Read The Seekers of Fire Online
Authors: Lynna Merrill
The Seekers of Fire (28 page)
Here the words ended, the next sheet of paper covered with someone else's sprawling handwriting, once again interspersed with Audric's observations.
Linden rubbed her eyes, as if that would erase the images of the words she had just read. "This is as bad as a fairytale."
"Not a fairytale." Rianor sighed. "Only the greatest House of Mierenthia's most glorious history. The part that is not in the public records. Pay attention to the attitude towards the Aetarx. This man blamed everything on it, as if he himself had no willpower ... What is it now, Linde?"
"Nothing, just ..." She blinked fast. "It was so long ago, and yet ... Darion killed the man she loved and made her marry him. Can you imagine? Ayden dead and this man in her bed. In her life. He claimed Ayden's child as his so that he could become the High Lord, for otherwise the infant would have succeeded her father. It is always the High Ruler's first child who becomes the new High Ruler, correct? Even a girl-child so long ago, when most women had no power?" She blinked again, furiously. "Women like poor, broken-hearted Niamh!"
"Linde, my sweet romantic." Rianor put an arm around her. "My naive romantic. If I had known this would affect you so, I would not have shown it to you. I wish you'd focus on the Aetarx madness in this writing—on the important thing. Poor, broken-hearted Niamh, you say. How do you know? This page is all the information I have about them, but for records listing names and dates. The child might have been truly Darion's; the lady might have had an affair with Darion and helped her lover kill Ayden. Or not. Either way, this text will work."
She flipped the page, staring at the next one without truly seeing it. "You are right."
"Of course, my lady. I always am."
She did smile at that. "I will refrain from commenting on your last statement, my lord. But you are right this time. The '
naive romantic
' made a story again. Why, oh why, am I so often slipping into the worst stories when I am not consciously thinking about it? Why are you? We have a page of text and a couple of names and dates, and we call this history and believe it. It was almost six hundred years ago! Or is supposed to have been. It could be fake, it could be meaningless."
"Why, indeed?" He stared at the page, and then stared out the window. She read on.
I have washed the sword again. My hands have become red and puffed, covered with blisters like those of a lowly laundry girl (: Or of a highly lady churl: ha! ), but the blood will not come off the sword if it is not me washing it. I have washed it five times, but still it bleeds. Not here, in my rooms, where the blade is shiny and sharp and clean, where others see only the great High Lady's sword and not the High Lord of Waltraud's blood dripping from it (
The Inner Sanctum is a lonely place. I wish I could take my lords and ladies or my servants there, like my father could, but now that the war is over, the Bers, our Blessed Stewards of the Master, have divined that the peril of that is too great. They have taken measures. Only a High Lady or a High Lord of a House may now enter the Inner Sanctum to receive the Aetarx's guidance.
Oh, how clean the sword is—here in my rooms! My precious, beautiful sword bestowed to me by the Aetarx, which has won me half of Waltraud's Balkaene villages. To think that I did not want to fight this war—how foolish I must have been. The Aetarx was right, as usual. I only wish it were not making me bring the sword with me to the Inner Sanctum.
This time Audric's writing was large, sprawled over the last two paragraphs. It said, ": Bull bull BULL BULLSHIT."
Stories, stories, stories yet again ... Something was amiss, something at the very edge of Linden's mind. She stood, despite her tired and trembling feet, and walked to the window to stare at Mierber's lights. There were few of them now, perhaps the lights of rich people; the Sun was too bright for the rest to afford wasting fire. Rianor stayed on the sofa, watching her, and then watching the text again, his fingers stroking the last page she had held. Did he at all realize what he was doing? Linden resisted a shiver as she turned to the window again. He, like those who had left their words on those pages, was a Qynnsent High Ruler.
But he is not like them.
She resisted another shiver, despite the suite's warmth. It had been warm before, too, she realized belatedly—in Rianor's suite, and in her own, even in the corridors—despite the night, winter, and her thin dress. It was never warm in a commoner's house during a winter night. Livable, yes, if you were snug beneath blankets. Cool, almost cold, if you woke up to use the bathroom. Dark, too, but for a tiny sleep candle, while in Rianor's suite real candles and lanterns had glowed in the night. She had not truly noticed, as absorbed as she had been in other things. So much fire. So much waste, whereas down there people were even now dying from cold. Linden clung to that thought, for it was almost a mundane thought, a thought easier to have than many others clamoring inside her.
But all was not so simple. Who knew how much fire something like the Aetarx would need? Or what it would do if it did not get it. She knew next to nothing about Noble Houses. Qynnsent was not just a larger, richer, more beautiful commoner's house with a garden and nice furniture. It might as well be a different world.
