Sand Ch. 7: The Festival of Yonba

The hall was opulent, decorated to reflect the beauties of nature. Trees of bronze lined the outer edges of the hall, and flowers imported from the Edarth Isles beamed from every surface. The crowning glory of the hall was a large glass tank of water on the far end of the hall from which spilt glass waterfalls. The water gathered in pools surrounded by natural rocks brought in from the nearby forest, and in them exotic fish shone like jewels. Maestro Lotwis’s orchestra played beautifully from its place below the tank’s platform.
Masked revelers had already assembled and started to dance, though others stood to the side, flirting, eating the rich food laid out lavishly on the lengthy tables, talking, or otherwise having a good time. Jengdas, dressed in the colors of their masters (predominantly the brown of the castle), flitted to and fro, serving food, lighting candles that floated midair, and generally seeing to the comfort and safety of the guests.
Sweeping in with her now well-clad entourage, Lady Eirana entered, dressed in a gown of deep midnight blue velvet trimmed with gold, with a gold mask as an accent. Stefus and Gawen trailed behind her, Gawen looking slightly awkward in his formal tunic. Stefus, on the other hand, wore his with the usual quiet poise he wore anything, and with the falcon sitting impressively on his shoulder, he looked almost regal.
“Gawen, I would be delighted if you would eavesdrop for me this evening,” Eirana chuckled, seeing the relieved look on Gawen’s face, “keep an eye on Keri! Stefus, I would like you to keep an eye out for people dangerous to either myself or Keri. In the meantime, though, if I don’t see you dance with someone at least once this evening, I’ll have to put you back on some boring duty involving lots of paperwork.”
Stefus laughed. “Is that a threat?”
“It is, indeed; I suggest you find a partner.”
“As should you.”
Before Eirana could comment on that remark, a sudden blast of trumpets and loud music burst forth not from the orchestra, but from the entrance of the hall. The orchestra members, startled, stopped playing as everyone turned to look at the entrance, where a riot of color, sound, and movement burst forth as Sir Norbert swept in with a woman mage who was dressed as a dragon in magnificent shades of red, orange, and gold. She was in flight, her shimmering silk wings seeming to actually bear her aloft, and real fire came from her mouth, terrifying some members of the crowd until they realized that the fire became a rain of glass beads that seemed to fall softly. Each one bore the mark of Sir Norbert’s pub.
“Lords and ladies, if you wish to see more such spectacle and fine wonders, come to the Red Dragon!” cried Sir Norbert gleefully as the mage slowly descended and they took a bow. Maestro Lotwis stood looking confused for a moment, then started up the orchestra once more.
“Just look at Lady Judith!” Lady Eirana whispered to the mage as she joined their group. “She’s going to have to work hard to top that one! That is you in there, isn’t it, Keri?”
“Yes,” said Jada with a slight curtsy, looking over at Lady Judith. She was standing in a corner, all dressed in black as a raven, but even though her costume may have helped create her impression of grimness, the look on her face conveyed her utmost loathing for the superior advertising she had just seen. “Doesn’t look too happy, does she?”
“No she doesn’t,” said Stefus, smiling, “but you do. Would you honor me with a dance?” he asked, offering his arm.
“Certainly,” she replied, taking it.
Before they could move to the dance floor, however, once more there came a great blast of sound that was definitely not a dance; it was an anthem, a very, very old song that seemed to be half-forgotten that dreamily played as a woman all clad in white glided into the hall, wearing upon her head a crown of golden roses with strands of gold beads and thread commingled with pearls running down the length of her veil and dress. The mask she wore was white, also, save for the piercing blue eyes that shone from behind it, seeming to emanate light as bright as the stars. Her beauty was unmistakable; even beneath a mask, she seemed to radiate power and majesty.
All were silent as the ancient tune continued to play; as it dwindled down, she turned her mask to the crowd and, smiling, said in a clear, melodic voice that seemed as if it could both soothe a lion and command a tempest, “Is this not the Festival of Yonba? Be merry, and enjoy yourselves well! Do not so silently stare, for music is good, and so is the dance!” And, clapping her hands, Maestro Lotwis struck up the orchestra and slowly but surely, the people of the hall began to dance.
“Who is she?” Jada wondered out loud as she and Stefus waltzed gracefully across the hall, her occasionally stepping on his feet and apologizing as her attention wandered. “She’s lovely.”
“So are you,” Stefus grinned, wincing from her most recent treading on his foot. “Jada, the step goes like this, remember?” He demonstrated it to her briefly as Lady Eirana and Sir Ziro sailed past, Eirana winking at Jada and Ziro giving Stefus a thumbs-up.
