The Hidden Queen (25 page)

She knew what a diamondskin bite meant.

The knowledge could not prepare her for the surge of rage and anguish which flooded into her as ai’Jihaar’s slight body went limp in her arms.

But Khar’i’id’s double-edged blade had been thrust home. The first edge had cut—the price was paid. The other only now sliced to release the reward.

Sliced along the thin skin that held in a sleeping power.

And through this incision it poured out, cold fire, wrapping Anghara in a blaze of golden light that rivalled the sun beating down on Khar’i’id empty spaces. A rustle of huge wings mantled at Anghara’s back, and shadows shrank from where she stood cloaked in the glow of power—power born of the utmost depths of love and fear and fury, released from a dark place deep within her, the last where Khar’i’id had not yet been, where she herself had never ventured before. But that which had been hidden there was free now, and it was mighty.

No,
Anghara said, and the words were a power within the power, uttered only to be obeyed. Her eyes were the eyes of a goddess.
No! I will not have it. I will not have it!

But even as she was bending over the lifeless body she held in her arms, feeling the great white wings of Khar’i’id’s gift spread and begin to fold over the shell that had been ai’Jihaar, there came a sound like distant thunder. The descending wings were met and held back, with a crackle of electricity, by something adamant and implacable. Anghara looked up and saw a muscled bronzed body too immense to belong to any mortal, tapering to the naked neck and smooth, dangerous head of a vulture whose beak was bloodied and whose eyes gleamed with something ageless and eternal. The creature’s massive black wings had stopped Anghara’s own, and their wingtips, black and white, now rested against one another with the infinite gentleness which is power restrained.

And Anghara straightened, looking the Lord of Death in the eye.

This is not her hour.

That,
al’Khur said gravely,
is for me to decide.

No,
said Anghara, and there was no supplication in her tone. She was not asking for this, she was taking it.
Not this time. Not this woman.

They stood thus for a moment, wingtip to wingtip, eye to eye, and then al’Khur’s great head bent infinitesimally.

You do not know yet what you are, Changer,
he said.
You know that you may bind me, but you do not know why. I must obey you, but because you ask this before your time, it is given to me to bind you in return.

For this life, I accept the binding.

Very well. Then this is what I lay upon you. You will remember what you have done here today, but not how you achieved it; yours, the memory of resurrection, but not the paths which lead to it. And also, because I must—you will forget the name by which I called you, until it is time for you to claim it. This balance I am not permitted to disturb. And something like compassion gleamed in the vulture’s bright eye as he looked upon the being who held death’s wings at bay. And this I tell you freely, little sister, and ask no price: this is not an easy geas. At least one whom you might have wanted to save will come to me before you and I shall meet again. I see suffering.

Anghara looked at him steadily.
For this life,
she repeated,
I accept.

The god stood for another moment in silence, holding her eye, and then the great black wings were furled with a soft rustle of feathers as he stepped back and bowed his majestic head.

She is yours, then,
he said.
Until we meet again, little sister. Go; remember what you can, forget what you must—al’Khur’s own blessing be upon you.

Then he was gone, as suddenly as he came, and Anghara was only Anghara again, the hot black stone of Khar’i’id searing her legs through her robe as she knelt with ai’Jihaar’s head cradled on her lap.

The seer’s eyelids flickered open in this instant, the familiar blind eyes beyond them ranging out with Sight that was beyond sight. She lay quite still for a moment, and then drew a deep, shuddering sigh.

“Did the diamondskin not bite me, then?” she murmured; and then, as an impossible, incredible memory came flooding back, her eyes widened with cold shock. “I died,” she whispered. “
I died.
I remember it.”

The white flame that was ai’Jihaar’s psyche leapt up, stronger than ever, reaching for power, for answers that it held. And was met with a gentle, so gentle, flicker of the gold.

“Hai haddari!”
ai’Jihaar breathed. For a moment she had ceased to be
an’sen’thar,
was simply an old woman of the desert who had been a part of a miracle. The desert nomads’ superstitious phrase of awe and wonder had been a visceral response torn from a younger, more vulnerable self. “You brought me back.
You brought me back!
”

A bringer of life, not death. Brief visions of Bresse, of Gul Qara, flickered across Anghara’s consciousness, and then they were gone. Paid for. She dropped her desert-veiled face into her hands and wept for it all, the first clean tears of mourning untainted by guilt and remorse.

