Lynn Flewelling - Tamir 01 - The Bone Doll's Twin

Notes:

This book was scanned by JASC

Current e-book version is .9(most glaring formatting errors have been corrected,

unproofed)

This book has not been proofed, so there are occasional errors.

Comments, Questions, Requests (no promises): daytonascan4911@hotmail.com

----------------------------------------------

Book Information:

Genre: Fantasy

Author: Lynn Flewelling

Name: The Bone Doll’s Twin

========================

Lynn Flewelling

The Bone Doll’s Twin

Part One

Document Fragment Discovered in the East Tower of the Oreska House

An old man looks back at me from my mirror now. Even among the other wizards here in

Rhim-inee, I'm a relic of forgotten times.

My new apprentice, little Nysander, cannot imagine what it was like to be a free wizard of the

Second Oreska. At Nysander's birth this beautiful city had already stood for two centuries above

her deep harbor. Yet to me it shall always and forever be "the new capital."

In the days of my youth, a whore's cast-off like Nysander would have gone unschooled. If he

were lucky he might have ended up as a village weather-caller or soothsayer. More likely, he

would have unwittingly killed someone and been stoned as a witch. Only the Lightbearer knows

how many god-touched children were lost before the advent of the Third Oreska.

Before this city was built, before this great house of learning was gifted to us by its founder, we

wizards of the Second Oreska made our own way and lived by our own laws.

Now, in return for service to the Crown we have this House, with its libraries, archives, and its

common history. I am the only one still living who knows how dear a price was paid for that.

Two centuries. Three or four lifetimes for most people; a mere season for those of us touched

by the Lightbearer's gift. "We wizards stand apart, Arkoniel," my own teacher, lya, told me when

I was scarcely older than Nysander is now. "We are stones in a river's course, watching the rush

of life whirl past."

Standing by Nysander's door tonight, watching the lad sleep, I imagined tya's ghost beside me,

and for a moment it seemed as if it was my younger self I gazed at; a plain, shy nobleman's son

who'd shown a talent for animal charming. While guesting at my father's estate, lya recognized

the magic in me and revealed it to my family. I wept the day I left home with her.

How easy it would be to call those tears foreshadowing—that device the playwrights are so

enamored of these days. But I have never quite believed in fate, despite all the prophecies and

oracles that shaped my life. There's always a choice in there somewhere. I've seen too often how

people make their own future through the balance of each day's little kindnesses and cruelties.

chose to go with lya.

Later, I chose to believe in the visions the Oracle granted to her and to me.

By my own choice, I helped rekindle the power of this good strong country, and so may rightly

claim to have helped the fair white towers ofRhim-inee rise against this blue western sky.

But on those few nights when I sleep deeply, what do I dream of?

An infant's cry, cut short.

You might think after so many years that it would be easier to accept; that one necessary act of

cruelty could alter the course of history like an earthquake shifts a river's course. But that deed,

that cry, lies at the heart of all the good that came after, like a grain of sand at the heart of a

pearl's glowing nacre.

I alone cany the memory of that infant's brief wail, all those years ago.

I alone know of the filth at the heart of this pearl.

Iya pulled off her straw wayfarer's hat and fanned herself with it as her horse labored up the rocky trail

toward Afra. The sun stood at noon, blazing against the cloudless blue. It was only the first week of

Gorathin, far too early for it to be this hot. It seemed the drought was going to last another season.

Snow still glistened on the peaks overhead, however. Now and then a plume of wind-blown white

gusted out against the stark blue of the sky, creating the tantalizing illusion of coolness, while down here in

the narrow pass no breeze stirred. Anywhere else Iya might have conjured up a bit of wind, but no magic

was allowed within a day's ride of Afra.

Ahead of her, Arkoniel swayed in his saddle like a shabby, long-legged stork. The young wizard's

linen tunic was sweated through down the back and stained drab with a week's worth of road dust. He

never complained; his only concession to the heat was the sacrifice of the patchy black beard he'd

cultivating since he turned one and twenty last Erasin.

Poor boy, Iya thought fondly; the newly shaven skin was already badly sunburnt.

Their destination, the Oracle at Afra, lay at the very heart of Skala's mountainous spine and was a

grueling ride any time of year. Iya had made the long pilgrimage twice before, but never in summer.

The walls of the pass pressed close to the trail here, and centuries of seekers had left their names and

supplications to Illior Lightbearer scratched into the dark stone.

