Blood Trillium Read online

  But never hated him.

  No, you could never bring yourself to do that, because deep within your secret heart your love for him still abided.

  And now, faced with the prospect that he lives after all, you are filled with the most profound fear, not only of the havoc he might wreak upon the world, but also of what he might wreak upon you …

  “Orogastus,” she whispered, feeling her heart turn over as her lips dared once more to pronounce his name. “God grant that you be dead. Safely dead, and consigned to the deepest of the ten hells!” And having cursed him, she began to weep, and she found herself retracting the wish for his damnation at the same time that she still besought heaven to let him not be alive.

  It was only after a long time that she managed to collect herself. She seated herself in front of the fire, then concentrated again on the talisman, holding the wand with its circle upright, as one would hold a handmirror, and looking into the silvery ring.

  “Show me who or what most threatens the balance of the world,” she said firmly.

  A shimmering mist began to fill the circle. At first its colors were faint, like the nacre that lines seashells, but then they brightened and formed a central blur that was at first pink, then rose, then crimson, then vivid scarlet. The blur clarified, became tripartite. She saw that it was a three-petaled flower: a trillium the color of blood, such as had never bloomed in the world of the Three Moons. The image held for only a moment and then the circle was empty.

  Haramis felt as if her body had turned to ice. “We Three?” she whispered. “Are we the danger, rather than him? What is the meaning of this thing you have shown me?”

  The silver circle reflected the flames from the library hearth, and the inset amber with its fossil Black Trillium gave forth its usual faint glow. The talisman replied:

  The question is impertinent.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Haramis exclaimed. “You shall not fob me off as you have done so many times before. I command you to tell me if we three Petals of the Living Trillium threaten the balance of the world, or if the threat comes from Orogastus!”

  The question is impertinent.

  “Damn you! Tell me!”

  The question is impertinent.

  Ice-pellets from the sleet storm rattled against the windowpanes and a burning log shifted in the fireplace with a thud and a brief hiss of sparks. The Three-Winged Circle remained inert, seeming to mock her, reminding her once again how little she actually knew of its working, for all her studies.

  Haramis discovered that her hands were shaking—either with anger or with fear. Forcing them to be steady, she besought the talisman: “At least show me if Orogastus lives or is dead.”

  The silvery circle filled again with pearly mist, the faint colors making agitated small whorls, as if trying to form an image. But no face appeared. A moment later the Three-Winged Circle was empty.

  So. It was to be expected. If he did live, he would shield himself from observation through sorcery. There was one other way she might try to view him … but first, a final request of her talisman.

  “Tell me what manner of thing Portolanus took from the Kimilon on his second journey there with Shiki the Dorok.”

  This time the vision was clear, showing the shallow dark box as Shiki had described it, with a star upon its lid. But now the box was open, revealing a bed of metallic mesh inside and a square at the corner of this having several sparkling jewels mounted upon it. Haramis was puzzling over the star-box when the talisman spoke:

  The box breaks bonds, and it enables new ones to be formed.

  “Breaks bonds? What kind of bonds?”

  Bonds such as that binding me to thee.

  “Triune God! Do you mean it could unbond the three talismans of the Sceptre of Power from me and my sisters, and transfer their power to Portolanus?”

  Yes. All that is needed is to place a talisman in the box, and finger the gems one after the other.

  Her heart consumed with dread and foreboding, Haramis went to her own chambers and procured furs and warm gloves in preparation for a visit to the Cavern of Black Ice. The special vestments Orogastus had always donned before entering the place, and the duplicates he had made especially for her, were part of a futile ritual intended to placate his dark gods and quite unnecessary. But then he had failed to understand so many things about his sources of power, mistaking ancient science for sorcery and coming to depend overmuch upon it, while neglecting the genuine magic he had learned at the feet of his mentor Bondanus.

  “And, by the Flower, I am thankful that he did neglect it,” Haramis said to herself. “For if he had been able to use true magic against us, he might have prevailed after all.”