“Oh; right,” she said, bringing her focus back to the dance. “That’s a nice color on you; brings out your eyes.”
“Lady Eirana knows how to dress people,” he shrugged, giving her a twirl. “She had fun with Gawen; the little urchin has no manners.”
“He has particular difficulty, I’ve noticed, with dealing with women,” Jada chuckled.
“Women are hard for us to figure out; they’re so. . .complicated.” He looked into her eyes. “I do not have the same ability you do to see the mysteries of the mind, and you puzzle me.”
“All will become clear in due time,” she sighed. “You also puzzle me; why don’t you return to your tribe? Surely your mother is not so harsh as you say.”
“She isn’t.”
“Then why?” She searched his face. “Why do you stay?”
“Because. . .” he trailed off, shook himself, and quickly changed the subject. “You do have your makeup on underneath the mask, right? You’d be easy to mark with those new scars.”
“Of course I do,” Jada replied, disappointed that he hadn’t answered her question. “Do I look like an urtyu to you?”
“You used to, but tonight you don’t. Isn’t it somewhat foolhardy, wearing the masque uniform of the Erif Drathil?”
“Who would know it?” Jada asked him. “It looks like a machination of Sir Norbert’s.”
“How am I supposed to protect you when you endanger yourself?” he moaned. “If Judith and Ziro could recognize your weapon runes, people could just as easily recognize your old costume.”
“You know what?” Jada said gently. “I think you underestimate the value of what you have done. You saved my life by listening to me, in more ways than one.”
“So if you plunge into whatever suicidal venture you’re planning, what good will it have been?” he demanded.
Jada sighed. “Death is an eventual given, in whatever form it comes. Hell is not, and it is far worse than any death here. It is that from which you have saved me.”
He stared at her, amazed, and she shut her lips tight, her eyes somehow telling him that she had said more than she wished to, just as he almost had done earlier in the conversation. There was awkward silence throughout the rest of the dance, which thankfully came to a close shortly. She curtsied respectfully, but made it quite clear that she had no desire for another dance.
“What a mystery,” he said to the falcon, sitting wearily down on one of the chairs that lined the hall. “So scared to let anyone know who she is, and no wonder, but harms herself, I am afraid, by not letting her friends know who she is. Maybe she doesn’t know.”
“Talking to your bird again?”
“Gawen,” Stefus smiled. “Why aren’t you off dancing with some pretty lass? I know Jada taught you how to dance.”
“All the women here are too old for me, but not for you. What’s your excuse? Lady Eirana will be quite angry with you.”
“I don’t think so,” Stefus pointed to where Lady Eirana and Sir Ziro continued on the next dance, looking quite absorbed in their own conversation, though it did appear that Sir Ziro had consumed a few too many glasses of wine, judging by the way his movements were a bit more fluid than usual.
“Point taken,” Gawen said, “but why aren’t you dancing with anyone?”
“I was, so I’ve followed orders. You can leave me alone now.”
“Who did you dance with?”
Stefus tried another route. “You know, Jada would be quite angry at you for using grammar like that. I believe the sentence is supposed to say, ‘With whom did you dance?’ “
“Well, pompous one, with whom did you dance?” Gawen asked him testily. “Did it happen to be the same lady who actually bothers with grammar when it is rather unnecessary?”
“Grammar helps you get your point across,” Stefus replied.
“Shame on you; Jada would be angry at you for using a preposition at the end of a sentence. Across what are you trying to get your point? What is your point, anyway?” Gawen teased him mercilessly.
“Good question!” Stefus fumed, and turned to walk out of the hall, but was hindered by a warning gaze from Lady Eirana’s strange golden eyes. He scanned the hall for Sir Norbert, who would have been a welcome new conversationalist, but he currently happened to be dancing with Jada, who gave him a warning look quite equal to Lady Eirana’s.
Finally, his eyes settled on Lady Kessil, who was chattering with some of her friends from the healer community. He stepped up to join them--he always did find their conversations enlightening. “Mind if I join you?” he asked them politely.
“Go ahead,” said Kessil. “As I was saying, we are having more and more breakthroughs as we study the dentra herb; not only has it proved itself to be an effective drug for the enhancement of magical abilities, but also for fighting disease.”
“The Rashdans have been doing that for hundreds of years,” Stefus chimed in. “It doesn’t work for everything, though; it’s extremely effective at eradicating infection, but it is useless against magical injuries and damaged body parts.”
“So it can stop the source of disease, but it cannot cure the symptoms?” one healer asked, amazed.
“That’s right, and since it is usually by the symptoms that infection is recognized, dentra is often not used until it is too late,” Stefus replied, glad to find himself useful in a conversation.
