The Born Queen Part 11

Stephen stared at the hilt of the weapon and, almost without thinking, took hold of it. He felt dizzy and odd and thought he smelled something sharp and dusty.

Killing Fend seemed like a good idea. The man was a murderer many times over. He nearly had killed Aspar, had treated Winna with great cruelty, and had had a hand in the slaughter of two young princesses.

Oddly, Stephen found himself reviewing those facts without much pa.s.sion. The best reason to kill Fend was that he, Stephen, could rest easier at night. He shrugged and started to thrust.

What am I doing? he suddenly wondered, and stopped. he suddenly wondered, and stopped.

"Pathikh?" Fend gasped.

Stephen felt a little smile play on his lips. He'd frightened Fend. He He had frightened had frightened Fend. Fend. He dropped the tip of the weapon. He dropped the tip of the weapon.

"I don't believe you," Stephen said.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't believe you're willing to sacrifice your life for a higher purpose. I think you expect to get something out of this or, rather, more more out of it, since the waurm's blood has already made you something more than you were. No, Fend, you have a goal, and it isn't to die." out of it, since the waurm's blood has already made you something more than you were. No, Fend, you have a goal, and it isn't to die."

"I've offered you my life," Fend said.

"What happens when I stab the Blood Knight? I don't know. I've seen a man that no blade can kill."

"I'm not like that."

Stephen lifted his hands. "You know I don't trust you. You just said so. Do you imagine this charade has changed that?"

Fend's eyebrows rose.

"What?"

The Sefry grinned a little. "This isn't the Stephen Darige I met at Cal Azroth," he said. "You're getting some steel."

Stephen started to retort, but Fend's words struck home. He wasn't afraid of the man anymore. He hadn't actually been afraid even when he had thought Fend was about to kill him.

"This is about the faneway, then," Stephen said.

"Exactly, pathikh."

"I've walked one faneway and been nearly killed by another," Stephen said. "I'm reluctant to travel this one until I know more about it." But even as he said it, he suddenly felt like the old, timid Stephen again.

"What do you need to know?" Fend challenged. You are Kauron's heir. The power of this mountain is yours. It is well past time for you to take it."

"I haven't found the Alq yet," Stephen temporized. "I've found some interesting texts in the old section."

"Pathikh," Fend replied. "The Alq will show itself to you after you've walked the faneway and not before. Didn't you know that?"

Stephen stared at the Sefry while he tried to absorb that.

"Why hasn't anyone mentioned this?" he asked, glancing back at Adhrekh, his valet.

The other Sefry looked surprised, too. "We thought you knew that, pathikh," he replied. "You're Kauron's heir."

Stephen closed his eyes. "I've been looking for the Alq for three months."

"That wasn't clear to us," Fend replied.

"What do you think I've spent all of my time doing?" Stephen asked.

"Reading books," Fend said. "Reading books when you're right here in the mountain."

"It's a big mountain..." Stephen started, then waved it away. "From now on, don't take for granted that I know anything, please."

"Then you'll walk the faneway?"

Stephen sighed. "Fine," he said. "Have someone show me the route."

Fend blinked. His mouth opened, and his eyes darted past Stephen to Adhrekh.

"What?" Stephen asked.

"Pathikh," the Aitivar said, "we don't know know where the faneway is. Only Kauron's heir knows that." where the faneway is. Only Kauron's heir knows that."

Stephen turned and stared at the man for a moment and saw he was serious. He looked back at Fend, and then the absurdity was suddenly too much to contain, and he started to laugh. Fend and Adhrekh didn't seem to think it was funny, which made the whole thing even funnier, and soon he had tears in his eyes and the back of his head had begun to ache.

"Well," he said when he could finally speak again, "there we go. Quite a situation. So my answer to you, Fend, is that I will walk the faneway when I find it. Do you have any further dismissive comments regarding the need to do research in the library?"

Fend glowered for a moment, then shook his head.

"No, pathikh."

"Wonderful. Now leave me, please, unless you've got another bit of absolutely crucial information you've failed to mention to me."

"Nothing I can think of," Fend replied. He knelt, stood, saluted, and returned his weapon to its sheath. Then he held up a finger. "Except this. I've word of where Praefec Hespero is hiding," he said. "I'd like to personally take charge of his capture."

"Favor for an old friend?"

Fend stiffened. "Hespero was never my friend. Only a necessary ally for a time."

"Find him, then," Stephen said. "Bring him here."

He watched the Sefry leave. Was he really going after Hespero?

It didn't matter. Fend was leaving, and that was good.

He retired to the library, where he felt safest. His guard of four followed quietly behind him.

They made him almost as nervous as Fend did. Sefry were nothing new to Stephen. When he was growing up in Virgenya, they had been a fact of life.

But at a distance. The Sefry of his experience traveled in caravans. They danced, sang, told fortunes. They sold things from far away and counterfeit relics. He'd rarely seen one with a sword.