Some had simply scratched the god's thin crescent moon; these lined the trail like countless tilting

smiles. Arkoniel had left one of his own earlier that morning to commemorate his first visit.

lya's horse stumbled and the reason for their journey bumped hard against her thigh. Inside the worn

leather bag slung from her saddle horn, smothered in elaborate wrappings and magic, was a lopsided

bowl crudely fashioned of burnt clay. There was nothing remarkable about it, except for the fierce aura of

malevolence it gave off when not hidden away. More than once over the years she'd imagined throwing it

over a cliff or into a river; in reality, she could no more have done that than cut off her own arm. She was

the Guardian; the contents of that bag had been her charge for over a century.

Unless the Oracle can tell me otherwise. Fixing her thin, greying hair into a knot on top of her head,

she fanned again at her sweaty neck.

Arkoniel turned in the saddle and regarded her with concern. His unruly black curls dripped sweat

beneath the wilted brim of his hat. "You're red in the face. We should stop and rest again."

'No, we're nearly there."

'Then have some more water, at least. And put your hat back on!"

'You make me feel old. I'm only two hundred and thirty, you know."

'Two hundred and thirty-two," he corrected with a wry grin. It was an old game between them.

She pulled a sour face. "Just wait until you're in your third age, my boy. It gets harder to keep track."

The truth was, hard riding did tire her more than it had back in her early hundreds, although she wasn't

about to admit it. She took a long pull from her waterskin and flexed her shoulders. "You've been quiet

today. Do you have a query yet?"

'I think so. I hope the Oracle finds it worthy."

Such earnestness made lya smile. This journey was merely another lesson as far as Arkoniel knew.

She'd told him nothing of her true quest.

The leather bag bumped against her thigh like a nagging child. Forgive me, Agazhar, she thought,

knowing her long-dead teacher, the first Guardian, would not have approved.

The last stretch of trail was the most treacherous. The rock face to their right gave way to a chasm and

in places they rode with their left knees brushing the cliff face.

Arkoniel disappeared around a sharp bend, then called back, "I can see Illior's Keyhole, just as you

described!"

Rounding the outcropping, lya saw the painted archway glowing like a garish apparition where it

straddled the trail. Stylized dragons glowed in red, blue, and gold around the narrow opening, which was

just wide enough for a single horseman to pass through. Afra lay less than a mile beyond.

Sweat stung lya's eyes, making her blink. It had been snowing the first time Agazhar brought her here.

JLya had come later than most to the wizardly arts. She'd grown up on a tenant farm on the border of

Skala's mainland territory. The closest market town lay across the Keela River in Mycena, and it was

here that lya's family traded. Like many bordermen, her father had taken a Mycenian wife and made his

offerings to Dalna the Maker, rather than Illior or Sakor.

So it was, when she first showed signs of magic, that she was sent across the river to study with an old

Dalnan priest who'd tried to make a drysian healer of her. She earned praise for her herb craft, but as

soon as the ignorant old fellow discovered that she could make fire with a thought, he bound a witch

charm to her wrist and sent her home in disgrace.

With this taint on her, she'd found little welcome in her village and no prospect of a husband.

She was a spinster of twenty-four when Agazhar happened across her in the market square. He told

her later that it was the witch charm that had caught his eye as she stood haggling with a trader over the

price of her goats.

She'd taken no notice of him, thinking he was just another old soldier finding his way home from the

wars. Agazhar had been as ragged and hollow-cheeked as any of them, and the left sleeve of his tunic

hung empty.

lya was forced to take a second look when he walked up to her, clasped her hand, and broke into a

sweet smile of recognition. After a brief conversation, she sold off her goats and followed the old wizard

down the south road without a backward glance. All anyone would have found of her, had they bothered

to search, was the witch charm lying in the weeds by the market gate.

Agazhar hadn't scoffed at her fire making. Instead, he explained that it was the first sign that she was

one of the god-touched of Illior. Then he taught her to harness the unknown power she possessed into

the potent magic of the Oreska wizards.

Agazhar was a free wizard, beholden to no one. Eschewing the comforts of a single patron, he

wandered as he liked, finding welcome in noble houses and humble ones alike. Together he and lya

traveled the Three Lands and beyond, sailing west to Aurenen, where even the common folk were as

long-lived as wizards and possessed magic. Here she learned that the Aurenfaie were the First Oreska; it

was their blood, mingled with that of lya's race, that had given magic to the chosen ones of Skala and

Plenimar.