“Then the problem is learning how to recognize infection before symptoms show,” Lady Kessil said slowly.
Stefus thought for a moment. “Actually, the best course of action is to take mirkith regularly as a preventative medicine. The Rashdans have been doing this for some time, also.”
“How do you come to know so much about Rashdan medicine?” another healer asked, curious. “And how do Rashdans afford so much mirkith when the prices are so high?”
“It is a Rashdan tribe that refines the dentra into mirkith,” he said, avoiding the first question. “They receive the dentra at bulk prices, and give other Rashdans a discount while charging outsiders exorbitant prices at as much as a three hundred percent markup.”
Lady Kessil frowned. “So the Rashdans are holding the medical world hostage for the sake of business. How do they counteract the hallucinogenic side affects?”
“If you wanted to sidestep the Rashdan medicine trade, you could buy dentra directly from the Desca Isles and figure out how to refine it yourself. As for the hallucinogenic side affects,” Stefus added, “the Rashdans believe that they are visions from Lr A’dl, their god, meant either to instruct them or reveal the future. To be on the safe side, most only take mirkith before sleeping so that those side affects simply blend with their regular dreams.”
“Fascinating,” one healer remarked. “The real mystery, then, is how to refine it.”
“Indeed,” Stefus smiled. “Trust me, the tribe that holds the secret to that particular process is not going to give you any help. They control both the High Court of Tre-revaj and the Rashdan High Council, and were partially responsible for the destruction of the Erif Drathil tribe.”
“You mean the Riya Dru have been controlling this commodity all this time?” Lady Kessil gasped. “I thought they controlled post, not mirkith!”
“They used to control the post until Lady Eirana started sending her watchmen on the Vokden highway for the safety of travelers. The Riya Dru only controlled that because they were on good terms with the robbers. Because the Tre-revaj empire depends on sending people on those roads where the robbers are, they gave the Riya Dru the primary trade contract with the Desca Isles to keep the roads safe.”
One of the healers remarked, “That’s terrible! Our own government is hindering medical research! This all makes sense now; the last time I asked for a grant for the research of an herb discovered recently near the Makdrek Mountains, they turned me down flat! They’ve got it in for the medical community at large!”
“Oh, stop being so paranoid,” Lady Kessil grumbled. “They still want us around so that the politicians can live long, healthy lives while the common people barely reach their forties.”
“How do you know all of this?” the healer who had asked him before persisted.
Stefus was thinking very quickly, not wanting to show stress under the steady gaze of the group of healers. He did not want to lie, as it was extremely difficult to keep track of too many lies, and he did not want to say anything to draw attention to the fact that he and Jada were, in fact, Rashdans. So, he smiled and asked, “Lady Kessil, will you honor me with a dance?”
She readily agreed, and hissed in his ear, “You need to be more careful. We have enough trouble with Keri.” She added aloud in a carefree manner, “It really is remarkable, what you said back there. I will set my team of researchers to the task of figuring out the refining process as quickly as possible.”
“It’s probably something blindingly simple, like distilling the juice or reducing it,” Stefus shrugged. “I also think there’s a few additional ingredients they use to either enhance or inhibit its effects.”
“Why would they inhibit it?” Kessil asked.
Stefus frowned. “The Riya Dru have this terrible attitude that pureblood Rashdans are better than everyone else. One of the main reasons their clan leader, Dashad Riya Dru, was bent on assassinating Jada was, other than a personal matter that Jada would kill me for discussing, a strong advocate of sharing Rashdan technology with the world at large. Also, her brother’s group of extremists were not all Rashdans, and by incinerating violence, they gave Rashdans a bad name.”
“So. . .” Kessil thought for a moment. “He’s been selling weaker medicine to us so that we won’t be as healthy as pureblood Rashdans. What was the personal matter?”
“Tartath is Dashad Riya Dru’s son.”
“The girca farmer?”
“Yes,” Stefus answered. “He tried to get Jada to marry him.” He glanced over at Jada, who was dancing with Sir Norbert to make sure she couldn’t hear what he was saying. They seemed to be too busy trying to figure out who the White Lady was to notice. “I have no idea what she saw in him, but they were very close for a while.”
“Are you jealous?” Lady Kessil asked, incredulous as she noticed his tone of voice.
“Come on,” Stefus moaned. “I’ve already lost one dance partner due to an awkward moment, and I don’t want to lose another.”
“Well, are you?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“I’m your doctor,” Kessil said, “and we have discovered that negative emotions shorten your life span. It is the duty of the doctor to look at a person’s entire health, including the emotions.”
“Really? What interesting research. What methodology did you use?”
Lady Kessil frowned. “Someday I’m going to be able to figure out how you and Jada do that, but until then, I’ll settle for learning how to recognize it.”
