Lhind the Spy by Sherwood Smith

  He paused to study me, question puckering his brow. And worry.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Last night I took the skiff by myself. It has a sail. Unfortunately I don’t know how to beach one successfully. It crashed on a rock. Some roaming guards plucked me out of the surf, and when I gave them my carefully memorized Djuran speech about looking for you, they put me in that flying basket. You know the rest.”

  “But—why you? If Jardis knew who you were. . . .”

  “I hoped that he didn’t,” Hlanan said, with the straight, true gaze I remembered so well. “In any case, I couldn’t ask anyone else to face the danger for me.”

  Oh, Hlanan! My throat began to close up again, but anger got there first, and I said caustically—even with my eyes stinging with tears—“How very unemperorly of you. I hope your mother doesn’t try you for treason.”

  He held out his hands, and I laid my rage-stiff fingers in his. “Lhind,” he said, and I could feel his regret and sorrow. And I could hear his question on the mental realm.

  I shut my mental wall tight, remembering that last stupid gesture at Jardis. I knew in my bones that he would keep trying to scry me.

  “I can’t talk about it. Not now,” I said. “After your mother told him to take me, I never thought I would see you again.” My voice tightened once more and I made another swipe at my bare neck. “Does she know you’re here?”

  “Lhind, I came because I wanted to. You know I have freedom, within certain limits, those being that I can do nothing that will hurt the empire. And speaking up that day in Thann would have hurt the empire. Didn’t you see? Dhes-Andis was ready to hold you hostage against an entire empire, if he thought he could. My mother had to convince him otherwise, and she had to make the decision fast. She said that she tried to speak so outrageously—throwing in some insults about me—that you would know it for expedience.”

  “I knew it for truth,” I said. “Every word she said about me, I mean. It was the last truth I heard. Until now.” And when he winced, I relented. “All right, the Djurans didn’t all lie. That is, they believe what they say is true. Mostly,” I muttered, thinking of Amney’s poisonous pretense at civility.

  I straightened up. “Hlanan, this much is true, I’m broken. I lived a lie all this time, hiding my identity just as I did when I was Lhind the Thief, only the new lie was Princess Elenderi, and it was taking me over bit by bit. I thought even my mother abandoned me at the end there, and you know what? I couldn’t blame her.”

  Hlanan recaptured my hand again, his brown gaze warm and steady. “There are a lot of people who would argue with that condemnation. Thianra for one. She was pretty wild when she found out what happened. I’ve rarely heard her raise her voice, but after we got back to Erev-li-Erval she lit into my mother, reminding her first off why she would never have considered becoming heir. She was so furious about Aranu Crown surrendering you that she threatened to leave Erev-li-Erval and never return.” He paused and shook his head.

  I gave a watery smile, easily picturing Thianra taking on the formidable empress.

  “As for your mother, she would never have told you, but once she found out you had been taken to Sveran Djur she had to take to her bed in hopes you might discover that harp she’d enchanted. It was the only way she could be ready at any hour, and to be able to sustain the connection.”

  “I did not know that. She didn’t tell me.”

  “The Hrethan are exceptionally powerful with mind skills, but even they cannot maintain long distance contacts and go about daily lives. She only flew down from her mountain heights because the Snow Folk contacted the Hrethan to warn them that the dragon was going to rise. Lady Eleth went to the Hrethan for the fais spell to be put into a form that one of us could use, and then it took her a week to fly to Erev-li-Erval. She dared not use transfer magic.”

  So that was why I’d lost her contact. “Why did that dragon rise?”

  “No one knows. Except that they are all convinced it has something to do with you.”

  “Me?”

  Hlanan nodded. “The subject has been you for this past week. Month. More, really. Confused you might be. Angry, too, and have every right. But worthless you are not.”

  “The Mage Council certainly thought so. I didn’t figure out how they kept me in a kind of cage of ignorance until I had to live in a similar cage up at Icecrest.”

  “That’s because no one knows what to do about you,” he said seriously. “You appeared so suddenly. With inherited powers possessed by very few. Untrained, but still powerful. And hunted by the Emperor of Sveran Djur.”