They did not come calling, they did not go to school, they did not pray in chapels or visit fanes. They moved in the world of men and women, but rarely did they socialize with them. Of all the former slaves of the Skasloi, they were the most apart.

The Aitivar did not sing or dance, so far as he knew, but they could fight like monsters. Twelve of them had routed three times their number in the battle below the mountain. They were decidedly unlike any of their race he had ever known, but then, he never had really known a Sefry, had he? Aspar had. He'd been raised by one, and he held that they were all liars, absolutely not to be trusted. Fend certainly bore out that a.s.sertion. But the Aitivar-he still didn't know what motivated them. They claimed to have been waiting for him, Kauron's heir, but they were a bit gray as to why.

He noticed they were still bunched around him.

"I'm going to do a bit of research," Stephen said. "I don't need you right at my elbow."

"You heard him," Adhrekh said. "Take posts."

Stephen turned to the vast collection of scrifti. A better collection he had never seen, not in any monastery or scriftorium. At this point, he had only the faintest idea of what was here or how it was organized. He'd found a very interesting section in an early form of Vadhiian he had never encountered before, and there were at least fifty scrifti in the section. Most seemed to be accounting records of some sort, and as much as he wanted to translate them, it seemed more pressing to divine the secrets of the mountain.

Still, daunting as the scriftorium was, the instincts and intuition of his training and saint-given gifts seemed to lead him roughly toward what he wanted. When he thought of a subject, there seemed a certain obvious logic that took him to it, although he found he couldn't explain to Zemle the workings of that logic.

And now, considering the mysteries of the Sefry, he found himself standing before a wall of scrifti, some bound, some rolled and sealed in bone tubes, some of the oldest placed flat in cedar boxes.

Sefry Charms and Fancies. Alis Harriot and the False Knight. Secrets of the Halafolk. The Secret Commonwealth...

He scanned along, looking for a history, but most of the books continued in the same vein until he came across a plain black volume with no t.i.tle. He felt something like the sort of shock one often got on cold winter days when walking on a rug and touching something metal. Curious, he drew it forth.

The cover was only that, a brittle leather case enclosing a lacquered wooden box. The top lifted off easily, revealing sheets of lead tissue. He suddenly knew he had something very old. Excited, he peered more closely.

No one had ever heard the Sefry language; under the Skasloi, they seem to have abandoned their ancient tongue or tongues and adopted cants based on the Mannish languages around them. But Stephen had a sudden hope that that was what he might be holding, for the faint script impressed into the metal was not one he had ever seen before. It was flowing and beautiful but utterly unknown.

Or so he thought until he noticed the first line, and there something looked familiar. He had seen this script before, in simpler form, not flowing together but in distinct characters carved in stone.

Virgenyan tombstones, the oldest.

He blinked as the first line suddenly jumped out at him: "My Journal and Testament. Virgenya Dare."

He choked back a gasp. This was the book he'd been sent here to recover. It was the reason he'd been trying to find the Alq, the hidden heart of the mountain, because he'd a.s.sumed that was where such a treasure would be.

Maybe it wasn't the real thing. Surely there had been many fakes.

Hands trembling, he took the box to one of the stone tables, lit a lamp, and found some vellum and a pen and ink to take notes. Once that was all a.s.sembled, he gingerly lifted the first sheet and held it to the light. The impression was faded, the script very difficult to make out, and the Virgenyan incredibly archaic. Without his saint-touched sense, he might not have been able to read it.

MY JOURNAL AND T TESTAMENT. VIRGENYA D DARE.

MY FATHER HAS TAUGHT ME TO WRITE, BUT IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIND SOMETHING TO WRITE ON OR THE CHANCE TO DO IT. I WILL NOT WASTE WORDS WILL NOT WASTE WORDS. MY FATHER HAS DIED OF GALL ROT IN THE F FESTER. HERE IS HIS ONLY MONUMENT, AND I I GIVE IT WITH THE YEAR AS HE RECKONED IT. GIVE IT WITH THE YEAR AS HE RECKONED IT.

ANANIAS D DAREHUSBAND AND F FATHER.B. 1560 D D. 1599.

I HAVE FOUND MORE LEAD TISSUE. HAVE FOUND MORE LEAD TISSUE.FATHER SAID I I SHOULD WRITE, BUT SHOULD WRITE, BUT I' I'M NOT SURE WHAT TO WRITE.I AM AM V VIRGENYA D DARE, AND I I AM A SLAVE AM A SLAVE. I WOULD NOT EVEN KNOW THAT WORD IF MY FATHER HAD NOT TAUGHT IT TO ME WOULD NOT EVEN KNOW THAT WORD IF MY FATHER HAD NOT TAUGHT IT TO ME. HE SAID NO ONE USES IT BECAUSE HERE, THERE IS NO OTHER CONDITION TO COMPARE OURS TO. THERE ARE THE MASTERS, AND THERE IS US, AND THERE ISN'T ANYTHING ELSE. BUT F FATHER SAID THAT WHERE WE COME FROM, SOME PEOPLE WERE SLAVES AND SOME WERE NOT. I THOUGHT AT FIRST HE MEANT THAT IN THE OTHER WORLD SOME MEN WERE ALSO MASTERS, BUT THAT ISN'T WHAT HE MEANT, ALTHOUGH HE SAID THAT WAS TRUE ALSO. THOUGHT AT FIRST HE MEANT THAT IN THE OTHER WORLD SOME MEN WERE ALSO MASTERS, BUT THAT ISN'T WHAT HE MEANT, ALTHOUGH HE SAID THAT WAS TRUE ALSO.