“Recognize what?” Stefus grinned.
“Both you and Jada are extremely good at it, too, and I don’t think I would have recognized it if I hadn’t known you for so long.”
“And you’re a woman. I don’t know why, but women seem to pick up on it more easily than men,” Stefus puzzled.
Lady Kessil shrugged. “After centuries of being trapped in each other’s company, we’ve learned a lot about such things.”
“That there is exactly what Jada would say!” Stefus exclaimed. “Does she hate men?”
“I don’t think so,” Lady Kessil replied as he twirled her. “I think she’s had some bad experiences and that she’s very afraid of repeating them. Also, I do believe that in some small way, she thinks that alienating herself romantically is protecting not just herself, but others. I’m not sure, but I think that something to do with how she rejected Tartath makes her feel guilty, and she doesn’t want to hurt anyone like that again.”
“She had every right to reject him,” Stefus commented. “It’s about time she learned to say no. “
At that moment, a loud crash was heard from the opposite side of the dance floor, and everyone stopped their conversation as they listened to the sound of a man and a woman fighting.
“I SAID I DIDN’T WANT TO DANCE!”
“I ASKED YOU, AND YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY YES, AS A COMMON COURTESY!”
“I DON’T CARE WHAT THE HELL COMMON COURTESY IS; THERE’S NO WAY I’LL DANCE WITH YOU! WHY DON’T YOU JUST RUN ALONG AND PLAY WITH YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS AND KEEP ON DANCING WITH LADY EIRANA LIKE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO, YOU DWARF?”
“I’d better go make sure Lady Eirana’s all right,” Stefus murmured to Kessil, but as he turned to look, he saw that Jada was already there standing bravely between Lady Judith and Sir Ziro, double daggers raised with her silken wings. The hall was deathly silent.
“MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, LITTLE LIZARD; MY QUARREL IS WITH ZIRO!”
“No!” Jada said, trembling. “Harm no one, in the name of she whose festival we celebrate!”
“I guess she does know how to say no,” Lady Kessil shook her head, seeing the appalled look on Stefus’s face. “She’s probably about to do something foolish to ensure my job security.”
“How can you talk about it like that? What if she gets herself killed one of these times?”
“Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?”
She soon regretted her words as Lady Judith laughed a high, shrill laugh. “Yonba? She is not your deity, little lizard. If anything, I would say that she has turned her face against you, and against your now-forgotten tribe!”
“But the prophecy!” Jada exclaimed. “It was Yonba who gave the prophecy of she who will rise up and rescue the weak; the weak will rise up and find they are weak no more. I may not worship her, but I believe that what she said about what is to come is true, and that at this moment, it is being fulfilled!”
“BY WHOM?” Lady Judith advanced towards Jada, the long blades of steel on her fingers gleaming in the lamplight.
“Now come on, ladies, let’s not get into a cat fight over theology; we’re at a party! Let’s have some fun!” Sir Ziro remarked.
“I have not forgotten you, you dwarf,” Judith’s eyes flashed as she lashed out at him with her long, steel fingernails. Everyone gasped as they clashed with Jada’s chrys-knives. No jengda dare fight a noble. . . “Dare you defend this simpering, spineless toad, little lizard? Or is he one of the weak of the prophecy? Answer me!”
“I am not the one predicted in the prophecy!” Jada gasped in pain as all five of Judith’s right-hand blades tore her shoulder.
Stefus was outraged. He wanted to help her, to go to her defense, but as he looked at Lady Kessil, she whispered, “I don’t like this, but what she’s doing is important; don’t stop her.” Her face was as pale as the snow outside.
Stefus opened his mouth to protest as Lady Judith shot back at Jada, “Then who is she? Who is the one of the prophecy?”
Sir Ziro had fled, and Jada was cornered on the ground in front of a table. She whispered something barely audible, but obviously Judith heard it, for she roared with laughter. “THAT WHIMPERING PRINCESS OF THE NORTHERN LANDS? HA! I’D SOONER BELIEVE IT TO BE THE PATHETIC LAST ERIF DRATHIL THAN HER!”
With that, Jada bowed her head solemnly as Judith raised her arm high for an attack. The blood was already flowing freely from her shoulder, and she wasn’t sure if her body could take another blow. She prepared herself mentally for what was to come, only to hear, instead of the ripping of her own flesh, the clashing of the ten blades against one solid piece of elegantly worked steel.
Jada looked up and saw, to her amazement, the mysterious White Lady standing between her and Lady Judith, seeming to radiate with an unimaginable fury. The ancient song seemed once more to come from her, and her eyes glowed with an unquenchable fire. “HARM HER NOT!” she proclaimed loudly. “TEMPT NOT THE IRON WORKINGS OF DESTINY, O THEIF OF FREEDOM!”