Wonder, wander, little girl, to the forest, to the world ...
Linden had wandered, to that Forbidden Hill beside the forest long ago, and now she had wandered up the hill—and world—upon which Qynnsent stood. Were Audric's writings not sad, they might have been funny. He had written these words for that long-ago woman, but he might have as well written it for her.
And why not?
The thought on the edge of her mind dove inside it, clicked into place. Audric might have written it for whoever could read—and understand—his words.
"Wonder, wander," Linden whispered, and jumped as Rianor's voice sounded beside her, "Open your peeper-holes, my sweetchums." She had not heard him approach.
"Lost in thought, my lady?" He smiled grimly at her. "Your thoughts are similar to mine, it would seem. I just examined the banner in this room. It took some position-adjusting and eye-squinting, but the changed animal is there, just as you described it to me. It is a wolf, by the way, not a dog. This is a wild animal that you have probably not seen. And—you did not seem too shocked, so perhaps common-born people are not taught this—a picture, especially a Noble House's crest, should never change. Each noble crest shows a piece of the truth about the world. This is what Bers say and nobles believe, and both are vehement that there is only one truth."
He steered Linden back to the center of the room. "Come sit, you look too tired to keep standing. The window won't escape, and Mierber can go without us staring at it for a while. It seems I am always looking too damn far, while there are things right beneath my nose that I am missing."
Mierber was not far for me two days ago; it was too damn close,
Linden wanted to reply, but chose not to, and she chose to ignore how he had not asked if she wanted to leave her place by the window, almost dragging her instead. She chose so, because his real aggression was not directed at her.
"Linde, I have to see the map you drew, as well as draw my own, to make sure about the other banners." His voice was calmer now that she was seated beside him. "But I do know that the banners in both my suite and yours were weaved during Audric's time. That was one of his many weird notions, to replace many of the House banners with others, crafted by one particular Mistress Weaver. Like other notions of Audric's, this one is usually dismissed; it is thought that he was in love with the woman but did not marry her because of her common origin, for example. As if he would have cared about such a stupid thing ..."
Rianor looked into Linden's eyes. "For years, I have been ignoring Audric's comments on the documents that I gave you to read, like my father had before me, like his mother had before him. I was too used to Audric, and taught to dismiss him since a tender age because of how everyone laughed at him. Yet, it was Audric's ramblings on my handkerchief that might have saved our lives in the Healer's Passage."
Linden smiled at him, and wondered if a bit of his eyes' hardness faded at that. "So you think what I think, my lord. Audric left a message."
Rianor smiled back. "Yes, my lady. The question is, can we read it?"
Chapter 8: Council
Excerpt from
More On Our Mierenthia
by Eliss Librarian, Year of the Master 394:
There are Edges that even we, non-Bers, know about. These are the ends of the world where humans can't go. These are the places where, no matter how long you walk, you stay in the same place—or walk into the land of the Lost Ones and become lost yourself. The Master is kind, so he has made the land harsh between our dwellings and those Edges. Most often a human cannot reach an Edge, cannot even reach the Ber Station that guards us from it. No one can climb the High Mountains, Rillea and Pirin, for their slopes are steep and unrelenting; the Sun would burn trespassers in summer, and in winter wild winds would blast them and deep snow would engulf them. Most cannot climb the Long Mountains, Balkaene in Mierenthia's North and Sredna in Mierenthia's South, either, for their slopes might be gentler but are covered with dark and dense forests.
Some might try to go between the mountains—but the deep chasms where Rillea meets Balkaene do not forgive the reckless and aberrant, and the Maeron River between Rillea and Pirin and the Dobria River between Pirin and Sredna forgive even less.
Yet, there is one Edge that a wanderer can reach, the one at the southeast end of Balkaene Province, where the Balkaene and Sredna Mountains start to come together again. There are valleys there, amongst the dark forests, and there is a river that flows into the land of the Lost Ones itself. The place looks not like an Edge—and yet an Edge it is, and the most perilous of them all.
THE Edge we call it, these days.
Rianor
Day 79 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705
Rianor slept a little longer than the two hours he had gotten last time. However, when the setting Sun blazed in his western window and forced him to open his eyes, he felt as if he had not slept for years. His hand hurt, and so did his face. The whip cut should be getting better, but given yesterday's and last night's events, it might as well not.
The bathroom mirror revealed bloodshots in his eyes, too. He forwent a hot shower and let cold water pour over his head, staying there until his skin attained a blue tint and his teeth started clattering. At some point his exhausted mind finally started getting access to his thoughts, but before it had fully succeeded—with Rianor's eyes still half-closed and his thoughts distant and slow—he saw the banner over the door transform.
