A Path to Coldness of Heart tlcotde-3 Read online

  The four withdrew into the warmth as Mist joined them.

  Scalza was the perfect soldier. He bowed deeply and said,

  “We bid you welcome, Mother.” There was no affection in his voice.

  Ekaterina stammered something, then hid behind Nepanthe again. Nepanthe and Varthlokkur both seemed surprised, which suggested that Ekaterina was, usual y, much more bold.

  Nepanthe said, “Dinner is being set. If you need to refresh yourself first…”

  “I do.”

  A servant showed Mist the way to quarters already prepared. The woman pretended to have no languages in common with the Dread Empress.

  Nepanthe’s own children were with their mother when Mist arrived for dinner. The infant sprawled on her mother’s left shoulder, asleep. Ethrian sat to Nepanthe’s right. His eyes were vacant.

  Hard to believe that he had threatened the existence of the Empire.

  Uncomfortably conscious of Varthlokkur, Mist focused on Nepanthe. Her sister-in-law. Valther’s little sister. Nepanthe signified most in this domestic drama.

  Varthlokkur would be the referee.

  Servants brought simple fare, as was to be expected in a dreary castle in the most remote of mountains. Dining proceeded lugubriously, silence broken mainly by Nepanthe as she delivered gentle instruction to Ethrian.

  “Eat your turnips, Ethrian. They’l help you get better. Good boy, Ethrian. Take your finger out of your nose, Ethrian.” And so on, with the boy always mechanical y responsive.

  He was little more than a skeleton. He showed a fine appetite, yet remained as gaunt as he had been on emerging from the eastern desert.

  At one point he met Mist’s gaze. He asked a quick question. She did not understand.

  Scalza said, “He asked where Sahmaman went. He asks al the time.”

  Ekaterina, in a voice like a mouse, chirped, “He’s getting better, Mother. He can talk now.”

  Scalza added, “But it’s only the same three or four things.” Ethrian asked his question again. This time Mist recognized “Sahmaman” and “go.” His inflexion was not appropriate to a question.

  “Who is he asking about?”

  They al seemed surprised. Varthlokkur replied, “The woman who was in the desert with him.”

  “The ghost?”

  “Yes. But she was more than that. She was a true revenant for a while. She had flesh.”

  The fine hairs on Mist’s forearms began to tingle.

  Nepanthe said, “They were lovers. Not physical y. I don’t think. She sacrificed herself so that Ethrian could live.” Nepanthe stared down at her dinner. Even so, Mist could see the moisture on her cheeks.

  Again, Ethrian asked, “Where Sahmaman go?” And Nepanthe told him, “She had to go away, Ethrian. She had to go for a long time.”

  Mist realized that her children were staring, expecting her to say something.

  She could not imagine what.

  These were not the children she had come to see. She had hoped for sweetlings. But Scalza had become old and cold.

  Ekaterina appeared to be convinced that she was always just one step from having the world strike her another cruel blow, with cause and effect irrelevant.

  How could that be? Varthlokkur was no grand choice as a father figure but Nepanthe was a good mother substitute.

  Varthlokkur said, “There are extreme abandonment issues.

  But things were improving.”

  Meaning her visit might sabotage the good work Nepanthe had done?

  Everything we do, she thought, impacts others, often in ways we do not foresee.

  “This is a finer meal than I expected, considering your isolation.”

  “Thank you,” Nepanthe said. “Cook wil be pleased.” After that everyone seemed to wait to hear from Mist, except Ethrian, who asked after Sahmaman again, and then said, “On Great One go boom.”

  ...

  Silence stretched. Mist became uncomfortable. Her children showed no inclination to interact with her. She did not know what to do. Her own childhood had offered no examples of good parenting.

  She asked, “Could I see my father while I’m here?” Varthlokkur shifted slightly, suddenly wary.

  “I know my father and uncle died here, in a trap set by you or the Old Man.”