“Ah,” Lady Judith gave a lopsided smirk, “so you think that it is you, pale one?”
“It is I indeed,” the White Lady said clearly and musically. “If you wish to harm either of your victims any further, you shall have to go through me.”
“A welcome challenge!”
The two women lunged at each other, and as their blades clashed, the most terrible noises hissed from the steel, and colored smoke arose, perhaps as a by-product of the White Lady’s magic, hiding the two opponents. They locked themselves in deadly combat, and people started to run, fearing the power of the combatants, especially as they smashed into the huge glass tank of exotic fish and water began to flood the hall.
Jada, wounded, could not draw up the strength to stand, and resigned herself to the water that was rising around her; her shoulder bled freely from the five gaping wounds. She half-heard the clashing of the battle, but it seemed so far away as she closed her eyes in pain. She prayed softly to Lr A’dl as the water enveloped her and she allowed it to fill her nostrils, as she was too exhausted to fight any longer. She was vaguely aware of being pulled carefully from the water, but then she knew no more.

The hall was wrecked.
Broken furniture littered the room, which was knee-deep in water and broken glass. The lovely exotic fish swam aimlessly in confused patterns that seems to echo the confusion in Gawen’s mind. Stefus’s falcon glided over the hall, surveying the damage. He had seen parties end in wreckage, but never like this.
He wandered aimlessly--Lady Kessil and Stefus had dragged Jada to Kessil’s private quarters to be healed, Sir Norbert had joined the other mages to repair the damage done to the room, and Lady Eirana had attended to the healing of Sir Ziro, knowing enough of medicine to cure his wounds, for Lady Kessil was fully occupied with Jada.
Gawen was numb. He stooped over to pick up one of the brightly-colored imported flowers, a delicate, beautiful thing. He did not have it in him to cry--instead, his senses were more finely-tuned than ever, and every noise around him seemed magnified.
He left the hall; the wreckage depressed him. He longed for the gentle light of the stars and the soft breath of the wind. He suddenly remembered that tonight there was to be, after the festivities, a meeting of the Council of Oak Rock forest, and hastened to where he saw a clump of jengda huddled at the edge of the wood.
“What is going on?” They whispered to him as he drew near. “We cannot see the scarsh fire.”
He apprised them of the situation. They were all shocked. “That was her?”
“Yes,” Gawen answered. Everyone was there, he marveled. Despite the confusion, everyone was there, except, of course, Jada and Stefus and. . . He frowned. “Where’s Alaviel?”
No one could answer him, so he went searching for her. Having heard from Jada what Alaviel’s true identity was, he could not doubt that Alaviel was one of the masked revelers, perhaps one of those who were reconstructing the hall. As he looked at the haggard assortment of mages who were doing so, however, he realized that she would probably not wish to accidentally reveal her identity by performing such advanced magic, for the magic of the royal house of Manicolus had always had a distinctive purple tint to it whenever it was being used as a force of change.
He immediately rushed to her room, but found that she was not there, either. This truly left Gawen clueless. Where else could she be? He vaguely remembered something Jada had said about Sir Alfonso being one of Alaviel’s advisors, and rushed to nobles’ quarters. Knowing how out of place he looked, he went to the window at the end of the hallway, opened it, and climbed to Sir Alfonso’s balcony. He could see shapes inside, and could listen to their conversation without being seen by sitting on the support beams and ducking out of sight whenever anyone came outside.
“What on D’nal was all of that for? You could have gotten killed!”
“That’s Your Majesty to you, and do you seriously think that a pompous plotter with feelings of entitlement could damage me?” Gawen recognized Alaviel’s voice. She sounded tired, but spoke forcibly. “Besides, a good deal of our interests rest on Jada being alive and healthy, and they’re having a hard enough time healing her as it is; imagine what it would be like if I hadn’t stepped in.”
“She’s right, you know, though I do doubt the wisdom of drawing such attention to Jada and the Crown of Manicolus. As soon as Tre-revaj suspects a connection, it could mean a war for which we are not prepared.” It was Sir Alfonso. “This also means, however, that Lady Judith broke the pact you made with her ensuring my safety and Jada’s.”
“Yes, but it could also be perceived that since you deliberately interfered, the pact is no longer valid,” Maestro Lotwis’s voice added.
“Either way, you have the right to put Lady Judith through a good deal of pain.”
“For what price? Sir Shath coming to Yaylithe, perhaps?”