I HAVE LIVED WITH THE MASTER SINCE HAVE LIVED WITH THE MASTER SINCE I I WAS FIVE WAS FIVE. I DO WHAT PLEASES HIM, AND IF DO WHAT PLEASES HIM, AND IF I I DO NOT DO NOT, I AM HURT, AND THAT SOMETIMES PLEASES HIM, TOO AM HURT, AND THAT SOMETIMES PLEASES HIM, TOO. HE CALLS ME E EXHREY (I (I INVENT A SPELLING HERE), WHICH MEANS "DAUGHTER INVENT A SPELLING HERE), WHICH MEANS "DAUGHTER." THE MASTERS DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN OF THEIR OWN, BUT MY MASTER HAS HAD MANY M MANNISH CHILDREN, ALTHOUGH ONLY ONE AT A TIME. I HAVE FOUND THE BONES OF MANY OF THEM. HAVE FOUND THE BONES OF MANY OF THEM.

I SLEEP ON A STONE IN HIS CHAMBER SLEEP ON A STONE IN HIS CHAMBER. SOMETIMES HE FORGETS TO FEED ME FOR A FEW DAYS. WHEN HE WILL BE GONE FOR A LONG TIME, HE LEAVES THE DOOR OPEN SO THE OTHER HOUSE STAFF CAN TAKE CARE OF ME. IT WAS TIMES LIKE THAT I I USED TO SEE MY FATHER, FOR THEY WOULD SMUGGLE HIM TO THE OUTER COURTS USED TO SEE MY FATHER, FOR THEY WOULD SMUGGLE HIM TO THE OUTER COURTS. I HAVE TEACHERS, ALSO, WHO SCHOOL ME IN THE ANTICS THAT PLEASE THE MASTER HAVE TEACHERS, ALSO, WHO SCHOOL ME IN THE ANTICS THAT PLEASE THE MASTER. IN THE WAYS OF THE S SKASLOI CHILDREN WHO ARE NO MORE. SOMETIMES I I AM LEARNT OTHER THINGS. AM LEARNT OTHER THINGS.

That brought Stephen to the end of the first sheet. He lifted it and went to the next and saw that it was different. The hand was the same, but the characters weren't all Virgenyan and neither was the language.

"Like the epistle," he murmured. "A cipher."

He lifted his pen to begin the work of translating it and realized with a start that his hand had been in motion while he'd been reading. He looked to see what he had written, and when he did, crawlers went up his neck. It was in Vahiian, and the hand was an oddly angular scrawl not at all his own:

SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS IN THE MOUNTAIN. IT DOES NOT MEAN YOU WELL.

TELL NO ONE YOU'VE FOUND THE BOOK.

CHAPTER SIX.

A MESSAGE FROM M MOTHER.

ASPAR DROPPED belly-down when he saw the greffyn. That put it out of sight, but he still could feel the burn of its yellow eyes through the trees. He glanced up at Leshya in the branches above him. She touched her eye with two fingers, then shook her head no. It hadn't seen him. belly-down when he saw the greffyn. That put it out of sight, but he still could feel the burn of its yellow eyes through the trees. He glanced up at Leshya in the branches above him. She touched her eye with two fingers, then shook her head no. It hadn't seen him.

Gradually he raised his head until he was peering down the streambed.

He counted forty-three riders. Three of them were Sefry, the rest human. But that didn't end the count of the procession. He'd spied at least three greffyns: horse-size beasts with beaked heads and catlike bodies, if one discounted the scales and coa.r.s.e hair that covered them. Four vaguely manlike utins loped alongside the horses, mostly on all fours, occasionally raising their spidery limbs to grasp and swing from low branches. A manticore like the one he and Leshya had killed that morning finished up the unlikely company.

Grim, Aspar wondered, Aspar wondered, is all of that really for me? is all of that really for me?

He all but held his breath until they had pa.s.sed. Then he and Leshya compared their count.

"I think there may be one more greffyn or something about that size and shape," she said. "Following a few dozen kingsyards behind and deeper in the woods. Other than that, that's about the size of it."

"I wonder what they left up in the pa.s.s."

She thought about that for a moment. "The lead riders. Did you get a good look at them?"

"They were Sefry. Your lot?"

"Yes. Aitivar. But the three leading, those were all three Vaix. Vaix."

"Vaix?"

"Aitivar warriors."