This gift came with a price. Human wizards could neither bear nor sire children, but lya considered

herself well repaid, both in magic and, later, with students as gifted and companionable as Arkoniel.

Agazhar had also taught her more about the Great War than any of her father's ballads or legends, for

he'd been among the wizards who'd fought for Skala under Queen Gherilain's banner.

'There's never been another such war as that, and pray Sakor there never shall be again," he'd say,

staring into the campfire at night as if he saw his fallen comrades there. "For one shining span of time

wizards stood shoulder to shoulder with warriors, balding the black necromancers of Plenimar."

The tales Agazhar told of those days gave lya nightmares. A necromancer's demon—a dyrmagnos, he

called it—had torn off his left arm.

But gruesome as these tales were, lya still clung to them, for only there had Agazhar given her any

glimpse of where the strange bowl had come from.

Agazhar had carried it then; never in all the years she'd known him had he ever let it out of his

possession. "Spoils of war," he'd said with a dark laugh, the first time he'd opened the bag to show it to

her.

But beyond that, he would tell her nothing except that the bowl could not be destroyed and that its

existence could not be revealed to anyone but the next Guardian. Instead, he'd schooled her rigorously in

the complex web of spells that protected it, making her weave and unweave them until she could do it in

the blink of an eye.

'You'll be the Guardian after me," he reminded her when she grew impatient with the secrecy. "Then

you'll understand. Be certain you choose your successor wisely."

'But how will I know who to choose?"

He'd smiled and taken her hand as he had when they'd first met in the marketplace. "Trust in the

Light-bearer. You'll know."

And she had.

.H, it first she couldn't help pressing to know more about it—where he'd found it, who had made it

and why, but Agazhar had remained obdurate. "Not until the time comes for you to take on the full care

of it. Then I will tell you all there is to know."

Sadly, that day had taken them both unaware. Agazhar had dropped dead in the streets of Ero one

fine spring day soon after her first century. One moment he was holding forth on the beauty of a new

transformation spell he'd just created; the next, he slipped to the ground with a hand pressed to his chest

and a look of mild surprise in his fixed, dead eyes.

Scarcely into her second age, lya suddenly found herself Guardian without knowing what she guarded

or why. She kept the oath she'd sworn to him and waited for Illior to reveal her successor. She'd waited

two lifetimes, as promising students came and went, and said nothing to them of the bag and its secrets.

But as Agazhar had promised, she'd recognized Arkoniel the moment she first spied him playing in his

father's orchard fifteen years earlier. He could already keep a pippin spinning in midair and could put out

a candle flame with a thought.

Young as he was, she'd taught him what little she knew of the bowl as soon as he was bound over to

her. Later, when he was strong enough, she taught him how to weave the protections. Even so, she kept

the burden of it on her own shoulders as Agazhar had instructed.

'ver the years lya had come to regard the bowl as little more than a sacred nuisance, but that had all

changed a month ago when the wretched thing had taken over her dreams. The ghastly interwoven

nightmares, more vivid than any she'd ever known, had finally driven her here, for she saw the bowl in all

of them, carried high above a battlefield by a monstrous black figure for which she knew no name.

JLya? lya, are you well?" asked Arkoniel.

lya shook off the reverie that had claimed her and gave him a reassuring smile. "Ah, we're here at last,

I see."

Pinched in a deep cleft of rock, Afra was scarcely large enough to be called a village and existed

solely to serve the Oracle and the pilgrims who journeyed here. A wayfarer's inn and the chambers of the

priests were carved like bank swallow nests into the cliff faces on either side of the small paved square.

Their doorways and deep-set windows were framed with carved fretwork and pillars of ancient design.

The square was deserted now, but a few people waved to them from the shadowy windows.

At the center of the square stood a red jasper stele as tall as Arkoniel. A spring bubbled up at its base

and flowed away into a stone basin and on to a trough beyond.

'By the Light!" Dismounting, Arkoniel turned his horse loose at the trough and went to examine the

stele. Running his palm over the inscription carved in four languages, he read the words that had changed

the course of Skalan history three centuries earlier. " 'So long as a daughter of Thelatimos' line defends

and rules, Skala shall never be subjugated.'" He shook his head in wonder. "This is the original, isn't it?"

lya nodded sadly. "Queen Gherilain placed this here herself as a thank offering right after the war. The

Oracle's Queen, they called her then."

In the darkest days of the war, when it seemed that Plenimar would devour the lands of Skala and

Mycena, the Skalan king, Thelatimos, had left the battlefields and journeyed here to consult the Oracle.

