clutching them like a teddy bear. A gold-furred bear, dressed like a New Arabian prince in a white thawb and keffiyeh: Lawrence of New Bearia, sitting on her bed at home. John bought it for her for an outrageous amount of money on Mada’in Saleh in the Epsilon Eridani system. But Larry Bear held a secret. Larry Bear hid a microfleche gun in a shielded pouch, and John had taught her how to use it, day after day in the armory on his first assignment. She reached for Larry Bear when the men broke into her apartment on Tau Ceti Station, but they had both door codes and they moved so
fast
. One knocked the bear out of her reach, onto the floor, as if he knew what it concealed. Another braved her fists while a third grabbed her around the waist from behind.
She screamed. As loud and as long as she could, she screamed. She kept screaming until one of the thugs clapped his hand over her mouth. When she bit him, they gagged her with maintenance tape, and even then she didn’t stop. She kicked and flailed until they taped her hands and feet and all she could do was glare and vocalize. Then they stuffed her in a large trunk and she couldn’t even glare at them.
She still screamed, hoping that somehow, someone would hear her. She screamed, and struggled against the tape binding her, and screamed some more. When she stopped to breathe, she heard a voice she recognized: the new lieutenant from Central Security, the one Ginnie had pointed out to her the day before. And if it was Security, there was no going back.
“LAURA!” a voice shouted in her ear.
The darkness inside the trunk splintered into the dim light of her little room in the apothecaries’ quarters. The aide that had come to her bedside earlier pinned her shoulders, while another grasped her wrists and leaned across her knees. Meilyn ran in, a metal instrument glinting in his hand.
“No,” Laura croaked from a raw throat. “I will be all right.”
The aides released her. Meilyn put the instrument aside and laid a hand on her shoulder. “What did you remember?” he asked.
“My abduction,” she whispered, eyes filling. “I remembered my abduction.” She coughed, and it turned into a sob. “They were right. Marianne and the Paran, they were right. I can never go home.”
Laura drowsed, motionless, thinking once more of the whales. There was something about them, the trio in the statue by her bedside, and the others that hovered deep in her memory. The meaning of it all had seemed so close, so very close, when the aide entered her room.
“Oh,” she groaned, rubbing puffy eyes. She threw an arm over her face. “Go away.”
The aide halted. “But artist—”
Laura lowered the arm. The room looked the same. Early morning light streamed in the windows. So, not dreaming this time. She closed her eyes. The yellow-robed woman stood halfway between the door and the bed, whirling with confusion, transparent to Laura’s senses. She could almost hear her thoughts.
Almost, but not quite. “What is so important today?” she asked.
“Your apothecary wishes to explain. Will you allow me to help you bathe and dress first?”
She opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling. Whatever made them happy. She needed to talk to Meilyn anyway. He’d know what she needed to do to start making a life of her own in this place, this Tolar. “Very well.”
The woman fussed like a mother hen and used her own energy to soothe Laura while helping her out of the bed-robe and into the cold spray of the bath. She almost clucked while drying her afterwards, but Laura drew a line when the aide tried to dress her like a doll and insisted on donning her robe and trousers without assistance. Grumbling, she walked under her own power out of the room.
The injured guard, his arm free of its wrappings but still held close to his body, looked up from his morning meal and gave her a cordial nod when she joined him at the table.
“I greet you,” she murmured.
He gave her a concerned look, but said nothing, and they ate in companionable quiet until Meilyn arrived, his mind focused on… something to do with her. The difficulties of the past night, perhaps. She nodded at the guard and quit her chair to head back into her room. The apothecary accompanied her, keeping a hand under her elbow.
“More happened in the night than the memory I recovered,” she said, when she reached her bed. “Before that, I had a strange dream. When I woke up, things were different.”
“Different in what way?” he asked. The light touch under her elbow shifted to a firm grip on her arm while she eased down onto the bed.
“I can see everything.”
He pulled out a small medical scanner, half the size of his hand, and held it absently while he woke the console built into the bed. “Can you be more specific?” A small click, and the scanner hummed. He held it over her forehead while gazing at the console.
“The injured guard—he does not like to talk because it disturbs the music in his heart. My aide has never wanted to be anything else than what she is. And you—” she lowered her voice “—you do not want to bond with your lover.”
He froze.
“You are also very proud of your… daughter. And now you wonder who told me these things. No one did. No, I am not probing you at all. I just know, the same way I know your robe is yellow and mine is purple. Just by looking.”
Stiff-faced, he deactivated the scanner and slipped it back into a pocket. “Tell me about this dream.”
“I was flying,” she began. Meilyn pulled a chair next to her bed to sit. As she related every detail she could remember, his face lost its stiffness and his eyebrows rose. “It was strange that I could understand what the woman said, but not the words she spoke.”
“You describe the Jorann,” he said. “Fair skin, yellow hair, blue eyes—the only Tolari who fits your description is our highest one. Was she tall?”
“She looked tall, but I could not compare her to anything. My body was invisible. Or not there. Or something. Have I ever met her?”
“Yes, when you received her blessing.” He stood and moved to the bed’s console to study it. “Your empathic nerves appear normal, but I see a substantial increase in activity in the part of your brain responsible for processing their input.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are more powerful today than you were yesterday.”
“Why?”
“An excellent question.” He resumed his seat, gathering himself.
“Oh, here it comes—the real reason you came this morning. You have to tell me something I will not want to hear. Go ahead. It cannot be worse than what happened in the night.”
“In truth,” he said, lips twitching, “you are quite refreshing now.”
“Unlike
before
, when you did not like me.” She let a sour note creep into her voice, but she was curious despite herself.
He shrugged a shoulder. “You crawled in my hair. But our Paran wanted you, and it was not for me to decide who could capture his heart.”
“Despite his bad judgment?”
That earned her an honest laugh. He wiped the corner of an eye with a finger. “I came to tell you,” he said, sobering, “that you must prepare for a journey. We travel to the Circle today.”