  Bundling up, she went down to the lowest level of the Tower, to a long tunnel that led deep into the flank of Mount Brom. The rough-hewn rocky tube was lit by the same wonderful flameless lanterns found in the rest of the Tower, but there was no heat. Her breath formed a trailing cloud as she hurried, clutching the furs tightly about her. She had not visited this place for years, so disturbing were its resonances. But it was not any aura of dark magic that had repelled her: it was the memory of him.

  She opened the massive, frost-covered door at the tunnel’s end and entered into what seemed to be a large cave with walls of rough granite all veined with white quartz. Its floor was paved with glassy tiles as dark and slick as the black ice that intruded through cracks in the cavern walls and ceiling. All about the chamber’s perimeter were open niches with peculiar, complexly shaped objects in them. Glassy black doors opened into more rooms filled with strange things. It was Orogastus who had told her that the cavern was a repository for instruments of sorcery vouchsafed him by the Dark Powers. But Haramis had suspected even then that the things had to be machines of the Vanished Ones—some collected by Orogastus through trading with the Folk, others that he had found when he first discovered this place. He had built his Tower here to protect the Cavern of Black Ice and have easy access to its trove of marvels. When he died, Haramis had taken the Tower for her own use, but she had never utilized the contents of the cavern, which had been slowly augmented over the years by other forbidden devices collected by the Swamp Folk from the ruins.

  Many of the things hidden in the Cavern of Black Ice were weapons.

  Not the thing she had come to use tonight, however. She opened one of the obsidian doors and came into a shallow chamber with one wall thickly encrusted with hoarfrost. Inset within it was a gray mirrorlike circle, an ancient machine that had the potential of locating and overseeing any person in the world. The machine was in very poor working order, and indeed the last time Haramis had tried to consult it, seeking the whereabouts of the Glismak witch Tio-Ko-Fra, it had only sputtered weakly and then extinguished itself, muttering incomprehensibly about being exhausted. However, it had enjoyed many years of rest since then, and there was at least a small chance that it might have restored itself. She would have to frame her query carefully, though, since it was likely that her first request would also be her last.

  She faced the mirror, took a deep breath, and intoned in a loud voice: “Respond to my request!”

  Only her own image stared back at her, and after a time she repeated her words in a tone more highly pitched.

  And it woke! A dim glow replaced her reflection and she heard a faint whisper: “Responding. Request, please.”

  She was careful to reply in the same unnaturally high tone she had used before, in the truncated language Orogastus himself had taught her when he showed her his most precious secrets in order to win her love.

  “View one person. Locate present position of person on map.”

  Slowly—so slowly!—the mirror brightened. It hissed: “Request validated. Name of person.”

  She conjured up his image in her mind, dismayed at how easily his face came to her, austere and beautiful, framed by long silver hair. But this time she dared not speak his former name. Whoever this newly empowered sorcerer was, it was necess
ary that she behold him so that she would know the one who was her great enemy.

  “Portolanus of Tuzamen,” she said.

  “Scanning,” said the mirror, as faintly as a dying breath. The mirror’s surface became a kaleidoscope of wan colors that almost parodied her talisman’s working, and its voice sibilant gibberish that she could not understand. Haramis wanted to cry out in frustration, but she restrained herself, knowing that any word she spoke now would be construed by the ancient machine as a command and might bring about an undesirable result or even cause the mirror to extinguish itself.

  The jumping mass of broken colors steadied, and the dim image that formed could just barely be distinguished as a map of the sea in the vicinity of the Isles of Engi. There was a tiny blinking dot of light far from land. Haramis felt a giddy sensation invade her mind. Her heart was thudding behind her ribs like a captive beast trying to escape a cage.

  First the machine would locate a person. Then it would show a face.

  The map disappeared and a new image formed, this one even more indistinct than the last. It was certainly a man’s visage, but the features were so bleared and shadowed that they might have belonged to anyone. She felt a rage of disappointment, and then castigated herself for being a silly fool.

  The picture vanished. The mirror sighed a few more incomprehensible syllables and then the light in its heart died. Haramis knew with a terrible certainty that the machine would never work again. She withdrew from the chamber and closed the door, shivering from the abominable cold and from the strength of the inner feelings she sought to conquer.