When he returned to battle, he brought with him his daughter, Gherilain, then a maiden of sixteen.

Obeying the Oracle's words, he anointed her before his exhausted army and passed his crown and

sword to her.

According to Agazhar, the generals had not thought much of the king's decision. Yet from the start the

girl proved god-touched as a warrior and led the allies to victory in a year's time, killing the Plenimaran

Overlord single-handedly at the Battle of Isil. She'd been a fine queen in peace, as well, and ruled for

over fifty years. Agazhar had been among her mourners.

'These markers used to stand all over Skala, didn't they?" asked Arkoniel.

'Yes, at every major crossroads in the land. You were just a babe when King Erius tore them all

down." lya dismounted and touched the stone reverently. It was hot under her palm, and still as smooth

as the day it had left the stonecutter's shop. "Even Erius didn't dare touch this one."

'Why not?"

'When he sent word for it to be removed, the priests refused. To force the issue meant invading Afra

itself, the most sacred ground in Skala. So Erius graciously relented and contented himself with having all

the others dumped into the sea. There was also a golden tablet bearing the inscription in the throne room

at the Old Palace. I wonder what happened to that?"

But the younger wizard had more immediate concerns. Shading his eyes, he studied the cliff face.

"Where's the Oracle's shrine?"

'Further up the valley. Drink deeply here. We must walk the rest of the way."

Ijea saving their mounts at the inn, they followed a well-worn path deeper into the cleft. The way

became steeper and more difficult as they went. There were no trees to shade them, no moisture to lay

the white dust that hung on the hot midday air. Soon the way dwindled to a faint track -winding up

between boulders and over rock faces worn smooth and treacherous by centuries of pilgrim's feet.

They met two other groups of seekers coming in the opposite direction. Several young soldiers were

laughing and talking bravely, all but one young man who hung back from his fellows with the fear of death

clear in his eyes. The second group clustered around an elderly merchant woman who wept silently as the

younger members of her party helped her along.

Arkoniel eyed them nervously. lya waited until the merchant's party had disappeared around a bend,

then sat down on a rock to rest. The way here was hardly wide enough for two people to pass and held

the heat like an oven. She took a sip from the skin Arkoniel had filled at the spring. The water was still

cold enough to make her eyes ache.

'Is it much further?" he asked.

'Just a little way." Promising herself a cool bath at the inn, lya stood and continued on.

'You knew the king's mother, didn't you?" Arkoniel said, scrambling along behind her. "Was she as

bad as they say?"

The stele must have gotten him thinking. "Not at first. Agnalain the Just, they called her. But she had a

dark streak in her that worsened with age. Some say it came from her father's blood. Others said it was

because of the trouble she had with childbearing. Her first consort gave her two sons. Then she seemed

to go barren for years and gradually developed a taste for young consorts and public executions. Erius'

own father went to the block for treason. After that no one was safe. By the Four, I can still remember

the stink of the crow cages lining the roads around Ero! We all hoped she'd improve when she finally had

a daughter, but she didn't. It only made her worse."

It had been easy enough in those black days for Agnalain's eldest son, Prince Erius—already a

seasoned warrior and the people's darling—to argue that the Oracle's words had been twisted, that the

prophecy had referred only to King Thelatimos' actual daughter, not to a matrilineal line of succession.

Surely brave Prince Erius was better suited to the throne than the only direct female heir; his half-sister

Ariani was just past her third birthday.

Never mind the fact that Skala had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity under her queens, or that the only

other man to take the throne, Gherilain's own son, Pelis, had brought on both plague and drought during

his brief reign. Only when his sister had replaced him on the throne had Illior protected the land again as

the Oracle had promised.

Until now.

When Agnalain died so suddenly, it was whispered that Prince Erius and his brother, Aron, had had a

hand in it. But the rumor had been whispered with relief rather than condemnation; everyone knew Erius

had ruled in all but name during the last terrible years of his mother's decline. The renewed rumblings

from Plenimar were growing too loud for the nobles to risk civil war on behalf of a child queen. The

crown passed to Erius without challenge. Plenimar attacked the southern ports that same year and he

drove the invaders back into the sea and burned their black ships. This seemed to lay the prophecy to

rest.

