ZYGRADON (23 page)

How long would it take for people to suspect instantaneous communication
between Stronghold, Wynystrys, Moerta and the Warhawk's camp? Would anyone
suspect the young man with his straggly new beard? Mrillis appreciated his years of
practice fading into the background on Wynystrys, to hide from bullies. He learned to
stay near the Warhawk, to be ready at a moment's notice, but to never be noticed by the
greedy, self-important and power-hungry.

Endor was jealous, though he tried to hide it. Mrillis felt the discontent
vibrating along the Threads, when he contacted his friend. The tales of mishaps,
complaints of discomfort and boasts about his strength and responsibilities grew fewer.
Endor found excuses not to indulge in idle talk when he made his regular reports from
his superiors for Mrillis to pass on to Breylon. He didn't skimp on the details of his
messages and reports, though. Mrillis took comfort from that, and prayed that the next
time he saw his friend, all would be normal between them again.

When the fall storms came, the Warhawk retreated to his fortress winter
quarters, and Mrillis' assignment with him continued. Nixtan, who had proven himself
with several heroic rescues of small farming homesteads over the summer, was rewarded
with a position in the Warhawk's entourage as Mrillis' assistant. The two young men fell
into an easy friendship that felt like the early years on Wynystrys, and Mrillis was glad.
He had missed that friendship more than he realized, partly because he had been so busy
with Endor, helping the other boy find his own place among the Rey'kil. Mrillis chose
not to tell Endor that he and Nixtan were friends again. Despite the changes in his
friend's attitude and his new maturity, Mrillis knew Endor would not be pleased. Why
couldn't he have more than one or two good, close friends?

Nixtan enjoyed the game of pretending to be a harmless scribe, and once he
got over his awe of the Warhawk and Lyon, contributed just as many ideas to the game
of subterfuge they played together. Sometimes, though, Mrillis saw admiration in the
other young man's eyes, heard it in his voice. That bothered him. Nixtan was the elder,
with more experience. Mrillis didn't know whether to be embarrassed or flattered at the
deference that sometimes filtered through their interactions.

Nixtan's presence, to receive and pass on messages for the Warhawk, left Mrillis
free to travel on errands for the Warhawk, the Stronghold and Wynystrys. He rode to
the western coast to meet Endor. Two Rey'kil ships returned to Lygroes for the winter, to
bring maps and written reports on the progress of the settlements and let the leaders on
both sides of the sea make plans for new tactics in the spring. Endor had proven himself
trustworthy as well as talented, and was entrusted with the report scrolls for Wynystrys,
and to deliver letters and packages to the families of those who stayed behind in
Moerta.

As they traveled across the country, the two friends fell back into their old habit
of wild speculations and good-natured mockery of each other. They stopped in
Wynystrys to deliver Endor's burden and to make the first report to Breylon. Then, they
were assigned the duty of taking a copy to the Stronghold for the Queen of Snow's
archives, and to make a copy for the Warhawk.

"We've been too insular," Breylon explained, over a private dinner before
Mrillis and Endor set out on their journey. "We've held too much knowledge to
ourselves. We've let our prejudice and pride create a wall of silence. Rey'kil and Noveni
alike suffered when illness, flood, fire and war struck. Those who held the secrets of
healing and the wisdom of the ancients died without passing on that knowledge. I truly
believe our ancestors knew how to harness the power of the star-metal from the first. It
was given to us as a blessing. But that knowledge was hoarded, not shared, and so it was
lost." He sighed, his smile soft with weariness and satisfaction. "Now, there will be
records everywhere, so no knowledge will be lost."

* * * *

Ceera had grown up over the summer. Mrillis stared at her new curves and felt
an odd stirring in his belly when the willowy girl flung her arms around him in greeting.
His heart jolted when she kissed both his cheeks and then leaped back, teasing him about
how his beard tickled her.

Heat crackled through his gut when she hugged Endor, and laughed when the
red-haired young man wrapped his arms around her and spun her around in the
entryway to the Stronghold. Mrillis tried to be content that Ceera didn't kiss Endor, but
the wooden bracelet his friend had given her clattered softly around her wrist when she
gestured with her long, delicate hands.