  Portolanus was at sea, doubtless traveling south with the Tuzameni delegation toward the same destination that her two sisters would soon reach. He owned a nation. He had access to treasures of the Vanished Ones that might be far more dangerous to the world than those secreted within this cavern. He also had the star-box that might grant him ownership of a talisman, could he but wrest it from its owner. Perhaps Portolanus was only some upstart magician who had come upon the secret cache of the Archimage by accident. If so, he was menace enough, and she would have to organize a careful campaign to deal with him. But if the sorcerer was in truth Orogastus, then her task would be infinitely more difficult—and not only because of her own emotional involvement.

  She reminded herself that he would have been banished to the Inaccessible Kimilon by the Sceptre of Power itself, for some unfathomable reason. And it was entirely possible that Orogastus, having spent twelve years of exile in the icebound solitude, had finally learned to master the true magic within himself.

  As she had yet to do.

  3

  Kadiya’s conference with the Aliansa leaders had taken many months to arrange, and it was so important that she had even consulted with the Teacher in the Place of Knowledge before deciding upon the strategy she would use. These Sea Folk were not like the aborigines of Ruwenda, accustomed to obey the laws of the White Lady and freely accepting Kadiya as their leader. The Archimage was a half-forgotten myth to the Aliansa of the Southern Sea—and the Lady of the Eyes a personage unknown, and quite possibly not to be trusted.

  Now Kadiya sat on one side of the great hut on Council Isle with the Sea Folk on the other, glad of the light breeze blowing through the loose weave of the lown-leaf walls. Her talisman, the Three-Lobed Burning Eye, lay on the grass mat in front of her, bound about with flowers and green fragrant vines in the symbolism of peace. The sword of the Aliansa High Chief, similarly adorned, was beside it.

  Behind Kadiya, Jagun the Nyssomu and the sixteen Wyvilo warriors who were her escort stirred restlessly. They had been in the council hut for nearly three hours without a recess. But as long as Har-Chissa and his thirty chieftains showed a willingness to talk, Kadiya would give them her full attention. She had already explained her own proposal to them at length. As the Lady of the Eyes, the Great Advocate of the Folk of the Peninsula in their dealings with humankind, she had come to offer her services also to the Aliansa in their long-standing dispute with the kingdom of Zinora. She had come to make peace.

  The Sea Folk had listened to her words in stony silence. Then Har-Chissa gestured for the subchiefs to detail their grievances against Zinoran humanity, and one by one, they had cataloged the atrocities committed by human traders against the Folk. Kadiya had been dismayed at the way their tales contradicted the story she had been given by the smooth-tongued King Yondrimel of Zinora, who had pooh-poohed any need for her intervention. It was obvious that matters were at a much worse pass than she had suspected.

  A female chieftain of the Sea Oddlings from one of the smaller islands was winding down her harangue. Her great yellow eyes with the vertical pupils were popped out on their short stalks and her fangs gnashed as she gave vent to her anger. She came from a poor place, and wore only two strands of misshapen pearls about her neck and an unadorned grass tabard. The scales on her back and upper limbs were unpainted, and the weapon at her belt was a crude stone axe with a shell tassel.

  “You say we should make peace with the humans of Zinora!” She waved one webbed hand to encompass the squatting company of aboriginal leaders. “We—the proud Aliansa!—who have lived free in these islands from the time that the Big Land was still locked fast in the grip of the ice! But why should we listen to you? The Zinorans come to our islands and always cheat us in their trading. If we refuse to trade our pearls and kishati and perfume oils, they steal! They burn our villages! They even kill us! My own son was slain by them! You have heard the words of many other chieftains, Lady of the Eyes, attesting to the wrongs committed against us. We no longer want to have anything to do with the Zinorans. We do not need their trade. We will sell to the nations of Okamis and Imlit across the Sea of Shallows. Tell this fierce new King of Zinora that we spit upon him! We know he dares to claim these islands as part of his kingdom, but he is a liar and a fool. The Windlorn Isles belong to the Sea Folk who live upon them—not to a braggart human who dwells in a fine palace on the Big Land.”

  The assembled Aliansa roared approval.