All the same, there had been more blights and drought in the past nineteen years than even the oldest

wizards could recall. The current drought was in its third year in some parts of the country, and had

wiped out whole villages already decimated by wildfires and waves of plague brought in from the

northern trade routes. Arkoniel's parents had died in one such epidemic a few years earlier. A quarter of

Ero's population had succumbed in a few months' time, including Prince Aron, as well as Erius' consort,

both daughters, and two of his three sons, leaving only the second-youngest boy, Korin, alive. Since

then, the words of the Oracle were being whispered again in certain quarters.

lya had her own reasons now for regretting Erius' coup. His sister, Ariani, had grown up to marry lya's

patron, the powerful Duke Rhius of Atyion. The couple was expecting their first child in the fall.

*oth wizards were sweating and winded by the time they reached the tight cul-de-sac where the shrine

lay.

'It's not quite what I expected," Arkoniel muttered, eyeing what appeared to be a broad stone well, lya

chuckled. "Don't judge too quickly."

Two sturdy priests in dusty red robes and silver masks sat in the shade of a wooden lean-to beside the

well. lya joined them and sat down heavily on a stone seat. "I need time to compose my thoughts," she

told Arkoniel. "You go first."

The priests carried a coil of heavy rope to the well, motioning for Arkoniel to join them. He gave lya a

nervous grin as they fixed a loop of it around his hips. Still silent, they guided him into the stone enclosure

to the entrance to the oracle chamber. From the surface, this was nothing but a hole in the ground about

four feet in diameter.

It was always daunting, this act of faith and surrender, and more so the first time. But as always,

Arkoniel did not hesitate. Sitting with his feet over the edge, he gripped the rope and nodded for the

priests to let him down. He slid out of sight and they paid out the line until it went slack.

lya remained in the lean-to, trying to calm her racing heart. She'd done her best for days not to think

too directly on what she was about to do. Now that she was here, she suddenly regretted her decision.

Closing her eyes, she tried to examine this fear, but could find no basis for it. Yes, she was disobeying

her master's injunction, but that wasn't it. Here on the very doorstep of the Oracle, she had a premonition

of something dark looming just ahead. She prayed silently for the strength to face whatever Illior revealed

to her today, for she could not turn aside.

Arkoniel's twitch on the rope came sooner than she'd expected. The priests hauled him up and he

hurried over and collapsed on the ground beside her, looking rather perplexed.

'lya, it was the strangest thing—!" he began, but she held up a warning hand.

'There'll be time enough later," she told him, knowing she must go now or not at all.

She took her place in the harness, breath tight in her chest as she hung her feet over the edge of the

hole.

Grasping the rope with one hand and the leather bag with the other, she nodded to the priests and

began her descent.

She felt the familiar nervous flutter in her belly as she swung down into the cool darkness. She'd never

been able to guess the actual dimensions of this underground chamber; the silence and faint movement of

air against her face suggested a vast cavern. Where the sunlight struck the stone floor below, it showed

the gently undulating smoothness of stone worn by some ancient underground river.

After a few moments her feet touched solid ground and she stepped free of the rope and out of the

circle of sunlight. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out a faint glow nearby and

walked toward it. The light had appeared from a different direction each time she'd come here. When she

reached the Oracle at last, however, everything was just as she remembered.

A crystal orb on a silver tripod gave off a wide circle of light. The Oracle sat next to it on a low ivory

stool carved in the shape of a crouching dragon.

This one is so young! lya thought, inexplicably saddened. The last two Oracles had been old women

with skin bleached white by years of darkness. This girl was no more than fourteen, but her skin was

already pale. Dressed in a simple linen shift that left her arms and feet bare, she sat with her palms on her

knees. Her face was round and plain, her eyes vacant. Like wizards, the sibyls of Afra did not escape

Illior's touch unscathed.

lya knelt at her feet. A masked priest stepped into the circle of light with a large silver salver held out

before him. The silence of the chamber swallowed lya's sigh as she unwrapped the bowl and placed it on

the salver.

The priest presented it to the Oracle, placing it on her knees. Her face remained vacant, betraying

nothing.

Doesn't she feel the evil of the thing? lya wondered. The unveiled power of it made lya's head hurt.

The girl stirred at last and looked down at the bowl. Silvery light bright as moonshine on snow swelled

in a nimbus around her head and shoulders. lya felt a thrill of awe. Illior had entered the girl.

'I see demons feasting on the dead. I see the God Whose Name Is Not Spoken," the Oracle said

softly.

lya's heart turned to stone in her breast, her worst fears confirmed. This was Seriamaius, the dark god

of necromancy worshipped by the Plenimarans who'd come so close to destroying Skala in the Great

War. "I've dreamt this. War and disasters far worse than any Skala has ever known."