  “Actual y, by someone a step further up the food chain.

  They’re in the Wind Tower. We don’t go there much. But, al right. The risk is minimal. I’d say nonexistent but I did see Sahmaman come back, in al her power.” The wizard rose.

  Mist did the same. She glanced at Scalza. The boy said,

  “I’l help clean up. I don’t like those creepy old mummies.” Leaving the common room, Varthlokkur said, “It’s a long climb.Another reason we don’t go up there much. Plus, the Wind Tower contains a lot of bad memories.” Mist finished the climb fighting for breath. “I’m not…used to this… altitude.”

  “You never get al the way there.” He was breathing hard himself, but not fighting for breath the way she was.

  Mist looked around at a large chamber that had been cleared out, then vigorously cleaned, quite recently. For her sake?

  “Scalza doesn’t like me much, does he?”

  “Scalza knows his family history, on both sides. He has an exaggerated ideal of what his mother ought to be. The woman inside his head isn’t you. And you won’t be here long enough to evict her.”

  “I could take him back with me.” Only later did she realize that Ekaterina had not been mentioned. Which was disturbing. Mist herself had survived childhood mainly because she had had a knack for going overlooked.

  Ekaterina seemed to have that same capability.

  The wizard wasted no breath on the absurdity of her suggestion. “Al right. Wishful thinking. The worst of us want to be thought wel of by our children. Where are the Princes? I don’t see them.” “Here.” The wizard drew aside a curtain identical to those that masked Fangdred’s interior wal s, keeping the cold at bay and the warmth confined.

  Moving this curtain showed that the room was bigger than it seemed.

  “That’s where it al happened?”

  “It is. The Old Man should be on the higher seat in the center. I don’t know what became of him.” That seat was empty, of course. The remains of the Princes Thaumaturge occupied lower chairs to either hand.

  Varthlokkur removed the dust sheets covering them.

  Mist stared, in silence, for more than a minute.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I can’t tel which one is which.”

  Varthlokkur confessed, “That would be beyond me, too.

  This is where they were when the Star Rider left the Wind Tower. They’ve been moved several times since.”

  “How did you get in?”

  The question surprised the wizard. “What do you mean?”

  “Nepanthe told Valther that the Wind Tower was sealed off after that night and that the sealing was proof against your power.”

  “Not forever. I chipped at the spel s for years.”

  “Chipped at them. And when you got in the Old Man was gone.”

  “Yes. Though I’m not sure that the Star Rider didn’t take him, back then.”

  “Yes. You are. You think him coming back for the Old Man was the break you needed to get through.”

  “You’re right. It’s probable. With the Old Man gone there might’ve been no reason to keep the Wind Tower sealed.”

  “This one was my father. He has a scar on his neck. He took the wound the night he and Nu Li Hsi murdered Tuan Hoa.” “Somewhere, in some hel , your grandfather had a good laugh the night they died.”

  “I’m sure. You were here.”

  “I was here.”

  “That must have been a terrible night.”

  “More than you can imagine, in ways more dire than you’l ever know.”

  Mist nodded. Only two living beings knew the ful story: this man and Nepanthe. Nepanthe was less likely to share than was Varthlokkur. Mist aske
d, “How did they get here?” Varthlokkur responded with a blank look.

  “Transfers are how we humble distance in Shinsan. But a transfer needs a sending and a receiving portal. Two sets for two princes. What I know about what happened is mostly hearsay. I never heard how the Princes got here in the first place.”

  “I don’t remember. There is a lot about that night that no one remembers. We were al dead for a while.”

  “Some more permanently than others, it seems.”

  “It was not a pleasant evening. I avoid thinking and talking about it.”

  “As you wil .”

  She considered her father and his brother. “There is no way that they can be brought back?”

  “No.”

  “Ethrian’s situation put the thought into my head. You’re sure?”

  “No one in this…” He paused.

  Mist faced him. “The Star Rider did this to them, didn’t he?”