Rising to her feet, ai’Jihaar’s every gesture was one of purest wonder, taking a moment to refasten the trailing veil of the burnoose Anghara had undone. And then she reached out with both hands, placing them palm-down on Anghara’s bent head in a gesture of blessing which cut across untold ages and civilizations, and the white flame poured down through them, weaving through Anghara’s gold.

Anghara of the white circle, I raise you to the gold, and name you an’sen’thar.
The words were formal, all ice and dignity, and then ai’Jihaar’s voice softened into warmth and gentleness that was the purest love and pride.
Once before I offered the gold, and you refused.

Not for death.
Anghara had looked up, her gray eyes a gleam in the shadows of her burnoose. There was a ghost of a memory in them, but its sting had been drawn—there was regret at Gul Qara’s passing, but no guilt, not any more.

Will you accept it now, for life?

There is so much that I still do not know…

There is time enough to learn,
said ai’Jihaar.
When you come to Al’haria, you will be ready.

Then…if you will it…

Not I. Greater than I have written the chronicle of your life.

Such had been the power of this moment that even Khar’i’id had faded into insignificance for a brief while. But now it reasserted its presence, and the solid, choking heat descended upon them like a blow. Khar’i’id had given what it had to give; from now until the moment they left it, it would be neither more nor less than an implacable enemy.

As she turned toward the ki’thar’en, ai’Jihaar reverted to her practical survival mode. “It is time we were on our way,” she said. Anghara, still caught up in the wonder of it all, turned and looked into the vast expanse of black desolation which still lay before them to be crossed, and laughed.

They made good time, taking just under two days to traverse what remained of the Stone Desert. It was under a sun already low in the west that Anghara had her first glimpse of Kadun Khajir’i’id.

The red-gold light picked up the colors of the desert, not flat and yellow as the Arad had been but sculpted into breathtakingly magnificent dunes of coral pink sand, streaked with bands of ochre, purple, red and gold. It was beautiful, like a work of art; they passed into it as they had left the Arad, through the same eerie and almost physical line which divided the Stone Desert from the sands. The oppression that was Khar’i’id fell away from them. As they stepped into the reddish sands, there was even the first faint stirring of a cool night breeze.

Better still, Anghara swept her eyes across the near horizon and saw, almost disbelieving, the unmistakable tall fronds of a pahria palm catching the last long rays of the sun.

“A hai’r,” she breathed.

“Shod Hai’r,” said ai’Jihaar.

Anghara turned to her, puzzled. “Did we not leave that behind in the Arad?”

“It is also known as Fihra Hai’r, the First Oasis,” said ai’Jihaar. “As is the other. It depends from which direction you have come. It is also, like the other, a gift from the desert. Come, we will find water there.”

There was no pool here, under the solitary palm tree, as there had been in the Arad. Instead, there was a stone-rimmed well, and skins for drawing the water, and shallow stone troughs where water could be poured for animals to drink. It was that which Anghara did first, emptying out three waterskins into the trough and leading the two ki’thar’en, magically revived enough to begin a litany of grumbling, snorting complaints, to drink. Then she hauled out a fourth skinful for herself and ai’Jihaar. After they had sated the first raging edge of their thirst, Anghara poured what remained in the well-skin into one cupped hand over the animal trough, so the run-off would not be wasted in the desert sand. She let it trickle down her fingers over her face and throat with a feeling of blessed relief. While ai’Jihaar seemed to have weathered the Khar’i’id well enough—the desert was, after all, her natural environment—Anghara’s fingers were sunburned, in some places quite painfully. Her face was caked with dust, even through the concealing veil of the burnoose, and her hair was tangled and matted from sweat and the close wrap of the burnoose. For a newly created
an’sen’thar,
she looked bedraggled, and knew it.

“In Miranei,” she said conversationally, standing with her eyes closed and her face lifted into the breeze, “there is a pool in the mountains, just outside the keep. It’s mountain water, icy cold, but there is one part fed by a hot spring, and it’s warm enough to swim in. We often used to go there in the summer…”

Something stopped her, even the memory cut in mid-image. Her eyes opened wide to see ai’Jihaar standing a short distance away, and next to her, kneeling on the sand, three strange ki’thar’en whose riders had not yet dismounted. They wore black burnooses, fastened desert fashion, and their eyes were turned toward her.

