The Spy Princess (12 page)

five

A
girl not much older than us brought our horses and led us down a path. Shafts of gold-green morning light filtered down overhead, birds called to each other, and there were more wildflowers than I'd ever seen in the tangled garden at Selenna House. The sight and scent squeezed my heart with unexpected sadness for all we had lost.

Our guide talked readily enough. “This is one of the oldest forests in the world, though I'm told that the woodland up in Everon and Wnelder Vee is older—there, and even farther north.”

“Are there any morvende here? Or any of the other magic races?” I asked.

She shook her head. “There's been no sign of the morvende since Norsunder took Sartor.” She jerked her thumb westward. “Those mountains make the border, you know. We're close—damn close.”

The bad word seemed uncomfortably apt. None of us had ever seen Norsundrians, but everyone knew that their country existed outside of time. Its rulers were more powerful than mages and did evil things. You could go there to avoid death and live as long as you liked—except the Norsundrians owned your soul and could consume it, and you, to make them stronger.

“So what do you do?” Bren asked. “Are you thieves?”

“Sometimes.” She was not in the least apologetic. “Though not many worth robbing come through Diannah. You can call us ‘guardians,' for that's nearer the truth.” She patted the nose of Bren's mare. “We're still going to exact a price from you. We want your mounts when you reach the transfer. Just send them back down the trail.”

“But the mountains go on and on,” I protested. “And some of them have snow all year!”

She grinned at me, her dark eyes friendly. “You won't need the horses, once you do the spell. I promise you.”

At noon, she gave Innon a parcel of food and said, “Follow this trail all the way up, until you come out of the wood. You'll know when. Fare well.” She clucked, and her longhaired pony trotted down the trail until the shadows swallowed them.

By late afternoon, the forest had thinned, and we stopped by a stream. The parcel contained nutbread, which served as dinner.

“When do we get to the magic?” I wondered.

“I tried it. Nothing happened,” Bren replied cheerily, rubbing down his horse.

Peitar said we'd be safe
, I thought.

• • •

N
EXT DAY'S RIDE
took us steadily uphill, past rocky cliffs and soughing stands of pine. By midday the path had narrowed, skirting the edges of increasingly steep escarpments.

“I think it's time to let the animals go,” Bren said.

Innon grimaced. “I don't much look forward to walking up this cliff.”

But it was too dangerous for horses, so we sent them back down the trail to the foresters.

“Shall we try the magic?” I asked.

Innon looked dubious. “If it doesn't work, it won't do something terrible, will it?”

“Like make your ears fall off, or turn you into a tree stump?” Bren snickered.

“I don't know anything about magic, remember?”

“I don't either, really,” I said, “but Lasva Dei said there are two kinds—light and dark. Light magic either works or it doesn't. Dark magic can destroy you if you do it wrong—it's more powerful, but it's dangerous. And there aren't any safeguards.”

Now Innon sounded even more anxious. “What kind is ours, light or dark?”

“It has to be light. After all, we aren't harming anything.”

“Well, let's try, then,” Bren suggested.

I tucked the book more securely into my sash. We taught Innon as Peitar had taught us, in the carriage to Miraleste—gestures first, then the words. After we were sure he knew it as well as we did, we tried for real.

And nothing happened. We tried again, slower. Nothing.

“I guess we need to keep going.” I sighed.

So we climbed until all three of us were panting. My feet began to slip.

We tried the magic again. And, again, nothing. Bren sat down, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “What now? Did we learn it wrong?”

I took a deep breath to answer and felt strange. Tingly, the way I felt stepping through a cleaning frame. And then curiously light, as if I could run uphill. I tried a leap over a rock—and came down softly, as if I were in water.

“How'd you do that?” Innon asked behind me.

I tried another leap, this time higher, and my body stayed suspended for a long breath before it began drifting down. I flung up my arms—and I rose into the air!

Bren gave a wild yell of joy. “Deon will
love
this!” He shot past me, soaring upward with frightening speed. Then Innon launched himself into the air, his arms windmilling. He turned in a slow circle, making noises of surprise and delight.