  I sighed.

  “Granted, he is not as terrifying as his father, but Jardis Dhes-Andis is ruthless in getting what he wants. Little as I know about military things, I do understand military strategy in a general sense, and even I have seen that he has designs on the Kherval. But his immediate goal is Ndai, which he could use as a staging point to invade one of the richest continents in the world.”

  “Here’s what’s strange,” I said. “He thinks he’s doing the right thing for the empire. And because he holds all the power, nobody can argue with him. Those fais things. . . .” I clawed convulsively at my neck again. “How did you break it?”

  “I didn’t. Your mother brought the spell for breaking it. You have to realize that a lot of what I’m telling you I only just recently found out myself.”

  “My mother told you?”

  “By scrying,” he said. “I set sail as soon as the word came about that dragon rising. I was busy concocting this elaborate plan of pretending to be a fisherman blown off course until a few days ago when my mother got the mages to scry me and explain about your mother, who had just arrived in Erev-li-Erval. It was they who put together the plan with that enchanted note of Thianra’s.”

  “So your mother knew about it?”

  “It was all done on her orders. I learned that the Hrethan had studied your father’s fais for a long time after his transformation. They succeeded in breaking its control, but kept the knowledge put away in case it was ever needed. You know they do not interfere in political affairs. The moreso since your mother’s disastrous journey to Sveran Djur.”

  Which had resulted in me, I thought sourly. Disaster indeed.

  He went on. “Lady Eleth explained that because of the nature of the magic it must be put in a form that could be physically carried, without raising Djuran suspicions. Otherwise a Hrethan would have to be present to touch the fais and complete the spell. Their magic, as you are probably aware, is different.”

  “I’ve figured that much out. So your mother really allowed you to sail to Sveran Djur to rescue me?”

  “She had no say in the matter.” Hlanan looked grim. “I told her if she wanted an heir who would always choose political necessity above everything else, to look to Justeon. She’s still angry with him for nearly launching an all-out war.” He slid his fingers between mine and gripped our hands together. “It’s always going to be this way, Lhind. What I need is not always going to come before what the empire needs. But I won’t forget. I have to find a way to compromise.”

  I sighed, all my anger leaking out. Though I felt it below the surface, ready to boil up again. “I’ve been learning a lot about power. And what it does to people. In a way, it’s as bad as pain. They both distort.”

  “They can distort,” Hlanan said. “That is, I will never argue in favor of pain as coercion, the way the Lady Eleth described the fais when she scryed me. Pain can teach, the way we learn to walk. We fall down, get up, and walk better. Many suffer, and surmount it. Life deals blows, and we try to recover, and make things better for all. Power can be used in that sense. I believe it. I have to believe it. That’s the principle on which I’ve predicated my entire life. But pain used to control people . . . Lady Eleth said that most Djurans seem content, at least on the surface. But if the Djurans ever do rise against their rulers, it’s going to be worse than what happened with those great gryphs on that te
rrace.”

  I gazed back at him, free at last to speak my mind—oh, a richness better than gold and silk and bowing—but I couldn’t find any words. Instead I thought of Darus’s bitter wrath, Raifas’s careless conviction of Djuran superiority, Amney’s calculating ambition. And shook my head.

  “You don’t have to say anything.” He smiled ruefully. “Maybe there is no real answer. We’re both tired. I set out at midnight when Big Moon came up, after the storm blew away, because of the way the tides go. I’m half-asleep on my feet. Oh! I smell hot buns baking. Shall we eat? Wasn’t that dragon astonishing?”

  “I saw him in the fire mountain,” I said.

  “You did?” He had half-risen, but fell onto the bench again, eyes wide. “Lhind, that is even more amazing, especially considering I grew up with all the records insisting that dragons were long gone from the world. How could he get out of a mountain?”

  “I don’t know. But there’s this shadow world, kind of. I can see it. In our world, but not quite.”

  He whistled.

  “What?”

