The Hidden Stars Part 5

"In the very same year and season that eireamhoine was lost, King Ristil's sister, the Lady Elfhael, gave birth to a pair of twins: a fine strong boy, and a healthy girl. The lady was young, her labor not difficult, and all seemed well. Yet the next morning, as she sat up in her bed to receive visitors, without any warning she gave a great cry, the visitors were ushered out of the room, and the midwives shortly announced that a third child was born, all unexpected, almost an entire day after the others. That infant, a girl, was given the name Winloki."

Reodan looked to Nione, as the one healer present; others turned to watch her as well, awaiting her reaction. "It might have happened exactly that way," she said, hesitantly. "And yet-"

"And yet," Reodan finished for her, "it seems altogether more likely that someone arrived with a child shortly after the others were born, and Ristil and his sister contrived this mummery to account for her sudden appearance in the King's household."

Faces began to brighten around the room; hope blazed up in a dozen pairs of eyes at once. Faolein took in a deep breath, then released it. "It would seem she's been safe in Skyrra all of these years, our lost princess, our child of prophecy. But perhaps safe no more. What Aethon has seen and guessed may have also been seen by less friendly eyes."

"There can be no doubt," said Curoide, "that Ouriana has spies in the north, as she has spies everywhere. The princess ought to come home at once. She must be convinced to come home. Not only for her own safety, but the better to be trained in the use of her gifts, whatever they may be. There will be no one among the healers and runestone readers of Skyrra capable of teaching her."

"We should not speak of convincing her, when so much is at stake," cried out one of the n.o.blemen in the King's entourage. "Let us send an army to escort this lady to Thaerie, whether she wishes to come or not! Time enough, then, to convince her, when we have her safe."

Reodan shook his head slowly from side to side. "No, no, my good Lord Daomhoine. If our enemy doesn't know yet that the princess still lives, we would only draw her attention by sending an army where no army of ours would ordinarily go."

There rose a murmur of agreement from the wizards, a faint movement among the other n.o.ble lords, though whether of protest or a.s.sent Faolein could not tell.

"And as for storming into Skyrra with force of arms," Reodan continued, "King Ristil would take that ill, very ill, and who could blame him? We would have a fight on our hands before we had time for explanations."

"Yet if she refuses to come, we are all lost," said Lord Daomhoine.

"That is a risk we must take. Even if she does prove to be the child of the prophecy, her friendship, her a.s.sistance, these are not things we can claim as a right. She must come willingly or not at all-else we are no better than Ouriana, and so the princess might well think us. We should send an emba.s.sy, to present our respects, inform the lady of her true origins, and bring her home, if she will come. A small but carefully chosen party, it should be, able to go swiftly and secretly, and to return the same way."

"I will go," said Bael of Hythe, grudgingly, as though conferring a gift. "There ought to be someone of suitable rank to treat with King Ristil, if he is reluctant to let her go."

"And I will accompany him," volunteered Prince Gwynnek. "After all, they know me in Skyrra. My presence, if nothing else, will a.s.sure King Ristil of our goodwill."

Faolein felt a jolt of dismay pa.s.s through the ranks of his fellow wizards; he saw that same dismay mirrored on faces around the room. To trust so delicate, so vital a mission to this hotheaded pair was clearly unthinkable, but none of them seemed willing to speak and so draw the fire of the two young princes.

The King, however, proved equal to the task. "I hardly think," he said evenly, "that either of you can be spared from the defense of the coast. If Ouriana's forces don't strike at Mere, they may take advantage of the Duke's declared neutrality to sail on past his seaside fortresses, his ships of war, and land in Hythe."

Prince Bael expelled a long breath. "I never thought-But of course you are right. I ought to go home and see to my own defenses." He sat back in his chair, his dark brows drawn together, obviously contemplating the worst that might happen.

"I will send one of my own grandsons, either Ailbhan or Ruan," said Reodan, glancing to either side of him at the two just named: the one tawny-haired, muscular, a typical Pendawer; the other slight and inhumanly fair. "He can carry my greetings to King Ristil, speak in my name. And whichever I choose, he can take three or four of his own men with him, ostensibly as an honor guard."

He turned, then, to the Nine Masters. "But who will go for Leal? For it's certain that wizards should also go, as we have no way of knowing what challenges, what dangers, may be met with along the way."