  “If his traders come again,” the chieftain went on, “let me tell you what we will do to them! Our warriors will lurk in their canoes among the outer reefs, and as the ships come creeping in to despoil us we will pierce their hulls and sink them without warning. When the sea gives up the Zinoran bodies, we will skin them to make our drums! Their skulls will be piled in heaps upon the sea-stacks, and the griss and pothi will make nests in them! Zinoran flesh shall be the food of fishes, and their broken boats the abode of the sea-monster Heldo!”

  All the other chieftains gave a great bellow of assent as she crossed her scaly arms and resumed her seat.

  Now the High Chief Har-Chissa rose up at last. He was a splendid creature, a head taller than a stalwart human, though not quite so tall as a Wyvilo. His face with its short muzzle, gleaming tusks, and gold-painted scales was a sight to stop the heart of the most bloodthirsty Raktumian pirate. He wore a kilt of fine blue silken cloth woven in Var, and his steel cuirass with its bejeweled baldric could only have been made by the royal smithy of Zinora. He was a taciturn and dour individual, preferring to have his minor chieftains voice the injuries done to the Sea Folk. Now that they had finished, he addressed Kadiya in deep, croaking tones:

  “Lelemar of Vorin has summed up the feelings of us all, Lady of the Eyes. We have listened to what you had to say, and you have listened to us. You tell us that you are the Advocate of the Folk, one of the Three Petals of the Living Trillium, the blood-sister of the great White Lady. You have showed us that magical talisman called the Three-Lobed Burning Eye that you carry, and we know that certain landly Folk—Nyssomu, Uisgu, Wyvilo, and Glismak—name you their leader and follow your counsel. You ask us to do the same. But I say that you are also the blood-sister of Queen Anigel of Laboruwenda, who with her consort, King Antar, oppresses those Folk who refuse to do her will. And you are also human …”

  The other Sea Folk nodded and murmured and growled. Chief Har-Chissa contin
ued:

  “You have urged us to make peace with Zinora. You tell us that we are fewer in number than the humans of that country and not so clever in waging war. You say that our women and children will suffer if we fight the Zinorans, and it is best that we compromise with them … But did not the once-proud Glismak give up their fierce ways at the behest of you and your sisters? And did they not suffer thereby, being forced to work in road gangs in the swamps of Ruwenda rather than living free in the Tassaleyo Forest? And are not they, together with the Nyssomu, Uisgu, and Wyvilo, treated as inferior beings and subjected to the will of the humans who dwell among them?”

  Again the gathering of Sea Folk nodded and shouted their furious indignation. The Chief silenced them.

  “I say to you, Kadiya of the Eyes, that the Aliansa will never make peace with Zinora, nor will we submit to the will of any other human. We are free, and we will remain so!”

  There was a great tumult of cheering. Finally Kadiya rose and the Sea Folk quieted. It was nearly dusk and the interior of the council hut was dim. The only illumination came from the warm glow of the trillium-amber inset in the pommel of her talisman and the great shining eyes of the aborigines: those of the hostile Sea Folk and of Kadiya’s own loyal Wyvilo friends.

  “Let me first refute your beliefs about the Glismak,” Kadiya said. “If you will not take my word, you may consult with my companion Lummomu-Ko, who is Speaker of Let and chief among the Wyvilo, and who honored me by accompanying me on this mission. In former days, the Glismak lived by preying upon the Wyvilo, their neighbors. When they gave up their immoral ways, they had to find other means of surviving. Some Glismak became foresters like the Wyvilo, but others agreed to labor on the Queen’s Mireway in the Ruwendian swamps, a great new road sponsored by my sister Queen Anigel. The wages she offered were more than fair. Many thousands of Glismak went north during the dry seasons to work on the road. But last Dry Time some of them became surly and discontented. They demanded that their wages be doubled and asked for other things the humans could not grant them. They rioted and killed some humans—and humans killed some of them. Then they returned to the forest. The proud and greedy ones among them now prevent those who would work from returning to the road. This is a sad matter, but I am working to resolve it. I also seek to resolve the inequalities and injustices that still prevail between other Folk of the Peninsula and humanity. I would willingly work with you also, to mediate your grievances with Zinora. My talisman, the Three-Lobed Burning Eye that is part of the great Sceptre of Power, will ensure that justice prevails.”