  “Remember what I said about abilities?”

  I grimaced. “Let’s not talk about my abilities. Or empires. Or dragons. So how did Prince Geric break Jardis’s wards?”

  “Jardis.” Hlanan repeated the word voicelessly, his expression difficult to interpret. Then he cleared his throat and gripped my hands again. “Geric was abandoned after he fulfilled his promise to capture you. Your mother broke the remaining ward a few days ago when she scryed us. Hrethans know more about scrying and the mental realm than any of our mages.”

  I nodded, hoping that when we met at last, she would teach me. But I would not let myself think about that. Yet.

  “Go on.”

  “Not much more to say. Prince Geric felt badly after you were taken, in his own way. There was no reason for him to offer to help me. We haven’t exactly been friends. But he did, though there was a risk for him as well.”

  “What’s going to happen with him?”

  “There are three or four princesses and duchesses who all want to court him, beginning with Kressanthe of Meshrec.” Hlanan gave me a comical grimace.

  “Ugh! They deserve each other.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “He’s already had one terrible wife. In any case, I suspect he will do very well now that he is truly free of Djuran wards. Though he lost Thann he does have Duchess Morith’s personal fortune, and Ilyan Rajanas promised him that if he actually helped us get you safely, he could have the yacht. Ilyan highly approved my rescue idea, by the way. Offered the yacht as transportation.”

  “I hope whichever princess or duchess ends up with Geric is both strong and smart,” I said, letting go the last of my anger toward him. Much as I disliked him, I knew how horrendous it must have been to labor under that ward, an invisible fais. And he’d borne it for years, not mere months.

  A knock at the cabin door was followed by a muffled shout. “Scribe Vosaga, there’s eats in the wardroom.”

  “Shall we?”

  Hlanan opened the door and we joined Prince Geric in the cramped wardroom, where the grizzled yacht captain, Hucharwe, sat at the head of the table.

  “Well, thief,” Prince Geric said, eyebrows lifted. They looked oddly straight after all those winged brows. Like my own, like my own. “Did you enjoy Djuran-style tutoring?”

  “Like a kick from an angry mule,” I retorted.

  His lip curled. “Sounds like nothing’s changed. Drink some wine,” he said, as the captain passed the bottle. “You probably need it. I know I always did, after I left their Imperial Serenities.”

  o0o

  We could have transferred at any time, of course. But Hlanan left that decision to me. We spent a couple of quiet days on the ocean, sailing steadily northeast. When a roaring early-spring storm caught up with us, causing the yacht to climb kelp-veined waves as high as the masthead, I told Hlanan it was time.

  Leaving Prince Geric to his new yacht, we transferred to Erev-li-Erval, which I had thought I would never see again. Within moments after our recovery from the transfer magic a tiny blue woman in a floaty drape ran into the Destination chamber, hair whorling about her head in fascinating patterns, her arms wide.

  “Oh my love,” she cried, her voice like bells, no, like the prettiest birdsong, no, better.

  “I can’t sing,” I mumbled into her shoulder as I flung myself into her clasp—I’d had more human contact in the last couple days than all that time in my silken prison, and yet I was still starved for love and touch.

  “Oh, Elenderi, my darling child, neither could your father,” she whispered into my hair, trembling between laughter and tears.

  “And I don’t know how to be part of a family,” I said, all the old fears welling up. “I don’t really even know what love is. That horrid Maita said that love conquers all, when she was ready to sacrifice Hlanan for his blood. And trust? I don’t believe it exists.”

  “Do you feel my love? And my trust?” She lifted her head and regarded me, her deep blue eyes somehow open as the sea and sky, and equally full of a light that I perceived in the mental realm. I felt the strength of her unconditional devotion, intensified by her years of yearning and searching, warm as those currents of air high above the ground, only deeper, higher—ineffable.

  “Yes,” I whispered, and she touched her forehead to mine.