The wizards gave no immediate answer, awaiting some sign, some revelation. Faolein returned to his seat, sat with his head bowed, as mute as any of the others, but he felt an increasing pressure on his mind, which made his head throb and his thoughts race around and around without arriving anywhere. It seemed there was something he was supposed to say, yet there was nothing he wanted to say.

At last the pressure became too great. "I will go, if it pleases the King," he heard himself declare. "Anyone will tell you: I am no diplomat. But I was there at the very beginning, when the princess was born, and I may be able to, well, answer some of her questions."

Even as he spoke, he fully expected the others to object, the King to refuse him. The truth was, he had very good reasons to stay at home. But all around him heads nodded, the other Masters murmured their approval. He felt his heart sink.

"Faolein should certainly go," said Draithleann, turning her blind eyes in his direction. "With his gift for naming, he will know at once if she is...who we have very good reason to suppose she is. And as he says, she may have questions that he can answer: about her birth, about the decision to hide her away."

"And for that same reason, Sinderian should go with him," Nione suggested quietly.

Startled, Faolein turned to look at her, his pulse jumping, his mouth suddenly gone dry with fear. But it was not Nione that he was seeing: a dizzy array of possible futures whirled through his mind. He opened his mouth to speak, but this time the words would not come.

In any case, the other Masters had already begun to react.

"Too young," said Melliene, with an emphatic shake of her golden head.

"That Sinderian is gifted none can deny," Cathaoch put in, a doubtful look on his shrewd square face. "But she remains largely untested. I see no reason why she should be chosen."

"Indeed," said Tuilach, in his high, unsteady voice. "This is a task, I think, for one much older and wiser. Let Melliene go, or Feneilas, for there should certainly be a woman present."

Curoide snorted something unintelligible under his breath. "No one protests that our healers are too young when we send them off to battlefields and into cities under siege," he growled. "After six years of horror and heartbreak in Rheithun, I think Sinderian is wise enough!"

Nione put a hand on his arm to quiet him. "In fact, her age might work to our advantage," she stated calmly. "What years and wisdom can't accomplish, youth and eloquence may. And who better to win the princess's trust than one much like herself: a young woman and a healer?"

Her words made an impression. And suddenly, Faolein felt himself the center of everyone's attention, even more than he had been before, when his own name was mentioned.

"What does Sinderian's father say?" asked the King.

The wizard tugged at his beard, as he always did when perplexed. But as he hesitated, the myriad possibilities resolved in his mind to a single vision of remarkable clarity, to one inevitable, inescapable conclusion.

"I think...I think that my daughter would choose to be one of the party." The words slipped out before he could catch them. "More than that, I think she is meant to go."

"Then," said the King, "it is decided: Faolein and his daughter will represent Leal."

It was that time when yffarian, the day's waning, pa.s.sed into anoe, the twilight hour. The light coming in through the deep windows on the west was tinted a sunset orange; the starry dome overhead was lost in shadows. A cold wind pa.s.sed through the vast airy chamber. Reodan dismissed the council, rose from his chair, and headed for the doors. Others followed after him. This was a time reserved for prayer, for meditation, for setting one's mind and house in order before the evening meal.

Only Faolein remained in his seat, his shoulders hunched and his brow furrowed in thought. After a time, he realized that he was not alone. A shadow fell across the floor at his feet, and he could smell the herb scent clinging to Nione's violet silk gown.

He looked up, met a questioning gleam in her mist-colored eyes. "You did not say so, but you were reluctant to take Sinderian with you."

Faolein's hands gripped at his knees through the heavy folds of purple cloth. His moment of clarity past, the memory fading, he was left only with a sense of impending grief, the conviction that something very precious to him would be lost. What had he chosen for Sinderian, and why? Suddenly, he felt his years, as he had never experienced them before. The wind seemed to pa.s.s right through him; he felt chilled and empty.

"The truth is, I fear for Sinderian whether she goes or stays. And yet, if we are at least together-" He lost the thread of his thought; as he groped for it, the end of his sentence continued to elude him.

He shook his head. "I sometimes wonder if I did right, all those years ago, allowing her to be trained as a healer. What Curoide said troubles me more than anything: What right have we to expose our children to so much, so young, simply because they show the gift of empathy? Sinderian has other talents as well-why did we not choose to develop those instead? If she had spent the last six years studying at the Scholia, instead of breaking her heart on the battlefields of Rheithun..."