“I think that’s going to happen anyway,” an unfamiliar voice entered the conversation. “Lady Judith did use the words ‘little lizard,’ which will be all over the country with the gossip spread by this mishap, along with the usually trifling subjects of what everyone was wearing. This will undoubtedly catch Sir Shath’s attention, and he’ll be here within the week.”
Gawen gasped. He swiftly climbed back into the shelter of the castle and made his way to Kessil’s quarters. He closed the door behind him as the two conscious occupants turned around to look at him.
“Did you deal with the Council?” Stefus asked immediately.
“Yes,” Gawen panted. “They’re all back in their quarters.” He glanced at Lady Kessil; she demanded no explanation. “All except Alaviel; she’s meeting with her advisors. She was the White Lady, the one who saved Jada’s life. Her advisors think that Sir Shath will be here within the week to investigate the rumors that will be spread.”
Stefus shook his head gravely. “I thought as much. Did you hear anything else?”
“Alaviel and Judith had a pact concerning Jada’s safety, and Judith broke it. Alaviel doesn’t want to follow through, though, because she thinks that it will only magnify the problems we have already.”
“What do we do, then?” Kessil asked, still concentrated on her work. “It will take more than a week for these wounds to heal, if they heal.”
“Will she live?” Gawen asked anxiously.
“Most likely,” Kessil shrugged. “She’s always been very tenacious, and the mirkith she takes regularly will help. It’ll be close, though--very close. She’ll definitely know it when the weather changes. Still, though, what do we do?”
Stefus fingered the Rashdan pendant with Jada’s tribal insignia around her neck. It was a simple but beautiful design, with a clean-cut etching of a lizard surrounded by fire. He looked at it thoughtfully. “Do you know what a lizard does when it is caught by a predator?” He asked them suddenly.
“It leaves its tail behind, and grows a new one,” Gawen replied. “That’s one of the first things Jada taught me about the natural world. She said that it was very important for some reason.”
“Kessil, how hard would it be to keep Jada safely unconscious long enough to let Sir Shath see who she is and watch her burial?”
“Are you mad?” Kessil exclaimed. “That requires a steady dosage of kethona given in small amounts over regular periods of time. Then, if she wakes up, the whole thing falls apart. Besides, letting Sir Shath see her? Are you out of your mind?”
“If you report her as dead, and he sees that this is Jada, he will no longer pursue her after he sees her buried. It helps that no one knows that you’re helping us. He probably knows, thanks to Tartath, that the one unquestionable proof of a Rashdan’s identity is the pendant, and if he sees that and the scar on Jada’s side from her fight with Dashad Riya Dru, he will not question us. We just need to make sure that she would look convincingly dead before whatever scrutiny he would put her under.”
“There’s the problem,” Kessil said. “Even though she would look convincingly dead, everyone gives off a faint trace of subconscious mind activity as long as they are living. Any good mage could detect it. Now, Jada has told me that she is skilled in masking it, but she would need to know that she needs to do it.”
“Then have me talk with her, mind to mind,” Stefus said.
“All right,” Kessil nodded. She sighed. “That means I’ll have to call her to consciousness.” She stretched her arm out over Jada’s face, brows wrinkled. “You should be able to do that now. Gawen, let’s go see how Eirana is doing with Sir Ziro.”
As the door shut behind Gawen, Stefus turned to look down at Jada. She still looked comatose, but at least he knew she was alive this time. He touched her forehead with his fingers, and, with some effort, entered her mind.
It was definitely unlike the time she had started to teach him how to fly. Then, it had been controlled, ordered, and focused on the task of the moment. Her thoughts had been fully verbalized and well-formed.
Now, everything was a whirlwind of confusion. Images swirled around him--the White Lady, Lady Judith, and many other people. He shuddered, feeling her pain, but he kept his own mind calm.
You’re trying to make sense of a lot of information right now, he communicated. You’re in a great deal of pain.
Waves of sarcasm washed over him.
This is not the time for that, he thought steadily.
His own face came into view. Yes, it’s me. Floods of water surrounded him, and he felt someone pull him out of it. Yes, that was me, too.
Gratitude flooded around him, then an image of Lady Kessil.
She’s healing you--it could take a while.
An image of her brother’s dead body came up. Stefus was too horrified to verbalize anything for a moment, then sent a reassuring feeling that the same would not happen to her. He collected himself, and thought, Sir Shath is coming for you.
Fear and panic rose up all around him. He quickly added, He won’t get you, though--we have a plan, and explained it to her.
Once again, the gratitude came. For the first time, her thoughts distilled into words. I will do this. Thank you.
All of a sudden, everything around him went solid black, and he was afraid that this meant that she had died, but just as suddenly, he was back in her mind. I was practicing, she said quickly.