"Our Lady will be so glad to see you. She's been overseeing your rooms and
changing her mind ten times over about what to have for dinner," Ceera chattered as she
led them up the wide, winding stairs to the top of the Stronghold.

At the third landing, she paused and tugged aside the sliding wooden panel that
covered the deep, narrow window slit. Sleet spattered through, and the muffled howl of
the wind grew into a shriek. She laughed and slid the panel shut.

"The storm is just as bad as she feared. Come. We'll have a lovely evening,
talking and singing and telling tales!" She hooked her arm through Mrillis' free arm and
danced up the stairs again.

Mrillis was hard pressed not to grin his triumph. He knew better than to glance
back to gauge Endor's reaction. His friend absolutely refused to talk about Ceera at all,
and had changed the subject the few times Mrillis had brought up the girl's name on their
journey. That was the surest sign of all that his friend was more than mildly interested in
the silver-haired girl.

She's Le'esha's heir
, Mrillis reminded himself.
She doesn't have
time for the stupid games he likes to play. She won't even notice if he tries anything. If
she did notice, she'd laugh and think he's silly.

Still, the thought of Endor trying to catch Ceera alone, to kiss her or hold her or
whisper empty flattery, made something churn and stab in Mrillis' chest. He could hardly
breathe as the three climbed the last few turns of the stairs. He tightened his hold on
Ceera, even though he was ready to drop his saddlebags and cloak and other gear from
pure weariness.

Ceera had been his family, his dearest friend, his anchor for as long as he could
remember. They had cried for each other, got caught in foolish, childish escapades
together, risked their lives for each other, plotted tricks against their foes together.
Together, they had found the key to unravel the mystery and danger of the star-metal.
The thought that someone would try to come between them made Mrillis sick to his
stomach, and his head ached as if someone tried to hammer pegs through his
temples.

"Are you all right?" Endor asked, when they emerged into the common room,
full of magical sunlight despite the storm.

"Fine," Mrillis said, trying not to clench his teeth.

"You're not fine." Ceera tugged her arm loose. She sparkled as she danced out of
his reach. "You smell of horse and sweat and campfires. I'm not letting either of you
anywhere near our Lady until you've bathed and changed your clothes." She darted in
and yanked on Mrillis' dark curls. "And cut your hair!"

His rumbling feelings vanished in laughter as he snatched at her and managed to
yank the garland of flowers from her hair. Ceera shrieked, trying to sound angry through
her laughter, and kicked at him. Mrillis dropped his gear and caught her, wrapped his
arms around her and swung her off her feet for a moment.

The sense and shape of Ceera in his arms had changed drastically. He wasn't
prepared and the differences threw him off balance so he stumbled and almost fell. Heat
rushed over him as he imagined, in a fraction of a heartbeat, landing on top of Ceera on
the floor. His arms tingled where they settled into her new curves. Mrillis stumbled as he
put her down, and nearly dropped her.

"Bully." She made as if to kick his shin, but danced away again. A flick of her
fingers shot pale gold sparks across the wide common room and a door swung open,
leading into the passageway connecting all the living quarters. Now that they were
grown, he and Endor had private rooms instead of sleeping in the dormitories. "Take
your baths, both of you, before I put you out in the storm to rinse you down. Warm
water is ever so much more pleasant," she added, and vanished through another door
that clicked shut loudly behind her.

Endor laughed. Mrillis refused to look at his friend as he gathered up his gear
and followed him through the door. They walked down another flight of stairs, to reach
the bathing level where hot springs provided a constant supply of water. Even when he
lay up to his neck in a tub of hot water scented with spicewood, Mrillis still felt the
warmth of Ceera caught tight in his arms.

Why couldn't she have stayed a little girl, so they could stay friends just the way
they had always been, where it didn't matter who was a girl and who was a boy?

"So, we wondered when you would notice."

Le'esha laughed softly when Mrillis spun to face her, moving so quickly he
almost overbalanced and fell. The sound chimed against the shimmering wall of magic
that kept the cold wind and snow out of the tower room looking out over the icy
Northern Sea. She laughed again when he turned his back to her and glared out through
the snow that blew nearly horizontal. Her arms wrapped tightly around him from
behind. He stiffened, then silently called himself a fool and relaxed into her embrace that
enfolded him in her soft gray cloak like twilight.