  “Then here is where we begin. One breath at a time, one day at a time. Love is one of the simplest of what we call the Mysteries, and yet the strongest, like air: the greatest treasure cannot buy it nor the smartest thief steal it nor the most powerful emperor command it. And like air, and it freely fills to infinity whatever is open to it. Everything else will come when you are ready. When you choose.”

  For a heartbeat the anger leeched out of me, but then it was there again, a molten pool of hot, destructive rock all of my own. “Won’t the Hrethan object to that? They left me here alone, you know. Before Prince Geric grabbed me. One thing about trust I am certain of—they sure didn’t trust me.”

  Mother said, “They were confused and afraid. They will make themselves plain, for that was one of my demands during that time I was talking to them, when you could not reach me. They wish to make amends, but we shall proceed as you choose. And perhaps, one day, when you say you are ready, we shall transform and fly to the heights to meet your father.”

  I drew a breath. And another. She was right. One breath at a time, one decision at a time. I was free to choose. Free? I wasn’t truly free. Even standing there in the middle of Aranu Crown’s citadel with my mother’s arms around me, I could feel Jardis Dhes-Andis out there. I would never be completely free while we were both in the same world.

  But right now I was free enough.

  “All right,” I said, sighing the tension out. “I can do that.”

  She lifted her head, glanced aside, and then gave me a wistful smile. “We are requested to come before the Empress, who is waiting. Can you compass that, my darling Elenderi?”

  “One thing I’ve learned in this last year is, the world can be falling apart but you Do Not Keep Imperial Types Waiting.”

  She laughed softly, a sound like lark song, and tucked her hand through my arm. Hlanan stood a little distance away. When we reached him, he said, “Ready?”

  “Yes,” I said, and he opened the tall door himself.

  I remembered that quiet room overlooking the cascade.

  A stout woman of sixty-some years, her dark hair shot with gray, Aranu Crown regarded me under straight brows. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she said. “And I want to thank you for keeping secret what you probably could have been justified in revealing, given our last encounter. I trust my son explained my dilemma?”

  “Yes,” I said, reflexively giving her the Djuran imperial bow.

  I saw a subtle reaction in them all, then the Empress waved toward the circle of comfortable chairs. “Sit. And tell us, who are you now? Elenderi of Sveran Djur or Lhind of nowher
e?”

  I was about to reject the name Elenderi, but I couldn’t, quite—not after hearing the tender way my mother pronounced it. Amney had despised it as Hrethan and foreign, and I was not about to accept her judgment. And like it or not, Princess Elenderi as I’d lived her these past weeks was part of me, in the same way Lhind had been . . . part of me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Fair enough. I believe you’ve earned the right to find it out in your own way. But I feel obliged to warn you that there are a lot of people, some of them very powerful indeed, interested in what you decide. And a few of them—I think I need mention no names—might not wait to find out. And,” she drew a deep breath, “there is the matter of an ancient dragon named Rue.”

  Rue? All my life I’d exclaimed Flames of Rue, though I had never known where the expression came from. My neck hairs curled. “That dragon had nothing to do with me,” I said quickly. “I mean, I never had any contact with him. I just saw him when I visited his mountain.”

  She grunted. “That’s not quite the way Hlanan explains it. That dragon stooped, or as near as, on Skyreach Mountain, blasting out all the windows. Even if the dragon did not contact you, he saw fit to rise. After centuries. Centuries, child. I think you are going to have to learn not only what you can do, and figure out who you are, but what place you want to take in the world. Because I hope you can see that returning to running around as a thief disguised as an urchin is not a reliable future.”

  Hlanan shot her a look, and she raised her hands. “I’m done, I’m done. I felt I ought to put that much forward for you to consider.”

  “Then I’m not a prisoner? I’m free to . . . do what I want?”

  The Empress uttered a dry laugh. “At this point I doubt that any of us could hold you, if you were truly determined. Lady Eleth, may I request you to wait a moment?”

  I jumped up, glad to escape, though there was no sense of threat or rancor. In either of us, I was glad to discover. My resentment against her had dissipated.

  Hlanan and I walked out into the quiet hall. Hlanan put his arm around me and I leaned into him, sighing.