Linden's animal changeling again. It almost woke him fully. He stepped slightly away from the shower, raising his head to change the angle between the banner and his eyes—and then his eyes perceived
the shower itself.
His good hand shot towards it a moment later, wrenching its head away. A thinner and stronger, possibly painful, spurt of water shot towards him as a result, but he avoided it easily. His reflexes were fully awake now and were even sharper than normal. Rianor stared at the seemingly innocent peace of metal in his hand. His fury, too, had awakened.
Nan felt something was wrong when she came to change his bandages ten minutes later, but said nothing, except for a "
Yes, my boy
" when he asked her to gather the Council in an hour's time. People usually knew to be silent around Rianor when he was in such a mood. Blake, whom Nan had brought and left with him, whimpered at him, on the other hand. Rianor patted his head, but still he whimpered, even bit Rianor's trousers, trying to distract him. Blake did not share the restraints of humans.
Rianor took a small cloth ball from the reclining chair and threw it in the corner of the room. Blake did bring it back to him, but still did not seem happy. Somehow he knew that Rianor presently had no enthusiasm for the game. He pushed Rianor's knee with his muzzle, in his doggy version of a hug. Rianor scratched his ears.
He would pay proper attention to the puppy later. If anyone deserved attention, it was Blake. But now he had to take care of other things. "Come on, friend, let's go get our new lady." Blake perked his ears and barked, then trotted alongside him.
A minute later Blake, who was still a puppy in mind but a very large dog in body, jumped over their new lady in an attempt to lick her face.
"You are heavier than her, don't do that." Rianor reached out to grab Blake's fur, just as Linden wrapped her arms around Blake's neck, swaying under the dog's weight against the frame of the door she had just opened for them.
"Back off, Blake—"
"No, Rianor, don't worry, I am fine." She kissed Blake's muzzle, while Blake madly dashed his tail back and forth in delight. Well, who would not be delighted at
that.
Rianor closed the door behind himself, then looked at her. "My lady, did you just make my dog disobey me and then reward him with a kiss?"
She looked back at him. "Did I, my lord? I did not intend to."
"So? Intention and action are two different things. Which one do you think matters more?"
She blinked, still hugging Blake. "Depends on the circumstances. A rule can't be abstracted."
"It can't, or you won't?"
She caressed Blake's head, then let go of him and stood before Rianor, looking suddenly much smaller without a giant furball attached to her. "Will anything I reply make a difference to you right now? What is it, my lord? Did I anger you so much? Now, or are you having qualms about last night?"
So she, too, had detected his mood, even though he had not intended to take it out on her. Well, damn both intentions and actions. Anger was so much more difficult to control when he was deprived of sleep. He should be careful. At moments like this, it was too easy to make the wrong choices and do the wrong deeds.
She was still looking at him, and for the first time he noticed that her beautiful amber eyes were, like his, blood-shot and surrounded by shadows. Her skin was pale and sallow, unconcealed even by the make-up she or her maids had applied over it, and she looked thinner somehow, brittle. She seemed to need support standing, now that Blake was not functioning as such. Rianor hesitated briefly, then slipped an arm around her waist.
"Linde, what is it, my lady? Could you not sleep?"
"I slept a little, my lord. But I dreamed so much that it might have been better had I not slept at all."
She had slept in her own suite, after their long night together. Rianor had not stopped her from leaving his, even though it had not been easy, especially when he escorted her and saw the way she glanced at the curtains and her open windows. She was afraid to be alone, even though she tried to hide it, and he woke her maids to stay with her.
He could have stayed himself, and he could have even succeeded in doing nothing but comfort her. However, Master Keitaro had taught him long ago that testing resolve by temptation was rarely a good idea. It was for those who needed to prove themselves strong, for them who placed more importance on the proving than on the resolution itself. For Rianor, it was the resolution that mattered, and he was self-confident enough to avoid temptation altogether.
"Linde, you are not the reason I am angry." He steered her to the sofa and sat together with her, with his arm still around her. Blake jumped at her other side, adjusting his head on her lap. "
This
is the reason."
She rotated the shower head in her hands, as if wondering what to do with it. Then her eyes narrowed, and she grabbed a quill and a sheet of paper from the table.
Then, she dropped the quill. "It should not be dangerous if I only talk about what I see without drawing it, is that right?" The sheet of paper was quivering in her hands. "It—It is too unclear. We need to compare if we see the same thing."
Rianor did not know the answer to her question. Just like he did not know
too many
other things. He wondered for a moment, then nodded once.