Selfish, he thought. Selfish is what they had been, he and Shionneth, getting a child (not entirely by natural means) at such an advanced age. A wizard child, likely to outlive them both, that was the lure, one who would not grow up, grow old, and die, while an absentminded parent was occupied elsewhere. But who would have supposed such a placid elderly pair could produce such a vivid, pa.s.sionate, empathetic child? They had been like two drab brown moths watching a brilliant b.u.t.terfly emerge from its chrysalis, with no idea what to do next or how to do it. Selfish and heedless, that was how they began it, which was unforgivable in the so-called wise, and he, left alone to raise the child after Shionneth died: a well-meaning fool, but a fool nonetheless. He had allowed Sinderian to put herself in harm's way with scarcely a second thought.

"My dear old friend," said Nione, with a little laugh, her fair face bright with amus.e.m.e.nt, "what else could you have possibly done? It is many years since Sinderian was a child by anyone's reckoning, and it was her own wish to go to Rheithun. There is something in what you say-perhaps some aspects of her education have been neglected, but those talents are still there and can still be developed. And she would have become a healer in any case. A gift like hers is not to be denied. The only difference is that without the proper training she would have killed more than she cured, at least at the beginning."

He knew they had had this conversation before, or one very like it, and just as he always did, he was forced to yield to her gentle certainty. "Perhaps you're right. It was never for me to choose; it was always Sinderian. And however that might be, it is too late, now, to repine." Faolein rose heavily from his chair and headed for the door, Nione gliding along beside him.

"I can only hope," he said under his breath, "that we have chosen better for her today, you and I."

4.

The hour was very early, the air damp and utterly still, dawn no more than a faint white line along the eastern horizon. In the harbor at Baillebachlein, a small rowboat carrying four silent pa.s.sengers slid out from a long, low boathouse, slipped between the dark hulks of ships ma.s.sed along the docks, and headed out into deeper water, moving swiftly with the tide.

No one had seen them go. They had chosen this hour of uttermost secrecy so that none should mark the time of their departure. Oars creaked, the weathered hull dipped and bobbed in the water, but those in the boat remained silent until half a mile of water lay between them and the docks. Then Curoide grunted a few words to Cathaoch, the other oarsman.

"No, I don't see anything," said Cathaoch, speaking in short bursts between oar strokes. "But that's as we arranged it. They'll keep themselves dark until we hail them."

To the east, a fragile seash.e.l.l-pink spread slowly across the sky. The sea was the color of opals and amethysts; but the west still blazed with stars. A stiff breeze sprang up, blowing off the land, scented with apple blossom and freshly tilled earth.

Sinderian crouched in the bottom of the rowboat, cloaked and hooded against the early-morning chill, trailing one hand in the sea and watching the glittering foam fly off her fingertips. Because she barely listened, conversation between Faolein and the other two wizards came to her in fragments.

"...we can hardly expect this Winloki to change our fortunes in the war overnight. What will she know of wizardry, or the battles we've fought?"

"-too many were there to hear the plan. The High King erred. Hythe and Weye-"

"If something isn't done, it will be Alluinn and Otoi all over again. I've seen portents in the fire, in the wind and the sky-"

None of this made more than a pa.s.sing impression on Sinderian. She was intent on the opalescent water sliding under the bow, on the starry ocean, on everything she could sense below the surface. She thought, Something has changed. It wasn't like this when I sailed from Rheithun-was it only three months ago?

A school of young herring pa.s.sed under the boat; she could see them in her mind-tiny flickering lights moving in the darkness-and she felt their confusion. A hundred yards away, she detected a shark, its slow, savage, pitiless mind troubled, uneasy. She sent her thoughts deeper and deeper still, down to a place where long, sinuous shadows moved in the deep.

The moon, Ouriana's ally, was still young, yet Sinderian could feel her influence, her pull on the tides, like a great slow heartbeat. And she sensed something more, profoundly disturbing, a steady vibration under the water as though something down there, something beneath the sandy floor of the bay, struggled to be free.

Then it seemed to her, for a moment, that she could hear faint music coming to her over the water, across the years and centuries, music as of reed pipes, and wooden flutes, and sistrums. She heard women wailing, priests chanting, the dull boom of drums.

Lifting her hand, she tasted the water, and a cold chill snaked down her spine. It tastes of blood, she thought, blood and death. Words in a language she did not know came unbidden into her mind: Hang domendeth amissa abhoran vragol. Ephesien! Ephesien!

"I see a ship," said Cathaoch. The sound of his voice, so familiar and ordinary, brought Sinderian out of her trance, into the present.