  “No. I did. He put the remains on the seats.”

  “Can he resurrect them?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure he didn’t plan to when he sealed the Wind Tower. But he is a clever devil.”

  “Exactly. Considering the example of the Nawami revenants in the eastern desert.”

  “You’re right. Sahmaman was barely a ghost. I’l make sure he finds nothing to work with here.”

  “The Star Rider needs to be rendered permanently redundant.” “Have a care with what you say.”

  “You disagree?”

  “Not at al . I’l cheerful y entertain suggestions as to how to arrange that. But thousands before us have shared that ambition. Most likely thousands more wil do so after we’re gone.”

  Mist stared at her father. “It wil take a bigger, faster, deadlier rat trap.” Then, “Let’s go back down. This is too depressing. Al I real y came for was to connect with my children.”

  “As you wish.”

  She could tel that he considered her prospects doomed.

  ...

  Mist had gone. Neither Scalza nor Ekaterina ever warmed to her. Varthlokkur settled into that room in the Wind Tower, the curtain back and the dust covers off the dead. He reviewed the terrible memories and tried to deal with questions that Mist had raised.

  How did the Princes get into Fangdred without having portals waiting?

  He had the entire fortress searched, years after the fact.

  The search turned up exactly what he expected: nothing.

  They could have ridden winged demons. In fact, that seemed likely. But those things made a lot of noise.

  The weather that night had been terrible… Previously dissociated elements clicked into place. Of course. That weather had not been natural.

  Nepanthe’s brothers must have been involved.

  Knowing what to look for let him probe the past and discover that the Storm Kings, and Mist herself, had affected events that night.

  Insanity. Mist, and many others, had known that the Princes Thaumaturge would be engaged. Everyone had an interest and each thumbed the situation somewhere, trying to shape the outcome subtly. But there was nothing anywhere to clarify the essential question: How had the brothers gotten into the Wind Tower without receiving portals in place?

  There was no choice but to believe either the winged demon hypothesis or that portals, since removed, had been placed for them, in secret, beforehand.

  It could be that Old Meddler had made it al happen.

  And Varthlokkur was no more comfortable about some other questions Mist had raised.

  He had to do something with the dead sorcerers. There was no choice about that.

  Nepanthe brought tea. She sat with him, her back to the site of the worst night of a life where most every major memory was a bad one. “Ethrian is having a good day. You should spend more time with him. I think that would help.”

  “Yes. Certainly. It would be time better spent than sitting here, despairing of yesterday and tomorrow.” Nepanthe leaned forward. She rested a hand on his. “Let’s just concern ourselves with what we can do today.” There was a tear in the corner of his left eye when he said,

  “That should be the way we live.” They rose. He slipped an arm around her waist as they walked toward the doorway.

  He glanced back at the dead, just once, as he waited for her to step out.

  That once gave him an idea.

  Chapter Eleven:

  Summer, Year 1017 AFE:

  Legendary Confusion

  Hammad al Nakir simmered with rumors. Everyone wanted to believe that the King Without a Throne had returned.

  His very first action had been to kil Magden Norath, ending the terror underpinning bad king Megelin’s throne!

  The desert awaited anxiously what would happen next.

  The man who had caused the ferment had no idea what that should be. Taking Norath down, alerting the world to his survival, had not figured in the fantasies he had indulged during his long trek west.

  People would start looking for him. Some would just want to know if it was real y him. Others would be frightened. Old Meddler would be upset because his intrigue had been aborted before it could be hatched.

  Yasmid and Megelin would want to capture him. The Dread Empire and Varthlokkur had to be considered, too.

  He could not hide Haroun bin Yousif from those powers. He had to become someone distinctly not Haroun.

  He began immediately. He sold his horses. He bought strange clothing. He acquired a donkey and three goats.

  He left the desert for the east coast. There he bought a cart for his goats to pul . This and that went into the cart, including al his obvious weapons.