He felt her exhaustion, and couldn’t control his feelings of pity. He sent her an image of the desert, with the gleaming tent city of Folona under a sky filled with the shimmers and sparkles of the finest-made dishas. She was there, out on the dunes, firing them into the sky with joy.
He slowly backed out of her mind and saw the room, once again, from his eyes. He blinked, and realized that on Jada’s face there was now a smile, despite the pain. He felt exhausted from the level of magic he had just performed, but he sat there a little while longer, watching that smile. He slowly bent down and kissed her forehead, then let Gawen back in.
“How is Sir Ziro?” Stefus asked.
“He’ll live,” Gawen answered. “Lady Eirana had him healed in no time. He’ll just be sore for a while, she says. What about Jada?” He was anxious.
“She’ll do it.” Stefus paused. “Did she ever let you in her mind?”
“Once or twice,” Gawen replied. “She always made a point of organizing everything first. Why? What was it like this time?”
“A real headache,” Stefus rubbed his temples. “I just wondered.”
“How is she?” It was Lady Kessil. “The visual landscape of the mind reflects the condition of the body,” she explained to Gawen.
“It’s a mess; not much linguistic thought, and very, very scattered. She’ll follow the plan, though,” Stefus informed her.
“Can she actually do it?”
“She practiced, and actually convinced me,” he replied.
Lady Kessil whistled. “That’s some very difficult magic. Sir Norbert would be proud.”
Right on cue, Sir Norbert came in and collapsed into one of Lady Kessil’s chairs, exhausted. “The place will take a week to repair, but it’s no longer such a hazard. The mages have done their part; the rest will be up to the jengda. How’s my jengda?”
They explained the situation.
“So you’re going to disclose everything?” Sir Norbert frowned.
“Well,” Stefus said, “not everything.” He glanced at Gawen. “They need not know who I am, that she was still making dishas, or that we’re all connected. They also have no need to know about what we’ve been doing in the forest--”
“What have you been doing in the forest?”
“Do you think we should tell them?” Gawen asked anxiously.
“Should we?” Stefus ran his fingers through his hair. “It was her idea, and her idea to keep it secret--it’s protected with a scarsh fire; will we be able to see it if we tell?”
“How will our numbers grow if we just keep letting people stumble on it?” Gawen asked. “Besides, surely Jada is not the only one who can light a scarsh fire. Is there anything keeping you from lighting it to see if they are trustworthy?”
“Why wouldn’t we be?” Kessil asked impatiently. “What on D’nal could you be doing in the woods that would make us turn traitor?”
Stefus glared at Kessil, glanced at Jada’s sleeping form, and said, “It just doesn’t feel right, doing this without her consensus, but I guess we can’t bring her to consciousness for everything.” He carefully held out his hand and recited,
“Light guides,
Darkness hides;
Those who betray
See naught but lies.”
In the palm of his hand sprung brilliantly colored flames, as bright as the fabric of the dress Jada wore, he thought to himself. He looked from face to face, and confirmed by the way they blinked in the light that they could see it. He breathed deeply, and told them all about the Council of Oak Rock Forest.
There was a stunned silence when he finished.
“Are you suicidal?” Kessil asked, after a prolonged pause. “Not, of course, that it isn’t a noble cause, but that is the sort of thing that is punishable by girca poisoning, and I’ve studied the effects of it!”
“So has Jada,” Eirana reminded her. “This definitely explains a lot--she must’ve been the stranger who saved me in the woods.”
“I thought she might be doing something like this,” Sir Norbert cleaned his spectacles thoughtfully. “I can’t blame her; the current state of education is something that bothers me, too. I just would never have the patience to do what she’s doing now; I barely have the patience for my job at the University. My heart’s in linguistics, not in teaching.”
“Wait a second,” Kessil paused. “What happened to you in the woods? You came in with the wound, and never told me what happened.”
“Another assassin,” Lady Eirana shrugged. “I was on my way back to the castle from the Prankster’s Roost, and they attacked me. It wasn’t even as though they had planned on attacking me; they just said that it was not safe for me alone at night, and hauled off and did it. Someone with a scarsh fire in a glass cup set them on fire and saved me.”
“That sounds like something Jada would do,” Stefus murmured.
“What were you doing in the forest alone in the first place?” Kessil’s stare pierced into her. “Given your position, you shouldn’t be going anywhere alone.”
“Neither should Jada, given what happened tonight,” Sir Norbert pointed out.
Kessil frowned. “Stefus can’t be body guard for both of them.”
They were all staring at him now.