She sat back on her heels, breathing hard. What was it that had spoken to her and through her, out of the past? Already, the strange words faded from her mind. Hano? Hanam? No, it was all gone.

But all the time she had been dreaming, Cathaoch and Curoide kept steadily rowing. Now they had reached the mouth of the bay, and the long waves and deep waters of the open sea lay before them. About fifty yards ahead, a dark indeterminate shape rose up against the deep lavender sky, blotting out the last dim stars.

Faolein rose awkwardly to his feet and called out a greeting. There was a sudden blaze of torchlight ahead, and the shadowy bulk took on the lines of a ship, one of the light, fleet caravels of the Thaerian navy. Gold glistened on her prow, but the customary line of shields along her bulwarks had been stripped away, her figurehead removed.

Someone on board returned his hail. "Is that you, Master Wizard?"

"It is," said Faolein, his voice sounding thin and shrill against the wind.

With a dozen strokes of the oars, Curoide and Cathaoch brought the rowboat in close beside the hull. Someone tossed a rope ladder down the side, and the wizard reached out and caught it. Sinderian watched her father ascend into the torchlight. Then it was her turn.

"Go safely," she heard Curoide say behind her, as she took the p.r.i.c.kly salt-crusted ropes between her two hands, put a foot on the first rung, and pulled herself up. Her legs tangled in her long cloak and full skirts, impeding her progress, but just as her fingers fastened on the top rung, a pale, delicate-looking hand reached out from above, grasped her by the wrist, and heaved her up and over the side with surprising strength.

A thin, hard arm came out to steady her as she landed feetfirst on the deck; then arm and hand withdrew. She stood blinking like an owl in the glare of the torches, waiting for her eyes to adjust, while indistinct shapes milled around her, dark against the light. Gradually, those figures grew sharper, took on recognizable human features, so that she was able to identify them: some weather-beaten sailors in rough clothing, three men-at-arms in glittering mail, and a slender youth in a long velvet cloak, his silvery-fair hair held back by a golden circlet.

"We had expected to see your cousin: Prince Ailbhan," Faolein was saying. He wrinkled his narrow brow, cast uneasy sidelong glances both left and right. "No one told us of this change in plans."

The answer came in a musical baritone, unexpectedly rich and deep. "It was my grandfather's decision that I should come in Ailbhan's place. Though, in truth, I believe the suggestion came from Eliduc. He had a dream, or a premonition, I know not what."

The frown between Faolein's eyes smoothed out. "Well, then, perhaps it's a good sign, after all. If a seer so wise and fa.r.s.eeing as Eliduc chooses you for this task-"

"I fear it was very much otherwise. That is, the wizard had no clear idea who ought to go, he was merely quite certain that my kinsman should not."

All during this exchange, the fair-haired stranger looked not at the father but at the daughter, examining her face, and what could be seen of her figure under the long black cloak, with a bold direct gaze that Sinderian thought insolent and impertinent.

Perhaps becoming aware of the Prince's interest-perhaps just remembering what was due to the High King's grandson-Faolein made the belated introduction. "My daughter, Sinderian Faellaneos, Lord Prince. My dear, they have sent Prince Ruan in his cousin's place."

"So I see," replied Sinderian, making a slight curtsy, then looking away. Of Prince Ruan she knew very little, aside from a reputation for reckless courage and the curious circ.u.mstances surrounding his birth. Yet nothing, she thought, could have possibly prepared her for his pale unearthly beauty-or for the bright, disturbing arrogance of his glance.

"And the other ships?" said Faolein, squinting and peering out to sea. "What has become of the escort we were promised as far as Hythe?"

"Unfortunately, there will be no escort," said Ruan, shifting his attention to the wizard. "Just before we parted company, my grandfather received word of a fleet of Pharaxion galleys spotted off Nimh.e.l.li. Every available ship but this one has gone to the defense of the island."

Faolein looked more and more dismayed. "The entire plan made so hastily and with so little forethought," he muttered into his beard, "and already it has gone astray!" Watching him, Sinderian felt a twinge of foreboding.

"We might have waited for the other ships, but already Ouriana's messengers may be ahead of us. If we don't hurry, they might arrive in Luckenborg long before we do, do the Lady some harm, or woo her away with their lying words." The Prince shrugged. "These are my grandfather's thoughts I give you, not my own. Even if our enemy knows nothing of this Lady Winloki, Skyrra and Eisenlonde are on the brink of war-may be at war now, for all that we know. There's no longer any safety in the north."