We were flying!

“Arms up for speed, out for steady,” Bren called. “Point your head toward where you want to go.” He skimmed across the sky, silhouetted against the sun, his body straight, his arms wide, fingers curved like the wingtips of a raptor.

I imitated him and found myself going faster. Innon soon appeared beside me.

At first we stayed close to the rocky cliffside, but gradually gained height until we sailed just above the treetops. It was then that I felt the power of the magic drawing us in a specific direction. It didn't control us—it was more like guidance. Up ahead, Bren was experimenting, swooping and diving and climbing again.

“Oh,” Innon said, his eyes wide, with the biggest grin I'd ever seen. “Oh. This is what I've wanted all my life.”

“Me too,” I cried. “Me too!”

We circled spectacular cliffs of varicolored rock, and old, twisted trees, sometimes diving down into shadow, then emerging into sunlight again. Up and up, until we reached the mighty summits we'd seen from far below. Sometimes my shadow appeared below me, rippling over patches of blue ice in crevasses that never saw sunlight, and ground that might never have been touched by human feet.

I flew in a great arc in order to look at Sarendan stretching into the hazy distance, its silvery-white rivers like glowing ribbons. Then I raised my arms, arched my back, and the world turned upside down. Vertigo clawed at my insides, and I stuck out my arms and legs to steady myself. The boys were far ahead.

I raced faster and faster until air whistled past my ears, and I caught up with the others. Together we soared upward, until we rounded one ice-laced crest and saw land stretching out to the south.

Magic drew us slightly to the east and finally down, toward a lake surrounded by six or eight mountains overshadowed by a great sky-touching peak.

The valley was framed with ledges cut into the sides of the cliffs, one much larger than the others, all of them green with trees and grass. On the largest lay a village, built around a meadow dotted with blossoms the pale gold of a harvest moon. Sheep milled about, and here and there goats trotted up trails too narrow for human feet.

As we were pulled slowly down into the village, I scanned the well-kept houses. Each had a small patch of vegetables as well as flowers, orderly and pretty—so different from Riveredge.

Bren was the first to land. He put his hands out to slow himself, touched down, and ran a few steps to a stop.

Several kids came out of a nearby house, and a moment later a woman joined them. They wore bright, embroidered clothes, and I was instantly aware of our filthy, tattered selves.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, without alarm or even any surprise.

“There was a revolution back in Sarendan. We were told to come—” Bren began.

“My mother had a house here,” I interrupted. “Sharannah Irad?”

The woman beamed. “Oh, Rana was my friend when we were young! You are her daughter?” I nodded, and she eyed me in a friendly manner. “Definitely a resemblance.” I must have looked dubious, because she added, “In you I see her smile again. I am Seriah Evris. Be welcome!” She turned to a girl our age. “Dawn, please show them to Irad House.”

Dawn was short and much lighter in build than I, with neat brown braids and a round face. Like the others, she wore a long, colorful tunic over loose trousers gathered at the ankle.

“There's someone already at Irad House,” she said.

“A man?” I thought uneasily of my uncle.

She shook her head. “Woman.” Dawn did the magic with blurring speed, lightly leaped straight up, and hovered in the air, waiting for us to follow.

We found it easier to take off this time, and flew after her. The meadow fell away behind us, and we headed toward a ledge with a tangle of forest around a steep stone roof.

One by one we landed on a path through this wild garden.

“Come back to visit when you have time,” Dawn said to me before she departed. “Everyone else who visits is an adult—I've never met a girl from outside before.”

The garden was shaded with alder and several kinds of hemlock and poplar, with juniper bushes everywhere. I counted five different shades of roses, wild grapes, and blueberry bushes.

A sudden turn in the path brought us to the house. It was wood and stone, built into a hill, with corners and dormers and interesting angles everywhere. Here was my mother's retreat, her true home.

My eyes burned. I blinked fast. Bren and Innon didn't notice, for which I was grateful. They bounded up the steps ahead of me but stopped at the wooden door carved with vines and leaves. It was I who pushed it firmly open.