'You see too far, Wizard." The Oracle lifted the bowl in both hands and by some trick of the light her

eyes became sunken black holes in her face. The priest was nowhere to be seen now, although lya had

not heard him go.

The Oracle turned the bowl slowly in her hands. "Black makes white. Foul makes pure. Evil creates

greatness. Out of Plenimar comes present salvation and future peril. This is a seed that must be watered

with blood. But you see too far."

The Oracle tilted the bowl forward and bright blood splashed out, too much for such a small vessel. It

formed a round pool on the stone floor at the Oracle's feet. Looking into it, lya caught the reflection of a

woman's face framed by the visor of a bloody war helm. lya could make out two intense blue eyes, a firm

mouth above a pointed chin. The face was harsh one moment, sorrowful the next, and so familiar that it

made her heart ache, though she couldn't say then of whom those eyes reminded her. Flames reflected

off the helm and somewhere in the distance lya heard the clash of battle.

The apparition slowly faded and was replaced by that of a shining white palace standing on a high cliff.

It had a glittering dome, and at each of its four corners stood a slender tower.

'Behold the Third Oreska," the Oracle whispered. "Here may you lay your burden down." lya leaned

forward with a gasp of awe. The palace had hundreds of windows and at every window stood a wizard,

looking directly at her. In the highest window of the closest tower she saw Arkoniel, robed in blue and

holding the bowl in his hands. A little child with thick blond curls stood at his side.

She could see Arkoniel quite clearly now, even though she was so far away. He was an old man, with

a face deeply lined and weary beyond words. Even so, her heart swelled with joy at the sight of him.

"Ask," the Oracle whispered. "What is the bowl?" she called to Arkoniel. "It's not for us, but he will

know," Arkoniel told her, passing the bowl to the little boy. The child looked at lya with an old man's

eyes and smiled.

'All is woven together, Guardian," the Oracle said as this vision faded into something darker. "This is

the legacy you and your kind are offered. One with the true queen. One with Skala. You shall be tested

with fire." lya saw the symbol of her craft—the thin crescent of Illior's moon—against a circle of fire and

the number 222 glowing just beneath it in figures of white flame so bright they hurt her eyes.

Then Ero lay spread before her under a bloated moon, in flames from harbor to citadel. An army

under the flag of Plenimar surrounded it, too numerous to count. lya could feel the heat of the flames on

her face as Erius led his army out against them. But his soldiers fell dead behind him and the flesh fell from

his charger's bones in shreds. The Plenimarans surrounded the king like wolves and he was lost from

sight. The vision shifted dizzyingly again and lya saw the Skalan crown, bent and tarnished now, lying in a

barren field.

'So long as a daughter of Thelatimos' line defends and rules, Skala shall never be subjugated," the

Oracle whispered.

'Ariani?" lya asked, but knew even as she spoke that it had not been the princess' face she'd seen

framed in that helm.

The Oracle began to sway and keen. Raising the bowl, she poured its endless flow over her head like

a libation, masking herself in blood. Falling to her knees, she grasped lya's hand and a whirlwind took

them, striking lya blind.

Screaming winds surrounded her, then entered the top of her head and plunged down through the core

of her like a shipwright's augur. Images flashed by like wind-borne leaves: the strange number on its

shield, and the helmeted woman in many forms and guises—old, young, in rags, crowned, hanging naked

from a gibbet, riding garlanded through broad, unfamiliar streets. lya saw her clearly now, her face, her

blue eyes, black hair, and long limbs like Ariani's. But it was not the princess.

The Oracle's voice cut through the maelstrom. "This is your queen, Wizard, this true daughter of

Thelatimos. She will turn her face to the west."

Suddenly lya felt a bundle placed in her arms and looked down at the dead infant the Oracle had given

her.

'Others see, but only through smoke and darkness," said the Oracle. "By the will of Illior the bowl

came into your hands; it is the long burden of your line, Guardian, and the bitterest of all. But in this

generation comes the child who is the foundation of what is to come. She is your legacy. Two children,

one queen marked with the blood of passage."

The dead infant looked up at lya with black staring eyes and searing pain tore through her chest. She

knew whose child this was.

Then the vision was gone and lya found herself kneeling in front of the Oracle with the unopened bag in

her arms. There was no dead infant, no blood on the floor. The Oracle sat on her stool, shift and hair

unstained.