"Try it."
She did, her voice faltering only slightly. What she was seeing was almost identical to what he had.
So he was right. He had been almost certain, and now Linden had given him confirmation by independently noticing the same thing. The small holes on the shower head formed a pattern; formed a symbol that was unknown to him, which nonetheless very much resembled those of Noble Houses.
Rianor would not have noticed it, had he not seen the changeling animal on the banner before that—had his mind, in the last few days, not become prepared to notice unusual things in his own home. Had
she
not prepared him, with talking to him about her ideas and with simply being here. It was interesting why her symbol was slightly different, possessing an element that his did not possess. Had he missed it? Or was this a misinterpretation on Linden's part? Would she have noticed anything at all, had he not told her that there was a problem? It seemed that they complemented each other.
Of course, Rianor's home was supposed to be unusual. The privileged status came at a price. Yet, somehow, one learned to accept the Aetarx as an independent, confined mystery, as something to battle in the Inner Sanctum, while elsewhere in the House life was mundane and even boring.
The Aetarx at least was an obvious threat.
Linden gripped his hand so tightly that it almost hurt him. "Wretch the Bers! Why? Why would they do this to you?"
So she had found the time to read the documents he had left with her. At least, she had read some of the
Introduction to Noble Houses 2
book. It was a book targeted at twelve-year-old nobles, so it would be too basic for her, but still it should provide a starting point for learning the things that nobles knew and commoners did not.
"
Every House has its own symbol,
" was one of the first things the book said. Then,
This symbol is different from the symbols of all other Houses. It appears on the House wristwatches of all lords and ladies of the House. It also appears on the walls of the Inner Sanctum, and the walls of the Outer Sanctums of the main House building and all residence buildings.
You should treasure your symbol as you treasure your House itself, for without the symbol the House is inadequate. Everyone, both nobles and servants who live in the House, must pray before the symbol in an Outer Sanctum, under the guidance of the House Mentor, once every thirty days. It is also best to have your own wristwatch symbol in view when you praise the Master privately.
Never should the image of another House's symbol enter a House, except when worn on the wristwatch of a noble guest. If another symbol does appear in another way, both Houses will become impaired, their walls more easily breached by their human enemies, their humans' quintessences open for the Lost Ones's taking. If that happens, only a Ber Adept Catechist might cleanse the House and save it, and only a Ber Adept Catechist might help the quintessence of the wrong symbol's bearer.
Otherwise, the House will fade. Otherwise, the bearer will die in madness—and his or her House, too, will fade, and all else that he or she loves or honors will be dead or broken.
Commoners, who did not have access to this book, did not know that another House's symbol was supposed to be detrimental to a House, but they would still know that the wrong symbol's bearer would face either madness or Bers. Rianor had read the commoners' version of the
Houses
book. The existence of the symbols was listed there, without, of course, the actual symbols' depiction, and so was the forbiddance to ever imitate a House's symbol in writing, drawing, weaving, or any other manner that could make others' eyes perceive it.
"
Otherwise, the Lost Ones will take your quintessence, eating it until there is nothing left,
" the common
Houses
book said, "
unless Bers, our Blessed Stewards of the Master, find you and cleanse you before it is too late.
"
The "
everything you love or honor will be dead or broken
" part was there, too. For the sake of those who would otherwise sacrifice their lives in order to harm a House, Rianor thought.
People were afraid of the symbols. Usually people dared not depict even the symbols of their own Houses, inside their own Houses.
"Linde, this is not the symbol of any House that I know," Rianor said, remembering that she might not know the Houses' symbols. Not that they were secret. Indeed, wristwatches and their symbols were the best way to make certain that someone truly belonged to a House. There was even the Symbols ritual, that of gathering members from each House on every noble child's fifth birthday, specifically for showing the watches to the child.
"I don't know what this symbol is, Linde—or why it is here."
She laughed, a certain nervousness in her laughter that had not been there since they had left the Inner Sanctum. "So, I did not have to be that careful to not draw it, then. I would not have hurt the House."
"You might have hurt yourself." That, suddenly, mattered a lot, and Rianor wondered at how surprised he was. Yes, she could hurt herself. He had known that taking an apprentice in order to study her Magic would be unsafe for the apprentice. He had known the risks. But it was one thing, Rianor was beginning to realize, to have an abstract vision of a person to study—of a tool for unraveling the world's mysteries—and it was another thing to have her.
"Leave the symbols alone for now, my lady." Rianor brought her fingers, still white from squeezing his, to his lips, and that strangely appeased him. He was almost not angry—or even tired—any more.