She had been speaking her own language; its liquid syllables warm and familiar, but suddenly she heard them with the ears of the Kheldrini and realized how outlandish they sounded in this solitary oasis.

When ai’Jihaar said something in the guttural accents of her native tongue, the three turned to listen. Then one, the leader, slipped gracefully from his ki’thar and, undoing the burnouse to give them sight of his face, offered formal greeting first to ai’Jihaar, and then, more slowly, to Anghara.

Her heart lurched when he spoke—in accented but flawless Roisinani. The dialect was more Shaymir than Miranei, but the language was unmistakably her own.

“Greetings,” he said. “Your paths, as usual, are unfathomable, ai’Jihaar. I did not look for you on this journey, and yet it is far from unexpected that I should find you standing on the threshold of Khar’i’id as I prepare to enter it. My companions and I would be honored if you will share our fire tonight.”

“It will be welcome, after Khar’i’id,” said ai’Jihaar. “But first we ask, of your courtesy, that you withdraw and allow us our seclusion for a brief while longer. The
salih’al’dayan
has not been performed yet.”

The man’s head came up with a movement that was too swift. He was obviously no stranger to ai’Jihaar; he may have taken her presence in this place serenely enough, but whatever she had conveyed in the Kheldrini phrase she had just uttered had startled him. He glanced at Anghara, his face impassive but his eyes oddly speculative. Then his lashes dropped, masking his surprise. He made an imperious sign, and his companions slid off their ki’thar’en and vanished into the desert at their backs with almost uncanny speed. The leader bowed again to both of the women and followed them without another word.

Anghara turned to stare at ai’Jihaar, her mind seething with so many questions she was rendered completely mute, and ai’Jihaar answered the most pressing one.

“Salih’al’dayan,”
she said. “Thanksgiving. There are rites for setting out, and rites of thanksgiving when one arrives. I performed the former, both in Sa’alah and in the Arad Shod Hai’r. Now you are gold; now you must learn them also.”

A fleeting memory of a vision flitted through Anghara’s mind—al’Khur’s great head bowing, the quiet thunder of his voice:
She is yours then.
Thanksgiving.

She lifted her chin. “What must I do?”

“Child,” said ai’Jihaar, very gently, “remember, these are the Elder Gods. Theirs is the blood magic. It is usual for an animal to be the sacrifice, but when
sen’en’thari
set out from desolate places, it is permitted to defer the proper rites. But only until you find yourself in a place where they may be performed—and you must give blood to the god in token of your willingness to offer them a more appropriate sacrifice thereafter.”

“Kerun is content with gold and incense, Avanna with the fruits of the harvest…Nual with flowers in the water,” murmured Anghara thoughtfully.

“And they are the Younger Gods, who rule a gentle land,” said ai’Jihaar succinctly, taking a thin dagger from the sheath at her waist. “This time, watch only, and learn. There may come a time when it will be up to you to offer
salih’al’dayan
to al’Zaan and al’Khur.”

She bared a slender arm and placed the point of the dagger in the small valley where her wrist met her palm. And then she spoke, and her voice was suddenly the voice of power. She did not raise her voice in the slightest; she did not need to. She uttered her few lines of invocation almost like a lullaby, and yet the small hai’r was suddenly charged with something which raised the hackles on Anghara’s neck. There was a pervading sense of the unfriendly emptiness around them, and of a presence that was in it and of it, who watched over the travellers who moved across it: al’Zaan the One-Eyed, Lord of the Empty Places, come down to accept the promise that was this sacrifice. Anghara watched, both fascinated and repelled, as the dagger drew a small drop of blood from where it pressed into ai’Jihaar’s arm; ai’Jihaar allowed it to well up, and trickle into her palm. There was a long pause as the
sen’thar’s
voice faded into silence, and then the power faded also, the hai’r sinking back into sleepy tranquility. The
an’sen’thar
plunged her dagger into the sand at her feet, and drew it out clean, scoured by the desert, before restoring it to its sheath.