He was growing quite peeved at the whole situation as he examined the awkward silence. Right about this time, he was enjoying the thought of writing a scathing letter to his mother telling exactly to what a sticky situation her prompting had led him. Finally, he said aloud, “Jada has unquestioned loyalty for you, Lady Eirana; her deeds prove this. She is capable of protecting you, even if she is not capable of protecting herself. That is where I come in. I swore to my mayda that I would protect her. Obviously, she’s out of my hands, but I’ll do what I can do. The problem is, the three of us can’t be in the same place every instant of every day.”
Kessil’s eyes widened. “Eirana, what about Sir Ziro? He could watch over you. You already spend a significant amount of time together in your university classes.”
“And I noticed that the two of you have developed a certain, ah, affinity for each other,” Sir Norbert grinned.
“Why, Professor!” Eirana exclaimed indignantly. “Isn’t that considered violation of privacy, prying into people’s thoughts without their permission?”
He shrugged. “No law against it, and it just sort of screamed itself out. I try to have good manners, but my senses are so sharp that every time someone thinks something more intense than ‘I wonder what we’re having for supper tonight,’ it gets broadcasted to me. It’s quite annoying, really; I have to drug myself to sleep at night or else I can’t because there’s so much going on in my head. Lady Kessil knows this.”
She nodded. “It’s a serious problem among sharper mages. There’s only a few in the world powerful enough to have this problem, so they try to keep a good distance away from each other. That’s why no one in the Tre-revaj High Court ever wants to meet any Manicolus royals in person; they have strong magical abilities passed down through the bloodline.”
Stefus frowned. “Then how did Mentmac lose at cards?”
“Alcohol causes loss of mental abilities,” Kessil smiled. “That’s why you never see Sir Norbert drinking, by the doctor’s orders.” She patted the mage on the shoulder as he rolled his eyes at her. “He indulges in drinking secondhand, by keeping his pub; their thoughts are more susceptible to being picked up by his senses.”
“It’s actually quit amusing.”
“I can imagine,” Stefus chuckled. “So that’s why my mayda told me never to drink.”
“Anyway,” Eirana tutted impatiently, trying to get the rest of them to focus, “we ask Ziro to watch over me; Stefus watches over Jada, the plan goes great. Just out of curiosity: how many mages like Sir Norbert are there? Do they pose any danger to Jada or any of us?”
“All mages are required to register with the High Court,” Sir Norbert’s expression darkened. “Those who register are then sent to this university to be detained for four years for supposed training purposes. It is, in fact, a way of making sure that anyone like me isn’t too close to the capital and that anyone like me is actually discovered. There are mages who travel with the Guard for the purpose of discovering if anyone has been practicing magic without being registered either with the High Court or the Rashdan council. It isn’t a huge problem, though, since magic is an art that requires training that only a skilled teacher can give, and the only skilled teachers left in Yaylithe are either here at this university or among the Rashdans.” His voice was bitter. “Education is, after all, the High Court’s greatest way of controlling the people. Commoners cannot afford the university, and the Rashdans tend to keep to themselves, branding anyone who interferes too much with the outside world a dangerous threat to the Rashdan way of life.”
“Hey!” Stefus was defensive. “We have to be careful about the safety of our people. We were in captivity to the High Court before, and we cannot afford to have it happen again. Besides, not all of us are the same; it’s generally idiots like the Riya Dru who scare the rest of the Council into doing what he says that keep us so isolated. My tribe takes pride in teaching the commoners about the different kinds of bird life all over D’nal.”
“Just as a way of selling your wares!” Sir Norbert replied. “Besides, fascinating a science ornithology may be, is it really useful to your audience? It may entertain them, but I don’t think it does any good in the long run.”
There was a tense silence in the room. It was finally broken when Lady Kessil sighed and said, “Gawen, go find the members of this Council of Oak Rock Forest and tell them to get some sleep before their duty shifts in the morning; doubtless the castle will have them working overtime to repair the damage from tonight. Eirana, go attend to Sir Ziro, and give him the offer. Norbert, return to the hall before they miss you. Stefus--” he looked wistfully at the door, “stay here. From now on, you don’t leave her side.”
“She’s not going to like that,” he murmured.
“I don’t care. From now on, you’re her shadow, hear me? When she is healthy again, perhaps you can have some time off, but for now, you stay here.”
Wonderful he thought grimly to himself. He sighed, and, borrowing writing materials from Lady Kessil’s desk, started to write, Dear Mayda, Thank you so much for teaching me to perform what I promise. Just wait until you hear about all of this. Noting the sarcasm in his own writing, he chuckled slightly, scratched out what he’d written, glanced at Jada, and rewrote the beginning of his letter more politely. It was bad enough to be forced to stay with one unhappy woman; it would be sheer hell to have his mother like that, also.
Dear Mayda. . .