  The shore of the Sea of Kotsüm was a region where the people fol owed the Disciple. Bandits and robbers were few.

  He came to al-Asadra wearing gaudy apparel and shaved.

  He had a red demon tattoo on his left cheek and a big blue teardrop fal ing from the outside corner of his right eye. His own family would not have recognized him.

  He had trouble recognizing him, so thoroughly had he dropped into this new character.

  He had no long-term plan.

  He was an entertainer, now, a role so alien that no one ought ever to look his way with Haroun bin Yousif in mind.

  He did puppet shows. He used sleight of hand tricks which, due to his lack of skil , compel ed him to employ some true sorcery. Careful y. Everyone enjoyed a magic show—so long as they could be sure they were just seeing conjure tricks. And, final y, he told fortunes using a greasy, worn deck found in pawn in the souk where he put on his first show. Their shabbiness lent them credibility.

  Divination in any form was il egal but the authorities turned a blind eye so long as the fortunetel er claimed to be an entertainer only.

  Cynics would observe that fortunetel ers had been around for mil ennia before El Murid and they would exist stil long after El Murid had been forgotten by even the most esoteric historians. People wanted a glimpse of the future, often desperately.

  God had written their fates on their foreheads at birth but that was hard to read in a mirror. It was easy to delude oneself into believing that a mummer might, indeed, reveal the divine plan. And the more so when the future one saw oneself was entirely ugly.

  “Hai, peoples. Come see.” He performed a conjuring trick that attracted a few urchins. He did the one where he found a dirty green coin behind a six-year-old’s ear. The kid sprinted off to turn his riches into food. The news brought a raucous crowd of children.

  His confidence did not improve. He was not accustomed to children. He was not social at al . He wrestled ferocious doubts as he strove to hide from the world by borrowing a persona from a man long dead.

  ...

  “Al this ferment because of one unreliable witness,” Yasmid said. “I don’t understand.”

  “They want it to be true,” Habibul ah replied. “They’re sick of Megelin. He’s a weakling tyrant who spawns disasters. But they’re equal y sick of being preached at.

  They
’re hungry for a savior. They are making themselves one out of wishful thinking. The King Without a Throne. The strongman who wil bring peace and unity. They forget the facts of the man that was.”

  Yasmid knew that. She did not like it.

  She disliked its religious implications. She disliked its social implications. Selfishly, she disliked it because it suggested that she could lose her privileged life.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to do anything about it. I don’t want to be seen as concerned about it. Let the fever run its course.”

  Habibul ah was astonished. “But…”

  “We’re going to try a new strategy, old friend. This time, instead of roaring around kil ing people and screaming about God, we’re just going to ignore it. We’l leave the world alone so long as the world extends us the same courtesy.”

  She watched the old soldier begin to marshal his arguments, then lay them down again before he spoke.

  He was tired of the struggle, too.

  She asked, “Is it time to go see my father?”

  “Yes. Elwas wants us to dine with him and the foreigner.” His disapproval of that Unbeliever never relented.

  “Then let us tend to our garden.”

  Habibul ah frowned, puzzled.

  “A sutra from the Book of Reconciliation.” Which was not a book at al but a long letter El Murid had written to persecuted converts when he was stil young and visionary.

  It was included in the greater col ection of the Disciple’s Inspired Writings—cynical y assembled by Yasmid to help guide and shape the Faith.

  “Oh. Yes. Where he tel s us to endure our trials. If we live our lives righteously and tend to our gardens, God wil tend to us.”

  “Very good.”

  “My father was there, in that camp, when he wrote that letter.”

  Tangled lives, Yasmid thought, with some entanglements going back decades and generations.

  She had her women ready her for the public passage across the mile to her father’s tent. Though the hard line imams had been tamed for now she did not want to provoke them. Publicly, she would conform to the standards expected of an important woman.

  Those were the unwritten terms of a tacit truce.