"Nor anywhere else," said Sinderian, under her breath. Though she did not mean to be heard, Prince Ruan, apparently, had keen ears. His eyes flickered back in her direction, a faint smile played about the corners of his mouth.

"No, my Lady Healer, nor anywhere else," he answered softly. "What hope we have is all in haste...and perhaps not even there."

The white rim of the sun rose above the horizon; light broadened on the face of the water. With a stiff breeze filling her sails and a bright sky arching overhead, the caravel Balaquendor coasted around the Isle of Leal, now running before the wind, now beating against it. Reaching the northeastern tip of the island, she headed out into those vast watery expanses known as the Thaerian Sea. For two days and nights, by sunlight and moonlight, she skimmed like a white gull over the waves.

But the winds of that sea are capricious and fitful; they are never to be relied on. On the third day, Balanquendor was becalmed on a sea as smooth and clear and motionless as gla.s.s. The air lay heavy and still, the canvas hung slack.

Late in the afternoon, when the helmsman sat drowsing in the sunlight at the tiller, Faolein and Sinderian appeared from below: he in a drab wool cloak over his purple robes, she in a long black gown of some rich, heavy material. A dusky silken veil, so light, even that breathless air might lift it, floated behind as she walked. While the wizard paced the deck with slow, even steps, her movements were restless and a little erratic. And there was a visible constraint, on her part at least, a series of indirect glances so that their eyes never quite met, which seemed to indicate a continuing dispute, some matter unresolved between them.

After a time, Faolein turned toward his daughter and spoke, in his gentle, absent voice. "There is no use making yourself ill with antic.i.p.ation. Even with favorable winds, we'll not see Skyrra for many weeks."

Sinderian released her breath in a long explosive sigh. "I know it," she said. "I know that very well." Yet her pale face and her dark eyes, glowing with impatience, gave the lie to her words.

They continued to walk, he calmly and deliberately; she with an energy barely contained. Clouds hung motionless in the sky overhead; the sun stood fixed in place with a dull sheen like bra.s.s. It seemed as if time itself had been suspended. In that great stillness, Sinderian felt all her conflicting desires rise up clamorous inside of her.

At last she burst out: "It is true. I am half-sick with excitement, at the prospect of seeing my little Guenloie-my sister that should have been! I've thought of her so often over the years: where she might be and what she might be like, if she survived. Sometimes I think that I meet her in my dreams, but in the morning I can't remember what I said to her, or if she even knew me." Sinderian stopped walking and whirled around to face her father. "But the sooner we complete our business in Skyrra, the sooner I can return to the work I am meant for."

The wizard drew back, his usual air of vague bemus.e.m.e.nt giving way to a vague alarm. "I was certain you would wish to make this voyage. Nione and I both thought-"

"I do want to go; there is no question of that." She made a wide gesture, as though casting aside any attempt to make him understand her. "But what I wish and where I should be-what I should be doing!-are very different things."

Faolein bowed his head. "No doubt I am being obtuse again. You must bear with me, my child. I mean well."

"No, no!" Sinderian felt a pang of guilt wrench at her heart. She reached out impulsively with both of her hands, took one of his, and pressed it between them. "You are always so patient, so good. Much more forbearing with me than I ever am with you."

No one, she thought, could ask for a kinder father-or a more difficult, ungrateful daughter. That he loved her she could not doubt, for all his reserve, in spite of his occasional clumsiness. But the differences between them-of sympathy, of temperament-seemed to be growing as the years pa.s.sed by. The gap had became so great that she began to fear that no amount of love and goodwill would ever be enough to bridge it. Sincerely grieved at having wounded him, Sinderian lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it remorsefully.

"I think you would prefer a father less patient, but with greater feeling and a stronger understanding," he said humbly.

Tears burned in her eyes; a lump rose in her throat. But before she could make any coherent reply, there came an interruption: a clink of armor and a low rumble of masculine voices as Prince Ruan and his "honor guard" of three appeared from below and moved toward the two wizards.

Dropping her father's hand, Sinderian turned away, unwilling to allow the newcomers to witness her discomposure.

"It would seem that the wind has failed us, Master Wizard," said the Prince, crossing the deck with his light step. The three men-at-arms-Aell, Tuillo, and Jago-followed just behind him, their bootheels striking heavily against the weathered planks. "Is there nothing that you can do?"