'Two children, one queen," the Oracle whispered, looking at lya with the shining white eyes of Illior.

lya trembled before that gaze, trying to cling to all she'd seen and heard. "The others who dream of this

child, Honored One—do they mean her well or ill? Will they help me raise her up?"

But the god was gone and the girl child slumped on the stool had no answers.

unlight blinded lya as she emerged from the cavern. The heat took her breath away and her legs would

not support her. Arkoniel caught her as she collapsed against the stone enclosure. "lya, what happened?

What's wrong?" "Just—just give me a moment," she croaked, clutching the bag to her chest.

A seed watered with blood.

Arkoniel lifted her easily and carried her into the shade. He put the waterskin to her lips and lya drank,

leaning heavily against him. It was some time before she felt strong enough to start back for the inn.

Arkoniel kept one arm about her waist and she suffered his help without complaint. They were within

sight of the stele when she fainted.

V't't,'hen she opened her eyes again, she was lying on a soft bed in a cool, dim room at the inn.

Sunlight streamed in through a crack in the dusty shutter and struck shadows across the carved wall

beside the bed. Arkoniel sat beside her, clearly worried.

'What happened with the Oracle?" he asked.

Illior spoke and my question was answered, she thought bitterly. How I wish I'd listened to

Agazhar.

She took his hand. "Later, when I'm feeling stronger. Tell me your vision. Was your query answered?"

Her answer obviously frustrated him, but he knew better than to press her. "I'm not sure," he said. "I

asked what sort of wizard I'd become, what my path would be. She showed me a vision in the air, but all

I could make out was an image of me holding a young boy in my arms."

'Did he have blond hair?" she asked, thinking of the child in the beautiful white tower.

'No, it was black. To be honest, I was disappointed, coming all this way just for that. I must have

done something wrong in the asking."

'Sometimes you must wait for the meaning to be revealed." lya turned away from that earnest young

face, wishing that the Lightbearer had granted her such a respite. The sun still blazed down on the square

outside her window, but lya saw only the road back to Ero before her, and darkness at its end.

A red harvest moon cast the sleeping capital into a towering mosaic of light and shadow that nineteenth

night of Erasin. Crooked Ero, the capital was called. Built on a rambling hill overlooking the islands of the

Inner Sea, the streets spread like poorly woven lace down from the walls of the Palatine Circle to the

quays and shipyards and rambling slums below. Poor and wealthy alike lived cheek by jowl, and every

house in sight of the harbor had at least one window facing east toward Plenimar like a watchful eye.

The priests claim Death comes in the west door, Arkoniel thought miserably as he rode through the

west gate behind lya and the witch. Tonight would be the culmination of the nightmare that had started

nearly five months earlier at Afra.

The two women rode in silence, their faces hidden by their deep hoods. Heartsick at the task that lay

before them, Arkoniel willed lya to speak, change her mind, turn aside, but she said nothing and he could

not see her eyes to read them. For over half his life she'd been teacher, mentor, and second mother to

him. Since Afra, she'd become a house full of closed doors.

Lhel had gone quiet, too. Her kind had been unwelcome here for generations. She wrinkled her nose

now as the stink of the city engulfed them. "You great village? Ha! Too many."

'Not so loud!" Arkoniel looked around nervously. Wandering wizards were not as welcome here as

they had been, either. It would go hard on them all to be found with a hill witch.

'Smells like tok," Lhel muttered.

lya pushed back her hood and surprised Arkoniel with a thin smile. "She says it smells like shit here,

and so it does."

Lhel's one to talk, Arkoniel thought. He'd kept upwind of the hill woman since they'd met.

ifter their strange visit to Afra they'd gone first to Ero and guested with the duke and his lovely, fragile

princess. By day they gamed and rode. Each night lya spoke in secret with the duke.

From there, he and lya spent the rest of that hot, sullen summer searching the remote mountain valleys

of the northern province for a witch to aid them, for no Oreska wizard possessed the magic for the task

that Illior had set them. By the time they found one, the aspen leaves were already edged with gold.

Driven from the fertile lowlands by the first incursions of Skalan settlers, the small, dark-skinned hill

people kept to their high valleys and did not welcome travelers. When lya and Arkoniel approached a

village, they might hear dogs barking the alarm, or mothers calling their children; by the time they reached

the edge of a settlement, only a few armed men would be in sight. These men made no threats, but

offered no hospitality.