He had grown over the summer absence, too, he realized. Le'esha no longer
tipped her head to rest her cheek against his hair. She tucked her chin into his shoulder
instead.

Mrillis didn't like these proofs of change. Le'esha was his mother. She would
always be wiser, taller and right about everything.

"Yes, Ceera is a woman now, but she laughs and thinks it foolishness when boys
offer her flowers and sweets or sing songs to her when we make our rounds through the
villages," she murmured. "She's too busy learning, exploring all the paths opening before
her. I'm almost afraid she'll never open her life to womanhood in all its
dimensions."

"If she's to be Queen of Snows after you...." Mrillis sighed. "But she won't need
to be--will she?"

"My authority does not grant me immortality, and I thank the Estall for that.
We live an illusion of peace, my lad, don't ever forget that. And like the mists off the ice
in the heat of summer, it can shred and evaporate in an instant, with just a breath of
wind. Illusions conceal traps. We have enemies. And enemies mean pain and death. I
would be a poor servant of the Estall if I did not prepare against my own death. Just as
Breylon prepares his heir." She squeezed his shoulders and turned him sharply, so he
tottered as he faced her.

Mrillis felt his heart lurch. "Not--me?"

"Do you fear it, or consider yourself unworthy?"

"I don't want it!" burst out of him before he could think. Mrillis laughed as a
light sensation flooded his chest. "I don't want to be High Scholar. Is that wrong? I want
to explore and keep learning and sail and see Moerta and... do things."

"You're young and you think that sitting and planning and directing the actions
of others is reserved for the old and tired." She smiled, shook her head and wrapped her
gray cloak closer around herself. With her pale coloring, she looked ageless, but Mrillis
felt a shiver of fear for her, for the first time in his life. "Don't fear, my dear one, Breylon
did consider you for his heir, but we agree, your destiny does not lead you to the high
seat on Wynystrys."

"Ceera's destiny, though, keeps her here." He didn't question it. A heavy
sensation, like a mud-coated rock, settled in his belly.

"That does not preclude love and marriage and children."

"But she'll be Queen of Snows!"

He tried to imagine Le'esha heavy with child, like Anyicka as he had seen her
just a few hours before. Tried to imagine her with a husband who held her on his lap, or
children tugging on her skirts. Well, yes, he could imagine the last, because he had tugged
on her skirts. All children loved Le'esha. The difficulty was imagining Le'esha as an
ordinary woman, suffering labor, nursing a baby, changing dirty diapers, being tired,
growing old, becoming a grandmother. Everything that entailed. He couldn't. It violated
all the laws of what was right and proper in the World.

"I was married, long ago."

Her quiet voice and the flicker of sadness in her green eyes shocked Mrillis more
than a flood of Encindi warriors leaping into the tower from the snowy sky.

"He waits for me in the Estall's Bliss. He was a warrior with Afron's father."
Mischief glittered in her eyes. "Can you take any more sacrilege, my dear? My husband,
my lover, was Noveni, not Rey'kil."

Somehow, that was the easiest part to accept. Mrillis thought of his recent
feelings for Ceera and couldn't wrap his imagination around a man touching Le'esha
that
way. He couldn't meet her gaze any longer. He looked away, out to the
snow.

"Do you fear you commit some evil, by wanting her?"

"I don't know. I danced with girls. I even kissed a few girls. I didn't think
anything of it. Until Ceera kissed me. Like she's always kissed me. Sister to brother."

"But you didn't feel like her brother any longer?" She sighed, half laughing, and
patted his back. "So noble. So valiant. Trying so hard to be pure. You make me proud,
and I ache for you." She yanked gently on his hair. "And I think you're being unutterably
silly. If she knew, so would she."

By the time Mrillis got his breath back and turned to face her, he only caught a
last flicker of her cloak before the darkness of the tower stairs swallowed her.

Somehow, he did feel better. Le'esha approved of his feelings for Ceera. That
had to mean something, didn't it?