And we found ourselves face-to-face with Lizana.

six

“A
h, you made it safely,” Lizana said, as if we'd just parted that morning. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“Later,” I cried impatiently, before the boys could speak. “Where—how—?”

“Did Peitar come with you?” she asked, looking past us.

“He's with Derek. In Miraleste,” I said, all the old worries rushing back. “Father . . . Father is dead.”

“I am so sorry, child.” Lizana patted my cheek, and that small gesture made me feel better. “As for your brother, I know you couldn't have stopped him. Come in, boys. I'll show all three of you the house and explain the rules over a good meal.” She guided us first to a cozy sitting room with cream-colored walls, black walnut furnishings, and a slate fireplace.

“Who's that?” Bren asked.

Over the mantelpiece hung a painting of a dark-haired girl in an old-fashioned gown of maroon satin. She had a heart-shaped face, slanted blue eyes, and a gentle smile.

“Mother,” I whispered.

“This was her favorite room,” Lizana said to me. “Come.”

As I followed her familiar, stout figure in Selenna blue and gray, my mind bloomed with questions. But I knew there was no use in asking until she was ready to answer.

We passed through a sunny kitchen and a book-lined library, ending up at the front door again. She indicated a staircase next to the library. “That leads to your bedrooms. Lilah, you'll have your mother's old room. You boys will share the one with the bunk beds. I'm down here, near the kitchen.”

“Where will Deon stay?” Bren asked warily. “I know she'll come. Derek will tell her where. When she escapes wherever Dirty Hands has her.”

“She will stay with Lilah, of course,” Lizana said, and when she turned my way, I asked, “What happened to you?”

“I helped as many people as I could, after Derek promised me he'd find you and free you. I thought you'd be all right at Selenna House, so I stayed to try to get things back to order. But it turned out to be more than one person could do.” She led us back into the kitchen, where we sat around the table. “So I left, thinking that either you'd stay with your father or else Peitar would find a way to bring you here.”

Bren began, “But Derek said Dirty Hands—”

“I wish,” she said sternly, “you would refrain from using that name in my presence. He is Lilah's uncle. And he's not, as so many would conveniently assume, an evil man. Though he has done evil things.”

“So doing evil things makes him a good man?” Bren crossed his arms.

Lizana considered him, lips pursed. “Peitar could probably answer you more quickly, for he has been reading a great deal about the nature of evil. My own answer would take a long time, as long as experience, so only ask if you really want to hear it.”

He shook his head. “No. I think Dir—Darian Irad is an evil king. I hope he's dead. But . . . I won't call him Dirty Hands in this house, if that's your rule.”

“Fair enough,” she said. And then, to Innon, “Your question?”

“Why did Deveral in Diannah Wood use your name?”

One side of Lizana's mouth quirked. “He's my brother.”

“Hah!” Bren said. “I
knew
there was something, I just knew it.” And, when she raised her eyebrows, “Lilah's name mattered to him. And he looked familiar.” He touched his cheeks. “It's the resemblance.”

“You do have the eye of an artist,” Lizana said, and he colored.

Innon pressed on, “One of the foresters claimed they were guardians. But what do they guard?”

“They guard the wood against enemies that—as yet—do not turn their eyes this way. The caravans they rob are few, and Deveral makes certain the owners can well afford to lose what's taken. It keeps attention away from Diannah—and, incidentally, from this village up here and what it, in its turn, guards.” I could tell the boys were as curious as I was. “Enough of that,” Lizana said, disappointingly. “While I prepare a meal, you three go upstairs and change. We've cleaning frames. There's also a bath. You will like the bath,” she added, smiling at me. “And there are clothes in the wardrobes.” She looked at Innon and shook her head. “Peitar's old clothes should fit Bren, but I'm afraid you'll have to make do.”

I ran upstairs. On the left were three bedrooms, and windows on the right overlooked the garden and a glimpse of winking blue lake. The first room had bunk beds. The next was very plain—austere, almost. The last had warm rosewood furniture, a thick rug, a quilt, and chair cushions of indigo and white with faint silver tracings. I loved it at once.

The first thing I did, after putting down my book, was open the wardrobe. There were old-fashioned gowns and clothes like Dawn and her friends had worn. Tears threatened again as I looked at my mother's things. I backed up a step, impatient with myself. I was not a crier, so why was I acting like one?

Well, stop it
, I told myself. I picked a rose-colored gown and went off in search of the bath.

Lizana was right—I did like it. The window looked out on a fern-dotted cliffside, and the bath itself was more like a pool, fed by a spout near the ceiling. The water gently steamed and never spilled over. Magic—had to be!

I shucked my grimy Larei clothes and slid in. The zing of magic made me feel as clean as if I'd scrubbed with a brush.

Soon I was back in Mother's room, looking at myself in her mirror. The gown laced, so it fit pretty much anyone my size, but it was a little short, and the sleeves were tight. It was strange, wearing something my mother had once worn. How I wished things were different—that I could see her again, that I had some real memories, not just blurry ones of her smile, her soft hands, the smell of roses in her hair. . . .

I grabbed her brush. When at last my hair had been tamed, my arm ached, my scalp smarted, and my eyes stung, but I was clean and neatly dressed, and I knew that Lizana would approve. I put my Larei clothes through the cleaning frame, folded them, and laid them in the bureau. Then I went down to the kitchen.

Bren was already there, looking completely unlike himself in Peitar's clothes—especially the shirt with full sleeves and old-fashioned point lace at the wrists. “There wasn't much of a choice.” He tried to frown, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him. “I don't know what Derek would think of this toff rig.”

“You look fine,” I said. His ears turned bright red.

Lizana was just putting out the dishes. The smell of fishcakes with onions made my stomach rumble.

Innon spoke uncertainly from behind us. “I think I'd as soon wear what I came in.”

We turned around—and I tried hard not to laugh. The ruffled, robin's-egg-blue shirt he'd found was enormous. The sleeves hid his hands, and there was so much extra shirt tucked into the striped, pleated satin trousers that he looked like he had a potbelly all the way around.

“Well,
this
is worse,” he said, and yanked the shirt out. It hung down past his knees. Then the trousers began to slip. He clutched them and hobbled away as fast as he could.

Bren howled. I gave up and joined him. Lizana just shook her head.

When Innon returned, he wore his old clothes, which were now clean. “I guess these'll have to last,” he said cheerily. “Whew! At home I must have had ten suits, and my mother was always nagging that that was scarcely enough.”

“You are all going to learn to sew,” Lizana said.

“That means I can cut some of those old ones up?” Innon asked.

“Yes. But that's later. Right now, supper.”

We sat down to the meal, to which she had added a vegetable stew. “Now, all of you, listen,” she said, as we served ourselves. “You're free to explore the valley and swim in the lake—but not the far end, where the purple-blue flowers grow right down to the water. They're called Lure, and for a reason. If you get close, you'll begin feeling you're invincible, and if you get nearer, you'll slide into sleep—and it's a dangerous, magical sleep—unless someone pulls you away at great risk to themselves. The valley youngsters are not permitted to fly alone until they can be trusted to avoid the Lure. Do you understand?” We nodded. “Next. Here, we all work. No one is the servant, no one the master. You will each keep your rooms clean, and all help in the kitchen. It isn't hard. Tsauderei, the mage here, has given us many magical aids.”

More nods—Bren suspiciously, but when he saw Innon and me agree, the slight frown above his eyes eased.

“Those are all the rules,” she concluded. “Now, do you want to talk about what happened after you went back to Selenna?”

I gave the shortest explanation I could. Bren glowered, and Innon ate stolidly, not looking at any of us, until I got to the part where we found Derek and Innon working things out on the chalkboard.

“Trying to figure out how people can trade,” he broke in. “You know, a sack of onions gets you half a wheelbarrow of bricks. Or one day of carpentry work gets you half a sack, but if you're a glassmaker who puts in a window, you get a whole sack.”

I was about to say that you could just pay for what you needed, but then I remembered that nobody had any money. For the first time, I wondered how people had figured out the worth of all these things as Bren said, “
You
were doing that?”

Innon flushed. “I've got a head for numbers.”

“And all the rest of 'em were arguing, right?”

“No. Yes. Linnah wanted to get the guild chiefs together to negotiate new taxes for rebuilding the city, but Sideos thought guild chiefs as bad as nobles and wanted to let the members of each guild start over with their own rules. That's where we were when you arrived.”

“Well,
I
am glad you're here,” Lizana said, neatly laying her fork and knife on her plate. “I trust you enjoyed flying?”

Our enthusiasm was so loud she covered her ears. I tried to imagine her flying. Of course she would do it with dignity.

She rose, plate in hand. “Vegetable peelings go through this frame here, which transfers them to the garden compost. There's the bucket for dishes. You dip them, dry them with this cloth, and put them here.” The shelves held more of the old-fashioned clay dishes, edged with blue and painted with twining vines and crimson flowers.

“The water comes from the fall around that corner. When you're done with the dishes, you snap the towel—like this—twice, and it's dry and clean. Hang it on its hook. Over in that corner is the mop. Anything on the floor will stick to it. When you finish, shake it out the door.”

We hopped to it, and the kitchen was soon cleaned to her satisfaction.

Then Innon tore upstairs and reappeared in ancient knee-pants. “Going swimming!” he called, and was gone.

I sat down at Mother's desk. My battered fashion book seemed out of place on the polished wood. I opened a drawer to find a pen and ink and discovered a diary bound in blue, with a gilt rose on the outside.

It had to be my mother's. I felt the way I had when I first began to fly.

Across the first page, in a large, slanting script, were the words

 

THIS IS RANA'S BOOK

And below that:

 

So I will remember every visit to my real, true home.

The diary started when she was very small, with long, scrawled descriptions of the house and garden.

I skipped ahead to where her handwriting improved. She seemed to be around my age, writing about how much she missed “Ian” and how she wished he'd visit, and how he would surely like “f.” F?
Flying
, I finally realized. It must have been a secret back then, too.

The entries were filled with
Ian said
this
,
Ian said
that
—and her worries about Ian. It took a while before I realized that Ian was Uncle Darian.

I closed the book and put it away, feeling sick and strange and upset. Oh, I knew he had to have been a boy, but to find him there in my mother's diary, his spoken words transcribed with such care, her concern for him—so like my concern for Peitar—
that
, I couldn't understand.

Going downstairs to explore didn't banish the feeling. I prowled around until Lizana emerged from her own room and took a look at my face.

“Problem, child?”

“My mother's diary. I, um, looked at it. I know I shouldn't have,” I added hastily.

“Why not? Who better to read it than her own daughter? I think it's appropriate.”

“Appropriate?” I repeated. “I don't know . . . there are things I think I'm too young to read about.”

Lizana put her hands on her hips. “Why is it that when faced with something you don't want to do, you children claim to be too young, but when it comes to poking your nose in matters that interest you, or running around in disguise talking of revolution, you protest that we shouldn't stop you, that we treat you like you're babies?”

I flushed, wanting to argue, but I knew she was right.

“That's a reprehensible excuse, ‘I'm too young,'” she continued. No smile, no anger either, but very serious. “How young was your uncle when your great-grandfather finally figured out the one way to control him, even worse than beatings: to threaten to flog your mother while he watched?”

I gasped. “But she never said—”

“He never told her. She had enough burdens, living with her grandfather's harsh words. From a very
young
age.”

“I only meant that I'm too young to read about marriage and being in love and all that.”

I was lying, and she knew it. “If there was anything inappropriate, I would not have left it for you,” she said.

I stared at her, thinking that she'd been young once too. When had she gone to work for my horrible great-grandfather? There was no use in asking. I was surprised she had even revealed that Deveral was her brother.