Lhel's welcome had surprised them when they'd happened across her lonely hut. Not only had she

welcomed them properly, setting out water, cider, and cheese, but she claimed to have been expecting

them.

lya spoke the witch's language, and Lhel had picked up a few words of Skalan somewhere. From

what Arkoniel could make out between them, the witch was not surprised by their request. She claimed

her moon goddess had showed them to her in a dream.

Arkoniel felt very awkward around the woman. Her magic radiated from her like the musky heat of

her body, but it was more than that. Lhel was a woman in her prime. Her black hair hung in a tangled,

curling mass to her waist and her loose woolen dress couldn't mask the curves of hip and breast as she

sauntered around her little hut, bringing him food and the makings for a pallet. He didn't need an

interpreter to know that she asked lya if she might sleep with him that night or that she was both offended

and amused when lya explained the concept of wizards' celibacy to her. The Oreska wizards reserved all

their vitality for their magic.

Arkoniel feared that the -witch might change her mind then, but the following morning they woke to

find her waiting for them outside the door, a traveling bundle slung ready behind the saddle of her shaggy

pony.

The long journey back to Ero had been an awkward time for the young man. Lhel delighted in teasing

him, making certain that he saw when she lifted her skirts to wash, and losing no opportunity to bump

against him as she moved about their camp each night, plucking the year's last herbs with her knobby,

stained fingers. Vows or no, Arkoniel couldn't help but notice and something in him stirred uneasily.

When their work in Ero was finished this night, he would never see her again and for that he would be

most thankful.

is they rode across an open square, Lhel pointed up at the full red moon and clucked her tongue.

"Baby caller moon, all fat and bloody. We hurry. No shaimari."

She brought two fingers toward her nostrils in a graceful flourish, mimicking the intake of breath.

Arkoniel shuddered.

lya pressed one hand over her eyes and Arkoniel felt a moment's hope. Perhaps she would relent after

all. But she was merely sending a sighting spell up to the Palatine ahead of them.

After a moment she shook her head. "No. We have time."

A cold salt breeze tugged at their cloaks as they reached the seaward side of the citadel and

approached the Palatine gate. Arkoniel inhaled deeply, trying to ease the growing tightness in his chest. A

party of revelers passed them, and by the light of the linkboys' lanterns Arkoniel stole another look at lya.

The wizard's pale, square face betrayed nothing.

It is the mil oflllior, Arkoniel repeated silently. There could be no turning aside.

the death of the king's only female heir, women and girls of close royal blood had died at an alarming

rate. Few dared speak of it aloud in the city, but in too many cases it was not plague or hunger that

carried them down to Bilairy's gate.

The king's cousin took ill after a banquet in town and did not awaken the next morning. Another

somehow managed to fall from her tower window. His two pretty young nieces, daughters of his own

brother, were drowned sailing on a sunny day. Babies born to more distant relations, all girls, were found

dead in their cradles. Their nurses whispered of night spirits. As potential female claimants to the throne

dropped away one by one, the people of Ero turned nervous eyes toward the king's half sister and the

unborn child she carried.

Her husband, Duke Rhius, was fifteen years older than his pretty young wife and owned vast holdings

of castles and lands, the greatest of which lay at Atyion, half a day's ride north of the city. Some said that

the marriage had been a love match between the duke's lands and the Royal Treasury, but lya thought

otherwise.

The couple lived at the grand castle at Atyion when Rhius was not serving at court. When Ariani

became pregnant, however, they had taken up residence at Ero, in her house beside the Old Palace.

lya guessed that the choice was the king's rather than hers, and Ariani had confirmed her suspicions

during their visit that summer.

'May Illior and Dalna grant us a son," Ariani had whispered as she and lya sat together in the garden

court of her house, hands pressed to her swelling belly.

As a child Ariani had adored her handsome older brother, who'd been more like a father to her. Now

she understood all too well that she lived at his whim; in these uncertain times, any girl claiming Gherilain's

blood posed a threat to the new male succession, should the Illioran faction fight to reestablish the sacred

authority of Afra.

With every new bout of plague or famine, the whispers of doubt grew stronger.

JLn a darkened side street outside the Palatine gate lya cloaked herself and Lhel in invisibility, and

Arkoniel approached the guards as if alone.

There were still a great many people abroad at this hour, but the sergeant-at-arms took special note of

the silver amulet Arkoniel wore and called him aside.

'What's your business here so late, Wizard?"

Lynn Flewelling - Tamir 01 - The Bone Doll's Twin

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: